That simple and charming organization, The Friends of Charles Darwin, has just signed their thousandth member. Good for them, but still, that’s pathetic — I hope it takes less than a decade to sign up another thousand. Go ahead and join if you haven’t already, it’s painless, I promise.
In California, the state’s spending on prisons is about to exceed their spending on universities. They’re about to spend $7.4 billion on new facilities, with an operating budget over $10 billion.
I wonder how much of that budget is consumed in ridiculous efforts to punish non-violent drug users, or in the zealous application of three strikes laws?
So there I am, reading an amusing couple of local comics mocking the conservative media, and my name comes up. And my picture.
I must protest, it’s totally inaccurate. I would never get such a soul-satisfying introduction, and if I were on TV, I’d be sure to wear my best eyepatch, the one with the gold filigree.
John McKay of archy has noted that Ken Ham’s fabulously low-rent sideshow attraction of pseudoscience (AKA his Creation “Science” “Museum”) opens next week, and has asked if there is going to be any coordinated response in the blogosphere — some kind of mini-carnival or something. I say, why not? Let’s!
It’s short notice, but I’ll organize it, and you all just have to contribute to it. The museum’s opening day is 28 May, so we should aim to have a one-stop page full of links to commentary the day before, on 27 May. If you’ve written something recently, or would like to put something together this week, on anything to do with Ham’s folly — everything from outright mockery to serious critical dissections of claims from Answers in Genesis is fair game — send it to me by Saturday and I’ll put up a media-ready digest of reactions on Sunday. We should aim on making it easy for people searching for the term “creation museum” to find the criticism.
Now this is a situation about which I have mixed feelings: fans of creationism are lobbying to free a certain convicted felon and dishonest sleazebag with a petition to Free Kent Hovind. To counter that, another group has started a petition to Keep Kent Hovind in Jail.
Since the “Free Kent Hovind” petition has many more signatures (and read the comments; they’re comparing this con artist to Jesus), I signed the one to lock him away. I really hope, though, that the judicial system simply ignores both pleas and judges him on the evidence.
David Hone, the mastermind behind the Ask a Biologist site, forwarded this cute cartoon from Fritz at b3ta. I think I could be persuaded to jump on the “Teach the Controversy” bandwagon in this one specific respect.
I was interviewed on a website over a month ago, and unfortunately John A. Davison and his infected polyp, VMartin, took over the comments there and went on and on in their ridiculous way.
They’re still going at it. Even more absurdly, the droning duo are bragging on ISCID, in an awesome example of pretentious self-delusion:
658 comments and going strong again. Are there any brave souls here that are willing to join Martin and myself in this incredible demonstration that there are still those who believe that life in all its manifestations was an accident? Are Martin and myself the only ones who reject that by publicly challenging the two major exponents of that bizarre philosophy, Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Meyers, both of whom have remained silent? So it would seem. I am sure Martin agrees with me that we welcome any or all to join in this most fundamental of discussions at a venue which was arrogantly introduced by the author of the thread on which he is now afraid to speak.
Opportunities like this do not occur every day and they should not be ignored. They reveal a philosophy without foundation that deserves to be thoroughly exposed and One Blog A Day presents a rare opportunity to challenge the Darwinian fantasy and its two most vocal supporters in a reasonably neutral venue. Perhaps others can produce a response from the two most prominent atheist biologists of the present time. Martin and I can’t seem to achieve that most desirable result.
Uh, “incredible demonstration”…of what? Somebody sure has an over-inflated opinion of his “most fundamental of discussions” … and obviously, I’m not afraid of them. I do have to apologize to the poor owner of the OneBlogADay site, though; I’m sorry a couple of parasites piggy-backed on my interview to infest you, but hey, here’s a link and a little more traffic to make up for it, I hope.
Davison has made a revealing comment:
In the meantime Martin and I have scored another conquest by being banned at The Loom.
Someone cut their ISP cable, quick, and reward them with a complete victory over the whole of the internet.
Hey, maybe we’re making more progress than we ever imagined, if this poll from Christianity Today is any measure:
As a somewhat cynical realist, though, I’m more inclined to believe in badly designed polls and cunning rascals with a script than I am that subscribers to a Christian magazine suddenly became wise.
(via Sandwalk)
He wanted to be a preacher. He was a good Christian. His wife was a true believer, too. Their baby, though, was a godless heathen who never read the bible.
So I’m sure it was perfectly reasonable to put the baby in the microwave and cook her.
And their excuse that Satan made him do it? Quite sensible, I’m sure.
Isn’t faith a wonderful thing?
A number of you wrote in to me to let me know that Hong Kong was considering labeling the Christian bible as indecent—it is full of violence and kinky-freaky sexual behavior, after all. It was also amusing how some people rationalized it.
