Recording live today on Skeptically Speaking:

This week, we’re looking at some of the ways motherhood changes the brain and the body. Kayt Sukel, author of Dirty Minds: How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex, and Relationships, returns to explain the neurological effects of pregnancy and motherhood. And on the podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Katie Hinde, Director of Harvard’s Comparative Lactation Laboratory, to discuss the biology of lactation and breastfeeding.

We record live with Kayt Sukel on Sunday, May 13 at 6 pm MT. The podcast will be available to download at 9 pm MT on Friday, May 18.

For details go here.

When a young girl put a picture of herself, holding a book she had just gotten as a present, on the social networking site reddit, she was immediately subjected to intense verbal sexual assault by reddit readers who aptly demonstrated how awful it can be when boys and young men are left to say and do what they want without the social control of anyone knowing who they are. When Skepchick founder Rebecca Watson casually tossed out some relationship advice for clueless young men attending conferences they mistook for meat markets, she and anyone perceived as a friend, colleague, or ally of hers were subjected to relentless pounding with misogynistic language and faux threats of sexual violence. These are two relatively spectacular recent (and ongoing) examples of behavior that is widely considered unacceptable in our society. This behavior was probably much more common in the past, in workplaces, schools, and other places where humans gather willingly or not. But over time, most institutional and commercial settings have made rules against harassment and implemented systems to monitor and detect poor behavior of this sort, then deal with it. Human Resources (HR) departments, training programs, and diversity-aware hiring practices have reduced (but certainly not eliminated) this kind of horrible behavior. Our society is changing, and hearing men blurting out overt sexual come-ons, carrying out verbal sexual assaults, or haranguing others who do not subscribe to their particular set of behavioral rules is now rare. Young men still shout obnoxious things from passing cars (I just witnessed an example of that last night at the local grocery store’s parking lot) and there are probably workplaces where bad behavior is still much more common than it should be (dog fighting matches, certain locker rooms, and all male dinner parties in private rooms with certain senators come to mind as possible examples). But for the most part our society has moved beyond times when obnoxious, sexist, and misogynistic behavior is the norm
Continue reading Does the Internet need an HR Department? →

I just put up a post on Minnesota Progressive Project on Chip Cravaack, Minnesota Tea Party guy who we accidentally elected to Congress but hopefully not for long.

Greece is a cauldron of discontent caused by an abysmal economic situation, and from this cauldron has sprung not only the usual fascists and other extremists, but last weekend, actual Nazis in elected office with several ending up in Parliament. It turns out that Greeks by and large are not amused. The widespread shock and horror about Nazis emerging, as well as the very important recognition that these are the real deal…not just some people with extreme views and a penchant for angular designs in their fashion…has engendered the beginnings of a backlash.

From the Guardian:

Images of extremist parties strutting their stuff – this display celebrating the election result took place in Thessaloniki – have a certain apocalyptic fascination. Especially when Golden Dawn activists also reportedly yelled “Blood and honour” and sang martial anthems. They are not exactly hiding any echo of 20th-century political darkness – they also flaunt a symbol that unmistakably resembles a swastika.

There seems to be no reason for complacency or irony about what is happening here. This is the real thing, a political horror. And the social and economic factors behind it get ever worse. This week new figures revealed that youth unemployment in Greece reached 53.8% in February.

The Nazi echoes in images like this have hopefully done for Golden Dawn. It is reported that Greeks are shocked by the party’s true nature, as displayed since its election victory catapulted an obscure movement on to the national stage. Let’s hope so.

Dear loyal readers, quiet lurkers, constant commeters, and trolls,

On or before the 24th of May (hopefully not later) Scienceblogs.com will under The Branding. The Branding is not a phenomenon found in a cultish horror movie involving corn and a school bus, nor will it involve British schoolboys or a buried alien spacecraft. The Branding is when National Geographic’s “brand” is imprinted on this site, and we become something of a National Geographic project. From that point forward several things will be different on this blog, some of which I’ll mention below.

Between now and then there is a problem. All of the blog posts and comments that were posted prior to a date in late April have already been ported to the new platform and when The Branding happens, they will be there. But anything that has been, or will be, placed on this blog will not automatically become part of the new platform. It is possible for me to move old posts or place new blog posts on the new platform, but not comments.

So, comments you place on this blog between now and The Branding will not be preserved. Therefore, you might want to not make them.

