In Portland we are currently being treated to a three-ring circus of anti-fluoridation woo. In the first full week of May we will be voting on whether or not to fluoridate the public water supply. The debate about it seems to have been plucked almost directly from the John Birch Society circa 1961. There are shadowy conspiracies of doctors, dentists, corporations, the government and peop... »
Apparently, it’s that time of year again! You know. That time of year where your friends annoy the crap out of you by participating in some silly social media prank disguised as awareness. And lucky us! It’s about breast cancer AGAIN! Because as you know, there are so MANY people on FB still unaware that it exists and we have to raise consciousness because there are not enough pink bal... »
The other day, I Tweeted a link to this Vulture article in which the age of an actor is compared to the age of his female costar at the time of filming, showing that as men age, their female costars seem to stay the same age like a perky, perpetually stacked Dorian Gray. This, for instance, is Harrison Ford: A few of my Twitter friends wondered what the chart would look like for leading ladies who... »
In Bug Grad School I learned about a crazy group of flies called Hippoboscidae, or louse flies. These flies have adopted an ectoparasitic lifestyle, which means they live on other animals much like a tick or a louse. Most have lost their wings in the evolutionary scrabble to live on fur or feathers. Having only ever seen these preserved in jars, or from engravings, I was very excited to find a vi... »
The introduction text to the facebook page “Muslim Women Against Femen..Muslimah Pride Day.” reads as follows: On the 4th April. The so called feminist group, FEMEN has declared ‘Topless Jihad Day’ in which they are asking women to go topless and write ‘My Body Against Islamism!’ on their bare breasts. We as Muslim women and those who stand with us, need to show FEMEN and t... »
Good news! The leaders of the secular movement have gone to the mountaintop and returned holding a stone tablet engraved with wisdom for us to behold. Go read it, and maybe read this response from Secular Woman and this response from Secular Census, both of which are very good. Then maybe read this, or whatever: A Problem with Stone Tablet Communication The fact that large organizations in this mo... »
Fauxminism is the curious phenomenon where people think that featuring, talking about, or even just being a woman is an inherently feminist act and thus renders the person and/or act(s) in question irreproachably progressive with regards to matters of gender. What makes someone a fauxminist is not any particular action or choice that they make or take, but their dogged insistence that anything the... »
As of late, I have taken time away from chemistry as I got bored with the mundane nature of chemical bonding. Instead, I have focused my investigative effort to understand the truth about dinosaurs. Hopefully, I can adequately explain the conspiracy that has been unfolding. The short of it is dinosaurs never existed. Sir Richard Owen, the paleontologist that ‘discovered’ the first dino... »
