Kooks
pharyngula | November 7, 2009The concern trolls are very concerned. They are responding to my posting of Sonia/Tanja/Rosa/Whoevera Jensen's crazy email — she's disabled! She's mentally ill! It's cruel to post her wacky screeds publicly where people will point and laugh! You're picking on her! <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE SONIA ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>
No.
Crazy people — and I don't mean clinically ill people who need medical/psychiatric help — are everywhere, and they are saying and doing stupid things, and they are sending their nonsense to me, and they are engaging in their foolishness in public places where they…
pharyngula | November 7, 2009Some crazy lady in British Columbia named either Sonia or Tanja Jensen has me on a mailing list. I'm in good company; also on the list are the president of my university, Bob Bruininks, as well as Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, the Governor of Alaska, Greenpeace, Angela Merkel, and the German Balkan Trust. Strangely, NASA is not on the list. Without exception, all of her emails are raving mad. Here's her latest, which I think is one of the finest examples of her output.
COULD NASA CAUSE THE SUDDEN DEATH OF EVERY LIVING THING ON EARTH? - "... the moon will not give its light ..." Matthew 24:…
pharyngula | November 5, 2009This argument is a new one on me.
If you can't read it, click on it to see a larger original. I can try to summarize it, though. The middle finger is the longest finger on the human hand, and da Vinci drew it in his famous figure of Vitruvian Man, which illustrates ideal proportions…therefore, the Big Bang didn't happen.
I think that if you do a lot of drugs, that will make sense.
I like Jerry Coyne's explanation better.
pharyngula | November 5, 2009You all laughed at this video of Charlene Werner explaining the physics of homeopathy.
But did you know that videos like this, where kooks are caught in the act, are endangered? It turns out that kooks don't like it when their words are made public, especially when those words are so loony that they invite universal derision. The person who put that video on youtube has been sent an odd letter:
Dr Charlene Werner
I thought you would like to know that you will be contacted by Dr Werner's Attorney shortly regarding her video. The posting of this video is in violation of copyright laws. We…
pharyngula | November 2, 2009I am so disappointed. The little evangelical goober has a new book that promises to provide evidence of life after death — it's right in the title, Life After Death: The Evidence — but he doesn't seem to have, you know, actually provided any evidence. Newsweek has a summary of his arguments.
The "evidence," of necessity, is indirect: D'Souza doesn't claim to have communicated with anyone who has died, and he doesn't expect to. Instead, he looks to the human heart, and finds therein a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity that appear to run counter to the Darwinian…
pharyngula | October 31, 2009Kimberly Daniels of the Christian Broadcasting Network has a warning for trick-or-treaters.
"[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches," Daniels wrote. "I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."
I think Kimberly is just one of those obnoxious cheapskates who wants an excuse to hand out bible tracts on Halloween. Although, if I were a witch, I'd…
pharyngula | October 28, 2009Bill Donohue has put me on his mailing list, so I get these 'alerts' from the Catholic League several times a day. Here's the latest (the colors are as sent to me: I guess it was very important!)
On Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 8:45 am ET, Catholic League President Bill Donohue will appear on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends."
He will discuss the recent attack on Jesus on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
"Attack on Jesus". Jebus, what a loon.
Well, you know what the only reasonable response to such foolishness is. We must watch the Attack on Jesus, and laugh, even if I didn't think it was…
pharyngula | October 28, 2009It's rather pathetic when banned loons like "help ma boab" come crawling back, begging to be released from the dungeon…especially when their apologies are this insincere. It just reaffirms why he got tossed in there in the first place.
I'm Sorry
I'm sorry that I trod on someone's arrogant, over-inflated, preposterous ego. Can I come back onto your blog? I promise I won't do it again. Pretty please?
No.
pharyngula | October 28, 2009Answers in Genesis, that site that tries to promote an alternative view to natural origins, has put up an article to answer that question that I'm sure is pressing on everyone's mind as we get close to Halloween: Are demons real?. You won't be surprised to learn that AiG's answer is that yes, they are.
According to the Bible, demons are real spiritual and personal beings, not just forces or phenomena in the physical and psychological realm. Various Bible passages reveal that they have intellect, emotions, and will. They think, hate, and choose plans of action against God, Christ, and mankind…
pharyngula | October 27, 2009Peter Irons sent this little comment to Stuart Pivar on receiving the news about his failed lawsuit.
Hi Stu,
Good news! The story is already up on Pharyngula (PZ didn't waste a
minute) and the mocking has begun. Enjoy!
By the way, what pissed me off the most about you was not the PZ suit, but
your lie about giving the eulogy at Steve Gould's memorial service. Don't
ever repeat that lie again.
Here's Pivar's rejoinder.
I never said I gave a eulogy at Steve Gould's memorial.
