A great open letter to Bill Maher regarding his ridiculous anti-vaccine nonsense.
Archive for October, 2009
shot science
Monday, October 19th, 2009alpha fail
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009There’s a sort of low-key evangelical Christian course series in the UK called the Alpha Course, which has been franchised to a lot of churches. It generally seems harmless enough and I would guess has helped a lot of people too. They’ve been advertising too, and have posters up around Britain which say “Does God Exist?” and checkboxes for yes, no and maybe. Some guy put an x in the no box a couple of weeks ago and was arrested for defacing the poster.
Now they’ve actually put the poll online at their website, but it possibly isn’t going so well:
Astonishing success
You can click the screenshot above to see it in full, and note the unfortunate quote from The Times: “What distinguishes Alpha from other initiatives is the easy-going, relaxed feel of the proceedings – that, and its astonishing success.” Success indeed.
ask nicely
Friday, October 9th, 2009At dinner tonight:
Dara: I want some more.
Me: Ask nicely, please
Dara (brightly): Hello! I want some more!
names
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009Toby had some homework last night. He had to write about his name – his full name and the meanings of his first and middle names. He also had to say if he had a nickname (“Tobe”) and whether he liked his name (yes).
Then he had to think about what his name would be if he could pick a different first name. Initially he said Tobe, but was advised that this is already his nickname. So he said “Mr. Freezy”. Emma said, “Seriously? You would like to be called Mr. Freezy Alexander Mogendorff?” (We’re not sure where he got the idea from, perhaps from a superhero or something. After a lot of back and forth Emma went upstairs to help Dara get into her pajamas while Toby thought about what he would like to have as a new name. Eventually he ran upstairs with the answer, which he had written on his worksheet: “Tobelrone” which he pronounced as Toblerone.