Jun 17 2013

Do Texas legislators have some kind of bet on who says the dumbest thing?

Categories:

Abortion, Politics, Stupidity

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I have to ask, because a Texas Republican has just argued that abortion needs to be banned because fetuses are masturbating.

As the House of Representatives gears up for Tuesday’s debate on HR 1797, a bill that would outlaw virtually all abortions 20 weeks post fertilization, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) argued in favor of banning abortions even earlier in pregnancy because, he said, male fetuses that age were already, shall we say, spanking the monkey.

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”

Hey, I watch embryonic zebrafish do all kinds of flips and kicks at an age before any of the descending motor outputs have grown into the spinal cord. Motor activity is simply not a necessary indicator of cognition.

But also, I think the good Christians of Texas ought to regard this as an argument for abortion — the sinful little self-polluters must be punished!

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Jun 17 2013

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: It’s a jelly day

Categories:

Organisms

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jellies

(via Larry Linton)

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4 comments

Jun 17 2013

Whoa, harsh

Categories:

Ethics

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Greta Christina has completely cut all ties to CFI, including scheduled speaking engagements. Harsh, but warranted and necessary.

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29 comments

Jun 17 2013

Progressive policies are creeping in everywhere despite you

Categories:

Equality, Science

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We sometimes focus too hard on the struggle with the regressive jerks who squawk and scream on the internet, but I have to tell you — they are completely irrelevant to major policy initiatives in academia (note: this does not mean academics can’t be assholes, too, it just means policies try to be more enlightened). Every time I have to deal with the people managing the major granting institutions, it’s simply taken for granted that we will be doing our best to encourage equal opportunities for everyone. The blind stupidity we seem to encounter when dealing with leaders of major skeptical organizations just doesn’t happen — that behavior would get them fired.

Latest example: the NSF is expanding maternity leave opportunities. Why? It’s obvious: because sexist policies derived from the conventions of the 1950s drive good people out of science.

Instituted in 2012, NSF’s Career-Life Balance (CLB) Initiative is an ambitious, ten-year initiative that will build on the best of family-friendly practices among individual NSF programs to expand them to activities NSF-wide.  This agency-level approach will help attract, retain, and advance graduate students, postdoctoral students, and early-career researchers in STEM fields.  This effort is designed to help reduce the rate at which women depart from the STEM workforce.  Further information on the CLB initiative may be found on the Foundation’s website.

…

The purpose of this DCL is to announce a new opportunity for GRFP institutions to submit supplemental funding requests to sustain the research of  active NSF Graduate Research Fellows who have been granted an NSF-approved medical deferral for dependent-care (family leave) situations (see Guide for fellowship status options).  This gender neutral supplemental funding opportunity is in addition to the limited paid leave option for Fellows on Tenure with an NSF-approved medical deferral.  GRFP institutions are invited to submit supplemental funding requests to provide additional personnel (e.g., research technicians or equivalent) to sustain the research of NSF Graduate Research Fellows on approved medical deferral due to dependent care (family leave) situations.  The supplemental funding request may include funding for up to 3 months of salary support for the additional personnel, for a maximum of $12,000 in salary compensation.  The fringe benefits and associated indirect costs may be in addition to the salary payment and therefore, the total supplemental funding request per Fellow may exceed $12,000. The supplemental request also must include a letter from the Fellow’s faculty advisor supporting the CLB/GRFP Supplemental Funding Request.

Beneath the bureaucratese, it’s pretty simple: gender-neutral family leave opportunities are now available at all ranks of the scientific enterprise, from graduate students on up. And they don’t ask questions.

There should be no privacy related information provided in this request, i.e., the rationale for leave should not be disclosed to NSF.

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Jun 17 2013

Amanda Marcotte politely discusses the consequences of the CFI statement

Categories:

Atheism

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Far more politely than it deserves, anyway.

If you want an effective movement with a broad reach, this is roughly the dumbest move you could make. However, if your goal is to reinforce the public’s belief that secularism and atheism particularly is nothing but a bunch of misanthropic white guys whose only real goal is feeling superior to believers but who don’t care about making real change in the world, well job well done. And fuck you.

I really wish I could have overheard what was going on in the CFI boardroom, because while straining to avert a PR disaster, they seem to have instead launched a PR armageddon. What were they thinking?

Even if they were trying to chart the maximally inoffensive course between jagged shoals, that horribly written limp noodle of a mindless document was going to offend simply due to it’s astounding vapidity.

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31 comments

Jun 17 2013

The new American Morality Police?

