No more Twinkies, no more Wonder Bread

How will we ever survive when Hostess goes out of business?

They’re blaming it on unions, which is another reason to be glad they’re going under. I notice that they aren’t placing the blame on producing bland, textureless, sugary foods for decades.

I remember growing up on that cheap, tasteless, gooey white bread — but I remember even more vividly that first bite of real whole grain bread with a crisp crackly crust and real flavor. Maybe if they’d tried making a quality product instead of mass-produced glop, they’d still have a business.

Somebody needs to have a little talk with the Nerd Council

Again, one of the nerds — who I’ve always considered my people — babbles away and reveals an unimaginable depth of cluelessness and privilege. Some comic book artist named Tony Harris was on a tear.

I cant remember if Ive [Note: strong dislike of apostrophes] said this before, but Im gonna say it anyway. I dont give a crap. [No? Then why the tirade?] I appreciate a pretty Gal [Weird capitalization, too. And “Gal”? Really?] as much as the next Hetero Male. Sometimes I even go in for some racy type stuff [Ooh! Daring!] ( keeping the comments PG for my Ladies sake [Because, as we all know, Ladies can’t cope with R] ) but dammit, dammit, dammit I am so sick and tired of the whole COSPLAY-Chiks [Then don’t be one, Tony!] . I know a few who are actually pretty cool-and BIG Shocker, love and read Comics.So as in all things, they are the exception to the rule. Heres the statement I wanna make, based on THE RULE: “Hey! Quasi-Pretty-NOT-Hot-Girl [I’m a scientist, give me numbers. So not 10, but say, 7? 6? What? Do you rate the attractiveness of all the girls you meet on some objective scale?], you are more pathetic than the REAL Nerds, who YOU secretly think are REALLY PATHETIC. [This is a contest: who has the lowest opinion of the other?] But we are onto you. Some of us are aware that you are ever so average [On average, we all are] on an everyday basis. But you have a couple of things going your way. You are willing to become almost completely Naked in public [SLUT!], and yer either skinny [We are going to judge you by your dimensions] ( Well, some or most of you, THINK you are [FATSO!] ) or you have Big Boobies [(.)(.)]. Notice I didnt say GREAT Boobies? [Actually, no] You are what I refer to as “CON-HOT” [Because, face it, my fans at conventions are all really ugly people]. Well not by my estimation [Tony Harris has a special term for an estimation he never uses?], but according to a LOT of average [And Tony Harris is, if anything, not average] Comic Book Fans who either RARELY speak to, or NEVER speak to girls [So far, he’s done a fine job of insulting everyone who attends comic book conventions. He’s going to be popular on the circuit now!]. Some Virgins [The only thing worse than a Virgin is a Slut.], ALL unconfident when it comes to girls, and the ONE thing they all have in common? The are being preyed on by YOU [Because the first thing a predator will do is expose herself to scorn and judgment]. You have this really awful need for attention [How awful that humans might need affirmations from others], for people to tell you your pretty, or Hot, and the thought of guys pleasuring themselves to the memory of you hanging on them with your glossy open lips [I know this is weird, but really, most women don’t find the idea of men going off and masturbating over thoughts of their lips to be particularly attractive], promising them the Moon and the Stars of pleasure, just makes your head vibrate [Shaking their heads in disgust is not “vibrating”]. After many years of watching this shit go down every 3 seconds around or in front of my booth or table at ANY given Con in the country, I put this together [Years? To put this together? A bit slow and stupid, aren’t you, Tony?]. Well not just me. We are LEGION. [Oh, right. Legions of male comic book fans are sickened by fan service] And here it is, THE REASON WHY ALL THAT, sickens us: BECAUSE YOU DONT KNOW SH-T ABOUT COMICS, BEYOND WHATEVER GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH YOU DID TO GET REF ON THE MOST MAINSTREAM CHARACTER WITH THE MOST REVEALING COSTUME EVER [I hate to break this news to you, Tony, since it may damage your self-esteem: but it doesn’t take years of Ph.D. level research and gargantuan efforts to figure out what comic book character you like, or what costume you find attractive. Oh, wait: for Tony this might be a major effort, given that it took him years to justify his rant]. And also, if ANY of these guys that you hang on tried to talk to you out of that Con? You wouldnt give them the f–king time of day.[Maybe not. Context matters. Woman in costume at a con: she would like her effort noticed. Woman walking to the bus to get to work: she has other things on her mind than being told how nice her clothes look, and would rather you didn’t harass her] Shut up you damned liar, no you would not. Lying, Liar Face. Yer not Comics. Your just the thing that all the Comic Book, AND mainstream press flock to at Cons. [What happened to the LEGION sickened by these tramps?] And the real reason for the Con, and the damned costumes yer parading around in? That would be Comic Book Artists, [Like Tony!] and Comic Book Writers who make all that sh-t up. [Actually, most of the people I’ve met at cons are there for the community.]

