cultural observation
grrlscientist | September 27, 2009tags: atheists, atheism, famous atheists, satire, zakiechan, streaming video
This video is NOT an argument for atheism... It's a defense of atheists from right-wing religious -- christian, muslim, jewish and other fundamentalist -- hate-mongers. This video received the award for "Excellence in Humanist Communications" from the Harvard University Humanist Chaplaincy.
grrlscientist | September 26, 2009tags: religion, Bible, humor, satire, Dara O'Briain, streaming video
Comedian Dara O'Briain provides a few comedic insights on on God and the Bible. Video clip taken from Live at the Theatre Royal 2006.
grrlscientist | September 24, 2009tags: Twatif?, twitter, workplace, strange, offbeat, culture, streaming video
So..... what if you were restricted in the real world to only 140 characters and spaces? The office might be a sticky place .. The rumor is that this video is funny .. but you be the judge.
What's with the "di" sound when the guy supposedly meant to say "dumb"?
grrlscientist | September 23, 2009tags: little boy, burglar, offbeat, humor, funny, satire, streaming video
This video is an interview with a little boy who uses his father's gun to shoot a burglar, and then, when the wounded burglar is screaming in pain, he proceeds to shoot off other appendages, too. It's all in a night's work.
Little Boy Heroically Shoots, Mutilates Burglar
grrlscientist | September 23, 2009tags: healthcare, medical insurance, politics, satire, Will Ferrell, streaming video
It's a rotten job, but someone has got to do it: in this video ad, Will Ferrell stands up for the real victims in this health care debate: health insurance providers themselves!
Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell
grrlscientist | September 22, 2009tags: Nouveau Poor, discrimination, offbeat, humor, funny, satire, streaming video
As Americans rush to join the Nouveau Poor, panelists debate the claim that the newly poor are incapable of integrating with long established poor...
I am not sure if I should laugh or be offended ..
grrlscientist | September 20, 2009tags: religion, violence, genocide, sexism, fundamentalism, MtlRedAtheist, streaming video
The story of Adam and Eve is full of nonsense that shows the Biblical god to be unfair, sadistic, sexist. He creates women for man's use. He ordains man to rule over women. He cursed women to have painful child birth and damned all humanity to pain and suffering on Earth as well as in Hell, because Adam and Eve did something he considered wrong, even though they had no knowledge of good and evil, as described in the story. How cruel.
If we can all accept this as a myth, the story would be entertaining,…
grrlscientist | September 19, 2009tags: religion, violence, mental illness, fundamentalism, Mitchell and Webb, streaming video
This video is a Godless Comedy created by That Mitchell and Webb Look about the myth of Abraham and Isaac .. if an American did this today, he'd be placed in a mental institution for hearing voices that command him to murder his own son. Charming.
grrlscientist | September 18, 2009tags: nature, animals, streaming video
This video points out that people are not the center of the universe, as so many of us think we are. And one of those animals that are superior to humans are the penguins. Can you think of why that might be?
grrlscientist | September 17, 2009
Who: Eric Maisel, PhD
What: free public presentation, "Living Well Without Gods"
Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map] 273 Bowery (Bowery & Houston) [map]
When: 730pm, Thursday, 17 September
Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction. His latest book is The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods, in which he discusses how to find rich personal meaning in life despite the absence of beneficent gods and the indifference of the universe to human concerns.
In his book, Maisel addresses atheists who don't always…
grrlscientist | September 16, 2009
Who: Eric Maisel, PhD
What: free public presentation, "Living Well Without Gods"
Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map] 273 Bowery (Bowery & Houston) [map]
When: 730pm, Thursday, 17 September
Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction. His latest book is The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods, in which he discusses how to find rich personal meaning in life despite the absence of beneficent gods and the indifference of the universe to human concerns.
