I’m busy in DC this weekend, so I thought I might just dick with you all by letting Pharyngula go dead for the whole weekend, as if I’d been raptured. But I decided to be nice and at least mention that I’m still earthbound. (Although there was a scary moment on the plane last night, when something went bump-bump-crunch-thumpety-thump over by the right engine at 30,000 feet, and the pilot came on to announce, “Nothing to worry about, folks, we just mumbley-mumbley throttles mumble flanges something or other Jeffries tubes, but don’t fret, we have “procedures” — just fasten your seat belts, please.” And then we landed and didn’t die in a fiery flaming fireball of fire, so I guess it all turned out OK. And there was a fire truck hanging out by the right engine afterwards, which was reassuring.)

Anyway, Roy Zimmerman!

Of course, I could still dick with you by going silent after 6pm Eastern, when the Rapture is supposed to hit the East coast, but since Australia and New Zealand are still there and report nothing has happened, I suppose any joking around has been blunted.

Although…Australasia and Asia and Europe are all full of funny heathens, anyway, so you wouldn’t expect them to notice a Rapture. It’s only when the Republicans get picked up that it will be obvious.

It’s a great lead: Atheists have better sex. Sign me up already.

Put it on billboards, too.

It’s embarrassing. Not only do we have Michele Bachmann, but the last election swept in a gang of know-nothing Rethuglican scum who’ve been trying to turn our state into Texas. Now they’ve invited the notorious evangelical crank Bradlee Dean to give an opening prayer. Dean, for those who don’t know of him, is a kind of Vox Day impersonator—he’s a raving homophobe with a parasitic ministry that targets public school. He puts on school assemblies that are nominally about fighting drugs and promiscuity, but are actually come-to-Jesus sessions. We see his vans tooling about on the highways now and then: “you can run but you can’t hide”, they proclaim.

Dean delivered his prayer, and it was a doozy.

I know this is a non-denominational prayer in this Chamber and it’s not about the Baptists and it’s not about the Catholics alone or the Lutherans or the Wesleyans. Or the Presbyterians the evangelicals or any other denomination but rather the head of the denomination and his name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged. And we pray it. In Jesus’ name.

It was so offensive that one of the legislators vowed to never let him give a prayer in chambers ever again. How about going one step further and excluding all prayers from the legislature?

The CDC has issued a preparedness warning for the Zombie Apocalypse. I’m stockpiling water and shotgun shells now. Remember, AIM FOR THE HEAD.

He came to Minneapolis to whimper about gay marriage, and he got glittered.

Although the guy at the end who menacingly claims that they [Republicans?] don’t disturb their [gay?] events is rather creepy. I think the fact that they want to police what goes on in the bedroom goes beyond disturbing.

The Endless Thread is showing signs of stress and fatigue. I know, it wants to keep working, and it would probably willingly continue to sit there at its desk, scribbling madly, until it had a heart attack and keeled over, but as a kindly taskmasker hoping to wring a few more years of cheap labor out of it, I had to do something.

So I cashed in my frequent flyer miles and am sending the Thread to an exotic tropical island for a month.

Just imagine the Thread lying contentedly in a hammock on a sunny beach, with beautiful bikini-clad women and topless buff men bringing it sweet drinks in a coconut (with an umbrella!) all day long. It’s under orders to not say a word, to not even write a postcard back. Then, after days of languorous idleness beneath blue skies and nights of sweet romance and heedless dreams, it will come back refreshed and cheerful, ready to talk about nothing but fun and joy, and to embrace old friends once again.

I wish I were going now.

Perhaps you want to say goodbye and get in a few last words before departure, but no…I know how these prolonged farewells can drag on and on, so I’ve whisked the thread away under cover of night. You’ll have to content yourself with many alohas when it returns in June.

Bon voyage!

Everyone go say Happy Birthday to Larry Moran!

As you know by now, we’re in a fierce competition between myself, the mega-behemoth of godless blogging, against a ragtag flock of motley pee-wee bloggers, all to raise money for Camp Quest.

I am privy to certain emails that have been flying, I should mention, and they reveal that my opposition are scoundrels and rapscallions. They see defeat staring them in the face, and they have a desperate plan: they hope to recruit more atheists to their team, to try and outnumber me even further…not that it will help.

In the face of this threat, I have no choice: I sought out allies of my own. And once again, I have accomplished my plan with rapidity, stealing a march on the confused forces that think they can defeat me.

Yes. Team PZ has received the Official Endorsement of…Richard Dawkins. Contribute now. Or a pair of 900-pound godless gorillas will crush you.

Coral Ridge Ministries, that awful fundagelical organization founded by D. James Kennedy, has “discovered” a couple of former workers willing to testify about the evil practices of Planned Parenthood.

“They have an abortion budget and they have a certain number of patients that you have to perform abortions on every month, and there’s a dollar amount attached to each woman.”

Everett’s business plan included outreach in schools with talks given to break down children’s natural modesty and promote Everett and her clinic associates as trusted authorities for all things sexual.

Everett wanted students to “come to us with their sexual questions so we could put them on a low dose birth control pill we knew they’d get pregnant on. Of course we passed out condoms but we never passed out high quality condoms; we always used seconds or defective condoms. Our goal was to get the kids pregnant.”

The target, Everett says, was “three to five abortions between the ages of 13 and 18 from every girl we could find.”

I know, when you’re dealing with this brand of Christian, no lie is too low. But you’d think they’d at least care about plausibility.

Oh, wait…they believe that Jesus nonsense. I take it back, neither sleazy lies nor unbelievable absurdities are barriers to these guys.

That open letter to the NCSE by Jerry Coyne really seems to have set the cat among the pigeons — it’s an amazing flurry of ruffled feathers. I don’t see how there’s any hope of reconciliation, either, as long as the apologists for religion continue to be as obtuse as they have been. Roger Stanyard of the BCSE is unloading furiously on Richard Dawkins right now:

We don’t entirely know Peter but this is very definetly an attack on both the BCSE and the NCSE by the “New Atheists” including Richard Dawkins. It’s very personal and nasty as well. Basically they want the NCSE and the BCSE to back “New Atheism” and many of the people signing the letter are very hostile to us including and working with people who are religious.

The highlighting is mine, but the stupidity is Stanyard’s. How often do we have to repeat ourselves? There is no goal of turning the NCSE or the BCSE into an atheist organization; we think having an organization that is honestly neutral on the religious issue is extremely useful in advancing the cause of good science education for all. We want the NCSE/BCSE to support neither atheism nor religion.

You know what? The atheists in this argument have a crystal-clear understanding of the difference between atheism and secularism, and are saying that the science education organizations should be secular. It’s these sloppy accommodationists who have allowed liberal christianity to become their default position who have violated the distinction.