Things I've missed

It's almost a year since my last blog post so I imagine anyone who was following my blog has stopped. It's a shame really, 2008 had some really good material. There was the Georgia Bigfoot hoax, LHC hysteria, and of course Sarah Palin. Hopefully 2009 offers up some more gems.

Yeah, but the 6/49 has better odds... and it's cheaper too

The much talked about "Atheist Bus Campaigns", which seeks to put the following message on buses around the world

There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life

Is coming to Canada it seems, and it has caught the attention of Edmonton Sun columnist Lynn Cockburn in her Column, Bet on God and you might get lucky. You "Might" get lucky? Oh ye of little faith!

But I do think the atheist bus promoters need a quick dose of Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher (1623-1662) who wrote what is now called "Pascal's Wager."

I'm not going to waste your time reiterating what Pascal's Wager is, you likely know what it is. But maybe someone ought to tell Lynn that it's one of the Lamest arguements for the existence of God. It's not really even an arguement it's more of an 'Awww, C'mon'. If a God does exist I hope the supreme being of the universe wouldn't be impressed by believers hedging their bets.

One more thing from the article,

God has a sense of humour.

How could He or She not? What humourless deity would have created platypuses, red hair and Rush Limbaugh?

The same one who created malaria, HIV, and Pubic Lice.

Creationists Lie?

GodTube is quickly becoming my new internet addiction. I found this little gem tonight:



Now I, like you, know that everything a Creationist says is a lie. So I decided to do a little digging on this Damadian fellow. While it's true he was a creationist, everything else was made up. He was not denied the Nobel prize because he was a Creationist. Damadian himself said as much

"Before this happened, nobody ever said to me 'They will not give you the Nobel Prize for Medicine because you are a creation scientist.'... If people were actively campaigning against me because of that, I never knew it."

The controversy appears to have arisen over what role Damadian played in the develepment of MRI. It had nothing to do with his religous views. Even the New York Times article he showed was a lie. It was a paid advertisment taken out by Damadian, and even it doesn't mention religious discrimination.

Creationist Lie? You bet!

Creed = Satan!

Did you know that Creed is being used by Satan? I didn't! Damn you Scott Strap!

Ben Stein On Glenn Beck: No Intelligence Evident

Because I hate myself I listen to Glenn Beck, and he had Ben Stein on today... for a full hour. And because I really hate myself I listened. Stein is a smug, self-aggrandizing stupid man. Stein, a Jew, seems to have shifted old conspiracies about his people on to atheists claiming that they are "in charge of the Media"... weird.

Stein: We ask "Can Darwinism explain possibly explain gravity?"... Even the most ardent Darwinist scientist said 'No, It can't"

No, you moron. That's like asking a Geologist "Can plate tectonics possibly explain Photosynthesis?" Does he know the first thing about Darwinian natural selection, and what it can and cannot explain. Stein seems to think that because biological evolution can't describe gravity (or any other physical laws) it can't possibly be true. Is he possibly that ignorant?

Ben Stein is one big giant argument from incredulity: "I don't understand it, therefore Goddidit"

Stein: There's no observation yet, ever, of a separate species evolving. There's no fossil record, there's no record of any kind of a separate species. Microevolution within species is a well documented fact, but evolution of new species has not been shown to happen yet. Maybe it will be shown some day. Even so, where do the governing principles of the universe come from?

Is Kent Hovind writing his material from prison? This is pure young-earth creationist talk. And again, he brings up evolutions inability to explaining the origin of the laws of the universe. Perhaps he should have made a movie about cosmology. Maybe in that one he'd rant about Einsteinism can't explain biochemistry.

He then goes on to talk about his interview with Dawkins, and basically twists what Dawkins says about Aliens and Panspermia. I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment on the context of this but I'm willing to bet that he (Dawkins) was using Aliens/panspermia as an example of scientifically testable intelligent design. Of course, Stein uses this to portray Dawkins as some UFO nutter.

I'm only 5 minutes into this interview. Stein is like a supernova of stupid.

Stein: (Talking about scientists) The rule is you can allow anything into your debate but God

No, not true at all. You also can't allow Santa Claus, fairies, wizards or Dr. Strange either. How bout this for his next movie "Expelled: No Sorcery Allowed"

He then calls Newton the greatest scientific genius of all time. Yeah, Okay Stein. You know all about Newtons work I'm sure. His pointing being that: Newton believed in God, ipso facto god exists. If that's his logic Alchemy must also exists because Newton believed it.

Stein: Darwinism is just Atheism in search of a theory not a theory that proves atheism

It's neither... asshole. For the next few minutes Beck and Stein gush about how much their fellow morons loved this movie. I'm only at the 7:48 mark so far and I'm done. I can't do this anymore the rest is just Steins revisionist history about the holocaust, which is just so tasteless I can't be bothered to transcribe anymore of this crap.

I think we need to start a fund so we can buy Stein some textbooks. He seems really confused about science.

Update: So much for my No Sorcery Allowed idea. Apparently his next movie will be about the "War on Christmas". Great, another movie to whip up Conservative furor. Should be fun.

