tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-347048192012-01-16T22:03:26.439-05:00Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.comBlogger3221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-7986638459142382852012-01-16T21:20:00.002-05:002012-01-16T22:03:26.448-05:00

So I haven't updated the blog in over two months. I even skipped over my yearly post about the American Family Association's "Naughty or Nice List". I know that's unacceptable, but in my defense Skyrim exists and has been eating up an embarrassing amount of my time.I'm working on a couple of new posts (honest), but for the time being I'd like to call attention to an important milestone that we

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-85886792303795644492011-11-12T12:38:00.006-05:002011-11-12T13:32:16.549-05:00

Against my better judgment, I watched a bit of Ghost Adventures last night. It's no different from all the other ghost hunting shows that have cropped up over the years, and the fifteen minutes or so that I watched consisted almost entirely of night vision footage of a guy wandering around a darkened room waving an EMF detector around at a vase of flowers1. When the EMF detector reached "an

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-54742373862703662602011-10-21T17:36:00.003-04:002011-10-21T18:05:45.295-04:00

After the all the Rapture nonsense back in May, I almost feel a little dirty for bringing up Harold Camping again, but he's back in the news and I've nothing better to do, so here we go. As everyone no doubt remembers, Harold Camping and his Family Radio ministry spent the first half of the year burying the entire free world under a thick wallpapering of billboards proclaiming that the end of

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-60813126668975869662011-10-11T20:47:00.003-04:002011-10-11T20:56:44.461-04:00

I recently had the privilege of guest starring in a pair of episodes of Joe's Awesome and Tommy Hates Everything, the first of which has gone live. It's a rollicking, and long, discussion of what makes a great horror film, and if you've got an hour and a half of free time you should check it out. As anyone who's read this blog for any length of time knows, I'm crazy about horror flicks, so it

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-42581634008923466802011-10-06T19:24:00.007-04:002011-10-06T21:33:31.696-04:00

It would seem that October is once again upon us, and with it comes horror movies (yay!), candy (whoo!), tasteful costumes (or not), and...weird religious people who are up in arms about Halloween. Similar, albeit rather less widespread, to the bellyaching about the secularization of Christmas, anti-Halloween sentiment rears its ugly head every fall, usually gets covered in one or two news

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-89537200104836582282011-09-06T20:30:00.004-04:002011-09-06T20:38:47.307-04:00

By the way, my friends Tommy and Joey the Axe have started a hilarious podcast called Joe's Awesome and Tommy Hates Everything. It's primarily movie-themed, with the occasional brief digression into comics or video games, and if that's your bag at all you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-70291832961202429172011-09-06T18:11:00.008-04:002011-09-06T20:24:40.576-04:00

I was recently talking to one of my coworkers about the movie Paranormal Activity 2 when she asked me a question that caught me off guard: "Why do you like those kinds of movies if you don't believe in ghosts?".1In real life, my off-the-cuff reply was probably something involving Godzilla, but in a better, hindsight-informed world I might've said something like "well you watch Rudolph the

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-4423839053542499352011-08-06T22:51:00.005-04:002011-08-07T00:08:34.464-04:00

I'm a week or so late with this, but the continuing attention being devoted to the so-called Ground Zero Cross utterly baffles me. It's been in the news recently because American Atheists has filed suit regarding in its inclusion in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and lots of religious folks are outraged that this "miracle" is under attack. There have been more than a couple of

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-678056620834863742011-07-14T18:31:00.004-04:002011-07-14T19:09:03.898-04:00

I saw an interesting report on the BBC today that a man in Austria succeeded in having his driver's license photo taken while wearing a colander on his head as a way of protesting religious privilege in his country. Apparently Niko Alm was rather put out that no headgear is allowed in Austrian driver's license photos unless it's worn for religious purposes - think of yarmulke or a Sikh turban.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-10919551312136624502011-05-20T14:10:00.011-04:002011-05-21T11:22:43.217-04:00

Wow, I apparently haven't posted on the blog in like 6 weeks. Sorry. I've been playing a ridiculous amount of Mortal Kombat really busy with work lately and just haven't had time to sit down with the laptop for more than five minutes at a clip.1 In any event, it has come to my attention (thanks to about a dozen billboards I pass going to work every morning) that the end of the world is tomorrow.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-26308843455631985422011-04-07T20:31:00.006-04:002011-04-07T22:14:14.038-04:00

I was at the bookstore the other day buying Conan the Barbarian comic books checking to see if the new issue of Foreign Affairs had come out yet when I encountered something so vapid that my brain actually leapt out of my skull and fled for its very life. You see, although Sylvia Browne, pseudo-psychic extraordinaire and nemesis of all things rational, very publicly "retired" a few year back,

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-5782450868342433632011-03-26T13:11:00.006-04:002011-03-26T21:04:48.912-04:00

The title pretty much says it all. Richard Dawkins, the well-respected biologist and author of scads of books discussing evolutionary theory -not that he needs any introduction to anyone reading this blog- turned 69 today. Although Dawkins is considered by many to be the de facto leader of the "New Atheists" because of his outspoken questioning of the existence of god, he's also known the world

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-89940815530314005762011-03-14T21:59:00.005-04:002011-03-14T22:48:01.684-04:00

