…and those cheapskates at Monsanto haven’t given me a penny!

Gosh. I put out a call to vote for Biofortified in a blog contest, and you guys all did your part and registered and voted honestly, and now what happens? I’m accused of fixing the competition.

This group has been putting out the following messsage on Twitter: “Vote for Biofortified in Ashoka Changemakers contest”.
 

A Monsanto PR operator has discreetly done the same and now the votes for Biofortified have suddenly exploded, more than doubling in a matter of hours in a completely unprecedented pattern.

Uh, I hate to say this, but the surge in votes is thanks to ME, not some obscure tweet on twitter, and I am not a “Monsanto PR operator”, nor is Biofortified a tool of Monsanto. And all I did is point people in the right direction.

Also, the pattern isn’t at all unprecedented. We see it all the time here on Pharyngula.

Time for them to eat their own

Somehow, this story is just too cliched.

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Pastor Marc Grizzard claims the King James version of the Bible is the only true word of God, and that all other versions are “satanic” and “perversions” of God’s word.

On Halloween night, Grizzard and the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church will set fire to other versions of the scripture, as well as music and books by Christian authors.

Book burning, sectarian intolerance, and overalls? Good grief, man, that is just playing to the stereotype of the southern good ol’ boy. Every educated Southerner is cringing at what you’re doing to their image.

I do wonder what Pastor Grizzard thinks of this version?

Stephen Hawking is not dead

The web of lies was working away yesterday: apparently, some bored wankers created some twitter accounts and started injecting rumors into the internet that Hawking had been killed by a Christian fundamentalist, and they’ve been spreading everywhere — I’m getting all kinds of email from people wondering if it is true.

No reputable news source is carrying any story about it, and the only source is a couple of anonymous twitter accounts. So what do you think?

A very unusual present

When I picked up my mail this afternoon, I was surprised to find several large boxes waiting for me. I was surprised when I opened them, both by the nature of their contents and by the fact that there was no note to say who sent them. Whoever it was, thank you! I don’t think anyone has ever given me a gift quite as unexpected. I now own…

[Read more…]

Maybe baby Jesus is playing with Dad’s branding iron again

This is Ali, a six month old baby in Southern Russia.

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It’s a miracle! Every Monday and Thursday, fresh quotations from the Quran ‘magically’ appear on his legs, belly, or arms when he’s home alone with his mommy and daddy, and then the pilgrims show up in the thousands to give the happy family lots and lots of attention. I simply can’t imagine how red marks might appear on the delicate skin of a young baby while under the care of doting, attentive parents, or why anyone might cheat and fake a miracle…can you? The only possible explanation is that the omnipotent, omniscient master of the entire cosmos occasionally gets bored overseeing the fusion of hydrogen in stars, and just has to come down to visit Ali and dickishly inflame small regions of his epidermis. I can understand that; if I had the power to end a wasteful war in the Kizlyar region, I’m sure I’d just use it to torment babies instead. But hey, I’m an atheist. What’s God’s excuse?

As testimony to the importance of this miracle, the site has not one, but two online polls. Journalists are going all out on this story, I can tell!

Do you believe in miracles?

Yes 64%
I’m open to the possibility 21%
No 15%

Do you consider yourself religious?

Yes 70%
No 30%

Watch out, though. God is plainly a bit bored right now — he might take a break from getting fancy with rashes on babies and instead start doing something more appropriate to his vast power and glory…like playing games with internet polls.

Nah, who am I kidding? Nothing could be more fun for God than abusing babies! That never gets old!

Fun with Twitter

Apparently, twitter tracks hot trends in the tiny little conversations flying about, and the #1 hot topic today was “No God”. The amusing reason why is that someone posted that boring and fallacious cliche, “Know God…Know Peace. No God…No Peace”, a lot of Christians retweeted it, and a few atheists contributed to the confusion by saying “no god”, and that’s all it took to single out that one phrase and turn it into the top few words being bandied about.

Just to make it even more hilarious, various Christian twitterers (or whatever they call them) freaked out and started frantically submitting their magic mantra even more, which just blew it up even higher. And all the atheists are sitting back laughing and writing “no god” again!

Combine stupid text searches with a human feedback loop, and look at the silly behavior it can evoke.

You only have a few days left…then you’re going to DIE!

Last month, we were told that the Rapture was coming on 21 September. It didn’t happen. You know that there must have been some little mistake in their calculations.

The prophets have double-checked their numbers and found the error, and fixed it. We now know without error the date of the end.

THE RAPTURE IS COMING ON 21 OCTOBER!!!!

Scurry and flee, everyone. They can’t be wrong everytime, can they? This might be it.

I get email

I suppose it’s nice to know I’m not forgotten, but it’s still a little weird that I occasionally get email from Bill Donohue, just out of the blue. Like today.

secular sabotage

PZ,

Just to let you know, I did not forget you when I wrote “Secular Sabotage.” You made the cut the old fashioned way–you earned it.

Bill Donohue

I don’t know what prompted that, but it is good to know that I have a reputation for working hard. I wouldn’t want to be thought to be a mere welfare heretic, coasting along on handouts from theological anti-patronage, you know.