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gregladen | July 11, 2012George Carlin was ahead of society. He led freethinkers, skeptics, others. Think of all those clips from George Carlin routines that we play today as reference to important, vibrant, current ideas. Those clips are always years old, sometimes decades. Something similar could be said of Louis Black. Ellen. There are others.
Recently we have seen a rash of something very different happening. The comedian who offended everyone at an atheist conference in Australia earlier this year comes to mind. Recently, when Daniel Tosh suggested that it would be really funny if a woman in his audience…
gregladen | July 11, 2012Available now for download:
Skeptically Speaking #171 Ask A Pharmacist
We’re back live this week, and we’re giving you the chance to Ask a Pharmacist. Ontario pharmacist Scott Gavura is the founder and editor of Science-Based Pharmacy, and a contributor to Science-Based Medicine. He’ll be answering audience questions for the full hour.
Click Here and follow links to download
jdupuis | July 11, 2012I'm on my annual summer hiatus for the month of July so I'll be only publishing my weekly Friday Fun posts as well as re-posting some of the interviews I did a few years ago on the old blog with people from the publishing, library and science worlds. Not that my posting of late has been particularly distinguishable from the hiatus state, but such is the blogging life after nearly ten years: filled with ups, downs, peaks, valleys.
This interview, with Jane of See Jane Compute, is from February 20, 2007.
It's worth noting that Jane moved to ScienceBlogs in 2008 where she continued blogging…
gregladen | July 11, 2012I am not happy with this NPR title: Will Medicaid Bring The Uninsured Out Of The Woodwork?.
Dear New York Times: The uninsured are not in the woodwork. They are in pain. They are in trouble. They are in debt. They are not in the woodwork. Cockroaches are in the woodwork. The uninsured are not.
I have a friend who was badly injured last winter. She's always been either a full time student or had a job. Her jobs as far as I know are always helping people in some way, usually working with youth, either education-related or working with kids at risk. That is what her schooling is about at…
gregladen | July 10, 2012You know Michael Mann as the scientist who described recent climate change with the "hockey stick" graph. He also wrote The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. He is talking about the McCarthyistic tactics of the climate change denialists, including crazy people lurking in the shadows, and sitting members of the United Stated Congress.
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If the interview does not work properly, you can view it here.
gregladen | July 10, 2012This just in:
Former South Carolina GOP Rep. Bob Inglis, is urging conservatives to stop denying that humans are contributing to global warming.
Inglis ... will lead a new initiative at George Mason University to promote “conservative solutions to America’s energy and climate challenges" ...
Inglis lost his 2010 primary to Trey Gowdy, who went on to win the general election to represent South Carolina’s 4th district, which is in the northern part of the state.
Details here at The Hill
gregladen | July 10, 2012Almost three in four of Americans accept recent global warming, according to a new poll conducted for the Washington Post and Stanford University — but only three in ten agree that it is mainly due to human activity.
Asked "Do you think that the world's temperature probably has been going up ["slowly" was used with half of the sample] over the past 100 years, or do you think this probably has not been happening?" 73% of respondents said yes, 25% of respondents said no, and 2% indicated that they didn't know or refused to answer.
That's from the NCSE
Here's the study (PDF)
sastyk | July 9, 2012Just as I was getting back in the swing of regular blogging again, I got quite a surprise - this afternoon we got called and asked to take an additional foster placement - a 2 day old newborn. As I write this, I have a tiny, sweet little person asleep in my arms (it turns out that like riding a bicycle, you never forget how to type and hold a baby). And yes, Z. is yet another boy! I shoulda known - just when someone gave me a buttload of girl baby clothes and Barbies ;-).
So, umm, if I don't post much in the next few days it is because I'm sleep deprived, drunk on new baby scent and…
gregladen | July 9, 2012There is a new book coming out called How We Know What We Know about Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming. Here is a description:
When the weather changes daily, how do we really know that Earth’s climate is changing? Here is the science behind the headlines - evidence from flowers, butterflies, birds, frogs, trees, glaciers and much more, gathered by scientists from all over the world, sometimes with assistance from young "citizen-scientists." And here is what young people, and their families and teachers, can do to learn about climate change and take action.…
gregladen | July 9, 2012A talk by Genie Scott of the NCSE.