Heroic responders pulling a man from the rubble in Japan.Like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I've spent the last four days watching the disaster in Japan unfold with a humbled sense of horror. I've wanted to post about it, but to be honest I wasn't sure what I could add to the conversation. Here are a few brief thoughts, though I suspect they're nothing that hasn't been said already

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-31456812857942957132011-02-19T16:13:00.007-05:002011-02-20T15:47:05.736-05:00

Dowsing is one particular species of woo-woo you just don't hear that much about here in the United States these days. Sure, it shows up every once in a while on a gee-whiz television program or two, but here in the States we've largely moved on to other sorts of gobbledy-gook like psychic detectives and ghost hunting. Alas, in some part of the world dowsing lives on, albeit in a different

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-47450236512498475812011-01-15T15:42:00.004-05:002011-01-16T17:05:00.265-05:00

A week has now passed since the highly publicized shooting rampage in Tuscon, Arizona that claimed the lives of six people and left a dozen others wounded, including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The story itself has been covered ad infinitum by the media, so I won't bother with rehashing the events in any detail here, but I would like to devote a few paragraphs to the questions of blame that

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-81219318928365609642011-01-03T17:55:00.008-05:002011-01-04T08:09:40.908-05:00

Look what I got for $2.63!Yeah, that's right, I got my grubby paws on an whacko Scientology DVD for only $2.63 more than it's worth. I found this at a thrift store in Indiana along with a bunch of other Scientology crap, which means that not only did I unearth a veritable treasure trove of nonsense to make fun of examine, but also that someone knew enough to throw all of this flapdoodle away to

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-32440193874136745732011-01-03T17:33:00.003-05:002011-01-03T17:53:38.828-05:00

It must be the new year, because all of the end-of-the-world weirdos have come out of the woodwork yet again. (Not that they ever really go away, but they get a lot more press this time of year.) By now you know all the various schticks: The mayan calendar, aliens, Jesus, polar shifts...at any given time someone is espousing some kind of end-of-the-world goobledy-gook.MSNBC is running a story

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-63490482602881590942010-11-21T01:22:00.004-05:002010-11-21T03:31:18.044-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again: The American Family Association has rolled out its bitch list Naughty or Nice List. It happens around this time every single year, and yet somehow I'm freshly amazed every time.You see, the American Family Association is a conservative a Christian organization that combines hilarious oversensitivity with enormous amounts of free time in order to scour thousands

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-75172345295539731692010-10-23T15:11:00.004-04:002010-10-23T16:15:37.964-04:00

Kentucky politics tend to be pretty freakin' embarrassing, as my post earlier in the month illustrates. Well, believe it or not, things are getting even stupider 1 around here as election day looms. Jack Conway, the state attorney general and senatorial candidate, is floundering in the polls against Tea Party whackaloon Rand Paul and is now trying to rally the religious vote to his cause. In

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-73402395059765346312010-10-03T15:11:00.008-04:002010-10-03T15:55:24.303-04:00

In December of 2008, I made a post discussing a passage from a 2006 state law that listed the one of the duties of the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security as...stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth...and prominently displaying a permanent plaque at the entrance to the state's Emergency Operations Center stating the text of KRS 39A.285(3).

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-74252959918674113342010-09-16T23:56:00.004-04:002010-09-17T17:46:45.747-04:00

Guess who has a new book out. Okay, I suppose the title of this post was a giveaway, but world-famous conspiracy crank David Icke has unleashed yet another broadside attack on reality1. As most of you probably know, Icke is a soccer-player-turned-paranoia-guru who attained an impressive level of international infamy in the late 1990s with the release of his book The Biggest Secret. The book

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-54475835348446507412010-08-28T16:07:00.009-04:002010-08-31T17:17:18.863-04:00

Later this evening, multi-time UFC champion Randy "The Natural" Couture will be fighting professional boxer James "Lights Out" Toney in what is being billed as an "Mixed Martial Arts vs. Boxing" match at UFC 118. Toney, a decorated but declining competitor in the boxing world, has worked hard to hype the bout as a definitive clash between two of the world's most popular combat sports. The early

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-85654101937102279432010-07-21T18:10:00.011-04:002010-07-23T16:05:33.900-04:00

While taking a client out shopping this afternoon, I suddenly found myself face-to-face with a 7-foot high, walking red jelly bean. 1 The towering creature lumbered towards us, its comically exaggerated chef's hat blocking out the sun as it menacingly spread its stubby arms, no doubt intent on seizing us up and stuffing us into its smiling maw. Certain that we were being attacked by a monster,

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-69186067357937688412010-07-14T23:29:00.003-04:002010-07-14T23:48:19.772-04:00

Hey everybody. Your old pal Skippy is heading to the wilds of Pennsylvania on Thursday to attend the wedding of a cousin-in-law I may or may not have ever met. I not worried though - I've never met a vacation I didn't like. The Girlfriend is also pretty happy to have an excuse to force me out my usual Hawaiian shirts and into a tie.In any event, the in-laws' house exists in a bizarre alternate

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-18418182822595541562010-07-03T16:14:00.017-04:002010-07-09T17:28:58.133-04:00

Ever heard of the Saqqara Bird? Discovered in 1898, it's an Egyptian artifact believed to be about 2,000 years old. Made of sycamore wood, the bird may have been a ceremonial object, a toy, or even some kind of weather vane, but a lack of historical references to the bird means that we may never know exactly what it was intended for. The bird is a fun historical footnote, a minor mystery whose

