Feminism in Skepticism

There has been some discussion of harassment of women at skeptical events such as The Amazing Meeting (TAM).  The worry is that women will stop coming to these events, understandably, because they aren't there to get hit on.  It seems some guys can't take no for an answer.  At Cognitive Dissonance I posted the following comment to their excellent support for women: "I appreciate you position on feminism in the skeptical communities.  I think you made many great points and I hope you got through to some thick heads.  Sometimes the blunt truth is the best.  DJ Grothe's handeling of this hasn't been very impressive to me.  My 20-something daughter and I are paid up for TAM this year again before I realized this issue.  We had an awesome time last year with 40% female attendance.  I hope to hell that this year isn't an 18% female sausage fest.  If that happens I'm not going back, like you said, I'm paying a lot of money I can't really afford to be there.  I'm not there to hit on anyone (my gal would be sad), I want to listen and talk to anyone with something interesting to say.  Having the other half of the population show up doubles those chances!  I do hope that women realize staying away doesn't help their position, they have to stand up to sexism and harassment.  Make noise, make it clear why and how it is wrong.  Avoiding it won't solve it.  I'll stand with them if they are there.  I applaud you for standing with them clearly and loudly.  Thanks!"

At Skepchick I found that Rebecca Watson won't be at TAM this year and I commented: "Rebecca, at Cognitive Dissonance I posted the following comment to their excellent support for women: "I appreciate you position on feminism in the skeptical communities.  I think you made many great points and I hope you got through to some thick heads.  Sometimes the blunt truth is the best.  DJ Grothe's handeling of this hasn't been very impressive to me (I am just learning how unimpressive).  My 20-something daughter and I are paid up for TAM this year again before I realized this issue.  We had an awesome time last year with 40% female attendance.  I hope to hell that this year isn't an 18% female sausage fest.  If that happens I'm not going back, like you said, I'm paying a lot of money I can't really afford to be there.  I'm not there to hit on anyone (my gal would be sad), I want to listen and talk to anyone with something interesting to say.  Having the other half of the population show up doubles those chances!  I do hope that women realize staying away doesn't help their position, they have to stand up to sexism and harassment.  Make noise, make it clear why and how it is wrong.  Avoiding it won't solve it.  I'll stand with them if they are there.  I applaud you for standing with them clearly and loudly.  Thanks!"  I am sad you won't be there this year, I was looking forward to meeting you if I could screw up my courage.  My daughter isn't one to back down for something like this and I am sure she still wants to go.  And I understand the point you make not appearing.  It is a good point.  As a manager in a large corporation with a high percentage of women engineers and staff, harassment is NOT tolerated.  It is reenforced yearly and serious.  It is clear and no nonsense.  No wink-wink smirks and management to the top supports it.  The culture has definitely changed in the 30 years I've been there.  I didn't realize this level of tough love is necessary at TAM and elsewhere.  Rebecca, thanks for what you do and keep it up!"

Atheism - Purposeless & Meaningless

This cracked me up at first (when I saw it on Facebook) in it's demonstrated ignorance of atheism. Atheism is without a belief in gods. Religious belief is a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny and the world. Spontaneous? Sure, the math, observations, and experimentation of quantum physics expects it. Causeless? Physics. Sourceless? Sure there was a source, but that disappeared an instant later. Purposeless, meaningless existence? Now this pisses me off since I spent the last 4 months preparing for what I spent all day doing yesterday, helping to give hundreds of families with special needs children a safe, inclusive, interesting, fun day at the airport. Purpose in my life is to relieve and prevent suffering, to learn new things, to grow, to make for a better future for my children and their friends. EVERY ATHEIST I KNOW strives for this in some form or another. I do this all the time in my work, home, and spare time. I DON'T need to justify myself to some made up deity in the wishful thinking that there is something after I die. I want my children to be able to live and prosper in a safe world after I no longer can support them, to give them the tools to support me in my old age. That means supporting my community and nation, getting them and the people around them educated, building the community they will need to do the same for their children. Most people do this. They would do it without religion if they half way thought about it. Since it is obvious there isn't any supernatural being doing ANYTHING in this universe, why believe?

Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT

Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT

"NOTHING ELSE FITS THE EVIDENCE

Not theory, not ideology, not political views, not internal variability, not questions over surface temperature records, not fudged or not fudged data, not hockey sticks or Medieval Warm Periods, or perhaps missing 'hot-spots'."

Comparing warming increase from '61 to '03 vs '93 to '03.

Fear believes - courage doubts

"Fear believes - courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays - courage stands erect and thinks. Fear is barbarism - courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion, courage is science."

• Robert Ingersoll

Talk:Doubt - Wikiquote

This stuck me for some reason.  Conservatives and the religious fear change, believe in the comforting myths, fear the out group, believe in the in group, fear loss of control, believe in social rules.  The couragous doubts the myths, are curious of others, challenge themselves, embrace adventure and the rule of reason.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/95243928/fear-believes-courage-doubts-ceramic

The Most Astounding Fact (Neil DeGrasse Tyson)

Awesome.  The atoms in our bodies were cooked up in early stars of the universe.  We are part of this universe, we are in this universe.  Most important is that the universe is in us.  That makes us big.  And connected to the universe.

