A relative whom I care about forwarded me (and forty-four other people) a chain letter cautioning us about the risk of getting cancer from plastic food wrapping.

That’s nonsense, of course, like everything you receive by email.

The twist? This person — who now is presumably wary of that consarned plastic — smokes as if her life depended on it, and has done so for decades.

The mind boggles.

Did the wow then stop right away?

[Via Seth Godin]

Richard Dawkins is on tour promoting his new book, “The God Delusion,” in which he “asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11.”

He is going to appear in … Lynchburg, Virginia!

This can’t be good.

we’re hiring developers

Want to work on one of the coolest projects at Microsoft? [...] Do you want to take ideas from concept to live on the web in just a few hours or days?

That is the latest entry on the blog. It is dated November 17 2005. Ouch.

… live together in perfect harmony …

Right, well, on my good days, when I am not busy finding new ways of deluding myself, I like to call myself a “realist.” In my snooty science-elitist way, I intend this to mean (among other things) that I do not believe in hocus pocus nonsense like — oh, say, off the top of my head — astrology.

Here, “do not believe in” really means “detest with every fiber of my besserwisser being” but I am trying to say it nicely.

On that note, care to guess what is the most common way for people to stumble onto this blog?

According to my blog statistics, it is a Google image search for “sagittarius”.

That is just not fair.

The photo with this post is another example of irony in real life. According to the photographer, that is an actual brand of cigarettes, made in Japan.

And if you are still feeling peppy and light-hearted, never fear: there is plenty of apparently sincere human heartbreak to be had at PostSecret. Still, with all the negativity there, it feels oddly good to read. In a melancholy sort of way.