Who are we learning about?

Among the many, many reminisces following the recent death of actor-comedian Robin Williams – some in honest tribute, some in shameless opportunism – we can find the video of his meeting with Koko, the female lowland gorilla who is famous for communicating by sign language we also have the reports from the Gorilla Foundation, her caretakers, that when told about his read more

Fish in a barrel

I barely have to write anything for this.

There’s a website called LeastHelpful.com, which features product reviews that, uh, leave a bit to be desired. Far too frequently, the religious reviewer provides the strangest and most clueless entries, and many of those are laden with unintended irony. Case in point: read more

Too cool, part 24: Ring species

Over at Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne talks about new research that shows that the we no longer have any examples of ring species (which actually means we never did in the first place.) What’s a ring species, you ask? Go ahead, I did myself. Coyne explains it best, and read more

Mucking out the stall

Anyone who’s ever dealt with livestock housed in a barn knows about the wicked unbalance of energy involved: it takes a lot more effort to remove the shit than it did to deposit it. This is an apt analogy for addressing theology.

Jerry Coyne and the various commenters at Why Evolution Is True had a read more

Lest we forget

I’m not very big on tradition – in fact, I find it pointless, likely a peculiar artifact of our evolutionary past – but I savor the opportunity to repost this, so consider me a hypocrite if you like. Either way, take this little quiz yourself, or past it along to all those you know who want to pompously remind you of the True™ meaning of Easter. Or is it Eostre?

8. read more

It doesn’t matter

This is another after-effect of the debate I mentioned earlier, and is closely related to the comments I made therein. The image here is one of those shamelessly forwarded, reposted, and unattributed “memes” that can be found everywhere, and I feature it reluctantly because the photos therein read more

Whence it comes, prithee?

I’m skipping a lot of backstory here, because after a lot of typing I realized it doesn’t add anything useful. So, short version: at a recent science-versus-religion debate, some triumphant creationists were invited to pose questions to all those who believe in evolution. I have long ago blocked the site that posted them for a puerile editorial that demonstrated pretty read more

Odd memories, part 12

Spurred on by this post from The Bloggess, who is a delightfully warped person, I dredged up some memories of christmases past. Part of the reason I don’t put a lot of effort into holidays is not, as some clueless people seem to think, from being an atheist, but from growing up in my family. read more

Stupid atheists

Jon Rosenberg at Scenes From A Multiverse is picking at scabs (click for complete version):

This… is totes uncalled for! Atheists are level-headed, fair, well-adjusted individuals, and none of them would ever get cranky because a favorite whipping boy turned respectable.

Good thing he hasn’t, then…

Actually, and it’s stupid that I even have to say this yet it’ll be news read more

It’s a tad humid


I got out the camera to chase a particular subject, which disappeared on me, so while the strobe was still charged I decided not to waste that electricity and went looking for something else to photograph. Yeah, I really do think that way sometimes, though if I do find another subject, I’ll fire off a lot more frames (and flashes) than if I simply discharged the capacitor read more

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