News From Around The Blogosphere 4.20.11

1. Siberian YouTube alien is a hoax – This week a YouTube video has been making the rounds that seems to show the discovery of a dead space alien in the ice. Of course, as it turns out, the tiny “dead alien” is just skin from chicken filled with bread that was painted in “alien colors,” whatever that is.

2. Dilbert’s evolution-denying creator caught using sock accounts – Many people don’t know this but Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoons, doesn’t believe in evolution. What you might also not know is that he often defends himself against critics online under the anonymous account, PlannedChaos in order to give the illusion of impartiality. And when his dishonesty was caught, his excuse was that since it hardly even registers when compared with the worst immoral behavior imaginable that that somehow makes his actions acceptable. PZ Myers offers this hilarious response:

Great. So if ever I’m caught kicking a puppy or lying on the internet, all I need to do is explain that I didn’t kill six million Jews, so you can all forgive me.

Myers perfectly demonstrates what a pathetic argument that is and how it can be used to justify literally anything.

Exhibit A:

3. Jesus loves Kit Kat viral video – Whenever I hear a pareidolia-themed news story about people seeing the face of Jesus in some random object, I love to post about it. Hell, I’m even making a short film mocking the phenomenon. And last year, when a video emerged showing people who allegedly found Jesus’ face in a Kit Kat bar, I probably reported it. But it turns out that it was a Poe, a deliberate hoax that was indistinguishable from a genuine news story. In actuality, it was an experiment to see if they could get the video to go viral.

On a related note…

4. Canadian-Israeli director Simcha Jacobovici claims to have found the nails that crucified Jesus – How does he know? Well, they’re really old. What more proof do you nned?

5. Mitchell and Webb bring us Holistic ER – The group that has given us Homeopathic A&E, also has another video mocking holistic medicine of all kinds.

Related articles

• Siberian Alien Outed as Delicious Hoax (escapistmagazine.com)
• Dilbert creator outed for using sock puppets on Metafilter and Reddit (reddit.com)

New From Around The Blogosphere 8.31.09

Jesus has returned, and he’s in Siberia – Sergei Torop, a former traffic policeman, claims to be Jesus Christ. So maybe he can finally show up to court.

Robots getting closer to mimicking humans –

The Eccerobot is a project created by five European institutions to build a robot modeled after the human anatomy.

. . .

This has led to a robot that looks and moves very much like a human, if you can imagine some skin wrapped over all those wires, strings, and pulleys.

Foundation Beyond Belief – This is a charity for atheists that promotes humanistic generosity and a nationwide nonreligious parent education program.

Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm -This seems to be the UK’s version of the Creation “Museum.” There’s so much I could say about it but pictures are worth a thousand words: