It’s another long travel day for me, I’m afraid, and this after a long night of trying to keep up with a lively mob of 20 and 30 year olds at a bar in Champaign-Urbana (and giving a talk yesterday that I think went over fairly well — I even had protesters outside! For a talk on the history and philosophy of embryology!) So I’ll leave you with a link to Wesley Elsberry’s summary of Richard Dawkins’ talk in Michigan. That’ll give you something meaty to argue over until I get back to calm, quiet Morris.

And then, next week…Spring Break! We’re just going to have wild parties every day here on Pharyngula! Bring sun screen and swimming suits.

Tune in to KPFT for some stem cell talk sometime in the next few minutes!

How do you think the Rabid Right is reacting to Obama’s enlightened stem cell policies? This comic isn’t far from the truth.

Here’s Glenn Beck, always the representative of Idiot America.

So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research, and then some, fundamentally changing – remember, those great progressive doctors are the ones who brought us Eugenics. It was the progressive movement and it was science. Let’s put science truly in her place. If evolution is right, why don’t we just help out evolution? That was the idea. And sane people agreed with it!

And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don’t know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. That came from people in white coats. That came from the best and brightest because they were unhinged from any kind of ethics. They were unhin… they believed in evolution. It came from the scientific consensus. We’re headed back down there again. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up.

Man, he sounds like Ben Stein. Science is evil, science is indistinguishable from Nazis, evolution is the same thing as amorality. What a maroon. If anyone is unhinged, it’s Beck.

Well, we get to have some fun with that kind of mentality. Tomorrow night, Wednesday, at 10:00pm Central time, I’ll be on KPFT radio with Ray Bohlin to talk about the stem cell story. Tune in and call in. It should be…entertaining. I probably won’t kill and eat any babies on the air, but you never know.

Waaaaa. First I get a pile of porn in my mailbox (wait, that’s not so bad…except that none of it matched my particular interests), and then I get sent a free DVD: Expelled. This is shaping up to be the suckiest birthday ever.

Alright, I confess, the DVD was a good present, so I could have a copy in my archive of creationist material. And it was obtained by an industry insider who didn’t have to pay for it, so no money passed to the hands of Premise Media, which is even better. It’s actually appreciated, so thanks Stranger Who Asked That His Identity Remain Secret. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to watch it, though…I haven’t seen it yet.

I am kind of bracing myself right now in case some well-meaning admirer has commissioned a dump truck to drop off a load of squid poop in my yard, or something, though.

What a horrible world that would be, although the deal with the puppies is tempting.

There are some things you’d rather not have associated with your country in the medical nomenclature, and deadly diseases are one of them. Notice how this New Zealand newspaper refers to a recent outbreak as the “English measles” — isn’t it nice how the anti-vaccination folks have made a significant contribution to the language?

(via Bad Science)

It was with some trepidation that I learned Ken Miller was on “This I Believe”…but hey, it’s actually good stuff that I agree with. Go ahead, even us delicate little atheists can listen to it.

Christopher Hitchens is visiting Lebanon, where he was his bold bad self and defaced a poster for the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and was beaten up for the act. I don’t often agree with his politics, but the guy has massive brass.

There’s at least one account on the web now — this one is from a theist and critic, though, so you know he must be all wrong.

You’ve eliminated measles in Australia.

High take-up rates of the infant measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine has led to the elimination of the endemic measles virus in Australia, immunisation experts say.

Researchers from the University of Sydney, writing in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, claim that in 2005 and 2007, Australia satisfied the main criteria of having a low level of measles infection, with less than one case per million people.

Cool. Now if only certain people would stop making up nonsense about vaccinations…

Unfortunately, there are occasional setbacks.

A total of 125 cases were reported in 2006 – equivalent to six cases per million – but more than half of these were attributed to a outbreak linked to the tour of a foreign spiritual group.

A “spiritual group”? It was a Hindu spiritualist who traveled around, dispensing hugs…and a deadly disease. Keep that in mind next time some mystic claims to be completely harmless.