Do reason and creationism ever intersect? What reasons do creationists cite in explaining their beliefs? Genie Scott examines how "reason" is misunderstood and misused by creationists. When: 4/15/2012. Where: Global Atheist Convention, Melbourne, Australia
gregladen | July 9, 2012The question has been asked: What was the sex ratio of attendees of the recent SkepchickCON Track at CONvergence, and of the panelists? To this it would be nice (and appropriate) to add the same questions for CONvergence as a whole. I have some, but not all, of that information.
I looked at the panelist sex ratio by examining every Skepchick run panel on the CONvergnece schedule, and adjusted where I know for who actually was on the panel (it is usually the same but now and then things turn out differently). To sample panels at CONvergence, I simply examined the CONvergence panel…
sastyk | July 9, 2012As you probably know the 2012 Farm Bill has food stamps on the block. I write a lot about food stamps because they are incredibly important - one in seven Americans uses them. One in four children is on food stamps. When you subsidize food for this many people, you functionally transform the larger food system. America, it turns out, subsidizes food just as many other nations do, because without it, people would be hungry. Although food represents one of the smaller budget items for many Americans, an increasing number can't afford it. The transformation of our society into one…
lborkowski | July 9, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Last month, more than 70 ironworkers walked off an ExxonMobil construction site near Houston, Texas. The workers, known as rodbusters in the industry, weren't members of a union or backed by powerful organizers; they decided amongst themselves to unite in protest of unsafe working conditions in a state that has the highest construction worker fatality rate in the country.
The workers reported multiple problems with the ExxonMobil subcontractor who hired them, including not being paid on time, not having enough water on site and no access to medical care in the event of an…
gregladen | July 9, 2012
Debbie Goddard. Photo from CFI website.
One of my favorite people is Debbie Goddard, and she was in town for the last few days for SkepchickCON. (That is where we originally met, a few years back.) We managed to have a few longish conversations about the history and current state of skepticism and secularism. Debbie has been involved in these movements for longer than most people I know well, although she is very young. (She started early.) Also, we share something in our respective pasts that that was kind of fun to talk about which I will not bore you with here.
Anyway, while…
gregladen | July 9, 2012Cute Kitteh is a Metaphor for Atheist Talk Radio.
What do all these people have in common?
Don Prothero
Ed Brayton
Eugenie Scott
Ira Flatow
Jennifer McCreight
John Abraham
John Hawkes
Lois Shadewald
Lynn Fellman
Maggie Koerth Baker
Martin Rundkvist
Massimo Pigliucci
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Peter Lipson
PZ Myers
Randy Moore
Sehoya Cotner
Shawn Otto
Well, that's the short list of people who come to mind when I think of Minnesota Talk Radio, because I've either interviewed them or co-interviewed someone with them. Mike Haubrich, Stephanie Zvan and Biodork also come to mind because they've run or do…
sastyk | July 8, 2012Remember I told you that New Society Publishers, in honor of the forthcoming _Making Home_ would sponsor a spot in my Adapting-in-Place Class, in exchange for someone offering up a weekly blog post about what it is like to take the course. Well, here's the first installment - it will go up at New Society's "Word Out" blog tomorrow or the next day as well.
Who is reporting live from the AIP class, well, she's going by the name of M. - here's more about her. AIP can get pretty intense, and we all share a lot about our lives that we might not put out there to everyone, so I totally support…
sastyk | July 8, 2012http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2012/07/06/preserving-our-backyard-bounty-in-jars-cans/
I was on WHYY in Philadelphia the other day talking about canning with _Food in Jars_ author Marisa McClellan. 'Twas awesome!
gregladen | July 6, 2012We just might be experiencing the hottest year on record (can't be sure yet, but it looks like it might be) and if that is the case, I estimate it may be the hottest year (except a few unidentified and undocumented outliers) for a half a million years or so.
She's wrong about the forest fires; The reason there are so many fires right now is that timber is at record low moisture level.
gregladen | July 5, 2012Today is the first day of SkepchickCON at CONvergence. CONvergence is the largest fan run fantasy and science fiction convention in the US and or World and possibly Universe, depending. It is held in a suburb of Minneapolis. One gazillion people are in attendance. There are many activities and events, and a double-decker parallelogram of "party rooms" operated by various organizations including but not limited to the Skepchicks, whom you know from the web site Skepchick.
Among the activities are panels where interesting people sit in front of a room of interested people and…