Check out my new list of charities that I feel confident don't include prosletyzing in their work.
I didn't list secular charities like Freedom From Religion Foundation, because there are lots of lists like that on the web. There's so much begging for charity money this time of year I decided to look into which ones I would want to donate to... assuming I had disposable income.
Feedback & suggestions welcome, though if you have a boatload of criticisms or ideas of how I could do it better if I had another thirty or so hours to spend, then do it yourself and send me the link.
Atheism and secular living from a woman's point of view.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Sad News for Eagle Watchers
This year I became enthralled by the nest-cam in Decorah, Iowa, that watched a clutch of American Bald Eagles from egg-laying to fledging. I learned that last year the Raptor Resource Center that runs this project had put a transmitter on one of the babies and I checked periodically to see her progress on their map.
This year, the first baby eagle (D12) died from electrocution on a power pole near the nest soon after fledging. It was shocking because of the suddenness, but also because it was a bird that I "knew." The team posted about electrical poles' danger to birds, especially large raptors. With their large wingspan, there's more chance of a bald eagle being electrocuted. A group inspired by D12's passing worked to make poles in the area safer for the fledglings.
Last week another of the clutch was found dead from electrocution: D14 had been equipped with a transmitter and was being tracked like his older sister. He was found in Iowa at the foot of an electrical pole.
The sad blog post is here: http://raptorresource.blogspot.com/2012/11/112712-d14-announcement.html
The previous year an eagle (D1) was fitted with a transmitter, and she has returned to her natal home after summering in Canada. Her survival seems even moremiraculous fortuitous after seeing what happened to two of the three eaglets from this year's nest.
A raptor-safe power pole is amazingly simple to make. I hope more people will be inspired by this new tragedy to make their area poles safe:
This year, the first baby eagle (D12) died from electrocution on a power pole near the nest soon after fledging. It was shocking because of the suddenness, but also because it was a bird that I "knew." The team posted about electrical poles' danger to birds, especially large raptors. With their large wingspan, there's more chance of a bald eagle being electrocuted. A group inspired by D12's passing worked to make poles in the area safer for the fledglings.
Last week another of the clutch was found dead from electrocution: D14 had been equipped with a transmitter and was being tracked like his older sister. He was found in Iowa at the foot of an electrical pole.
The sad blog post is here: http://raptorresource.blogspot.com/2012/11/112712-d14-announcement.html
The previous year an eagle (D1) was fitted with a transmitter, and she has returned to her natal home after summering in Canada. Her survival seems even more
A raptor-safe power pole is amazingly simple to make. I hope more people will be inspired by this new tragedy to make their area poles safe:
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Links
Wasn't going to do a link round-up this week but a few things caught my eye:
The Religion Clause blog has a list of the religious mentions in the proposed Egyptian constitution.
Leesburg, Virginia is Ground Zero in the War on Christmas again. I can't say I support the atheists on this one. One Leesburg official (who was apparently in a coma on 9/11/2001) called atheists "fanatical terrorists."
Can Islam be a force for good in climate change?
Can Islam be gay-friendly?
Robert Schuller & his family have to survive on less than a million dollars after the bankruptcy of their Crystal Cathedral ministry. Oh boo hoo Maybe they should pray to win the lottery.
A priest named Schueller pisses off the pope by wanting women to be ordained & questioning celibacy. It's too bad he isn't also a pedophile. The pope would have ignored him.
Former Episcopal priests are turning Catholic, and for these guys it's okay to be married priests. (similar to the rule in Eastern orthodox churches). How does the vatican wrap its head around its head?
Presbyterian parishes are leaving the denomination to join a more conservative version. Would Calvin be proud?
Religion gives me a headache. It's no wonder fundies look so glassy-eyed.
The Religion Clause blog has a list of the religious mentions in the proposed Egyptian constitution.
Leesburg, Virginia is Ground Zero in the War on Christmas again. I can't say I support the atheists on this one. One Leesburg official (who was apparently in a coma on 9/11/2001) called atheists "fanatical terrorists."
Can Islam be a force for good in climate change?
Can Islam be gay-friendly?
Robert Schuller & his family have to survive on less than a million dollars after the bankruptcy of their Crystal Cathedral ministry. Oh boo hoo Maybe they should pray to win the lottery.
