Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 12.16

Happy birthday to Elizabeth Carter! Born in 1717, she was a poet of some note and a member of the Bluestocking Circle.
- FDA’s pitiful plea to Big Pharma: Cut back on antibiotics in meat, please – I am so underwhelmed and disillusioned by this story.
- When Creationists Collide with Stephen Colbert – “Fundamentalists in Texas are still trying to stop biology textbooks from teaching scientific facts. Only now they’re not Bible-thumping; they’re denying that scientific facts are possible.” Haha, “only now?” I thought they had been doing that from Day 1! From CriticalDragon1177.
- Disney’s Creepy Effort to Put a Happy Face on a Creative Rights Battle – I’m glad I wasn’t the only one creeped out by the portrayal of Walt Disney (even though part of me wants to see the film).
- The Opponents of Militant Islamism Are Often As Bigoted as Their Targets – From CriticalDragon1177.
From the antibiotics in farm animals story:
“Factory farming leads to overcrowding and the potential spread of disease, which many meat producers attempt to control by giving antibiotics to animals before they get sick.”
This is really insidious from a cruelty perspective. It means that animals can be kept in deplorable conditions without breaking the law. For instance, you would expect to see thrush in cattle kept standing in their own waste. You treat thrush with antibiotics. If you feed antibiotics, no worries. No more catastrophic failure to thrive. No consequences to the bottom line. It covers up all the symptoms of abuse and neglect. The system is dangerous to us, and allows just devastating cruelty to the animals. There’s nothing good about it.
Mary,
I never heard of Elizabeth Carter or the Bluestocking Circle before.
Mary,
About that last article I sent you. I’m no legal expert, but I just thought I should point out that I don’t entirely agree with Jacob Mchangama regarding the decision the court made dealing with MTA refusing to run Geller’s bus adds, everything else he wrote here is spot on as far as I’m concerned.