Snow!

How nice that we should start the first of December with a howling snow storm.

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This is prairie winter: not your big fat flakes falling gently, but hard icy snow slicing horizontally with a stiff wind; no quiet hiss of steady accumulation, but the rushing roar of wind and weather blowing billows of crystals everywhere. We’ll have thick drifts against the house before this is done.

I’m glad to be sitting quietly in a warm house, and I think I’ll put on another pot of hot coffee. Later, when it dies down though…then comes the cold feet and the tired shoulders that go with shoveling snow. At least this stuff tends to be dry and light and fairly easy to heave.

I thought I smelled something foul…John West is coming to Minnesota

As fellow Minnesotan Greg Laden warns, we’re getting a visit from another dishonest hack of the Discovery Institute, John West. On Friday, 30 November, at 7:00 in Room 155, Nicholson Hall on the UM campus. I may just have to stop by. He’s going to be babbling about an extended argumentum ad consequentiam: “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: The Disturbing Legacy of America’s Eugenics Crusade”. Yeah, once again, we’re going to be told that reality is dehumanizing.

One thing that greatly peeves me is the sponsoring organization. This is a parasitic religious organization that sucks leechlike on academia: the MacLaurin Institute. I despise those guys. They were also responsible for bringing Behe to talk on campus — that kind of rot is what they bring to the university.

I do like the honesty of their motto, though. Here comes John West, representative of the ‘secular’ Discovery Institute, under the imprimatur of an organization with the goal of…

Bringing God into the marketplace of ideas by
communicating the Christian worldview
with its transforming potential.

Right. Bringing lies to our students certainly does have transforming potential, only I wouldn’t be proud of it.

Road trip!

One of our Minneapolis Christian talk radio stations, KKMS, is organizing a trip.

Join Jeff & Lee as they travel with Heartland Tours & Travel to the Creation Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio! Jeff & Lee will be doing a live broadcast from the museum, and you can be there to see it all happen! of course, there will be other great stops along the way – Chicago (and famous Chicago pizza), the Wisconsin Dells with it’s huge waterpark, shopping at the Tangier Outlet Mall and more! this is a tour that will inspire your faith and make lasting family memories.

Don’t you think they could really use a scientific guide to go along with them? Call me, Jeff & Lee — I’m willing to waive my usual fee to accompany your bus as a consultant.

I am rather amused that what will inspire their faith is Chicago pizza, a tacky amusement park, and shopping.

(h/t to Eva)

Our local newspaper embarrassment

My fellow Minnesotans know what I mean when I groan over our local conservative columnist at the Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten. Her latest column is a tirade against the horrible culture of victimhood in our universities, citing a recent incident in which a student newspaper editor decided to decorate the office with a handmade noose to motivate his black co-workers. Kersten thinks this is just awful. Not the insensitivity of the editor, of course — being ignorant of history is par for the course for Republicans, as is race-baiting. No, she’s appalled that he was fired.

The column is a hoot. She even obliviously quotes the guy making a “but my best friend is black!” excuse.

Cafe Scientifique — tonight!

Tonight’s the night for the inaugural meeting of Café Scientifique-Morris for the 2007-2008 school year. The topic is:

Food or Fuel? A simple multi-scale integrated analysis of agroecosystems

It will be presented by Abdullah Jaradat of the North Central Soil Conservation Research Lab; I suspect he’ll be talking about their research into newer, better crops for the production of energy. It should be good, come on down to the Common Cup Coffeehouse at 6!

Unfortunately, this will be one I have to miss. I have to catch a plane to San Diego for the Beyond Belief conference (perhaps I shall be live-blogging it tomorrow…or perhaps I’ll be too busy and you’ll have to wait for my summary in the evening). Instead of me doing the introductions, the delightful MC Skatje will be hosting tonight’s event, which will improve it immensely.

