As Morris goes, so goes the nation

Turn off your TVs. Don’t bother watching the election coverage. I know you’ve all been wondering how little rural Morris, Minnesota, population 5000, would vote in the super Tuesday voting.

Turnout was heavy, with between 400 and 500 people showing up for the caucus, and the results were … (drumroll, please) … about 2:1 in favor of Barack Obama. A landslide victory!

The full, final, official tally for Morris:

Biden 1 0%
Clinton 139 26%
Dodd 0 0%
Edwards 8 1%
Kucinich 2 0%
Lynch 1 0%
Obama 387 72%
Richardson 0 0%
Uncommitted 2 0%

We had a turnout of 540 people, over 10% of the residents of the town. For a caucus. The Democratic base is motivated and ready to get out and change things. Now all we have to do is get the Democratic leadership to go along.

They’ve settled on a name…

…and now they just have to sign the prenup (there is a prenup, right?). Shelley and Steve are merging their two blogs as of early March, and they’ve picked one of the names one of you perspicacious readers suggested.

(I would have just said “This is madness!”, but then Shelley would have kicked me down a well. And they apparently did not like my suggestion of “Food for the Worm. Hmph.”)

Do you like your science snarky?

Sure you do. So you might enjoy this webcast series from Scientific American.

One of the things they mention is the recent “peer-reviewed” “scientific” “journal” from Answers in Genesis (sharply slammed by Larry Moran), and they criticize Nature‘s coverage, which urges scientists to avoid taking “too strong a stance against the journal” because it would “fuel creationist’s claim of scientific bias against religion.”

This is what always happens when you go to appeasers for quotes: you get urged to be a coward in dealing with the opposition.

In which I am criticized

I appreciate sincere criticism, I really do, and despite all the praise for my recent radio debate, I listened to it and mainly heard a lot of things I could have done better. So I like it when I find someone who also offers suggestions for improvement, but at the same time, I have to disagree with one (just one, the others are good) central point he makes.

However, in the future I would warn PZ against calling his opponent ignorant or berating them in a debate like this. Save that kind of stuff when you’re venting to your fellow smart people. Name calling doesn’t convince any of the audience and it gives your opponent a chance to get off the ropes through subversive rhetoric. Using the term “ignorant” allowed Simmons to take the upper hand and make PZ look like a dick even though he was right in pointing out Simmons’ lack of knowledge. Or at least, it would have allowed Simmons to take the upper hand if he didn’t suck so much. In essence, don’t attack the opponent, attack the opponent’s ideas.

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Let us pray

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Just the title of this book is good for a laugh: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Prayer. They’ve certainly got their target audience pegged.

As an added bonus, the reviews are amusing.

Have reviewed a number of books on prayer and they usually get too complicated and bogged down.

“Close your eyes and pretend” is too complicated? Are there rules and regulations and rituals that must be performed for this prayer thing that are baroque and beyond my understanding, or is this reviewer the kind of person who finds swallowing to be an act of will that requires concentration and practice?

I just recently returned to my Christain roots and the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Prayer helped answer a question that many of us are afraid to ask; “How do you pray?” I’ve seen it done hundreds of times but it’s all so mysterious. This book explains a variety of options to mix it so that prayer doesn’t become a chore.

I’ve seen it done, too, and no, it isn’t mysterious. People just talk to themselves, silently or aloud. It isn’t hard. It also doesn’t work. But it’s that last line that I found weird.

These people supposedly believe they have a direct, personal relationship with the Supreme Omnipotent Overlord of the Universe, and not only that, but he loves them and is deeply interested in the tawdry minutia of their personal lives. Yet they can consider having a conversation with such a being a “chore”? If such a being existed, and if I were able to talk with him, ask questions, and get answers, I’d be online with the big guy all the time and asking all kinds of questions. He’d be better than Google!

Of course, if he were a colossal tyrannical jerk who refused to answer any of my questions, then I’d consider it a chore. I’d also stop calling him up.

But then, I’m an atheist, and I’m smarter than they are — the Bible says so.

More details on the Thursday debate

As promised, here are the details on my debate this week.

Debate: Are Science and Religion Compatible?
An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse
with
Loyal Rue and PZ Myers
Sponsored by
Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists
Thursday, February 7, 2008
7:00pm – 10:00pm
West Bank Auditorium- Willey Hall
225 19th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55455

I must say I like the tagline — “An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse” — since I don’t think this will be the kind of ferocious bloody battle some of you might be hoping for. Rue is a religious moderate, so I don’t anticipate any opportunities to go on a rampage by either of us. Come prepared with thought provoking questions; I told Dr Rue that if we can’t initiate any gunfire between the two of us, we could always turn on the audience and get some spectacle that way.

There’s also the suggestion from Rick Schauer that this might be an excuse for Free Beer. Come to the Campus Club, on the fourth floor of the Coffman Union, around six and even if the beer isn’t free we can fortify ourselves. I think I’ll also invite Rue to join us. He’ll be drinking the hard stuff, keep his glass filled.

By the way, my answer to the question will be a solid “no,” if you were wondering.