The Lay Scientist

Yes, it's one of those headlines that may take a few reads, but I couldn't think of a better way to phrase it. "A devout Christian couple who banned swearing in the pub they ran have been sacked after takings plummeted - but have barricaded themselves in and refuse to leave," according to the Daily Mail, Evening Standard and Metro newspapers today.

The 90th Skeptics' Circle is up at The Millenium Project. You can learn about how unicorns really exist, and the Obama conspiracy.

The 68th Carnival of the Liberals is up at Globally Rational.GR has to be the most stylish blog I've seen for a while, but don't let that put you off.

A lot of jingoistic nonsense has sprung up since 9/11, in particular the belief that Muslims are somehow inherently more violent or supportive of terrorism that other populations. This, of course, is nonsense, and I'll show you why in a moment. But I also want to use this opportunity to make a wider point about the use of opinion polls as a pseudoscience tactic, completely with some interesting examples and a funny video!

If you'd like your science, skepticism or BPSDB-related blog featured on The Lay Scientist's infamous sidebar (liable to add literally tens of visitors a year to your audience), leave a comment here. A link from your site in return would be nice (because watching the little Technorati authority counter increase does wonders for my ego), but isn't essential. My standards aren't massively high, but I reserve the right to not add you if you're a nutter.

Meanwhile, here are the sites currently featured:

Derided by ignorant "academic" critics who probably haven't even read his book, super-genius Victor Senchenko is, quite literally, the next Galileo. Single-handedly, and in spite of having no real scientific qualifications, Senchenko has taken the world by storm with his theory of life, the universe, and everything.

At least, according to Victor.

Stephen Green, National Director of the Christian Voice, faces bankruptcy, after losing an attempt to charge the BBC's Director General and the producer of Jerry Springer the Opera with blasphemy last year, and being ordered to pay costs of £90,000 ($180k) by June 26th. In a press release sent out on Thursday, Green stated that "the money is due to be paid today, but Stephen Green doesn't have it." Altogether now, ahhhh.

Amid all the impotent flailing on Conservapedia, I stumbled across this little gem of a wild assertion, in the stomach-turning essay Marry a Conservative:

"Marry a conservative. Benefits include:
* freedom from sexually transmitted diseases and their harm (including infertility)"

Really? Conservatives don't get STDs? Well if that's true, then we should see some really striking results if we, say, create a table of the states with the highest STD rates, and colour them according to whether they're Republican (red) or Democrat (blue)...