Kooks
pharyngula | May 17, 2009Oh, no. I spent a long day traveling, getting my daughter to the airport in Minneapolis so she could fly off to Phoenix for 10 weeks of research (she has arrived, and seems a bit shocked to be in a desert), and then I drove all the way back. I sit down to see what has happened in the world, and discover that Charlotte Allen hates me. She doesn't like you much, either. And she got her little tirade published in the LA Times. Let's take a look and see what she doesn't like about us.
Her opening is clear. She thinks we're "crashing bores". A hint for Ms. Allen: never start an essay by declaring…
pharyngula | May 16, 2009I was sent a petition to call for conscious evolution. I have no idea what this means. I don't think the creators of this petition have the slightest idea, either. I don't even understand the point of pledging to "elevate consciousness". I do know that these loons seem to like the word "evolution" an awful lot, abusing the term to the point where I want to just slap it out of their hands and tell them "NO! Not until you learn what it actually means."
And, of course, it is somehow being appropriated by these kooks to imply something about spirituality. Here's the fluff they write.
We now…
pharyngula | May 13, 2009Look, this page on prayer has numbers on it! You can't argue with that.
I wonder if you can pick up a "Divine Consciousness meter" at Radio Shack, and what the units it is measured in are.
pharyngula | May 12, 2009I have a…errm…reputation for offending Catholics. It's undeserved, since I try so hard to offend everyone, but also because some Catholics are too easily offended. Can you spot the unforgivable offense the writer is complaining about in this story?
Your April 27 front page had an article, "World government race to contain swine flu outbreak." The article was from the Associated Press.
A picture of a priest distributing the Eucharist had a caption, "Catholics who entered a closed door Mass line up for a communion wafer Sunday at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City."
That one line drove…
pharyngula | May 11, 2009The Republicans, apparently feeling that there are no other pressing matters of concern in the governance of our country, are pushing to designate 2010 as the Year of the Bible.
I may surprise you a little bit. I endorse this resolution…with a few caveats. I say the Democrats should vote this bill up as long as there is a little quid pro quo: the Republicans reciprocate by going along with the next couple of Supreme Court nominations Obama makes. Fair enough, I think.
Then, since 2010 is the Year of the Bible, we get to say that all subsequent years are Not the Year of the Bible, and be done…
pharyngula | May 11, 2009Charles Pierce has expanded an essay into a full blown book on Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), soon available in fine bookstores everywhere, and I recommend it highly. You might be wondering what Idiot America is, and he explains it well.
The rise of Idiot America, though, is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of the intellectual elites that Richard Hofstader teased out of the national DNA, although both of these things are part of it. The rise of Idiot America today reflects — for profit…
pharyngula | May 9, 2009Some of these cults are stocked with puritan prudes. Baptists, in particular, are a bit nuts.
A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said.
The student is named Tyler Frost, not Kevin Bacon, by the way.
You want to dance, dance. You want to sing, sing. The two of you want to kiss, kiss. I think those are all beautiful acts, and as long as no one is harmed, it is ridiculous to forbid them.
I also think the school has stepped way out of…
pharyngula | May 7, 2009Really, you can't make this stuff up. An angry letter writer hates those atheists who are making all that racket, and believes that Vox Day's awful little anti-atheist book refutes them all perfectly. You're probably already questioning his sanity and intelligence, but then he takes one more step to impeach his own judgment.
This brilliant critique clearly demonstrates why a mere anti-blasphemy law is not sufficient. In the interests of rationality and common sense, the legislation should go further and label atheism a thought crime.
Wait, what? Has he read 1984? Does he understand what a…
pharyngula | May 7, 2009We really do have a screwed up culture. Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA, could publicly argue for continued denial of civil rights to gays on air, in a beauty pageant, and pageant officials were unperturbed. Now that semi-nude modeling photos of Prejean are emerging, they are considering revoking her title. So flaunting her bigotry is no big deal, but posing in lingerie makes them clutch their pearls and squeak in horror? When they themselves ask contestants to show even more skin while wearing a bikini?
I don't get it.
pharyngula | May 6, 2009Just what we need: relationship advice from Pat Robertson.
In case you don't want to watch it, it's very simple. In any relationship with an atheist, just remember that he or she is of Belial, and serves Satan. He or she will suck your soul down and destroy you. So he may be a nice guy and all, but back off and curse him to hell.
pharyngula | May 5, 2009And it's…Obama!