Beautiful

Twitter / @MileyCyrus: Beautiful. http://t.co/dKz ...

Miley Cyrus might be growing up since she tweeted this photo. There is hope for all of us.  :-)

Why I'm Going to the Reason Rally

Currently not planned but really want to go!

Liz and I would really like to go!

http://www.reasonrally.org/about/

I get email « Why Evolution Is True

I wish I could write this well...

"

Ben Goren

Posted February 22, 2012 at 12:55 pm | Permalink

Sorry, [Name and phone number regretfully redacted], but your obsession with Jesus’s bones is as childishly idiotic as an obsession with Harry Potter’s scar. You can’t explain that scar without Voldemort’s magic wand, can you? Huh? Huh?

What you need to understand is that what you take for the utmost in journalistic standards — the Bible — is nothing more than a very late anthology of anonymously-authored stories that did nothing more than reset well-worn Greek mythology in Judea.

And you can very easily confirm that by examining the actual evidence for yourself.

You’d think that the people living in the area at the time the greatest story ever told happened might have noticed something, no? And yet, though we’ve got copious documentation from just those people, not a one noticed even a hint of everything. The Dead Sea Scrolls are literally an entire library’s worth of original pieces of paper written before, during, and after the time by Jews living in and around Jerusalem; not a hint of Jesus or the events of the Gospels. Same story with Philo, brother-in-law of Herod Agrippa (the King Herod the Gospels mention as reigning at the time of the Crucifixion), the philosopher who first incorporated the Logos from Hellenism into Judaism, Jewish ambassador to Rome, and a prolific author. Or the Roman Satirists, whose stock in trade was political intrigue and humiliation (think of the fodder Pilate offered!), or Pliny the Elder, or any of dozens of others.

Instead, what we have are the Gospels, which talk about events that didn’t happen until the Roman conquest of Judea in 70 CE and which were, most realistically, written a century or so later still. And we have the Pauline epistles, apologetically dated to a number of decades after the “facts,” and in which the author describes his hallucinations and offers up as biography rituals indistinguishable from then-common pagan religious ceremonies.

And we have a small smattering of fifth-hand (or worse) accounts from pagans not even born until well after the “facts” and who are only describing the beliefs and practices of Christians — Christians whom they described the same way you’d describe a modern lunatic whack-job cult like the Raelians.

So, sorry to break the news to you, but Christianity is pure bullshit. The only thing it’s got going on all those other religions you don’t even have to think about to know they’re bullshit is that the lunatics took over the Roman Empire, got their cult turned into the state religion, and made membership compulsory with the power of the greatest pre-modern empire the planet has ever seen.

The good news is that, if you stop wasting your life on that childish nonsense, you’ll free up a great amount of your own resources and have the opportunity to make the world a better place. And chances are good you’ll be happier for it, too. Growing up is scary, but only to those who’ve yet to grow up.

Cheers,

b&

Reply

• 

  Claimthehighground

  Posted February 22, 2012 at 1:22 pm | Permalink

  Oh and [name and phone number regretfully redacted] here is a bible verse you might want to re-read: “When I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish things.” Go thou and do likewise, my son."

Stephen Colbert Interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson at Montclair Kimberley Ac...

To the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

"Words that make questions

May not be questions

At all."

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

Santorum: Satan is Systematically Destroying America

Of all the GOP candidates, Santorum scares me the most. He looks normal and acts normally but he says the craziest things. A religious crank in the WH to me is really bad news. Not that there haven't been any in the past, but now is a bad time.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Vagina Ideologues - Sean Hannity's Holy Sausage Fest
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Jon Stewart nails it again. Again the GOP leadership looks stupid, inept, and a roadblock to any progress as long as Obama is President. The GOP is being laughed at. Stewart points out the anarchy of what they want, but then they want failure. This is why Obamacare should have been a single payer health plan with NO private insurance. Employers should not be in the business of providing health care!

Daily Kos: Republicans Have Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Daily Kos: Republicans Have Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A person with NPD has the following traits:
--No empathy whatsoever
--Monstrous entitlement issues
--Bedrock belief that he/she is "special"
--Bedrock belief that he/she is exempt from all rules and standards of behavior
--Problem telling the truth, to the point that lies and truth are indistinguishable
--Only gets close to people who "pay tribute" to him/her
--Everything is image; there is NO substance

Sounds like every Republican in congress.

Abby

I suspect shenanigans.

 

Work

I've worked in this building for over 18 years. It just dawned on me this morning.

Risky Rescue for Crippled Air Force Satellite

A couple of more articles on the AEHF save.

Again, no mention of who the real space heroes are, just chest thumping from a space cadet.

------------------

This google link to an article in the UK Register is more like it. At least the headline contains the appropriate amount of drama …

Space soldiers save satellite from FLAMING DEATH‎ Register

------------------

Aside from the fact that every time I read this story, it seems to become more and more disconnected from reality.

