The Texas Education Agency is meeting, and the creationists are pushing harder than ever. The Texas Freedom Network reports:

“Any statements made were my own personal beliefs.”

That’s how Karen Beathard, an official state textbook reviewer, defends telling publishers that the biology textbooks they submitted for adoption in Texas this year should include “creation science based on biblical principles.”

Her statement encapsulates precisely the problem with the science textbook adoption process in Texas. Some State Board of Education (SBOE) members decided to nominate reviewers based on their personal beliefs, not their qualifications or expertise. [Read more…]

Mike Booth recommended this on Twitter, so I will pay it forward.

Minneapolis. A woman with her arms full of paperwork waiting for the lightrail. A man in an SUV.

So, that’s where we were. Me, minding my own business. You, apparently observing my ass. At that point you had options. You could have driven past me and said nothing. You could have turned up your radio and waved, ensconcing us in some beats and camaraderie. You could have shouted out, “Happy Friday! Yeehaw!” Any of those options would have been great. I probably would have waved, smiled, and started my weekend on the same high note as you.

Instead, you chose the most pathetic option available to you: You leaned out of your window and made some ridiculous series of leering comments about whether I was wearing a thong, right as the light changed and you peeled off, pleased with yourself and saved from any consequences. [Read more…]

Respect.

Bjarte Foshaug on Facebook:

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You know what’s really scary? Antibiotic resistance. The CDC says how scary.

The agency’s overall — and, it stressed, conservative — assessment of the problem:

• Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and fungi that are resistant to at least some classes of antibiotics;
• Each year, out of those illnesses, 23,000 deaths;
• Because of those illnesses and deaths, $20 billion each year in additional healthcare spending;
• And beyond the direct healthcare costs, an additional $35 billion lost to society in foregone productivity. [Read more…]

It turns out that God’s a comedian. Holy water is full of shit.

Despite its purported cleansing properties, holy water could actually be more harmful than healing, according to a new Austrian study on “holy” springs.

Researchers at the Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna tested water from 21 springs in Austria and 18 fonts in Vienna and found samples contained up to 62 million bacteria per milliliter of water, none of it safe to drink. [Read more…]

Matt Yglesias points out that misogyny is not actually a necessary ingredient for cooking up a batch of innovation.

Former Business Insider CTO Pax Dickinson offers some further reflections on the question of women in technology:

I think the tech world is just kind of—it doesn’t have a woman problem. Women in tech are great. There’s just not that many of them because tech is just a kind of thing that a lot of women aren’t that interested in, I think. I mean, I don’t think it has a problem. I’d worry more about taking away what makes tech great. The freewheeling nature of it is what leads to innovation. And my fear is that if we’re all going to police what we say, maybe we lose that innovation. [Read more…]

A defense lawyer in the Delhi gang rape case made some remarks that could get him disbarred.

Mr Singh caused shock saying he would have “burned my daughter alive” if she was
having “premarital sex and went out late at night with her boyfriend”.

He told the BBC on Monday his personal views had been taken out of context.

“I was asked about my views on a personal matter and I answered that in my personal capacity of being the patriarch of my house,” he told the BBC.

Ah yes, and this is why some of us are not all that fond of patriarchy.