Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog

(Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft)

A temple pre-dating the pyramids has been discovered in Turkey.

For the children? In Texas, non-religious people pretend to be Christian in order to avoid the persecution of their children.

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It’s a new year, and we all know what that means — Ireland has decided to outlaw blasphemy, becoming the first democratic country in recent memory to restrict free speech in the name of religion. Ireland’s Atheist Association is already doing their best to break the law, in order to fight the new law in court.

(by Leo Burnett)

On New Year’s day, we presented links to the best of 2009, and the decade. It would appear that the Big Bad Blog has missed one such link: the top scientific discoveries of 2009.

Also, famed fan of zombie literature Jane Austin would definitely be on Twitter. If she had had the opportunity.

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	Imagine if the Fed and the TSA switched roles …
Toothbrush sanitisation, Ninja style.
	The best-ever movie review for Avatar, titled Please mount my hot blue alien.
Normally there would be a link here. There isn’t one. Instead, I am asking: Can anybody tell me who made the image directly to the right? It’s fantastic.
	North Carolina has freedom of religion, like most of the United States. Unlike the rest of the United States, however, that freedom does not extend to atheism — Atheists are not allowed to hold public office, in a law soon to be shot down in court.
Question: so when Bella gets her period, Ed just flips a shit, right?
	Sorry, ethical vegetarians. Plants want to live, too.
Toddlers ask, BoingBoing answers: Why is poop brown?

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	I love my Roomba. Not only does it clean the floor, but it protects me from snakes.
Scientists must now be on the lookout for fake conferences. Apparently the con artists out there have decided to aim themselves at the most skeptical group they could think of.
	Like museums? Like steampunk? Go to Oxford.
Conservative Christians have been doubting evolution since the day before Darwin came up with it. Now Muslims are starting to do the same thing. Please, people — could the atheists stop claiming that evolution proves religion to be wrong (it doesn’t), and religious folks stop pretending that evolution cannot be true (it is).
	Denizens of Montreal: Be happy for the presence of Concordia University in your city. They are bravely protecting you from novelists. Novelists who are interested in bilingualism. And who take pictures. Or at least have pictures taken of them. Or at least allow others to take pictures of them.
Some breasts are too big for China.
	Book titles, if they were written today. I think this would make a fantastic Twitter meme.
For those of you who do not have Twitter accounts, be warned: The police can arrest you for failure to Tweet.

linking bilingualism, bombs, bravo, captain america, carrots, Concordia, emo, evolution, explosions, fraud, museums, nuclear, operation castle, Paul Nicklen, penguin, religion, roomba, scientists, snakes, steampunk, twitter