Just two days after my post on the variations on the Nigerian 419 scam, I got the following comment that gave me the good news that the criminal syndicates behind this fraud have been captured and that I am now eligible to get $50,000.00 to compensate me for my trouble..
Here’s the comment that I dispatched to the spam folder: [Read more…]
As most readers of this blog likely know, the two groups known as ‘accommodationists’ and ‘new atheists’ take different approaches with respect to their relationship to religion.
Accommodationists are those who believe that either:
(a) science and religion are compatible; or
(b) science and religion are incompatible but that it is strategically advisable to not say so openly.
The reason given for the latter position is that by asserting incompatibility, new atheists are forcing the religious to choose between science and religion and that, given the strong hold religion has on people, most of them will abandon science in favor of religion. They worry that this will result in a reduction in the public acceptance of science in general and evolution in particular and undermine its teaching in schools. [Read more…]
Take a look at this photograph published in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. (You can see a larger photo by clicking on the link.) It show the asymmetric skin damage on the face of a 69-year old truck driver due to the many hours driving with just the left side of his face exposed to sunlight.
Those of us who grew up in the tropics avoided staying out in the sun if we possibly could. We sought the shade and I still find it strange when at the first sign of warm weather in the spring, people here in the US rush to lie out in the sun in skimpy clothing. [Read more…]
I find science amazing. But sometimes it is easy to forget the incredible things that engineers are able to do using basic science discoveries. Here engineer Bill Hammack explains how accelerometers work and how the miniature ones inside these devices are made.
The Boy Scouts of America is similar to the Catholic Church in its homophobia and its attempts to cover up sexual abuse within the organization. But the Oregon Supreme court recently ruled that 20,000 pages of secret ‘perversion files’ kept by them on suspected child abusers must be released to the public. [Read more…]
We are now less than five months away from the elections and well into the political rah-rah season when people are expected to choose sides and where the goal becomes to help your candidate win. As a result, there will be an intense focus on increasingly marginal issues in order to create the illusion that the candidates differ widely and that it is therefore essential that the opposing candidate not be successful because dire consequences will ensue. [Read more…]
Joseph Smith explains to Mr. Deity, Lucy, and John the Baptist how to make Mormon proselytization cost-effective.
(Via Machines Like Us)
The public library in the Detroit suburb of Troy had a ballot levy in order to raise funds to continue its operation. Of course the Tea Party, with its mindless opposition to any and all taxes, whipped up a campaign against it because they are willing to close down even public libraries to keep a few extra bucks in their pockets. [Read more…]
Recently the employees of a chain of convenience stores called QC Mart got the following memo: [Read more…]
I watched the two remaining episodes of the first season of the new modern-day interpretation of the Sherlock Holmes stories. After the glowing review I gave of the very first episode A Study in Pink, episode 2 The Blind Banker was a huge disappointment. [Read more…]