As some of you may know, one of Skepticon‘s yearly fundraisers is the sale of cheesecake calendars — and Jen McCreight is in the new one, tastefully posed.

See? You don’t have to take off your clothes to look good. Why, when I showed up for the photo shoot, they were prepared for me, and even had extra clothes to pile up on top of what I already had on. When you take into account the beard covering up half my face, you can’t see any of me in my photo…very sexaaaay. (Another plus: I don’t know if they even used any of the photos of me in the calendar, which makes me even more exotic and mysterious.)

Less than two hours from now, the space shuttle takes off on its final mission, then…I don’t know what. I guess we’re handing off orbital flights to private contractors, which might represent a positive development, but we’ll have to see.

Good luck storming outer space, NASA!

Now Amanda Marcotte speaks out on an issue that greatly engaged the community here over the weekend. How about if you take your arguments over there this time; we’re kinda full up.

Also, I just know I’m going to regret this, but this cartoon made me laugh, even though the expression is all wrong — it ought to be more peevish exasperation.

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And now, Phil Plait. At this rate, the whole of blogtopia is going to turn into a raging argument over elevator etiquette!

I honestly had no idea that David Mamet had turned into a flaming right-wing moron. And now he receives his comeuppance: his latest book is reviewed by Christopher Hitchens.

I have a Twitter account, and there’s nothing special about it except one nuisance: Dennis Markuze/David Mabus spams it constantly, creating dozens of new accounts every day and sending me hundreds of messages every day, typically repetitive stuff on the lines of “You are a NAZI!” and “We’re going to chop your head off!” It’s awesomely tedious drivel, fortunately easily handled by a single click to block each account, causing all of the noise to quickly disappear.

Unfortunately, I have now also attracted the attention of another kook, Deepak Chopra. He recently wrote:

Did you know that Deepak Chopra has half a million followers on Twitter? Half a million gullible, credulous, voluble, whiny, mindless, woo-loving followers — and many of them have been babbling at me, saying stuff like “You are all bound by attachment to individuality, preferences and conceptual thought”, and “Fervent emotion is reflective of the defense of a personal viewpoint (ego)”, and “scientific extremists are just like religious extremists – stubborn and closed minded”, and “I just revert to this thinking: Wait til they see their angels as they transition. Everyone transitions into love” and “i think some one should let go his big profesore EGO ;) Have it you SNOB ;-DDD You such a slaver of your self ;)” and so, so much more. All night long, all day long.

I have been given the curse of Chopra. I am being flooded with the twitterings of banal idiots. Sandbags! I need more sandbags!

Oh, and Chopra on Twitter is just as brainless as he is everywhere else. A sample:

Aaargh! I am not a subatomic particle, and someday, I will die, even while people are watching and machines are monitoring me. This is more quantum nonsense.

Although, if ever I meet this goon, I know how to frighten him: I’ll close my eyes and cover my face with my hands, and then he’ll panic over the idea that he might suddenly decay.

Do we really need another wretched Texas governor in the White House? Rick Perry wants to be our president, and he has the backing of Bryan Fischer. What a combination…

Other countries of the world: watch out if this comes to pass. At that point, we’d officially be a pariah nation—your only salvation would be that we’d be in total economic and cultural meltdown, and wouldn’t last much longer.

Someone needs to tell Jerry Coyne that I adore calamari. Could he reply in kind if I posted a photo of fricasseed cat? Oh, wait, maybe it should be barbecued.

Now we all know who the truly heartless, callous atheist is.

I’ve landed in Chicago. Only about 5 more hours before I’m home.

It does make me sad that US Customs and the TSA work so hard to make me feel like a criminal for traveling abroad.

The first part of the Magic Sandwich Show from Dublin is now available on youtube. You know you want to watch it.