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-63912573271577474002010-06-02T18:13:00.005-04:002010-06-02T19:19:12.385-04:00

I've been informed that this is a pretty good representation of my interactions with others.As usual, Dilbert contains a kernel of truth - It's very easy for a skeptic to come across as a know-it-all chode. I personally have a severely limited capacity for self-censorship, so I can only imagine that the effect is rather amplified for the poor folks that have to deal with me in person on a

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-29995718389926209802010-05-23T19:39:00.004-04:002010-05-23T20:09:55.627-04:00

Martin Gardner1914-2010Another hero is gone. Martin Gardner, the world's most famous "recreational mathematician" and a titan of critical thinking, passed away Saturday at the age of 95. A true polymath, Gardner was the author of dozens of books and articles about a bamboozling array of subjects ranging from L. Frank Baum to L. Ron Hubbard. His book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science,

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-81222982994333206352010-05-13T18:23:00.006-04:002010-05-13T21:29:35.396-04:00

I'll admit that I don't normally hang out at very many Christian blogs, but Exploring Our Matrix, written by Butler University religion professor James McGrath, is certainly worth having a look at. McGrath is a progressive Christian, and while he's a spiritual man, he's far more concerned about issues of social justice and the advancement of humanity than pretending that the Bible is literally

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-20572104585349993182010-05-10T17:30:00.013-04:002010-05-10T19:23:28.753-04:00

(This is a marked departure from my usual fare, but the Nightmare on Elm Street films are near and dear to me. Replacing Robert Englund with Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger is a seismic shift for the franchise, so I wanted to give my perspective as a fan on the new Freddy Krueger.)A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984, when I was two years old. Nightmare revolutionized what had by

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-45441644167916996852010-05-07T15:41:00.003-04:002010-05-07T16:02:13.502-04:00

Imagine my shock when I logged onto MSNBC this morning and was faced with this headline: "Lord Jesus Christ Hit By Car"The actual story's not as funny as the headline - Seems a lady in Massachusetts mowed down a 50 year-old man while he was crossing the street. But it just so happens that this gentleman's real name, confirmed by his driver's license, is Lord Jesus Christ. Happily, Christ only

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-83872854329701640962010-04-24T02:23:00.005-04:002010-04-24T03:02:49.335-04:00

An article went up on CNN Friday morning detailing the bizarre case of one Ali Hussain Sibat, a Lebanese man currently on death row in Saudi Arabia. It discussed how his lawyer is optimistic that this father of five might not be executed for a crime he was arrested for in 2008. So what heinous crime did Sibat commit to deserve such a harsh sentence, especially one due to be carried out so

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-73691944278105743882010-04-19T18:03:00.003-04:002010-04-19T18:18:59.770-04:00

A few of you may have noticed that the blog's been silent for nearly a month now with no explanation whatsoever. There's really not much of an explanation; I've just had a nasty case of spring fever and haven't been able to work up the will to shackle myself to the computer for any length of time for the past few weeks. I've been on Twitter occasionally, since that gives me the option of

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-36884166516667575052010-03-24T17:41:00.006-04:002010-03-24T18:07:50.909-04:00

Here's some pareidolia I can get behind. Remember not so long ago when an..."enterprising" gentleman tried to sell a magical Jesus pancake on Ebay? Well he's beeen one-upped big time. Ebay seller Skullygirl1 is currently offering for sale a one of kind piece of iconography that has to be seen to be believed. Apparently the young lady was making a stack of pancakes when, without the use of

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-6600478936281902862010-03-23T15:33:00.005-04:002010-03-23T16:02:17.928-04:00

I live about two blocks away from the Phuoc Hau Buddhist Temple. I'm familiar with the place only because I pass it on the way home from work every day. It's relatively small and never seems especially busy, but the property is adorned with some pretty elaborate statuary.Well, it was adorned with elaborate statuary.Lately the place has been the target of vandals that see fit, on an almost

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-19661221641359274922010-03-10T19:38:00.007-05:002010-03-11T15:43:56.497-05:00

Back in school I took a course on international conflicts in which Africa's future was projected to be, and I'm quoting directly, "kind of like that movie Mad Max." That is, if they continue on their current trajectories, many countries in Africa may end up as failed states possessing only notional governments and rocked by nearly perpetual conflicts over resources. States like Somalia have

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-32659695985899834052010-02-28T20:55:00.003-05:002010-02-28T21:40:24.983-05:00

I've been reading Richard Dawkins' newest book The Greatest Show on Earth for the past few days and enjoying every page of it. Regardless of what The God Delusion may have done to advance the cause of atheism, Dawkins is at his best when he's writing about science. In much the same way that Sagan's works fill the reader with awe at the scope of the cosmos, Dawkin's writings about biology leave

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-7689004683961197562010-02-24T19:12:00.003-05:002010-05-13T21:48:07.614-04:00

I found out this afternoon that Dr. Phil Laemmle is being inducted into the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Honor tomorrow. I only had Dr. Laemmle for one or two classes in college, but he's an unforgettable guy. His enthusiasm for and exhaustive knowledge of political science, combined with a genial bluntness*, made him a favorite of all the poli-sci undergrads.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-37237515427924252362010-02-18T19:37:00.005-05:002010-08-28T18:40:35.914-04:00

