I have to say that my opinion of Iowa has gone up in my short visit here. Not only have Iowa Democrats beaten back an attempt by Republicans to outlaw gay marriage, but the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers has organized a whole Darwin week of talks — lots of talks, and all that I saw were remarkably well attended. I’m sad to say I have to drive back today, because I’d really like to hear Hector Avalos’s talk tonight. If you’re in the area, you should check it out.

Also, if you’re near Cedar Rapids tomorrow night, you should go to the Flying Spaghetti Monster fundraiser for the A-Team, which I’m supposed to tell you is the most bad-ass atheist organization in all of Iowa. It’ll have endless quantities of spaghetti, cheap beer, and pirates, so you can’t go wrong there.

It must be. I’m reading the results of a poll of Republicans, and the answers don’t make sense. For example, look at this one result:

Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?

Yes 24
No 43
Not Sure 33

A quarter of Republicans think our president is rooting for the terrorists? That’s simply nuts.

Read the rest. The percentages for absurd questions like whether Obama is a socialist are unbelievable enough, but when it gets to the issues it simply gets worse. 77% want the Bible taught in the schools, for instance.

Maybe I should just stay in Ireland.

Here’s an interesting test: measure your Risk Quotient. It’s a 50 question survey of a set of questions, some simple and some obscure, in which you estimate your confidence in providing an answer. You aren’t scored on just getting the right answer, but on whether you accurately assess your likelihood of being right — if you answer wrongly but with great confidence and certainly you’ll score poorly, but if you answer just as wrongly but with a more cautious appraisal of your certainty, you’ll score better. If you’ve got a serious case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, you might want to avoid the survey. It won’t help your self-esteem.

I scored an 83. I’m completely uncertain about whether that is good or bad.

And what have I accomplished? Thanks to Steve and Dierdre Metzler, who gave me a tour of the local pubs and restaurants, I have learned something important. Guinness in Ireland is a completely different beast from Guinness anywhere else; here, it’s a silky smooth ambrosia with not a hint of bitterness. It went down so easy I could have easily slid 3 or 4 of them down my throat, but given my current sleep-derived state, I restrained myself to one.

Of course, then we had to follow up with Irish coffee, and yeah, in a few minutes my head will touch the pillow and I will be spending an evening deep in Tír na nÓg.

The crafty Taisha McFall, creator of the Ray Comfort Tampon Case, is having a birthday tomorrow. What she’d like for her birthday is that women everywhere be free of fear and able to live their lives in some security, but barring that, you could make her happy by donating to Women for Women, an organization that works to help women survivors of war.

Donate online. It’s a nice present for Ms McFall and even nicer for women who’ve been raped, who’ve lost their homes, or worse, lost their children.

Here’s a new tradition I have to encourage: I was brought a cheesecake at last night’s talk at Stanford. It was fabulous: white chocolate raspberry chocolate chip. The fellow who sent it along was Victor Harris of Reuschelle’s Cheesecakes. He has a huge variety of different kinds of cheesecakes, and he ships…so if you’re sitting around somewhere far away from California, and you’ve got a craving, you can just email for a menu or to order, and the next day a lethally delicious cheesecake will magically appear at your door.

Maybe I shouldn’t encourage these kinds of gifts at my talks, though. I don’t really need more sweet rich goodies in my belly. But hey, you’re all hedonistic godless people, dig in.

Just about everyone is following the horrible news from Haiti, where they’ve been struck with a major earthquake causing great loss of life. I’ve been informed by multiple people now that Pat Robertson has announced the reason for this disaster: the Haitian people made a deal with the devil to free themselves from the French.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Rather than seeking to place the blame on divine retribution, I suggest that we secular people donate now to relief organizations. I’ll recommend two: The Red Cross is an obvious choice; it’s a secular organization that is dedicated to providing effective aid. I’ll also recommend Partners in Health, which is on the ground right now and has been providing health care to the poor in Haiti for years.

I know this is redundant because many of you have already made donations somewhere…but just in case you haven’t, get off your butt now and help.

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You can watch a video of Pat Robertson blaming the earthquake on Haitians and their deal with the devil; it’s about 6 minutes in, so you can skip most of the wretched CBN noise.

If it makes you angry, turn your outrage into something constructive and use it to motivate you to donate to Haitian relief first. Deal with the evil scumbag Robertson later.

Just in case there is more than one of you, I’ll mention that a Pharyngula fan group has been formed to coordinate social activities in Baltimore. Surely this will not involve alcohol or blasphemy, will it? Nor will there be rudeness and vociferous argument? Perhaps there will be squid.

Won Chong Boyd, the wife of Mark Boyd, president of the Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics, has died suddenly while on a trip to Korea. This is a deep personal shock for him, of course, but it’s also a serious financial hardship. If any of you can help out, go to the link.

I thought I’d stumbled onto FSTDT, but no…it’s a collection of quotes from the Texas board of education collected over the last year. At least I learned that Don McLeroy is an honest man.

Am I a religious fanatic? Absolutely. You’d have to be to do what I do.