SkepDirt Shuts Up And Listens

In honor of the catchphrase of the just-passed Women in Secularism conference, SkepDirt will, for the next two weeks, hold a Shut Up And Listen mini-forum here in the Comments section of this article.

Storify is a gift!

A few of the usual people this publication calls out have expressed their dismay over ElevatorGATE’s (@ElevatorGATE on Twitter) use of the Web-based app Storify:

[tweet https://twitter.com/java7nerd/status/329725935114940416]

The 551 People Melody Hensley Follows

Sources have sent this reporter a list of the 551 people CFI-DC Director Melody “but this is my personal account” Hensley follows using her @melodyhensley account on Twitter. In honor of Follow Friday, here is that list:

In A Dirtshell: Crimefollow

People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.

(George Orwell, 1984)

George Orwell’s dystopian vision of a world of near-total surveillance describes crimethink as a thought that was unacceptable to the ruling party. Following this definition, this reporter proposes the following new word.

Stupid House-Dividing Personified: Melody Hensley

As readers of this publication’s About page know,

This blog is dedicated to the stupid, house-dividing things skeptics say about each other when they should be out saying intelligent, woo-bashing things about anti-vaccinators or homeopathy.

In the few short months this reporter has been writing about that topic, no person has come anywhere near as close to the Platonic ideal of stupid and house-dividing than the Executive Director of the Washington DC branch of the Center for Inquiry (CFI-DC) Melody Hensley.

Ms. Hensley as a koala on the left. Some unknown male impersonator on the right.