Just a quick note that I posted a review of Man of Steel on the BC Humanist Association blog. Make sure to follow that blog for the occasional update.
Tl;dr Knowing it was Christian propaganda, I should have taken a pass.
Monthly Archives: June 2013
Council of Canadians resorts to fear on fracking
I somehow got on the Council of Canadians direct mail distribution list. While I like most of their work, I had to respond to their latest mail out and had to ask to be removed.
The envelope featured the iconic flaming tap image as part of their petition to end hydraulic fracking as a method of natural gas extraction. While the science is complicated on the question, I do sympathize with the need to abandon fossil fuels for renewable energy. Nevertheless, resorting to pseudoscientific fear mongering is one of my pet peeves about the environmental movement.
CFI: A case study in a PR failure
I won’t recap the full back story of what’s happened at Center for Inquiry Transnational (not to be confused with Centre for Inquiry Canada which is embroiled in its own difficulties) but take a look at PZ’s roundup for some of what’s been written on the subject. What I want to focus on today is how, at multiple times, this entire fiasco could have been avoided.
The simple lesson for group organizers is that you have to start treating blogs like legitimate (but opinionated) media. Continue reading
A change of guards at CFI Canada
While Center For Inquiry Transnational has been caught in the midst of a foreseeable PR nightmare following Ron Lindsay’s comments and subsequent statements at the Women In Secularism 2 conference, Centre for Inquiry Canada has been caught up in their own, unrelated but ill-timed, controversy as news broke this week that National Executive Director Michael Payton had been relieved of his duties.
What follows will be the story I’ve pieced together from a few sources over the past couple days. I haven’t been directly involved in CFI Canada for the past couple years and really have no horse in this race. I’ve met Michael a couple times and he’s seemed like a reasonable guy – what I can also say for the few board member’s I’ve met (who unfortunately are all guys). I’m going to try to be unbiased but I undoubtedly have my view of things.
If you have no interest in intraskeptical politics, perhaps you may want to skip on this post.