Categories:

Ethics, Politics

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The TSA has a new mission, apparently: to make sure young women are wearing appropriately modest attire.

Here’s what happened, as my daughter described it in text messages to us: she was at the station where the TSA checks IDs. She said the officer was "glaring" at her and mumbling. She said, "Excuse me?" and he said, "You’re only 15, COVER YOURSELF!" in a hostile tone. She said she was shaken up by his abusive manner.

You can see a photo at the link. She looks like an ordinary, casually dressed teenager, nothing particularly scandalous or revealing. But now in addition to making sure travelers are safe by preventing weapons from coming aboard, security services are adding a new mission of blocking excess exposed skin.

By the way, TSA, if you’re going to pick on someone, try to make sure it isn’t Mark Frauenfelder’s daughter. Unless you want to get splashed all over BoingBoing.

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37 comments

Jun 17 2013

Quit picking on Marissa Powell!

Categories:

Equality, Media

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All right, as we’re seeing splashed all over the news now, Miss Utah, Marissa Powell, fum-fuhed a question about resolving income inequities. Here she goes:

And I say, so what? No one expects a dissertation in the feel-good blurb you’re allowed to give in a beauty pageant. She clearly hadn’t thought about the question before, and was simply floundering to come up with an answer…and the one she stumbled out wasn’t inherently bad. She’s trying to recommend education as a solution.

So, not an inherently wrong answer, poorly expressed, and contrived on the fly by a young woman who wasn’t really prepared for it. I dare any of the people who are dressing her down to get on the air before a national audience, get a question on a subject they’ve never really thought about, and answer it as well.

What’s really going on here is an effort to find supporting evidence for a bias that women in beauty pageants are stupid — and the media are happily jumping on one instance of a clumsy, misspoken answer as confirmation.

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45 comments

Jun 17 2013

CFI issues a statement

Categories:

Irrelevance

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It’s not encouraging or inspiring of confidence.

The mission of the Center for Inquiry is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.

The Center for Inquiry, including its CEO, is dedicated to advancing the status of women and promoting women’s issues, and this was the motivation for its sponsorship of the two Women in Secularism conferences. The CFI Board wishes to express its unhappiness with the controversy surrounding the recent Women in Secularism Conference 2.

CFI believes in respectful debate and dialogue. We appreciate the many insights and varied opinions communicated to us. Going forward, we will endeavor to work with all elements of the secular movement to enhance our common values and strengthen our solidarity as we struggle together for full equality and respect for women around the world.

“The CFI Board wishes to express its unhappiness with the controversy surrounding the recent Women in Secularism Conference 2.” Jebus. Can you get any more waffly? What caused the controversy, gang?

Rebecca Watson isn’t very happy, either.

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165 comments

Jun 17 2013

Around FtB

Categories:

Bloggery

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Today is the big day we do our first test of the plumbing we’ve cobbled together for our fish facility. We may be bailing or patching or scratching our heads today…or maybe we’ll just be celebrating. So go read other blogs while we tinker.

  • Taslima has been honored by the Royal Academy of Science, Arts and Literature of Belgium and met with the European Parliament. Awesome. (Taslima is the featured speaker at Empowering Women Through Secularism, too!)

  • Stephanie is soliciting feedback for American Atheists.

  • Avicenna rails against theocracy.

  • Aron gets video messages.

  • Iron Chariots gets email.

  • Sikivu stands for abortion on demand and without apology!

  • Miri punches out the “Real Skeptic” argument.

  • Ophelia reports that Savita was not alone.

  • Ian recounts a horrible tale of a man attacked for driving while Muslim.

  • Digital Cuttlefish is a Poe!

  • Dana visits Vantage. I’ve been there several times — I’ve been there with my father, who loved the place.

  • Ally lists reasons, good and bad, for some men to be so angry.

  • Jason has put out a call to help a woman and her son save their home.

  • Maryam tells us that FEMEN activists in Tunisia are being tried as equivalent to witches.

  • Nirmukta opens the door to the weird world of caste discrimination. Brahmins only housing?

  • Mano has been doing an excellent job covering the NSA and their assault on privacy…this is one example.

  • Yemmi was the subject of a long interview on the homophobic attitudes of certain Nigerian lawmakers.

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Jun 17 2013

How will you know he loves you?

Categories:

Humor, Weirdness

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That Han Solo…he’s kind of a gruff man of few words who’s not very good at expressing his feelings. Plus, he’s frozen on carbonite. So how will you know that he really likes you?

Easy.

han-solo-light-switch

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