The Morning Heresy 6/4/12: So-Called Paintball Experts
June 4, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
Ed Brayton speaks on behalf of CFI-Michigan against hospital's use of homeopathic and other nonscientific treatments
Local news coverage (paywalled) on the CFI-Indiana billboard vandalism reports:
There had been no problems since the billboard went up until blotches of red paint defaced the sign sometime after Sunday. There had been no problems when the same sign was installed in Marion County even though there were anonymous threats, [CFI-Indiana's Reba Boyd] Wooden said.
How it was done is a mystery, but it wasn’t done by a paintball gun, paintball experts have told Wooden. It could have been done with balloons filled with paint. Whoever did it had to be elevated onto the billboard’s scaffolding and avoided hitting the adjacent promoting exercise.
Wooden said no police report has been filed because the Lamar representative told her it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Nobody has claimed they defaced the sign nor were any messages left behind.
“It just shows someone being intolerant of our message,” she said.
Reba has not told the Heresy which "paintball experts" she consulted, so I have decided to begin a conspiracy theory about atheist-hating paintballers.
CSI's Ben Radford on his struggles to unexplain UFOs
Dennis Markuze, he who was arrested in Canada for online taunts and threats against atheists, pleads guilty
Ashley Hamer and Katie Hovany at Skepchick infiltrate the deeply weird AutismOne conference
Gail Collins in NYRB on how Texas is ruining everyone's textbooks
SCA says a minister is attempting to disrupt the forming of a state chapter in Kentucky
Minister of the Church of the SubGenius marries a bunch of people at once
Justifications for religiously-based genocide, coming to a public school near you
Kuwaiti Hamad al-Naqi sentenced to 10 years for Twitter blasphemy, which he denied posting
Taslima Nasreen rounds up some pretty good burqa cartoons
Kylie posts a troubling infographic on the state of vaccinations
Video of Sam Harris at the Global Atheist Conference, which I haven't watched yet, so no spoilers please
Sikivu Hutchinson laments the homophobic mind pollution of "Christian fascist culture" (Also: Hutchinson uses "vis-à-vis" more than anyone I've ever read)
Sally Quinn: If there is a God, here's what he should do with the ever-sinful John Edwards
Bill Maher asks Seth MacFarlane whether his atheism keeps him Emmy-less
Now we're being invaded by aliens...FROM THE RENAISSANCE!!!
Mega-pastors rivaling Katy Perry and Justin Beiber for influence on Twitter
The Rapidian takes a look at the Unite Women rallies, of which CFI was a part
AP: Are Obama and the DNC not putting enough emphasis on religious outreach?
Black ministers in Massachusetts are not quite ready to get on board with Elizabeth Warren for Senate
Huckster Jonathan Edward is coming to my neck of the woods, says skeptics are welcome. Hmmm.
Speaking of frauds, another fake psychic pleads guilty to stealing over $200,000
David Gibson: Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land loses his radio show over plagiarism scandal
Texas A&M professor opposes display of crosses, becomes instant outcast
Anti-Quote of the Day
Filed under "I can't believe this was said in 2012," Pastor Patrick Bray on the teaching of evolution in Georgia, which is apparently still controversial (hat tip Simon Brown):
What message are we sending to our children when they come away saying, 'I'm an ape with less hair?'
Quote of the Day (well, yesterday)
Montaigne, looking askance at divine providence:
. . . nobody records their flimflams and false prognostics, forasmuch as they are infinite and common; but if they chop upon one truth, that carries a mighty report, as being rare, incredible, and prodigious. So Diogenes, surnamed the Atheist, answered him in Samothrace, who, showing him in the temple the several offerings and stories in painting of those who had escaped shipwreck, said to him, "Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things, what do you say to so many persons preserved from death by their especial favour?" "Why, I say," answered he, "that their pictures are not here who were cast away, who are by much the greater number."
Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is.
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Paintball victim image from Shutterstock
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