Meta meta meta. Discussion of discussion of discussion.
Discussion of discussion of Tim Farley’s post on oolon’s block bot.
The stupid burns, says Travis Roy. Tim Farley comments:
I love how the follow-on blogs are all entirely focused on one section, about 10% of the 4,300 word post. Principle of Charity? What’s a principle of charity? [Read more…]
That seems to be the policy of Willis Eschenbach, who wrote An Open Letter to Dr. Marcia McNutt, new Editor-In-Chief, Science Magazine. He found a picture of her, too, which confirmed that she is indeed a woman, just as her name would suggest.
Eschenbach’s open letter is about the tragic decline of Science mag due to its move from science to advocacy, specifically on climate change. Nothing to do with the fact that McNutt is a woman, one would think, yet Eschenbach drags that in anyway, for the sake of gratuitously insulting and patronizing her, as if that really were written down in a real book of rules.
He patronizes her from the outset, patronizingly congratulating her and including the picture of her for no apparent reason. Then later he gets down to the real thing. [Read more…]
A guest post by SpokesGay.
Socializing as a liberal in Vermont is sometimes difficult, and for non-obvious reasons. Last night was a potluck at Neighbor’s house. About 20 people. The kitchen was, as usual, filled with people eating and drinking, the table overflowing with food. Crowded and convivial.
“Mommy” is one of the social circle. She has two children and a third on the way in about a month. She believes the physical travails of pregnancy—including her difficulty having an orgasm with Daddy in her third trimester—make up the most compelling cocktail chatter. “Maybe that’s the secret to not having another late baby,” she mused in a recliner with a can of sparkling water infused with 100% all-natural essential berry-ness. “If I can orgasm enough in the last few months maybe that will get things moving.”
Most of her maladies, you see, are due to how long it took her to figure out Western Medicine didn’t Know Everything. [Read more…]
It’s a theme among the people who hate feminists dirtying up their atheism their skepticism their skeptoatheism and atheoskepticism, that we dirtying-up feminists are in some way outrageous for doing feminism instead of or in addition to skepticism or atheism or athoskeptolibertarianism.
Huh.
That’s a strange claim. What’s outrageous about it? I guess if they’re talking about people who have prominently displayed somewhere a solemn oath always to talk/write/tweet about atheism or skepticism and nothing else, then…those people broke an oath. But even then – an oath to whom? Who cares? Why would anyone swear such an oath anyway? And why would anyone else care about it? [Read more…]
Tony Wang of Twitter UK issued an apology for the harassment yesterday.
Twitter’s UK boss Tony Wang and senior director Del Harvey have apologized profusely to Caroline Criado-Perez, Stella Creasey and the leagues of other women who have received tweets that threaten death or rape in a response to their activism — including a handful of female journalists who have received bomb threats. [Read more…]
The journalist Olivia Messer was pleased to return to her home state of Texas to write about the legislature. She quickly realized there was a down side.
Within weeks, I’d already heard a few horrifying stories. Like the time a former Observer staffer, on her first day in the Capitol, was invited by a state senator back to his office for personal “tutoring.” Or, last session, when Rep. Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton interrupted Marisa Marquez during a House floor debate to ask if her breasts were real or fake. [Read more…]
There’s a Kenyan lawyer, Dola Indidis, who is trying to sue Israel for…
…now take a deep breath…
…for the “trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.”
Um. Statute of limitations, bro. Also – lack of evidence. Story. Story not evidence. The Iliad not evidence of the murder of Hector.
A Kenyan lawyer has filed a petition with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, suggesting that the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ was unlawful, and the State of Israel among others should be held responsible, Kenyan news outlet the Nairobian reported on Friday. [Read more…]
The BBC sent a boilerplate response to all the complaints about the block bot and the BBC’s vile attack on the character of people the BBC never mentioned.
The report on Newsnight on 30 July which featured The Block Bot was part of an ongoing news story on the use of Twitter and its consequences, which has generated a great deal of debate across all forms of media. We received a number of contacts about this broadcast and in order to reply promptly and to use the licence fee efficiently we are sending a single response to everyone. However we would like to reassure you that your concerns about the programme were brought to the attention of Newsnight and senior BBC management. [Read more…]
