False-bottom trunks conceal the big charade

False-bottom trunks conceal the big charade October 13, 2014

• Same-sex couples are getting their marriage licenses in Alaska, which is, of course, one of those “coastal urban areas of the United States.”

• “I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity,” Sam Harris writes, voluntarily. Poor guy was shooting for “bad boy” and wound up at “destructively dumb boy.” He seems to think his rehashing of a ticking-time-bomb argument is original and/or compelling, and that it has never been responded to. That’s ignorance in service of awfulness. Ugh.

2012• It’s certainly true, as Katie Heaney observes, that if you look back on any period during which Mercury is in retrograde, you will find many instances of “confusion, misunderstandings, and mishaps” based on failures of communication. And it’s just as true, as Jonathan Cahn argues in his “mysteries of secret Bible prophecy” book being breathlessly touted by Charismanews, that if you look back at every seventh year throughout history, you’ll find all sorts of significant and even cataclysmic events.

These very true claims are sometimes cited as evidence that astrology — in either its traditional form or in Charisma’s weirdly Christianized, even-less credible version of it — is true. What interests me most is whether or not Cahn, Charisma or any other given astrologer understands the flaw in that logic.

Apocryphicity. Think of it as a site about really old fan fiction.

Jim Bob Duggar spreads a falsehood about birth control. Two things: 1) Why is it that right-wing American Christians think lying about birth control doesn’t violate one of the Ten Commandments? and 2) Why would anyone think Jim Bob Duggar understands anything at all about birth control?

And speaking of American Christians who think lying for Jesus is cool: Politifact says The Liar Tony Perkins is lying.

• “If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down.” — Deuteronomy 20:19

• A comedy club in Barcelona says it’s doing well after switching to a pay-per laugh system that uses facial-recognition software. Seems more fun that a two-drink minimum system. I think it also might help the performers, since nothing makes an audience more prone to laugh than a situation that seems to discourage them from doing so (if you’ve ever got the giggles during church, or at a funeral, or in a business meeting, or in class, then you’ll know what I mean).

• The Wester Chester University Golden Rams women’s rugby team is now 3-0.


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