UPDATE: I’m told that a solution to this problem is being worked on.

I know this is unusual, but there are reasons for it which I can explain roughly but I can’t answer questions about because I don’t have access to the independent IT firm hired to do this work. The bottom line is that the old MovableType platform was virtually intractable. I’m not sure how they ended up making the transition but it was not a simple export/import situation. There are rumors that wget and awk may have been used, that’s how bad things were.

Since you can’t comment on my posts, I don’t want to write any more posts on this blog until we are up and running. I may still post something now and then but more likely I’d ask you to visit and comment on the X Blog, which will of course be functioning perfectly for the whole time (I hope!). The X Blog is here.

The changes will include a new look and feel, no left sidebar that I put stuff on and I think no About page. Since that personalized stuff will be gone, I’ll be updating Gregladen.com to include that stuff. Commenting will be better managed. To comment on the new blog, probably, you’ll have to have a thing that looks like a real email address that will act, essentially, as your “password,” which will be approved so after you’ve commented once you’ll be able to keep commenting without problems. Unless, of course …. (well, never mind that).

The content of this blog will not change, nor will any of the policies … we are already working under the “new” methods and rules. However, there may be some more interaction with National Geographic’s other blogs and activities, if I chose to do that. NGS is not requiring anything, but there my be opportunities available that I’ll take up.

So now, we enter the big sleep. I am not going to turn commenting off because that always breaks things on this old movable type platform. Besides you may want to leave a comment or two knowing it will disapear later. Like when you write stuff on a wall you are about to paint over!

(I may regret that I said that.)

If you want to have a discussion about this that will not be erased, I’ve made a place for you to do that HERE.

FDA advisers back approval for first pill shown to protect healthy people from AIDS virus
A panel of federal health advisers has endorsed the first drug shown to prevent HIV infection in healthy people, clearing the way for a potentially landmark approval in the 30-year-old effort against the virus that causes AIDS.

In a series of votes, the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended approval of the daily pill Truvada for healthy people who are at high risk of contracting HIV, including gay and bisexual men and heterosexual couples with one HIV-infected person. The FDA is not required to follow the panel’s advice, though it usually does. A final decision is expected by June 15.

more

Do you remember the campaign to get WordPress to shut down the Nazi hate site in Greece?

Apparently, it worked. Commenters both here and at sb.com have told us that the Nazi site has been taken down.

Congratulations to us!

There have been complaints that we are repressing free speech. This is not true for several reasons.

First, we are not violating the “Right to free speech” because there is no universal law or regulation that compels a private company based in the US (or wherever) to provide a platform to a political party in another country.

Second, the reason this campaign was valid to being with is that the Nazis have violated WordPress’s terms of service. Really, all that had to happen is that WordPress would be notified of this, they look into it, see it is obviously true, and shut down the site.

Putting a finer point on that: Demanding that WordPress keep the Nazi site up is a violation of “rights” … telling a company that their reasonable terms of service can’t be applied, suddenly and arbitrarily, to a particular group. Of Nazis.

Third, They are Nazis. One could subscribe to the American Ideal that every American should agree to die on the battlefield protecting the rights of the most nefarious groups such as the KKK and Nazis and various white supremacists and so on. But, once again, this is in Greece, this is international pressure being applied, the idea that every American should die protecting the rights of Nazis is absurd. Yes, I know, once you throw the Nazi’s under the bus, you will eventually be throwing the Girl Scouts under the bus. But that is an absurd argument. We might not know to draw the line in a particular place, but we can tell on occasion that some one or some group is well beyond that line. Nazis are beyond that line.

There are other reasons. Feel free to add them in the contents.

A person runs for the office of the President, promising to get rid of a law. That person gets elected president, then gets rid of the law because the president can do that. The way it works is that the President goes goes “I hereby get rid of this law!!!” Continue reading How do you get rid of a law? →

A lot of people don’t know how the American system of government works. Well, most Brits, Australians, Canadians, Mexicans and Germans do, but I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about Americans. Continue reading How does a bill become a law? →

I just got this note from President Obama, and I thought you might like to see it:

Greg —

Today, I was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer:

I believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

I hope you’ll take a moment to watch the conversation, consider it, and weigh in yourself on behalf of marriage equality:

http://my.barackobama.com/Marriage

I’ve always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. I was reluctant to use the term marriage because of the very powerful traditions it evokes. And I thought civil union laws that conferred legal rights upon gay and lesbian couples were a solution.