When I was little kid back in the 1980s I was introduced to video games by way of the Atari 2600 owned by my older brothers. I have a lot of very fond (but equally hazy) memories of sitting in my parents' den playing games like Yar's Revenge, Vanguard, Adventure, and Hero on a black and white TV. 1 Those games were freakin' awesome, and I honestly think that early video games were great stimuli

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-48372237536009393232010-02-13T13:59:00.005-05:002010-02-13T15:19:15.117-05:00

Recently a handful of state Senators here in Kentucky have introduced a bill that would allow Bible studies to be added as an elective social science course in public schools. The bill's main sponsor is a Democrat by the name of David Boswell who's (coincidentally, no doubt) up for reelection soon. Theoretically Senate Bill 142 (the full text of which is available here) would only allow for the

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-72721045017847796932010-02-09T16:07:00.002-05:002010-02-09T16:14:38.794-05:00

Here in Kentucky 4 inches of snow is somehow utterly paralyzing, meaning that the "blizzard" we got late last night was enough to buy me paid day off work. As you can see, I utilized this unexpected free time in the most productive way possible.The snowman was originally intended to be a 7 foot high, multi-headed Calvin and Hobbes-ian monstrosity, but time constraints and my distressingly

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-40429616042480154472010-01-28T19:39:00.000-05:002010-01-28T19:39:25.415-05:00

At work today I ran across an awesome article from the Onion entitled Science Channel Refuses to Dumb Down Science Any Further. I got a laugh out of it, forwarded it to my brothers, and went on my merry way. Great story, huh?Fast forward to 6:36 PM EST - While flipping stations I paused on the History Channel at the sight of two guys standing around with a FLIR camera. A-ha, I thought, if

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-38726299841697610592010-01-25T21:10:00.005-05:002010-01-25T21:23:12.852-05:00

Apparently God is working in mysterious ways for a bunch of Russian Orthodox Christians: Over a hundred believers have been hospitalized with acute intestinal symptoms after drinking "holy water" from a local church. According to an Associated Press report these wells of holy water are fed by a nearby stagnant lake. The article says that it's not yet clear what caused the illness, but goes on

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-9357978956659508102010-01-21T19:42:00.005-05:002010-01-21T19:56:18.977-05:00

Here's an update to a post from a couple of days ago: According to a report on MSNBC, defense contractor Trijicon, Inc. has agreed to provide the military with special kits to remove the Bible references hidden on its products, including the widely used AGOC scope. It also stated that it would not include the Bible verses on subsequent shipments of the equipment. Hopefully this development will

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-41990300966813373582010-01-20T17:14:00.011-05:002010-01-21T16:57:01.976-05:00

Last weekend I finally had a chance to see the new James Cameron flick Avatar. (Perhaps you've heard of it...?) I can honestly say I didn't have much in the way of concrete expectations for the film, not because I though it would suck, but because I just plain couldn't figure out what the heck it was about from the trailers. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the commercials made it look like a

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-51798394022760703702010-01-18T15:46:00.003-05:002010-01-18T16:09:03.284-05:00

Here's something odd for you: apparently ACOG1 gun sights manufactured for the U.S. military by a company called Trijicon have Bible verses incorporated into their serial numbers and/or otherwise printed on them. The company's other sighting systems also have the references. For example, Trijicon reflex scopes have "2COR4:6" stamped on them, a reference to a New Testament passage which reads:

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-28114674200584359332010-01-14T22:50:00.004-05:002010-01-14T23:09:09.335-05:00

Anyone who's connected enough to be on the internet and reading blogs (especially an obscure one like mine) no doubt is already aware of the ongoing crisis in Haiti spawned by the recent earthquake. Right now the low-end estimate of the death toll is around 45,000, with countless people wounded and even more people displaced and without adequate food and clean water. Keep in mind that even in

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-20604479942934983782010-01-09T17:08:00.009-05:002010-01-09T17:43:11.359-05:00

I was flipping channels last night when, lo and behold, I saw Phil Plait on the History Channel discussing gamma ray bursts. Naturally I stopped to have a look, since Phil's recent book Death From the Skies was 31 delicious flavors of awesome. It's apparently "Armageddon Week" on the History Channel, so I dared to entertain a brief hope that they'd produced an entire show about Death From the

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-26949494728015259702009-12-31T17:45:00.003-05:002009-12-31T17:51:52.322-05:00

Okay, so I know I've not been around lately, but the end of the year is pretty hectic around here. Today I don't have a post so much as a question, and I hope you guys can give me the straight dope on this little wonder that I recently encountered:The Holy Bible: Stock Car Racing EditionIs this...somehow... for real? That is to say, is it intended to be some kind of parody, or are people

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-23574117348796646912009-12-16T19:45:00.011-05:002009-12-16T21:05:30.753-05:00

This is the time of year when religious blogs around the internet light up with complaints about how culture has "taken Christ out of Christmas". Tons of complaints.1 I'm not really concerned about that, since I rather suspect that for most folks, even people who self-identify as Christians, Christmas is really about nostalgic tradition and love for one's family moreso than religion. That being

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-33233343667347102342009-12-11T11:45:00.004-05:002009-12-11T12:08:09.130-05:00

