Cartoonist Ted Rall has a theory about why people seem to vote against things that might benefit them. {AD}
From: Mano Singham
"Le Mans 1955" is a beautiful and horrifying short animated film by Quentin Baillieux, depicting the worst disaster in motor…
From: Intransitive
From Avalus, In Dörrenbach (in the palatinate) there was this house. I find it amusing. [caption id="attachment_41377" align="alignnone" width="900"] ©Avalus,…
From: Affinity
A saya nomi is a Japanese-style chisel for making scabbards. The basic shape is a curved chisel that can be…
From: Stderr
I am a certified old guy. Just for the fun of it, I sometimes show my children how in touch…
From: Mano Singham
I get lots of emails offering "guest articles" for blogs. By which they mean that they'll pay me to post…
From: Stderr
Much of the major media in the US is privately owned, by individuals, families, or corporations. These media love to…
From: Mano Singham
(I came across this old blog post of mine from 2005 before I moved to FtB and thought I would…
From: Mano Singham
Celebrity culture has always made no sense to me. There's a political/moral argument to be made for why nobody should…
From: Stderr
So... there's been quite a bit of discussion in the wild about why a recent fight between NFL players of…
From: Pervert Justice
[caption id="attachment_56185" align="alignright" width="134"] Matt Lubchansky[/caption] Oh, boy, this will set some asses on fire. Dr Subrena Smith argues that…
From: Pharyngula
The latest confession comes from a lackey of Alex Jones, a guy named Josh Owens. Now that Jones' empire of…
From: Pharyngula
I get lots of emails offering "guest articles" for blogs. By which they mean that they'll pay me to post…
From: Stderr
It looks like that Anti-Theism International Conference is deservedly self-destructing. Maryam Namazie and Aron Ra have withdrawn from the event.…
From: Pharyngula
‘Deciphering the Gospels’ argues the case for Jesus mythicism, which is the view that Jesus never really existed on earth…
From: Geeky Humanist
In 2007 I did a speaking tour of eastern Europe, including Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Croatia. I spent a night…
From: Stderr
I admit I enjoyed reading the article in The Daily Beast about what incompetent louts Donald Trump, Jr. and Jared…
From: Stderr
Here's an amusing video about what happens when we stop caring about giving a fact-based education to kids. Laugh away.…
From: Pharyngula
I had to inform the benighted YouTubers that Richard Carrier has been crushed…and I also wanted to address Carrier's recent…
From: Pharyngula
You wanna watch a train wreck? Probably not, so I'll summarize this video down below. The interviewer, on the left,…
From: Pharyngula
I've written in Pharyngula comments before about something called the Pseudocommando shooter type. These are the folks who get big…
From: Pervert Justice
“One-sided dichotomy” is a term I would like to coin to describe a common situation in public discourse. My first…
From: A Trivial Knot
Over on Pharyngula, PZ has a post up unequivocally supporting trans* persons equality with any other human where rights are…
From: Pervert Justice
Yeah, well, it's Quillette. Steve Jacobs Asked Thousands of Biologists When Life Begins. The Answer Wasn’t Popular. He doesn't understand…
From: Pharyngula
There's a lot in this video about hypocrisy in the secular community that I can relate to. It's a good…
From: Pharyngula
Alternatively, I wonder if some male writers have never met a woman. I misplaced my passport, and that is the…
From: Pharyngula
Some of you may recall the big Chick-fil-A controversy that emerged some years ago. The owners of this fast-food franchise…
From: Mano Singham
Another item I wrote on facebook, from last December: Billy Tipton was born Dorothy Lucille Tipton on December 29, 1914,…
From: Intransitive
Liberationism vs assimilationism is a historically important dichotomy, which dates back to the gay liberation movement of the 1960s. It…
From: A Trivial Knot
Here we go again. In Ohio, Republicans are trying to pass a law requiring that ectopic pregnancies be surgically reimplanted…
From: Pharyngula
I've been accused in various places (not here) of hyperbole and overreaching in my comments about smoking. Or been threatened…
From: Intransitive
The solution to yesterday's puzzle was deduced by some in the comments. I was not able to solve the puzzle…
From: Mano Singham
I've already covered some of this material, as has EoT, so you might be wondering why I'm repeating myself months…
From: Reprobate Spreadsheet
I came across this nice little puzzle that I got from the Quora website from someone named Alejandro Jenkins who…
From: Mano Singham
There are a few good things going on right now -- they're all extra work, but it's the kind of…
From: Pharyngula
I'm afraid this one doesn't quite hit the mark for me. [caption id="attachment_57048" align="aligncenter" width="600"] PhD Comics[/caption] This close to…
From: Pharyngula
An interesting idea: what if using social media didn't leave you buck-naked and exposed? What would “internet realists” want from…
From: Pharyngula
Marc Lépine entered a classroom at l'École polytechnique on December 6, 1989. Despite Lépine being visibly armed, male students followed…
From: Intransitive
It's time for Bingo!
