Dominionists allegedly beat gay couple in church parking lot

I suppose it should come as no surprise that a group of Jesus loving fundamentalists attacked fellow church members in broad daylight right in the parking lot for being gay. What makes this attack particularly sickening is it was instigated by one of the victim’s fathers, and local police may have acted as lookouts for the bullies:

The attackers also verbally assaulted the couple continually with anti-gay verbiage which continued even after a Sheriff’s Deputy arrived on the scene. Bystanders and other congregants made no effort to stop the assault. For that matter, neither did the Deputy Sheriff. Once the barrage of punches ended, the Deputy refused to let the two victims press charges

The Gibson County Sheriff contact info is here, hopefully someone will check into this.

An insider look at dominionist culture

Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann at a Faith and Freedom Coalition rally in Orlando, Florida. Photograph: Keystone/USA-Zuma/Rex Features

Writing at the Guardian, Karl Giberson reviews the pernicious effects of the religious right on science, history, politics, and on his own development growing up in the midst of it:

Unfortunately, millions of evangelicals – and this would include much of the political base being courted by the GOP presidential candidates as well as the candidates themselves – are trapped in an alternative “parallel culture” with its own standards of truth. [A]ll have media empires that spread their particular version of the gospel. Millions of dollars every year support the production of books, DVDs, radio shows, school curricula, and other educational materials. Very few evangelicals grow up without hearing some trusted authority – perhaps even with a PhD – tell them that the age of the Earth is an “open question”. Or that scientists are questioning evolution. Or that gays are getting spiritual help and becoming straight. Or that secular historians are taking religion out of US history.

The flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz scared the living shit out of me and my big sister when we were nine years-old. We would run and hide when that part came on, and that was with my mom or dad sitting right there telling us it was all make-believe and nothing to worry about. Imagine you were told by sources you trust from an even earlier age that there is a real war between good and evil, where a particular party or ideology or field of study is in cahoots with the scariest real-life, highly intelligent monsters you can possibly envision, that these monsters have supernatural powers, including the ability to brainwash or torture you and everyone you care about for eternity, and that the entire fucking world was going to end any day. That would really scare a kid, and probably scar an adult for life.

Occupy Wall Street goes national

Map created with BatchGeo

My colleagues at the Great Orange Satan posted a really cool and very useful drillable, scalable, interactive map of the Occupy protests going on around the country. I’m going to give it a test run here but I don’t know if the image will render or cause problems. A query has been put in to a tech buddy at Daily Kos to see about that. I may have to remove it or it may play games with some broswers. If it’s not working for you just click on this link for information about protests near you.

What’s great about these protests is they are leaderless and party-less. We all saw what happened to the conservative and libertarian dominated version of the outrage over the bailouts for billionaires and butkiss for average wage earners: it was hijacked by corporate whores and turned into the Teaparty which now works as hard as they can to deliver more tax cuts and government subsidies to the people and corporations they were angry with. Job Destroyers were recast as Job Creators, penalties and investigations into the serial malfeasance became Big Government Interference. Requiring insurance companies to treat children with preexisting conditions transformed into Death Panels and various forms of tyranny. 

Something like that could happen here, too, but at least it’s a chance to start fresh.

SOLO would be the hottest mission in space

An artist's depiction of SOLO on station a mere 26 million miles from the sun. Image courtesy ESA

The European Space Agency is developing an observatory that would settle questions about the sun from a unique location: inside the orbit of Mercury. The Solar Observatory, or SOLO, would perform heretofore unprecedented measurements of the heliosphere and solar wind as well as magnetic storms and coronal mass ejections, not easily available from our neck of the solar system due to the sun’s 25 day sidereal rotation and small obliquity with respect to the plane of earth’s orbit:

The spacecraft will provide remarkable views of the Sun’s polar regions and farside. Its elliptical orbit will be tuned such that it can follow the star’s rotation, enabling it to observe one specific area for much longer than is currently possible.

That kind of proximity doesn’t come without consequences to design and cost. SOLO will dwell well inside the Goldilocks’ Zone where water is a liquid, making one orbit about every 60 days. In this vicinity exposed surfaces could be roasted to a toasty 800° depending on the material . SOLO survives and thrives only by staying oriented behind a robust heat shield with slots through which cameras and other detectors peer out at a sun many times larger than seen from earth. That’s why the fully equipped spacecraft could run a whopping one-billion euros and may not be ready for launch until 2019.

Hank Williams Jr. issues apology

Hank Williams Jr. has apologized for using an analogy comparing President Barack Obama to Hitler on Fox and Friends Monday morning. The 62 year-old country music star said in part:

“The thought of the leaders of both parties jukin and high fiven on a golf course, while so many families are struggling to get by simply made me boil over and make a dumb statement,” Williams wrote on Facebook and his website. “I am very sorry if it offended anyone.”

In addition Williams publicist issued this statement late Monday evening:

“Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme — but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me — how ludicrous that pairing was. They’re polar opposites and it made no sense. They don’t see eye-to-eye and never will. I have always respected the office of the president.”

Noah’s Ark: Coming soon to a theatre near you

The sweet animals all boarded Noah's Ark two by two, the lion laid down with the lamb.

