This is the best podcast on the web. If you’re not listening to it, you should be ashamed of yourself.
News From Around The Blogosphere 9.29.09
September 29, 20091. Egypt out to stop fake virgins –
A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty.
That just says it all, doesn’t it?
2. R. Crumb’s Bible to be released soon – A while back, I blogged about subversive Cartoonist R. Crumb’s plans to release his own take on the Bible. Well now it’s about to be released:
“I grew to hate the Bible,” he told a press conference for the international launch of “Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis”, which he called a “gruelling” four year project.
. . .
“The idea of millions of people taking this so seriously is totally nuts,” he added. “The Bible doesn’t need to be satirised. It’s already so crazy.”
3. SGU makes you smarter – My favorite podcast, the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, has been named among the 15 podcasts that will make you smarter, according to College Crunch website. Congrats guys!
4. Atheist bus ad goes up in Saskatchewan, Canada – It uses the “Don’t Believe In God? You Are Not Alone” slogan but looks a bit different from the one we’ve all gotten used to.
Congratulations to Rebecca Watson!
July 11, 2009To those who listen to the brilliant Skeptics Guide To The Universe podcast and/or regularly visit the Skepchick.com blog, Rebecca “The Skepchick” Watson has just gotten married at The Amazing Meeting 7 in Vegas.
The first 20 minutes of the following video is a goofy paranormal investigators spoof directed by SGU co-host Jay Novella and you can view the wedding ceremony at TAM beginning just before the 27 minute mark:
Vodpod videos no longer available.Congratulations to Rebecca and Sid!
News From Around The Blogosphere 9.21.08
September 22, 2008Happy Autumnal Equinox everybody! – (It’s actually on Sept. 22th this year) You know what that means? Time to once again debunk that whole egg standing on end myth:
Salon Magazine article reviews Paul Offit’s new book and takes a baseball bat to the anti-vaccinationists – A rare case of the popular news media doing their job on this issue. Also I highly recommend listening to this week’s episode of The Skeptics Guide To The Universe podcast (40 minutes in) where the Guardian’s Ben Goldacre (whose legal victory against the evil quack Matthias Rath I’ve recently blogged about) talks more about the sordid history of the anti-vaccine movement.
THIS DAY IN GOD:
Yemeni girl who was married off at 8 is now divorced at 10 – Congratulations Nujood, and I hope you enjoy your return to the second grade!
Thixotropy – My favorite new word of the day:
“Thousands of Neapolitans crowded into the city’s cathedral on Friday to witness the miracle of Saint Gennaro — whose dried blood is said to liquefy twice a year, 17 centuries after his death.”
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried . . . okay, maybe I could.
Why do we believe impossible things? –
“Wolpert argues that our wide range of beliefs, some of which are clearly false, grew out of a uniquely human trait. Alone in the animal world, humans understand cause and effect, and that, he says, led ultimately to the invention of tools, the rapid rise of sophisticated technology, and of course, beliefs. Even the earliest humans understood that many events that shaped their lives resulted from specific causes. Therefore, there must be a cause behind every event.”
Jesus is magic – A look inside the Fellowship of Christian Magicians. No, I’m serious. That’s what they actually call themselves.
How to make Fred Phelps & The Westboro Baptist Church go away – Don’t worry. It involves dressing up like a pirate:
“Yep, the cuckoo Phelps hate group walked the plank this morning after a happy bunch dressed like pirates and holding signs saying “God hates shrimp — Leviticus” and “God hates cotton-polyester blends” stood opposite them at the corner of Markham and Scott streets. The group, made up of Central Arkansas Pastafarians, waved swords and growled “Arrghh!” in a manner that would have made Abbie Hoffman proud.
With cars honking and waving at the pirates and a TV crew giving them all the attention, the Phelps group — with a child in tow, sadly — picked up their “fag” epithets and went away. Pitiful.”
What’s Jesus doing on the ceiling? – Hey Jesus, get down from there!
Roger Ebert gives creationism the thumbs up? – This smells of a hoax.
Is the banana man leaving the blogosphere for good? – I doubt it but it’d be a shame to lose him since he’s got to be an embarrassment even to other creationists. Ray Comfort preaches to the already converted and isn’t likely to convince anyone with his poor debating skills & his arrogant, distasteful schtick that involves bullying random people on the street by trying to humiliate them before a crowd to make himself look good:
ON SKEPTICISM:
Advice on how to avoid being a lonely skeptic
And an appropriate companion piece to this:
ATHEIST DENIGRATION:
How are atheists like smokers? – Rev. Keith Crosby from Green Bay, Wisconsin provides the answer to that question with the worst comparison you’ll hear all day:
“Atheists are like smokers. Smokers know that smoking is harmful and yet they smoke while consciously suppressing the fact that harm will come to them if they persist. Atheists act as if their feigned unbelief somehow grants them immunity from responsibility vis-à-vis what politicians in the Watergate era once called “plausible denial.” Plausible denial won’t work with God.
As the passage above indicates, they will concoct theories and create their own little gods and myths including things like earth worship or UFOs … anything to suppress the truth from which they run. They are not fooling God. That’s why atheists get so angry about “religion” and pursue dead ends like “freedom from religion.” They don’t like to be reminded of what is true and the consequences of their self-delusion.
If you are reading this and you are a professing atheist — stop suppressing the truth. Embrace the forgiveness and restoration God in Christ offers.”
AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:
Pinning Down The Milky Way’s Rotation – “New, very precise measurements have shown that the rotation of the Milky Way is simpler than previously thought. A remarkable result from the most successful ESO instrument HARPS, shows that a much debated, apparent ‘fall’ of neighbourhood Cepheid stars towards our Sun stems from an intrinsic property of the Cepheids themselves.”
Naphthalene Found In Interstellar Space – “A team of scientists led by researchers from the Instituto Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has succeeded in identifying naphthalene, one of the most complex molecules yet discovered in the interstellar medium. The detection of this molecule suggests that a large number of the key components in prebiotic terrestrial chemistry could have been present in the interstellar matter from which the Solar System was formed.”