Urgent: Friend’s car stolen in Seattle

I know I have a lot of readers in Seattle, so I want to ask you guys for help. A dear friend of mine had their car stolen in the last 24 hours. For reasons I won’t get into for privacy’s sake, they believe it was moved somewhere and possibly made to look abandoned. If you could keep your eye open for the car, it would be much appreciated.

  • 1998 White Subaru Impreza, wagon
  • Bumper stickers include Human Rights Campaig blue and yellow equal sign symbol, Burning man 2005 sticker, Mote Marine Aquarium sticker
  • Last seen in Fremont, possibly still in Fremont or nearby in Wallingford/Ballard/Greenlake, could be farther away

1998-subaru-impreza-d568d

Photo is of the general make and model of the car, not the exact car.

Police have already been contacted, but basically they can’t really do anything until it turns up in a towing lot or someone spots in on the street. So if you see a car matching this description, please email me at blaghagblog (at) gmail (dot) com so my friend can go check and see if it’s the one.

I get email

I haven’t really been blogging for months, but weird emails still find their way to my inbox.

Dear Private, Registration:

I work for [Annoying Business] and we have discovered that a company we hired to help promote our website have used a variety of techniques to secure links to our site. These links were placed purely for SEO purposes, with the intention of manipulating search rankings.

It appears that there may be links like this that have been placed on your site.

The presence of these links is harmful to our site’s good standing with search engines, and unfortunately, retaining them may also be potentially harmful to your own website’s reputation.

We would ask that you please remove any links on your site that link to [Annoying Business].

 

You clutter my site with annoying spam and now you want me to waste time cleaning it up so you look better?

hey jen

me too liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted feminist atheist .
and desperate to find a girl friend like that.
if u r single and wanna mingle , ping me back.. or refer me any other girl.
i havent read any of your posts nor i have time to read ur stuff.. unless ofcourse u wanna be my frnd..
…
What.

The practical reason why atheists should care about diversity

I’ve long argued why increasing diversity if the right thing to do for ethical reasons – hey, we shouldn’t be unintentionally excluding people based on their race or ethnicity, right? But as those arguments don’t seem to work for some atheists, let’s turn to the numbers:

Within three decades, there will no longer be a majority racial or ethnic group in the Unites States according to new Census Bureau projections released this week. Among the other findings: the country is growing slower than expected.
Michael Cooper reports on the first set of projections issued by the Census Bureau based on the 2010 Census results. “The next half century marks key points in continuing trends — the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority,” the bureau’s acting director, Thomas L. Mesenbourg, said in a statement.

When I’m 55, I’ll be looking at a country that looks less and less like pasty ol’ me. And that’s fine! But this should give atheist activists pause. Our groups and organizations are already disproportionately white – I can usually count the number of black people attending a major conference on one hand. Our base of white folks is slowly dwindling, while the predominantly Catholic Hispanics and Christian African Americans are growing. Now we’re a minority within a majority, but we’re going to be shrinking even more.

Please, no racist fear-mongering that whites and/or atheists need to go pop out more babies. There’s a more reasonable and more ethical (whoops, ethics again!) solution. If we can make atheism relevant to racial minorities now, that will result in fewer children being raised in religious households down the line. It’s easier to get people on board now and watch the ripple effect, than wait thirty years and say “Hey, we’ve been ignoring you all this time, but you totally want to join now, right?!” And this doesn’t mean just standing around going “Well, we’re not actively discouraging minorities!” while discussing the History of European Freethinkers for the 39873th time. We need to address relevant issues like skepticism applied to drug laws and incarceration rates, or replicating religious community without the religion, or…well, maybe we should just listen to what they have to say without taking it personally.

Seattle just became a little more awesome

I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t wake up to a cloud of pot smoke and glitter snuggling the city, but I’m still pretty happy about the laws. Both gay marriage and marijuana become legal in Washington state today. No longer will people be barred from marrying the people they love because of the outdated religious views of others, and no longer will people (disproportionately minorities) be fined and jailed because they want to take a drug less harmful than alcohol while eating cheetos and watching Lord of the Rings (suggests a police spokesperson, haha).

Progress has been made for both liberalism and rationality today. Though I can’t yet claim that I live in the most liberal state until our ultra-regressive tax laws are fixed. Wait…does that mean I’m living in the most libertarian state? Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!

Oh well. Still beats living in Indiana.

Rick Warren is technically correct

Not a phrase I ever expected to find myself typing. A statement by evangelical celebripastor Rick Warren is causing a lot of rage throughout the liberal blogosphere (aka, the blogs I happen to check in the morning):

“Here’s what we know about life. I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.

