They invariably get it wrong. This time they’ve noticed it’s cold outside, and they see an news report about colder temperatures in the Antarctic, so they leap to the conclusion that global warming is bunk. Or rather, they always held that conclusion (on faith, no doubt), and are overjoyed to see any scrap of out-of-context evidence that they can play up to bolster their confidence.
OK, here’s the latest word on tonight’s show on atheists with Paula Zahn: there will be a different version of the previous report on ostracized atheists. Dawkins’ interview will be four minutes long. There will also be a panel with Niger Innis (a conservative Republican), Roland Martin (a religious commentator), and Christopher Hitchens (atheist pain-in-the-ass). Apparently, they searched the entire United States of America and couldn’t find a single atheist, so they had to import a couple from one of those godless foreign countries. You know, if they’d called me this morning I could have rushed off to the airport; when one is the only atheist in America, as I seem to be, one has to get used to making these emergency runs to meet demands to appear on a freakshow.
I guess this is standard operating procedure, with much last-minute juggling of the schedule, so you might tune in at 8pm EST tonight and discover that they thought 10 minutes of some guy playing the accordion would be more entertaining. Don’t be surprised, it could happen.
Carel Brest van Kempen is going to be at the Hogle Zoo on Friday evening, showing off his artwork. We have fond memories of the zoo; our apartment was just down the road from it in Salt Lake City when we lived there, and when the kids were at that perfect age to be enthusiastic about it all. (Salt Lake City, despite the weird religion everywhere, is actually a wonderful place to raise kids; when we atheists take over the country, we have to remember to build zoos and big parks and lots of schools in our cities.)
Admission is free from 7-9pm. If we were living a little closer, we’d be there—if you’re in that part of Utah, you should make the trip!
Oops, not free, but still a good deal!
The Opening Reception on Friday (Feb 9) from 7-9 is for artists and invited guests only. However the show will run from Feb. 10 – April 1 and is free with paid admission to to Zoo. We have 10 of Carel Brest van Kempen’s pieces in the show as well as the poster for this year’s show he created. The poster will be available for sale for only $5!
Really, I don’t read Debbie Schlussel’s blog—a reader sent me a link, so I put on the waders and gas mask and climbed down into the sewer. I’m now completely baffled; why is this insane and deeply stupid person ever put on television? Her response to the CNN complaints is illustrative, and even if you sympathize with her, you’ve got to recognized the big picture here: she’s not very bright.
One sign that the fading Bush administration knows that they’ve been on the wrong side of reality is that they’re now busy scrubbing the archives, trying to change what was said in the past. Chris Mooney catches a blatant attempt to rewrite the administration’s history on global warming.
Man, the GW Bush Presidential Library is going to be a real work of art, isn’t it? Maybe it should be called a “propaganda archive” rather than a “library”.
Got a jar you can’t get open? Tired of straining just to get a dab of peanut butter? You need Violet, the incredible jar-opener*, complete with suction cups. Act now, and perhaps you can train her to use a can opener, too!
*Offer void where prohibited. Violet not responsible for damp, salty flavor of opened product.
That wretched excuse to bash atheists on the Paula Zahn program that I criticized must have generated some intense and voluminous correspondence, because right now they’re scrambling to do damage control. I just got word from Richard Dawkins that they are going to repeat the lead segment (the part with the ostracized atheist family), and then instead of showing the bumbling bigot panel, they’re planning to replace that debacle with a new interview with Richard Dawkins. That’s tonight, Thursday, at 8PM EST.
For symmetry, it would have been better to have a panel with Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris to talk about those darned obnoxious Christians…the asymmetry would have reemerged, though, when they discussed the issue with more class and thoughtfulness than Debbie Schlussel and Karen Hunter.
Remember that grotty problem of getting dead bat stains off of furniture? Nic McPhee repays all you helpful people with a flickr photo set of a bat corpse. He knows how to win the hearts of the Pharynguloids, doesn’t he?
And it’s a dud. They’ve got two complaints against Randy Olson’s Flock of Dodos posted, neither of which are particularly stunning.
The other day, I shredded Pat Boone for mindlessly parroting the Lady Hope story. You’ll have to take a look at the Pat Boone evolution article now, though: mysteriously, that entire paragraph has vanished without acknowledgment. Aren’t computers wonderful?
Alas, the rest of the article is still there, and it’s still crap. If we take it apart paragraph by paragraph, can we make the whole thing disappear?