I was going to ask PZ about this, but on second thought and on the off chance he hasn’t seen it, I worried about his blood pressure and workload in the middle of the first round of exams. Instead I’ll tell you! Apparently our purportedly liberal friends in Hollywood have had a great idea, a full length, full FX, Big Screen adaptation of …. The Noah’s Ark legend!

Paramount and New Regency have agreed to fund Darren Aronofsky’s $150 million epic based on the biblical story of Noah’s Ark. Gladiator and The Aviator writer John Logan – he, uh, prefers you don’t mention Star Trek: Nemesis – has been hired to rewrite Aronofsky and Ari Handel’s script.

Now, now, I know, there will be much gnashing of skeptical teeth. But it’s not like Hollywood has been particularly helpful to science, or terribly concerned about portraying it accurately up until this sudden, uncharacteristic stab in the back. Think about the recent travesties Armageddon, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and those are just a few A-list movies, where real money was ostensibly spent on science-y special effects (I sure hope it wasn’t spent on Bruce Willis’ or Ben Affleck’s acting). Not to mention other legend based movies like Sinbad, Aladdin, and Thor. The list of b-listers and worse goes on forever, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Catwomen From Mars …. It’s depressing to think that this is the same film industry that gave us crust shifting and land cyclones driven by cold engines. Science be Praised!

So everyone stay calm, take it in stride, man, take it in stride. Think of the jobs. And the fun we’ll have with reviews.

I really hope this Occupy Wall Street deal catches on

The Occupy Wall Street movement which originated in the Big Apple has spread to other large US cities. Protestors are using the Internet and social media to create momentum similar to the Arab Spring movements now remaking the Middle East and North Africa. This week some of them even made themselves up as zombies shown above and marched around with arms outstretched moaning for money instead of the traditional fresh brains. That was nice touch! Occupy has even spring up in my comfy little progressive hometown of Austin:

We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who Occupy Wall Street and occupy around the world. We are dedicated to non-violently reclaiming control of our government from the financial interests that have corrupted them.

One of the local Austin protests goes from 3 PM to 10 PM this Thursday, Oct 6 at Austin City Hall. I don’t know if I can make that or not, it’s a work day for me and I’m trying to recover from a fairly severe injury. But I’d love to hear how it goes and maybe look at some pics of it if anyone happens by. Check about any search engine using Occupy ____ to see if your metro area has one planned too.

On Enceladus the powder runs deep

View of Enceladus's surface, showing several tectonic and crater degradation styles. Taken by Cassini on 9 March 2005

A comprehensive map made by the Cassini-Solstice mission examining Saturn’s tiny, icy moon Enceladus has netted a surprising result. The little world is coated in super fine ice crystal estimated to be hundred of meters deep in some places:

This powder would likely make pe­r­fect ski­ing ma­te­ri­al, ac­cord­ing to Paul Schenk of the Lu­nar and Plan­e­tary In­sti­tute in Hous­ton, Tex­as. He pre­sented find­ings by his re­search team Oct. 3 at the 2011 joint meet­ing of the Amer­i­can As­tro­nom­i­cal So­ci­ety’s Di­vi­sion for Plan­e­tary Sci­ences and the Eu­ro­pe­an Plan­e­tary Sci­ence Con­gress in Nantes, France.

The ice crystals are theorized to build up over millions of years from cryo-geysers. On earth a skier would sink to the bottom of such a powder pile, in fact the powder itself would be converted to firn and hard ice over time by gravity and weathering. But in Enceladus’ weak 0.11 G field and near absolute vacuum the powder can accumulate basically, forever.

Physics Nobel Prize winners

The Nobel Prize for physics has been announced and, like the one for Medicine yesterday, it’s a three-way split:

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said American Saul Perlmutter would share the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award with U.S.-Australian Brian Schmidt and U.S. scientist Adam Riess “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.”

In other words, Dark Energy. The most revolutionary discovery in cosmology since the Big Bang.

Hank Williams Jr. is a freakin idiot

And that’s saying it nicely. Hank Williams Jr., is a fucking idiot is more like it. Apparently this morning on Fox and Friends Williams went full Godwin:

They’re the enemy! Obama! And Biden! Are you kiddin’ me, the Three Stooges!” So there you have it: Obama is both the modern incarnation of Hitler and also Moe, and Joe Biden is double-timing it as Larry and Curly.

Here’s the thing about Godwin: there are times when assholes hide fascist behavior behind it. There are times when comparing someone to Hitler is fully warranted. It’s just that taxing billionaires at the same rate secretaries pay is not one of those times. Requiring insurance companies to cover childrens’ preexisting conditions isn’t exactly on par with cooking millions of men, women and children down to ash in industrial human kilns.

A lot of iconic images come to mind when Hitler is brought up, but harmless slapstick comedy is not one of them. Maybe Williams watched too much Hogan’s Heroes growing up, where Nazi’s were depicted as lovable bunglers, I dunno. But a person cannot be a genocidal monster and an adorable comedic legend at the same time. Williams got booted off of ESPN and imo he absolutely deserved it.