Pharyngula

Posted by: MrFire | July 23, 2009 8:56 AM

Brains and Beauty. Wow.

Posted by: SC, OM | July 23, 2009 9:01 AM

Curly hair - I like her. :)

Posted by: Newfie | July 23, 2009 9:06 AM

that particle board being used for a headboard is just too sexy.

Posted by: Cappy | July 23, 2009 9:07 AM

OK, the obvious: She's HOT!
Also, she seems very smart.
And again, I'm impressed at how well people in many other countries speak English better than Americans speak any other languages, let alone English.

Posted by: DangerAardvark | July 23, 2009 9:14 AM

Damn you misogynists! Don't you know we're supposed to be coldly asexual when operating in our official capacities as representatives of Atheism? You bring shame to the holy name of Athe.

Posted by: pikeamus | July 23, 2009 9:21 AM

Good balance of information (very clearly and concisely presented) and smack talk. Also, cool accent. I liked.

Posted by: KrateKraig | July 23, 2009 9:29 AM

BrainsBodyBoth.

Posted by: AdamRutherford | July 23, 2009 9:31 AM

What do you mean "even Romania"? "Everywhere" includes Romania. Unless by implication, Romania, a secular country that ranks a few places above the US in the support of evolution by country 2006 study, somehow is not expected to contain any sensible people.

Posted by: Philip1978 | July 23, 2009 9:35 AM

That was excellent!

Very funny in places, articulate, hard hitting facts from someone who clearly knows what they are talking about - a force to be reckoned with.

Lets compare that to the moron who has an erection for the sun coming up and the grass being green - not even CLOSE to being convincing!

To perpetuate them meme created by Dara - Get in the Feckin' sack!

Great video indeed, I will investigate more of what she has to say if this is the calibre of her work.

Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl | July 23, 2009 9:43 AM

I'm gay, but even I find her sexy. I especially liked the part at the end where she started making cute, little sexy threats as well.

Posted by: matt | July 23, 2009 9:57 AM

shes hilarious lol

Posted by: dogmeatib | July 23, 2009 10:18 AM

Crap, at the end she gave away the plan!!!

Homosexual agenda, ha, ha, ha...

Foolish Christians, FEAR THE ATHEIST AGENDA!!!! muahahahaha!

Posted by: Angel | July 23, 2009 10:25 AM

That is very well made. Even the cute blonde gets it, so to speak, and yet here in TX where I am stuck (especifically Ea. TX), we still have bozos who say "evolution is a theory" yadda yadda. Besides the fact clearly they need this explanation, one also has to bother to tell them what "theory" actually means. She says it very well: creationists simply choose to ignore the evidence.

By the way, I love the "conspiracy" part, including the music. Sad thing is it does not matter how you explain it to those creationists bozos. In the end, they will simply choose their ignorance. It does make me wonder at what point do we just stop and say, "you know what? You want to wallow in ignorance and backwardness. You go right ahead. The rest of us are moving ahead."

Best, and keep on blogging.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 23, 2009 10:32 AM

yeah, but we did come from monkeys...
To quote Mr. Jagger, "I'm a monkey!"

Posted by: AdamRutherford | July 23, 2009 10:41 AM

@TLP, that's as maybe, but my statements are fact. Romania is a secular country and support for evolution there is higher than in the US according to that study. If that study is to be believed, proportionally there should be more people in Romania who think like us than in the US.

No biggie, just wondered why there was an assumption that it was particularly surprising that Romania should host people who understand evolution, as the headline suggests.

Posted by: D'oh! | July 23, 2009 10:56 AM

@19

1) Of course California has the largest budget for education: it is by far the most populous state and should have a correspondingly larger budget.

2) According to a 2007 report from National Association of State Budget Officers, US states spent an average of 32% on education; California spent 34%. Everything I have ever seen on this subject suggests that California's spending per pupil is at best average.

3) California has a high cost of living, so its teachers are paid more. I suspect you'd find this true of all states with a high cost of living. After all, there is a market for teachers in which states have to be competitive. At the same time, I would not be surprised to hear that the average California teacher finds that his or her salary doesn't stretch nearly as far as the average teacher in Oklahoma, say.

Posted by: Benny the Icepick | July 23, 2009 10:58 AM

OK, I was digging it all the way through, but then she ended with Cake. Yeah, she's pretty much awesome.

Posted by: DEA | July 23, 2009 10:59 AM

Ah, you are right, evolution is generally not a debate here.
Some deny it wholeheartedly (mostly radical orthodox and various packs of protestants) other just don't get it
Kids in school though will likely get less and less of it as all references have been removed from the biology manuals.
Ministers say the evolution is studied by "default" by the way they are structured.

Shameless plug: http://evolueaza.wordpress.com
Translating Voyage of the Beagle in bits and pieces (English to Romanian) that makeup the whole process of the idea of evolution

Will reach origin of the species soon.

Posted by: TLP | July 23, 2009 11:03 AM

Yeah, romanian politicians LOVE to weasel-out of doing anything.

When they were told the presence of religious icons in schools violates secularism, they said "we didn't put them there, why should we take them down?".

When they were told evolution should be studied, they said evolution is already studied, it is "implied" because the biology textbook presents creatures starting from unicellular organisms to humans, from simple to complex.

Posted by: Darren Garrison | July 23, 2009 11:15 AM

Remember those ads a while back on Scienceblogs selling Russian women? Any chance of ordering a Romanian?

Meanwhile, Jesus has swine flu!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jWmlKuMRUrJ3uu6uCilqghYPJDqwD99JNKFO0

Posted by: mcrotk | July 23, 2009 12:01 PM

Indeed, her videos are phenomenal.

