I’ve been pretty busy lately, but had scheduled tonight to sit and write a post. I had a couple of possible ideas in my head, mostly to do with some interesting and weird stats stuff, but now that I’m sitting down at the computer all I can think about is Boston. I feel like my mind is filled with a million things at once: horror at the description of the bombing aftermath, sadness for the friends ... »
On Wednesday I told you about the upcoming SCOTUS case of Hollingsworth v Perry that challenges California’s Prop 8. However, this is not the only case dealing with same-sex marriage the Supreme Court will be hearing next week. SCOTUS will be hearing arguments in the case of United States v Windsor starting next Wednesday. Unlike Hollingsworth v Perry, which takes on the legality of bans on same-s... »
This week, Washington Post/ABC News released a new poll showing that support for marriage equality in the U.S. has reached an all-time high of 58%. This comes just before the U.S. Supreme Court takes up two marriage equality cases, one challenging California’s Prop 8 and one challenging the Defense of Marriage Act. These cases could be serious game changers but are also more complicated than they ... »
Today, on International Women’s Day, Barack Obama signed the renewal of the Violence Against Women act into law. VAWA was originally written by then-Senator Joe Biden and first enacted into law in 1994. The law prevents rape offenders from using a victim’s sexual history against her and provides funding for training on rape and domestic abuse by local law enforcement and judges. It also provides f... »
As probably the only person on the planet that thinks government budgets are interesting, watching the last couple months of budget negotiations in the US Federal government have been really fascinating, extremely frustrating, and super terrifying. Even worse, every time I go on facebook or twitter I see a multitude of myths and misunderstandings regarding the Sequester negotiations being passed a... »
I am not a climate scientist and in fact I don’t know much about climate science, but I still believe strongly that human caused climate change is warming the Earth. Because climate science is not my area of expertise, it is perfectly reasonable for me to bow to the consensus of scientists that are experts in the field. Since climate scientists are in consensus that the world is warming and humans... »
In many areas of life, especially in cases where a person must apply to enter an organization, field or job, there are large gender gaps. Whenever feminists call for equal representation by women in a particular endeavor, detractors often claim that adding more women means better-qualified men will get bumped down. They claim that in order to get an equal number of women and men, the bar must be l... »
Hi Everyone! My name is Jamie and way back in 2008 I sent an email to Rebecca saying I was interested in becoming a Skepchick. Needless to say, I didn’t make the cut. I spent the next five years slowly infiltrating my way into the inner circle of Skepchicks, by way of alcohol and unrestrained enthusiasm, until they finally gave in and asked me to join the team. I cannot tell you how excited I am t... »
