False Dichotomies

I mentioned in a previous post that my friend sent a strongly worded letter to the editor of the BSU Daily News regarding their recent article on the anti-vaccination movement. As promised, here is the text of that letter as sent by my friend Carrie on behalf of the BSU Freethought Alliance. I thought it was a well-written letter, but I'm more than a bit concerned that their response will be "tl;dr". Oh well, I guess we'll see.

I just completed what I believe is my very first strongly-worded letter to the editor. The Ball State Daily News, the provider of print journalism for the local university in my area, just gave front page coverage to the local Anti-vaccination, conspiracy theorist fringe group on campus.

As you may have heard in the most recent episode of the podcast, Darwin Day is fast approaching. I was fortunate enough to take part in the Darwin Day event this past Saturday, February 7th at Ball State University. It was organized by the BSU Freethought Alliance. I'm not a BSU student, and therefore I'm not eligible for membership. In spite of this limitation I still attend the group's meetings and pretend to be a member.

For some strange reason I was just thinking about the "War on Christmas". I know that it's a bit weird that I'm still thinking about this on New Year's Eve, but it happens. I was just pondering how silly it is that someone would be that upset over which holiday someone chose to tack on to their normal generic well-wishing. Especially in the case of retail employees. I've been a retail employee, and let me tell you, they don't give a fraction of a shit what holiday you celebrate.

I'm sure you may have noticed that things look a little different around here. We've upgraded the website to a new version of Drupal, and with that comes a new theme. Other enhancements are in the works as well. Episode 10 is recorded and should be up later this week as well. Stay tuned!

I just submitted the podcast to Digg, and will likely start posting new episodes there as well. If you're on Digg and you like the show do us a favor and give us your vote. You can find it here.

You can also find us on current.com here.

If you're on Facebook you can also join our group there. Here's the link.

Occasionally I notice things in my daily routine that make me wonder. Today's particular instance had to do with ethical product labeling. Is it really practical? Sure, I'm all for things like fair trade products. Who wouldn't mind paying a little more so that the guy who grew the coffee you're drinking can afford not to starve to death? Maybe that's oversimplyfing the issue but in general given the choice I'll take the fair trade stuff over the regular stuff.

I'm just now in the process of setting up an account over at Podcast Alley. It's an interesting site for promoting podcasts, and I know I've discovered more than one podcast on their site that I really like. Hopefully having ours up there will attract some new listeners. If you're reading this and you got here via the Podcast Alley site, then welcome!

Here's a link to the podcast over at Podcast Alley. Go and check them out, and if you like our show then you can vote for us and other sorts of neat stuff.

Episode 3 is near. I'm a bit behind but it should be up sometime soon. Hang tight.

It just occurred to me that it's just a few hours before CERN fires up the Large Hadron Collider for the first time. If the cranks and crackpots are correct it's only a matter of time before it creates some sort of black hole or strange particles and destroys us all. Okay, not really.