This one is for the godless among us: a survey on Coming Out as an Atheist. It’s a little longer than the previous one, I’m afraid.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This one is for the godless among us: a survey on Coming Out as an Atheist. It’s a little longer than the previous one, I’m afraid.
Help the National Academies out:
What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you’d like to learn more about. They invite you to participate in a brief survey. You can find that survey here.
In the 2-minute survey you’ll be presented with a list of topics and asked to select the five that matter most to you. At the end, you can see how your answers compare with the results so far. And you can enter a drawing to receive a National Academies tote bag!
Let the National Academies know what topics you think they should focus on so they can be sure to provide you with materials that are informative and useful. Your participation is greatly appreciated.
(from Mark Whittaker’s personal collection of dive photos)
Dance, everyone!
We need more monkey music.
Perhaps you have been pondering the meaning of the new traditional greeting, Happy Monkey! (important usage note: it is not Merry Monkey, nor is it Happy Monkey Day. It is simply “Happy Monkey”, full stop. Trying to change the phrase means you are waging war on the Monkey, and you know how they will respond.) I haven’t. I’ve been bogged down in the end-of-semester grind for the last week, writing tests, giving tests, grading tests, and there has been little room in my brain for deep philosophical thought.
But then, just a few minutes ago, I reached an end. The exams and papers were all marked and graded, and I filled out the forms and submitted them to the registrar. And I had an epiphany. Happy Monkey is not a day, not a greeting card, not just a phrase. Happy Monkey doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Happy Monkey…perhaps…means a little bit more. And what happened then…? Well, my small Monkey grew three sizes that day!
Happy Monkey is any moment that you feel the burdens lifted, that you feel a lightening of the mood, that you feel puckish and prankish and like kicking your heels. Happy Monkey can strike any time, any day!
So Happy Monkey, everyone! And may you have many Happy Monkeys in days to come!
No, the Minnesota recount is not over yet, and we still don’t know whether Franken or Coleman will be our senator. At last word, Coleman held a 192 vote lead, but thousands of ballots are awaiting a verdict on eligibility from the state Supreme Court. It’s the most mind-numbingly tedious process ever, so far.
However, scrutiny of the ballots has revealed one vote for the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor, and another for Franken and Lizard People for US Senator. The latter was rejected as an overvote, but the former did also have a vote that counted for Al Franken.
If you want a deeper discussion of the recount progress, go to Greg Laden. I’ve got the news off until my grading is done.
It’s easy — just follow the link from The Countess’s blog, read about weird supernatural monsters, leave a comment, and you’re entered in a drawing for an anthology of erotic horror stories.
Yeah, erotic horror. I think it’s supposed to leave you all hot and bothered in a state of tension … not erotic horror like retelling a woman’s sexual history in a church service, which is horrifying in an “eww, ick” and “cover the children’s ears, Martha!” and “ooooh, Harold, I come over all tremulous just thinking about it” sort of way. Sanctimonious dunderheads need not apply.
Yeah, they’ve got us there.
Some online news organization has revivified the Cincinnati Zoo/Creation “museum” controversy, and they have blamed me for it all. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate the credit, but really, it must be shared with the thousands of people who responded with their letters, and particularly with the zoo administrators, who so quickly saw the folly of forming an affiliation with an anti-science/anti-education organization like Answers in Genesis.
However, Mark Looy of the Creation “museum” generously credited me by name as the ringlea…um, criminal mastermi…uh, instigator of the campaign to separate science from irrationality.
“I think so much pressure came on the zoo — not only by local residents, but [from] all over the country, including an email campaign instigated by a professor in Minnesota, several hundred miles away,” notes Looy.
“He got many of his colleagues to send very angry emails and made some nasty phone calls to the zoo — so much so that the guest relations people at the zoo were just overwhelmed with how to deal with this.”
According to The Associated Press, University of Minnesota-Morris biology professor P.Z. Myers urged readers of his blog to contact the zoo. In an email to the news service, he expressed his pleasure that the zoo moved so quickly and stated that someone in the zoo’s marketing department “lost sight of the educational mission of the institution while trying to make money.”
You know what this means. It means a new flood of angry emails from aggravated creationists. I guess the site where this was posted gets a lot of right-wing traffic, because the loons are calling. I’ve tossed a few of these letters below the fold — have fun. It’s the weirdest thing, too — the majority of them are actually written in Comic Sans. You didn’t think I picked that font for posting ridiculous comments on accident, did you?
