We're cooking up an early Thanksgiving dinner today (I'm in Canada, we celebrate turkey day much earlier than than in the US) and does it ever smell great.  I was working away at my homework with the aroma of cooking turkey and stuffing in the air.  Yum!

Happy Blasphemy Day

Here is hoping that the world comes to its collective senses and realizes that we all have a right to believe, or not believe.  Criticism of religion must be protected speech.  Blasphemy laws are an outrage, and must be resisted everywhere.

I love this photo:

On the other hand, I don't really agree with "It's fine to be proud of it."  I respect your right to your religion, but I don't think that belief in something without evidence is something to be proud of.  As the old trope goes, if one person believes this stuff, we'd call him crazy.  If millions believe it, we call it religion.

Unbelievable misogyny

From Skepchick, here is Rebecca Watson describing some of the vile, misogynist invective that has been leveled at her since she posted about "elevatorgate":

http://skepchick.org/2011/09/mom-dont-read-this/

If you aren't familiar with the story, well, do some hunting at skepchick and you'll find it.  Suffice it to say that a lot of men do not like to be called to task for patriarchal attitudes.  Only instead of reasoned and rational response, they throw around words like cunt and bitch.

Which is the point.  We're all free to agree or disagree with Rebecca, but when you start hurling epithets because you've exhausted your vocabulary of non-four-letter words, then you're just an asshat.

The neutrino bomb

The results that came out of CERN showing that neutrinos reached a detector a nanosecond or two faster than a photon would are fascinating.  I suspect it will eventually turn out to be a systemic error in the experiment, but if not, wow.

I'm comforted in knowing that both special and general relativity have held up extremely well in experimental results.  I'm not sufficiently versed in the details of the theories to know how exactly faster-than-light travel would affect its workings, but I do know enough to know that it would blast a sizable hole through it.  What an opportunity that would be for us to learn more about the universe!

Of larger import, however: if one of our most "incontrovertible" facts about the universe is proven wrong, what else do we think we know, that maybe we don't?

Welcome to my blog!

According to my girlfriend I'm a very opinionated and doctrinaire atheist.  But because I ride a motorcycle and play the guitar she loves me anyway.

I've often thought about starting a blog in order to vent my opinionated spleen out into the intertubes, but until now I've never bothered.  More and more is going on in the world these days that is working me up, so I think it may be cathartic to cut loose a little.

You'll see me posting mostly on politics, science and religion, and maybe once in a while on motorcycles and guitars.