If you don’t already read Matthew Inman’s webcomic The Oatmeal, or the group blog Popehat devoted to “law, liberty and leisure,” here’s an excellent reason to start. Ken of Popehat begins: Yesterday afternoon, I started getting tweets and emails (to both my work and Popehat accounts) and Facebook messages tipping […]
Read MoreSexist trolls, meet Streisand Effect
Not the kind of video game trollI’m talking about It’s now nearly the end of the funding period for Anita Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter project “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games,” and it has raised more than $100,000 over its initial goal. I don’t want to detract from the validity of the […]
Read MoreQuote of the day
From Jason Foscolo’s blog Food Law: At the NYT, Bittman evokes Mrs. Lovejoy in his support of the Bloomberg Soda Tax. I tend to stay away from policy on this blog, but Bloomberg’s soda ban perfectly crystalizes the absurdities of our food system. We pay farmers to overproduce the raw […]
Read MoreThe big bad atheist will blow your religion down?
Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry (CFI), wrote a piece for the Huffington Post comparing coming out as an atheist to coming out as LGBT. In it he urges atheists to reveal their existence to the world for much the same reason that it’s good for […]
Read MoreHow to deal with science you don’t like: call it religion
Artist: Person who didn’t exist yet, according to nearlyhalf of Americans The revelation that in 2012, 46% of Americans believe that humans were created in their present form by God in the last 10,000 years is a little staggering. Staggering but not shocking, considering that Gallup has been conducting a […]
Read MorePareidolia of the day: Ew
Jesus found in Texas bathroom mold A Texas family says they are getting strength from an image of Jesus they found in the mold growing inside the shower of their home.Chyanna Richards, who lives in the home, told KTRK-TV, Houston, she doesn’t know if it’s mold or mildew in […]
Read MoreTo summon sexism, one need only speak its name
Sexism really is like the devil. If you have any doubts about its existence, you need only mention it and it will come skipping around the corner cheerily asking “You rang?” Well, except that the devil doesn’t exist and sexism does. But apart from that, they are just the same. […]
Read MoreYou know…
…teaching about the various ways people believe in gods in public school is going to be a little difficult if they’re not even allowed to mention the word for someone who doesn’t. Text at top: “Will not allow this because it could disrupt theeducational process at LPHS” From Friendly Atheist: […]
Read MoreInstruction on religion in public schools
Today my “faitheist” friend Chris Stedman wrote In high school, I washed dishes and mopped floors at “Taste of Scandinavia Bakery & Café.” (I’m from Minnesota.) It was not a job that played to my strengths, but my manager—a supremely kind and intelligent young man—made it tolerable with his dry […]
Read MoreVictims, skeptics, and politics, oh my
Jason Thibeault at Lousy Canuck has an interesting post up today on what he calls “hyper-skepticism” with regard to sexual harassment. What he’s referring to is the practice, when such harassment is described, of demanding unusual and unreasonable amounts of evidence for it or else denying that it happened. I […]
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