I’m a little bit jealous: Seed is well represented at Netroots Nation, but I couldn’t swing it this year. It’s just as well, as it would have been sandwiched in between a couple of other jaunts, and I’m still trying to get back on my feet after wearing myself out in Atlanta.

It would have been great, though — a group of us, including me and Michael Bérubé, had a proposed session on academic freedom/”academic bill of rights” that got turned down. If you’re there, tell the organizers to bring us on next year!

The Republican National Convention is being held in St Paul at the Xcel Energy Center. My fellow Minnesotans are familiar with this place — it’s right across the street from the Science Museum of Minnesota. Would you believe the science museum is being closed to the public during the convention? There’s a metaphor jumping up and down, screaming for attention in that.

You know, shutting down the museum is probably a more effective way of discouraging me from frightening the Republicans than posting more armed guards, as Thomas Foley wants to do.

San Francisco is going to have a ballot measure to determine whether to name a sewage treatment plant after George W. Bush. I don’t know about this. I understand the sentiment, that it would associate Bush’s name with sewage, but sewage treatment plants are good things that take filth coming in and puts clean and pure out. Bush does the opposite.

Because if I lived in Kansas, I could vote for Sean Tevis for State Representative, a pro-education. pro-science candidate with a sense of humor. Since I live in Minnesota, though, I’ll have to settle for donating a few dollars to his campaign (you must click through to that link — you’ll be missing something great if you don’t.)

While everyone here is distracted by the debate over whether a cracker is tasteless bread dough or a sacred slice of man/god meat, the right-wing source of outrage du jour is a widely published photograph of an Iranian missile test in which one of the missiles was clearly photoshopped into the picture. Gary Farber cuts through the crap and points out that yes, government propaganda agencies will lie to you. So?

If the right wing wants to fuel more hysteria to incite war with Iran, though, it seems like a mistake on their part to emphasize that one quarter of their weaponry are digital confabulations.

This is horrible news. Some faction of the religious right has called for a boycott of McDonald’s fast-food — because they were a sponsor of the 2007 San Francisco gay pride parade. They claim it’s not about hiring homosexuals, or allowing homosexuals to eat at McDonald’s, or about how homosexual employees are treated, but is instead:

It is about McDonald’s, as a corporation, refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars. McDonald’s has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.

Oh. They don’t object to homosexuals being served food in the restaurant, they just object to promoting civil rights for gay people in the whole dang culture at large. Homosexuals can have the right to consume greasy fast food and work at low wages, but that’s it, we’re drawing the line at allowing them to be treated as full human beings.

And this is horrible news because now I’m going to have to stop by my local McDonald’s and order something. Maybe it’s enough if I just get a diet Coke there.

…take a look at this opinion of Obama’s stance on faith-based charities. I agree with it, except that I will be voting for Obama in November — and I will be carping at him for the next 4-8 years, too.