Author Archive for Martin Page 3 of 4
Kazim and I have heard back from Mike Pritchard, who told us he's sending us Colson's book and all that. Kazim then set out a few parameters for how we would like any dialogue to go, mindful of the fact that our usual dealings with apologists reveal them to be, oh, less than scrupulously honest, shall we say. Mike responded with this interestingly worded note.Yes, this all sounds great to me. I
If it weren't enough for this moon-faced git to have ended up one of Olbermann's Worst People in the World, try this on for size. No one has quite dissected what a deeply immoral, cretinous piece of lying filth Ben Stein is like Jeff Dorchen. Beauty.That a man, let alone a Jew, could, without shame, walk on the graves of Holocaust victims and claim the theory of evolution was at fault, let alone
Yahoo News reports:Man asks court to change his name to 'In God We Trust'ZION, Ill. - Steve Kreuscher wants a judge to allow him to legally change his name. He wants to be known as "In God We Trust."Kreuscher (CROY'-shir) says the new name would symbolize the help God gave him through tough times.The 57-year-old man also told the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald he's worried that atheists may
Via Ed Brayton. He does not, for some reason, link to a source. We'll see if this is real.Addendum: Ed mentions that the ruling is only available online via a pay service, which he why he did not include a link in his article. In his comments section, however, someone has cutpasted it.
Following in the morally bankrupt footsteps of Ben Stein and Expelled, the ICR is responding to its snub by the state with a PR campaign designed (and not intelligently) to paint themselves as heroic champions and martyrs to "free inquiry" whose work is being "stifled" by a hostile scientific mainstream. Those of you who opened the Austin paper today to page A16 were probably aghast to see the
One of these is the usual parade of batshit crazy, and the other is a comparatively rare case of a church doing what we're meant to believe churches do all the time: something good for their community. Makes sense that the latter is located in Austin, where people have a tendency to be pretty cool, even some of the religious ones.In San Francisco, of all places, a bunch of dimwits staged a "
Okay, so I guess I now have the answer to the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything...if I could only remember what the question was. Oh well. Never mind. Instead, I'll just post what I've decided to declare my birthday anthem this year, for your enjoyment. It would be nice if there were an official video for this song, but this fan-made effort is pretty decent for what it is. Have a good
The Church of the Burning Stupid is keeping up its anti-science missionary efforts, as we can see here. This was submitted to the ACA Yahoogroup by one of its members who presumably lives in the area (Greeley, CO). He got it among his daily junk snail mail. It would be awesome if some educated folks could turn up to this farce and bombard the presenter, some dingaling named H.S. Rester, with
You learn something every day if you pay attention to the courageous freedom fighters for creationism. For instance, did you know the reason people pursue higher education and become teachers and academicians? It's because they're frightened people. Really, it's true! Okay...it's not really true. But Ben Stein says it, and it flatters creationists' sense of victimhood and anti-intellectual
Regrettably, I may have to miss this depending on what my schedule for that day looks like. But I wanted to post the information for the science-minded among you. This ought to be another good talk. It's in the same lecture hall where Ken Miller spoke.Date: Friday, May 2, 2008Time: 3:00pm - 4:00pmLocation: WEL 2.224Parking Info: http://www.utexas.edu/parking/maps/index.htmlSan Jacinto or Speedway
Why oh why do they hate the Ceiling Cat so much? In what will doubtless be trumpeted as more suppression of "free speech" by Dr. Evil and the Nazi Darwinist Stormtroopers of "Big Science," the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board took a big fat sanity pill and unanimously denied the request of the Institute for Creation Research to be granted certification to offer a master's degree program
If Expelled achieves anything, it will be to make millions of Beatles fans Yoko Ono supporters for the first time in their lives. You just don't steal music.This is why we call them IDiots, gang.
The weekend actuals are in, and the $3.1 million estimate for Expelled that was holding as of Sunday afternoon has been downgraded to $2.97 million, with the movie coming in 10th rather than 9th place.Anticipating an average second weekend dropoff of 50%-65% (which is what you see with most movies), I don't think this has been the shot fired across the bow of "Big Science" that Mark Mathis and
It brings people together!