I've largely stopped posting about goofy end-of-the-world junk on here because, well, there's just so freaking much of it and it's really all pretty much the same. That being said, this website gets special mention because it makes a very specific and verifiable claim: The world will end by this coming Monday, the 14th of December.1 PZ Myers has already mocked this fellow unmercifully, but at

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-28918165443776404052009-12-01T23:00:00.005-05:002010-08-28T18:56:21.578-04:00

Last year I posted a fairly long article about the American Family Association's "Naughty or Nice" list. Basically, the AFA is a conservative Christian organization that spends most of its time complaining about homosexuals and running political commentaries by such intellectual stalwarts a Chuck Norris. Throughout November and December of every year, however, the AFA changes its focus to

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-90833244228802453012009-11-27T13:45:00.003-05:002009-11-27T14:04:34.841-05:00

Here's another example of fundamentalist Islam's unthinking brutality: Silva Kashif, 16 year-old Sudanese girl, was recently stopped by police, dragged into court and tried in a matter of hours, then punished on the spot by the administration of 50 lashes. Her crime? Wearing a knee-length skirt in violation of the country's Shariah legal system. Making this travesty even more egregious, her

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-6530383821807316432009-11-18T19:08:00.005-05:002009-11-20T15:04:19.455-05:00

Bill Donohue, our perpetually livid friend from the Catholic League, has somehow managed to write a book. (I suppose that since Ray Comfort can apparently write a book a every couple of weeks, I shouldn't be surprised that Billy managed it as well.) To the astonishment of absolutely no one who's seen Bill's spittle-flecked tirades on various cable news shows, his new book is 272 pages of

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-64060727487165574622009-11-09T18:32:00.005-05:002009-11-09T19:52:48.745-05:00

Carl Sagan would have been 75 years old today. Practically every skeptical blog and website has put up some kind of tribute to him, and deservedly so: Sagan was one of the greatest popularizers of science ever. That being said, I was only fourteen when Carl Sagan died, and in all honesty I'd never really heard of him until a couple of years after that, so it almost seems weird to sing his

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-13806753510067653852009-10-31T14:06:00.004-04:002009-10-31T14:09:19.328-04:00

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-32277622906061625912009-10-25T20:36:00.012-04:002009-10-25T22:24:00.901-04:00

Stop me if you've heard this one: Around this time last year, a couple of pranksters convinced the self-proclaimed "world's greatest Bigfoot hunter" Tom Biscardi that they had slayed a Sasquatch and had its carcass preserved in a deep freezer.1 Ever the trusting soul, Biscardi hacked up an undisclosed (apparently large) sum of money to buy the corpse and called a huge press conference touting

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-3279099483467731602009-10-21T20:17:00.005-04:002009-10-21T20:51:38.565-04:00

October is a pretty busy time for me what with all the...wait, what was that? I thought I heard some rustling over there in the bushes...there it is again! Hand me the flashlight and we'll find out what it is. Probably just the wind, or some kind of animal, or...YIKES!!!It's Bill Donohue, hiding in the shrubs and laying in wait so he can jump out and be offended.Okay, so that was a (bad)

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-46473983306772807312009-10-15T22:16:00.004-04:002009-10-17T01:21:09.733-04:00

The battle over "traditional marriage" is flaring up again, but in an unexpected way. See, I thought the current culture war was supposed to be about gay marriage, but Keith Bardwell, a Justice of the Peace in Louisiana, is going retro by refusing to grant interracial marriage licenses. Interracial marriage is, of course, legal in all fifty states and Bardwell is breaking the law by refusing to

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-84746269273447462202009-10-10T14:26:00.013-04:002009-10-12T22:22:34.238-04:00

Peter Smith, a religion blogger affiliated with the local Courier Journal newspaper, recently published a blog post dealing with a minor controversy brewing here in Kentucky. At issue is whether or not the Swartzentruber Amish sect should be required to adorn their horse-drawn buggies with orange safety reflectors as per Kentucky law.1 Specifically, a group of Amish is claiming in a case

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-52190952829387964852009-10-08T20:19:00.003-04:002009-10-08T20:32:46.752-04:00

In case anyone is wondering about my weekend plans (and I'm sure you all are), I'm taking The Girlfriend to the theater tomorrow night to see a musical adaptation of one of the great works of modern film. Oh yes, that's right: We're going to see Evil Dead: The Musical. I have a sneaking suspicion that tomorrow's night at the theater is going to have a slightly different feel to it than the time

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-82282718118679671302009-10-08T19:23:00.005-04:002009-10-08T20:19:06.768-04:00

I remember when I was a little poli-sci tadpole taking POLS 201 - American Civil Liberties under Dr. Paul Weber. On one of our exams there was a gag bonus question: "Who is the most dangerous justices on the U.S. Supreme Court?" The correct answer was Anthony Kennedy (because he's kind of unpredictable as a swing voter at times), but I put down, simply, "Scalia".I stand by that to this

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-136756242739889392009-10-07T19:33:00.013-04:002009-10-08T19:15:07.939-04:00

I saw a weird article on Cryptomundo today to the tune of "Hmm, seems like there's been lots of animal attacks in the news lately. Maybe it's because of the full moon."Right.The article points out five animal attacks that have made the national news between September 27th and October 5th:1.) A guy got mauled by a grizzly bear after climbing into its cage at the zoo.2.) An old lady got badly

