Recent Blog Posts
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An observation
The video of TamTamPamela thanking God for the Japanese earthquake was all over the web yesterday. I’m kind of disappointed in how willing people were to buy it without question. Not because it’s a skepticism fail per se (I fall for Poes often– that’s the point of a Poe), but because they were so ready to believe…
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Real-life trolls, part 2
The girl who made a Youtube video glorying in Japan’s earthquake, saying that it was God giving the country a “little shake” to send a message regarding his existence to atheists and arousing a lot of outrage…is apparently a troll. To which I say, good. I’m glad that those (probably) weren’t honest statements. But still…
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TAM 9 speakers
The Amazing Meeting has announced its list of speakers for this year, its ninth meeting. There are a lot of them, and quite a few– at least ten, from what I can tell– are people who can speak to the topic of how and why people believe weird things. Or rather, why everyone isn’t skeptical…
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More follow-up: the difference between neutrality and objectivity
Journalist Lauri Lebo wrote a book about Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the 2005 creationism case which occurred in her home state of Pennsylvania. Prior to the actual court battle she had been covering the situation locally in newspapers, reporting on what transpired at school board meetings and such. During and after the trial,…
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Follow-up: New York Times responds to complaints about their reporting
…poorly: The Times responded Wednesday evening to The Cutline: “Neighbors’ comments about the girl, which we reported in the story, seemed to reflect concern about what they saw as a lack of supervision that may have left her at risk,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the paper. “As for residents’ references to the…
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More Savage loving
Conversation continues about interpretation of Dan Savage’s sexual ethics. Savage himself responds to Lindsay Beyerstein thusly: Terry and I wouldn’t describe ourselves as monogamous-apart-from-an-occassional because we wouldn’t—couldn’t—feel comfortable using the word “monogamous” in reference to ourselves, not even monogamous-with-an-asterisks, because technically we’re, you know, not. But we kindasorta hate the term non-monogamous because when a gay…