Brian Flemming's Weblog about me   |   email me W H A T ' S   G O I N G   O N My most recent film, The God Who Wasn't There, is available on DVD at the official site and elsewhere. Bat Boy: The Musical is currently being staged in productions of various sizes around the world. A movie adaptation directed by John Landis is in development, with no casting announced or shooting date set. My next feature film, Danielle, remains in development. Bill Gates is still dead. B L O G R O L L FILMMAKING: Cinema Minima Filmmaker HD for Indies indieWIRE Blogs Hollywood Liberation Army The Movie Marketing Blog FREE CULTURE: Creative Commons Copyfight EFF Deep Links Freedom to Tinker Lawrence Lessig POLITICS: Atrios Daily Howler Orcinus The Raw Story Talking Points Memo OTHER FAVORITES: Boing Boing GreenCine Daily Nora Murphy Pharyngula J O I N Original text in this weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License A R C H I V E S May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 powered by

« March 2007 | HOME | May 2007 » April 2007 May 1: President Bush Day Four years ago tomorrow, President Bush took a joyride in a fighter plane and declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq. The event was hailed at the time as a political triumph but has ended up being an emblem of our leader's... April 30, 2007 Atheists in foxholes Lt. Wayne Atkins filed a complaint with the Army over a general's use of the phrase "there are no atheists in foxholes." The complaint was rejected. Atkins resigned. According to Atkins, the Army National Guard is now using his rejected... April 30, 2007 Woman in progress Mike Penner has been writing for the Los Angeles Times for as long as I've been reading it. If I cared about sports at all, I'd probably know who he is. But now he's writing about something that is actually... April 27, 2007 Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron will prove God exists The Rational Response Squad will be debating Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. After ABC ran a story in January about hundreds of atheists videotaping themselves blaspheming the Holy Spirit, best-selling author Ray Comfort contacted the network and offered to prove... April 27, 2007 Misc The Obashira Festival. More fun than The Lottery. (Thanks, Brian) More cats. (From Dana, who says, "Since you clearly have a thing about cats." Actually, I'm not much of a cat person. I'm just pandering to my readership.) Tolerance not... April 27, 2007 Blasphemy Challenge stats #10 Most Discussed -- All Time #2 Most Responded -- All Time... April 24, 2007 485 Dang, that's a lot of cute. UPDATE: Maria sends this.... April 24, 2007 Equal time A recent email to Beyond Belief Media... I think the people behind this movie, putting it on a childerns web site where the mass population can read this ,truely is a confirmation that Jesus exists!! I can assume that the... April 23, 2007 Pretty please It's a little known fact that women finally got the right to vote when all the good little wifies made their husbands a martini, smiled coyly and said, "Pretty please?" We impudent atheists could learn a thing or two from... April 23, 2007 How it's done I hate Hollywood action movies. They're usually shot so terribly that I can't even get excited about the action they portray. Often I can't even follow the action. The failure of these movies stems from an understandable impulse. Modern Hollywood... April 23, 2007 Religion: A force for good As you know, religion never does any harm ever. Even the little religions are good: The group practices an ancient religion that includes elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and worships the peacock angel, or "Malak Taus," which appears as... April 22, 2007 They want to believe I saw it when I looked into the JFK-assassination conspiracy community, and of course when I investigated Christianity. Even if a contrary fact is right in front of them, fifty feet tall with a klieg light shining on it, some... April 21, 2007 Running from the obvious Jesus says clearly three times in the Bible that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin. Still, some Christians just don't want to accept this fact, and they find any way they can to get around it. Even... April 20, 2007 I don't know If this is real or not. But it's funny. (Thanks, Brian)... April 20, 2007 Warning to the pregnant Nora Murphy says you shouldn't read