Butterflies and Wheels

Dan Fincke did a great post a couple of days ago about WiS and the bizarre inappropriateness of the opening remarks. It was especially troubling, from an optics point of view if nothing else, that he chose to do this specifically to feminists, a group defined primarily by the women associated with it. That he …

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So Arizona State Representative Juan Mendez gave a secular invocation in the state House of Representatives on Tuesday. (Invocation. Honestly, what a word. Normally the legislators in Arizona call up spirits every morning. “Hellooo. Hellooooooo, is anyone there?” Then one day there’s a slip-up and one legislator talks sense for once.) Well we can’t have …

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Obama gave a commencement speech at the Naval Academy today, and used the occasion to tell them to quit saying “shut up and listen” to their superior officers. No no I’m kidding, he used it to tell them not to do sexual assaulting. President Obama used a commencement speech before Naval Academy graduates on Friday …

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Why would anyone think otherwise??!

No not bridges between atheists. Not bridges between atheists and People of Faith. Not bridges between the Boy Scouts and faggots their friends in the gay community. No, bridges. The kind that carry cars and trucks across rivers. Yesterday evening one such bridge carried one such truck across the Skagit River, some 90 miles north of …

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There was that panel Saturday morning. One question Greta gave us was “does affirmative action work?” I don’t think I started by saying it depends what we mean by “work” but I think I did indicate that that’s what I meant. Maybe I started with “Yes in the sense that” and went on from there. …

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What is that hilarious hashtag? #vaculamustdenounce Geddit? It’s a hilarious joke about Dave Silverman’s effort to get Vacula to say that harassment is bad. Yeah what could be funnier than that?

Just because. I like the picture. I like the moment. Pieter Breitner in the kilt. Photo by Brian D. Engler.

Mark Urban at the BBC explains the ways the Woolwich murder is different from other such murders – it’s not networked, it’s just a couple of guys with everyday tools, so it’s not the kind of thing that intelligence services can prevent; the guys look ordinary; there’s no way to prevent their “message” from spreading; …

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I’m belatedly listening to Citizen Radio on Women in Secularism 2. It starts 16 minutes in. It’s as good as everyone said it is. Update. Great line. Jamie Kilstein: If Ron LIndsay was opening an NAACP conference, he’d be the guy who’s like, “Welcome! WHERE’S WHITE HISTORY MONTH?”