Archive for November, 2005

Not Such A Good Deal

Tuesday, November 29th, 2005

As of this writing, the Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt stands at eight trillion, ninety-five billion, nine hundred forty-four million, eight hundred ninety-two thousand, three hundred seventy-one dollars and forty-eight cents. That’s a stack of $100 bills 549 miles high ([1]). The Hubble Space Telescope orbits about 375 miles above Earth. In fiscal 2005, the US […]

The God Who Wasn’t There

Monday, November 28th, 2005

If you haven’t seen The God Who Wasn’t There yet, you should. The DVD just arrived on my doorstep over Thanksgiving. As the title implies, it’s a documentary that explores the notion that Jesus Christ never existed, and that religion — particularly extremist Christianity — is doing this country and the world more harm than good. (Spoilers […]

Intelligent Design, Restated

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

The central tenet of Intelligent Design is usually stated as “certain features of living organisms are too complex to be the result of natural processes, therefore they were designed.” But as Michael Behe explained at length on the stand in the Dover Panda Trial, what he objects to (at least, when he’s on the stand) is […]

PZ Makes the Big Time

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

The front-page article in the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages is about PZ Myers. It answers the burning question that I’ve been wondering about for ages: what does “PZ” stand for? Oh, and it also says what a pharyngula is.

Category RSS Feeds

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

Good news for those of you who only like some parts of my self-indulgent bloviating: I’ve updated the theme so that a category view (such as this one, for the “Fun” category) also includes a link to the RSS feed for that category. So if you only want to read stuff in one or two […]

Guns for Tots

Monday, November 21st, 2005

Here’s an idea: let’s give everyone a gun on their thirteenth birthday. After all, if we don’t exercise our second amendment rights, we’ll lose them, right?

Letter to Pleasant Valley Baptist Pastor

Wednesday, November 16th, 2005

This past weekend, Pleasant Valley Baptist Church hosted Kent Hovind’s traveling medicine show, of which I attended the first session. Here’s the email message I sent to Harold Phillips, the church’s senior pastor:

It’s the Kent Hovind Show!

Sunday, November 13th, 2005

Kent Hovind was in Maryland for the first (and probably last) time in years. I’ve heard his spiel, of course, but I’d never seen his show live, so naturally I had to go.

Aluminum Foil Hats May Be Government Conspiracy, Study Shows

Friday, November 11th, 2005

A group of researchers at MIT has investigated the ability of aluminum foil helmets to block radio transmissions, and noticed something startling: some frequencies are actually amplified by the foil chapeau. Go read it and look at the pictures. (Hat tip to Dick C. in t.o for the pointer.)

Behe Disproves Irreducible Complexity

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005

Ed at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has an article ponting out how Behe’s one and only published research article on ID shows that IC isn’t all that improbable at all. I read that testimony, but somehow never connected the dots as Ed did.