Vote “no” on Bill Wenmark

The Minnetonka school district is one of the best in Minnesota, with an exceptionally concerned and active set of parents and teachers who work hard to keep informed and support their schools. They established an organization, TonkaFocus, to oppose creationism in the schools and attempts to demolish their international baccalaureate program, a very smart move — pro-science parent activism is always something to encourage.

Minnetonka was also the home district of Dave Eaton, an ID sycophant who was a crony of the odious Cheri Yecke, and who was responsible for some of the shenanigans in our state’s last attempt to get some decent science education standards. He’s gone, fortunately, but one of his pals, Bill Wenmark, is still on the Minnetonka school board.

But, we hope, not for long. He’s up for re-election on 6 November.

School boards should be places for people who know something about education and who want to improve schools for our kids. Creationists who want to damage science education and make our kids more ignorant do not belong on them, and Bill Wenmark is one of those wackos who wants to inflict his religious vision on other people’s children — he needs to be replaced on the school board. Greg Laden has more on Wenmark, who doesn’t particularly like TonkFocus or the ACLU or legitimate science education. I have to second Greg’s suggestion:

Minnetonkans! Vote for The Other Guy!

D.B. Cooper: the Morris connection?

I knew of D.B. Cooper, the famous mystery man who jumped out of a plane with a few hundred thousand dollars ransom money, and was never seen again — I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, so of course I was familiar with the story. Now here’s a weird little twist: there’s a new suspect in the crime, and he’s the brother of a fellow here in Morris, Minnesota.

Not me, I didn’t do it. I was only 14 when D.B. Cooper made his jump.

(Hat tip to Jeffrey Shallit)

Come on down to Ridgedale

You’ve still got time — I’m in the Ridgedale public library, and Hector Avalos is getting ready to give his talk on “How archaeology killed biblical history”…come join the crowd if you’re somewhere in the Twin Cities area.

You’re too late now! I saw several familiar faces at the talk, and there was a huge crowd — Minnesota Atheists has to be growing, because every meeting I go to is larger than the last one. We got a good discussion of the increasingly evident failure of archaeology to back up any of the claims of the Bible. Whereas once upon a time, serious scholars argued that portions of the Bible actually echoed real historical events (and even today, many less informed evangelical/fundamentalist Christians still do), virtually all of it is considered ancient myth-making nowadays. No Exodus. No empire of Israel spanning a big chunk of the Middle East. No Solomonic fortress building. No Solomon. No David. Quite possibly no Jesus, and definitely no primary sources describing his existence. I thought the comparison of Solomon and David to King Arthur quite apt — they were inventions after the fact, legends built up to illustrate beliefs about a past golden age. It was subject matter that is quite different from my usual approach to debunking religion, so it was useful stuff … and I picked up copies of Fighting Words: The Origins Of Religious Violence(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) and his latest, The End of Biblical Studies(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), so I can do a bit more digging into the details.

Hector Avalos gets up into the Twin Cities now and then (his drive from Iowa is about the same length as mine from Morris), and if you get an opportunity to hear him speak, I recommend it!

Northfield!

I have arrived in beautiful Northfield, MN (motto: “Cows, Colleges, and Contentment.” I expect a placid audience for my talk tonight). My first impression, right after passing St Olaf College, was an odd one: what is that strange chocolatey aroma I’m smelling everywhere? Shortly afterwards I came upon a gigantic Malt-O-Meal plant, and all was explained. I guess smelling like Malt-O-Meal isn’t the worst thing that could happen to a college town, although there is one better: the UO campus at Eugene used to occasionally smell intensely of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, thanks to a bakery down the street from it.

I have to mention one of the unfortunate things about Morris. It used to occasionally reek like yeasty sour beer, from the ethanol plant on the edge of town. They seem to have cleaned up their act in the last few years, and we rarely get that odor anymore. There were a few days this summer, though, where the wind was just right and we got treated to the stink of the local pig farms, which is not at all pleasant.

I think I’ll take the scent of breakfast cereal any day.