Kooks
pharyngula | October 17, 2008Bill Donohue is at it again. He has pestered YouTube into putting age requirements on viewing videos of host desecration, and now he's claiming that "we do not object to making fun of Catholics, or for that matter Catholic beliefs and practices, just so long as they are made in good taste". ORLY? One name puts the lie to Donohue: Webster Cook. Cook wasn't making fun of Catholics, he wasn't doing anything in particular, and he certainly wasn't doing anything I consider tasteless…yet Donohue tried to get him expelled from his university over that.
And now he thinks he gets to dictate what is…
pharyngula | October 8, 2008
Occasionally, John Derbyshire gets kudos from the pro-science side of the national snarl because he at least manages to recognize that Intelligent Design creationism is a load of lies and pseudoscience. I've been less than thrilled with the guy; he's generally a creepy fellow who only advocates science as a prop to his bizarre ideological fantasies. The latest example: he opposes Obama because he will destroy the biological sciences. Why, you might ask? It's a peculiar assertion, since virtually every biologist I know considers the Republican party to have been a disaster for American…
pharyngula | October 7, 2008My email was just beginning to calm down, and now Bill Donohue rants again. He names me and fsmdude, and since people can't find a mailing address for a guy named "fsmdude", all these cranky little old Catholic ladies are sending me their shrill denunciations of youtube videos, instead.
Oh, and Bully Billy has conveniently forgotten the history already: "It was a professor from the University of Minnesota, Morris campus, Paul Z. Myers, who started the war on the Eucharist this past summer by intentionally desecrating a consecrated Host." I guess he never ever called for the expulsion and…
pharyngula | October 7, 2008Remember Rachel Bird and Gideon Codding, the spoiled, petulant little whiners who wanted their state issued marriage license to call them "bride and groom"? The ones who were being used as a wingnut cause celebre to argue that gender neutrality really does hurt heterosexual marriages?
Bad news. They won. California caved and changed the wording on the licenses.
Now gay couples getting married in California will have to get their revenge: they should cheerfully appropriate the terms bride and groom, too. Rachel Bird can call herself a bride (she could all along, of course), but so can the…
pharyngula | October 6, 2008John Freshwater, the fanatical evangelical school teacher who burned a cross into a sudent's arm, is in the midst of a hearing in Ohio right now. It doesn't sound like it's going all that well for him. Richard Hoppe has been attending the hearings, and has a regularly updated summary at the Panda's Thumb. Hoppe is being very circumspect and professional in his descriptions, however; if you want cruel flair, look elsewhere.
pharyngula | October 6, 2008You will all be pleased to know that the Brazilian UFOnuts who named their organization after Carl Sagan have backed down and removed Carl's name from their masthead.
They've named it after Galileo instead.
Oy vey. Couldn't they name it after a more appropriate historical figure? I recommend calling it the Bozo Institute. Or if they want to be more subtle, how about the Arthur Conan Doyle Institute? He saw things that weren't there, too.
pharyngula | October 4, 2008How about those modesty police?
In Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.
In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use…
pharyngula | October 2, 2008Ignore the bluster below the fold; it's another Catholic calling me out to the flagpole for a whuppin'.
From: wesix@insightbb.com
Subject: You're a punk and a pussy!
Date: October 2, 2008 1:12:16 PM CDT
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pharyngula | October 1, 2008Forgive me if this amazing tale of ego and inanity makes you recoil in disgust.
And O'Reilly cites himself as proof there is a God:
"Next time you meet an atheist, tell him or her that you know a bold, fresh guy, a barbarian who was raised in a working-class home and retains the lessons he learned there.
"Then mention to that atheist that this guy is now watched and listened to, on a daily basis, by millions of people all over the world and, to boot, sells millions of books.
"Then, while the non-believer is digesting all that, ask him or her if they still don't believe there's a God!"
Mmm-…
pharyngula | October 1, 2008Just more eliminationist rhetoric from a good Catholic. Fortunately, this stuff is ebbing right now.
From: JBWPSR@aol.com
Subject: Your desecration of the Eucharist
Date: October 1, 2008 1:25:00 PM CDT
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pharyngula | October 1, 2008The ScienceBlogs Book Club has started up again, and this time around the book under discussion is Paul Offit's Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Offit has an entry over there right now, and more will be piling on soon.
This is a good subject to tackle, too: the anti-vaccination clowns are yet another outbreak of lunacy and innumeracy and anti-science nuttery, and Offit's book fights the good fight. Expect howls of outrage from the clowns.
