Tag Archives: Bloggers

Childfree movement gets its greenwash

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Part of the problem. Photo: Alan Turkus

I am  sure that some in the childfree movement feel so self-conscious about their choice not to raise kids that they need, occasionally, to create a smug, in-your-face manifesto.

The latest missive from the childfree movement, which has been around since the 1960s, comes in awash in green.

Lisa Hymas, in an essay at Grist*, claims that humans who choose not nurture other humans are making an admirable choice for the planet, and their pocketbooks.

Hymas, a disciple of Al Gore and Stephanie Mills of the Post Carbon Institute (think about that one, for a moment), writes that being childfree is a “luxurious indulgence that just so happens to cost a lot less for me and weigh a lot less on the carbon-bloated atmosphere.”

Hymas does not avoids mentioning adoption, abortion or infanticide, issues that would have introduced some ethical complexity to the piece.

The green solution, according to a Grist editor and blogger.

Hymas also uses a hackneyed rhetorical technique — the false premise — to get her point across.

She suggests, without any supporting evidence, that people with kids typically look down on those who have none.

A link to HuffPo’s coverage of Hymas’ manifesto, is below.

via Ultimate Way to Go Green? Don’t Have Kids, Writer Lisa Hymas Says – AOL News.

*Note: I have written for Grist myself, about environmental issues.

Ronald Reagan: Occultist

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Photo: Blatant News/Flickr CC

I wonder if it means you’ve drunk the conspiracist’s Kool-Aid when you say to someone, abruptly, and for no apparent reason, “I’m not a Freemason.”

That’s what I said to a colleague at Emmanuel College, Friday, when I was blabbing about how, when working with someone, “I need to know if he’s on the level.”

Perhaps my self-consciousness was provoked by this bit about “the Great Communicator,” excerpted below (via Christopher Knowles). The piece, by occult historian Mitch Horowitz got me thinking about how our use of the language reveals our beliefs, and programming.

“At a 1957 commencement address at his alma mater Eureka College, Reagan, then a corporate spokesman for GE, sought to inspire students with this leaf from occult history. ‘This is a land of destiny,’ Reagan said, ‘and our forefathers found their way here by some Divine system of selective service gathered here to fulfill a mission to advance man a further step in his climb from the swamps.’”

You can listen to a wonderful interview with Horowitz, by Occult of Personality host, Greg Kaminsky, here.

And for Christopher Knowles’ analysis, click here.

via Political Bookworm – Reagan and the occult.

Crypto-sexpots: Coleman's list

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Nicole Hosack, owner of Niki’s Quick Six store in Spring Church, Pa. Cryptomundo donated this Sasquatch statue, after someone made off with the store's three-foot original.

Loren Coleman’s racked ‘em up for us — all are pics from his posts over the past decade, at Cryptomundo — and some readers already calling for a calendar, to feature the sexiest scientists operating outside the mainstream.

Dr. Andrea Marshall is pictured above, in the photo that accompanied her appeal to get support for her work, funded by conducting trips and tours related to manta research. She was named Cryptozoologist of 2008 by Cryptomundo.

Coleman also notes the ever-present lid, which male cryptozoologists seem to don in the presence of even a strong bulb:

Clearly the lines of division were drawn sharply during the ’00s. Those with hats turned out to be good sexy field cryptozoologists, and those without were, well, without ~ and often debunkers, skeptics, and scoftics.

via Cryptomundo » The Top Ten Sexiest Cryptomundo Images Of The ’00s.

Blogger axed for knocking White House/YouTube partnership

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If this is the sole reason CNET sacked this tech blogger (link, excerpt, below), it strongly suggests that the tech publisher (as I have seen so many do in the past 15 years) were afraid they’d “lose access.”

Nothing frightens news outlets more than telling a story, however accurate or truthful, or important to regular folks, that will keep them off of Air Force One, or out of the press briefing room, or cost them a potential advertiser.

I once experienced similar intimidation from an editor at a news organization, after I wrote about a Homeland Security spying scheme, and DHS commissioned a hit piece by a trade hack against mine. Fortunately, that editor’s superior showed some backbone, and backed up my reporting.

It comes as a surprise, then, to hear that CNET will no longer carry Soghoian’s blog. While Soghoian’s confrontational style and irreverent approach may have been factors, it appears the decision to drop his blog largely stems from a minor kerfuffle over a headline. A Soghoian post initially titled “White House Ditches YouTube After Privacy Complaints” brought loud denials from the YouTube and the Obama team. The Obama folks belatedly said that their use of non-YouTube video was only an experiment, a possibility that Soghoian mentioned in his article.

via CNET Axes Blogger Who Exposed Whitehouse.gov Privacy Issue | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

That said, EFF also suggests that Soghoian’s strongly worded headline might have been part of a pattern of pushing the wrong buttons over at CNET.

Because the stakes are so low

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Who hates the TechCrunch founder so much, and why?

CC/Robert Scoble

Photo: CC/Robert Scoble

WASHINGTON (AFP) – TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington announced Wednesday he is taking a break from writing for his influential technology blog after being spat on at a conference and getting death threats.

Writing on techcrunch.com, Arrington, 38, said an unidentified man “walked up to me and quite deliberately spat in my face” on Tuesday at the Digital, Life, Design conference he was attending in Munich, Germany.

via Citing threats, TechCrunch founder taking a break News – Yahoo!Xtra News.