Favo(u)rites include "God tells it like it is"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51A77HY2EGs&feature=channel_page

and "Hello Muslims - mirror"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1pKlQM-uUk
(Don't miss the ending.)

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 23, 2009 12:26 PM

She is brilliant. I just loved the part where she says, "I don't believe I came from monkeys!" in the high-pitched helium-type voice. Hee!

Posted by: Marina | July 23, 2009 12:46 PM

"Oh, and all classrooms have orthodox icons (religious paintings) above the blackboard."

Oh, wow. Times have changed since I was in school in Romania. Of all the Romanian people we've met since crossing the great big pond, only two have not tried to drag us to church. Needless to say, we have only two Romanian close friends.

Love the video. :o)

Posted by: Holbach | July 23, 2009 1:09 PM

Damn, what a sharp woman, explaining it all like an expert! And to think this from a country drenched in all mannner of religious nonsense.
And that cretin from California is a prime example of "UFO's in the Bible". Oh, the horror!

Posted by: The Science Pundit | July 23, 2009 2:39 PM

@JJR (#47)

ZOMGitsCriss is on my YouTube friends list and YT has a feature called Realtime sharing where one can share with and track YT activities with friends. Yesterday, she favorited a 911 truther video and gave five star ratings to two of them. This gives me pause. I know that she's intelligent, so I think it's a matter of her needing to improve her critical thinking skills. I also realize that she comes from a country where it's a lot easier for people to believe that the government would do that sort of thing. However, good skepticism and critical thinking skills are supposed to minimize those biases.

ps-- Pat Condell has a new video. I haven't watch it yet so no comment at the moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4FpTvp0tgs

Posted by: Canuck | July 23, 2009 3:10 PM

Wow! She's smart and hot. Smart women are such a huge turn on.

Posted by: cyan | July 23, 2009 4:23 PM

@19

increased funding for education:

people who want to learn will learn if they've access to knowledge: knowledgeable teachers and good textbooks (even with just one or the other, a person who wants to learn will do so)

people who have little or no incentive to learn will not learn, no matter the money spent on additional resources besides the instructor and text

teen-agers are not motivated to learn by the future benefits that learning will bring - that has been true of children through the ages

the difference now is the value the parent/guardian places on education and what they expect of their son or daughter

motivation for a typical teen-ager is the immediate rewards or punishment. a parent/guardian who sets rewards for learning and consequences for not making the effort is what makes the difference. All the incentives/consequences that a learning institution can legally mandate have no immediate consequence on the student that really matter to the student. The consequences made by the provider of the home life do, or would if there were any.

There is nothing that an institutional body such as a school or a government legislature can do to mandate parents/quardians to reward learning and to restrict freedoms for lack of continued effort at learning.

Typically now, if a parent/guardian receives a report card with low grades and cares about those low grades, s/he complains to the school admin about the low grades, the school admin tells the instructor they must make sure those grades are raised, and then the teacher must artificially raise those grades - because the student is not going to change their effort, because the parent/guardian is not going to do anything differently at home to change the effort the student makes.

I wish I had suggestions on how to change this. As things are, I see increased funding as getting more tech that will keep students busier, but no amount of spending is going to motivate them to actually learn from that increased level of busy-ness.

Posted by: Julie | July 23, 2009 6:47 PM

What is it with that accent? I'm a woman, straight, married to a great guy...and I find her unbelievably sexy!!

Posted by: Rey Fox | July 23, 2009 8:16 PM

Call me back when you find a Brazilian atheistress.

Posted by: Rocket Mike | July 23, 2009 8:51 PM

She could turn me into a xenogynist.

Posted by: articulett | July 24, 2009 5:23 AM

Yes, we evil atheists are everywhere BWAHAHAHA! And we recruit deconverters from EVERY faith! No invisible entity is safe from the logic of the unbelievers!

Posted by: Michael Simpson | July 24, 2009 12:45 PM

I liked her points. I liked watching her. She has sexier legs than PZ. But, it just appeared that she was an actress reading a script. Short of a couple of words, she spoke like a native English speaker, meaning someone who lived in the US or UK or Australia, and used idioms and metaphors that would make no sense to a non-native speaker.

She might be an atheist. She might even know something about Evolution. But I'm skeptical that she has that much detailed knowledge of science.

But once again, if PZ wants to write her scripts, I'm all for it!

Posted by: Anonymous Coward | July 24, 2009 6:06 PM

Well read, lovely accent. Just one thing, sometimes she unduly sounds like she's about to break out in tears. This is okay when talking about people starving, but otherwise not so much.

>>64
In my experience, most Frenchmen I've met spoke better English than Americans, apart from their accent. And in the case of *some* Americans, even the French accent was better.
Of course, even if she didn't write all of her lines (and who does?) I liked the delivery.

Posted by: LuchinG | July 24, 2009 9:12 PM

ejem ejem... I think I've saw some kind of strange cross under the troath

Posted by: CCW | July 25, 2009 12:53 AM

Yeah, she is pretty much awesome.
If I'd ever would marry, it had to be (someone just like) her.
I never meet girls like that though, they come close... but still... never quite...
All hail Criss!

Posted by: DingoDave | July 27, 2009 12:40 AM

She reminds me of an ex-girlfriend of mine. (except that Natasha was Russian)

If only I were 25 years younger...and Romanian...
Those WERE the days.

Posted by: Taz | July 28, 2009 5:29 PM

FYI - I believe VyckRo (#45) is the Romanian Nationalist troll she referred to in the video. Fuck off and die, asshole.

Posted by: ANACHRONISTIC | August 5, 2009 3:55 PM

GREAT video i liked the explaination of Chrom #2. I would love to post this on my stickam page but dont know how to do that i dont see a share like for stickam.