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-77402003529680302732009-10-04T12:25:00.007-04:002009-10-07T17:33:27.108-04:00

Blog posts about fundamentalist Islam practically write themselves. Mazen Abdul Jawad is a Saudi Arabian man who appeared on a TV show to discuss his sexual experiences. Since "publicizing vice" is a crime in Saudi Arabia, Jawad's description of various pre-marital sexual encounters (which are likewise illegal in Saudi Arabia) has landed him a sentence of 5 years in prison and 1,000 lashes.Do I

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-63377020829330370162009-09-30T19:03:00.005-04:002009-09-30T19:28:45.271-04:00

Mark Twain once said that irreverence is the champion of liberty, and with that in mind the Center for Inquiry has declared September 30th to be Blasphemy Day! It's a day to celebrate our right to question, disbelieve, and yes mock all manner of lunacy and snub our noses at the fundies out there who demand that we respect their beliefs or else.Blasphemy: It Does a Body Good.September 30th, 2005

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-82421692510209438912009-09-28T10:50:00.009-04:002009-09-29T15:40:43.148-04:00

Remember Patrick Greene? He's the guy that threatened to sue Ray Comfort a while back over Ray's silly "April 1st: National Atheist's Day" bumper stickers. Well, he's apparently still around, despite being mocked unmercifully by both the religious folks and his fellow nonbelievers (The Atheist Experience gave him a particularly harsh rhetorical whuppin'.), and he's madder than ever. He's not

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-38379583349825130552009-09-24T15:36:00.001-04:002009-09-24T15:37:29.586-04:00

Translation: I have a cold. Not just any cold either: all this week I've been doing my best impression of the Masters of the Universe Slime Pit.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-28133675563147576352009-09-19T02:53:00.005-04:002009-09-19T03:22:49.726-04:00

For those of you who are wondering why the blog has been neglected lately, I've been working on a review of Barrie Wilson's book about Christian origins, How Jesus Became Christian. I wasn't especially impressed with it - While Wilson is right that Pauline Christianity is rather removed from the apocalyptic Judaism preached by the historical Jesus, he overreaches in his conclusions and mucks up

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-28775022520779596872009-09-19T02:38:00.002-04:002009-09-19T02:51:06.370-04:00

Well, our whacky friend Dennis Markuze, aka David Mabus, aka That Canadian Weirdo, has apparently sent PZ Myers something like 60 pages of death threats. I'm not entirely convinced that I think this guy is dangerous (He can't be bothered to actually write new rants for his mass e-mails, so why should we expect him to make a trip from the frozen north to hack PZ to bits?), I'm glad PZ has

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-73077706695098593582009-09-15T08:35:00.002-04:002009-09-15T08:39:40.122-04:00

Norman Borlaug1914-2009Thank you for a life tirelessly dedicated to saving lives with science.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-49768851444888109842009-09-01T20:33:00.011-04:002009-09-01T22:00:47.831-04:00

Animal Planet recently (and by that I mean in the last few months) started running a show called Monsters Inside Me which deals with human parasite infestations. It's a little bit light on the science side of things, but it's still pretty fun and it provides more than enough fodder to ruin lunch for my coworkers the next day. It's no Parasite Rex, but it's still worth a look if you have an hour

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-91903932983048811882009-08-27T21:50:00.004-04:002009-08-27T21:57:33.067-04:00

Suffice to say that I'm glad I didn't brag too much about how progressive Kentucky is becoming in my last post:I support gun rights in a broad sense (In fact, a friend of mine already owns an AK-47.), but this kind of stuff is just asinine. I also love how they're celebrating the presumably "All-American" ideals of "God, Guns, and Guts" by giving away an AK-47 invented by the godless commie

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-52313698396505824752009-08-27T17:33:00.004-04:002009-08-27T17:49:08.553-04:00

Remember last year when people finally noticed that the law establishing the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security included language which claimed that the state was dependent on God for its safety? (If the state of Kentucky depends on God for security, why even bother having an Office of Homeland Security?) Well, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate smote that down yesterday, finding in

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-34191960120997557202009-08-26T19:43:00.007-04:002009-08-26T21:49:41.022-04:00

Ray Comfort recently learned something that I had learned back in Dr. Karpov's Biology 101 For Non-Majors: The appendix is a breeding ground for beneficial gut bacteria. That's pretty cool, but it has Ray mad as hell - He's miffed that scientists haven't "apologized" for figuring out what the appendix does. (Seriously, read his post.)See, Ray doesn't exactly understand what folks mean when they

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-12631234164989931742009-08-18T21:31:00.006-04:002009-08-18T21:57:25.428-04:00

I took a few sociology classes in college and a at least two of them involved discussions of the work on one Jackson Katz, an "anti-violence educator" who has made a career of dissecting the way masculinity is presented in the media. His body of work includes at least two films: Tough Guise, in which he explores changing media depictions of what it means to be a man, and Wrestling With Manhood (

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-32984438516460954932009-08-12T19:39:00.005-04:002009-08-13T18:38:25.423-04:00

