Sceptic's Guide to Atheism

I've expressed dismay towards the New Atheists a few times on this blog before (here, here). The major criticism I have is the employment of straw men and acerbic wit in place of careful reasoned arguments and scholarship. This is found in misrepresentations of classic theistic arguments and also in trying to make a case against religion generally as harmful/evil.

I wandered upon what looks to be a very good book -- Sceptic's Guide to Atheism -- that provides a summary and review of the arguments of the New Atheists, with counterarguments. I found it by finding another video involving Arif Ahmed, an atheist philosopher at  Cambridge whose debate style I find quite strong and appealing. The first speaker in the new video I happened upon is the author of this new book, Peter Williams. I've embedded the video below:

Really cool Science videos

Title says it all. I wanted to embed them but they seem to have that function disabled. Check out these fantastic videos from Science:

• Fertilization (human)

I'd seen videos of human fertilization depictions before, but this one is breathtaking. AMAZING

• Inventory of the cell

They use a pancreatic cell from a mouse to show you the relative 3D scale of the organelles, then switch to a graphical depiction. Really informative and neat.

The highlight of my day

In between brain-melting sessions of graduate-level physical science study, I found this. My life is now complete.

The RR isn't dead yet (unfortunately)

The crazy. It burns:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

More from Steve Benen:

First up from the God Machine this week is a look at something called the "prayercast," organized by Family Research Council Action PAC, a leading religious right outfit. The point of the event was to organize right-wing activists to pray for the failure of health care reform in the Senate.

It's hard to truly appreciate the true madness surrounding the event and its neo-theocratic organizers/participants, but I found Rachel Maddow's coverage helped capture some of the more disturbing elements.

Of particular note, remember that high-ranking, elected federal officials were integrally involved in this rather bizarre right-wing gathering. Alongside religious right heavyweights like Tony Perkins and James Dobson, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) were on hand, and Rep. Michele Bachman (R-Minn.) even helped lead attendees in prayer against health care reform.

Right Wing Watch had some of the best coverage of the "prayercast" anywhere, and posted some striking clips from the event, including this one in which Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) argues that the Bible should be a "blueprint" for American government, and this one in which James and Shirley Dobson ask God to "frustrate the plans of the Evil One."

yowza

Protect Health Insurance Executives!

Hilarious! And it's by MoveOn.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Wingnuts

Watch this Tea Bagger 9/12 video and tell me that these people aren't almost entirely Southern (listen to the accents and the religious stupidity).

I almost cried at 8:37 when a man said that, "Glenn Beck is such a logical thinker."

Read this and this for more on 9/12 and Tea Baggers.

Is being gored to death by a Minotaur really torture?

I could seriously see this on Faux News. Perhaps Glenn Beck's program?

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

What would Jesus do (or not do)?

Love it. (H/T: Pharyngula)

George Carlin: "Religion is Bullshit"

Check out a classic from Carlin:


Transcript here.

Survey of the damage

And here's The Onion with a hilarious hurricane-like report on the damage done to the nation by the Bush presidency:

* * * * *

Nostrobamus

He saw this coming from a mile away:

(H/T: Digg for "Nostrobamus" line)

new baby!

Our baby was naturally born this Sunday morning at 4:58 am (9/21/08). [surprise!]

Our baby weighed 6 lbs, 12.4 oz, was 19.75 in from head to toe, and is in excellent health.

Mom and baby are doing great!

Palin's dangerous ignorance on foreign policy

Sitting at home watching this, I knew that Charlie referred to the justification given by Bush for pre-emption. Sarah Palin didn't. I know more about key foreign policy stances than her. Perhaps I should run for VP?

She doesn't know what pre-emption is and is willing to start World War 3 with Russia if they invade Georgia. How awesome! Let's put her in the WH!

McCain at Saddleback and the "POW card"

Saddleback was a loser for Obama from the start. The framing of the questions and the crowd were obviously not in his favor, and he is a thoughtful conversationist while McCain literally recites bullet-point-type responses that are trite. ("The moment of conception" being one of the clearest.) Besides the fact that no one catches the logical contradiction in McCain on his support for IVF and stem cell research, while saying that these viable embryos have "human rights", it is a tired and arbitrary way to frame the debate. Why not say that sperm have human rights?

Then, the news that McCain was not in the "cone of silence" seemed to confirm a lot of suspicions that McCain was a little too quick with his responses, and that they were far more cogent than his usual fumbling, bumbling talking points. Which is not to say that they weren't just talking points, as even Jack Cafferty rips him for.

Besides his uncharacteristic quickness and coherence, there were two particular things that struck me about McCain's performance that seems to indicate he had the questions in advance:

1. He jumped ahead of Warren on the Supreme Court justices:
   

   MCCAIN: A union -- a union between man and woman, between one man and one woman. That's my definition of marriage.
   
   Could I -- are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court Justices or should I mention --
   
   WARREN: We will get to that.
   
   MCCAIN: OK. All right. OK.
   
   WARREN: You're jumping ahead...

2. He answered a question on education in exactly the format that Obama was given the question, although Warren had not yet given him the full question.

   [Warren with Obama]
   
   Q. OKAY LET’S GO TO EDUCATION. AMERICA RIGHT NOW 23 RANKS 19TH IN HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION. WE’RE FIRST IN INCARCERATIONS.
   