Ho hum. I was kind of let down. I keep hoping for a big surprise, like that it's a squirrel living in downtown Des Moines, or that it's Jan Crouch, but yeah, it's always the Christian politician who isn't quite Christian enough for the wingnuts.
pharyngula | April 29, 2009Oh, no…it's an irresistible magnet. Francis Collins and Karl Giberson, with funding from the Templeton Foundation (who else?), have put together a whole website full of fluffy bunnies and pious weasels to reconcile science and faith. It's a rich vein of the worst of pseudo-scientific apologetics, and I am stunned by it — not because I am impressed by the substance, but because it is such a target-rich environment. Having read both Collins' Language of God, with it's amazing conversion experience that had to have impressed all with its depth and majesty, and the equally wooly-minded Karl…
pharyngula | April 28, 2009The crazy lady of Minnesota politics has done it again.
In case you don't actually want to see and hear this lunatic, here's what she says:
I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter, and I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence.
She makes it really hard for us Minnesotans to act all snooty and superior around the Texans, you know.
pharyngula | April 26, 2009
Aren't you looking forward to seeing a tortured corpse adorning cars in your neighborhood?
That hideous plate is one of the options railroaded through the Florida legislature.
Religious specialty plates offered by Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, and Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, made it onto a bill Friday even though many members had not seen images of those plates and none was produced for the debate.
Siplin didn't mince words when asked what his "Trinity" plate looks like, saying, "It has a picture of my Lord and savior Jesus Christ." It, along with a "Preserving the Past" plate offered by…
pharyngula | April 26, 2009A delegate to the Republican party in Utah had a marvelous
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12228215">resolution for his party.
Don Larsen, a Springville delegate, offered the resolution, titled "Resolution opposing the Hate America anti-Christian Open Borders cabal," warning delegates that an "invisible government" comprised of left-wing foundations was pumping money into the Democratic Party to push for looser immigration laws and anti-family legislation.
Larsen said Democrats get most of the votes cast by illegal immigrants and people in dysfunctional families.
But it's not the…
pharyngula | April 20, 2009I was sent this story about genes and IQ, and right from the beginning, my alarm bells were ringing. This is crank pseudoscience.
Gregory Cochran has always been drawn to puzzles. This one had been gnawing at him for several years: Why are European Jews prone to so many deadly genetic diseases?
Tay-Sachs disease. Canavan disease. More than a dozen more.
It offended Cochran's sense of logic. Natural selection, the self-taught genetics buff knew, should flush dangerous DNA from the gene pool. Perhaps the mutations causing these diseases had some other, beneficial purpose. But what?
At 3:…
pharyngula | April 16, 2009The governor of Texas is ranting about seceding from the United States.
Speaking to an energetic and angry tea party crowd in Austin Wednesday evening, the Lone Star State governor suggested secession may happen in the future should the federal government not change its fiscal polices.
"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent…
pharyngula | April 10, 2009I have a t-shirt with those words on it; it's from the Museum of Jurassic Technology exhibit of letters to Mount Wilson Observatory, a fascinating collection of crackpot letters written to astronomers between 1915 and 1935, containing the astounding theories created by people around the world, who all thought they could revolutionize science with their insights. It's an exhibit well worth browsing—here's one sample letter.
To whom it may concern:
This is to certify, That I have found the Key To all Existance. And all I ask of any one Is for them to read What I am about to say. Because it is…
pharyngula | April 8, 2009She's so mad about how mean pro-choice people are, that she's making up new facts. She says she received death threats over her callous use of the death of children, which may be entirely true (and if it is, I'm pissed off at you: no, it doesn't matter how vile her behavior is, you don't threaten physical harm over it), but she also makes strange claims about how harmless the raving loonies of the anti-choice movement are. Part of it is fallacious context. The anti-choicers haven't blown up as many buildings as the number of churches that have been burned down! (Never mind that there is no…
pharyngula | April 5, 2009What happened last night? Did someone spike the entire North American water supply with hallucinogens? Because for some reason all the kooks went nuts in a short span of time. Many of you probably noticed that David Mabus/Markuze, the Canadian lunatic with the obsession with Nostradamus and James Randi and seeing atheists burn in hell, went on a spamming spree all over here (a spree which seems to have been mostly cleaned up now). He was also emailing me his angry rants, so that was another mess to clean up.
There was other silly email, but I've thrown most of it out, too. You might be amused…