It's a really, really big "if."
The topic of sexual harassment in video games has received attention in Forbes, the New York Times, and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” recently– if you’ve been actively following the topic at all you probably won’t hear anything new, but it’s good to see it being discussed in publications and programs like these. If you listen to the … Read more
I don’t like Psychology Today, part 2: So Elyse of Skepchick wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago describing an incident that followed a talk on vaccination she gave at Skepticamp in Ohio. You can read the entire thing here, but to put it briefly, a couple she didn’t know aside from a … Read more
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
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
…in four paragraphs: Libertarian: I mistrust government, a whole lot. I believe that market forces are preferable to legislation when it comes to getting things done, because they are more voluntary (consent is always best) and more easily reversible. I believe that the pursuit of happiness is a personal thing and takes different forms for … Read more
…though she has been tempted. It’s easy to see why: Becoming a board member of a secular non-profit and being invited as a speaker to events has really opened my eyes. You start interacting with a diverse group of people who have been in the movement a long time, and you get a behind-the-scenes glimpse. … Read more
I have my own law, devised under the screen name Rillion which I’ve used since about 2000. The law isn’t quite that old, but it has existed at least since 2005. Rillion’s Law states: The amount of knowledge a person has about a particular subject is inversely proportional to his or her tendency to make … Read more
I love Penn Jillette. I do, very much. But he does tend to carry the denouncement of prudes and blowhards so far that it gets to the point of practically denying that authentic assholes exist. Let me explain. Earlier this evening, Penn tweeted a link to this letter addressed openly to the “skeptical community from … Read more
Reddit thread here, if you’re interested These discussions, while useful, take a toll. Sometimes they just seem…tiring. I admire people who are willing to run the “sexism on the internet/in skepticism/atheism” treadmill, but can’t help but wonder how they manage to remain sane. Especially while being attacked endlessly for their efforts, as Rebecca Watson has … Read more
This time on a cliff in Ireland, by a pilot called (appropriately) Sandra Clifford: Clifford, a pilot fron San Francisco, spotted the figure recently while visiting the famous Cliffs of Moher in County Clare with her friend, Fiona Fay. The two saw what Clifford thought looked like the image of Jesus on the side of one of the … Read more