Okay, so a couple of months ago I was pretty hyped about getting a copy of Don't Make Me Go Back, Mommy, a weird children's book about Satanic Ritual Abuse. It was produced during the height of the big Satanism scare and it's attained a semi-mythical status among SRA researchers because it contains illustrations like this:I don't recall a scene like this in The Pokey Little Puppy.Yes, that's a

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-60263755149662134632009-08-09T02:54:00.008-04:002009-08-12T19:25:24.020-04:00

I've not yet mustered the requisite nostalgia to cough up $10 to see the New G.I. Joe film, but I did happen to encounter the Christian Answers review of the film. I've referenced movie reviews from this site a couple of times before, most notably their review of Iron Man that speaks of "liberal and conservative trade-offs" in the film such as a how "American soldiers are shown being killed" (

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-88305945997262077302009-07-30T21:13:00.005-04:002009-07-30T21:36:56.899-04:00

Readers may recall that the James Randi Educational Foundation announced last year that it would be bringing the famous Million Dollar Challenge to an end in 2010. Well, according to an update by JREF president Phil Plait, the Challenge will continue! Sweet! Now we can look forward to years and years worth of fresh excuses from psychics, dowsers, and reiki practitioners for why they just can't

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-2725849436948730122009-07-22T18:11:00.003-04:002009-07-22T18:40:26.297-04:00

CB clued me in on the whole "15 Books" meme that's apparently all the rage on the interwebs these days so I thought I'd give it a try. The rules are simple - name 15 books that have stuck with you, but don't take more than 15 minutes to think of your list. Here's mine:Demon-Haunted World by Carl SaganDinosaur in a Haystack by Stephen Jay GouldIt by Stephen KingJesus - Apocalyptic Prophet of the

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-27666040051101248262009-07-21T16:59:00.010-04:002009-08-26T23:56:21.311-04:00

Everybody knows about "Chick tracts" - those shrill evangelical mini-comics that one occasionally finds in hidden in public places as a means of stealth ministry. I don't think they're as popular now as they once were (I've noticed that I encounter a greater number of Ray Comfort's million dollar bills these days than anything else related to proselytizing.), but they're still out there. I

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-5537870678067152792009-07-15T19:07:00.003-04:002009-07-15T19:29:14.680-04:00

The new issue of Skeptical Inquirer has a note about the findings of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (or ARIS). While the SI article was mainly interest in the survey is the overall increase in non-religious folk, something else caught my eye. Something surprising...According to the Trinity College researchers that conducted the ARIS, Kentucky is the most secular state in the

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-31050553341450886182009-07-07T18:51:00.008-04:002009-07-07T20:19:46.758-04:00

I'm reading Selling Satan by Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott. It's an extension of the Cornerstone article debunking the claims of one Mike Warnke, a preacher/comedian currently skulking about Kentucky whose "hook" is that he's a reformed Satanist. Hertenstein and Trott took issue with some of Warnke's more bizarre claims, such as that he participated in rituals of child murder and cannibalism,

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-87341065725776477162009-07-01T16:50:00.002-04:002009-07-01T16:58:00.152-04:00

I'm experimenting with new templates for the blog, since the whole black background/gray text was fairly hideous. I kind of like this version better, but it's an awful lot of just plain empty white space. Guess we'll see.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-37963034857167817422009-06-25T20:12:00.002-04:002009-06-25T20:15:22.440-04:00

Remember that post from a few weeks ago about religious nuts in the Congo subjecting children to brutal "exorcisms" to free them from imaginary demons? Well, if that wasn't disturbing enough, here's this:Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the EconomyI don't imagine I have to tell you how messed up that it. Freakin' lunatics.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-3790902986205002112009-06-25T18:35:00.010-04:002009-07-21T19:08:08.740-04:00

I don't talk about the Satanic Panic on here as much as I'd like to, mostly because I'm a little bit late to the party as far as debunking it goes, but I think it's one of the most fascinating periods of recent American history. I own a number of a books about the Satanism scare and its kissing cousin the repressed memory movement, and until recently they all had one thing in common: they were

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-38111093009170638322009-06-17T18:08:00.011-04:002009-07-21T19:11:05.295-04:00

I always get a weird feeling when the first thing I encounter on a visit to CNN.com is a headline about a UFO sighting. That was the case this morning when I was the checking news on my break at work and stumbled upon this video article. Apparently a lady named Deanna Smith and her family were visiting the King's Dominion amusement park in Virginia when they saw a large ring floating in the sky

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-7254702772850735292009-06-15T18:46:00.003-04:002009-06-15T18:49:11.632-04:00

My folks are Catholic and I'm over at their house fairly frequently. That means I get the pleasure of leafing through a new edition Our Sunday Visitor, a Catholic newspaper my dad subscribes to, pretty much every week. The current (June 14) edition had an interesting story about how the the combination of high rates of attrition low rates of conversion has begun to erode church membership,

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-44987145389874017932009-06-11T17:41:00.004-04:002009-07-21T19:17:37.956-04:00

On an amusing note, I just noticed an article on World Nut Daily that lambastes Fox News anchor Shepard Smith for comments he made about domestic terrorist James Von Brunn and his unease about ultra-right wing groups in the United States. Among other things, Smith noted all the whackjobs out there who..."...want to pretend [Obama's] not a citizen of the United States, who want to pretend that