Whatever happened to "booth bimbo?"

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A tech blogger drools over a booth bimbo, but calls her a “booth babe.” (He mentions the girl three times, and runs the pic you see here.) Have even those horny gadget hounds gone PC? Is babe all that much less condescending than bimbo?

Oh Gizmo

The "babe." Photo: Oh Gizmo

Something has got to be said about a useful product that’s able to convincingly double as a “fashion accessory” on the barely-there outfit of a booth babe. Questionable (but not entirely ineffective or unenjoyable) marketing tactics aside, FlatWire makes some amazing products that make me wish I’d have a few large to drop on a home entertainment system. Like the name sort of implies, these guys make flat wires. But I mean, really, really flat. They gave me a sample of 18 gauge electrical wire, and it’s paper thin.

Sci-Fi cover for a real-life agenda?

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A Second Life transhumanist, despite her sim’s ties to movement leaders and government agencies, insists it’s all “science fiction.”

Fishers of pre-posthumans? Second Lifers drop a line in the Extropia sim. (Image: From the Extropia Core website)

by Mark Baard

One of the founders of Extropia said this week denied she is propagating any ideology through the online sim.

Extropia founder and blogger “Galatea Gynoid,” as she’s known in Second Life, this week posted a rebuttal to “certain people” (see excerpt, below) who see more to the sim than an evolving work of pure fiction.

Extropia is an area within Second Life where people, via their 3D avatars, gather to discuss transhumanism, science and science fiction.

Gynoid says she started Extropia so that she and like-minded Second Lifers might enjoy an alternative to the depressing, dystopian sims they found elsewhere in the metaverse.

But Gynoid, by trying to have it both ways, may be trying to duck criticism from those who see the transhumanist agenda at work in Extropia.

By co-hosting events with real life (RL) transhumanists and U.S. government agencies, for example, it is clear that Extropia is more than fiction. It is also a meeting place for believers.

Extropia co-hosted a NASA “future forum” on May 14. And in two weeks, the sim will host a technology and religion conference meant to “re-cast our understanding of ‘humanity’ in the Third Millennium.”

Why “Extropia”? | Extropia Core
There are certain people out there who are insisting you need to subscribe to a particular ideology to be welcome here. The funny thing is, the majority of the Board of Directors wouldnt [sic] be allowed in Extropia if what they said is true. I myself, the founder and owner of the sims, would not be allowed in Extropia if what they said was true. Its utterly, patently ridiculous.

The New York Times' terror freak-out

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Blog post serves gun control and police state agendas

A lout, and a bootlicker? Times blogger Levitt calls his fear mongering campaign a “public service.”

Newspapers and websites this week are decrying blogger Steven Levitt’s oafish invitation to readers to envision terrorist attack scenarios.

The New York Times is clearly using fear to sell papers and page views–an old marketing tactic. But Levitt might also be selling someone else’s agenda, just as his new employer has been doing for years.

Levitt begins the list of possible scenarios with this gem: terrorists, armed only with rifles, could shoot-up cities and towns of all sizes, and then escape in cars.

“The chaos would be unbelievable,” Levitt writes, adding “it sure would be a lot easier to obtain a handful of guns than a nuclear weapon.”

Some critics suggest Levitt is shaking things up at the Grey Lady–that his post caught his editors by surprise. (As someone who gets a regular paycheck from the Times, I can tell you that this is impossible.)

In fact, Levitt is fitting in just fine.

After all, it was the Times’ fear mongering over Iraqi nukes that helped sell Americans on the war–recall Judith Miller’s embarrassing “reporting” of what is now known to be fabricated evidence from worthless sources.

Levitt’s pairing of terrorists with rifles also repeats (literally) the Times’ editorial position that guns “are frighteningly easy to obtain” and that “stronger (gun) controls” are needed.

clipped from communities.canada.com
Tips for terror plots: Has Steven D. Levitt lost his Freakonomics mind?
In a blog post written about an hour ago at the time of this posting Steven D. Levitt� — a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and co-author of the groundbreaking Freakonomics book — has speculated on the most efficient means of causing terror in the United States of America. What’s more, a batch of his readers have written in their suggestions for how and where to strike.

Leave “Left Behind” behind, says blogger

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Bleak: New York is a battleground for Christian soldiers

“Left Behind: Eternal Forces,” the apocalypse-themed video game I covered in my Boston Globe column last year, is an ungodly mess, according to Extreme Politics blogger Henry Garfield.

“The game is riddled with bugs, making it difficult to get through a compete mission without the whole thing crashing,” Garfield writes. “Oh well, I guess I’ll have to live out my fantasies of satanic jihad elsewhere for the time being.”

Even so, like Garfield, I find the “blowing away nonbelievers” concept compelling.

Check out the link and excerpt, below.

clipped from extremepolitics.blogspot.com
Unfortunately according to both published reviews and Amazon’s feedback page, the game fails to live up to its initial promise. There in fact appears to be little killing involved, as the players spend most of their time trying to peacefully convert citizens to their line of thinking. The game play is also (as might be expected) crude and unimaginative, with some reviewers comparing it unfavorably to freeware games.