But over the course of several years I’ve talked to friends and family about this. I’ve thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships who are raising kids together. Through our efforts to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, I’ve gotten to know some of the gay and lesbian troops who are serving our country with honor and distinction.

What I’ve come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens.

Even at my own dinner table, when I look at Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples, I know it wouldn’t dawn on them that their friends’ parents should be treated differently.

So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

I respect the beliefs of others, and the right of religious institutions to act in accordance with their own doctrines. But I believe that in the eyes of the law, all Americans should be treated equally. And where states enact same-sex marriage, no federal act should invalidate them.

If you agree, you can stand up with me here.

Thank you,

Barack

Earlier this week a group of Catholic CEOs of secular companies based in Michigan, calling themselves “Legatus,” filed a law suit in federal court against the US Health and Human Services over the issue of providing health insurance coverage that included things that Catholics don’t like such as birth control. This is a fight that has been going on for a while and that I’m sure you’ve heard of.

The Secular Coalition of America, under the leadership if the newly appointed Executive Director, Edwina Rogers, is chiming in.

The law suit seeks a rulting to block the implementation of the rule that requires that all employees get the same coverage, whether they work for a company that happens to be headed by a Catholic or not. The HHS ruling is obviously not only in line with the ideal of separation of church and state, but it is also logical on the general grounds that basic insurance coverage or any other normal benefit should not be withheld on the whims of some crazy-ass beliefs that happen to be held by a company’s owner or CEO.

But Legatus argues the opposite, and thus, the absurd: Holding a company to a legal standard that happens to violate the owner or CEO’s particular belief system violates that individual’s religious freedom. According to Rogers:

Legatus is asking the government to place the religious beliefs of the employer over the individual religious beliefs of the employees, and they are doing it under a smoke screen of religious persecution. True religious freedom allows for individuals to make personal moral and health decisions for themselves.

Every American is entitled to their personal religious beliefs and practices, but they do not have the right to impose them on others –including their employees—or ask for privileging from the government.

A prior attempt in the US legislative process to force employees to bend to the will of their quirky employers (be they Catholics or, say, Cannibalistic Unitarians or whatever) failed. According to a SCA press release:

Rather than infringing on the employers’ religious freedom, the HHS rule actually supports the religious freedom and rights of individual Americans by allowing each person to decide for herself and himself whether contraceptive coverage is appropriate in their life—and not forcing them to follow the religious views and perspectives of their employers—or anyone else.

In addition to cost saving benefits, there is ample scientific data that represents medical benefits of contraception for women who are contraindicated for pregnancy, as well as demonstrated preventive health benefits from contraceptives relating to conditions relation to conditions other than pregnancy. (e.g. treatment of menstrual disorders, acne, and pelvic pain).

It certainly is nice to see the Secular Coalition of America acting on this. It is a shame this even has to be an issue, though. It is utterly obvious that employers should not be able to pick and choose among benefits based on personal beliefs. Seriously. What if the CEO of some big company converts to a different religion and it isn’t Benefit Selection Month! It would be chaos (and not the good kind of chaos). Or, what if this extended to schools. Would the School District’s superintendents dietary preferences, which may well be religious, be imposed on everyone else? Only Kosher food in the cafeteria? Or Vega. Or, I heard of these people who ate dogs in a religious ceremony in a small town in Upstate New York. What if one of those guys was in charge?

Unthinkable. But of course, there is not a lot of thinking that goes into these fights from the Religious Right’s side of things.

From the Raw Story:

Continue reading President Obama has endorsed Same Sex Marriage →

The Nazis in Greece, who over the weekend gained some seats in Parliament, are likely to continue to be a factor in a new election experts say will likely be held in about a month or so. These are the real deal … apparently they self identify as Nazis but the party name is “Golden Dawn” and they have a record of violence and nastiness. They even do the Nazi salute and everything.

Here’s the thing: Their web site is hosted on WordPress, and WordPress has a policy that should actually exclude them from using that resource. For this reason, people who dislike Nazis are invited to SIGN A PETITION asking WordPress to toss them off their servers. If this happens any time over the next week or two, it could actually disrupt their activities in relation to the upcoming vote and maybe Greece will end up with fewer Nazis in Parliament.

Please go sign the petition and get your friends to sign the petition.

Thank you very much.

But seriously. Go sign. Please.

Go visit Biodork