Taking my name in vain

This is a new low: if you read this post by a fellow atheist, you’ll see a critical comment by “PZ Myers.” Thing is, it wasn’t me.

I guess we’ve got some cowardly kook wandering about, leaving comments with my name stuck on them, in an attempt to simultaneously annoy others and discredit me. Nice. If anyone else is getting what seem to be out-of-character comments from me, let me know…it would also be good if you had a way to let me know the IP address of the imposter.

In a related situation, read this story about a fake ‘atheist’ blog purporting to label the good, the bad, and the ugly atheists (no, I’m not mentioned in any of the categories)—it reeks of astroturf.

Voices of science

If you’re at work, I hope you have headphones; if you don’t, check in once you get home. Here are a couple of audio recordings of good science.

Kansas election returns

It wasn’t a clean sweep that threw all the rascals out, but the Kansas school board election did return a little more balance and helped out the pro-science side. Thoughts from Kansas summarizes the results:

The Board is back in moderate hands no matter what. The night is, on balance, a victory. It’d be nice to further marginalize the extremists by winning the remaining races in November, but we’ve got a majority that will implement the science standards recommended by the scientists, educators and parents of the science standards committee. The Board can focus on bigger issues. They can dig into ways to address the special challenges of rural districts, and to find solutions to the problems faced by the students in poorer urban districts. Real challenges, not fake controversy. Helping kids, not fighting culture wars.

Best of all, it looks like Connie Morris has lost her seat on the board. That’s good news right there.