The British Humanist Association has created a wonderful series of videos. Including several narrated by Stephen Fry such as “How Do We Know What Is True” and “What Should We Think About Death”. Do watch them as they do an amazing job of expressing in just two or three minutes key ideas held by atheists and secular humanists. Besides which, Stephen Fry’s narration is a joy to listen to. Much like anything narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Scott Brown’s campaign manager is a twerp. Professor Lawrence Lessig, who is attempting to get corporate money out of politics via the Mayday.us PAC, pointed out that Scott Brown was/is a lobbyist. Colin Reed, Scott Brown’s campaign manager responded with a toothless and stupid cease and desist letter. Mr. Lessig responded. I don’t normally get involved in such situations. But Mr. Reed’s response was so outrageous I tweeted at him:

What follows is an email I sent to the operators of my favorite movie theatre: Camera Cinemas. The Camera Cinemas theaters get 99% of my movie viewing business. I especially value the independent, documentary, and foreign films shown at Camera 3. Today I watched “The Notebook” at Camera 3. So I was dismayed to find “Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering” listed on the page for upcoming films. Mr. Merola’s film is a documentary only in the most narrow sense.

The folks at the Family Research Council can always be counted on to express outrage whenever they perceive the government doesn’t adhere to biblical principals and also play the martyrdom card in the same breath. Today I got yet another email from the FRC Action group expressing shock that the US government did something they disagree with. Of course every single link embedded in the email went to their donate money page.

If you’re not reading Charlie Pierce why not? His article about the meaning of the US holiday “Labor Day” made me weep. I’m one of those people he talks about. As a teenager I seriously considered becoming a forest ranger because I believed that conserving our natural resources for future generations was important. I ultimately decided to become a programmer (i.e., IT professional) because it was thrilling making something as stupid as a computer do something useful.

I don’t really have much to add to this story about Helen Ukpabio’s libel lawsuit against the British Humanist Association. Specifically she is unhappy that the BHA claims “she exorcises satanic possession.” Whereas she says she exorcises children “possessed with black, red and vampire witchcraft spirits”. Yep, clearly a case of libel. Eye roll. She is such a vile, odious and evil person she almost makes Dick Cheney look decent in comparison.

A story at Daily Kos explains why the city of Chattanooga, TN now has the fastest residential Internet connectivity in the US. As an atheist the thought of moving to Chattanooga, part of our “bible belt”, doesn’t thrill me. But I’ve got to admit I like the idea of living someplace where an extremely modest home doesn’t cost $735,000 (what I paid for my house in the San Jose area just before the housing bubble burst).

The excellent Talking Points Memo has a story about the mayor of Winter Garden, FL behaving in a decidedly non-patriotic manner. In fact, it would be reasonable to call him a christian fascist. What did Mayor John Rees do? He evicted a local citizen who refused to stand for the invocation (i.e., christian prayer) and the national pledge of allegiance. Since a city meeting is not a religious service no one is obligated to stand, bow their heads, or do the hokey pokey during the invocation.

Why am I not surprised that ISIS apparently used America as an example for how to treat prisoners by waterboarding them. Mission Accomplished!

That president Obama has condemned waterboarding as torture while at the same time pardoning Americans who committed that heinous act has to be a sick joke.

h/t The Politics Blog by Charles P. Pierce

Representative Peter King was rather upset with that President Obama wore a tan suit to a press conference: For him to walk out —I’m not trying to be trivial here— in a light suit, light tan suit, saying that first he wants to talk about what most Americans care about the revision of second quarter numbers on the economy. I guess we can add “fashionista” to the list of terms we use to describe Rep.