I am home and I am tired

It’s been a long and busy couple of days, participating in the Darwin Day events at Southern Illinois University, but it was worth it — in addition to having a splendid time and many great conversations, I got swag!

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After the talk at SIU, I traveled home by way of St Louis and met the skeptics group there for a splendid evening of carousing, and was given a fabulous leather hat by Gawdzilla. I received an astonishing number of compliments on my headware as I was going home the next day — it inspired lust and desire in all who looked upon me, despite my worn and bedraggled appearance otherwise.

You’ll notice I also have the official SIU Darwin Day Bobblehead. You should get one. It also attracted much attention from my fellow travelers. I’m thinking that if I were single (which will not happen!), I’d just walk around with the cool hat and the bobblehead on my shoulder and pick up girls. I’d be adorable and irresistible. How can you bear to be without your very own high-quality historically accurate Darwin?

By the way, I also had my crocoduck tie in my pocket, but wisely decided to keep it concealed — putting it on with that combination would have been like setting off an atom bomb of style, and I wouldn’t have been able to make it down the jetway without getting ravished.

By the way, Gawdzilla also field tests and breaks in the hats under grueling conditions.

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Suddenly, I don’t feel quite so pretty wearing it.

We missed Date Night at the Creation “Museum”!

I’m so sad. It sounded so charming: “This special evening begins at 6:00 PM with an inspiring message about love and the biblical view of marriage from Creation Museum founder, Ken Ham”. If only I could learn about romance from a sleazy fundamentalist atavism with a neck beard.

Sadly, some people who did know about it, and who paid the $71.90 in advance, and showed up to hear Ham’s special squeals of wisdom, got expelled.

Unfortunately, we were told at the door that we would not be allowed entry.

They explained to us that the Creation Museum Date Night was a “Christian environment”, therefore the presence of two men eating dinner together would not be allowed. The very sight of this would “add an un-Christian element to the event” and “disrupt the evening for everyone”.

That would be unchristian. Jesus always showed up for dinner with a hot chick on his arm, you know.

It’s also not a real Date Night without suspicious guards and security checkpoints. I know when I’ve been out of town for a few days and want a quiet evening to spend with my wife, we always start by threatening to tase each other.

Congratulations, Egypt

I think. Mubarak finally woke up and noticed that nobody likes him, and has resigned. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that power has been turned over to a military council. Shouldn’t a stable state have a plan for managing succession and change that is entirely civilian?

But for now it’s entirely for the better that a man who held onto power for 30 years has been deposed. Let’s just hope they aren’t trading one dictator for another.

Wait, you’re trying to decide who’s the best atheist, and you’re doing it with an online poll?

I know. That’s crazy. But I have no choice. Go vote.

Readers’ Choice Award for Best Atheist Blog of 2010

Atheist Revolution
1%

Common Sense Atheism
7%

The Friendly Atheist
5%

Martin S. Pribble
52%

Pharyngula
32%

Readers’ Choice Award for Best Atheist to Follow on Twitter

Matt Dillahunty

1%

Monicks

84%

PZ Myers

6%

Religulous

5%

Rosa Rubicondior
2%

Friday Cephalopod: Abdopus in love

It will soon be Valentine’s Day, and it’s not just the bipedal mammals that turn to amorous thoughts. TONMO has a fabulous series of photos of courting and mating Abdopus aculeatus — here’s one small sample.

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Your mission for Valentine’s Day is to get together with your partner and do your best to recreate the poses in the series. You will fail, but it will be fun trying.

Great jobs in Kentucky!

Wow, Ken Ham has been touting all the jobs his Ark Park will bring into Kentucky, and he’s already advertising. Isn’t that great? Look what opportunities are available:

Job Opportunities in the United States:

  • Constituent Data Administrator (CDA)
  • Guest Services Coordinator
  • Public Safety Console Operator
  • Senior Database Administrator (Senior DBA)
  • Video Editor/Animator/VFX
  • Web Developer–Python
  • Zoo Keeper
  • Ark Encounter Jobs

That’s a diverse assortment of jobs, and they just have one thing in common. One little bitty catch.

All job applicants need to supply a written statement of their testimony, a statement of what they believe regarding creation and a statement that they have read and can support the AiG statement of faith.

So, you get to manage a database or shovel llama shit, as long as you have Fundamentalist Jesus in your heart. That goes even for those jobs at the Ark Encounter, where they are begging for state subsidies while insisting that it isn’t really a religious ministry. If it isn’t, why do all the employees have to swear an oath to worship Jesus precisely as Ken Ham demands they do?

Creation “Science” Fair this weekend

Rats, I have to miss it again. The Twin Cities Creation Science wackos are buggering up science and children’s education again this weekend with a Creation Pseudo-Science Fair at the Har-Mar Mall, which will be temporarily renamed the Har-Har-Hardy-Har Mall in their honor. I’ll be back in Minneapolis on Saturday, but I’ve already booked the shuttle home to Morris and really don’t feel like it’s worth rescheduling just so I can see a deadly dull string of poor exhibits assembled by sad kids who will be slapping on bible verses because the rules say they have to and who will “Pray [their] exhibit will witness to non-Christian visitors”.

It’s just too depressing. Besides, I hear The Black Swan will be playing in Morris this weekend, and I’d rather go be cheered and uplifted by that uplifting and warm tale of human endeavor. Relatively speaking, that is.

Naughty museum, bad, bad!

I previously mentioned that the Science Museum in London is peddling quackery — they have exhibits that purportedly present nonsense like homeopathy and acupuncture as reasonable potential alternative treatments for some people. Since then, the Science Museum strove pitifully to cover their butts with some excuses, excuses that fall flat. I’ve seen photographs of the exhibits, and they go beyond objective anthropological reportage to uncritical acceptance of woo and the presentation of anecdotes as validating evidence. They should be deeply, horribly embarrassed, and should be looking into the biases of the people who designed the exhibit.

It’s one thing to discuss cultural practices as part of the story of that culture; it’s yet another to use the excuse of myth or sociology to uncritically present bad methods as if they are scientifically valid. The reason we should go to a legitimate science museum is to see the evidence and learn about the scientific reasoning behind it. Discarding critical thinking and whitewashing quackery is the antithesis of a real museum; it does draw in crowds, I’m sure (see the Creation “Museum” for a beautiful example), but at the cost of your integrity and the respect of the scientific community.

Marianne Baker and Alex Davenport have a reply to the Science Museum. I hope they pay attention instead of scrabbling to make more excuses. I’ve been to the Science Museum, lovely place, lots of fine exhibits…I wouldn’t want to have to start referring to it with “museum” always in quotes, if you know what I mean.