P.Z. Myers

“Bachmann Watch,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s new Web site for fact-checking Rep. Michele Bachmann, corrects some of the Sixth District congresswoman’s recent misstatements, including her refuted claim that Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan would raise household energy costs by $3,100 per year and her assertion, which turns out to be false, that she refused [...]

For the first time in history, people who don’t believe in a god or gods got a mention by a president in an inaugural address. The mention of one word has atheists, agnostics, humanists and free thinkers feeling welcome under the new administration.
In his address on Tuesday, Barack Obama said, “We are a nation of [...]

While Catholic bishops and priests can hear confessions about sins as severe as murder or genocide, the Vatican’s 830-year-old Apostolic Penitentiary is “reserved for crimes which are viewed by the Church as even more serious,” writes the UK’s Telegraph. In Rome this week, this secretive “tribunal of conscience” held a two-day panel [...]

Congrats to PZ Myers. The caustic and often hilarious University of Minnesota, Morris professor and Pharyngula blogger has won the (not so) coveted Moore Award. This annual honor is given out by Daily Dish proprietor Andrew Sullivan for “divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric.” What did Myers do to earn this distinction? He threatened a [...]

Newswise, it was an eventful 2008, thanks to the Republican National Convention, the historic election of Barack Obama, Sarah “In what respect, Charlie?” Palin, John McCain, Michele “anti-American” Bachmann, P.Z. Myers (and the communion “cracker” incident) and, now, the ongoing recount of ballots in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. MnIndy had a record year: We more than doubled 2007’s readership, welcoming nearly two million unique visitors, and saw nearly 6,000 comments. Here are two gauges of the stories you liked best — top 10s of the most-read and most-discussed stories.