Good golly, it’s time for Molly

I’ve counted the nominations for the Molly Award, and the winner for January 2009 is…Wowbagger! I don’t know why, he just wanders around insulting everybody, and of course there was no hurry, since he is immortal. I think you all just fell for the ploy of favoring the guy riding Douglas Adam’s coattails.*

Now you can leave comments here congratulating the Infinitely Prolonged, and you can also nominate other fabulous posters for the Molly for February. Now don’t you be handing them out to Princess Hooli and Max Quordlepleen just because you like their names!

*OK, so there probably were some other good reasons, too.

Radio reminder

NEEERRRRRRRDDDS! They’re turning over the radio show to seriously geeky humanists: Scott Lohman, Minnesota’s King Trek Fan, will be interviewed on Atheists Talk radio on Sunday, at 9am Central time (keep in mind that tonight is the night we jigger our clocks forward an hour, just to make everything a little more confusing).

Watchmen

We made the 45 mile drive to distant Alexandria to see Watchmen this afternoon. On the way there, I learned that neither Skatje nor Collin had ever even tried to read the graphic novel, so I almost slammed on the brakes and turned around to make them sit down and read it before I’d take them — but my own fanboi nature prevented me from putting off the movie any longer, so I took them anyway. The kids have been sternly instructed now that we’re home that they’re required to read it. Good thing I kept going, too — it was excellent. Where Ironman was last summer’s exhilarating carnival ride of a superhero movie, this one is the grim and intellectual anti-superhero movie of this year. Ten tentacles up!

It is true that the movie did remove the giant space squid from the ending, but — and this is rather heretical for me to say — this ending was better, and made the story even stronger. I was imp…

Wait, what’s that noise?

There’s mad-eyed bearded man pounding on my window! It’s…it’s…Alan Moore! How did he know what I was writing? I haven’t even posted it yet!

He’s broken in! He’s com…NOOOOOOOOOOO! <SQEEEEEEE> -fzzztzzzt- <crackle> *click*

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How did Dawkins react to the news that the Oklahoma legislature wanted to outlaw him?

With humor, of course. Here’s the opening of his talk at the University of Oklahoma last night.

He also responded by donating funds from the RDF to Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education…which brings up an important point. There are lots of smart Oklahomans who are really angry at the stupidity of these ignorant legislators. Listen to the audience in the video clip, too: they are laughing at the creationist clowns.

Keep laughing. And vote the fools out of office. Oklahoma can be a state standing up for reason.

I get email

One of the mysteries of my email is that there are noticeable waves of like content that come through. Right now I’m getting a lot of hate mail that rants and raves about how clever I must think I am … which is definitely not a theme that I’ve been pushing, so all I can assume is that somewhere out there is a website or email chain that is talking about my horrible egotism.

Either that, or they’re all just suddenly feeling very inadequate and are lashing out.

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The greasy fingerprints of the Discovery Institute are all over it

As I mentioned the other day, the Oklahoma legislature was contemplating a resolution to condemn Richard Dawkins. It turns out that that was a moderate compromise — the original version of the resolution attacked the University of Oklahoma department of zoology. Look closely at the language in this motion:

WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and to use independent thinking and free inquiry, not indoctrinate students in one-sided study and thinking; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma has, as evidenced on the departmental homepage, been framing the Darwinian theory of evolution as doctrinal dogmatism rather than a hypothetical construction within the disciplines of the sciences; and

WHEREAS, not only has the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma been engaged in one-sided indoctrination of an unproven and unpopular theory but has made an effort to brand all thinking in dissent of this theory as anti-intellectual and backward rather than nurturing such free thinking and allowing a free discussion of all ideas which is the primary purpose of a university;

Realize that John West and Casey Luskin toddled into Oklahoma a few weeks ago, and put 2 + 2 together. The DI has been coaching the infantile minds of creationist legislators again.

A follow-up to the Brazilian child rape case

After all the gasps of outrage at the Catholicchurch’s response to that tragic story of a 9-year old rape victim’s abortion, the church has seen the light of reason and…actually, no. They just made it worse. The Roman Catholic Church of Brazil has excommunicated everyone involved in the abortion, except the child, who was excused on grounds of her age. Old enough to be raped and bear children, but not old enough to be responsible for decisions about her reproductive tract, apparently.

Remember this when anyone tries to tell you about their god of love, their religion of mercy, their source of all moral virtue.

Those involved who have been excommunicated ought to take this opportunity to rethink whether they even want to be associated with such a contemptible organization.

The president of Brazil has now spoken out against the church’s decision.