Outmanned Atheist Blog » religeon

More savage than natural men!

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:39:38 +0000

One of the more contemptible anti-gay activists is Reverend Scott Lively, a true liar for Jesus who considers it his sacred mission to rid the world of homosexuals. He was proud to have inspired the Ugandan death penalty for homosexuality law (although in the face of the outrage that generated, he backed off, claiming they should give them the choice of prison or gay conversion “therapy” ). His other claim to fame is that he is a holocaust revisionist.

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More savage than natural men!

Botanical Wednesday: Shouldn’t they sparkle? Or mope?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:47:59 +0000

Dracula simia Read the comments on this post…

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Botanical Wednesday: Shouldn’t they sparkle? Or mope?

Episode LXXXIV: Calling all the little zerglings back

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:50:07 +0000

Well, traffic was down a bit yesterday, although the dedicated thread is going strong. I suspect that some of the readers here were distracted by some silly little game that was released yesterday, and the only way to get them back is to dangle the eye candy in front of them. Now we’re all caught up on everything.

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Episode LXXXIV: Calling all the little zerglings back

Do you remember how to crash a poll?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:17:32 +0000

It’s been a while. I hope you haven’t forgotten

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Do you remember how to crash a poll?

Do you remember how to crash a poll?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:17:32 +0000

It’s been a while.

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Do you remember how to crash a poll?

We were all losing our religion

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:58:36 +0000

One of the giant panels I was on at Convergence is now a podcast at the Secular Buddhist . It’s got me, Bug Girl, Jennifer Ouellette, Lyra Lynx, Maria Walters, Jen Mana, Ted Meissner, Debbie Goddard, Carrie Iwan, and Dave Walbridge, and I’m already worn out just listing them. It was also very well attended: SF conventions are hotbeds of godlessness

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We were all losing our religion

A lesser controversy at Scienceblogs

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:34:32 +0000

The case of the various kinds of blogs hosted on ScienceBlogs has come up on Newsweek , and I get quoted trying to explain how I’m unperturbed by a couple of institutional blogs here. Not all bloggers feel this way, Myers included. “We’ve known about those [institutional blogs] for some time–they aren’t a problem,” he wrote in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK.

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A lesser controversy at Scienceblogs

WikiLeaks does humanity a service

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:41:22 +0000

It’s amazing: WikiLeaks has just dumped over 91,000 classified documents from the Afghanistan war on the web . Just like that, we get an actual look at what’s been going on over there, unfiltered by the traditional media, and definitely not given a rosy patina by Fox News. Fox New is, of course, treating this as a serious blow to their worldview — which isn’t surprising, since reality does great damage to Fox.

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WikiLeaks does humanity a service

Christopher Hitchens not being a dick

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:39:47 +0000

There is a site called Christopher Hitchens Watch which, I believe, began with a good cause: it’s been around for about 5 years, and initially focused on Hitchens’ support of the war in Iraq.

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Christopher Hitchens not being a dick

Because even the moderate, liberal Christians think God is more important than a dog

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:00:14 +0000

There are now a few more details on the story of the dog given a communion wafer : the dog’s name is Trapper, the majority of the congregation was happy to see him get a cracker, it’s just one person who complained, and now dogs have been officially excommunicated from the church . And this is exactly why I despise the so-called “moderate” Christians

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Because even the moderate, liberal Christians think God is more important than a dog

“Tom Johnson” fini

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:51:46 +0000

As some of you know, there was a long-running contretemps at Chris Mooney’s Intersocktion blog — Mooney took a comment by someone named “Tom Johnson” as evidence that the New Atheists were inciting all kinds of destructive fury and ran with it, promoting it as a solid strike against the same targets he took on in his sad little book, Unscientific America . Then it turned out that much of the conversation on this topic at the Intersocktion was driven by this same fellow, who was posting under multiple pseudonyms

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“Tom Johnson” fini

My week in the Pacific Northwest

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:39:58 +0000

Today it’s family day with a mob of Myerses hanging about and bickering opinonatedly at a picnic. You aren’t invited unless you can show evidence of a recent family relationship; showing evidence that all primates are related is nice, but won’t get you in the door.