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-82672223302506722802009-06-10T20:30:00.003-04:002009-06-10T20:45:24.489-04:00

I saw this over on Pharyngula earlier. Apparently one of the prominent associations of chiropractors in the UK has put out a warning to its members to essentially remove any claims of what chiropractic is supposed to do from their websites for fear of possible fraud prosecution. The best part is the warning to be wary of any customers who ask about "the evidence base for your practice".I'd be

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-39249083368715496132009-06-10T18:55:00.007-04:002009-07-21T19:33:58.605-04:00

Well, I'm back from my vacation to Pennsylvania and, as promised (threatened?) I'm going to review Richard Hoagland's Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA. That being said, I suspect that it won't be as long of a review as I had initially thought.Weighing in at 542 pages plus endnotes, Dark Mission is a formidable and tedious read, but it can quickly be reduced to a central theme: Any time

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-72974422905131724062009-05-31T14:27:00.003-04:002009-05-31T15:00:31.136-04:00

Today's the day. For the first time in like two years I'm actually going on a vacation that is a.) more than a day long and b.) not actually prompted by a family emergency. The Girlfriend and I are heading up to the semi-rural wilderness that is central Pennsylvania to spend several days with my de facto in-laws. For some reason we're taking one of the cats with us, but other than the prospect

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-73980013811771922222009-05-26T22:13:00.003-04:002009-05-26T22:20:40.647-04:00

This sounds trite, but I'm actually too infuriated at this point to discuss this topic at length - The Clever Badger has a post on his blog about violent child exorcisms going on in the Congo. Check it out, but be warned that the video really is hard to watch. The witch-doctoring charlatanry on display in the video CB has highlighted is nothing but pure child abuse for profit and has no place in

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-55890988085962745032009-05-26T20:57:00.004-04:002009-05-26T22:06:34.848-04:00

The California Supreme Court recently upheld the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. It's a perfect example of the difference between law and justice - the court is correct that the change to the state's constitution to ban gay marriage was done properly and was completely within California's legal framework, but that doesn't make it morally correct. Whereas no law was broken at all in the

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-55125322775990423332009-05-18T22:22:00.003-04:002009-05-18T22:38:38.893-04:00

Did anyone else stumble upon the CNN article about Bart Ehrman today? As you may have guessed from the title ("Former Evangelical Debunks the Bible") it was not a particularly nuanced piece. It wasn't terrible, but there were a couple of cringe-worthy bits, such as this:Yet Ehrman's popularity also may be due to a larger trend. The books of people like Elaine Pagels, author of "The Gnostic

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-11460978924556073282009-05-17T12:49:00.004-04:002009-05-17T13:30:04.095-04:00

Chances are that if you've ever listened to Coast to Coast AM or any watched any History Channel shows about aliens you've run into Richard Hoagland. He's best known to the public as the fellow who's always going on about the "face on Mars", but his repertoire is rather more widespread than that. You see, Hoagland has a superpower: When a mortal man looks at grainy old photos from 30 year-old

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-42202791792022212542009-05-07T20:13:00.003-04:002009-05-07T20:23:40.565-04:00

The Huffington Post frankly tends to be just as sensationalistic as the right-of-center blogs* and thus I can't really say I'm a huge fan, but I ran into this post today and thought it was pretty interesting. It highlights a video contrasting edited down news footage from Fox News with longer clips of the same events as reported on other news stations. It's a good reminder of how snipping a few

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-50437075343094911862009-05-06T17:18:00.008-04:002009-05-07T08:57:04.311-04:00

Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and has written numerous commentaries on security issues. As can be expected of a former military man, Lt. Col. Peters is rather hawkish in his outlook, though I rather suspect he regards himself as a realist. In any event, he recently wrote this article for The Journal of International Security Affairs in which he attempts to argue for "

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-83960927247152130012009-05-05T14:13:00.006-04:002009-05-05T14:25:35.067-04:00

This was over on Pharyngula already but I couldn't pass up posting it here. The internet is rife with websites reporting to unveil the identity of the Antichrist*, but only one loon had the foresight to snatch up the domain name AntichristIdentity.com. Unfortunately, he also took the easy way out by fingering Barack Obama, because the whackjobs have never, ever accused a Democratic president of

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-12600113819560134802009-05-04T22:20:00.003-04:002009-05-04T22:51:55.070-04:00

I've been utterly distracted from the blog for the last couple of weeks, and honestly I don't have a whole lot ready in terms of full-sized posts, but here's a few random things that have been kicking around in the ol' noggin'.- A long time ago I was speaking to a friend of mine about ballistic missile security and I made an offhanded comment that essentially every ballistic missile used by

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-18108316337129167332009-04-22T19:32:00.004-04:002009-04-22T19:45:05.526-04:00

I was born and raised in Kentucky, which means among other things that my first reaction when I noticed a small wart on the back of my hand waaay back in December was to pull out my pocketknife and cut the thing off. I then poured rubbing alcohol in the bloody little hole and put a band-aid on it. When it grew back about four days later I did the same thing, and then did it again a few days

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34704819.post-72913965097786501862009-04-20T11:00:00.001-04:002009-04-20T11:01:31.939-04:00

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog for the last couple of days, but I've been otherwise engaged. Feel free to come join in on the action.

Skippy the Skeptichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05006838468680675886noreply@blogger.com2