So my wonderful wife got me a new toy for Valentine’s Day.
Ever since the great iPod in the pool catastrophe, which also damaged my mobile, I’ve been having increasing problems with the phone, and so… Now I have an iPhone.
In fact, I’m writing this on a traffic jam using the cell network connection. More as I get more experience with it.
I’ve just got too many bookmarks in my “blog this pile†this week, so, rather than give each the attention it deserves, I’ll just lump them altogether…
This one is just too funny, someone over at Fundies Say The Darndest Things has collected their top 100 list of the most nut-job, fundamentalist, crackpot religious comments, with some beauties like these:
One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.
Ummmm… How about… the sun?
or
If your original Hebrew disagrees with my original King James — your original Hebrew is wrong. If your original Hebrew agrees with my original King James, your original Hebrew is right.
That quote is, no doubt, about the longstanding theological debate about which came first, 17th century CE or the 4th century BCE. Many a theologian has spent his entire career pondering that question alone.
Or, it might just be a truly dipshit comment.
Moving along to the lighter side, over at Google Groups, there’s an article entitled, “Christians: Tips to Doing Battle With Evil Atheistsâ€, which reminds me of many a “discussion†I’ve had with Christian Fundamentalists back when I used to run the Crunchy Frog BBS. (Oh, so long ago!)
If only this article had been available to them back then, they’d have known important things like:
Don’t under-estimate their knowledge of the Bible. Many of them are more familiar with the Bible than the average Christian is. And they know all of the passages that will cause you a problem, and will not hesitate to challenge you with them.
or
Remember that while the Bible may be authoritative to you, like it is to me, to an atheist it is just an old book and has no more authority than the Iliad.
Then there’s the new movie, “Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed.†(Presumably, they mean, no intelligence will be allowed in the theatre while the movie is showing.) This is nut job Ben Stein’s crack at proving that Intelligent Design ought to be taught in schools alongside real science. PZ Myers, who blogs about this sort of thing over at Pharyngula, has been harping on their rear ends ever since the duped him into appearing in their movie under false pretenses.
In honor of Darwin Day yesterday, the movie’s blog site posted an editorial piece pointing out the injustice that Lincoln’s birthday was removed as a holiday and now we celebrate Darwin Day on February 12. (Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day.) The injustice, they infer, is that Lincoln was the great emancipator and Darwin was just a racist who believed one race of man was superior to another and produced a theory of fatalistic pessimism.
Dr. Myers has produced an excellent rebuttal, which is worth reading in full. This sort of so-called argument is typical of the creationist loonies (and make no mistake, the Intelligent Design crowd are nothing but Creationists is Halloween lab-coat costumes.)
Finally, this weeks Skeptic e-newsletter has an excellent article that has nothing at all to do with creationism or religion. It’s just a solid grounding in reality about broadcast journalism, entitled “Journalist-Bites-Realityâ€.
I didn’t know Singapore went in for the flashy, “we’ve got to be #1 stuffâ€, like the Malaysians do, but here it is – the Singapore Flyer. The world’s newest “tallest†and “largest†observation wheel.
It bumped off the London Eye as the numero uno largest and the Star of Nanchang as the tallest.
It’s rather like a sudoku puzzle that you’ve almost finished, and then realize you’ve made a mistake somewhere along the way…
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If you, like me, are somewhat obsessed with the imaginary lines that divide our little planet, few lines are more more amusing that the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
There’s a new BBC series, called Tropic Of Capricorn, which I’ve not seen, which charts a course around the world along (what else?) the Tropic of Capricorn.
I guess Michael Palin was unavailable for this BBC journey.
Why is the line “amusing� To quote the BBC:
[Defining the Tropic of] Capricorn is a little more tricky. The best and pithiest definition appears to be that the Tropic of Capricorn is the point furthest south where the sun can be seen overhead.
This occurs at noon on the Summer solstice in the Southern hemisphere.
But there is much more to it than that.
That’s a typically British piece of understatement. Fortunately, they go on to explain it… don’t take my word for it, read all about it here:
BBC News => What is the Tropic of Capricorn
Technorati Tags: Television, Travel, UK, Video
It’s no secret that Doctor Who and the Silurians is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who serials. Episode 2 was the first episode of Doctor Who I ever saw, back in… 1975 or 1976.
Owing to a bit of indiscriminate programming on behalf of KVOA TV 4 in Tucson, it was also the third and fourth episode I ever saw, too. Despite that, how could it not work its magic on me? Space aliens AND dinosaurs! (Although, I doubt I realized the Doctor was an alien at that time.)
The Silurians was the only VHS episode of Doctor Who I purchased, and that was because the had colorized it. The color copy was lost and the BBC undertook colorization for this story, and it was a wonderful job.
Now, the Silurians is coming to DVD! (Along with the two sequels, The Sea Devils and Warriors of the Deep.)
In an early “heads-up†to retailers, distributor Warner Home Video has revealed BBC Video’s plans for the USA release of 3 new classic Doctor Who DVD releases (all digitally restored/remastered), along with a box set of these stories collected into a package called Doctor Who – Beneath The Surface.
From TVShowsOnDVD.com – check link for further details.
I can hardly wait!
Technorati Tags: Doctor Who, Dr Who, DVD, Television, UK, Video
For years I’ve been hearing about a seemingly mythical Arizona/Phoenix Skeptics group, but the only traces I find seem to be in ancient newsletters and references in various magazines/podcasts to Mike Stackpole being the “leader of the Arizona Skeptics.†Yet, somehow the word “Skeptic†isn’t to be found on his website.
Frankly, I’m skeptical that they even exist.
In any case, I happened to stumble across azskeptic.org today. I think is different from the ancient newsletters I’ve found on the net and I also think I’ve seen the site before and thought it was a cobweb site, because the latest news on the front page is (as of today) from Jan 2007, you have to wonder a little bit.
If you dig a bit deeper, though, you’ll see that they have a new blog just started this year and grand plans for 2008, so to that end, I’ve added a link to my blogroll, and if you happen to be a skeptical Arizonan, check ’em out.
Technorati Tags: Skepticism
Quick, call the production team at Primeval! Maybe they can work this one in for series three… the missing crocodile link.
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilian paleontologists said on Thursday they had found the fossil of a new species of prehistoric predator that represented a “missing link†to modern-day crocodiles.
The well-preserved fossil of Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi, a medium-sized lizard-like predator measuring about 5 1/2 feet (1.7 meters) from head to tail, dates back about 80 million years to the Late Cretaceous period.
From Reuters => Brazil finds fossil of missing link to crocodile | Reuters
Technorati Tags: Natural Sciences, Paleontology, Science
I am the Eggman. They are the Eggmen. I am the Walrus, goo goo g’joob.
Is this the future Lennon had in mind?
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