I was about to make a snarky comment, but realize that everyone in this email can spot the technical errors, distortions and most importantly know the true story of which Lockheed Martin should be extremely proud.

------------------

This is the best version and probably the source of the others:
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2012/January%202012/0112space.aspx

Another version, pretty crappy.

Risky Rescue for Crippled Air Force Satellite

Wired, by David Axe, January 3, 2012

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/satellite-rescue/

It was an epic space rescue that, in audacity and risk, echoed NASA's campaign to save the astronauts

aboard the doomed Apollo 13 moon mission. The biggest difference between the 1970 Apollo operation

and the 14-month recovery of AEHF-1, an Air Force communications satellite, is that money was the only

thing immediately at stake in the latter.

Granted, it was quite a lot of money: around $2 billion. And the satellite's loss would also set back the

Pentagon's efforts to revamp its communications infrastructure as battle becomes more bandwidth intensive.

The details of AEHF-1′s rescue, completed in October this year, are only now becoming clear as

members of the Air Force team speak out. Saving the pricey, long-in-development comms satellite —

one of a planned six-craft constellation meant to relay data between military forces scattered across the

globe — involved some bold decision-making, a lot of creative engineering, not a little bit of luck and,

last but not least, a steady supply of pizzas delivered to the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los

Angeles Air Force Base, where military and contract space operators worked around the clock to plan

the satellite's recovery.

The brand-new Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite (pictured) was 140 miles

over the Earth's surface before controllers knew anything was wrong. As far as the space operators

knew, the Lockheed Martin-built satellite was functioning perfectly. It was Oct. 15, 2010, just one day

after the 7-ton AEHF-1 had blasted into orbit atop an Atlas rocket. The controllers planned to activate

the satellite's hydrazine engine in order to alter the spacecraft's flightpath, gradually transitioning from

an oblong elliptical orbit to a circular, geosynchronous one allowing steady coverage of the Earth below.

But when the operators ordered the engine to ignite, nothing happened. They tried again, still nothing.

They didn't know it at the time, but a fuel line had become clogged. The blockage "was most likely

caused by a small piece of cloth inadvertently left in the line during the manufacturing process,"

according to the Government Accountability Office.

Repeated attempts to fire the engine very nearly caused an explosion. Just in time, David Madden, who

oversees comms satellites at the Space and Missile Systems Center, consulted with his engineers and

told the operators to stop trying the engine. "We're very, very fortunate that satellite didn't blow up,"

Gen. William Shelton, head of Air Force Space Command, told Air Force magazine.

AEHF-1 was intact but stranded in a slowly decaying and useless orbit.

Madden told his engineers to figure out some way to salvage AEHF-1 — and not to leave their room at

the Space and Missile Systems Center until they did. "We literally were shoving pizza under the door so

that these guys could keep working," Madden recalled.

A week later, they had a plan. Lt. Gen. John Sheridan, then the space center commander, approved it.

The basic idea was to use the satellite's small thrusters, intended for minor course corrections, to shift

the orbit thousands of miles. It would take 450 separate maneuvers, carefully managed over a period of

14 months. "AEHF-1 will be able to get to where it's supposed to go," analyst Mark Stout noted. "It'll just

take a year longer than planned."

It was risky. "There's no instruction manual for how to do that," Madden said of the thruster strategy.

"It's basically an art."

As the controllers inched AEHF-1 towards its correct orbit, Air Force officials began negotiations with

Lockheed, seeking financial compensation. "It should not have happened," Deputy Undersecretary of

the Air Force for Space Programs Richard McKinney said of AEHF-1′s fuel-line blockage.

Soon, three new complications arose with the crippled satellite.

First, with each firing of its thrusters, AEHF-1 was held stationary, exposing it to greater amounts of

sunlight — and potentially overheating the spacecraft. Madden's people had to devise new maneuvers,

periodically flipping the satellite to allow hot components to cool down.

Second, AEHF-1 risked running out of gas. Engineers wrote new software meant "to save every ounce of

fuel," according to Air Force's detailed account of the rescue.

Finally, the orbital shift required crossing paths with scores or even hundreds of other spacecraft. Air

Force controllers from a separate unit handled traffic management while Madden and his people

focused on the fuel and heat issues.

On Oct. 24, AEHF-1 reached its originally planned orbit. Testing began soon afterward. The Air Force

expects to bring the satellite into service in March. Meanwhile, two more AEHFs are slated to launch in

2012.

After an initial bout of very bad fortune, the Air Force got "very lucky" with AEHF-1, service

Undersecretary Erin Conaton said.

The space and flying branch might need that luck again very soon. Lacking its own production and

launch facilities, the Air Force has no choice to but to trust Lockheed to get AEHF-1′s sister spacecraft

right, Stout wrote. "While Lockheed is no doubt embarrassed, I don't think they're quaking in their boots

as another five AEHFs are in the queue."

Somewhere in Los Angeles, AEHF-1′s rescuers are no doubt holding their breaths, hoping they won't

have to repeat the yearlong feat of engineering derring-do that saved the Air Force $2 billion and

preserved the Pentagon's space communications systems.