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My week in the Pacific Northwest

Target teaches irreverence!

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:11:00 +0000

This is disgraceful. A reader sent me a link to a Target catalog, and apparently they’re now selling a Li’l PZ Action Set

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Target teaches irreverence!

Episode LXXXIII: Rainbow. How the #$&* do they work?

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:01:37 +0000

The participants in the exhausting thread are hereby ordered to explain this impossible phenomenon: rainbows. I don’t wanna hear any of your crazy Newton talk and refraction and water droplets, neither. (via The Skeptic’s Field Guide ) (Current totals: 10,691 entries with 1,066,521 comments.) Read the comments on this post..

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Episode LXXXIII: Rainbow. How the #$&* do they work?

This neighborhood is cursed!

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:44:21 +0000

I’ve already complained a little bit about the poor availability of network connectivity at my mother’s house. I looked next door at the Bible Chapel and discovered the source of the problem. We’re jinxed

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This neighborhood is cursed!

Seattle!

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:57:49 +0000

Well, Auburn, actually. I’m visiting family this week and mainly holing up in my mother’s house to type

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Seattle!

Shakin’ the nuts

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:57:42 +0000

Stay tuned for frolicsome hijinks and high hilarity. We have stirred up some kooks. Here are 3 in ascending order of lunacy.

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Shakin’ the nuts

Creationists win a prize

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:57:17 +0000

There is a zoo near Bristol called — you’ll see there are already problems right from the name — Noah’s Ark Zoo.

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Creationists win a prize

Ben Stein does his best Ben Stein impersonation

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:12:25 +0000

Ben Stein has opened his mouth again, this time on the economy. He thinks the 15 million Americans who are unemployed deserve it

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Ben Stein does his best Ben Stein impersonation

Comic-con reacts to Fred Phelps

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:32:32 +0000

Westboro Baptist Church decided that they were going to picket Comic-Con, and Justin Kirchart sent me pictures. He also sent me a photo of the WBC picket — it’s a sad and pathetic 4 people standing and holding the usual “YOU HATE GOD” and “GOD HATES FAGS” signs, and it wasn’t very interesting, so I didn’t bother to upload it

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Comic-con reacts to Fred Phelps

Blasphemy Day is 30 September

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:19:22 +0000

CFI wants your help: they’re looking for video public service announcements that make a point about freedom of expression . You can do it! Although they do set the bar high with this example

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Blasphemy Day is 30 September

Still alive!

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:31:05 +0000

Isn’t this just the perfect theme song for recent events? The strike is over. We had a productive discussion with the Seed Overlords, and I think we’ve clarified issues, got some ideas for further progress, and will be working for a Better World in the Future.

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Still alive!

Working towards some resolution

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:19:24 +0000

Don’t panic, don’t go into withdrawal, progress is looking good. Adam Bly sounds enthusiastic about meeting my demands (which is easy, since they don’t hurt Seed at all), got in contact with us quickly, and we’re going to be having a conference call in the next day or so, whenever a reasonable number of us can make a simultaneous connection. And I have high hopes that we’ll get a better, more responsive Scienceblogs network out of this

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Working towards some resolution

Pharyngula on STRIKE

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

ON STRIKE! It’s come to this. We’ve been facing a steady erosion of talent here at Scienceblogs, with the loss of good people like Carl Zimmer and Ed Yong a while back, and with the very abrupt departure of 15 bloggers after the recent PepsiCo debacle — an event that damaged the reputation of this place. And now just yesterday we lost PalMD and Bora .

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Pharyngula on STRIKE

You might go blind if you watch this

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:41:27 +0000

You might want to skip this video. It’s Glenn Beck performing in Salt Lake City, when he claims to have macular dystrophy and might go blind — and it’s revoltingly mawkish, maudlin, and self-pitying

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You might go blind if you watch this

See the stars at Dragon*Con

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:01:12 +0000

If you’re going to Dragon*Con this year, you might want to look into this other event: a Star Party at the Emory University observatory. You’ll get to hang out with cool people and learn stuff about the sky, and proceeds will also benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Read the comments on this post..