this.... April 19, 2007 Five minutes of work, get yourself a headline Just threaten the life of a bear via fax. "Death threat, police protection for Knut!" [major German daily newspaper] Bild wrote in bold letters on page one above a picture of the sad-looking polar bear cub peering out from behind... April 19, 2007 File and Forget: Tell me what's wrong with my long-standing psychotroll policy I get emails. Some of these emails are the products of troubled minds -- minds that have evidently spent a significant amount of time thinking about how evil I am for doing the work against God that I do. Some... April 18, 2007 Sam Harris vs. Andrew Sullivan Concludes. You want to have things both ways: your faith is reasonable but not in the least bound by reason; it is a matter of utter certainty, yet leavened by humility and doubt; you are still searching for the truth,... April 18, 2007 Sam Harris vs. Chris Hedges Debate in L.A., May 22.... April 17, 2007 On the radio I'll be on "The Bob Siegel Show" again on KCBQ San Diego tomorrow, Sunday, April 15, at 3 pm PT. Listen live. UPDATE: Apologies if you tuned in. I didn't get on until 3:45 pm, and then Bob Siegel mostly... April 14, 2007 Amazon.com plays matchmaker Well, my favorite clown John Gibson made the same mistake. Dear Amazon.com Customer, We've noticed that customers who have expressed interest in The God Who Wasn't There have also ordered The Lost Tomb of Jesus on DVD. For this reason,... April 14, 2007 Psychotrolls Didn't notice that PZ commented on Kos's blog post earlier today. Also, via PZ, Bitch, Ph.D. Some further thoughts (to these) on the whole matter: 1. What the psychotrolls wrote to Kathy Sierra is deplorable, and it sucks that exposure... April 13, 2007 Dog bites man I can't remember when I got my first piece of hate mail with violent imagery in it. I don't remember being shocked by it, in any case. And I'm very, very used to it now. But if I had lived... April 13, 2007 And now it's official Damn.... April 13, 2007 I'm not gonna get too sentimental.... April 10, 2007 iTunes the Church Lady? I didn't investigate this, as iTunes requires buying the full album just to hear the song in question, but this sure seems like a weird kind of censorship if it is happening.... April 10, 2007 The bait and switch PZ has a simple request. If we uppity atheists are guilty of arguing against the worst arguments on the other side, will someone please lay out clearly the alleged "best" arguments? [T]he "best" of the religious views are mentioned as... April 09, 2007 "We've got virgin teenage America being raped on the sidewalk" And war is the only solution. Jeff Sharlet's new Rolling Stone article on BattleCry: "When you enlist in the military, there's a code of honor," Luce preaches, "same as being a follower of Christ." His Christian code requires a "wartime... April 09, 2007 It's an Easter miracle! Proving that at least one resurrection really did happen on this day, the Rational Response Squad YouTube account is back up. Some history. A couple facts: Atheists who spoke up in defense of a Christian pastor whose single video was... April 08, 2007 Don't forget That you can see The God Who Wasn't There for free today (if you're reading this on Easter Sunday) over the intertubes. Some comments on the screening at DailyKos. (On Easter! How dare you!)... April 08, 2007 Links I found my own damn self, mostly Parrot sketch mashup. Make sure you don't have food or drink in your mouth when you start this one. "The Foley Room." Interesting approach to manufacturing artificial instruments. And good music, as usual from Amon Tobin. This would probably be... April 08, 2007 Free! Special Easter screening of The God Who Wasn't There Zachary Moore is streaming the movie all day Easter Sunday at his blog. How exactly will you be watching it? I don't know. But I told him he could do it.... April 07, 2007 There's a name for it Every year at this time, those people who beat themselves silly and get nailed to a cross make the news. As if this behavior is unusual. But there are people doing this kind of thing every single day. Getting beaten... April 06, 2007 Engadget review of Apple TV Interesting facts: 1. Apple TV requires an HDTV. 2. Due to inherent limitations in iTunes content, you will be watching virtually no video in HD resolution using Apple TV. I think I'll be waiting on this one.... April 06, 2007 Links you sent me "What if God