Now with celebrity endorsements!

Just a reminder that you can still vote for Pharyngula in the Koufaxes (if you haven’t already done so) in 6 different categories! You could click on the link and leave a comment that just says “Pharyngula!”, or, since their server is rather heavily overloaded, email the name of the category and your choice to wampum @ nic-naa.net, with the subject “Koufax”. Email has the advantage that if you do decide to vote for someone else, I won’t be able to look in the comment threads over there and see it, you traitor.*

And yes, I now have some celebrity endorsements in my campaign to win a Koufax: Twisty and Majikthise. Unfortunately, they have endorsed me in different categories. There may be a problem with my votes being split 6 ways, I think…at least Phronesisaical recommends voting for me in two.

And since Michelle Malkin linked to me (the magic word was “deranged”, in a post whining about all the abuse dealt out to poor Domenech), I’d like to encourage all you Malkinites to vote for me, too. It’s only fair—after all, I voted for Michelle Maklin in the Most Humorous Post category.

*Really, it’s OK. I voted against myself** in a couple of the categories. The competition is worth voting for, too.

**I really am going to lose, I know.

How about if we give South Dakota to the Oglala Sioux?

They do seem to have some more sensible leaders.

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

(via Brutal Women)

A request!

Here’s a really good question from Katrina Refugee:

Due to the unforeseen events of Katrina, my family and I ended up staying with relatives in South Carolina, and my children (for the year) are going to a small Christian school with their cousins (the public schools in this area are quite horrendous and we were trying to ease the transition as best as possible). They will be back in public school next year, but in the meantime have been exposed to some really silly creationist crap in the science classroom.

Can you recommend some reading material for the summer to “wash away” all the stuff they have been exposed to this year? We have diligently discussed all the fallacies of what they are being taught, but I am not a scientist and I would feel much better if they had some appropriate books to read over the summer.

They are aged 15 and 14.

This is a serious request, and I would greatly appreciate any advice you may have.

I’ve put a few ideas below the fold.

[Read more…]

Ben Domenech: creationist

Let us continue our Ben Domenech bashing. He’s got this somewhat high profile gig at the Washington Post, and one has to wonder what his qualifications are. I think we can rule out “intelligence.”

GWW made an interesting discovery: he’s a creationist. I don’t understand why the Right is constantly elevating these ignoramuses; there must still be a few conservatives who read this site (I can’t possibly have driven you all away)…aren’t you embarrassed by this kind of thing?

For instance, here’s some dumb-as-a-post reasoning:

[Read more…]

It’s good to know how much we’re loved

Why, oh why, did you have to disillusion me, Ebonmuse? And to slap me upside the face with a study from my own university, no less.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Oh. Well. That explains the tears and yelling from the in-laws-to-be 26 years ago last week.

Knowing how most Americans regard Muslims and homosexuals, though, it’s rather scary to see us ranked below them.

Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past–they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy–and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,” says Edgell. Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.

And we’re even worse than Communists! Jebus. What have we done to America?

Criminal behavior? They’ve confused us with Republicans. Rampant materialism? I thought that was the American way! And again, they’ve confused us with Republicans. Cultural elitism? Umm, well. Hmm. That one fits, I suppose, but why would anyone think that was a bad thing?

Hey, I’ve seen that movie!

Apparently, it’s going to cost me my credibility as bona fide liberal left-wing moonbat, but yes, I have seen Red Dawn. You know, the movie that that wacky new Washington Post blog touted as a talisman of righteous manliness.

Red Dawn? You must know it—the greatest pro-gun movie ever? I mean, they actually show the jackbooted communist thugs prying the guns from cold dead hands.

Saying it’s the greatest pro-gun movie ever is like saying mucous and sawdust make the best sandwich ever—it either says your taste is something execrable, or you’ve just insulted every other sandwich on earth. It makes me itch to ban guns, even though I don’t really have strong feelings on the topic, because if that’s the best defense they can muster, there must be something deeply wrong with guns.

It really isn’t a very good movie. It caters to the deluded wingnut belief that some American high school kids with hunting rifles could have defeated the Soviet army (which, if you think about it, is another backhanded sneer at the American military that worried about fighting the Soviets throughout the Cold War…if only we’d known then that the answer was the local football team, a couple of .22s and .30-06s, and a rusted pickup truck!) and that macho fantasy was the sole virtue of the story.

I’m hoping that Washington Post guy keeps it up. Maybe tomorrow he can tell us that Budweiser is the best beer ever, and Windows 95 was the best OS ever, mud and tree bark make the best coffee ever, and George W. Bush is the best Republican ever. I think that’s his schtick, anyway.

(via Brad DeLong)