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See the stars at Dragon*Con

The Dick Delusion

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:57:00 +0000

I’ve been getting slapped upside the head with this “dick” meme that’s roaring through the skeptic community lately, largely because it seems that any time someone makes a generic criticism of rude, abrasive, confrontational critics of foolishness, the audience all thinks of the life-size poster of PZ Myers they’ve got hanging on their bedroom door back home. It’s a little annoying.

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The Dick Delusion

Eyes without a mind

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:53:50 +0000

Everyone should read the Washington Post’s recent effort in investigative reporting, Top Secret America . It’s distressing

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Eyes without a mind

The Irish amendment of the Copenhagen Declaration

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:38:17 +0000

I posted the Copenhagen Declaration here a while back. Atheist Ireland has done the right thing by taking it as a starting point and producing a simpler, and they hope clearer version. This is exactly what the motley hordes of the godless need to do: don’t expect one document to encompass everything exactly as everyone wants, because that will never happen

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The Irish amendment of the Copenhagen Declaration

If you’ve got a great big fancy expensive machine, you’ve got to use it

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:12:38 +0000

I’m sure it was a moment of epiphany. Person in charge of an MRI takes avantage of an idle moment in the parade of patients to have lunch. Pulls a banana out of a brown paper bag

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If you’ve got a great big fancy expensive machine, you’ve got to use it

Another podcast

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:23:51 +0000

I’m on Godless Business with a gang of Australians. Read the comments on this post…

Link:
Another podcast

Sunday Sacrilege: Metaphorical Acid

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:01:30 +0000

The idea that the Bible should be interpreted as a metaphor is a good one — because it melts the superstition away. Read the rest of this post..

Continued here:
Sunday Sacrilege: Metaphorical Acid

Not just evil, Disney evil

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 12:49:42 +0000

Never, ever emulate the stories from Disney cartoons. (via Evolving Thoughts ) Read the comments on this post…

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Not just evil, Disney evil

124 days to Skepticon 3

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:04:36 +0000

The lineup for SkeptiCon 3 just keeps getting better and better — James Randi and Sam Singleton are going to be there now, too. One other important feature of this meeting: every time I mention one of these posh meetings with the fancy-pants speakers, someone looks at the registration fees and swoons theatrically at the cost. That won’t happen here

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124 days to Skepticon 3

What is it with the Sacred Lube?

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:49:21 +0000

It’s just one of those freakish religious practices I cannot comprehend, this strange “anointing” of heads and objects with oil. Why

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What is it with the Sacred Lube?

So that’s why they call it the dismal science

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:07:50 +0000

Let’s see more charts and graphs to suck the joy out of your life! Here are 15 Appalling Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America — the rich-poor divide is growing. One graph summarizes it all: If you aren’t in the top 1% of America’s earners, you’re pretty much screwed .

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So that’s why they call it the dismal science

Flashy graphic illustration of the creationism problem

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:44:34 +0000

There have been some recent surveys of attitudes towards evolution and the state of science education in the US, and I’ve mainly used tables in presentations — so it’s nice to see some eye-catching graphical representations of the data .

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Flashy graphic illustration of the creationism problem

Episode LXXXI: There are treasures inside!

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 02:40:03 +0000

I have reset the wildly mutating thread to leap upon the latest internet craze! I’m on a horse. (Current totals: 10,638 entries with 1,059,133 comments.) Read the comments on this post…

Continue reading here:
Episode LXXXI: There are treasures inside!

Physicists, brace yourselves for a revolution! Faster than light travel discovered!

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:31:35 +0000

Those slippery rascals at Answers in Genesis have been doing research , they say, and Jason Lisle claims to have discovered something radical . I have been working for some time on solving the “distant starlight problem.” This is the issue of how starlight from the most distant galaxies is able to reach earth within the biblical timescale. Although light is incredibly fast, the most distant galaxies are incredibly far away.

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Physicists, brace yourselves for a revolution! Faster than light travel discovered!