   A. NOT GOOD.
   
   Q. NOT GOOD. 80 PERCENT OF AMERICANS RECENT POLE SAID THEY BELIEVE IN MERIT PAY FOR TEACHERS.
   
   1. I’M NOT ASKING DO YOU THINK ALL TEACHERS SHOULD GET A RAISE.
   
   2. DO YOU THINK BETTER TEACHERS SHOULD BE PAID BETTER?
   
   3. THEY SHOULD BE MAKING MORE THAN POOR TEACHERS?
   
   [Warren to McCain]
   
   Q ABOUT 80 PERCENT OF AMERICA SAYS THEY SUPPORT MERIT PAY FOR THE BEST TEACHERS. NOW, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR STUMP SPEECH ON EDUCATION?
   
   A YES. YES. AND FIND BAD TEACHERS ANOTHER LINE OF WORK.
   
   Q YOU KNOW –
   
   A CAN I –
   
   Q YOU ARE ANSWERING SO QUICKLY.
   
   A CAN I –
   
   Q YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME OF POKER?

Even Warren notes how he seems to be reading his mind (poker). This is a little too convenient for me.

You can read the transcript here to confirm the accuracy of this.

The relevant section of the video for the education policy is between 2:00 and 2:56 --

Now, another thing I'd point to is this ridiculous response by the McCain campaign that for him to have cheated is unthinkable...because he was a POW:

Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said on Sunday night that Mr. McCain had not heard the broadcast of the event while in his motorcade and heard none of the questions.

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.

Now, apparently, it's not unthinkable for him to have been a POW, come home, cheated on his wife and left her, gotten involved in politics using his new wife's family money, gotten involved in a lobbyist-favor scandal (Keating 5)...

But it's unthinkable that he would've had a BlackBerry or iPhone and gotten the questions early. Riiiiiiight...they're using the POW card more frequently these days:

Last week, when the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a close Bush ally, publicly questioned McCain’s character, the McCain campaign responded by highlighting McCain’s background as a prisoner of war. When Dems attacked McCain’s healthcare plan in May, McCain responded by noting his background as a prisoner of war. Asked by a local reporter about the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks of Pittsburgh, McCain responded by talking about his background as a prisoner of war.

And all of this, of course, dovetails with the McCain campaign running multiple television ads talking about McCain’s background as a prisoner of war, literally including interrogation footage in the commercial.

This hard-sell wouldn’t be quite so odd if McCain didn’t go around saying that he’s reluctant to talk about his Vietnam experiences.

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

“Please,” he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question…. McCain then collected himself and apologized for his initial reaction.

“I kind of reacted the way I did because I have a reluctance to talk about my experiences,” he said, noting that he has huge admiration for the “heroes” who served with him in the POW camp and said the experience taught him to love the U.S. because he missed it so much.

“I am always reluctant to talk about these things,” McCain said.

McCain’s service demands respect and the nation’s gratitude. But he’s clearly crossed the line into shameless exploitation.

Indeed. No one can prove that McCain cheated, unless someone from his campaign steps up and admits to feeding him the questions (fat chance, since Rove's protégé is now running the McCain campaign). But just watch the video, read the transcript, and compare McCain's response time to everything else he's done in the past two years, and see if you have some doubts too.

Focus on the Family poon video #2

The last time we saw this poon Stuart Shepard, he was against helping the poor (like Jesus, I guess). This time, he's asking God to smite the Democratic convention with rain. Olbermann had him as the "Worst Person in the World" last night:


You can see the YouTube video of his imprecation below the fold:

I mean, sure, people are starving to death and dying of disease all over the place, but why waste your time asking God to do something about that?

13 things you should know about McCain's 3rd attack ad

Check out Bill Bradley's deconstruction of McCain's baseless latest, 3rd straight, attack on Obama.

Also, I have posted the new Obama ad pushing back against McCain's lies below:

The Good and the Bad-Fugly

This new video of McCain is good. Damn good.

Digg It!

Ben Smith explains why the GOP's attempt to smear Barack with a mock facebook app is lame. Check out the reviews written on it there, especially the one I just wrote entitled, "McDumb as Bush"...

Media Matters fights back against McCain mendacity

Recently, McCain complained (smirk) about favorable media coverage for Obama, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including a recent report from The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University showing that news coverage has been tougher on Obama. Today, Media Matters fights back with fact:

YouTube link

CBS News edits McCain Interview

Okay, okay, this isn't a politics blog, but I just can't let some things go without mention. The guy whose love affair with the media was recently chronicled in a long book now accuses Sen. Obama of being a "media darling" despite the 24-7 loops of Jeremiah Wright and all the other inconvenient facts. Contrast this against the media's effusive praise of McCain...and their accusations of Obama "flip-flopping" when he really didn't, with zero mention of McCain's looooooong flip-flop list.

...and this un-fuc*ing-believable item, wherein CBSNews edits a McCain interview to make him look better when he gaffes big time on the facts of the surge, proving Obama right.

Dan Rather refers to Obama as "an Osama bin Laden"

Dan Rather makes a bumbling idiot of himself while breaking an irony meter. He is talking about how today's 24h news cycle means anything you say, even when you aren't supposed to be live, is fair game for the sensationalistic news to use. Then, he defends Jesse Jackson by saying that, "...he was important in paving the way for an Osama bin Laden to appear..."

Stop and think about this for a moment: what in the hell does Jesse Jackson have to do with terrorism? Nothing. What else could Rather have meant? Obviously, that Jackson's run for the presidency in 1988 paved the way for Obama's candidacy today. So, Dan Rather confused not only the name, "Obama" with "Osama", which is bad enough, he confused, "Obama" with "Osama bin Laden". JFC...

H/T: I saw this at FiveThirtyEight.com, my favorite polling site. Also, check out their current projections and electoral map: