Sexist 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 idea itself or her ability … Read more

Quote 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 materials for our sweets, then … Read more

How 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 poll on evolution belief for … Read more

Pareidolia 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 the bathroom but said the … Read more

You 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: the Secular Student Alliance group … Read more

Instruction 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 sense of humor and incisive … Read more

Victims, 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 say “unusual and unreasonable” because, … Read more

Sexual harassment and TAM

No weekend web readin’ post this weekend, I think, because the majority of my web reading lately has been all about sexual harassment at skeptical/atheist conferences. I’ve been to a total of one such conference, but would be up for attending more, especially The Amazing Meeting (TAM), which is produced by the James Randi Educational … Read more