Negligible Knowledge Base

Truly excellent piece at Skeptico:

This is a refrain I’m hearing a lot from religious apologists – atheism is a religion. Also its equally fallacious siblings, science is a religion and evolution is a religion. It’s a sign of their desperation that the best argument they have is not that atheism is wrong, or that god does exist (supported by evidence of course), but that atheism is a religion too. A strange argument for a religious person to make on the face of it.  Is it supposed to strengthen the atheist’s [sic] position or weaken the theist’s [sic] one? In reality it’s a sign they have run out of arguments.

Do yourself a favor and read the rest of the article.

Yep, two years old today.  I almost forgot.

My original iPhone has now become an “enhanced” iPod Touch for my son, but it’s not only still kicking it’s still going strong.  Love my iPhones!

As if anyone didn’t already know, it’s now official.  New York Times:

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple said Monday that Steven P. Jobs, its co-founder and chief executive, had returned to work following a five-month medical leave during which he had a liver transplant.

“Steve is back to work,” said Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman. “He is currently at Apple a few days a week and working from home the remaining days.”

The Tennessee Tea Party is protesting again today in Nashville.  I’m not sure how effectively your message can be delivered with a mouth full of balls, but hey, more power to ya’.

Personally, I envy the protestors.  I’d love to make enough money to be adversely affected by the Presidents tax plan, but alas, I make less that half a million dollars a year.  Boo-fucking-hoo.

Nice profile of Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean in the paper of record.

It was set to restart in late September, but the date will probably be pushed back a few weeks.

vjack writing at his incredible Atheist Revolution blog, Idiot of the Week: Juliana Davis:

It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that some people reconcile any discrepancies they encounter between reality and religious belief by completely disregarding reality.

This story is all over the place this morning, but is too touching to ignore.  Annie Burris writing in The Orange County Register:

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing – a movie.

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.

[...]

Colby died about seven hours after seeing the film.

Well, for me it’s all up to FedEx now.  Might be early, might be late, but at least I won’t have to head across town to wait in line at the Apple Store…

LiveScience:

Now, newly described fossilized hands from a beaked, plant-eating dinosaur, called Limusaurus inextricabilis, reveal a transitional step in the evolution of modern wings from dino digits. The finding could resolve a debate over which fingers ultimately became embedded in the wing.

Of course, to the intelligent design/creationist crowd, the finding merely creates two gaps in the fossil record where previously there was only one.  Some people just can’t accept reality.