This is why some call Religion Child Abuse

It's almost criminal whats been done to this kid.

h/t to PZ

Expelled Slides Out of the Top 10

Ben Steins vile little propoganda piece opened April 19th and I'd be willing to concede that it had an okay-ish opening weekend. But it appears that its audience is quickly disappearing. It's slipped from 9th to 13th and its per screen gross and overall gross fell by over 50%. I wonder how he'll spin that to make the movie look like a huge success, or maybe he'll just blame this on 'big science' too

Shameless Self Promotion

I was just reading some reviews of my blog over at BlogsRater.com, and it makes me blush just a tiny bit.

I found this blog to be both entertaining and educational. I found myself smiling while reading many of the posts. The site is well laid out and is attractive to look at. The articles appear to be well researched, and the content is varied. This is not just for science geeks, readers of all levels of science knowledge will find something interesting on this blog.

Aww shucks

Birmingham gets Biblical

Larry Langford the fearless mayor of Birmingham, Alabama has a fool-proof plan to reduce crime in his fair city. What is that plan? You're looking at it. Mayor Langford proclaimed Friday, April 25, a “day of prayer in sackcloth (ie potato sack) and ashes” in Birmingham. I swear... only in the south.

“I could care less what they write about it or say about it,” Langford said. “Because let there be no misunderstanding, just like Satan is at work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days, God is too.”

So he blames the crime in the city on Satan and believed he could fight that crime by donning his holy potato sack of antioch and praying to god (who allows Satan to exist in the first place, but thats a rant for another day). Forget hiring more cops, go with magic. I'm sure thats what any reasonable civic leader would decide.

One humourous part to this story is in the official proclomation of potato sack day. (Large-ish pdf)

Whereas: The City of Birmingham Like the City of Nineveh has experienced violence and murder that pails in comparison to the city of Nineveh of the Old Testament; Book of Jonah; and has become the fourth violent city per capital in the United States of America

Pails? Per Capitol? Did his grandson write this? Previous anti-crime initiatives included handing out bibles. Of course, a sincere reader of the bible will find that it advocates crime and immoral behaviour far more than it condemns it.

Beware the Believers

This thing has been floating around for a week or so now, stemming (apparently) from the whole Expelled thing (which need not be repeated, if you don't know go here)

I'm torn as to whether or not this is made by the IDiots as criticism of 'Big Science', or if it's a parody made by the good guys. If I had to put money on it I'd say it's the former... either way it's very clever

FYI: The 'posse' consists of Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens

Richard Dawkins on Real Time with Bill Maher

Nothing really new, but still worth watching.

You Know You Go To an Awesome University When....

Chuck Norris gives your graduation address

I dare you not to call Jerry Falwell's Liberty University a legitimate place of higher education now!

The 'Expelled' Flap

If I'm gonna start blogging again I gotta mention the PZ Meyers Expelled from Expelled incident. But what can I say that hasn't already been said? Here's a few links if you don't know what I'm talking about:

Expelled Homepage
PZ Meyers account of the incident
Expelled Exposed
Lying For Jesus, by Richard Dawkins

The whole thing is just too funny. I actually can't wait to see this movie, I'm not going to pay for it. But I will watch it.

Bigfoot Vid Exposed as Hoax

All Bigfoot videos are hoaxes, but only a few are ever exposed as hoaxes. There is now a video confession from the creators of the 'Luxembourg Bigfoot' video, showing how the creators faked it all.



It's no secret that I used to believe this stuff, I still have the plaster casts that I used to display with pride in my home. But after seeing the costume they wore in the video, I'm especially ashamed of myself.

Newsflash! Looking at Sun May Damage Eyes!!

Dozens blinded in India looking for Virgin Mary


Dozens of people in India have been blinded by look for the Virgin Mary... by staring at the sun.

Alarmed health authorities in India's Kottayam district have set up a sign dispelling rumours of a miraculous image in the sky and warning of the dangers of looking into direct sunlight.

Forty-eight cases of sight-loss, allegedly caused by photochemical burns on the retina, have been recorded at St Joseph's ENT and Eye hospital in the region since Friday.

Despite warnings, and the potentially harmful effects of their actions, believers are allegedly still flocking to a hotelier's house in Erumeli near where the divine image is said to have appeared.

"All our patients have similar history and symptoms… They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun," Dr Annamma James Isaac, the hospital's ophthalmologist said.

I'm sure that in a few weeks, when some of these people regain their sight, we'll hear stories of people being miraculously healed of their blindness.

"I looked into the sun, and the virgin Mary was so radiant the she blinded me! It's only through my faith that I've been healed! Praise Jebus!"

Just wait.

Plesiosaur Recovered From Oil Sands

See! The Alberta Oil Sands aren't all bad.

The Alberta oil sands have yeilded a new species of plesiosaur, the 2.6m Nichollsia borealis, named after paleontologist Elizabeth Nicholls. It was actually dug up 14 years ago but was only just formally described.

They're called fossil fuels for a reason. I cringe to think whats been destroyed in the rush to exploit the resources there.

More on The Dino Mummy

Environmentalgraffiti.com has more on the dinosaur mummy I told you about yesterday. They add absolutely nothing to the story, other than to use it as an opportunity to ridicule creationists. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is a valuable use of one's time.

Yeehaw, ride 'em Jesus