A priest named Schueller pisses off the pope by wanting women to be ordained & questioning celibacy. It's too bad he isn't also a pedophile. The pope would have ignored him.
Former Episcopal priests are turning Catholic, and for these guys it's okay to be married priests. (similar to the rule in Eastern orthodox churches). How does the vatican wrap its head around its head?
Presbyterian parishes are leaving the denomination to join a more conservative version. Would Calvin be proud?
Religion gives me a headache. It's no wonder fundies look so glassy-eyed.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Does the Universe Have a Purpose?
Minute Physics added some art to Neil DeGrasse Tyson's answer to the question:
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Nuttery on the Left: The Anti-GMO Hysteria
One of my friends shared this piece of shit video on Facebook.
This "Health Ranger" is also the perpetrator of Natural News: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/NaturalNews Curiously, this guy also happens to believe every other food myth of the radical left: raw food diets, "alternative" medicine, and whatever hits his fan from day to day.
My friend is a sucker for a lot of this stuff. Like me, she went into a field that didn't require a background in the
sciences. Unlike me, she isn't ashamed of her ignorance and fails to use her intelligence to make up for her educational lacunae. I know quite a few people like this. They're smart but not
schooled in the sciences or practiced in true skepticism. My friend
claims to be "skeptical" when in reality she's just suspicious. Not the
same thing at all.
The anti-GMO movement is particularly irksome to me because it paints all genetically-modified foods with the same tainted brush of suspicion. It would be one thing if they claimed that specific strains of GMO corn affected the environment, or that peanut allergies are due to one specific variety of peanut. But no, they don't differentiate between products. It's all suspicious.
And rather than go to pubmed and read up on the research themselves, they let crackpots like "The Heatlh Ranger" tell them what to think. Some "skepticism" there.
Here's what I found by searching pubmed: There is a possiblity that crops grown to be impervious to roundup may have residual roundup on or in them, which may affect endocrine functions in mammals (rats are the only animals studied so far). That's pretty much it.
There are issues that could indeed make GMOs bad, but there are also potential advantages too:
Not to mention, everything we eat is already genetically modified, through selective breeding and hybridization. Nothing we eat, from the banana (hear that, Kirk Cameron?) to the cow, is as it was originally found in nature.
And speaking of nature, this is the source of the anti-GMO hysteria: the naturalistic fallacy.
In some people, it borders on the religious. They revere their romanticized natural condition without really knowing much about actual nature. They believe in the magical power of food to make them live forever, or at least until 100. They pass along whatever their leaders say without questioning it. And they reject all alternate explanations for even obvious myths.
I have encountered many varieties of "food nazis." They demonize particular foods and insist that everyone else should follow their advice on healthy living. (The Nazis were big health nuts, we often forget) They don't want the rest of us to enjoy an omelet because they ignorantly believe that eggs cause high cholesterol (they don't). Or they have never been fat and they believe they know what foods fat people should eat (no long-term studies of diet have shown more than modest temporary weight loss). Or they think killing animals for food is unnatural for humans (we evolved as omnivores, not vegans).
They mean well, so you can't smack 'em. So you have to rant in a blog post. So I did.
This "Health Ranger" is also the perpetrator of Natural News: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/NaturalNews Curiously, this guy also happens to believe every other food myth of the radical left: raw food diets, "alternative" medicine, and whatever hits his fan from day to day.
The anti-GMO movement is particularly irksome to me because it paints all genetically-modified foods with the same tainted brush of suspicion. It would be one thing if they claimed that specific strains of GMO corn affected the environment, or that peanut allergies are due to one specific variety of peanut. But no, they don't differentiate between products. It's all suspicious.
And rather than go to pubmed and read up on the research themselves, they let crackpots like "The Heatlh Ranger" tell them what to think. Some "skepticism" there.
Here's what I found by searching pubmed: There is a possiblity that crops grown to be impervious to roundup may have residual roundup on or in them, which may affect endocrine functions in mammals (rats are the only animals studied so far). That's pretty much it.
There are issues that could indeed make GMOs bad, but there are also potential advantages too:
- Higher yields means less hunger and less land used for crops
- Hypo-allergenic crops can be developed
- Sterile plants won't invade natural areas
- More nutritious crops can be developed
- Crops that make it to market reduce waste
And speaking of nature, this is the source of the anti-GMO hysteria: the naturalistic fallacy.