Smoked Cannabis?" Warning: REALLY LOUD. Turn down speakers before clicking. (Thanks, Lexi) "Craig" Warning: Excessive mugging. (Thanks, Maria) Let us not forget what today, Good Friday, is really about: Indulging our bloodlust in a socially acceptable manner:... April 06, 2007 Two for two The Institute for Humanist Studies now has an unbroken record of failing to describe the you-know-what dust-up accurately in its "news" stories. In the topic sentence of his IHS/Humanists.net-hosted article on the Epstein controversy, August E. Brunsman promotes a familiar... April 06, 2007 The water wars Another virtually guaranteed future calamity that we tend not to think about. (Our children are sure to thank us for not noticing that water is a zero-sum game.)... April 05, 2007 Some links Monster. (Thanks, Javier.) PZ Myers seems to agree that the proper response to Epstein's tactic is contempt, in his case bored contempt: Ho-hum. Whenever I see someone jabbering about "fundamentalist atheists," a combination of terms that makes no sense at... April 05, 2007 Fox News humanists My issue with Fox News isn't one of philosophy. I don't mind that Fox News is conservative, or that it wants to get its conservative point of view out to the public. The problem with Fox News is that it... April 05, 2007 See "Bat Boy" in Nashville Looks like a good production.... April 04, 2007 More convenient mischaracterizations Greg Epstein now has a (sort-of) defender! Well, it happens to be a guy who had a hand in writing the press release containing the infamous 22 words... A group of renowned Humanists, atheists and agnostics will gather at Harvard... April 04, 2007 A new kind of debate Formal debates about the existence of God suck. Always. One problem is that so many debates are set up with the misplaced notion of balance. One side is making an extraordinary claim, yet the side with the default position (not... April 04, 2007 Obligatory "atheist fundamentalism" post Comments by others: Daylight Atheism Ironwolf If Epstein has defenders, I haven't encountered them.... April 04, 2007 Atheism Week at Mickipedia What I said earlier about videoblogging? It doesn't apply if you're a cute atheist with a nice voice who can speak off the cuff while still making a coherent point. But that probably went without saying.... April 03, 2007 Because they think Well, it's a simple question. (Be one of the hundreds to comment at Digg.)... April 03, 2007 This post is not about Greg Epstein Some videos: Greydon Square album coming 6-5-07 Waterboarding Growing up in the universe (Pre-order now)... April 03, 2007 Greg Epstein ≠ humanism Perhaps lost in the controversy over Greg Epstein's attempt to frame his dispute as "humanism vs. atheist fundamentalism" is that Epstein mischaracterizes the former half of that conflict as well. Not all humanists would stand with Epstein against Sam Harris... April 03, 2007 The litmus test In 2003, I marched many times alongside several religious and "interfaith" groups who shared my position on the Iraq war but did not share my view that there was no sky god looking down on all of us protesters as... April 03, 2007 The F-word What a train wreck. Harvard's Humanist chaplain Greg Epstein seems determined to take the worst possible approach in his response to the controversy he started. His decisions are like an object lesson in bad crisis management. That controversy, to sum... April 02, 2007 If it's not my god, it's atheism Throughout the history of religious belief, what's the most likely way for a god to enter the public imagination? The answer is clear: The deification of a leader -- whether warlord, king or emperor. In fact, it's possible that's how... April 02, 2007 It exists because I say so: "The sensible religious center" This incoherent USA Today op-ed by Tom Krattenmaker is a model of knee-jerk "the middle is always right" thinking. The short version... You can bash my enemies: No doubt, the high-profile atheists have a legitimate point when they detail the... April 02, 2007 The challenges of a temporal medium I agree with this critique of video blogging. A major flaw in the vast majority of vlogs is that they take, say, 10 minutes of rambling to say the same thing that would probably take me 2 minutes to read... April 01, 2007 The GOP economy UPDATE: But don't worry, the rich have it tough as well.... April 01, 2007

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