But wait! There’s more!

You really don’t want to read about another terrifying crazy Republican woman, do you? Too bad. Here it is: a good Christian homeschooling mom who doesn’t like gay people. And by “doesn’t like”, I mean “wants them stoned to death and everything they touch blown up.”

A friend recently sent me this article about a “gay-friendly” high school. If we were living in a biblical society, homosexuality would be punishable by death so such a school would be unnecessary. Although I’m against the special accommodations, perhaps this new trend of segregation will protect straight kids from these predators. With any luck, some radical will blow up the gay school. No, I’m not condoning vigilantism–I’m merely saying that it would be poetic justice.

This has been yet another chapter in Our Scary American Electorate.

(via 2000 Years of Deception)

Even its promoters haven’t seen it

The horrible Expelled is now available on DVD. I have no plans to view it. However, you can get it from a site called redbox, which has a bizarre synopsis.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Who better to interview fanatics than the hilariously deadpan Ben Stein? Here, the former host of “Win Ben Stein’s Money” (and, it should mentioned, trusted Nixon advisor) hosts a documentary in which he sets out to ask the hard questions about the Intelligent Design theory to its most fervent believers.

I don’t know what they were thinking when they wrote that.

Why can’t we have this shown in the US?

Surely there can’t be anything objectionable to the Religious Right in a documentary called Animals in the Womb, can there? It sounds like it could be fun, with videos shot using tiny little cameras (and some simulations) of developing embryos in vivo. The only thing I object to is the silly title, since they do have invertebrates and non-mammalian vertebrates on the show, so “womb” is a major misnomer.

It’s going to be on Channel 4 in the UK — I suppose I’ll have to wait for it to be released on DVD.

There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Londoners might soon notice the slogan above on local buses: the Atheist Bus campaign starts today, with the purpose of raising money to promote atheism as a positive force in the culture and to encourage people to stop wasting time and effort in silly superstitions. Urban England seems like a strange place to start such a campaign; rural America needs it more, although the costs would be significantly greater, as they’d have to cover the replacement cost of all the buses that were set on fire.

You can donate, too. The campaign opened just today, and their goal was to raise £5500 — I’m amused to see that they reached that goal by 10am the very first morning, and now have £17000, and the number keeps going up.

Against mob rule and pandering to ignorance

Keith Olbermann rips into a certain “unstable congresswoman from Minnesota,” Rush Limbaugh, the politics of divisiveness, the McCain campaign, and places the ultimate responsibility on John McCain himself, and demands that he address the smears and bigotry of his supporters. It is great stuff.

I have to say that I am personally more than a bit tired of the yahoos on the right constantly telling me that I’m not a real American and that I hate my country.

And of course Jon Stewart charges in, too.

A step closer to efficient solar power?

I have to confess that the title of this paper, The remarkable influence of M2δ to thienyl π conjugation in oligothiophenes incorporating MM quadruple bonds, is Greek to me, that the abstract was impenetrable, and the paper itself was thoroughly incomprehensible. I’m a biologist, not a chemist or materials engineer! Fortunately, there are a couple of summaries that simplify the explanation enough that I can understand the gist of it, and it’s cool stuff. Researchers have made a new material that promises to greatly increase the efficiency of solar cells. It works by collecting photons over a wider spectrum of wavelengths and by using both fluorescence and phosphorescence to create an electron flow, allowing it to both collect more energy per unit area and facilitating the production of current.

This is promising news, and also illustrates why we need to fund basic research — these are the kinds of discoveries that can’t be simply planned and forced into existence, but require the liberty of the research enterprise to explore new ideas freely.

Don’t get too excited just yet, though. The research has uncovered useful properties of a combination of molecules that have only been tested in minute quantities. It remains to be seen if it can be scaled up efficiently, if it can be made cost-effective, and whether it can be simply made to work at a practical level. It’s still an exciting idea — they’re talking about nearly 100% efficiency.

Californians, it’s your turn

There is currently a proposal before Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to rip through desert wilderness in your state to put powerlines. Chris Clarke makes the case against it; you don’t have much time to respond, so phone or email your protests IMMEDIATELY. Let the state government know that there is a dedicated bloc of environmentally aware voters in the state who are not going to sacrifice what makes California a state worth living in for power company profits.