RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/September 2013

September 2013
Why are African-American names like "DeShawn" and "Shanice" ridiculed by white Americans while names like "Reince," "Rand," "Mitt," "Newt," "Tagg," "Bristol," "Trig," and "Saxby" are given a pass? It's finally happened: The New Right becomes the New Left. Update: And oh, how about all the fun we're going to have! Well, at least they think it's happening, right? Bradlee Dean's ministry suffers a mass walkout of staff. No. You cannot boost your immune system. OK, there's one way. A University of Toronto (untenured) professor whines about female, gay and Chinese literature, saying that "Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman" and that he only teaches "F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth." (To each an irony meter.) Update: And he doubles down! Want to know how Golden Dawn appeared almost out of nowhere in the Eurozone crisis? Ask the police. "Aren't you glad you didn't cite to this webpage in the Supreme Court Reporter at Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 131 S.Ct. 2729, 2749 n.14 (2011). If you had, like Justice Alito did, the original content would have long since disappeared and someone else might have come along and purchased the domain in order to make a comment about the transience of linked information in the internet age." Homeopaths are hallucinating if they think they are humanitarians. Journal of Cosmology follow-up post: how long does it typically take between data collection and paper acceptance? Does 10 days sound about right?! Beavers don't kill people, people do! You probably won't get this from Campbell. Meet the last (economic) RINO in the House GOP: Scott Rigel of Virginia, who seems to have reversed his whining about how the Senate "empirically" stalled the Path to Prosperity. Judging on this data, there better be someone making scenarios on how this would even be possible with North Korea. INFOGRAPHIC: A map of the US showing state-by-state incarceration rates along with the states that have at least one privately owned-and-operated prison that has a guarantee that the prison will have at least 90 percent occupancy, or else the state will pay extra to the prison company to make up for the prison company's "loss."  (I.e., the states pay extra when they have falling crime rates.) "I see extended 1-D objects with no mass/What's their use? What's their use? Can they give us quark plasma?" <vote poll=blog3267 closed="yes">The Journal of Cosmology strikes again. This time they have found alien life in the sky. [http://thethoughtstash.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/has-alien-life-been-found-in-a-a-meteorite-or-the-sky-or-insert-location-here/ Has alien life been found in a meteorite? Or the sky? Or [Insert Location Here&#93;?] <vote poll=blog3266 closed="yes">"Here Are All The (self-confessed) Atheists In Congress": It's illustrative that Barney Frank admitted to being gay in 1987, then served another 25 years before announcing his retirement, and then admitted that he is an atheist. <vote poll=blog3265 closed="yes">Jon, we missed you. (Seriously, CNN is FUBAR.) <vote poll=blog3264 closed="yes">Let's just hope Brand isn't seen wearing any (more) Hugo Boss clothing anytime soon. <vote poll=blog3263 closed="yes">Bruce Schneier: How to Remain Secure Against the NSA. <vote poll=blog3262 closed="yes">First we had Spacebat. Now we have Spacefrog. <vote poll=blog3261 closed="yes">Well, ABC is ready to grow some gigantic balls: [http://www.deadline.com/2013/09/abc-series-revolutionary-war-alternative-development/ What happened if the Brits trounced the American Revolution? (Let's make a series about it!)] So, thirteen episodes of life in Canada? <vote poll=blog3260 closed="yes">Syria in Five Minutes. (Fuck you, Putin.) <vote poll=blog3259 closed="yes">Who are you and why are you representing the US nuclear power intelligentsia? <vote poll=blog3258 closed="yes">Ever felt like getting into Bitcoin to make money was a sucker's bet? Rick Falkvinge details precisely how price-fixing that would be illegal in any other currency has multiplied its value by about 100. <vote poll=blog3257 closed="yes">How American homeschoolers enabled and funded German child abuse <vote poll=blog3256 closed="yes">See! Universal health care hurts businesses - the television industry! <vote poll=blog3255 closed="yes">The third time we've linked to the Fraser Institute in less than 20 days. Wow, they're batshit prolific! <vote poll=blog3254 closed="yes">Why Texas banned Tesla Motors

<vote poll=blog3252 closed="yes">So much for trying to represent the anti-Murdoch, intellectual Tories, Telegraph. <vote poll=blog3251 closed="yes">Obama, even if you get confirmation that chemical attacks were ordered by Assad, please don't seriously think "common sense" is an effective argument. <vote poll=blog3250 closed="yes">[http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Quebec+Liberal+leader+Marois+apologize+comments+about/8879644/story.html Hey, why trash England? Can't you trash the rest of your country?] (Or can you find anything to trash?) <vote poll=blog3249 closed="yes">Cracked: The 6 Most Humiliating Public Failures by Celebrity Psychics <vote poll=blog3248 closed="yes">James Carville: People are freaking out about Syria because of Iraq. He's almost right... the fact is, Americans don't trust Obama because Bush royally fucked them over, and it has left them hurting and cynical. Bush and Obama are war-mongers. <vote poll=blog3247 closed="yes">No! The Syrians have already experienced enough! <vote poll=blog3246 closed="yes">A new documentary film, Mission Congo, claims that Pat Robertson's 1994 post-Rwanda genocide aid project may have consisted of little more than people reading bible verses to the wounded, and not the "forefront" role that Pat claimed it had as he raised millions for it on The 700 Club. <vote poll=blog3245 closed="yes">The Prince Rupert's Drop, a simple piece of glass with fascinatingly strange physically properties, brought to you by some actual Christian scientists. (Note the Bible passage at the end of the video). Very cool. <vote poll=blog3244 closed="yes">Let's make a chant for the jobs you're all going to lose. <vote poll=blog3243 closed="yes">This infographic (from a website called "Online Christian Colleges" no less) illustrates how megachurches could easily be labeled "corporate Christianity." <vote poll=blog3242 closed="yes">Senator McCain, you can probably joke about a bunch of things in Congress, but slacking on the job probably isn't one. <vote poll=blog3241 closed="yes">IRL trolling: Calling NSA to restore lost emails <vote poll=blog3240 closed="yes">So much for the Catholic Church's outreach to atheists. On the Friendly Atheist blog, Sara Lin Wilde gives her take on Pope Francis's first encyclical, which was a revision of an unpublished encyclical from Pope Ratzy. Since Frank didn't moderate any of Benny's bilge, it appears that we now know what he really thinks of unbelievers.