Et tu, New Zealand?

They’re popping up everywhere, and now in
New Zealand:

A Trust which teaches schoolchildren about evolutionary and creationist views of the universe wants to build a $30 million dinosaur park and museum, probably on the Coromandel Peninsula.

The Dinosaurs Aotearoa Museum Trust is working with Wellington’s Weta Workshop, which created characters for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, to create life-sized dinosaurs in a 40ha theme park.

Founders Darren and Jackie Bush run a Wellington business called Dinosaurs Rock which runs programmes about dinosaurs and geology for schools, giving children both the scientific theory of evolution and the biblical view that the world was created by God in seven days about 6000 years ago.

May they all go bankrupt.

Return of the Son of the Bride of Haeckel

The Discovery Institute is so relieved — they finally found a textbook that includes a reworked version of Haeckel’s figure. Casey Luskin is very excited. I’m a little disappointed, though: apparently, nobody at the Discovery Institute reads Pharyngula. I posted a quick summary in September of 2003 that went through several textbooks, and showed a couple of examples where redrawn versions of Haeckel’s diagram were used. More recently, I posted a fairly exhaustive survey by Patrick Frank of the use of that diagram since 1923, which showed that it was rare, and that the concept of recapitulation was uniformly criticized. Really, guys, the horse of recapitulationism is dead. Biologists riddled it with bullets in the 19th century, and have periodically kicked it a few times to be sure. For Intelligent Design creationists to show up over a century later and flog the crumbling bones of a long extinguished horse and crow victory is awfully silly.

So how can you still find any vestiges of Haeckel’s work in textbooks?

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Swish and swagger?

Laura Sessions Stepp is wondering what it means to be manly, and of course she has to resort to the cultural phenomenon of the last 30 minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and has invented an overwrought story that modern men are all confused by this swishy style personified by Captain Jack Sparrow — the fey sway, the frilly shirt, the lace on the wrist — and that all this business of empowering women is so stressful to young men.

I’m sorry, it’s too ridiculous for words. The only people who could possibly pull off that pirate style are Johnny Depp and Prince.* And I think it’s quite reasonable that women should be assertive and laugh away any fellow thinks the right pastels and properly gilded accessories will cause them to swoon into his arms.

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Real Men: Ragetti, Gibbs, and Pintel

Besides, I saw the movie, and know who the real masculine role models are. Grubby fellows who only occasionally shave and who have extraordinarily poor dental hygiene and a tendency to belch and wipe the excess rum off their faces with their sleeves. I swear, the fashionistas ought to be looking at these guys for fashion trends. This is where it’s at, bros.

It’s what I settle for, anyway.

At least until a few more years pass and biotechnology progresses so I can aspire to the full tentacle look, that is.

(via Grammar.police and Zeno)

*OK, not entirely true. Connlann can pull it off—but then, he inherited his looks from his mom and his attitude from his dad.

Looks like someone has a touch of the Caligula

Errm, why haven’t we started the impeachment proceedings on George W. Bush yet?

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

Is it because the Democratic Party is so gutless they can’t even legislate against an unpopular war, making a despised president untouchable?

American superiority…RESTORED!

Earlier, I was mildly perturbed that Canada was leading my country in the cheesy science “museum” race; this is, of course, a race to the bottom. Scott Hatfield has come to my rescue, though, and sent in some photos of Carl Baugh’s double-wide “Creation Evidence Museum” which is surely one of the tackiest examples of creationist silliness in the country—although, when you get right down to it, Ham’s opulent exhibit is just this same thing with buckets of money thrown at it.

You also might be able to find a picture of Scott in here if you’ve been wondering what he looks like. Hint: he’s not the guy in the purple robes in the last picture.

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In which American superiority manifests itself!

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Ha ha, pathetic Canadians.

They’ve put up their own creation “museum”—just look at it. It’s feeble. It’s like someone took a cheap suburban ranch-style home and put a sign on it and started charging admission to come take a look at their knick-knack shelf. Ha!

We’re #1! Our brand new American creation “museum” is a hundred times larger, a hundred times more expensive, shinier, fancier, a thousand times … the attendance, … even … more … stupidity, with …

…

Awww, crap. The Canadians outdid us again.