Posts

The Island of Misfit Toys

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How would you like to be a spotted elephant or a choo choo with square wheels on your caboose or a water pistil that shoots jelly? We’re all misfits! Click on the page fold to read more.

Skepticism and Art

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All the well-known Skeptics are globetrotting this week so, in an attempt to fit in, I thought I would tell you about my recent trip.  Art Basel is an international art exhibition held each year in both, Basel, Switzerland, and Miami, USA.  I went to the one in Miami, because I don’t think my car would make it to Switzerland.  If you ever find yourself in South Florida around the first week of December try to make it over to some of these shows.  From Picasso to Shepard Fairey to Hello Kitty, I promise there is some art collection just for you. This year my wife and I concentrated on the smaller fringe shows which popped up around the main convention.  This gave us the opportunity to see incredible cutting edge stuff along with (to be frank) some real crap.  My wife is good at defining which is which.  Fanciful taxidermy creating a whimsical creature which is part iridescence peacock and part full scale rhinoceroses – that’s art.  Decaying foam seat cushion secured to the wall with

MATHS – How to Win a Computerized Toast System

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MALE PROSTITUTES AND THE POPE

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“Pope Benedict XVI says in a new book that condoms can be justified for male prostitutes seeking to stop HIV.” He doesn’t approve the use of condoms for any other group in the entire world - just male prostitutes. For a subject that hasn’t been in the news lately, that’s a strangely specific decree, isn’t it? I mean it’s kind of like if your boss had you over for dinner, and you were complimenting him on the meal he served, when suddenly he blurts out “I don’t think it’s wrong if a person masturbates to an image of Misses Howell from Gilligan’s Island.” ok…ah…great…um…I really like these vegetables.

A SONG ABOUT QUARKS

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Go to Vblog Brothers they have some great stuff.

SHOULD I BE A DICK?

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I will not lie to you, as I write this; the news from the trenches is not encouraging. The enemies of reason are on the march. We are being attacked from all fronts.  Because the struggle is so long and so exhausting some of you might begin to blame your fellow soldier for the slow progress of the entire movement. We must not give in to this, seductive temptation. For, although it seems like our foes have us greatly outnumbered, We have right on our side!..AND WE HAVE A SECRET WEAPON. If you don’t know, there is war going on in the Freethought community. Skeptics think that Atheists are pushing their message too hard. Atheists are accusing Skeptics of being accommodationist. And everyone just ignores the Humanists because, let’s face it, they don’t know how to get any press anyway. The following is a letter that I have sent to some Freethought and Skeptic magazines: The debate over whether to be nice or not while practicing Skepticism seems to be missing an important component …numb

Plants With Eyes

happy Halloween

Scientology – Return of the Archons

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  Recently I found myself in the town of Clearwater, Florida, world headquarters of a unique organization. My office was, maybe 400 yards, from what was once the First National Bank of Clearwater. The sturdy neoclassic designed building was decorated with massive Greek columns and the words “Church of Scientology” newly carved in the freeze. Apparently, the preferred wardrobe for many of the Church of Scientology members is simple black pants, black shoes and white button down shirts. I did not know this until recently. When I first arrived in Clearwater, I just thought the town employed an unusually high number of French waiters. I was there for f weeks.  Everyone in town was nice. I was never approached by devoted followers or dragged away and brainwashed by cult operatives. (At least I don’t think I was. That’s the funny thing about brainwashing. You never can know for sure, can you?) There was one interesting moment during my stay in the town, which I would like to describe t

Cash Gifting

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“Today I Quit Being a Christian” By Jesus Christ

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This just in: Today, on his Twitter page, Jesus Christ, philosopher and rumored “Son of God” announced “I quit being a Christian. I’m out. ” Twitter followers were stunned. “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-science, anti-movies, anti-Halloween, anti-Harry Potter, anti-Teletubbies, anti-science fiction conventions, anti-Indian food, anti-Large Hadron Collider, anti-big words, anti-yoga, anti-Karma Sutra (pages 17 thru 49), anti-news that isn’t Fox, anti-history books, anti-Wikipedia, anti-trees, and especially anti-Will and Grace. I mean come on, who didn’t like Will and Grace. Jack was so funny. Am I right?” “I just, in good conscience, can no longer associate myself with this quarrelsome, hostile (and frankly way to needy) group. They all just need to get a life, always asking me for stuff. “Can you give me the lottery numbers? Will you rig the football games so my team will win? Can you smite the entire population of that country, over ther

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS & ONE DOZEN MONKEYS

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People, Who Believe the Devil Exists, Don’t Believe In God.

