RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/April 2015

April 2015
The Onion: Nation On Edge As Court Votes Whether To Legalize Gay Marriage Now Or In A Few Years A rape victim's open letter to her assailant. The Mediterranean diet actually justifies invading Greece, as exposed by SMBC. BBC's North American Editor analyzes rioting in America and the people behind it. Slate argues that homophobia is a real fear: A fear of the fragility of heterosexuality and masculinity. Ferguson and the political economy and human geography of racism Joshua Feuerstein explains more about his $20k USD camera fundraiser than he probably anticipated. Anti-vax crank and liar Bill Maher is outraged that anti-vaxxers are called cranks and liars. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/27/north-korea-cliches-debunked-hazel-smith Dangerous, isolated and primed for war? North Korean clichés debunked]

The Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi talks about GMOs. Why calling sexually-repressive religious attitudes to sex "medieval" is wrong. Phil Sandifer: an analysis of the 2015 Hugos, the Sad Puppies, Vox Day's politics and his supporters, and how neofascism works in a culture war. Book review of note: "Bad Faith" or how a couple, each with a PhD from a top-ranked university, lost a son because they chose prayer over medicine. Faith vs. Facts The Pope started a degree of controversy by citing the description of the Armenian Genocide as the first genocide of the twentieth century. This description is dead wrong, but not for the reasons the Turks are arguing.

"Why Some Believers Perpetuate A False Stereotype Of Skeptics" A professor of medicine and bioethics livetweets from her son's Abstinence-only sex education class. Update: And then comments on the resulting shitstorm. The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense PCC is even more hardcore than we thought it was. An academic analysis of Bitcoin as distributed right-wing extremism. "Bitcoin is promoted as an alternative to currency, and even at times as an alternative to money, but neither Bitcoin’s development nor its promulgation emerge from thoughtful analyses of money or currency as they currently exist, let alone the thought and history that have figured in their development." The Guardian speaks of how political correctness actually further disempowers the powerless. A rundown on some of the more infamous Christian terrorist groups Here's an interesting analysis of Putin's Russia, specifically in the realm of foreign policy. Guardian supplies rather sarky review of Daily Express weather predictions. Well, it made me laugh Cracked interviews a wilderness therapy camp escapee. Nearly 1 in 10 American adults have both undiagnosed impulsive anger issues and access to firearms Annotated version of the Atheist Ireland post below. (Bonus: There's a link to RW's Gish Gallop article in the post) Atheist Ireland publicly dissociates itself from PZ Myers. I'm sure he's really cut up about that. Welcome to the 2015 NRA convention! [http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/04/06/nra-bans-operational-guns-at-nra-convention-for-security-reasons/ Sorry, no working guns allowed. ] [http://i.imgur.com/8ikM3cP.jpg no open carry or selling of fully-working guns in the trade show building, due to venue restrictions. Anywhere else in the show is fine.] Two trans children. Science fiction's valiant anti-SJW crusaders and Gamergate wannabes: the Sad Puppies. (Really.) The left should receive more criticism for their anti-science views - Opinion piece from The Tech. Arnold Schwarzenegger has displayed more backbone than anyone else at the Republican Party about Indiana's "religious freedom" laws. One hopes more will follow his example.