Shorter Tony Harris: “Hey, girl, you don’t know as much about comics as I do, and your breasts aren’t that great anyway.”

It gets tiring, doesn’t it? I’m not even a woman, and I just want to sigh in exasperation, flip this guy off, and never hear from him ever again. I do think he’s pathetic, but not because he has deep expertise in an esoteric field…but because he’s so lacking in confidence in himself that he finds himself infuriated by the mere existence of women who dare to intrude in any way into what he considers his domain. That’s just sad.

One of the things I’ve liked about the cons I’ve attended is the openness and acceptance — people are there with diverse and sometimes weird expertise, whether it’s skill at sewing and costuming or deep knowledge about otherwise utterly useless comic book lore, and everyone just enthusiastically shares (and sometimes, over-shares, but that’s OK). You don’t have to get angry if someone has a better sense of humor than you do, or knows more about Big Bang Theory, or can wear a costume with more brio, or completely rules in the video game competition — even the most obscure niche has a place. Poor Tony Harris can’t cope with the fact that even though he may have talent as an artist, his lips aren’t as glossy as some woman he considers insufficiently attractive for his standards. He’s sickened that they don’t know as much about comics as he does, and knowledge of comics is, of course, the standard by which we should all be judged.

Well, that and the size and shape of your breasts, if you’re a woman.

John Scalzi mocks this guy, and Foz Meadows rather thoroughly dismantles him. That was a pleasure to read; Harris’s petty rant, not so much.

I’m pretty sure, though, that Mr Harris has now been appointed to this Nerd Council:

Yet another wildlife-torturer

Some of the best places in the world to see the giant Pacific octopus in its natural habitat are the coves and parks on Puget Sound (also, my natural habitat). There are lots of popular dive sites, and my idea of internet porn is watching videos taken by amateurs, like this one:

Isn’t that gorgeous?

So you can imagine local divers’ reactions when a diver was spotted rising from a West Seattle dive site holding a magnificent 80 lb. octopus and beating it to death. They were not happy. These are informally regarded as safe habitats, where everyone can view the lovely giant invertebrates, and trust that others will respect and protect the environment.

The brute, Dylan Mayer, claims that killing the octopus was an “art project” at Green River Community College, and seems to think it justifies the killing by saying he cut it up for meat…meat which he apparently gave away to other people. I think maybe his art class ought to reconsider what represents a valid contribution, if this was an official project in any way. Also, to add to Mayer’s charm, people rummaged around on his facebook page and discovered photos of him kicking animals. Another art project, perhaps?

Unfortunately, Mayer is in the clear and what he did was perfectly legal: the Washington Department of Fish and Game issues “one-day hunting licenses” — if you’re feeling a little sadistic, or “artistic”, you can apply for one of these and then visit some of the local octopus habitat and batter a cephalopod to death, no problem.

There is a petition to get Fish and Game to stop aiding and abetting the destruction of Washington’s natural resources. It would be nice of you to sign it, but don’t expect much change. I’m beginning to get the impression that many people opt for careers in wildlife biology not because they love and want to protect nature, but because they want a front-row seat for killing it.

