I want to be Paula Kirby when I grow up

Ah, that feels so good…Paula Kirby really cut loose on the believers yesterday. The topic was the compatibility of religion and freedom—they’re about as compatible as religion and science.

Religion claims to set its followers free, while all the time holding them in thrall and insisting they kiss the hand of their jailer. There can be no true freedom so long as religion still keeps the human mind in shackles.

You really must read the whole thing. It’s probably not a good idea to do it at work, though, because afterwords you’ll want to snuggle up and fall asleep.

Episode CLXXII: In praise of libraries and librarians

I’m sure many of the prattling horde will agree with this sentiment: we love libraries. When I was growing up, we lived within a few blocks of the town library, and I spent many happy hours immersed in that place. Apparently Alan Moore agrees with me.

I have no idea why Death is hovering over Moore’s shoulder. I think it’s part of the atmosphere that follows him everywhere.

(via Boing Boing)

(Current totals: 11,878 entries with 1,279,436 comments.)

What should we talk about?

I’m going to be on Atheist Talk radio on Sunday morning at 9am, for a whole hour. Greg Laden is going to be interviewing me, and he’s put up a thread asking for questions. Any questions. Go ahead, make me writhe and suffer and struggle on Sunday — I don’t mind, and it’ll be entertaining. Greg also has a sadistic streak, so he’ll have more fun if he can pin me down and needle me for an hour.

I’ve got a busy weekend ahead of me, but fortunately I don’t have to travel too much this time. I’ll be speaking to the Humanists of Minnesota at 10am on Saturday at the Nokomis Recreation Center (2401 E Minnehaha Parkway, Minneapolis), doing talk radio at 9am Sunday on AM950, and speaking to the Minnesota Atheists at 1pm Sunday at the Roseville Public Library. And I think I’ve talked myself into buying a decent pair of shoes in the Big City somewhere in there. Come on around if you’re local; both my talks will be sciencey stuff about evolution and genetics, but I’m always open to random questions in the Q&A, so if Greg Laden doesn’t pick up your suggestions, you can always deliver your zingers in person.

How can so many farm state politicians fail to understand the phrase “seed corn”?

Paul Krugman has a lovely phrase to describe Republican policies: Eat the future. They are under pressure to cut spending, any spending, but they refuse to touch anything that might cause immediate pain to the electorate…so instead, anything in the budget that affects future voters is going to get the axe.

Once you understand the imperatives Republicans face, however, it all makes sense. By slashing future-oriented programs, they can deliver the instant spending cuts Tea Partiers demand, without imposing too much immediate pain on voters. And as for the future costs — a population damaged by childhood malnutrition, an increased chance of terrorist attacks, a revenue system undermined by widespread tax evasion — well, tomorrow is another day.

He could have mentioned a few other areas that can be cut, like education, and especially science. Republican voters don’t understand science, they don’t support science, so if there’s anything in the budget that makes Republican politicians salivate in a hungry, predatory way, it’s science. So you won’t be surprised at the prospects for the NIH.

Dear Colleague,

For months the new House leadership has been promising to cut billions in federal funding in fiscal year (FY) 2011. Later this week the House will try to make the rhetoric a reality by voting on HR 1, a “continuing resolution” (CR) that would cut NIH funding by $1.6 billion (5.2%) BELOW the current level – reducing the budget for medical research to $29.4 billion!

We must rally everyone – researchers, trainees, lab personnel – in the scientific community to protest these draconian cuts. Please go to [this link] for instructions on how to call your Representative’s Washington, DC office today! Urge him/her to oppose the cuts to NIH and vote against HR 1. Once you’ve made the call, let us know how it went by sending a short email to the address provided in the call instructions and forward the alert link to your colleagues. We must explain to our Representatives how cuts to NIH will have a devastating impact on their constituents!

Sincerely,

William T. Talman, MD
FASEB President

The cannibals are out there, and they don’t look like you might expect: they wear nice suits and dresses, and they go to church every week, and they are fervent in their patriotism. But they’re planning to eat the future, anyway.

It’s gonna be open season on abortion doctors in South Dakota!

I’m only a few miles away from the Dakotas — if HB1171 passes, I could put on some hospital scrubs (camouflage, you know), lurk quietly in a hospital, and when some ob-gyn pokes his or her head out, BAM, justifiable homicide.

