Quickies
Skepchick Quickies: Gaming Jeopardy, TSA Confessions, and Creationist/Atheist Debates
On February 3, 1984, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched for mission STS-41-B. This mission was notable for the first unmanned spacewalk and for holding the first high school experiment in space (about seed germination in zero gravity).
- LEGO Gets Told Off by A Seven-Year-Old Girl – She makes some great points about the boys vs girl LEGO figures. From CriticalDragon1177
- 8 surprising ways poverty is absurdly expensive – But, but, bootstraps! Free market! Trickle-down-onomics!
- Jeopardy’s Controversial New Champion Is Using Game Theory To Win Big – I both love him and hate him.
- New Atheism’s big mistake: Debating creationists solves nothing – “Bill Nye is intensely concerned about climate change and evolution, as are we. He should therefore ally himself with sane religious leaders, rather than debate fundamentalists.”
- Dear America, I Saw You Naked And yes, we were laughing. Confessions of an ex-TSA agent. – I don’t even know what to say about this. Audible sigh.
- GOP’s Obamacare fiction series: Latest horror story a creation from start to finish.
I’ve come to the conclusion that any article on atheism that comes from Salon should just go ahead and include the tag “concern trolling”, The takeaway line “Bill Nye is intensely concerned about climate change and evolution, as are we. He should therefore ally himself with sane religious leaders, rather than debate fundamentalists.” is classic concern trolling, crafting a false dichotomy wherein Bill Nye’s presence in Northern Kentucky (no I’m not going) obliterates his years of working with people of all belief systems, a fairly easily verifiable fact. What the author is essentially implying is that debating Ken Ham and focusing on the harms religious fundamentalism does to our public discourse, or being an open advocate for atheism (pretty much what New Atheist means imho) is a de facto excuse for those moderate “sane” religious figures to discount his activism.
None of the above says anything about whether the debate is a good idea tactically. I agree with Rebecca’s video for the most part. I just find the author’s advice to be disingenuous
The funny thing about “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” is that it’s a metaphor for the impossible.
The irony of this becoming a thing that conservatives tell poor people they should do does not escape me. Do the impossible! If you do not, you have only yourselves to blame!
Flying out of Portland, ME last summer, I got pulled aside for 30 minutes of extra security theater because instead of wearing my vintage metal bracelet I had packed it in my luggage along with the rest of jewelry. Makes me wonder what sort of threat a round metal semi-circle could pose, exactly. Did they think it was bomb parts?
I’m also curious what sort of criteria gets you SSSS’ed, since I have been randomly selected for special screening at least once every. single. time. I have flown since 2001.