Daily Archives: April 14, 2010

Massey Energy: “If you attend the funeral of your co-workers, you’re fired”

… if you take time off from work to do so.

Nice.

Massey Energy told employees that if they miss work to attend the funerals they would be fired, workers said. A Massey worker, who did not give his name because he is afraid of losing his job, said that his coworkers were outraged that they were not given time off to mourn their friends and brothers.

The WSWS spoke to workers and relatives outside a local market. Chuck Smith, an unemployed miner with seven years work underground, said Massey’s decision to force miners to work during the funerals was a calculated move. “What would it look like if a bunch of people wearing Massey uniforms showed up to the funeral yelling ‘damn Massey?'”

Continue reading Massey Energy: “If you attend the funeral of your co-workers, you’re fired”

What is skepticism?

There are two things I’ve learned over the last year.

1) If you get a room full of self-described skeptics, gathered to converse skeptically about something, a minor tweaking of the conversation can cause an alarmingly large percentage of said “skeptics” to start spewing utter nonsense; and

2) Manyself-described skeptics seem to believe (yes, believe) that nothing can be believed, and assert that the ONLY thing that EVER matters is “the” truth, and at the same time insist that “the truth” can never be trusted (unless they themselves have uttered it). Such an approach can cause said skeptic to wield a skeptical hammer that is so big it obscures their vision to the determent of their intended goal. That a significant subset of these “skeptics” are sociopathic and terribly annoying is unfortunate.

Continue reading What is skepticism?

I for one welcome our Overlords from Galaxy M82

There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

“We don’t know what it is,” says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK.

Whatever it is appreas to be moving at four times the speed of light. In other words, it has a Warp Drive. And, it is moving towards us, more or less. Well, at a slight angle. Better to surround us that way!!!!

I’m going to go stock up on canned foods while you go over to New Scientist and read about the details.
Continue reading I for one welcome our Overlords from Galaxy M82

Alert: Evolution Suppressed in Connecticut

“Mr. Tangarone, a 17-year veteran of the Weston school system, claims that a program he wanted to teach about Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln was rejected by the school administration because it involved teaching evolution — the scientific theory that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor.”

Continue reading Alert: Evolution Suppressed in Connecticut