Honestly my first reaction when reading this was “wow, Rick Warren understands the naturalistic fallacy!” He’s totally right that the “naturalness” of something doesn’t lead to ethical judgements. Arsenic is even the same example I frequently give!

But that’s where his understanding ends. Just because nose-punching and gay sex are both natural urges doesn’t make them morally equivalent. Warren knows this, but leaves his source of ethics unsaid – the Bible. The reason this statement is so repugnant to liberals is that we base our system of morals on minimizing harm. Oddly I saw no blogs explaining this, probably because Warren’s source of morality isn’t exactly a secret. But I think it’s important to emphasize how repugnant it is to base your system of ethics on some random old book instead of the well being of others. Punching someone in the face causes harm; gay sex does not.

Well, unless you’re into the kinky stuff. But hell if I’m going to attempt to explain the concept of consent to a religious conservative.

What should my Skepticon workshop be about?

Skepticon is just a couple of days away, and I’m super excited! I’m not speaking this year, but I had such a good time last year that I saved up the money to make this a little vacation. The boyfriend is also coming along, and I can’t think of a better con to be his first major atheist/skeptical event.

There’s one little thing though. I found out at the last minute that Skepticon wants me to run a 50 minute workshop on Friday for a room of about 50 people (first come, first serve). The workshops are technically supposed to be…you know, workshops. Educational. Teaching you something. But Skepticon said I can basically do whatever I want that would make my readers happy. I also have no idea what I should do.

So, if you’re going to Skepticon, what would you like to see from me? I’m honestly a little reluctant to talk about social justice/diversity since I’m pretty burnt out on that topic and don’t want it to be all I’m known for, but if there’s enough of a cry, I’ll do it. Some other ideas:

  • How to start a blog
  • How to deal with mean internet assholes
  • How to spot the red flags of shitty science journalism
  • So you want to become a scientist (advice for undergrads & high school students)
  • Religion & skepticism in Game of Thrones
  • Religion & skepticism in video games

Any additional suggestions or feedback would be very appreciated. I’m really open to any ideas, including other panelists I could recruit for a topic (if that’s what you want). It can be silly, wacky, and void of educational purpose if you so desire!

The one brief message I have about the election

If you’re voting third party, you’re voting for Romney. Stop being an idealist and wake up to the reality of how our system works. I agree we need to have more parties in the dialog – trust me, I’d be way happier voting for someone more liberal like Jill Stein if I had the knowledge my voice would be heard – but that’s not going to happen by throwing your vote away and helping a Republican win. If you need any more convincing, remember Nader in 2000.

Obama isn’t perfect, but he’s the only option that supports equal civil rights for women, racial minorities, and LGBT individuals. And to me nothing more is important in my country than equal rights for all. If you put your pocketbooks ahead of equality, you’re selfish and downright immoral. My grad student stipend is technically at the poverty line for Washington state, and I would still happily pay higher taxes if it meant providing social services and helping those who need it the most. Heaven forbid I don’t have the luxury of an iPhone because I think someone’s children having food on the table is more important.

That’s the society I want to live in, and that’s why I’m voting Obama.

You know how I was afraid the hate would spread to my family?

Yeah, so now people are harassing my dad. Weee. I found that link after the fact – I originally found out because I’m home for vacation and he knocked on my door to laugh about the stupid comments he received on his blog. Partially because he thought I was the only one who read it and isn’t used to getting comments, let alone articulate ones like:

YOUR DAUGHTER IS A SLUT!!!!!!!!!!! That’s right, you raised a SLUTTY SLUT SLUT OF A SLUTDAUGHTER!!!!

And

After reading that I can certainly see why your daughter turned out to be the laughably irrational, nauseatingly self-important attention whore she is today.

No, my dad shouldn’t have remarked that he wants to punch my abusers in the face. That’s wrong, even though I know he has never hurt anyone and was speaking out of anger because someone he loves is facing constant abuse. I don’t think he should have said such a thing because like I’ve said before, violence is never the answer. But I don’t know how it shows I’m a big baby because my dad wants to say that he loves me. I didn’t ask him to make that post.

I know. I shouldn’t even be blogging this. I shouldn’t be reading these comments. I was actually starting to feel better until I read these things. But jesus fuck, people. This here attention whore is asking you to please stop giving me and my family attention.

[Comments are disabled. It’s the least I can do for my mental health since I couldn’t control myself to not write a post. I don’t need people shitting on me and my family even more in the comments.]