by Carl Howard | Nov 23, 2012 | Blog Topics, Links
Zinnia Jones on talking about Hormone Replacement Therapy in a world that’s both sexist and clueless about what people go through. How the Catholic League (headed by world-class asshole Bill Donohue) is essentially a large-scale, highly-driven organisation whose aim...
by Carl Howard | Nov 22, 2012 | Blog Topics, Mind, Psychology and Consciousness, Philosophy, Sex
On Dan Savage’s podcast and advice column about sex, he sometimes get questions about particular turn-ons that ask about their origin. Three fake examples I made up since it’s a bit hard to go through the thousands of archived questions: “My partner has a rape fantasy...
by Carl Howard | Nov 16, 2012 | Blog Topics, Links
Leslie Chang on The voices of Chinese workers. In short, by making all discussion about Chinese factories about our conception of the horrible working conditions without actually speaking to Chinese workers and listening to them, we condescend, miss the point and make...
by Carl Howard | Nov 15, 2012 | Blog Topics, Mind, Psychology and Consciousness, Philosophy, Science and Skepticism
Often modern debates between religious and non-religious people end up hinging on the meaning and use of why questions. Consider a fake dialogue between A and B: A: Science may be able to say tell us how things are but it will never explain why things are. B: Like...
by Carl Howard | Nov 13, 2012 | Blog Topics, Society
A while ago, the Cognitive Dissonance podcast discussed this story: Indonesian police arrest 62 over Ramadan bar attack. The group is alleged to have attacked bars that were open on Ramadan. “Good,” I thought, “arrest those assholes!” But as the podcast went on, I...
by Carl Howard | Nov 9, 2012 | Blog Topics, Links
They may belong to a wacko part of the political landscape but when they’re right, they’re right. Reason.TV smacks down Samuel L Jackson’s Wake the Fuck Up video by looking at Obama’s record on military drones, civil liberties and so forth. First there was the...
