pharyngula

For those of you in the Washington DC area, the Center for Inquiry has some events coming up. Jamie Kilstein will be performing on 21 April, and you should go — if you don't mind rude, loud atheists. He's also one of the heads of the Church of the Smiling Vagina (although Allison Kilkenny ought to…

They're flaunting the blasphemy laws again, with another exhibit of blasphemous art at the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) in Lad Lane, off Baggott Street, Dublin 2. Check out the video of some lovely weird religious obscenity.

People send me stuff via email, and I browse through it all in the early morning, before I go offline and get to work, and that means I often wake up to some of the most disgusting, revolting, horrible messages: death threats, angry letters, and all kinds of interesting insults. But sometimes the…

I'm a fan of the Texas Freedom Network — they are fighting the good fight in the heart of one of the craziest states in the country — but they just made a big mistake. They are celebrating their 15th anniversary by bringing in a big-name speaker…Arianna Huffington. Jebus. One of the worst purveyors…

Here is why we need Wikileaks — because when our soldiers carry out Collateral Murder, we should know about it. Good journalism should be exposing this stuff for us. This is a video shot from an American helicopter gunship in Iraq. It shows real human beings being shot to death. I wish I could…

I fear I'm about to stomp a bit hard on another poll — this one has my name on it, and is for Minnesota Blogger of the Year. This is kind of a nice friendly poll, so I feel a bit bad about demolishing it, but I have to stand on principle. Crush it, gang, crush it bad. It might be nice if you looked…

It wasn't God, a least. It was Deepak Chopra. Had a powerful meditation just now - caused an earthquake in Southern California. Was meditation on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake. Sorry about that Some people were upset at my remarks re earthquake. Sorry about that. I was actually…

I'd known for a long time that the term "scientist" had been coined in the early 19th century, but I just ran across a first-hand account of the event by the fellow who came up with it, William Whewell. The context is this: many in the science establishment of the day had been chafing at the…

If I weren't planning to donate my body to science or be cremated or get dumped into the ocean for the hagfish to eat me, I'd want a funeral at the Ahlgrim Family Funeral Home in Palatine, Illinois. They have a miniature golf course in the basement! You can also play pinball and shuffleboard!…

First, they had their church leaders focus their Easter sermons on how yucky those atheists are. Then one fanatical group decided to show how wonderful Christianity is by staging a crucifixion in public, complete with blood and nails and moaning dying hippie. I find this hilarious. Hamlyn Heights…

Bathynomus giganteus (via National Geographic)

It's tough being Denyse O'Leary. She's one of the loudest voices for Intelligent Design on the net, and she has to perpetually struggle with her own ignorance in order to come up with new excuses to deny evolution, and all she ever accomplishes is to briefly dazzle us with her incompetence. She has…

As I mentioned before, there is now a collection of happy bible standers on the web. I do have to mention, though, that the toes with my name on them are not mine! I did not submit a photo, I do not paint my nails, and I think my prehensile big toe would be more noticeable.

Sometimes I feel sorry for Michael Ruse. Usually I don't — and I definitely don't when he flees to the safety of the baby pen at HuffPo to cry about how mean everyone is to him. Now he is bleating about the criticisms given to Ayala for accepting a Templeton Prize. The Templeton Foundation was…

It's Easter. Once again, the masses will gawp in awe at a bizarre and unbelievable story…because it is such a good example of how religion will piggy-back on our cognitive biases. You all know the Easter story: a god turns into a man, gets tortured and killed, rises from the dead, and somehow this…

This is a somewhat disturbing infographic. Some people are just a little too obsessed with their secretions.

I know many of you are occupied with batting around an obtuse creationist named JohnHamilton, but if you need a break, there's a nice post here that has drawn out a couple of scientologists. They're actually trying to defend the fantasies of L. Ron Hubbard as "science"! Science (from the Latin…

It's not my fault if you won't let it die!

Let's hope Tarryl Clark can pull it off: she's the Democratic candidate running against Michele Bachmann. She has a fairly sensible, centrist agenda so maybe it will work…but then, they could pull a mangy muskrat out of the Mississippi and run it against Bachmann, and it would be an improvement.…

Poor Paddy K. He wants to formally leave the Catholic church, so he followed the official procedures…and what does he get? A long letter from a priest telling him how wonderful the church is. Maybe he needs to send the priest this video of Bill Donohue reiterating his claim that the problem is the…

I'm flying away again, straight back to Minneapolis, arriving this evening. I'm not going straight home to Morris, though, because by great good coincidence Roy Zimmerman is playing in the Cannon Falls High School Auditorium (8209 E Minnesota St., Cannon Falls, MN), so I figure I'll take a little…

Sepia officinalis Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

It's here. The iPad. Stephen Fry reviews. I am reduced to a Homer-esque gurgle.

I have arrived safely in Rochester, New York! OK, totally unsurprising and boring. How about this for exciting news: Simon Singh has won an appeal, and gets to use the defense of fair comment in his battle with the chiropractic quacks. Air travel works! Reason wins one!

Donohue is also an amazing fellow, always able to top himself in serial excuses for the crimes of the church. His latest escapade is to pardon a priestly abuser because his victims were over some magical age. The head of the influential Catholic League says that the priest who allegedly sexually…

I've just learned that I'm scheduled to speak at a very big conference next year. It's going to be very exciting. They're even using my choice of a theme song. (But why did she have to mention it just before I hit the road for Rochester, NY?)

Ali Hussain Sibat seems to be a bit of a kook. He was on a silly television show in the Middle East in which he'd make paranormal predictions, and he also was making a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. The latter was considered just fine; the former has got him in big trouble. The Saudi…

I'll be visiting the family in the Pacific Northwest later this summer, and I'm going to be very, very careful on the road. The police are authorized to torture you for traffic violations; the courts have recently decided that a case of a pregnant woman who was tasered for refusing to sign a…

This is classic wingnuttia. The Tea-partiers are complaining bitterly that Democrats are making unfounded accusations of racism. "These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there," Mr. Robertson said. "They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never…

He thinks I missed his important distinction. Christianity flees power as Jesus did; Christianism seeks it above everything else. And there is nothing more powerful than killing others, except for torturing them. Hence my distinction, which I make from no authority. I merely think that declaring a…