Rising godlessness

The British seem to have good taste. Look who is at the top of the UK bestseller list:

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I know what you are thinking: Where can I get my hands on a copy of Wintersmith? Aside from that, though, it’s impressive that The God Delusion has shot to the top so quickly. When I looked at the list of American best sellers, I saw that it wasn’t as depressing as I feared:

Chomsky and

Frank Rich on top,

Sam Harris is at #5, and

Dawkins is at #12 and climbing fast. Maybe there’s some hope for us after all—at least the literate segment of our population is pondering interesting views.

We still always get our Pratchett much, much later than the English and the Australians, though, which is so unfair.

Good scrubbin’

Oh, boy…Boingboing mentions something squid-related and everyone sends me email. Should I mention that I brought up Squid Soap back in August? (Hah! That Doctorow fellow thinks he’s so cutting edge. Poseur.) However, Craig Clarke just sent me some information on a holy cruciform-shaped scrub brush, and it seems to me that we have to get these two products together.

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+

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If you’re going to wash away the sins of the world, you ought to do it with squid soap, I think.

Party. My house. 5:30.

Y’all come on down—we’re having a party at my place tonight. Everyone bring something to eat or drink, hang about, talk, listen to some music…

All you need is hate The Delgados
Black Cadillacs Modest Mouse
Viktorin Hedningarna
Lullaby The Cure
Thunder Road Bruce Springsteen
Skinfakse (Delivering The Light) Hege Rimestad
Porcelain Moby
El Prado Tom Griesgraber
Sugar Magnolia Grateful Dead
Excitable Boy Warren Zevon
Consequence Of Sounds Regina Spektor

I’m going to be so lonely tonight, aren’t I?

Carnivalia, and an open thread

Hey! Go read these! You can talk about anything you want in the comments!

The Tangled Bank

Next week’s Tangled Bank will be hosted at OK so I’m not really a cowboy. Send your links directly to indiancowboysblog-at-gmail.com, or to host@tangledbank.net, or to me. Any new volunteers to host? The next open slots are available in February and later.

I have a new favorite charity!

Check it out: The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is an Anglo-American secular charitable organization that is in the process of being set up. They have a long list of causes they will support—science and education on the top of the list, but also many other traditional charitable goals—and all with an overt secular mission. It is a brilliant idea I can get behind, and I think it has the potential to give a visible focus to the good efforts of godless people everywhere.

No conversion for Irwin

The Christian group that spread the initial rumor that Steve Irwin had been “born again” shortly before his death has retracted the claim.

But as encouraging as it might be for Christians to know they
may share heaven with Irwin, the group now concedes there is reason
to doubt the conversion. The unverified story was sent out by an
exuberant staff member, said the group’s managing director, Carl
Wieland. “Though we are able to substantiate our suggestion that
Steve’s wife, Terri, was a church-going Christian, the stories of
Steve coming forward can, at this stage, not be substantiated,” he
said in a statement on the group’s website.

Note the name: Carl Wieland. The Australian co-founder of Answers In Genesis, the creationist group. I am not surprised.

How to dismantle a body

Don’t be too grossed out, but the University of Wisconsin Madison has put a whole series of high-quality videos of human dissection online. It’s extremely cool, but not for the squeamish—there’s more than just the sight of a cadaver getting hacked up, and the sound of a saw on bone or a chisel being used to peel up the cranium are, ummm, memorable. At least you’re spared the odor and the textures.

I’d almost forgotten how muscular gross anatomy is—it takes some heft and brute force to take apart a body.

(via Mind Hacks)