Evolution isn’t libertarian

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:40:04 +0000

Larry Arnhart wrote a strange article in which he tried to claim Darwin and evolution for libertarianism , or as they prefer to call it nowadays, “Classical liberalism”. I was invited to give a reply , along with a few other people, but I can give the gist of my reaction here: no one gets to claim a biological justification for their political philosophy. Evolution does not endorse libertarianism, socialism, communism, or capitalism, and even if it did nudge one way or the other, that does not mean that we shouldn’t oppose the brutal short-term expediency of natural processes.

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Evolution isn’t libertarian

The Vatican must have some framing experts on staff

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:23:56 +0000

They’ve done it again . They’ve declared that the ordination of women is as heinous a crime as raping children , simultaneously minimizing the trauma of child-rape and maximizing the insult to women. I don’t know how they do it.

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The Vatican must have some framing experts on staff

I ♥ this letter

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:13:10 +0000

I wish Samuel Clemens were still alive, so I could piss him off and he’d write something like this back to me. It would be such an honor. Nov.

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I ♥ this letter

Argentina does the right thing

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:17:19 +0000

Demonstrating once again that we northerners are dour old puritans, Argentina has legalized gay marriage . If this means Argentinians are damned, that’s just more good news: there will be Carnival in hell

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Argentina does the right thing

Creationists are geniuses

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:13:01 +0000

Really, they are. A while back, the Institute for Creation Research moved to Texas, where they expected a friendly welcome, and instead they got spanked: their request to be allowed to hand out degrees was turned down by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

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Creationists are geniuses

Chickens, eggs, this is no way to report on science

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:34:01 +0000

Bleh.

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Chickens, eggs, this is no way to report on science

Botanical Wednesday: It will swallow your soul

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:10:57 +0000

Alonsoa unilabiata These are the only flowers I want in my garden. Thanks to Meg for sending it along! Read the comments on this post…

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Botanical Wednesday: It will swallow your soul

About that ad predicting the fall of Darwinism in 2013…

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:33:24 +0000

I know, I know already. We’re getting creationist and religious ads appearing on the right sidebar

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About that ad predicting the fall of Darwinism in 2013…

Darn, I knew I was missing something

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 02:07:16 +0000

Schools often block access to parts of the internet, which is fine, if only to focus students’ attention a little bit. It is not fine when they discriminate, like Indianapolis public schools, which block on religious views other than the Abrahamic religions . Their rules, though, mention something I did not know.

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Darn, I knew I was missing something

Excellent analysis of the Creation “Museum”

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:40:11 +0000

People are still going to the ghastly Creation “Museum” in Kentucky — it’s actually doing a bang-up business. Fortunately, some of the people going are critics who can see its troubling flaws

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Excellent analysis of the Creation “Museum”

No peeking!

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:14:27 +0000

Why has the government made it illegal to photograph the disaster on the gulf ? Oh. that’s why

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No peeking!

Episode LXXIX: American Splendor

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:46:25 +0000

Harvey Pekar would have fit right into the undendingly discursive thread , and now it’ll never happen . Just think what he would have said about PepsiCo. (Current totals: 10,597 entries with 1,053,074 comments.) Read the comments on this post…

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Episode LXXIX: American Splendor

Gillian McKeith does not have a Ph.D.

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:00:16 +0000

So don’t call her Dr McKeith. She hasn’t earned it

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Gillian McKeith does not have a Ph.D.

£20,000,000! For what?

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:22:01 +0000

That’s some houseguest. The Pope invited himself to visit England, and asked the British government to pay for it — that takes some gall right there — and is now revealing that the bill for his visit will be at least

Ladies, DON’T TAKE A SHOWER!

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:21:07 +0000

He may have poured that flask down the drain! Also, the fun part is doing the succussations between dilutions. Read the comments on this post..

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Ladies, DON’T TAKE A SHOWER!

Speaking of ridiculous…

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:01:50 +0000

…it’s books about how our pets go to heaven . Author Ptolemy Tompkins tracks the history of the relationship between humans and animals in the new book, “The Divine Life of Animals.” Prompted to write by the death of his pet rabbit, Angus, Tompkins looks to the ancient past for the best models of animal-human interaction. Och, Angus, ye cain’t be daid! What of Mr McGregor

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Speaking of ridiculous…

Sunday Sacrilege: The Joke

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:58:53 +0000

There’s a time to take religion seriously, and a time to laugh at it. Sometimes we have to do both at the same time.

