A celestial omen!

Here I am, rooming with that space case, Phil Plait, and what should appear on the astronomy photo of the day but a cosmic cephalopod, a picture of Comet Holmes that has a resemblance to a cartoon octopus.

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Perhaps this is a sign of reconciliation? That the savage enmity between two science blogs shall be soothed? That the ferocious competition between the best science blog on the web and the blog that tied with a junk science site shall be at an end? That disparate disciplines can find common ground in the beauty of the natural universe?

Naaah, I hope not. The rivalry is too much fun.

Kentucky does good

One of the most vocal pro-creationist governors in the country, Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky (home of Ken Ham’s infamous creationist “museum”) has had his re-election bid go down in flames. This is fabulous news. Revere sees it as one more sign of the impending demise of the religious right — I can’t be quite so optimistic, since they always seem to resurrect themselves. Greg Laden is also pleased with the result. He also takes exception to the claim that creationism is properly taught in social studies and comparative religion classes — and to that, I’d add the frequent suggestion that it belongs in philosophy classes. It does a disservice to all of those disciplines. At best, it ought t be mentioned in abnormal psychology classes, as an example of the madness of crowds or of religious hysteria.

And a pleasant evening was had by all

This is going to be a big problem. I’m at this gathering of bloggers, which means they’re all going to be posting stuff about our meeting here at Americans United, and I’m outnumbered — I can’t keep up. I had dinner with Blue Gal, BAC, DCup, and One Pissed Off Veteran, and some of them already have pictures up.

And after dinner we had the combined Pharyngula/Bad Astronomy gathering, which seemed to have a majority of BA fans, to my chagrin. I think more failed to show up because they know I shoot laser beams out of my eyes. We also got a surprise visit from Tara and an Evil Monkey. The ScienceBorg Collective was out in force, trying to collect souls for the Empire — we leaned on Phil a bit, but he is stubborn. Clearly, it’s time to deploy the fully operational…but wait, I’ve said too much.

Anyway, anyone who was there should speak up in the comments, and feel free to leave a link — it will simplify my efforts to keep track of everyone.

Oh, one guy it’ll be easy to keep up with is Phil, who is still unconscious up in the room. I guess he needs his beauty sleep.

Sokal’d!

Laugh, everyone! A bunch of the people who reject scientific ideas about global warming, including a certain big fat fish and quite a few right wing blogs, were taken in by a fake paper that claimed that “concerns about manmade global warming are unfounded.” If you have even the slightest acquaintance with math, all you have to do is glance at the paper to see that the equations are all gibberish.

Nature has a summary, and an interview with the author of the hoax.

Of course, it’s not exactly comparable to the Sokal hoax since this one didn’t take in the mainstream climatologists at all…only a collection of fringe pundits who oppose an inconvenient reality.

Those degenerate French…

You have to see the mascot for Orangina, some fruity drink, to believe it. She’s kind of hot in a peculiarly cephalopod/tetrapod hybrid way, but then…the video. Oh. My. Non-existent. God. Sex and furries. She gives a lap-dance to a bear-man and squeezes orange juice out of her mammaries.

My brain is scarred. I don’t think I could ever drink Orangina without thoughts of bestiality frolicking unbidden through my head.

(No thanks to Jim Lippard for contaminating my brain with this stuff.)

The Catholic League catches on to our latest subterfuge in the War on Christmas

The Catholic League is afraid parents might see The Golden Compass…and then buy the books for a Christmas gift. Horrors! You can’t give books by atheists on Christmas! Watch the video from Fox News to witness the outrage. Also, I have to love this quote from a Christian who opposes the movie fervently, despite never having seen it or even reading the books. But he has his reasons.

I don’t have to read the book, I’ve never been bitten by a snake either, but I, you know, it’s not something that I have to do to know that it’s not going to, that it’s not necessarily going to be a good thing for me.

In related news, snakebite victim’s family sues. Would you believe a religious snake-handler was bitten by the snake she was playing with to demonstrate her faith, and it bit her? And now her family is upset because she died at the hospital. Shouldn’t they be suing God instead, because he promised that those strong in their faith would be unharmed by poison? Or maybe they ought to find fault in the woman, who clearly was not faithful enough.

Hey, maybe the Bible was actually prophesying The Golden Compass — the snakes in Mark 16:17-18 are actually metaphors for Philip Pullman, promising that the faithful will be unharmed if they watch this movie.