Don’t get me wrong, I was an ardent and outspoken fan of Woolly Mammoths decades before there was such a thing as Facebook where we could publicly register our likes and dislikes, but as I read accounts of new research on these beasts, as fascinating as they are, I hesitate: [R]esearchers have recreated [woolly mammoth hemoglobin] using a bacteria reprogrammed with 43,000-year-old mammoth DNA. What the extinct pachyderm’s oxygen-carrying blood molecule has revealed are some unique adaptations to cold which allowed mammoths to survive the most brutal Arctic ice age winters without their limbs falling off . The discovery might also lead to medical applications for humans
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Mammoths. We Want Them Back?
Editor’s Note: Back in March, I wrote an essay encouraging atheists to join the Foundation Beyond Belief, a new charitable group doing good for human beings and the world in the name of freethought. I also offered to write a front-page …
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Daylight Atheism > Meet a Foundation Beyond Belief Member
I had already applied a ‘like’ flag to the video posted below, as I almost always do with videos uploaded by Thunderf00t , but this one highlights an idea I had been toying with myself before he expressed it more clearly and cogently — the idea that the free-wheeling, open nature of the internets makes it a terrible place for religious ideas.
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Suppose This Machine Kills Fascists
Atheism – That’s for ME! Here’s my little reasonable place in cyberspace to ask all the difficult questions about religion that I can’t help asking. The Main Rant link below outlines my questions and observations on religion from which …
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Atheism – That's for ME!: Why Evolution is True – part 5
I say Bill Maher sounds like an Americanized Pat Condell here, but whether that’s true or not, the substance of his remarks is worth highlighting: To review, the following are not negotiable, and will be found in any society of people deserving to be called civilized: freedom of speech; the separation of religious authority and state authority; equal rights without regard to sex, race, or creed. That’s not the end of the list of non-negotiable first principles, but it’s a fine start.
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Bill Maher’s Bill of Rights
If you’re not caught up to season 3 episode 7 of Breaking Bad , don’t dare watch this brief video review of it — instead, drop whatever trifling thing you’re doing and find a way to watch every episode starting with season 1 episode 1, then come back to this once you’re as caught up as you should be: Apart from the usual excellent acting and searing turns of events, one sees in this episode the willingness to leave motivations opaque: the viewer can entertain guesses about why Jesse refused and then accepted Walt’s offer of partnership; about why Walt made this offer in the first place; about who called Hank to warn him of the assassins and why; about why these brother assassins are so mindlessly cavalier in their dealings with everyone except one another, even parties with whom they should be able to see an alignment of interests (“la familia es todo” notwithstanding); etc. The latter is especially vexing and ironic in the context of this drama, which has unfolded into such an elaborate shape starting from a man’s commitment to the principle of “la familia es todo.” Walt started there, but he has watched the principle warp and wend in a way that, by now, he is hyper-alert to the boundaries of family and business. He can’t seem to stop drawing and re-drawing the line.
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Breaking Bad – La Familia Es Todo
This is Jakob Dylan performing “Holy Rollers for Love” from his new album, Women and Country . The background singers are Kelly Hogan and Neko Case, whose participation made me pause long enough to give this album a chance — yes, being Bob Dylan’s son and an accomplished singer/songwriter in his own right was not enough to win a break for Jakob Dylan.
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Sunday Music Blogging: Jakob Dylan
Not willing to be outdone by recent Islamist forays into faith-based anti-boob officiousness and anti-cartoon snits , the Attorney General of Virginia has taken steps to keep the visuals appropriately god-friendly: The seal depicts the Roman goddess Virtus, or virtue, wearing a blue tunic draped over one shoulder, her left breast exposed. But on the new lapel pins [A.G.] Cuccinelli recently handed out to his staff, Virtus’ bosom is covered by an armored breastplate. Mock if you must, but if earthquakes do not strike Virginia and its state seal does not sexually arouse men in the next month or two, who will be laughing?
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The South Will Not Rise Again
It’s hard to imagine a place that needs a cleansing bath of crude oil, seawater, and dead wildlife more than the gulf coast around New Orleans, and President Chickenshit is sensitive to the nuance : President Barack Obama said no new offshore drilling leases will be issued until a “thorough review” of the BP Plc oil-well spill in the Gulf of Mexico determines whether more safety systems are needed. Obama …
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Expanding Offshore Drilling. What Could Go Wrong?
After stepping through a few paragraphs consisting of twaddle interwoven with banalities — read Norm Geras for a fuller guide to all that — Stephen Clark concludes with that appears to be the whole of his argument. Step for step: Is that all there is to say about God? Believing in God is merely believing in the possibility of Justice?
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A Dispassionate Look at the Arc of the Universe