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Sunday Sacrilege: The Joke

Molly molly outs in free!

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:56:02 +0000

Oops, I’m late again. But here at last, I’ve tallied up the the votes and the Molly award for the month of May goes to Ol’Greg .

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Molly molly outs in free!

An honest peek into the brain of a Christian conservative

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:05:47 +0000

In North Carolina, Christians defaced an atheist billboard . These things happen; there are always a few jerks in any movement who’ll go out and vandalize private property because they’re so sure they’re in the right that the laws don’t apply to them.

Honesty about sex is going to disqualify a lot of professors of Catholic dogma

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:41:10 +0000

Kenneth Howell was an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois. He is not being rehired at the end of his contract, apparently because he has been accused of hate speech against gays by a student. He had written an email to his students defending the Catholic position on homosexuality, and a friend of one of the students wrote to the university and the media accusing the professor of “hate speech”, of “indoctrinating students”, and “limiting the marketplace of ideas” .

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Honesty about sex is going to disqualify a lot of professors of Catholic dogma

British royalty receives a long-awaited shakeup

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:46:03 +0000

I was so excited about this lead . A famous Newfoundland sea monster will soon occupy a space normally reserved for Canada’s Queen

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British royalty receives a long-awaited shakeup

Jon Stewart, you let me down

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:27:52 +0000

Last night, Stewart interviewed Marilynne Robinson . I do not expect attack dog tactics from Stewart, ever, but I also didn’t expect him to so totally buy into her premises.

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Jon Stewart, you let me down

Friday Cephalopod: Lovely

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:09:28 +0000

(via Yeeta ) Read the comments on this post…

Excerpt from:
Friday Cephalopod: Lovely

Stop making me laugh! I’ve got work to do!

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:26:23 +0000

This turned up in a comment this morning.

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Stop making me laugh! I’ve got work to do!

HuffPo: Worse than Fox News?

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:00:05 +0000

At least when it comes to quackery, it is.

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HuffPo: Worse than Fox News?

Must have copy…for the pictures

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:25:32 +0000

You know how New Scientist published that horrible magazine cover that said “DARWIN WAS WRONG” in big letters, which we now get to hear about all the time at school board meetings as every authority-happy creationist waves it around and announces that they were right all along? I want a copy of the July issue of the Portuguese edition of Playboy for the same reason

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Must have copy…for the pictures

PepsiCo has been expelled

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:29:19 +0000

We just got this note from Adam Bly: We have removed Food Frontiers from SB.

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PepsiCo has been expelled

That’s a whole lot of paint

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:00:42 +0000

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo . Read the comments on this post..

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That’s a whole lot of paint

Botanical Wednesday: Something pretty

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:03:12 +0000

Never mind the chaos going on behind the scenes! We need a pretty distraction, stat ! Read the comments on this post…

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Botanical Wednesday: Something pretty

Salon v. Huffington Post

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:11:51 +0000

Alex Pareene jumps on the anti-HuffPo bandwagon : Giving a space to quacks to sell vitamin supplements to morons is insulting enough, but actually allowing a shameless asshole like Klinghoffer to use the Holocaust to promote his right-wing crusade to teach children lies is beyond the pale. Platform or no, there’s no reason for anyone rational or even anyone with a sense of shame to continue giving Huffington free content.

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Salon v. Huffington Post

Holy crap, we were all played!

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:06:58 +0000

There once was a gigantic blow-up of accusations that fed into Chris Mooney’s self-righteous crusade against atheists as harming the cause of science education. Remember “Tom Johnson”, the mysterious scientist who told stories of outrageous bias against Christians in academia, driven by people like me and Richard Dawkins?

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Holy crap, we were all played!

Morbid squid sex story

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:56:50 +0000

You’re reading this over breakfast, right? Just want to be sure I’ve caught you at an appropriate moment.

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Morbid squid sex story

Say hello to…PepsiCo??!? WTF?

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:40:02 +0000

It’s nice when we add another blog to the stable here at Scienceblogs — it means another human face added to the collection, another set of opinions to enjoy or destroy, yet more scientific minds committed to engaging in discussion with the culture. After all, that’s what we’re all about, putting a human personality to this weird enterprise of science. And as everyone on this blog is particularly aware, we encourage all kinds of diversions and digressions and transgressions, freely stomping on sacred cows and stuffed shirts because we can.

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Say hello to…PepsiCo??!? WTF?

An interesting experiment in online social forums

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:46:19 +0000

Blizzard, which makes a couple of extremely popular computer games like Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo, also maintains a gigantic set of forums with an overwhelming volume of posts appearing non-stop. I’ve never dug into them — way too much stuff, and it’s scary how ferocious the debates can get over a change in a magic spell in a game — but they’ve announced a major, radical change : The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it.

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An interesting experiment in online social forums

Creationist weaseling over the age of the earth

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:13:49 +0000

Last week, the hilarity was that Rand Paul refused to say how old he thought the earth was . The new chew toys are creationist apologists for ignorance trying to justify it , while also refusing to state how old they think the earth is.

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Creationist weaseling over the age of the earth

Who the heck are you?

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:14:48 +0000

Blame Ed Yong .

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Who the heck are you?

I’m glad the fierce women are on my side, mostly

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:20:49 +0000

There sure are a lot of tough godless women on youtube. Say hello to Zinnia Jones: We need to bring more people like this out into the public eye.

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I’m glad the fierce women are on my side, mostly

Atrocity in Kerala

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 22:45:16 +0000

This is a horrific story out of India, and the weird thing is that everyone is condemning the bloody, violent end of the story, but treating the preliminaries as a matter of course. Here’s the outline, as near as I can extract from a scattering of stories, often in poor English. In March, TJ Joseph, a professor at a private Catholic college in Kerala, gave an exam that apparently offended Muslim students.

Vancouver? Yeah, I’m going to Vancouver

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:57:45 +0000

Look for me in Canada, eh, on 30 July , at which time my book will be done and I’ll look much less harried and may even be nice and polite and a little less bitey snarly mean, so that I can blend in better with the natives. That’s my plan, anyway, and I’m sticking to it

Link:
Vancouver? Yeah, I’m going to Vancouver

We proud tyrants of the real

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:40:13 +0000

The last time I got a glimpse of the wretched new book from Marilynne Robinson , the review was sufficient to dissuade me from bothering to ever read it. Now we have a positive review from Karen Armstrong , and I am now convinced that if ever I am confronted with this work, the only appropriate response would be to unzip my fly and piss on it, on the spot. Only my deeply ingrained social conditioning would hinder me.

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We proud tyrants of the real

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Sure, I know what love is

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:55:35 +0000

A caterpillar loves its wasp.

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Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Sure, I know what love is

Sunday Sacrilege: The active hand

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:29:40 +0000

The more skilled the slave, the more likely they are to break free. Where faith enlists knowledge to glorify itself, it opens itself to destruction from within

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Sunday Sacrilege: The active hand

Uh, I don’t think those credits will transfer anywhere

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 21:54:18 +0000

Glenn Beck really is certifiable. He’s now pushing his own “university” , staffed by a trio of right wing incompetents, with a tuition of $9.95 per month

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Uh, I don’t think those credits will transfer anywhere

Uh, I don’t think those credits will transfer anywhere

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 21:54:18 +0000

Glenn Beck really is certifiable. He’s now pushing his own “university” , staffed by a trio of right wing incompetents, with a tuition of $9.95 per month. His introductory curriculum is Faith 101, Hope 101, and Charity 101, titles which don’t seem to have much to do with their contents

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Uh, I don’t think those credits will transfer anywhere

Friday Cephalopod: A last vestige of the recent zombie invasion

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:02:11 +0000

Read the comments on this post…

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Friday Cephalopod: A last vestige of the recent zombie invasion

Zombie sightings

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:54:20 +0000

Christina Pikas is a zombie doing reference searches . Sharon Astyk is a zombie wondering about zombie infrastructure . Greg Laden has always been a zombie, but now he’s a zombie with bugs on his brain