From: Pharyngula
By Reporter X Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar enraged many attendees of the Clow UFO Base Holiday Concert by insisting that…
From: The Bolingbrook Babbler
I see what you did there. A new center at Liberty University is opening to combat the idea that, among…
From: Pharyngula
The UK's Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has leveled charges against the Labour party that it has a serious problem of…
From: Mano Singham
Some of you may recall the big Chick-fil-A controversy that emerged some years ago. The owners of this fast-food franchise…
From: Mano Singham
Here's an amusing video about what happens when we stop caring about giving a fact-based education to kids. Laugh away.…
From: Pharyngula
When it comes to placing restrictions on abortion, Ohio has the dubious honor of proposing the wildest ideas to the…
From: Mano Singham
The multi-talented Miller died yesterday at the age of 85. His obituary describes the wide range of activities that he…
From: Mano Singham
Aren't you reassured that Rick Perry is writing up one-page rationalizations comparing Trump to Old Testament kings? That he, and…
From: Pharyngula
The motto to trust in God, printed on our money, is currently mandated in some public schools presenting quite a…
From: Odgraphix
That many televangelists are vampires who suck the blood out of people who are gullible enough to believe the tripe…
From: Mano Singham
(Pearls Before Swine) {AD}
From: Mano Singham
I planned to start mating spiders today, and got my first disappointment: I waited too long, I think, because several…
From: Pharyngula
Hey, friends! How about if I try another shot at this YouTube thing? I'm going to try to go live…
From: Pharyngula
Scientific American magazine reports that the Global Carbon Project has released a study that has bad news and just a…
From: Mano Singham
I have had many posts about really awful wealthy people (the Sackler family and Jeffrey Epstein being noted examples) using…
From: Mano Singham
Imagine this hurtling across the sand at you: Unfortunately, there's a limit. The move doubles the spider’s speed, to 6.6…
From: Pharyngula
I was intrigued by this news item. One of President Donald Trump's most common responses to intelligence briefings is to…
From: Mano Singham
A while back, I told you I had a slight problem: I probably had two nearly indistinguishable Parasteatoda species in…
From: Pharyngula
Of course I had to record it. She didn't mind.
From: Pharyngula
Some students visited my spider-haunted office with a few questions, and they noticed…a spider descending from the ceiling. They shouldn't…
From: Pharyngula
American football is a brutal game and so it should not be surprising that it occasionally erupts into outright violence.…
From: Mano Singham
New Republic published a staggering piece this week about the "Monkey House" near Camp Casey, South Korea. It seems that…
From: Intransitive
I've written in Pharyngula comments before about something called the Pseudocommando shooter type. These are the folks who get big…
From: Pervert Justice
They don't realize it's coming. The rich think that, because they've succeeded so well so far, they never need to…
From: Pharyngula
I have had many posts about really awful wealthy people (the Sackler family and Jeffrey Epstein being noted examples) using…
From: Mano Singham
Make no bones about it, Quillette is an outrageously racist site. Here's an article that compiles numerous examples of its…
From: Pharyngula
One of the most common arguments in favor of the existence of billionaires is the "but they give so much…
From: Oceanoxia
The Bhopal Disaster happened on December 3, 1984, thirty five years ago this week. Capitalist greed by Union Carbide led…
From: Intransitive
Over on Pharyngula, PZ has a post up unequivocally supporting trans* persons equality with any other human where rights are…
From: Pervert Justice
(I came across this old blog post of mine from 2005 before I moved to FtB and thought I would…
From: Mano Singham
So... there's been quite a bit of discussion in the wild about why a recent fight between NFL players of…
From: Pervert Justice
Cartoonist Ted Rall has a theory about why people seem to vote against things that might benefit them. {AD}
From: Mano Singham
When senior government people resign from their office, they often use boilerplate language about how they were proud to serve,…
From: Mano Singham
One of the luxuries of being an academic is that one has more freedom than most to express one's honest…
From: Mano Singham
One of the most common arguments in favor of the existence of billionaires is the "but they give so much…
From: Oceanoxia
It sure helps to have a tame media outlet and an entire political party dedicated to parroting your views to…
From: Pharyngula
I am a certified old guy. Just for the fun of it, I sometimes show my children how in touch…
From: Mano Singham
I was intrigued by this news item. One of President Donald Trump's most common responses to intelligence briefings is to…
From: Mano Singham
The Democratic party does not have a good record on foreign policy. The party's establishment has long adopted hawkish interventionist…
From: Mano Singham
[caption id="attachment_57034" align="alignright" width="142"] Please wipe that smirk off his face.[/caption] Especially not a Biden who is getting cocky. He…
From: Pharyngula
Given the current polling, it looks like the Conservative party might win an outright majority in the December 12 general…
From: Mano Singham