Are some of you haunting the Blaze polls?

I ask because they have an indignant article up about how the air force is no longer requesting that any lodging they use have bibles in the room — and the associated poll is already going the godless way! That’s just not like the Blaze.

Is the Air Force right to remove the Bible requirement?

Yes. 70.3%

Nope. 28.82%

I’m in the middle on this one. 0.87%

I’m feeling redundant. In a good way.

Autism blog poll

You’ve seen this phenomenon before: some flaky point of view wraps itself up in one of the trio of disguises, god, country, or family, and uses that to excuse stupidity. Here’s a case in point: a blog called “Thinking Mom’s Revolution”, in which the first word is a complete lie. It endorses homeopathy and chelation therapy for autism, which is, of course, caused by vaccination. But Motherhood! How can you question a mom?

Right now, that blog is the top candidate in a competition for the top blog about autism. This must not happen. The second runner-up (and it’s very close), is the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, in which the first word is not a lie, and which promotes an honest science-based approach to the issues.

You know what to do.

The President is running a poll

The White House is asking you to nominate candidates for the Presidential Citizens Medal, an honor awarded for ‘exemplary deeds of service’.

I can think of a few dozen people in the godless/scientific community I’d nominate, but looking at your contrary performance in that last poll I brought up, you’d probably just pick the one who looked most like a cat. Or owned the most cats. Or likes cats the most. So you’re just on your own here.

I guess that means Jerry Coyne is a shoo-in…


First recommendation: Jessica Ahlquist. She probably likes cats. But despite that, she’s an excellent choice to push.

A squid less poll

The catmeister has sent his minions to wreck a poll, and wreck it wrongly. Look at this malformed question:

Do You Prefer:

Adorable Pictures of Babies? 4%
Adorable Pictures of Puppies? 27%
Adorable Pictures of Kittens? 47%
All of the Above 13%
None of the Above 6%

I ask you…WHERE ARE THE SQUID? Given the absence of a correct answer, clearly the only acceptable reply is “none of the above”. Teach them a lesson, please. For great justice!

Let’s do another Blaze poll!

That last poll at the Blaze was such a one-sided stomping — we inverted the results, from 8% pro-atheist to 92% — so let’s do it again.

Did Jesus Christ Really Exist?

Absolutely, but he wasn’t God’s son. 10.17%

Yes, and He was the Son of God. 69.89%

No way. 17.66%

I’m in the middle on this one. 2.3%

We might have a split vote on this one, but the least we can do is smash the currently leading option.


A good suggestion: since The Blaze likes to block particular referrers, go straight to the poll.

Poll on whether you’d vote for an atheist

Hoo boy, this is such a familiar story.

Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of revered televangelist the Rev. Billy Graham, appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, where she joined other faith leaders in discussing religious freedom and politics. Among the topics debated and the statements made, Lotz said that she would not vote for an atheist — a statement that will certainly ruffle non-believers’ feathers.

In making the bold claim,

STOP RIGHT THERE!

What “bold claim”? We live in a country that’s something around 70% Christian, in which about half the people reject all of science to believe the earth is 6000 years old, in which almost every elected official bends the knee and praises Jesus every time a camera is aimed at them. There is absolutely nothing brave about going on TV and professing the standard, boring dogma.

Lotz is just another sheep. We don’t praise the courage of sheep for bleating.

Well, they do on the Blaze. Bonus here: the Glenn Beck fan site has a poll.

Would you vote for an atheist?

Absolutely. It’s about policies, not religious beliefs. 8.94%

No way. A belief in God is essential. 87.09%

I’m in the middle on this one. 3.97%

No matter how you vote, expect the Blaze to whine about you atheists voting, and they’ll probably shut the poll down or start changing the numbers. Then we win.

An ugh-ick poll

Time Magazine is running a poll to determine who should be in their Top 100 of 2012, and you get to vote whether you like or detest someone. I don’t trust Time in the slightest; I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up having categories for most hated and most polarized, so no matter how you vote, you might end up making the subject newsworthy.

Anyway, that smug Catholic scumbag Timothy Dolan is on the list. Let ’em know what you think.

Should Timothy Dolan be on the list?

Definitely 62.85%

No Way 37.15%

Norwegian tail poll

A Norwegian airline paints the tails of its planes with a portrait of Norwegian heroes (“tail heroes” or Halehelter) — which seems like a very nice idea to me. One catch: they determine who to paint on the tail with an online poll. Unfortunate consequence: Norwegian Christians (they exist? Wow!) have leapt into the fray and have been upvoting Verdensevangelist and misjonær — evangelicals and missionaries — instead of scientists and engineers and explorers and similar good things. Who wants to fly in a plane cursed with a portrait of a born again Christian fanatic or Baptist missionary? Ick.

Aim higher. A Norwegian reader sent in some recommendations for better choices. There are four cities, Stavanger, Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim, each of which has a different list of candidates.

Stavanger: Peter Waage, chemist.

Oslo: Wilhelm Bjerknes (or “Christian Bjerknes”), meteorolgist

Bergen: Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen, Leprosy research.

Trondheim: Fredrikke Marie Qvam, suffragist.

To vote, go to http://www.halehelter.no, select a city (top right), press the big red blob “Stem på en kandidat”, find your candidate from the list (or search by name), press the heart on the right to vote. Each internet visitor can vote once a day.

The lists are sorted by rank. Let’s see if we can push these choices to the top!

Two more polls!

Two stupid polls out of the UK: here’s the first.

Should homeopathy be banned on the NHS?.

It’s very annoying — I voted, but it won’t show me the results. If you find the same absence of feedback, I guess you’ll just have to bash homeopathy blindly. (Reports coming back are that it’s currently about 50:50.)

Here’s another one, even dumber, promoted by some quack homeopath who thinks she’s being cleverly contrarian.

Should pharmaceutical drug treatments be publicly funded by the NHS UK?

No 80.22%

Yes 19.78%

Right. Let’s not support the use of the drugs that actually work.