(By the way, one of the circuses full of clowns is trying to oppose our poll-crushing…
pharyngula | September 29, 2008I've barred the doors — I'm sure that any moment now, a squadron of goose-stepping nuns will come marching up the street to wag their fingers at me and rebuke me for what I've started. It seems the Youth of Today are going on YouTube and…flaunting their disrespect for crackers!
People can find a video of almost anything on YouTube: babies' first steps, Saturday Night Live skits, news clips, concerts and now - to the shock of Catholics everywhere - desecration of the Eucharist.
YouTube has long been a destination for Catholics seeking video clips of Masses, apologetics lectures or devotions…
pharyngula | September 25, 2008Well, this is amusing. Someone sent in a complaint to Donald Wildmon's American Family Association about this post using my email address, which meant that the helpful people at AFA sent their response to me. Here it is:
Thank you so much for sharing this information with us. We are aware
that there are hate-filled groups out there that are trying to disrupt
our work for Jesus and we are taking steps to fix the problems they have
created with the pastor's pledge.
We would encourage you to add these groups to your prayer list, what a
blessing it will be when God takes what Satan meant for…
pharyngula | September 23, 2008Last week, I mentioned that this crazy creationist, Bill Lucas, was going to be speaking at Virginia Tech. Now we have a report on the talk. Guess what? He was crazy!
pharyngula | September 22, 2008Martin Wagner has been harassed for some time by a particularly looney theist, a fellow who wrote an astonishingly stupid anti-atheist essay, got ripped on a blog for it, and has ever since whined pathetically at the injustice of being criticized and insulted, and has basically made it his task to be a petty pest.
Possummomma has written about this state of affairs, and now Wagner is planning to take legal action. I don't know that I entirely approve — I think the kook has done a fine job of discrediting himself — but he has a lawyer and is taking legal advice, and it's not a bad idea in…
pharyngula | September 22, 2008Mr Picknell, at jackaroni1229@yahoo.com, had a little question for me.
From: jackaroni1229@yahoo.com
Subject: Eye for Eye
Date: September 22, 2008 5:27:42 PM CDT
To: pzmyers@gmail.com
Delivered-To: pzmyers@gmail.com
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pharyngula | September 18, 2008Maybe he and I are going to have to have a competition to see who gets the nastiest letters. We do get a slightly different perspective on Christianity than most, I think, since our view is of a near-constant flow of letters like this one:
Warning! Uses Christian language!(Click for larger image)
I've got a little stack of similar letters growing on my desk, too. Although, to be fair, most are less scatological abuse, and more whining about how I'm so awfully hateful, but fortunately Jesus will toss me into a lake of fire soon.
pharyngula | September 18, 2008In case you were wondering about that lawsuit by JZ Knight in Seattle — she was claiming that a former student had stolen the teachings of her Atlantean warrior spirit guide for profit — it's over now. Knight won. Keep that in mind if ever a channeler tells you some flaky secret knowledge someday: it's protected, privileged speech and the ghostie can sue your butt off.
We're going to be in big trouble when John Edward's spirits copyright the alphabet.
pharyngula | September 17, 2008Any physics-minded people at Virginia Tech who would like to deal with some crackpots coming to your campus? There is a talk at Virginia Tech this Friday by Bill Lucas on his claimed biblical model for the structure of atoms. It looks like very weird stuff.
CAMPUS BIBLE FELLOWSHIP
INVITES YOUR ORGANIZATION MEMBERS
TO A
CREATION SEMINAR on the
"EXPANDING EARTH: EVIDENCE FOR BIBLICAL CREATION"
PRESENTED BY
DR. BILL LUCAS, B.S., M.S., PH.D in Theoretical Physics
TO BE HELD ON
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2008
AT 7 P.M.
IN SQUIRES STUDENT CENTER, ROOM #341
The presentation in is the form of a…
pharyngula | September 16, 2008The state of California now issues gender-neutral marriage licenses: they simply register the legal relationship of "Party A" and "Party B", where the relevant individuals fill out their actual names. That sounds reasonable and straightforward to me — it's a state-mandated contract.
Wouldn't you know it, though, there has to be someone offended by it.
In an utterly absurd whine, Rachel Bird and Gideon Codding are stamping their selfish, privileged little feet and bleating that they are soooo upset about this.
And to Bird and Codding, that is unacceptable.
"We are traditionalists - we just…