Funny, it doesn’t look like April First

Would you believe the NY Times published an op-ed today…calling for closer monitoring of UFOs? I think it’s intended seriously. It begins by suggesting that it — our neglect of will-o’-the-wisps and reflections of Venus — is a security loophole that terrorists might exploit, and then it gives several anecdotal accounts of unlikely events, such as this one:

On Dec. 26, 1980, for instance, several witnesses at two American Air Force bases in England reported seeing a U.F.O. land. An examination of the site turned up indentations in the ground and a level of radiation in the area that was significantly higher than ordinary. More witnesses at the same base reported the U.F.O. again on subsequent nights. The deputy base commander reported that the aircraft aimed light beams into the most highly sensitive area of the base — a clear security breach.

Apparently, we should be concerned that Al-Qaeda is piloting nuclear-powered flying saucers to fly through our defenses and peek into hangars.

Tonight, on the History Channel…

It’s the much anticipate first episode of a new series, Evolve – Eyes.

They are one of evolution’s most useful and prevalent inventions. Ninety five percent of living species are equipped with eyes and they exist in many different forms. Learn how the ancestors of jellyfish may have been the first to evolve light-sensitive cells. Discover how dinosaur’s evolved eyes that helped them become successful hunters. Finally, learn how primates evolved unique adaptations to their eyes that allowed them to better exploit their new habitat, and how the ability to see colors helped them find food.

I’ve programmed my computer to record it, and I’ll probably live-blog the show as well. Let’s hope I have reason to do more than get snippy!

How nice

Finally, after months of silence, my old server at pharyngula.org lives again. It turns out that all my head-desking was for nought — the reason it was offline is that it had been intentionally blocked on suspicion of harboring illicit p2p activity. They just forgot to mention it.

Anyway, all anybody will really care about there is that my daughter’s blog, Lacrimae Rerum, is back online now.

City workers in Birmingham are not reading this right now

The Birmingham city council has put up blocking software to lock out atheist websites, which is OK — they’ve got to crack that whip and keep their employees focused on the work at hand, of course. Unfortunately, they apparently aren’t doing this to improve productivity, but simply to shut down a point of view some bureaucrat doesn’t like.

The authority’s Bluecoat Software computer system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with “witchcraft or Satanism” and “occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism”.

I’m always peeved at this inconsistent categorization. If you’re going to group undesirable topics under the heading of “Forms of mysticism”, then atheism does not belong there, but Christianity and Islam do, right along with witchcraft, the occult, voodoo, and New Age nonsense. I suppose we could even stretch that category to cover pornography, since it largely seems to consist of imaginary bodies airbrushed and photoshopped into an impossibly ideal form.

Science museum or playground?

I approve of this article criticizing the dumbing down of science in museums. I think a lot of science museums need a good sharp kick in the pants, because they are going too far down the road of pandering to mass media sensations — our local museum is running a big show on the science of Star Wars, and that article is complaining about the exhibits at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia about “Real Pirates” and “Chronicles of Narnia”. These are real concerns, and there has been a steady drift away from challenging attendees with interesting ideas towards merely entertaining them.

On the other hand, some flash and dazzle is a way to get the younger set involved. Museums, especially ones geared for younger family members, shouldn’t go too far the other way in pretending that popular culture doesn’t exist, or become too dry and serious. When we lived in Philly, we’d occasionally (not often, though — as the article points out, these places have become absurdly expensive) take the kids into center city, and walk down Benjamin Franklin Parkway to Logan Circle, and we’d catch of few of the museums there. The Franklin Institute was always the one with the caravans of school busses outside and the mobs of kids running through it, so we knew what we were getting into there. I always preferred the Academy of Natural Sciences museum myself — it was just across the street, and it had lots more substantive science on display.

We need a balance. It sounds like the Franklin Institute has gone too far in one direction, but it’s still filling an appropriate role…except, maybe, for that “Narnia” thing. I don’t see how to make a science story from a complete fantasy without even a technological angle to its story.

Transparent fakery

What do you think of this “fossil”?

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It’s supposed to be a human footprint with that of an Acrocanthosaurus on top of it, showing that dinosaurs walked the earth after human beings.

Unfortunately, they both look ridiculously fake. The human print has toes like tubes and a wierdly dug-in big toe, and looks ridiculously fake. The dino print is even worse — it’s basically a three-pronged flat plate, looking like it was modeled after the smooth bottoms of a plastic dinosaur toy. Here, for instance is a photo of a cast of an actual dinosaur print.

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A fellow named Alvis Delk “discovered” this rock in Texas, and is now, naturally enough, trying to sell it.

A domestic fall from a ladder eight months ago nearly crippled Delk, resulting in surgeries, a long recovery and expensive medical bills. He decided to try and sell some of his archeological treasurers, so he turned to the large piece of limestone, thinking he could clean it up some and sell it to the Creation Evidence Museum located adjacent to Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose.

Heh. Right. He’s also found a sucker — Carl Baugh, who is falling all over himself praising the authenticity of this blatant fake.

The only way this could be considered evidence for Baugh’s godly vision is in the sense of that well-known quote from Voltaire: “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.” And he keeps on granting it — religious explanations for the world are everlastingly ridiculous.

I have never been a fashion model before

So many people are asking where I got my “Knowledge is Power, Power Corrupts, Study Hard, Be Evil” t-shirt, as modeled here, and I wish I could help you, but I don’t know where you could order your own. I can tell you exactly where I got it: in Detroit, at Moonbase ConFusion, from one of the many vendors in the dealer’s room. I know, that doesn’t help much. Sorry.

Someone could always go to Cryptic ConFusion in January and hope that the same t-shirts are available then…it’s a great con, even if this particular shirt isn’t always available.

Hooray! ElfPirateMonarch found that identical t-shirt design!

Medblogger alert

The Kaiser network is hosting a live webcast to discuss the influence of the blogosphere on health policy — the panel is tilted towards right wing bushites who prioritize money over health, so a more progressive contribution from the audience would be desirable. It’s going to be on tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1pm Eastern.

Oh, and if you worry about the future of health care, get a load of this: nurses in California can get continuing education credit by attending a Catholic conference full of woo. This is not reassuring. I don’t think a lecture on sex ed by a nun reciting papal dogma should count as education.