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Zombie sightings

Botanical Wednesday: So you’ll remember what ‘flaxen-haired’ means

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:11:44 +0000

Linum flavum Read the comments on this post…

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Botanical Wednesday: So you’ll remember what ‘flaxen-haired’ means

There will be no prayers

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:57:16 +0000

Unless they’re imprecatory, and from the other side. Christopher Hitchens has made an announcement . I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus

Episode LXXIV: Sacred music

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:05:13 +0000

The thread is dead, long live the thread! Now party on, dudes. (Current totals: 10,514 entries with 1,038,711 comments.) Read the comments on this post…

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Episode LXXIV: Sacred music

Disappointment always follows

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:34:08 +0000

You knew it was too good to be true. Julia Gillard has just announced that she is against gay marriage . The honeymoon is over, no more plaudits

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Disappointment always follows

The Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:08:15 +0000

One of the outcomes of the Copenhagen gathering of atheists was the formulation of a set of principles. It has now been posted on the web , so it’s time for everyone to discuss, comment, and criticize…have at it! The recent Gods and Politics conference in Copenhagen adopted the following Declaration on Religion in Public Life

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The Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life

The shacking up poll

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:11:14 +0000

Julia Gillard, the new Prime Minister of Australia, is unmarried…but she has a boyfriend, a partner, a…a… paramour , which brings up the horrific possibility of a leader of the country living in sin in official accommodations. Oh, lord, I’m getting the vapors just thinking about it. And now the Sydney Morning Herald is getting all fluttery over it, too.

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The shacking up poll

I want to…DANCE!

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:57:18 +0000

But I can’t. I am quite possibly the worst dancer in our galaxy (notice the nod to my self-esteem: I can acknowledge that there might be an entity worse at dancing somewhere in the universe)

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I want to…DANCE!

Great Beards: Ned Kelly!

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 01:58:35 +0000

We have achieved victory in the great beard debate , reaching the goal of

7 out of 8 isn’t bad

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 19:03:36 +0000

I actually listened to a little bit of that Chopraesque blithering about the Gulf from “Evolutionary Leaders” — I really, really despise them for taking that name — and you can, too, at this link . I don’t recommend it: the incompetent boobs who set it up had created a two-way conference call with swarms of people, and configured it so every time someone dialed in, there was a chime…a horrible, awful piercing chime. So throught the whole thing you get to hear ‘ping – ping – ping – ping’ at about the same volume as the speakers

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7 out of 8 isn’t bad

7 out of 8 isn’t bad

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 19:03:36 +0000

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7 out of 8 isn’t bad

Sunday Sacrilege: So alone

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:53:07 +0000

Scientists and atheists do something that many believers find repellent: we shatter their perception of their relationship to the universe. And understandably, they don’t like that. Read the rest of this post…

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Sunday Sacrilege: So alone

Episode LXXIII: Fishing in Brazil

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:35:58 +0000

Gathering comments in the amaranthine thread is a bit like this: Discuss.

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Episode LXXIII: Fishing in Brazil

“Climategate” slowly deflates

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:58:23 +0000

After the computer break-in that revealed so-called ‘damaging’ emails in the East Anglia Climate Research Group, after all the media hysterics and errors and misrepresentations, now at last some newspapers are coming out and admitting that they screwed up . Any idiot could just look at the released emails and see that they didn’t call the substance of the data into question, but the media took the profitable way out and fanned the flames of denialism. It’s rather like the Andrew Wakefield story.

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“Climategate” slowly deflates

Irreligiosophical podcast

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:32:40 +0000

It’s another conversation recorded for posterity: I appeared on the irreligiophilosophy podcast . Fortunately, they did not ask me to pronounce “irreligiophilosophy”. Read the comments on this post..

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Irreligiosophical podcast

Bravo, Belgium!

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 22:06:36 +0000

The Belgian police have raided offices of the Catholic church in search of evidence of the usual Catholic crime — raping children. (It’s funny: ask someone to name a Catholic crime, and what’s the first thing they think of? It’s the worst PR in the world.) I’m hoping that they’re just warming up for the big one — I’d like to see a UN raid of the Vatican, with a whole line of shame-faced old men in dresses led out to the paddy wagons like a transvestite Mafia mob

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Bravo, Belgium!