Mollyfication, and some temporary changes

Have you been wondering who won the Molly for July? It goes to … Owlmirror, OM. Let’s hear some applause for the worthy champion.

In other news, you may recall that I’m going to the Galapagos Islands, and I’m leaving tonight! I shall be spending the next week and a half bobbing about in a boat in the Pacific, 600 miles off the coast of mainland South America, and while I’ll still be able to access the internet in a limited way, I’m going to be somewhat distracted. “Oh, no,” you’re thinking, “Pharyngula will go all silent and boring, and there will be no biological ejaculations from a godless liberal to add flavor to my morning coffee.” Have no fear! I could just schedule a blank post to appear every morning, and knowing you people, it would fill up fast — you don’t really need me to provoke you. But no, I have gone another route, and have recruited a few guest bloggers who will post a few things now and then while I’m off. We’re squaring things away with Seed right now, and I’ll let them introduce themselves at their own pace.

If you decide you like them better than me, I shall be heartbroken, but I will be kicking them off on the 18th of August anyway. Maybe they’ll be inspired to go on to new blogs of their very own…?

I’ll also be handing the whip and keys to the dungeon to Skatje. She won’t be quite as diligent in monitoring things as I am (17 — almost 18 — year old girls have a life, you know), but she will be available to skewer any trolls. Don’t cross her, she might be cranky about not getting to go to the Galapagos.

And today is going to be spent packing and tidying up the Myers mansion for the housesitters, a job that requires carefully inventorying the beer. It might be a while, especially if I decide that leaving all that good beer behind that Don Kane and Rachel Warga left here last week would be a waste.

Oklahoma, you can do better than Sally Kern

I’m afraid the odious Oklahoma legislator, Sally Kern, has opened her mouth again. She has declared herself a “cultural warrior for Judeo-Christian values. I despise the term “Judeo-Christian” — it’s so fake, and such a transparent attempt to tie morality to religion. So what are these “Judeo-Christian” values?

“I am not saying everyone has to be Christian; this is not a homogenous nation,” Kern said. “What you have to be is someone who believes in a Judeo-Christian ethic, in other words, in knowing there’s a right and wrong.

That’s it? Knowing that some things are bad to do and others are good is all there is? Pagans, heathens, wiccans, atheists, Muslims, and animists all know that; dogs seem to feel guilt, and we could even argue that jellyfish are able to see the world in these kinds of binary terms. So why pretend Jews and Christians invented it?

Oh…because she has to have an absolutist rational for parochial fundagelical American bigotry.

“Not all lifestyles are equal; not all religions are equal,” she said. “Was I saying all people are not equal? Heavens no; we were all created equal.”

Kern repeated her opposition to gay marriage and homosexuality, though the lawmaker said she supports people’s individual rights.

Pssst, Oklahomans: Vote for Ron Marlett this fall. Anyone but Bughouse Sally, please.

Power of prayer

Barack Obama will be giving his acceptance speech at the DNC outside, so what do the geniuses at Focus on the Patriarchy propose to do? They urge their followers to pray for rain.

Pathetic. Why not suggest instead that they pray for thunderbolts of doom, and that the earth split open beneath Obama’s feet and swallow him up with a chthonic belch of sulfur and magma? It would be just as effective.

I swear, god-botherers nowadays have lost all sense of style.

Molecular biology teachers need a rock anthem

For those of you who liked yesterday’s little poem, here’s a somewhat rowdier piece that I was sent.

DNA (to the tune of TNT by ACDC)

Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi!

See me divide up in your nucleus on your micro-screen
I’m all of you that you can get
If you know what I mean
Proteins to the left of me, lipids to the right
Aint got no oxy, but I got moxy
Don’t you start a fight

“Cus I’m DNA
I’m Dynamite
(DNA) I’m wound up tight
(DNA) I have secrets to tell
(DNA) I’m in your cells!!!!

I’m Adenine! Guanine! Cytosine!
And Thymine man!
Nitrogen bases, a phosphate group
Understand?
G binds to C
A binds to T
A double helix plan
I run your life!
I control your cells!
So don’t you mess me around!

Cus I’m DNA!
I’m dynamite
(DNA) And I’m wound up tight!
(DNA) I have secrets to tell
(DNA)I’m in your cells!

It’s too bad we can’t get Bon Scott to sing it for us, but a Brian Johnson version would be great. Somebody send the new lyrics to the band.

Motivating students (and motivating women) to pursue science careers

Peter Wood has an interesting commentary in the Chronicle today. At least, it starts out well, but by the end it turns into a bit of a train wreck. The good part is a discussion of a growing deficiency in science and math training in the US. The usual ignorant reaction to this problem is to flog the students and demand more drill-and-practice in the classroom, more testing, incentives and punishments for the schools … the familiar Republican litany of No Child Left Behind, which treats the problem as a superficial one that can be corrected with more multiple-choice tests, or by marshaling market forces to make that engineering job in adulthood more attractive to 8 year olds. That’s not the answer.

[Read more…]

Need a poll fix?

Today’s target is the website for the credulous Australian TV program, The One, which claims to be searching for someone with magical mind powers. The poll asks, “Are you a believer or a sceptic?”

70% of Australian voters in this poll are currently calling themselves believers. Let’s embarrass them with a worldwide showing of skeptics. (This might be a tough one: I suspect many more people watch TV than will read this post.)