Today I am wearing a gray dress.  And it has a ruffle in the front. That’s me in the dress in the featured image, as proof.

If you have met me more than once, you may or may not remember, but I was surely in something that was black and v-necked. I don’t do ruffles.  I don’t do gray.  Well, until today.

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On September 15 Dallas’ Women of Reason are hosting the next women’s freethought conference: Feminine Faces of Freethought (F3).

It’s a one-day only conference featuring such freethinking women as:

• Noelle George, coordinator of Volunteers Beyond Belief and founder and past president of SECULAR Center;
  
• Dr. Jean Kazez, author of Animalkind, The Weight of Things, and the blog In Living Color;
• Elyse Anders, blogger at Skepchick, founder of Women Thinking, Inc, and leader of Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated; (that’s me!)

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• Science chicks from history
• Sexual harassment at Defcon (and other hacker cons) – From DR.
• More trial, less error – “A year-old Palo Alto, California, company, Science Exchange, announced on Tuesday its “Reproducibility Initiative,” aimed at improving the trustworthiness of published papers. Scientists who want to validate their findings will be able to apply to the initiative, which will choose a lab to redo the study and determine whether the results match.” From Chris.
• Help raise money for a Tesla museum in the US! – The Oatmeal has all the details, spread the word.

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Welcome to number fifteen in a series where I ask men in leadership roles to speak out against the hate we have seen directed at the women in our community.

Today, I bring you the words of, Paul Fidalgo who is the Communications Director for the Center for Inquiry. Paul talks about what he refers to as the, ‘skepto-atheosphere’ and explains why we need to move forward and fight for a better world, even if that means leaving some people behind.

Paul’s words after the jump.

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In astronomical history, on August 15th 1977, the SETI project received a radio signal from deep space (on the Big Ear). It lasted for 72 seconds and was known as the Wow! signal because the technician made that notation on the recording paper. The signal has not been heard since then. (Maybe it was from that time that the Death Star exploded Alderaan?)

• What Is The Real Terrorist Threat in America? – The anxiety and the reality don’t match up.
• Disruptions: Dining With Robots in Silicon Valley – The last sentence of this article breaks my heart a little.
• 19 Wacky Presidential Candidates You’ve Never Heard Of – A time traveler, someone who thinks that drinking hydrogen peroxide is the only medicine you need (big guess on who his favorite author is), and someone whose nickname is “The Impaler.”
• Did You See This? The Real Star Wars Auditions
• Borderlands 2?s Best Friends Forever Furore – “Noob Mode” should not be referred to as “Girlfriend Mode” for obvious reasons. From Maria.
• Kitty Cams Reveal Shocking Truth – The only thing shocking here is that cat owners are apparently so devastated that their kittehs eat birds that they make them wear special cat bibs.
• The Land of Big Groceries, Big God, and Smooth Traffic: What Surprises First-Time Visitors to America – Do you have any stories of your own to share about something that surprised you while visiting another country?

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Sometimes humans just blow me away with their ability to do the seemingly impossible. Landing shit on Mars, for example.

Other times, humans blow me away with their ability to believe in things that are actually impossible.

Like how many people believe that if you die in your dream, you die in real life.  It never occurs to any of those people that you can’t know what someone was dreaming about if they died before they could tell you.

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Welcome to the fourteenth installment of my series that directly addresses the sexism and hate directed at women in our communities.

Today, I bring you the words of, Michael De Dora. Michael is Director of Public Policy and the U.N. Representative for the Center for Inquiry. Michael addresses some of the misconceptions surrounding the requests for harassment policies and discusses the potential reasons for the push-back. He explains the importance of secular ethics and explains why it is a driving force in his work.

Michael’s comments after the jump.

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• Simple food labels and the effective illusion of control – If we just label foods like a stoplight, will people eat more healthily?
• One good chiropractor could’ve stopped the Batman massacre – Am I jaded because I’m not surprised by this claim?
• Government agencies are taking aim at yoga studios, some owners say
• On being a Sikh feminist – Interesting read on how equality is a central tenet of the Sikh faith.

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