This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
AshleyKate just saved me the trouble of writing about the “mental health” gambit. Good thing: she did a better job than I would have.
I’m asking you–begging you, really, to not decide that Lanza had a mental illness. I’m asking you not to make “being a good person” the standard for mentally healthy.
Do not try to rationalize this away with mental illness. Stop talking about how it could have been schizophrenia, stop saying he hadto have mental health issues. You do not know.
You do not know his state of mind. When you decide to armchair quarterback him, to stamp him with an “obvious” diagnosis, do you know what you are saying?
Here is a terrible thing. The only thing that could possibly cause someone to do such a terrible, tragic thing is to have This Disorder. Because only people with This Disorder could be so dangerous/awful/scary.
And you, you people who want to look for signs of schizophrenia, who want to talk about how he ‘went crazy’, how he just needed medication, I want you to consider how much harder you are making it for someone to seek treatment.
Read the rest.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 people, mostly children, have been killed in a shooting spree at an elementary school in Connecticut. I have no idea what could motivate a man to gun down 3rd graders, but I do know it’s past time to put rational gun control laws in place.
Give it an hour, some idiot will propose arming all the 7 year olds instead.
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. The squid’s name is Squeeee!
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Keith Kloor has stumbled on an innovative way to combat climate change: he’s sequestering carbon by stuffing as many straw environmentalists as possible into his writing. A piece Kloor published in Slate Wednesday morning purports to analyze an emerging Deep Rift in the environmental movement, that of the competing conceptions of Nature held among different environmentalists, but the piece is riddled with unsupported logical leaps, ahistoricality, and unwarranted lumping of different, often quarreling environmental tendencies into the same rhetorical trope.
And nothing prompts me to write 2,000-word essays faster than unwarranted lumping of different, often quarreling environmental tendencies into the same rhetorical trope.
The ongoing dispute about sexism in the secular community has been settled at last by one incredibly insightful post.
Atheism is a ‘guy thing,’ I would say, like needlepoint is a ‘girl thing.’
We don’t have to consider why the sexes fall (or are pushed) into these particular roles; they just are. And with that simple argument, we’re done. By golly, we ought to make the guy who said it some kind of leader of the atheist movement. We wouldn’t want to have him wasting his time on things like needlepoint, you know.
I must take a brief break from grading to bring you some snowblower porn.
That strange moan you hear right now is the sound of a thousand Minnesotans moistening the crotches of their jeans. In a moment you’ll hear a faint sigh as they all go out to their garages to gaze disappointedly at the suddenly insignificant machinery stored there.
Well, except for the Minnesotans who are watching the whole ten minutes of this video a second time.
Jezebel justifies its existence every now and then, and today is one of those days. The publication is celebrating a first instance of what will likely become a hallowed tradition, and it starts off with a post by Kate Harding wwith the people-pleasing title Fuck You, Men’s Rights Activists. I really hate when my militant friends start to pull their punches. You know?
Excerpt, with emphasis added for local interest:
So fuck you, MRAs. Fuck you for showing up every time women speak, especially about rape and abuse, and trying to make it all about you. Fuck you for derailing threads about the victims of Marc Lépine, a man who screamed about his hatred for feminists as he murdered fourteen women and injured many others, because you also hate feminists and want a fucking cookie for not killing anyone. Fuck you for making rape and death threats against young women who dared to protest a speaking engagement by a man who thinks little girls would enjoy being raped by their fathers if it weren’t for society telling them it’s dirty. Fuck you for whining about how unfair it is that women might wonder if you’re a rapist when you approach them out of nowhere, while completely ignoring how unfair it is that women feel the need to be on guard all the time in public. Or that if we relax and behave normally—drinking, dancing, dressing however we want—you will be the first motherfuckers in line to blame us for getting ourselves raped.
The last student has turned in the last final exam of this semester! I’m done!
Wait, what’s this?
A pile of papers?
I have over a hundred exams and term papers to grade now.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
NOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
<curls into fetal position, sobs pathetically>
