pharyngula

I saw this picture, and thought it looked almost exactly like how Skatje reacted the first time we took her to a sushi bar. Except that she would have had an expression of horror and dread in the first panel.

If you've got a few hours (he does go on), read Orac's contribution to the Offit book club discussion. It's lots of fun: it's got the anti-vaxing squirrels chittering insanely. If you don't have the time to read the whole post, just browse the comments for the laughs!

Got your popcorn and jujubes? Ready for the clown show? The debate begins shortly, and this is the place to leave your comments. Half an hour in, and I'm seeing Biden being good and specific with facts at his fingertips, and doing a good job of answering questions with substance. Palin is an…

This is a very silly story. Spring Hill resident Anita Koper thought she'd heard it all - until last week, when her 12-year-old daughter came home from school at Explorer K-8 and started asking her about "revolution." "She said her science teacher told the class that in some religions, if you are…

Ignore 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 Received: by 10.141.86.17 with SMTP id o17cs57783rvl; Thu, 2 Oct 2008 11:12:13 -0700 (PDT)…

The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is online at Evolved and Rational. Say hooray for collections of science posts, and go read!

You may have heard that YouTube blocked Pat Condell's latest video — here's an alternate source for that video. I have to disagree with part of what Condell says in it, though. He is arguing against the promotion of "tolerance and diversity," saying it has gone too far. I don't think so. I think…

Here are the details people wanted; there's more in the Facebook announcement. I understand it's scheduled for the same time as their homecoming football game, but you can always get the score to that later…come on around, we'll have a good time. I'm looking forward to meeting Carrier, finally,…

Today is the day we all dread, the day of the vice-presidential debates. We know Sarah Palin is incompetent and not fit for office, but the question is…will she manage to pull off the spunky/cute routine and win over the superficial morons of the country despite her Bush-like anti-intellectualism…

They just keep popping up all over the place…is there a tally somewhere? We should calculate how much of Darwin's genome is still floating about in the gene pool. Anyway, this several-times-great granddaughter of Darwin is Emma Darwin, and she writes well and of interesting things.

An internet poll, which we all know is always accurate, representative, and binding, was held this week to determine who would be president of the US. Voters selected between Obama, McCain, Hillary Clinton, and a fourth, unlikely, dark horse candidate…me. I won. I think I've heard this song before…

New Yorkers: you really don't want to miss the upcoming appearance by James Randi on 10 October. He'll be at Rockefeller University that evening, and he's always entertaining and fun. The rest of the country will be getting a small consolation prize. If you can't make it to NY, you can all go to…

Forgive 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…

Just 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 Received: by 10.141.86.17 with SMTP id o17cs33336rvl; Wed, 1 Oct 2008 11:25:06 -0700 (PDT)…

The 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…

Even though it's actually 1,037,696 comments on ScienceBlogs right now, and they're a little slow, the New Yorkers are finally getting it together for a big shindig in the Big Apple. If you're somewhere near Manhattan on 7 October, stop by and party with the nerds.

Now that it is October, it is time to finally announce the winner of the August Molly award: our first non-human primate wins by a landslide, the Rev. BigDumbChimp. There may have been a few irregularities in the voting, since his backers were able to raise twice as many thumb-like appendages in…

Texans can stand a little taller now — their scientists have organized into the 21st Century Science Coalition and are speaking out loud and clear. The 21st-Century Science Coalition is putting politicians on notice that the science community in Texas will accept nothing less than the best…

It's happened: craven YouTube has pulled all of the eucharist desecration videos. Click on one and you'll just get the message, "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation." FSMdude's account has also been suspended. There is no description of what rule was violated; I guess we must…

We're worried about the current financial crisis — in fact, the whole world is concerned. Most of us have simple explanations for the mess we're in right now, such as excessive deregulation, lenders raking in short term profit at the expense of long term stability, a weakening economy, and the…

That is, Jenny McCarthy, ditzy mummy who opposes vaccinations because she thinks they cause autism, and Amanda Peet, smart woman who knows that inoculation is a great benefit. McCarthy has just sniped at Peet: "(Peet) has a lot of [nerve] to come forward and be on that side, because there is an…

It's snowing on Mars.

Another interesting blog that has been around for some time is Charles Stross's — you ought to check it out, and the comments are often informative too. One in particular was brought to my attention — it's a comment made in response to another fellow, Dan, who is something of an American…

Jebus, but we're in for a world of trouble. I think one of the signs of the apocalypse is when instructors of dangeral studies revive moribund blogs. We're obviously in a cultural meltdown of epic proportions.

Our campus has an alternative right-wing rag of a newspaper called the Counterweight, funded who knows how, that throws up horrible little articles that usually sound like the kind of thing that would make Karl Rove and Dick Cheney chortle. They interviewed me recently — yes, I speak politely to…

The Brunswick school district in North Carolina was hurtling towards a lot of pain…and it's all thanks to the intransigent arrogance of the ignorant. There are some signs that they're going to see the light of reason, but there are holdouts, and as is usual in these cases, it's a few uninformed…

Tuesdays are not relaxing days for me; this is the day of the week when I sink into long class sessions for hours at a time. Somehow, I also decided that the last Tuesday of every month was also going to be the day for Cafe Scientifique, which I host here in town, and which I'm also giving today.…

A recent survey in New Zealand reveals that only 40% of the people believe in a god, and 10% do but have doubts. Only 52% believe in an immortal soul, and 80% accept evolution. I marvel at that — a country where I would not be a member of a rare minority, where I could start a conversation with a…

Only, of course, it won't be called an act of terrorism because the victims were Muslim, and the perpetrators were conservative white Americans. They sprayed gas into a mosque filled with kids. On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War…

While I was loitering aboard a big boat in California and hanging out with communists, I missed the latest sailing of the Elitist Bastards. It sounds like it was a ferociously snooty affair.