QuickiesReligion

Skepchick Quickies 2.27

  • Sinful buses stoned by Orthodox Jews – The buses are sinful for not segregating men and women.  The Orthodox Jews want all buses to have women enter in the back and sit there, while men enter at the front and sit in the front half.  From Fiona.
  • Hidden cameras in DTF convertors? – “In a 90-second video that’s popping up on tin-foil-hat sites everywhere, 28-year-old software engineer Adam Chronister is seen cracking open his government-subsidized Magnavox converter, and revealing to the world the tiny video camera and microphone hidden inside.”  From Steve.
  • The atheist version of Lent – “If Christians do penance for their sins, you can rack up new “sins” by test driving new material, physical pleasures. This life is the only one we have, so expand your comfort zone by trying new things.”  I love this idea!
  • Colorado state senator: HIV testing for pregnant women encourages promiscuity - He also rationalizes that having an HIV positive baby is an appropriate punishment for being a slut.
  • Cute animal Friday! Emory sent in a link that definitely “pegs the cuticity meter”, as he put it. Is there anything cuter than a fennec fox?  And Laelaps has a post featuring the first photo taken of a live okapi.

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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18 Comments

  1. On hidden cameras: In an interview with Threat Level, Chronister admits the whole thing was a hoax, concocted in about five minutes with a hot glue gun and parts from an old cell phone…Chronister says the video is partially true: A friend really did share the rumor about hidden camera in the DTV converters. “I originally opened up the device with the intention of proving him wrong,” says Chronister. “At which point the thought popped in my head, wouldn’t it be funny if I proved him right instead?”

    This just goes to prove that no matter how obvious a joke is, someone is going to take it far too seriously.

    Which reminds me: Adolf Hitler, Timothy McVeigh, and a pedophile walk into a mosque…

  2. I love that idea about Atheist Lent! Brilliant. Whenever someone, in conversation, says whatever it is they are giving up for Lent, I’d love to reply:

    “How nice! I’m trying new sex positions as often as possible for Lent! Last night was Reverse Cowgirl, and I think tonight might be Space Docking!”

  3. On behalf of Colorado I apologize. What is going on is fairly easy to explain. The Republicans are so far out of power in our fair state that little they say or do makes any difference. As such they can riff freely on wherever their minds take them. Sadly this guy is not our looniest. This title goes to Douglas Bruce who kicked a reporter during a prayer service: http://tinyurl.com/d9x8hd

  4. I can’t get over the monster who wants babies to have aids to punish their mothers. The FUCK is the MATTER with him??

  5. Why, then, we’ll just put the women at the front of the bus instead!

    No, no. That wouldn’t work. “Ladies first” is sexist. I forgot.

    Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a solution.

  6. The glass is always half-empty with you guys.

    You look at the “sinful buses” link and you see a violent protest aimed at discriminating against women. I look at the same link and I see a free exchange of ideas between Israel and Saudi Arabia!

    FYI: If you are interested in an investment opportunity, I’m planning to launch a company that makes burkas for Jews.

  7. “…rationalizes that having an HIV positive baby is an appropriate punishment for being a slut.”

    Hey, give the senator a break. Punishing kids for their parents’ crimes (especially non-violent crimes which hurt no one in the slightest) is a well-established moral principle. After all, the only reason HIV exists in the first place is to punish us for Eve eating that forbidden fruit.

  8. How about “punish” the slut of a mother by killing her baby in utero by offering state provided abortions free of charge to anyone who wants one? That would be a lot cheaper than caring for an infant that becomes HIV infected in utero.

  9. At first i was pissed about the HIV testing business, but then I looked at the fox, took a big sigh, and all was right with the world again.

    Unfortunately, the cuteness of the fox got me feeling all maternal, which made me think about mothers, which made think about the damned HIV testing business, and now I am right back at pissed off central.

    now I need some ice cream. Thanks a lot for making me fat, Amanda. I blame you for all that is wrong in my life now.

  10. RE: HIV testing leading to discrimination. There is so much fucked up about that, but I’m particularly gobsmacked by one necessary inference. Who would ever, EVER say to themselves, “Hey, I have a reliable way of knowing that my baby and I have caught an incurable disease. Time to go barebacking around town!”*

    Seriously?

    I can almost, and I emphasize ALMOST, understand the fear that safe sex education will increase promiscuity. There’s a glimmer of paranoid logic to the idea that making any activity a little less mysterious and a whole lot less dangerous might embolden a few folks who wouldn’t otherwise have the guts to try it. It’s fearful and myopic and stupid, but not entirely without logic.

    This, however, is just completely balls-up idiotic. HIV testing doesn’t prevent anything, and it certainly doesn’t cure the disease. It doesn’t make unprotected stranger sex any less dangerous. It just makes a it possible to prevent the spread of the disease to the innocent unborn that the neocons usually have such a legislative boner for.

    I have a hard time believing that anybody would seriously take the ability to detect the disease as license to stop worrying about catching it. That’s like saying we should stop testing people for cancer, because they’re just going to go out and start huffing weaponized plutonium. Then again, I may be underestimating how socially and intellectually crippled the victims of abstinence only education may be.

    And then there’s the point about women who get HIV from cheating partners. And the horror of letting a baby get AIDS because of a parent’s mistake. And the urge to punish sexuality in general, which (when you’re talking about a Republican) usually means that he’s running a 24-hour sex dungeon staffed by meth-snorting teenaged rent boys out of the basement of his summer cottage in the Hamptons. And it all eventually swirls into a vortex of classist, sexist rage, and I get so appalled that I have to go and lie down.

    I think I may have to turn this into a blog post.

    * I suppose they don’t call it barebacking when it’s a straight couple, but it’s just a fun verb to say.

  11. @molly: Some people are too effed up to explain. It’s not worth trying.

    I’m trying to picture a stoned bus…it sort of reminds me of George Carlin’s character “Fillmore” in Cars.

    @davew: There is sime hope for your state, since I hear James Dobson just stepped down. That’s a start…

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