In his book, Maisel addresses atheists who don't always…
grrlscientist | September 15, 2009This is DJ Michelangelo Signorile's interview with Pastor Steven L. Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Temple, AZ. In this interview, the pastor proclaims that he prays for President Obama to die, calls for the execution of gays and says it is not be murder if a group of gays and lesbians were gunned down with a machine gun, or if the president were assassinated. Further, this man of god does not believe the murder of Dr. George Tiller was murder. Not only that, but this man then went on to attack his (gay) interviewer insisting he must be "molesting children" and saying that he…
grrlscientist | September 15, 2009tags: CIGNA, health insurance, medical care, health care, Edward Hanway, denial of care, health care rationing, streaming video
CIGNA Chairman and CEO, Edward Hanway, spends his holidays in a $13 million beach house in New Jersey. Meanwhile, regular Americans are routinely denied coverage for the care they need when they need it most.
Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now theyre sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist…
grrlscientist | September 14, 2009tags: Cyprus, illegal migratory bird trapping, songbird slaughter, Committee Against Bird Slaughter, CABS, streaming video
This video below the jump records and documents the astonishing arrogance and viciousness of Cypriot bird slaughterers who continue to wantonly kill tens of millions of migratory songbirds every year so their bodies can be sold to restaurants who then sell them as a delicacy, often to tourists. These slaughterers kill endangered species as well as common; songbirds as well as owls, birds of prey and other non-passerine species. In fact, NO BIRD IS SAFE from them. Since…
grrlscientist | September 13, 2009tags: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, UFO, space aliens, argumentum ad ignorantiam, appeal to ignorance, AMNH, streaming video
The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance"), argument by lack of imagination, or negative evidence, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or is false only because it has not been proven true.
The argument from personal incredulity, also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction, refers to an assertion that because one…
grrlscientist | September 13, 2009tags: religion, violence, genocide, fundamentalism, MtlRedAtheist, streaming video
This is the third in a series of videos that address some of the violent, absurd and atrocious Bible stories being taught to children in Sunday School around the world today. This video discusses the Sunday School Bible story of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood is an extremely popular children's story worldwide. It talks about how God became so fed up of his Creation that he decided to kill it all. It sort of makes you wonder why he would have created it in the first place since he is supposed to be omniscient. […
grrlscientist | September 12, 2009tags: religion, Bible, humor, satire, Alan Bennett, streaming video
Here's an amusing Sunday morning video that should especially appeal to my English readers (I know, it's Sunday afternoon in the UK). But "the sardine tin of life" was especially amusing in a Forrest Gump-like way ..
grrlscientist | September 11, 2009I just read Eugenie Scott's review of the movie, Creation, a drama about the life of Charles Darwin that was recently screened at the Toronto Film Festival. This film, which -- astonishingly -- does not have a distributor in the USA, humanizes Darwin by showing us key events from his life after he returned from his famous five-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. But Eugenie Scott is not the only one who likes this film; it has received positive reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, Ray Bennett of THReviews, the IMDB and Roger Ebert. Besides being touted as an excellent film, Creation has the coolest…
grrlscientist | September 10, 2009tags: researchblogging.org, global warming, climate variation, climate change, penguins, El Nino, marine zoning, P. Dee Boersma
Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, and chicks.
(a) Adélie penguin chicks may get covered in snow during storms, but beneath the snow their down is warm and dry. (b) When rain falls, downy Adélie chicks can get wet and, when soaked, can become hypothermic and die.
Images: P. Dee Boersma.
According to an article that was just published in the journal BioScience, penguin populations are declining sharply due to the combined effects of overfishing and pollution…
grrlscientist | September 9, 2009tags: Obama, health care, AFL-CIO, Labor Day, politics, streaming video
This is a clip of President Barack Obama speaking at the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day Picnic. In this clip he is addressing the cynics and naysayers regarding healthcare reform.
If I am not mistaken, being poor, unemployed or homeless are felonies in the eyes of the GOP, so those Americans who dare commit such horrible crimes deserve nothing less than death.