What a week, my fellow skepchicks & dicks (or dudes, if you’re in a less vulgar mood than I am, which is highly probable). There have been some fantastic events, we had Richard Wiseman publish a new study here, tons of comments were held as possible spam because someone wrote a post with “penis” in the title, and we booked a place for the Skepchick/JREF forum party at The Amaz!ng Meeting 6 in Las Vegas*!
We also had a ton of witty comments from you, our beloved readers. It was tough to pick just one, but this one came highly recommended by writerdd:
TheCzech
// Apr 24, 2008 at 5:29 pm
You know, Donna, I alternate between thinking you are a brilliant breath of fresh air to thinking you are bat-shit insane.
I happen to think she’s a brilliant breath of bat-shit insanity. For making us LOL and speaking so much truth, you win an all-expense paid trip back to the top of the home page!
Once again, I’m seeing a lot of new peeps. If you want an avatar, go sign up at Gravatar.com. It’s free and your pic will appear here as soon as you upload it over there! Nifty.
*Are you attending TAM? If so (and you should), make sure to introduce yourself to me or any of the other Skepchick writers in attendance, so you can get more info on the bash we’re throwing Saturday night. It’ll be across the street at Caesar’s Palace in a big suite. More info coming soon, but in the meantime make sure you register for the biggest skeptical conference of the year!
::sigh:: I wish I could go to TAM, party or no. Alas, combining flight, hotel, conference, and extra events puts it WAY out of my reach. Jared = Sad Panda
Aw, shucks.
Speaking of Gravatars, I understand that if you add the code “&default=wavatar”, then everyone will have a picture as it will generate cutsy pics for those without Gravatar accouts (called wavatars).
BTW: I would have voted for TheCzech this week as well. That comment cracked me up in Donna‘s otherwise serious thread. Well done.
Interestingly, I wasn’t really trying to be funny, per se. Donna has written many posts and comments that have had me thinking about something from a different angle…often nodding with agreement.
Then other times she has said things that make me think to myself, “She didn’t just say that…did she?”
It was an honest expression of my ambivalence. I may not always know what to think, but it definitely keeps me reading…
A lot of my writing is thinking aloud, particularly in the comments. So sometimes I think “I didn’t just say that… did I?”
I’m lame and can’t come to TAM. I guess I have to turn in my Skepchick badge :P
I love Donna’s posts. She writes such thought-provoking, entertaining and damned smart posts, I just love reading all the comments and discussion she stirs up.
(First time commenter)
I do baulk at some of the things Donna says, often finding myself re-checking exactly *who* the author of the post is. However, I believe it to be a noble and important attribute for one to be brave enough to throw a present idea out there for discussion: “This may or may not be ‘right’, but try this on for size”. The refreshing beauty of skepticality is the ability to then take aboard the contributions made by others and modify ones own viewpoint; to report back, “On this issue I use to stand over there, now I stand here.”
I’ve seen this on other blogs (‘Homosexuality in males is a polygenic disease and should be treated accordingly. Discuss!’), however more often than not the author has pre-constructed concrete fortifications and manned the guns ready to annihilate all opponents to their own views. This is not skepticality, this is not open discussion.
In this way, skepchick is like an oasis in the desert, and Donna Druchunas is to be commended.
Yep.
TAM is just too expensive.
Skepdicks is a better pun. Vulgar yes, but guys are vulgar by nature.
If I could ever “win a date” with a skepchick, I would probably choose Donna. I think that conversation would be enthralling. More so than the other bat-shit crazy girls I’ve gone out with!