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to expand the definition of justifiable homicide to provide for the protection of certain unborn children.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. That § 22-16-34 be amended to read as follows:
22-16-34. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.
Section 2. That § 22-16-35 be amended to read as follows:
22-16-35. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person, if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great personal injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished.

They’ve still got to amend this thing, though. There’s no mention of a season or of bag limits.

As you might guess, this abomination of a law is the product of Republican legislators and their crazy far-right-wing allies.

The original version of the bill did not include the language regarding the “unborn child”; it was pitched as a simple clarification of South Dakota’s justifiable homicide law. Last week, however, the bill was “hoghoused”–a term used in South Dakota for heavily amending legislation in committee–in a little-noticed hearing. A parade of right-wing groups—the Family Heritage Alliance, Concerned Women for America, the South Dakota branch of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and a political action committee called Family Matters in South Dakota—all testified in favor of the amended version of the law.

Read the rest. South Dakota already has the most indefensibly restrictive set of abortion laws in the country, and last I heard, had no abortion doctors — they rely on a very few Minnesota doctors who regularly fly in to a few locations to deliver essential services. Now the South Dakota legislature is doing even more to discourage responsible reproductive health and is doing further harm to women in the state.

A Québécois poll

I got a request from the Association Humaniste du Québec to pharyngulate a poll, and who am I to turn away a mob of idiosyncratic and fiercely independent citizens? Quebec, as you may know, has been making great strides in promoting secularism, ending the nonsense of saying prayers before meetings and removing religious symbols from provincial establishments. There is still, however, a crucifix hanging in the National Assembly room. So here’s the question:

Le crucifix a-t-il toujours sa place au Salon bleu de l’Assemblée nationale? (“Does the crucifix have any business in the blue Room of the National Assembly?”)

Oui 60%
Non 36%
Je ne sais pas 4%

Singing La Marseillaise while voting is entirely optional.

I have very little sole

I have concluded that Jerry Coyne is the Imelda Marcos of evolutionary biology. I want to see a photo of the boot wing of his palatial mansion…or maybe he has a dedicated Boot Garage attached to his home, accessed by a fireman’s slide and a bullet train?

I confess to some disgraceful philistinery, in contrast. I tend to buy one pair of cheap tennis shoes and wear them into the ground, at which time I throw them out and buy another cheap pair. Some day I might have to acquire some style, I suppose.

A poll with two bad words in it

Those two wretched words are “faith” and “homeopathy”. Please go kill it. Kill it, then burn it, then piss on the ashes, then use the ashes to fertilize a field and grow a tall stand of grass, then burn that, and then use the field as a fecal lagoon where you toss the waste from raising pigs, which you turn into bacon, thereby salvaging something useful from it.

See? I can too be an optimistic dreamer.

Do you have faith in homeopathy?

Yes: it works 68%
No: it’s nonsense 26%
I’ve an open mind on it 5%

Asking the Big Questions

My university is running a year long open seminar called Asking the Big Questions, in which speakers are brought in to more or less informally discuss ideas with an audience. This year’s theme is “faith and spirituality”.

Yuggh.

Anyway, they’ve brought in people to discuss Chinese philosophy, Wicca/paganism, Islam, etc. I think it’s good that students are getting exposed to diverse ideas and that proponents are given an open forum in which to discuss them, even if what it means is that often bullshit is getting presented as serious thought. Let people listen and think.

Except now they’re dragging me into it. I’m speaking on Thursday evening, 7:00 in the Briggs Library McGinnis room (6:30 if you want to come for socializing) on atheism, agnosticism, and secular humanism. The library is also providing a few short, serious readings on the natural selection, atheism, agnosticism, and humanism for attendees to read ahead of time. (You can get to them by going to the library’s Electronic Reserves page and searching by instructor for “Bremer”; look for course number “Lib5000”.) Dayyum. I thought I was just supposed to show up with a flamethrower and set the room on fire.

The format for the evening is that I should say a few words for 15 minutes, and then the discussion is open to questions. It might be fun, if people turn out, so I’m hoping to get a good mix of enlightened atheists and ignorant, savage believers in the audience. Show up if you’re in the neighborhood of Morris on Thursday.