In September, my family and I relocated to Dallas from Chicago.

Chicago is chock full of bad ass skeptics. The skeptical community there is thriving. It’s pretty fantastic.

Dallas, however, is not thriving. There’s freethought groups, atheist groups, humanist groups and the like who have nice numbers, but finding skeptic-skeptics is hard. I’ve been hanging out with the North Texas Skeptics, and they’re a great group, but still small. I want them to be big and have a huge reach. I want to go out with them and meet dozens of other Dallas skeptics. I want to get rowdy and take over entire bars… but a bar full of Dallas skeptics seems like a pipe dream. And that makes it kind of lonely because if I’m honest, I have to admit, I don’t play nice with people who aren’t skeptics.

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Sure, I could have posted this back in 2011 when everyone else was doing year-end lists, but what if someone did something really awesome in the waning days of December? WHAT THEN?

Here are a few of the people who inspired me last year, in no particular order: 

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• Michelle Obama’s backside is your business how? – In which a congressman proclaims why should we support Michelle Obama’s healthy eating initiative when she’s got a “large posterior”? From Jamie.
• Feministing interviews the founder of the home birth movement – Check out Dr. Amy Tuteur’s (the Skeptical OB) response in the comments. From Victor.
• In New Year’s message, Scientology insider blasts “extreme” fundraising – “[Cook's] strong reputation within Scientology brings new credibility to a growing movement, now more than two years old, to reform the church. She declared that Scientology staffers are pressured by church managers to engage in “extreme” fundraising campaigns for unnecessarily “posh” new buildings and to enrich the church’s membership group, the International Association of Scientologists, known as the IAS.”
• Review of “Work It” – “I cannot over-emphasize enough how much this show is a freakish, insulting abomination. It thuggishly offends on so many levels that it’s hard to even remain clear-headed enough to piece together a simple review of an episode that deals with two men who dress like women to get jobs.”

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It was almost exactly one year ago that I discovered my fellow skeptic Ben Radford misrepresenting research in order to write contrarian articles on the impact of marketing on women, and yet, here we are again. In this year’s effort, Ben takes on Riley, the adorable 4-year old girl who became an Internet sensation for her righteous rant about toy marketers and retailers reinforcing gender roles for little boys and girls.

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Greetings Amy!

I am an underling at a large, academic hospital, in an oncology unit. Recently, our hospital added a department of “Integrative Medicine.” Space, already at a premium, is being taken up in our department by a pair of acupuncturists. I have been forced to help handle their patients, including asking them for payment for services rendered. I know many of these patients well, care about them on a personal level, and have earned their trust. And yet, I am helping my corporate masters and a couple of woo practitioners fleece them. I feel helpless. Even the MDs here are afraid to say a word (they are not permitted to discourage patients from pursuing “alternative” treatments, they can only encourage patients to get actual treatment). The hospital itself sees only dollar signs. I don’t know what else to do. Any suggestions?

~Bethany

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Hello everyone!

Just wanted to let you in on a bit of awesome news. Today marks the launch of a brand new sister-site within the Skepchick network. It’s called Queereka, and is dedicated to the intersection of skepticism and LGBTQ topics. We will promote the inclusion of LGBTQ issues and individuals within the skeptic community and movement, the skeptical discussion of LGBTQ topics, and also the ongoing fight against myths, misinformation, superstition, pseudoscience and woo that targets and undermines the LGBTQ community and the struggle for our rights.

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Hello, and welcome to 2012! Do you feel all warm a fuzzy? No? You will after you read these highlights from the Skepchick Network.

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• The ten “sexiest” science stories of 2011.
• The pain of being a spoil of war for women in Somalia.
• The Large Hadron Collider created in Legos.
• Art, the little boy who blogs about life before the dinosaurs, is trying to get to the Field Museum for his eighth birthday.

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