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Recently during an email exchange with a friend of mine (in which I was trying to explain to him that the bible was not literally true) my friend explained to me that I was being controlled by the Devil. Although I was shocked (and yes, I’ll admit, a little bit flattered) I chose to I ignore the accusation. I was not going to be suckered into a long debate about the existence of Satan. Instead I decided to take the high road and focused on my friend’s assertion that evolution was wrong because of the fact that we humans cannot reach every part of our own body to scratch ourselves. True story. Now that I have a little more time on my hands I decided I will take the bait and turn my attention to THE DARK ONE. Let me make a clear declarative statement . People, who believe the Devil exists, cannot also believe in God (at least not God as most of us understand him). When I Goggled the idea that people can’t believe in both God and the Devil I was surprised nothing came right up. I’m sure

The Future is Groovy

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I’ve been pulling 12 hour days lately and have had no time to write, so to make it up to you, I thought I would show you a video of what I GUARANTEE the future will be like.   Did you see the size of those fish?

You can prove anything with facts.

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This Could Be Craziest Post I Have Ever Written

A while back I spoke about pareidolia, the act of seeing specific images in vague random shapes. It was easy for me to find a bunch of pictures of the virgin marry to illustrate the phenomena, So I started looking for some pictures of the big man, himself. They were also easy to find - Jesus on toast, Jesus in an x-ray, Jesus in a Kit Kat bar. But, there was one picture in particular, that I came across, that I specifically did not use. When you stare at this picture, if you squint your eyes, and you use your imagination you can clearly see the image of Jesus in…I’m sorry, I can’t say it. It is too crude for my blog. Believe it or not, I DO want to maintain a certain civility in my posts. And this image of Jesus would be crossing the line. But I can’t stop thinking about it. Not because of where the image is, but because of what the implications of this image appearing in this particular place, are. You see, the fact that the image of Jesus can clearly be seen in… this place, could v

F*ck Me, Ray Bradbury

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I want to be the first one to link to this. I love at the end when she slaps the girl wearing the Kurt Vonnegut T shirt.

Is the oil spill really that bad?

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The following is either the thought process of a skeptic or the mad scribblings of a schizophrenic mind.  First the obligatory disclaimer - All of the preliminary investigation suggests BP was grossly negligent in regards to the recent oil spill. BP should pay every cent for the cleanup and be heavily fined for the damage that it caused to the environment and to people’s lives. (Offer not valid where prohibited by law.) With that said, will the Gulf recover from this spill a lot faster than we expected? From the beginning something didn’t seem right about the media’s coverage of this spill. What I remember from the Exxon Valdez disaster are images of scores of workers in hazmat suits using giant pressure sprayers along large runs of coastlines. I haven’t seen that here. I know this spill is bad but why is it that all of the images I see of this disaster only involve close ups of fish and frames of marshland about 20 to 30 feet wide. Oh Nick, don’t be suckered. The reason you don’t

Portraits of Strangers

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I’ve said I don’t really like people much, but I DO love the Human race. Take a second to go to this wed site on flicker called Portraits of Strangers . Human Beings are wonderful.

HOW OPINION POLLS WORK

Yesterday the Skeptical community was abuzz about a crooked poll, PZ Myers found on a creationist website. It reminded me of this clip from a great, British sitcom I loved in the 80’s called “Yes Minister.” If you don’t know, PZ Myers is a biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. On his website, Pharyngula , he is a distinguished bulldog, relentlessly fighting the nonsense that is creationism and intelligent design. The poll question was: What do you believe about evolution? It’s a religion. 46% It’s a fact! 43% It’s a reasonable scientific theory 11% The skullduggery here, as PZ points out, is that the creationists split the reasonable choice into two, thereby ensuring its loss and their win.

URBAN LEGEND TRUE

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Someone at the office told me this story: It seems there was this zoo in Bristol, England, which had a small secondary parking lot that was owned and administered, not by the zoo, but by the city. It was manned by a loyal parking attendant, who in 25 years , never missed a day of work. That is until one day, when the parking attendant didn’t show up for work. The zoo administrator called the city to tell them they needed to send a replacement over. The city said they had no idea what the zoo administrator was talking about. The city had no employee collecting money for them in that location. It seems this phony parking attendant had been collecting money and pocketing it. They figured it was 400 pounds a day for the past 25 years. When the authorities went to the employee’s home they found it empty and no one knows what had become of him. When I heard this story, immediately my “skepty” sense started tingling. I informed my coworker that what he just told me was probably an urban leg