Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 2.1
Happy February, everyone! Jen is busy hunting down groundhogs for her annual feastday tomorrow, so I’ve taken over the Quickies.
- Susan G. Komen for the Cure has bowed to internal pressure from anti-choice advocates and defunded Planned Parenthood. You can yell at Komen yourself on their forums, if you’d like, but also maybe consider donating more to Planned Parenthood. (via a lot of you!)
- 10-year old Clara Lazen randomly discovered a new molecule, which was published in a paper by her 5th grade chemistry teacher.
- Conspiracy theorists are more likely to believe factual contradictions, like how aliens and the government caused 9/11. FTR, I don’t agree with Mooney that this study is about facts correcting false beliefs. (Thanks, Roger!)
- A bistro owner asks Senator Stacey Campfield to leave the premises due to his suggestions that gay issues be banned from public schools and that it’s “virtually impossible” for HIV to be spread by heterosexual sex. Cue conservatives complaining that this act validates their desire to push LGBT people out of the public sphere.
Featured image via Joshua Roberts/Reuters /Landov
Is it just conspiracy theorists, or people who hold any incorrect belief? Part of how we know people have the wrong idea is that the idea is inconsistent with external reality, but how we tend to try to talk them out of it is by pointing out internal contradictions. We go after Christians with the problem of evil, or with the contradiction between omniscience, omnipotence, and free will.
Very proud of Martha at the Bistro. She will probably face some very horrendous backlash, as this is a conservative area, but it’s definitely good for TN lawmakers to know that there is resistance to the ongoing stupidity. She’ll definitely be getting my business!
RE the Bistro – Love that!
Komen – frustrating and disheartening
10 yr old – awesome hope it inspires a life long love of science and discovery
RE Conspiracy theorist. Sounds like he is making fun of people for their faulty logic by employing his own, or at least some poor reasoning. In the examples the real belief is that there is a cover up. They might not be saying that they believe both X and Y at the same time. They might simply be saying I don’t believe in PDQ so both X and Y are possible….
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
My wife and I had just been talking about tag-teaming the Race for the Cure next year–I’d do the walking, she’d do the fund-raising (her hips won’t let her do the walking, and I hate fund-raising, so it’s a happy compromise).
If this decision stands, though, I won’t bother. I refuse to reward the Komen organization’s cowardice.
Does anyone know of similar fundraisers that WOULD benefit Planned Parenthood in the Chicago area?
I know it’s just a drop in the bucket, but i already made up my mind to give $316 to Planned Parenthood before this Komen Foundation debacle thanks to that irritating Focus on the Family ad that aired during the NFL Playoffs (Tim Tebow’s game, no less).
I already donate on a monthly basis to Planned Parenthood. PZ suggested some alternate cancer charities, so I just made a donation to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation at http://www.bcrfcure.org/ (and my employer matched 50%). They have impressive stats for how much of the money raised goes directly to research and awareness (over 90%).
I just donated $50 to Planned Parenthood and am really ashamed that it took something like this to get me to act (but I thought about letting that anti-abortion guy from the article know). I’ll be making monthly donations from now on.
I can’t donate because I’m way too broke, but I do have an appointment with PP on Saturday so I can get a new BC scrip, and eventually I’ll get a full exam, when I can afford it.
Now donating $15 / mo to Planned Parenthood. Not a lot, but I figure every bit will help.
I’m a volunteer for Planned Parenthood in WA State and this whole debacle has been pretty damn amazing. So many supporters all over my Facebook page and all over my news feed including all three of my senators (state & fed) and the vast majority of the comments have been positive. Komen gained/kept a number of supporters, but lost so. many. more. It’s really bolstering my spirit going into this extra-contentious election year.
Komen’s senior vice president is self-identified lifelong conservative Republican, but this was not political.
RI-I-I-IGHT!
Telling that she proclaimed two years ago that she was going to kill funding for Planned Parenthood. The “investigation” in the Senate simply gave her the justification that she needed.
Just as they did with Acorn before it, the Republicans are showing just how shameless they are at destroying things they disagree with.