Weekend web readin’

From Denver Westword Blogs, Marijuana billboard for Amendment 64 touts Pat Robertson endorsement Money quote: Amendment 64, the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, have turned plenty of heads via billboards near Mile High Stadium, with the first featuring a soccer-mom-type woman revealing her preference for cannabis and the second spotlighting a […]

Read More

Tragedy and the ongoing internet circus

The Onion has a really good piece regarding Friday morning’s shootings in Aurora: Sadly, Nation Knows Exactly How Colorado Shooting’s Aftermath Will Play Out. Excerpt: While admitting they “absolutely hate” the fact they have this knowledge, the nation’s 300 million citizens told reporters they can pinpoint down to the hour […]

Read More

How not to protest Chick-fil-A

Yes, I strongly support boycotting Chick-fil-A because of the large amounts of cash they’ve donated to anti-gay causes. But Boston’s mayor Thomas Menino has gone way, way beyond that by declaring that he intends to block Chick-fil-A from opening any branches in his city because of their political leanings: “Chick-fil-A […]

Read More

Gay rights or chicken sandwiches?

From what I know, there’s no ethical case to be made against Chick-fil-A’s food or business model in particular. They use pretty much the same quality chicken as any other fast food place, many of their meals are actually pretty healthy compared to most similar establishments, and they apparently treat […]

Read More

Petition to free Alexander Aan

I had no idea that the White House had established a web site specifically to host petitions. Some of them are quite wacky, but the one I got an email from CFI (the Center for Inquiry) about today is very worthy: Call upon the Indonesian government to respect the freedom […]

Read More

Being good at slinging a ball around doesn’t make you a hero, part 327

As the Penn State report is being reviewed, and people are talking about how a man could rape multiple children over a sustained period with the protection of his colleagues, I see explanations of “hero worship” and comparisons to the Catholic church again and again. I won’t say these explanations […]

Read More

How to destroy a woman

Taslima Nasreen has a horrifying post up at No Country for Women on individual cases of women attacked with acid in different countries. It includes a lot of photos, so be forewarned. Each woman had acid thrown in her face, with the result of being disfigured beyond recognition and often […]

Read More

Equal opportunity flirt-slaying

I received an email this morning from Change.org: “Yeah, I killed him, but he did worse to me.” In 1997, a man in Queensland, Australia killed a gay man who he claimed flirted with him by bashing his head into a wall and stabbing him to death. Today, “gay panic” is still […]

Read More

You have the freedom to make rape jokes. Should you?

There is no way, I think, to more thoroughly annoy a proponent of free speech than to claim that criticism violates it. It’s hard enough defending free speech sometimes. People don’t see anything wrong with stopping the Westboro Baptists from protesting. Denying the Holocaust? Yeah, go ahead and outlaw that. […]

Read More

When a cult rules a town

Two former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) found a kitten, still alive, mostly buried in concrete inside a metal tube on one of the men’s property in Colorado City, Arizona. The tube was of one of six standing upright in the ground, intended for use […]

Read More