Salvo 7: Just released edition features batty bioethicists, suckered scientists, senseless psychologists ...

Oh yes, and illiterate illusionists, "expert elitists," and home-grown humanists. Hey, what's not to like about this cast?

No seriously, it focuses on the New Atheism - new and unimproved, according to the contributors, many of whom you can read here.

Here, for example, Marcia Segelstsein interviews Dinesh D'Souza:

The first thing you notice about Dinesh D'Souza is an intellectual swagger that borders on cockiness without crossing over. Such confidence could be attributed to his Dartmouth education, to his position as policy advisor in the Reagan administration, to his near ubiquitous presence on television news shows, or to the library of critically acclaimed books that he has published on everything from racism to economic prosperity. But you get the feeling that it actually stems from the knowledge that, at any given moment, he is probably the smartest person in the room. Don't get me wrong; he's not arrogant in the least. It's just that he knows, deep down, that he's smarter than you; he's smarter than me; and perhaps most importantly, he's smarter than the New Atheists whom he routinely debates at universities across the nation.

Well, D'Souza might be the smartest person in the room or not, but the consistent problem with the New Atheism is that only the hostility is new, not the arguments. They are godless jihadis, for the most part, but they prefer press clippings and royalties to Afghan training camps and flying shards of bone. That preference I entirely understand but their efforts to advance their religious claims in the name of science are really getting to be quite the bore. My own quick guide to the new atheist movement is here.

My own regular Deprogram column in that isssue isn't about the New Atheism, actually. It's about the Flores man flap: DEPROGRAM with Denyse O'Leary The Hobbit That Wasn’t: A New Human Species Is Discovered, Doubted, and Debunked. Unfortunately, it won't be on line for months. Rot.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting piece from Salvo 6: Tom's Cruise-ade: Dunno Much Scientology by Regis Nicoll - on the growth of scientology among American celebs

One of my earlier Deprogram columns: Livin' on a Prayer At Least That's What One Much-Maligned Scientific Study Would Seem to Show

Hey, you know you want to subscribe. Give yourself or someone you know Salvo for Christmas, and help us new media writers continue to bring you good stuff cheap.

Rock you or shock you: That's Salvo, a non-materialist popular science mag.

Here's my recent piece in Salvo, a pop sci mag that either rocks or shocks, depending on whether you think that popular science MUST front for materialism (it doesn't). Here's my article about a nutritionist who did a study on whether prayer helps, found that it did, and was subjected to a savage onslaught from materialists and religious conventionalists, all of whom just wanted to shut him down.

Columnist lauds my favourite popular culture and science magazine!

In this column, column, Rebecca Hagelin has some more kind words for Salvo, a science and popular culture magazine that has kindly hosted some of my work. She writes, for example,

Take the obesity epidemic. It’s the fault of all that readily available fattening food, right? No, Salvo contributor Denyse O’Leary writes. As a child in the 1950s, she ate plenty of high-calorie food -- “greasy grilled cheese sandwiches, heaps of buttered potatoes drowned in rivers of gravy, and huge banana splits whenever we could get them.” But, O’Leary writes, she and her friends were also active -- riding bikes, swimming, running -- for hours every day. Unsupervised, at that.
The protected kids of 2007 follow a similar diet, but they exercise mainly their thumbs on the latest video games. “Today’s children will ride bikes and stay slim if their parents take them on bike trips,” O’Leary writes. “But the parents must then forego working overtime to pay for their next big purchase. Thus, our affluent society makes good health a question of choice, not chance.” Good luck finding that message in Time and Newsweek!

Good luck? You'd need a miracle, actually.

Here's the rest of my article on the bulge of pudge in our population. But don't stop there. Read all the excellent contributors, most of whom are way better than me. And subscribe! (unless you prefer to read tax-supported or billionaire-supported bilge.)