Work was all abuzz today about McCain’s pick for VP. She’s young, a woman and has a story. McCain is no doubt banking on her to bring in the women voters, particularly the bitter Hillary supporters. Personally, I’m hoping that Hillary’s supporters are smarter than that. While there are quite a few things I don’t like about Hillary Clinton, she is a strong woman and a force to be reckoned with. She has spoken out in regards to women’s rights and issues and has long been an advocate for affordable health care. And she was able to win over quite a lot of folks. Also, she has spoken out in favor of evidence based science standards and a woman’s right to choose. Sarah Palin is about as opposite as you can get from Clinton. Of course maybe McCain is just trying to appear like the maverick he no longer is (if he ever really was) by choosing her. Continue Reading »
Twice in the past couple weeks I have walked by someones desk at work and saw them looking at one of the scare monger websites saying that the Large Hadron Collider is going to destroy the planet! Oh noes! Sadly, both times the person reading the site was buying into all the weapons grade bullshit the site was spewing. Also, sadly, I have no links to the sites they were visiting. I’ll have to remember to get links next time.
Anyway, thankfully, people way smarter than me have done all the hard work for me and have explained exactly why these scare monger websites are so very wrong and I was able to point these folks in the right direction and give them, hopefully, some peace of mind. I hate to see people scared over nothing and actually buying into whatever these snake oil salesmen are selling. And it’s always something, isn’t it. Continue Reading »
This alleged Bigfoot discovery was all the talk around the water cooler at work today. Yeah, color me skeptical. I could barely contain my laughter when I heard about it. Seriously? Are the news outlets bored? Continue Reading »
We met some friends in DC today and went to the Jim Henson’s Fantastic World exhibit at the Smithsonian. What a fun trip through childhood it was, too. I grew up in the 70’s with the Muppet Show and Sesame Street. Ah, good times. Sadly, no photography was allowed, but that is typically the case with special exhibits like this and I respect that (unlike a couple people I saw). Continue Reading »
Well, ok, I’m clearly not Batman. The suit would never fit. But still, it’s kinda fun to say. And who wouldn’t want all those toys!
We saw The Dark Knight a few nights ago and it’s really an excellent movie — I did not at all notice the time pass. It’s been quite a while since I’ve gone to see a movie that actually lived up to its hype and The Dark Knight delivers in spades. We saw it at our local IMAX, which was pretty cool, I must say, even though we couldn’t have food or beverages in the theater. There were also several special effects shots that took advantage of the IMAX screen and they were fantastic. The city shots from high above actually gave me just a touch of vertigo, too. Continue Reading »
Today is the 39th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy, posted about it today along with the left half of the picture above of Buzz Aldrin’s footprint on the moon. There is a really neat trick of perspective in that picture (that many of the commenter’s noticed). When the picture is looked at right side up, the footprint looks raised and the surrounding ground more solid, while when turned upside down the footprint looks indented (like one would expect) and the surrounding ground looks softer. I just love stuff like this. Continue Reading »
Jewelisms has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.
A Russian court just convicted Grigory Grabovoy of fraud for bilking people out of money by claiming he could raise the dead. Like our own Silvia Browne and John Edward, this creep made a living preying on the desperate and the grieving. People who are very vulnerable to snake oil salesmen. Well, now he’s doing hard labor in prison. When can we start convicting fraudsters like this in this country? Continue Reading »
Richard Wiseman has the video up of 800+ of us at TAM doing the soon bending trick! My husband and I are even visible in the video! In fact, that’s us in the still frame of it. I’m the redhead and my husband is sitting to my left. This was such a fun experience. Heh.
Edited to add: By the way, there is nothing magical or mystical about spoon bending. There is a technique to it, that was first demonstrated to us by Teller (of Penn & Teller) along with a very funny story. Anyone can do this if they know the technique.
Every now and again I get asked why I decided to become an atheist. Hopefully this post will answer that question.
First, and foremost, I didn’t “decide” to become an atheist. That implies waking up one morning and saying “starting right now I no longer believe in god.” And it wasn’t like that at all. Religion of any kind just never really took. I did try a couple different “spiritual paths” for a few years in my teens and early 20’s thinking the problem was the religion itself, but the “feel good” factor wasn’t enough for me and I didn’t see anything that convinced me that it, any more than the religion in which I was raised, was anything more than wishful thinking. Giving up religion wasn’t at all traumatic for me like it is for some people. I probably made the whole process a bit harder than it needed to be, but I wasn’t left feeling sad or empty or without purpose. I actually felt liberated. Like I was seeing the world for the first time and everything just made a whole lot more sense. Continue Reading »
