Bigotry is okay if you have a religious excuse

As most of you probably know, equal rights took another blow after the gay marriage bill was shot down in New York. I wasn’t going to say much about it since this is becoming a sad trend in the US, and I’m running out of witty things to say. But last time people accused me of hating on Maine and no other state (apparently some people had their Sarcasm Sensors turned off – seriously, read some of those crazy comments), so I figured I needed to mention it.

New York Senators, you suck.

I’m not really sure what more I can say without repeating myself. This is sad, but I honestly think the best way to get gay marriage to pass isn’t to change minds, but to wait 10 years. Old bigots will die off, young people (who are significantly more accepting of gays) will become voters, and the tides will turn. It may be a while, but do we seriously think we can reason with people like Senator Ruben Diaz?

Diaz, the second speaker during the debate, set the tone early for the discussion about religion. “Gay marriage,” he said, “is not only opposed by us evangelicals.

“All the major religions in the world also oppose it,” Diaz, who grew up in Puerto Rico, said. “The Jewish religion opposes it. The Muslim religion opposes it. The Catholic religion opposes it.”

You know, when I hear that, the first thing I think is that there’s a problem with religion, not gays. Bah, crazy talk.

(Hat tip to Bryan)

New Merch: Evolution of Christmas

There’s new a new design up at Blag Hag Swag, titled the Evolution of Christmas (click for larger image):Who can deny the resemblance between Darwin and Santa Claus? Except his sleigh is a bit different. I need to include stuff like this in my grad school apps to show how passionate/geeky I am about evolutionary biology.

You can buy it on t-shirts, mousepads, coffee mugs, greeting cards, and postcards. I think the coffee mugs look especially nice, since the design wraps around the whole mug:And this is a bit late, but you can get 50% off if you buy 10+ greeting cards or post cards if you enter the code 12DEALSCARDS at checkout before 11:59 pm PT tonight! Even better, you can customize the text of the cards however you want. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Monkey, witty evolution pun – whatever your heart desires. Go spread some nerdy love for the holidays!

If you’d like this available on any other sort of merchandise over at Zazzle, let me know and it shall be done.

My mind is blown

Last night we had a pizza party and game night for the Society of Non-Theists’ last meeting of the semester. I brought my Wii along, and being foolish, didn’t bring the sensor bar. My logic at the time was that all the games I brought didn’t require the sensor bar, so why waste time untangling it from the jungle of wires behind me TV? As I turned the Wii on in the classroom, I remembered that you need to use the sensor bar to click the button on the Wii menu that actually starts the game. You’re unable to do this any other way – d-pad, joystick, and other random button mashing didn’t work.

My first thought was “Well, fuck.” My second thought was, “Wow Nintendo, I hate you. Way to make completely user-unfriendly controls just so people require your sensor bar.” My third and most intelligent thought was, “The internet must have a solution.”

I skimmed through a couple of pages of Google before I found something. It seemed so simple that I didn’t believe it. I yelled over the din of pizza eating heathens, “Does anyone have a lighter?”

Oh my God. AMAZING.

The way a Wiimote works is by detecting infrared light. You can also produce infrared light with fire. Members and I looked on in awe as I controlled the Wiimote by pointing it at a flame. It seemed like freaking magic, but no – it was SCIENCE.

Science wins again, allowing a bunch of atheists to beat each other up in Brawl and die hilariously in Super Mario Brothers (cooperation is hard!).

Two mommies are better than one

Japanese researchers have found that female mice made from the DNA of two egg cells (bi-maternal or BM) have significantly longer lifespans than female mice made the “normal” way – from the DNA of an egg and a sperm. They think this is due to Rasgrf1, a imprinted gene on chromosome 9 of the father. BM females were also significantly smaller and lighter, which makes sense when you think of sex-specific selection. Males have increased fitness if they spend more energy growing bigger quickly because that will increase their number of mates. Females, however, get no benefit in growing bigger, since they’ll probably have the same number of mates no matter what. Losing paternally inherited genes dealing with this growth means they conserve energy and can live longer.

… *ahem*

SCIENCE IS SO FREAKING COOL!

Seriously, can you believe that we’re doing research like this? I actually remember asking a biology teacher in high school why we can’t just combine DNA from two eggs or two sperm and get a viable organism. They said it was impossible because of genetic imprinting – you need a set genes imprinted from mom, and a set imprinted from dad. But now we have the power to manipulate imprinted genes and do what we thought to be impossible just a few years ago. How cool is that?

And on top of that, I have to wonder what this means for gay couples. Obviously there’s a huge step between animal research and human research, but wouldn’t this be awesome for lesbian couples who could afford it? Not only do you actually get a daughter who is a genetic blend of both of her parents, just like any other child, but they may even have an extended lifetime? Awesome! I guess that would take away one of the ridiculous arguments fundies like to use – that you shouldn’t allow gay marriage because they can’t produce children. Ha, TAKE THAT FUNDIES! SCIENCE!

Free shipping at Zazzle today!

Thought I’d let you all in on a little secret. You can get free shipping over at Zazzle.com (where I have my store) until midnight tonight! All you have to do is enter the code “HOLIDAYSHIPS” at checkout. For all of you international people, sorry – it’s only within the US.

So go buy some Blag Hag Swag! Not only will it make a great gift for a scientific loved one, but it’ll make a great gift for me when I get my check ;)

Dodads and insanity

Hey everyone! Sorry for my absence lately. ‘Tis the season of final projects, papers, exams, and graduate school applications. As you can imagine, I’m a bit out of my mind and not sleeping much, so blog posts may not be as frequent. Don’t worry – once winter break* hits, I’ll be bored out of my mind! My blogging then will probably make up for my disappearance now.

What, this post wasn’t atheisty enough? Well, here, look what came in the mail the other day**:If you follow Hemant over at Friendly Atheist, you’ll remember he had a little contest to win this heatheny Memo Maid for your computer. And yep, I was one of the winners! What was the contest?

We all know that Ray Comfort is giving away copies of The Origin of Species to college students… with his own 50-page introduction “debunking” the book.

What’s the next book Comfort will write an introduction to, and what already-airtight theory will he attempt to debunk in the process?

And what did I say that was so brilliant?

He’ll add a special intro to The Joy of Sex, reminding people that it only applies to married heterosexual couples and that all the sections except for the missionary position should be ignored.

I almost feel like I’m cheating. Every time I make a sex joke in one of Hemant’s contests, I win a prize (got a Friendly Atheist wristband last time!). Hemant, you’re just too easy***.

*Am I going to be banned by some Christian group because I didn’t say Christmas break?
**No, Hemant didn’t come included. I was just too busy/lazy to take my own photo. Though now that I think of it, a mail-order Hemant would be pretty cool…
***Double entundre obviously intended.
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****Alright, must stop innuendo about internet personas before I upset the boyfriend ;P