- Tina Fey rips “grey-faced men with $2 haircuts” defining rape – She said this and many other fantastic things at the inaugural gala for the Center for Reproductive Rights.
- A fan letter to Conservative politicians – By John Scalzi. Note his trigger warning at the top of the post.
- Winnipeg police chief touts prayer to combat crime – “”If you are praying for your neighbour, you’ll say, ‘OK, I’m praying, but how can I practically do something to impact my neighbour’s well-being?'”” From Madfishmonger, who also sent this follow up.
- Brazil arrests German con-man over pseudoscience fraud – From Donnie.
- Single mom challenges dismissal from the Air Force – She was dismissed because a few weeks after enlisting, she found out she was pregnant and the Air Force does not allow single parents to enlist. From Stacey.
- Cute Animal Friday! From Donnie, this amazing photo of emperor penguins. Awww, it’s a baby beluga! (And now you’ll have that song stuck in your head all day.) If you love Maru, you’ll love Shishi the kitty star of Instagram.
I would say that praying for your neighbor probably would make you less likely to commit a crime against them, since pretty much any positive thought about someone will do that. However, it is the thought of “How can I do something for my neighbor?” that leads to helping your neighbor, and if you believe in the power of prayer I would think that the aforementioned thought would have to happen before you would think to pray for them, rather than the other way around.
The delusion starts when you believe “How can I do something for my neighbor?” influences someone else to not think “How can I get into that house and steal all that stuff?”
That Scalzi article is brilliant and so are many of the comments.
I particularly liked this one from Peter Cibulskis
“3 out of 100 got to prison. And we spend our time and money instead on the “War on Drugs.”
Could we spend all of that money on fighting the “War Against Rape” instead?”
That’s an excellent comment.
Unfortunately, because it makes too much sense, lawmakers won’t make it happen.
I’d love to ALL lawmakers read that article, just to see what the reaction would be.
Tina Fey is so great in that article.
We need more speeches like that from others to take on those asshats that make life difficult for so many.
Absolutely. The one flicker of hope is that these issues are doing great damage to the Republican cause.
Hey, I know that beluga! So exciting to see an animal I know personally on Skepchick!
Technically the Air Force lady never Enlisted. This woman was an Officer, not Enlisted. There’s a huge difference there because you enlist straight our of High School. The Military really, really, really does not want single parents to Enlist because single parents just out of high school are by definition teen parents.
This means everyone who goes through a recruiter’s office knows that single parents are not allowed, no exceptions. Pregnant the day after Basic ends is fine. The kid gets full benefits, you get access to institutional support a parent-soldier has, etc. Pregnant the day before and you’re hosed. No military career. Nothing.
Edmonds got that lecture when she signed up for ROTC 18, but cadets don’t officially join until they graduate college at 22, and she only missed the official deadline by a few months. She probably figured that if she got to the ceremony nobody would be able to call her on it.
She seems to have been part right. Technically she didn’t get canned for being an unwed mother, she got canned for not putting her pregnancy on her paperwork. All the discussion of abortion and adoption is in the context of things she could have done if she had kept that paperwork up-to-date and somebody had freaked out about her being an unwed mother.
BTW, media stories you remember from the depths of the Iraq war where recruiters were lying on paperwork all the time are very out-dated. I’ve been trying to join for months, and everybody emphasizes that if you do what this woman did and “forget” a fact that the military would be interested in on your paperwork it will bite you on the ass sooner or later.