There’s a common joke that claiming to have knowledge of the existence of god is like claiming that you know you’ve got fairies living in your garden — both are equally ridiculous, and both require that the definition of the subject and of evidence for the subject be equally nebulous. The only difference is that billions are willing to accept the former, but no one is crazy enough to accept the latter…you’d think. Not so, though: there is actually something called the Icelandic Elf School where you can learn all about the classification and cultivation of various sorts of fairy-like entities.

Also known as Álfaskólinn in Icelandic, The Icelandic Elf School teaches students and visitors about the five different kinds of elves or hidden people in myth that are believed to inhabit the country of Iceland. The school is located in Reykjavík, the country’s largest city.

The school is headed by Magnús Skarphéðinsson, brother of the leader of one of Iceland’s largest political parties. Magnús has a full curriculum, and certificate programs for visitors that can be earned in as little as half a day. However, the school also publishes texts on hidden people, partly for its own use in the classroom. There is also ongoing research on the elves and hidden people of Iceland.

I’m thinking that this organization sounds a lot like the American Discovery Institute, or just about any bible college you can name.

(The Wikipedia entry cites a dearth of sources for the school — here’s another.)

The Phelps gang is picketing in Chicago with their “god hates fags” sign. Hate meets hate: there was a counter-demonstration.

Which side to take? I’m a firm believer in Myers’ Wager — who would you rather piss off, the little guy with the beard preaching peace and love, or the pitiless tentacled monstrosity from a space beyond space and a time beyond time? — so I’m going to side with this sign. Besides, she’s much cuter than the cryptkeeper Fred Phelps.

Now this is just getting silly. An Islamic theologian has declared that using ethanol as a fuel is sinful.

As if the debate around using ethanol to fuel cars weren’t already complicated enough, now an Islamic scholar has suggested that driving or even riding in a vehicle fueled by ethanol could be considered a sin for observant Muslims.

The opinion comes from Sheikh Mohamed al-Najimi, of the Islamic Jurisprudence Academy in Saudi Arabia. It is based on the part of Islamic law derived from a statement by the prophet in which dealing with alcohol in any form–including purchase, sale, transport, consumption, and manufacture–is strictly prohibited.

But…but…there are basic biochemical processes going on in every Muslim’s body that produce alcohols! If you’re going to get this ridiculous about restricting anything that has to do with alcohol, they’re going to have to get rid of those sinful dehydrogenases.

But really…don’t you suspect that this has more to do with Saudi Arabia’s status as an oil producing state than in any kind of genuine piety?

Sometimes, they just want to help me out.

[Read more…]

Normally, I leave the boring clouds of gas and emptiness to Phil, but this Hubble photo of the Carina Nebula actually has something cool.

Now I don’t want to hear anything from any of you about pareidolia. If the loons get their Virgin Mary in burnt pancakes, I want my Cosmic Cephalopod in distant smears of hydrogen.

Diagramming sentences — I remember that, and not at all fondly. I’m sure there’s a sensible purpose to it, but the English language is such a tangle that it was easy to say something trivial that would take ages for me to dissect and diagram. Don’t ask me to do it now, I’ve forgotten every bit of it.

It’s still amusing, though, to see these articles that diagram sentences spoken by a couple of well known people. Examine one of Obama’s sentences, and compare it to Sarah Palin’s words. Obama is “professorial”, always a good thing in my book, while Palin defies analysis.

I have to take their word for it, though. I see those diagrams and want to run back to my math class, which was much more comfortable.

I have been informed that I have survived a rather dreadful deadline. How is this for a prediction?

…Pharyngula, Panda’s Thumb, EvC, RichardDawkins.net and Uncommon Descent will all have so completely degenerated as to become nothing but embarrassing footnotes in the history of internet communication. I also predict that P.Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins will have so embarrassed their home institutions that overt attempts will have been initiated to have their tenures revoked on the grounds of moral turpitude and seeking to overthrow the government… Fortunately for them, by that date, February 9, 2009, the physical destruction of our civilization will have proceeded to such a degree that thinking people will no longer be concerned about intellectual trash like Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers.

It’s been over a week. No one has yet uncovered the loathsome pit of perversity I keep in the basement, nor has anyone even tried to stop Operation Whirling Squid, which will end with myself sitting in the throne of the World Emperor. I also don’t quite detect any panicking mobs fleeing the chaos of a collapsing culture.

I think someone was drinking a little too heavily there.

John Holbo has uncovered an old argument against atheists, one that might have oozed languidly from the fermenting brain of Ray Comfort. But no! This is from a 19th century book of poetry! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ray steals it soon, though.

Basically, it’s an invented disagreement. An imaginary atheist argues that in a well-designed universe, large oak trees ought to bear pumpkin-sized fruit, while little ground-hugging shrubberies out to have acorn-sized fruit. This is easily dismissed by the poet by having an acorn fall on the atheist’s head.

Fool! had that bough a pumpkin bore,
Thy whimseys would have work’d no more,
Nor skull have kept them in.

It even has an illustration of a weeping atheist, which John thinks might look like me, back in my youth in 1792, when I hadn’t grown the beard yet and was fond of tricorn hats, and was always being pelted with acorns by puritans.