Amanda wanted to be here to do her regular quickies, but she’s doing all the other Skepchicks’ taxes. So, it’s on me! Here ya go:
- The government of Madrid has declared that Catholics can march on Easter weekend, but atheists can’t. From Daniela, who I’ve now met at TAM London and NECSS but who still hasn’t arranged for me to give a talk somewhere in Spain despite the fact that I don’t speak Spanish.
- General Mills sued over misleading yogurt health claims. Enjoy reading a thousand different ways to say “Yogurt doesn’t make you poop better” without actually saying “Yogurt doesn’t make you poop better.” Thanks, jes3ica!
- Woman, know thy place: a fantastic essay by Paula Kirby on how religions keep women down.
- PowerBalance gets yet another lawsuit, and now they’re moving on to “Western” “technology.” I was unaware that bullshit had a cardinal direction.
- Cute animal Friday! Brian sent us CuteRoulette (warning: you’ll get very little done today) and Emory sent us this stinkbug that looks like Elvis.
- A note for those who want the Quickie links to appear on the main page like they used to, don’t worry, we’re working on it!
The essay from Paula Kirby was fantastic and mostly true, but I think she underestimates the sexism and fear of female sexuality among some types of atheists. There are some atheists who eat up evo psych, and even though they’re not advocating (yet) for women to wear burqas, they are will jump on board pretty fast to claim that women who wear short skirts deserve to be raped.
I think that misogynist attitudes and religion both feed on each other, and simply removing religion won’t make everyone a feminist. Some people will find any reason to be misogynist if that’s what they really want to believe.
Too true, sadly. It’s always such a profound disappointment to come across a man who loves logic and then turns out to be a misogynist. They’re not rare, sadly, which makes it exhausting to constantly have new ones trying to convince you of their rightness.
Alas assholishness recognises no creed. At least it isn’t institutionalised among atheists so that’s something, I guess.
I don’t think that the Abrahamic religions created misogyny. Rather, they found it useful (ie, enhanced their power) to embrace and codify it into law and religious doctrine. Misogyny still exists outside religion, and appears to be its own reward, that is, it is self sustaining.
There are females who fear male sexuality as well, but, AFAIK, it has not been adopted by any doctrine, so it has far less impact than misogyny. It mostly harms the women who embrace it, as misogyny harms the men who embrace it.
Why this fear of others’ sexuality exists, I have no idea. I could understand it as a consequence of sexual assault, but that is not the case, at least with the male fear of female sexuality.
Women, Know Thy Place: And, of course, the cure for religion is feminism, which teaches women to be loud, proud, vulgar, immodest, and confrontational. God forbid that women should learn anything from the ideals of religion!
Stupid much?
Yes, very much.
> teaches women to be loud, proud, vulgar, immodest, and confrontational
You seem to be implying that this is a bad thing.
Yeeeeah, I was all those things with religion and still am without them! Because I rock. And my mom would be greatly saddened if I didn’t follow in her loud, proud, confrontational footsteps.
LOL. Are you fucking serious. There. How’s that for confrontational?
Yay, marilove! We’ve missed you. :) Oh wait, let me vulgar that up: We’ve fucking missed you, bitch!
Awww <3. I've been so busy, with a new job, school, and medical stuff. But my jobby job allows me to fart around online when there is time, so you may see more of me yet!! I miss you guys ,too!
Wait wait: I fucking miss you fucking guys, too!
Vulgar and confrontational… an expert on that are we?
Thank you Jedi Master Yoda.
The Paula Kirby essay was amazing.
Also, ramur? Women, like men, have nothing to learn from ancient, misogynistic, barbaric, provably wrong superstitions.
DataJack:
Ancient, misogynistic, barbaric, provably wrong superstitions are no match for a good blaster at your side.
BTW, what happened to the preview option?
And it looks like blockquote doesn’t work, either. :-(
Fixed that one headline: Woman, know thy place: a fantastic essay by Paula Kirby on how Skeptoid keeps women down.
@Rebecca, Now you’re making me feel bad! I’m still working on getting you that talk… do you think you could memorize your whole talk in Spanish phonetically? In the meantime, you’re more than welcome to come visit.
I loved the Paula Kirby article. I went, read it, followed multiple links elsewhere, and then returned to the article.
I loved it so much that I sent it in as a suggetion for tomorrow’s quickies.
I weep for my future brain cells.
Duh!
I was so hoping that one of the Skepchicks would tell rasmur to fuck off thereby giving him the proof and validation he was looking for.
@mrmisconception : so was I.
On a different note, I am very glad that strong Aussie consumer protection laws have put a stop to that Power Balance rubbish here, which may assist similar lawsuits in the US.
I loved some of the comments (paraphrasing):
“the item in question is so bad that I can only think of it as a tax on the lazy and the stupid.”
“the product itself – worthless. The mailing list of people who have bought it – priceless”
It all boils down to protection of freedom of speech being taken to ridiculous extremes in the US.
OTOH lack of such protection in OZ leads to draconian censorship such as Senator Conroy’s proposed mandatory internet filter.
That’s it. I will *HIKE* on Easter weekend, in protest. Let the gooberment *try* to stop me!!!
;->
Thick rubber bands DO WORK! I have proof. I survived Andrew Wakefield’s Brandeis talk using nothing but my NECSS band. (Note: it didn’t do much on my wrist but when I held it to my forehead and stretched as far as I could and released it, it helped a lot.)
*hesitate*
Does anyone other than me strongly dislike this new layout? The text font is very small, the front page is now very busy. It’s visually very appealing but *Very* hard to actually process in terms of information.
There has been some feedback along these lines. Yesterday we were told that this is a work in progress. I’m taking a wait-and-see approach.
OK! This makes me happy :)
re: yogurt.
I know I’m likely to be telling many people what they already know, but have you actually tasted any of the stuff that is marketed to us as yogurt? It’s a hyper-sweetened dairy byproduct full of artificial flavors. In short, that shit’s nasty. Yogurt should have two ingredients: milk, and yogurt culture.
I had the misfortune of eating one of these “healthy” yogurts at work, where it was the only available “healthy” snack after a missed lunch and a long day. It wasn’t food, it was candy. That shit’s nasty, and I propose the only reason that your bowels may move more often is your offended colon is acting in self-defense.
I heard of someone answering a survey about yogurt in which someone was asked what the commercial about yogurt taught them, and they said “My immune system is in my bum.” I can’t stop giggling about that.
They market that yogurt to people with IBS, which makes no sense to me as two big triggers of IBS symptoms are sugar and dairy.