I kind of wish Bill Nye had been able to see those audience questions beforehand. There are so many slam dunks available when refuting young earth creationist claims, and Nye hit a few of them, but sometimes seemed to get bogged down in digressions that I felt probably weren't connecting with the audience.
Bill Nye has a reputation for being a super nice guy, and anyone else like Richard Dawkins would've chosen to spend more time leveling ridicule and veiled insults at him. And personally, I would've been completely bored and uninterested in that. It turned out to be a lot more of a reasonable actual "discussion" about the subject rather than a disgruntled argument between two assholes with high opinions of themselves, which is usually what I expect from these kinds of debates.
Reality show snake handler dies from snake bite - http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20140216/NEWS01/140216005/Reality-show-snake-handler-dies-from-snake-biteBest quote from the story - "Coots and the show's co-star, Rev. Andrew Hamblin, believe in a passage from the Gospel of Mark that suggests a poisonous snakebite won't harm them if they are anointed by God's power"
About two dozen Iraqi women demonstrated on Saturday in Baghdad against a draft law approved by the Iraqi cabinet that would permit the marriage of nine-year-old girls and automatically give child custody to fathers.The legislation [...] describes girls as reaching puberty at nine, making them fit for marriage, makes the father sole guardian of his children at two and condones a husband's right to insist on sexual intercourse with his wife whenever he wishes.The legislation is referred to as the Ja'afari Law, named after the sixth Shi'ite imam Ja'afar al-Sadiq, who founded his own school of jurisprudence.The draft was put forward by Justice Minister Hassan al-Shimari, a member of the Shi'ite Islamist Fadila party, and approved by the cabinet on February 25.It must now be reviewed by parliament [...]Iraq's current personal status law enshrines women's rights regarding marriage, inheritance, and child custody, and has often been held up as the most progressive in the Middle East.The proposed new law's defenders argue that the current personal status law violates sharia religious law.
Suppose Fred Phelps' funeral will be picketed? (Perhaps with GOD HATES FREDS signs?)http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/15/fred-phelps-founder-of-the-god-hates-fags-westboro-baptist-church-is-on-the-edge-of-death/Though somehow the best response might be if nobody showed up at all.One surprising claim from the article above was that Phelps was reportedly excommunicated from his own cult last August.
Also, God loves Freds.