Over at Richard Dawkins' site, Dawkins posts a crazed, histrionic letter from a Jewish man to Michael Shermer. This fellow evidently saw Expelled over the weekend, swallowed the movie's foul calumnies about evolutionary theory being responsible for the Holocaust with complete credulity, and went berserk. Dawkins publishes his own calm and even-tempered response to the man (who wails that Shermer
Some of our Christian commenters are just idiots or mean-spirited trolls, but occasionally we get someone who's sincere and easily duped by the lies spewed by Ben Stein's little movie. One of these, a young woman (I assume) calling herself Verity, has commented here, and my comment, straightening out a number of the falsehoods and misconceptions she holds as a result of taking Stein at his word,
Via Expelled's site:“Big Science Academy” is proud to have the support of the “Mainstream Press” in stifling the rise of freedom of speech in our science classrooms. In so many ways, “Big Science” and “Big Media” are on exactly the same page, when it comes to making sure that dissenters and troublemakers are properly expelled.Well, what can I say? It's been a busy week for us here at the Nazi
As happens with all shitty movies, the distributor for Expelled declined to screen the movie in advance for critics. Indeed, we know they kept their advance screenings a tightly controlled series of fundie lovefests, expelling any knowledgeable, scientifically literate viewer if they were able. After all, in a movie that beats the "free speech" and "academic freedom" drums long and loud, it's
PZ's regular readers may be acquainted with the poetry of commenter "Cuttlefish, OM", whose own blog is chock full of his witty, satirical rhymes. As prose, and not poetry, is my own literary background, I can't tell you why I love his stuff in a way that will earn me an A+ and a smileyface sticker from my Analyzing Poetry professor. I'll just say, the man has flow. Here's his latest masterpiece,
Pope Ratzo is touring the U.S., about which some people with nothing better to do apparently give a shit. Amazingly, there are still those who actually think the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church still have some kind of moral authority as an institution that deserves to be leading the world, rather than what it is, a bunch of dirty old men playing dressup in expensive robes. Naturally, even
That old selective God is at work again, doling out random miracles to some while flipping the divine bird at others. Story at CNN about a plane crash in the Congo, which some members of a missionary family survived by crawling through a hole torn through the fuselage by another survivor desperate to escape the wreckage. Naturally, they credit the Invisible Space Fairy for their survival.Marybeth
Joe Zamecki has been going through his tapes of the fledgling Atheist Experience TV show and posting them to YouTube. As you may recall, the first one of these he posted was pretty dire in terms of video and audio quality. This latest episode, from August 1998, looks and sounds a lot better. It features an early guest appearance by ever-popular firebrand Jeff Dee. As usual, Joe is splitting the
Okay, here's my 'tude at the moment. I figure I've done my bit, said all I had to say, voiced my opinion in several forums: here, in the comments of other blogs, even at the movie's IMDb page. As far as I can tell there's nothing more needs be said. Those of us on the pro-science side know full well by now that the movie is a pack of disgraceful, meretricious lies. And any criticism of it
Remember how the nutbags at the Institute for Creation Research (second cousins to the Institute for Hobgoblinology, one presumes) have been trying to gain legitimacy in Texas by being allowed to offer degrees in science education? Well, the meeting is coming up, and I hope a zillion people from the pro-science side turn up and tell the board just what a ridiculous proposal this is. Or, at the
Up to now, Expelled Exposed has just been a collection of links to some pre-release reviews and blog posts about the upcoming Ben Stein festival of propaganda and lies. Now the work on the full site is done, and it contains a complete fisking of the film, all the way from its outrageous claims of a link between Darwin and Nazi eugenics, to revealing the real circumstances behind what happened to
Just a quick note to say that Kelly over at Rational Responders is hosting the most recent Carnival of the Godless. Kazim's article about the "Star Trek Rule" is included in the lineup this time.
Want to see what kind of person Ben Stein and Mark Mathis are catering to with Expelled? Check this comment. With such powerful arguments to offer, how could we not have seen the light before now?
Valerie Tarico modestly admits to not having invented it, but it's a brilliant neologism that I'm sure will gain new cachet within the reality based community, now that it's been used to mock the intelligent design crowd in general and the claims of Expelled in particular. Tarico writes the latest derisive smackdown review of Ben Stein's folly over at HuffPo, and she takes the gloves off right
You're a theater owner. You're given the choice between exhibiting Expelled, a poorly made faux-documentary for fundamentalist Christians...or this...Which do you choose?
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