(Wildlife biologists with integrity are welcome to disagree — I expect you’ll sign the petition first, of course.)

Skepticon success

Some bozo named @RichSandersen on Twitter asserted that

Skepticon att. dropped 1200 to 700. With @PZMyers and @RebeccaWatson there, no wonder people stayed away.

(It’s worth noting that in the twitter thread, DJ Grothe graciously wrote that he’d heard figures of 1600 attendees, and that it was a “great event.”)

Hmm. I was at both Skepticon IV and Skepticon V. @RichSandersen wasn’t. I can tell you that it was a big crowd at both, and the size was a little hard to judge, because this year it moved to a much larger venue, but I had the impression that it was even bigger this year than last — it’s growing steadily.

So I wrote to the organizers and asked them about the attendance figures. Here’s their reply.

Our estimates are 1400-1600 in meatspace. The reason for the variance is that while we know we got a bump in attendance from foot traffic from Meals a Million [a charity convention that was going on next door], but we didn’t have a good metric for tracking them. That said, the live stream was new exciting. We don’t know how many people signed on to it over the course of the event, but during Greta’s talk we had 1,100 people watching. That’s pretty cool.

So @RichSandersen believed that it must have been smaller, since Rebecca Watson and I are so odious, so he decided it was smaller this year, which means that Rebecca Watson and I really are awful horrible people. What a lovely example of confirmation bias!

Since we were going to be responsible if attendance had plummeted, I insist that we now get full credit for the increase in attendance this year. It would only be fair.

Aaaaaieee! Why did you have to tell me that?

I lived in blissful ignorance, once upon a time. And then people told me about symphysiotomy, a medical procedure in which doctors sawed through the pubic symphysis to crack open the pelvis and open it wide…to make childbirth easier. From the comments at that link:

They viewed symphysiotomy (wrongly) as a gateway to childbearing without limitation, seeing Caesarean section – the norm for difficult births – as morally hazardous, capping family size and leading to sterilisation and contraception. Symphysiotomy was promoted as permanently widening the pelvis, enabling an unlimited number of vaginal deliveries, whereas four C-sections was widely regarded as the maximum for safety.

Thousands of Irish women had this done to them. Thanks, Catholic Church, for doing your part to increase pain and suffering all in the name of turning women into better baby-making machines.

Oh, joy…there’s a documentary on the subject. It’s grim.

If you feel like going back and watching that Camp Quest video instead, I don’t blame you.

Update on the wildlife-torturer

You remember the guy I told you about a couple weeks ago, on the payroll of the USDA’s “Wildlife Services” division, who trapped coyotes, set his dogs on the immobilized coyotes to tear them to shreds, and then posted boastful pictures about it on Facebook and Twitter?

There’s a petition at Causes.com asking Congress to investigate the sadistic jerk, whose name is Jamie P. Olson, and they’re a few thousand signatures from their goal. Update: Some commenters have noted that the causes.com petition requires a Facebook account to sign. At change.org there’s a similar petition you can sign without a Facebook account.

Since I wrote the above-linked post here Olson has gotten some press attention. (No, I’m not claiming credit. A bunch of people have been flogging this.) Perhaps most notably, Olson got a thorough going-over by veteran environmental journalist Tom Knudsen at the Sacramento Bee, who added this observation by one of Olson’s putative colleagues:

Gary Strader, a former Wildlife Services trapper in Nevada, was not surprised to learn about the controversial photos. “That is very common,” Strader wrote in an email. “It always was and always will be controversial. It has never been addressed by the higher-ups. They know it happens on a regular basis.”

Read my old post if you missed it, check out Knudsen’s piece, and then — if you’re so inclined — sign the petition. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t go well past the number of signatures the organizers are hoping for.

Around FtB

It’s another easy one.

Elsewhere…

There have been vigils all across Ireland. A doctor weighs in. You knew it wouldn’t be long before Irish authorities started making excuses: there’s no evidence it was a Catholic ethos behind her death, and please, everyone, let’s not use the FUCKING DEATH OF A PREGNANT WOMAN to argue for reproductive rights, the bastards.