In some people, it borders on the religious. They revere their romanticized natural condition without really knowing much about actual nature. They believe in the magical power of food to make them live forever, or at least until 100. They pass along whatever their leaders say without questioning it. And they reject all alternate explanations for even obvious myths.
I have encountered many varieties of "food nazis." They demonize particular foods and insist that everyone else should follow their advice on healthy living. (The Nazis were big health nuts, we often forget) They don't want the rest of us to enjoy an omelet because they ignorantly believe that eggs cause high cholesterol (they don't). Or they have never been fat and they believe they know what foods fat people should eat (no long-term studies of diet have shown more than modest temporary weight loss). Or they think killing animals for food is unnatural for humans (we evolved as omnivores, not vegans).
They mean well, so you can't smack 'em. So you have to rant in a blog post. So I did.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Thanksgiving Week Links (but none about Thanksgiving!)
Does the FFRF have a chance against the IRS? They took the bait from brazen preachers who scoffed at the law, and now it's up to a federal court to set things right. The other side says: "I don't know how the FFRF can claim it's been harmed by the IRS." Uhhhhhh anyone who is a taxpayer paying on the national debt has been harmed by money not being raked in. We'll see...
The Economist looks at atheism in Islamic countries.
A Washington Post blogger talks about life as an atheist in Saudi Arabia. It's enough to make me grateful for the First Amendment, among other perks of being born in the U.S.A.
A new book titled Christianity, Islam, and Atheism gets a pro-Christianity spin here. The book is published by Ignatius Press, so guess how atheists fare? (The publisher's video is hilarious)
Fundamentalists in The Netherlands gain ground in local elections. These fundies are even worse than American fundies: they don't believe women should have the right to vote!
Tibetan Buddhists continue to self-immolate in protest. China is not only unimpressed, it's angry at the Dalai Lama for not putting a stop to it. If China does nothing and his supporters continue to commit suicide, isn't China right to just wait it out?
More Baptists who wish they were Episcopalians: offended by racist pastor, parishoners petition for help from the Southern Baptist Association. Isn't local hiring and firing of pastors a principle of Baptist theology? These people will have to do what other disgruntled protestants have done: start their own church and find a pastor who will tell them what they want to hear (which in this case is better).
Is Egypt backing away from the edge? I couldn't find the clip but I heard a great quote on CNN: Egyptians had chosen an Islamist only because the alternative was from the old guard, which was a tyrannical rule. And now their Islamist president is threatening them with the same kind of suppression they had just rid themselves of. Perhaps there will be a Second Arab Spring, at least for Egypt.
Having read a little about Middle Eastern archaeology, I was reminded this week that layers in cities or settlements are dated based on burn residue. Egypt, Gaza, and Aleppo are adding another layer this week.
The Economist looks at atheism in Islamic countries.
A Washington Post blogger talks about life as an atheist in Saudi Arabia. It's enough to make me grateful for the First Amendment, among other perks of being born in the U.S.A.
A new book titled Christianity, Islam, and Atheism gets a pro-Christianity spin here. The book is published by Ignatius Press, so guess how atheists fare? (The publisher's video is hilarious)
Fundamentalists in The Netherlands gain ground in local elections. These fundies are even worse than American fundies: they don't believe women should have the right to vote!
Tibetan Buddhists continue to self-immolate in protest. China is not only unimpressed, it's angry at the Dalai Lama for not putting a stop to it. If China does nothing and his supporters continue to commit suicide, isn't China right to just wait it out?
More Baptists who wish they were Episcopalians: offended by racist pastor, parishoners petition for help from the Southern Baptist Association. Isn't local hiring and firing of pastors a principle of Baptist theology? These people will have to do what other disgruntled protestants have done: start their own church and find a pastor who will tell them what they want to hear (which in this case is better).
Is Egypt backing away from the edge? I couldn't find the clip but I heard a great quote on CNN: Egyptians had chosen an Islamist only because the alternative was from the old guard, which was a tyrannical rule. And now their Islamist president is threatening them with the same kind of suppression they had just rid themselves of. Perhaps there will be a Second Arab Spring, at least for Egypt.
Having read a little about Middle Eastern archaeology, I was reminded this week that layers in cities or settlements are dated based on burn residue. Egypt, Gaza, and Aleppo are adding another layer this week.
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