This is an experiment

Acephalous is trying to measure the rate of propagation of links across the net. He’s asking everyone to link to his post (so this may just be shameless blog-whoring under the guise of doing science), exhort our readers to do likewise, and he’s going to be monitoring its movement through Technorati, and will report the results at the MLA meetings.

So you heard me. Get on your blog, link to http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2006/11/measuring_the_s.html, and let’s see how quickly we can saturate the blogosphere.

(via Bitch Ph.D)

? Peace, man ?

There is this woman in Colorado who’s being sued for displaying a peace symbol on her home—it’s very weird.

A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

Well, it is a peace symbol, you know, so it is rather abstractly against the Iraq war. There was also this long-dead Jewish rabbi that some people call the “Prince of Peace”, and I understand he’s having a holiday sometime soon…I wonder if the homeowner’s association will be policing the housing development for Christian symbols, too? Probably. These guys do sound hardcore.

I’ve never heard of the peace symbol being associated with Satan. I think someone’s making stuff up. Couldn’t they have just said it was a symbol for those damned dirty long-haired hippies, and left it at that?

Also, look at this: it’s pathetic.

peace_symbol.jpg

Here, let me show you how it’s done. I think she needs to escalate.

This is a house down the street from me, here in the red state wilderness of western Minnesota. This display has been up every year that I’ve been here—that peace symbol must be about 12 feet in diameter.

toms_house.jpg

See? That’s how you flaunt a peace symbol. It makes me feel a little better every time I walk by it.

Ah, the power of the news and internet. The tinpot dictators realized that they were looking like pathetic, petty wankers to the entire world, and they’ve withdrawn their demands. I think Mr Kearns, the Homeowners Association GOD, has received a spanking.

None of the three members of the board in the scenic town 270 miles southwest of Denver was available for comment late Monday. Kearns and colleague Jeff Heitz both had their phone numbers changed to unlisted numbers Monday. Tammy Spezze, the third board member, did not return a call seeking comment.

☮ Peace, man ☮

There is this woman in Colorado who’s being sued for displaying a peace symbol on her home—it’s very weird.

A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

Well, it is a peace symbol, you know, so it is rather abstractly against the Iraq war. There was also this long-dead Jewish rabbi that some people call the “Prince of Peace”, and I understand he’s having a holiday sometime soon…I wonder if the homeowner’s association will be policing the housing development for Christian symbols, too? Probably. These guys do sound hardcore.

I’ve never heard of the peace symbol being associated with Satan. I think someone’s making stuff up. Couldn’t they have just said it was a symbol for those damned dirty long-haired hippies, and left it at that?

Also, look at this: it’s pathetic.

i-f47af8a71b7fbe47f1b1d5a53ff83aee-peace_symbol.jpg

Here, let me show you how it’s done. I think she needs to escalate.

This is a house down the street from me, here in the red state wilderness of western Minnesota. This display has been up every year that I’ve been here—that peace symbol must be about 12 feet in diameter.

i-a7d1225817913c8f0e3ad5b89c764dd9-toms_house.jpg

See? That’s how you flaunt a peace symbol. It makes me feel a little better every time I walk by it.

Ah, the power of the news and internet. The tinpot dictators realized that they were looking like pathetic, petty wankers to the entire world, and they’ve withdrawn their demands. I think Mr Kearns, the Homeowners Association GOD, has received a spanking.

None of the three members of the board in the scenic town 270 miles southwest of Denver was available for comment late Monday. Kearns and colleague Jeff Heitz both had their phone numbers changed to unlisted numbers Monday. Tammy Spezze, the third board member, did not return a call seeking comment.

Apologists Ambiguous

Lots of you have been alerting me to this op-ed in the NY Times, but I have to confess that I read it, and Richard A. Schweder makes no sense at all in his “Atheists Agonistes” article. His conclusion seems to be that we should stop “waging intellectual battles over the existence of god(s)”, but everything preceding that point doesn’t seem to make any kind of sensible case for much of anything. Here’s the heart, I think; he’s wondering why we’re seeing this resurgence of godlessness as a literary genre:

[Read more…]

Unfair!

Jesus’ General is poking fun at Mitt Romney’s weird religious doctrines (he’s a Mormon). This isn’t right. I demand that he give equal time to pointing out the silliness of Hillary Clinton’s (Methodist), John Kerry’s (Catholic), Russ Feingold’s (Jewish), and John McCain’s (whatever will get him the nomination) religion. There’s goofiness galore in all of those, too, and it’s unfair to leave them out.

It must be that good British beer

They’re befuddled over there in the UK—I know that when I visited, I seemed to down a couple of pints of that potent stuff every day, so I’m assuming the natives must also be living in a constant state of alcohol saturation. Right? It’s the only explanation I can think of for the latest burst of creationist foolishness in the UK. They’ve got the former head of some school out there coming out in favor of the shoddy pseudoscience that this creationist group, Truth in Science, has been peddling.

[Read more…]

What’s up, NSTA?

This is a troubling development, and perhaps some members of the National Science Teachers Association in the readership here know something about it. They seem to be in the pocket of the oil industry.

In tomorrow’s Washington Post, global warming activist Laurie David writes about her effort to donate 50,000 free DVD copies of An Inconvenient Truth (which she co-produced) to the National Science Teachers Association. The Association refused to accept the DVDs:

In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other “special interests” might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn’t want to offer “political” endorsement of the film; and they saw “little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members” in accepting the free DVDs. …

[T]here was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.”

As it turns out, those supporters already include “special interests,” including Exxon-Mobil, Shell Oil, and the American Petroleum Institute, which have given millions in funding to the NSTA.

This is not merely an attempt to avoid entanglement in a “controversial” (not that global warming is actually controversial among scientists), since the article mentions that the NSTA has distributed PR for the oil companies. I like the NSTA and I read their newsletter…but this sounds like they’ve been bought and paid for by Exxon-Mobil, and it casts an unfortunate shadow on their reputation. Can we please have a science advocacy group we can trust?

I like the way Sara Robinson’s mind works.

Memo to the Christian Coalition: The NSTA is for sale. For a mere million bucks a year, I’ll bet you could get them on board with Intelligent Design, too.

Memo to parents: It might be time to find out if your kids’ science teachers are members of this group, and have a word with them about it. If you — or the teachers — want to complain directly to the NSTA, the complaint form is here. They need to hear from everyone who still thinks that scientific truth shouldn’t be auctioned off to the highest donor.