A Palin for the rest of us

Come on, join the revolution: Michael Palin for President!

I mean, the other Palin has no chance...

More about truths and chuckling

From Atheist Comics:

In constant search of excellence

T.S. Eliot translated into lolcat! Here: Wasteland

so you think you know HTML?

A wonderfully hilarious place, The HTML Hell Page. Yes, I am guilty of several of the transgressions listed therein, but not too many, and I insist that I was an early adopter of the hatred and disgust for several other idiocies described there. Plus, a lot of this sage advice does not really apply to a free blog site, on which you are stuck with pre-designed templates and weird advertising blurbs beyond your control. Anyway, chock full of lovely rants and design tips for anyone trying to make the world notice.

happy new year

and, on a totally unrelated note,

a night at the creation museum

Thanks to Mad magazine, but why only #14?

demotivators

Demotivators.com has some of the best shirts evah here. There are more, but I am particularly fond of this line and will be getting some ASAP.

a fair warning

courtesy of Pharyngula. Thanks to PZ Myers!

...of unknown provenance...

..but awesomely fitting. Should the author show up, I'd be glad to acknowledge.

BEHE:
I cut down facts. I Gish and gallop.
I like to press wild fallacies.
I put on scientist's clothing
And hang around in labs.

MOUNTIES:
He cuts down facts. He Gish and gallop.
He likes to press wild fallacies.
He puts on scientist's clothing
And hangs around in labs?!

He's a creationist, and he's okay.
He lies all night and he lies all day.

full of pictures today

agnes on faith

Stolen from RDN

tom tomorrow rules

Yeah.

a tidbit to tide you over...

...while I am feverishly trying not to write anything at all, and not drink or fuck either. It's been a hectic week.

Anyway: Chuck Norris Facts...bloody hilarious.

Got to go be bored. Chah!

and justice for all

From MyConfinedSpace:

Morning Malaise

1.I certainly do not want to go to work today. however, Momokawa Pearl sake is a wonderful beverage.

2.The degradation of civil society continues apace. How could we have ever thought that something like this would be funny? But it is. Laughter in the dark, laughter through tears, indeed. Tom Tomorrow rules.

Neocons untie!

Thou misbegotten crook-pated canker-blossom!

A wonderful Shakespearean insult generator.

Heh

How to be a crank

We can all recognize them when we see them; now the Denialist blog has a wonderful HOWTO on crankery. If you've ever thought that you just might be an underappreciated genius, on a par with Galileo, check it out: awesomely useful tips on developing and distributing your own brand of idiotic insanity!

her face was an ell broad and her teeth were about the same size

There has been a crop of beautiful books on atheism and the stupidity of ID/creationism over the last six months or so. The God Delusion, the new edition of Atheist Universe, Letter to a Christian Nation, God: The Failed Hypothesis, Why Darwin Matters, Why Intelligent Design Fails, The Counter-Creationism Handbook, and others (!)

In any case, some of these books have been constituting my reading material while I take the bus to work each bloody morning and back each exhausted evening...Finally, someone at work asked me, with a slightly offended air, if I only was ever interested in one side of the argument and whether that did not constitute an indication of a closed mind on my part. That was funny. But, honestly, of course I read the opposition. I've read Phillip Johnson and laughed. I read Duane Gish and fell out of my chair, weeping with merriment. Their kind perform a useful purpose: they lift up our spirits by showing how perfectly idiotic humans can be; they ignore science, misrepresent its conclusions, come up with their own rather strange philosophical concepts and generally spend their time standing in the corner blocking their ears with their hands and shouting "Nyaah Nyaahh I can't hear you". Very funny.

I knew that that wasn't the kind of response my questioner wanted to hear, but what the hell? OK: I've read Behe and Dembski, and they weren't even really funny, although they also committed most of the aforementioned fallacies. They just did it in a very self-importantly aggrandazing and serious way. Those two are difficult to laugh at, but, really, their suggestions have been debunked rather thoroughly: just for starters, a whole bunch of articles are here. Easy enough.

But what about "sophisticated" theology? Well, indeed. Just finished reading Haught's Deeper Than Darwin, and am now plodding through McGrath's Twilight of Atheism. But not on the bus!!! See, I want something fun on the bus, and since I do not find appeals to revelation and subjectivity convincing and informal logical fallacies of various stripes no longer even make me very angry, McGrath would just put me right to sleep (in fact, if it were less generally unpleasant, I'd be reading this kind of material before going to bed: gently relaxing one's critical faculty and helping one shut off one's brain). Haught is a bit more contentful, but even so, if that is the best that "sophisticated" theology can throw at us, we are not in any trouble (logically, anyway). Nobody but believers would be convinced by any of the arguments therein; books like that serve only as a confirmation, a support of sorts: see, somebody out there thinks like you do, you are not alone, we can make silly errors and be confused together.

Blecch. Today, however, no such fun. My bus reading will consitute papers on evolution of photosynthesis and possible detection of such in extrasolar planetary atmospheres. Hey: it may not be funny, but it will be exciting!