Dan Johnson

Author's posts

I Like My Macchinetta

I didn’t like coffee until I was in my mid-twenties. I loved the aroma, but simply hadn’t developed a taste for it. One of my co-workers at the time was an avid coffee drinker (and former police officer). He worked diligently at getting me to drink coffee, and eventually succeeded. I’ve always been a fan …

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Why Do I Even Bother?

FACEPALM - Because expressing how dumb that was in words just doesn't work.

Sometimes I have an exchange of words, comments, ideas, etc. with someone, and I am left wondering why I even bothered. I’d like to show you just such an exchange so that you can get an idea of why I feel this way at times. Twitter is an interesting medium for conversations. The limit of …

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The Sky Is Falling! Seeds! Buy Seeds!

This advertisement is being promoted by WorldNut Daily. Surprise, surprise. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqRqwU5oeLA …in an economic meltdown, non-hybrid seeds could become more valuable than even silver and gold. I love the “graph” that purports to show the value of gold, silver, and “Nonhybrid Seeds.” It’s odd that there aren’t any numbers on that graph, isn’t it? I …

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Why Do Atheists Seem So Angry?

The Stupid, It Burns - by Plognark

I sometimes see comments and questions wondering why atheists are, to some people’s eyes, very angry people. When I see those comments and questions, an excellent blog post by Greta Christina, Atheists and Anger, always comes to mind. Yes, we atheists are often angry. We have a number of reasons why we are angry. Being …

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The Sleepy City

sleepycity - best of

sleepycity — Here there be adventures and travels the likes of which you’ve probably never seen. I am in awe of the guys who do this sort of thing. Here’s a snap from their “Best of” page: They go places and see things most of us are completely unaware of. Luckily, they also document their …

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Living in a Delusional World

*HEADDESK*

Terry Hurlbut (@Temlakos on Twitter) authors a column for Examiner.com called Creationism Examiner. On December 30th, 2010, Terry published an article entitled Creationism and science: wider implications. The article was brought to my attention in a post by PZ Myers at Pharyngula. I have, in the past, seen remarks about Biblical literalists attempting to “turn …

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Indignation and Projection

You KNOW it's a Myth

A newspaper column was brought to my attention the other day. I had never before heard of the newspaper, The Daily Star of Oneonta, New York, nor the author of the column, Tom Sears. Mr. Sears writes a regular opinion column for The Daily Star. Many of his columns’ titles are prefixed with On the …

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Sickness via xkcd

At least, with p

An absolutely beautiful comic from xkcd: That echoes my sentiments perfectly! h/t to CyberLizard

Joe’s Grand Fantasy, Part One

You keep using that word...

I’ve written about Joe Cienkowski on a previous occasion. Some of you may already be familiar with Joe and his ideas about evolution and atheism. I’ve had brief exchanges with Joe on Twitter, and though we disagree, we keep things fairly cordial. Someone was kind enough to recently provide me with one of Joe’s self-published …

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A Poster Boy for the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Atheist cat finds your prayer cute, but ultimately futile.

Many people are not familiar with the term Dunning-Kruger Effect. The linked Wikipedia article begins with a very good description: The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer …

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