Sudden upsurge in godlessness in America!

All the Baptists and Methodists and Mormons and Lutherans and so forth have been unchurched by fiat — the pope has declared their buildings non-churches and that they aren’t true followers of Jesus. This is good news! Now we can tell all the protestants, “Nyaa, nyaa, you’re going to Hell with us atheists!” I’m also going to relish telling the Jehovah’s Witnesses that knock on my door and invite me to church that the only church in town is a couple of blocks down 3rd Avenue, and Father Caskey runs the show.

The bad news, though, is that we’re going to have to resume the Thirty Years’ War. Those Germans will tremble in fear when the Vatican Guard marches northward, swinging those halberds.

A blogginghead in my future

If you’ve been following the Bloggingheads site, you probably already know that the best thing on it is Science Saturday with John Horgan and George Johnson. Horgan and Johnson are splitting up for the next few weeks, and are getting different heads to make a pair. Next week, George Johnson and the physicist Sean Carroll will be teaming up for a physics-heavy session, and the week after that, it’s John Horgan and me, of all people. I’m going to dig up my kids’ old boy scout manuals and review the sections on knots just in case he asks me about string theory.

Sean brings up a few things I’m mildly concerned about. I know from personal experience that being a blogger doesn’t necessarily translate well into more visual media; I’m not sure what to do about that, other than just being awake and avoiding faux pas like showing up at the camera naked. We also need juicy stuff to talk about. Like Sean, I’ll accept suggestions for what you want to hear in the comments—or you could be really wicked and write directly to Horgan with ideas for exciting topics to ambush me with (you could also advise Johnson on how to get a rise out of Carroll).

If you really want to have fun with it, mix up the questions. Carroll might be just as flummoxed getting asked about developmental networks in invertebrate genomes as I would be having to chatter about dark matter.

The Tripoli 6 case may be resolved soon

The six health care workers in Libya who were accused of intentionally infecting children with AIDS have had their death sentence confirmed. According to Revere, this is good news. It means the case now moves to the High Judicial Council, which has the power to commute the sentence, and which is also government controlled … and the government has just accepted (or, more accurately, “extorted”) a deal for lifetime care of the affected kids. We may know as soon as next week that the falsely accused doctor and nurses will have been released to their home countries. We hope.

“Political interference with the work of the surgeon general appears to have reached a new level in this administration”

That quote from Henry Waxman can’t possibly be a surprise, can it?

Our former surgeon general, Richard Carmona, is speaking out against the anti-science policies of the Bush administration.

For example, he said he wasn’t allowed to make a speech at the Special Olympics because it was viewed as benefiting a political opponent. However, he said was asked to speak at events designed to benefit Republican lawmakers.

“The reality is that the nation’s doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas,” said Carmona, who served from 2002 to 2006.

This administration wants to sign on a new surgeon general: James Holsinger, a religious homophobe who has received the endorsement of the Reverend Fred Phelps. Ironically, part of their defense against the accusations of Carmona is that the surgeon general has “the obligation to be the leading voice for the health of all Americans,” although it seems to me that they meant to say the voice for the health of wealthy heterosexual Republicans … but then, that’s a phrase I think you can substitute for “American” any time a right-winger uses the word.

It’s just another datum in the history of the politicization of science and medicine by the repugnant Bush administration.

(via Angry by Choice)

Finding a big dead thing would be the highlight of anyone’s day

Usually, on my morning walk, I keep my eyes open for any squid that might have washed up on the sidewalks of Morris. Now I learn that the squid wash up on the beaches of Tasmania. I suppose a place nearer an ocean is a more likely spot. (By the way, TONMO is the site to check for more news on the beached squid carcass—and they think it is unlikely that it’s actually a giant squid.)

Maybe I should start scanning for dead baby mammoths, instead.

He should study Sun Tzu

How do you know Egnor is crazy as a loon? For one thing (among many), he lashes out at both Orac and me. Triggering a response from one wordy skeptical woo-woo-basher should be enough for any semi-sane kook, but his last little screed tried to trawl both of us up in the flimsy net of his delusions. I already swiped back, but now Orac rips him and Pat Sullivan apart. Dumb move. He really should just try us one at a time — his struggles last a little longer that way.

My man-crush

Phil reveals his man-crushes, and I have to respond in kind. Fortunately, it’s easy. I’ve just seen something that endears one particular gentleman to me…

Michael Moore.

He batters that smug silver-haired rodent, Wolf Blitzer. I wish he’d been given a chance to kick Lou Dobbs’ ass. He rakes the entire American news media over white-hot coals for their continued failures to investigate and report honestly on the war as well as on health care. C’est magnifique.