The day after Steve died I read the Kaddish service at the funeral obsequies in his small library, the minion…
pharyngula | October 27, 2009In August, Stuart Pivar once again threatened to resolve a scientific dispute by waving a team of lawyers at it, when he tried to sue a scientist, Robert Hazen, for daring to insist that Pivar stop using his name to promote Pivar's pseudo-science of balloon animals. I just heard from Peter Irons that he had received notification from some of the lawyers involved in that case.
Good morning Peter,
We are pleased to report that Pivar's counsel called and offered to
dismiss the action with prejudice. We recently filed the executed
Stipulation of Voluntary Discontinuance. The action is…
pharyngula | October 27, 2009As I mentioned yesterday, Christopher Hitchens is touring the country with a pastor, Doug Wilson, doing public debates. A reader wrote in to inform me of who Wilson is, and I was appalled. He has a ministry in Idaho which has ties to the white supremacy movement! Doug Wilson has an entry at the Southern Poverty Law Center that explains that he coauthored a book, Southern Slavery As It Was, with Steven Wilkins, a neo-Confederate, that was essentially a mangling of history and theology to assert that slavery in the South wasn't so bad after all. He runs a private school in Idaho that celebrates…
pharyngula | October 26, 2009Oh, look. A homeopath explains physics to us all.
I'm sorry. Did I break your brain?
Here's a non-homeopathic cure. It takes an hour of Lawrence Krauss to counter 8 minutes of that kind of lunacy, I'm afraid.
pharyngula | October 24, 2009Elizabeth Clare Prophet, who some of us will recall from the 1980s, when her survivalist, apocalyptic cult, the Church Universal and Triumphant, was digging in in Montana, has died. Another end-of-the-world weirdo bites the dust before the world does.
There was one odd comment in her obituary.
Elizabeth Prophet, who died on October 15, is survived by three daughters and two sons, one of whom is spiritual leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant. For some years she had been suffering from dementia.
"Some years"? Like, about 40?
pharyngula | October 21, 2009It's cruel, but he is such a tempting target, so full of himself and so, so crazy. It seems The Simpsons tossed out some mild one-liner making fun of communion ("What kind of civilized people eat the body and blood of their savior?"), and Bill Donohue has fired off another angry fax ("mocking the heart of any religion always crosses the line, and mocking the Eucharist does it for Catholics.")
Too bad, Bill. Silly superstitions will always be a magnet for mockery.
You can see the whole Simpsons episode and Donohue's full complaint at The Friendly Atheist.
pharyngula | October 19, 2009I happen to be male. I found myself unable to read the following story without feeling an urge to double over and cup my crotch, which was really awkward when sitting in a public coffee shop. So stop here if you are prone to sympathetic pains.
A man in British Columbia decided that he and his four year old son needed to be circumcised.
Already, half my readership has decided to flee to less cringe-inducing websites. That's OK, just leave quietly, and close the door behind you.
All right, so he decides they both need to be circumcised. He tries it on himself first, and it's a botch — only…
pharyngula | October 13, 2009There's one thing that could make this video funnier.
It would be Bill Donohue waxing apoplectic over that video.
Hallelujah! My prayers are answered!
Comedian Sarah Silverman appeared on Bill Maher's HBO show on October 9 attacking the Vatican. She began her monologue bemoaning the plight of world hunger, and then found a solution: "What is the Vatican worth, like 500 billion dollars? This is great, sell the Vatican, take a big chunk of the money, build a gorgeous condominium for you and all your friends to live in…and with the money left over, feed the whole f---ing world."
Speaking of…
pharyngula | October 12, 2009Surely this was misaddressed! I am not the right person to contact about pseudo-scientific 'spiritual' evolutionary seminars.
Dear Evolutionary,
I am happy to invite you to two free teleseminars--one with spiritual teacher and founder of EnlightenNext Andrew Cohen, and another with EnlightenNext magazine executive editor, Carter Phipps. These calls offer not only valuable content but also a fully interactive experience on MaestroConference, a new technology platform that allows you to engage the speaker and other participants as if it's an in-person workshop, with breakout groups and more.…
pharyngula | October 10, 2009Richard Dawkins was 'interviewed' by that awful little peabrain, Bill O'Reilly. It was a horrible spectacle, but Dawkins kept his cool. Look at O'Reilly's arguments:
Hmm, let's see. O'Reilly claims we don't know everything, which is entirely true, so somehow this justifies his belief in Jesus. Dawkins had a great answer to that: "It's a most of extraordinary piece of warped logic to say because science can't fill in a particular gap you're going throw in your lot with Christianity." Another point I like to toss in against that line of nonsense is that science at least has the integrity to…
pharyngula | October 9, 2009The news that Obama has won a Nobel peace prize was weird — and don't get me wrong, I don't think he has done badly at promoting peace, I just don't think he's made the kind of exceptional effort that something with the prestige of the Nobel ought to reward — but here's something much, much crazier: WhirledNutDaily has begun a campaign to impeach Obama. You might be wondering on what grounds they would commit this act…but they don't seem to have anything specific. I just got email from WND begging for donations for their little crusade, and here's the best reason they offer, from some wingnut…