1. Nietzsche Family Circus. Read it.

2. Science always goes down better with some cat.

3. Somehow I'm not surprised.

4. Beck, who has a regular audience of some 2.5 million viewers on his nightly show, has even "re-floated militia conspiracy theories of the 1990s alleging a secret network of government-run concentration camps," said the SPLC.

Oh. Great.

5. Brilliant.

1. Gift ideas, anyone?

2. First, ow. Second:

The scientists then pumped up the sexual organ with a tiny artificial inflator powered by a water-jet vacuum pump.

...Wow.

3. Another one! But this one didn't spontaneously regenerate a smaller version of itself while in captivity.

4. They have the opportunity to train a penguin, and they train it to go shopping....

5. I'm amazed Brown doesn't make an appearance on this list.

NCSE-sponsored review of the Creation Museum

Some interesting excerpts from a review of the Creation Museum that I ran across the other day:

A December 15, 2003 posting on the AIG website went into considerable detail about what the museum would have to counter traditional natural history museums and eventually christened the "Creation Museum" with the far more appropriate name of "The Anti-Museum." Hence the title of this review.

This reminds me of that "What's Your Anti-Drug?" campaign. The Bible is my Anti-Museum.

In front of the ticket booth is a very nice composite wooly Rhino fossil from Siberia on loan to AIG from two of its supporters. I thought this was merely a cast when I first saw the skeleton, because only a thin strip of cloth blocked it off. This cavalier attitude towards a valuable specimen is rather remarkable for a museum, even this one. The mannequins of various biblical characters that appear much later in the museum tour were much more protected by railings and other security.

That's really scary. I suppose they either don't realize the value of the fossil, or they assume that their guests will all behave like good Christians and look but not touch.

About the planetarium show:

The closing credits listed Dr. Jason Lisle as the writer of the program. Dr. Lisle has a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He moved to Kentucky after his graduation to work for Answers in Genesis. He has yet to publish his claims about Blue Supergiants and time dilation of light in peer reviewed journals.

Man, what a loophole. If you want to get your claims 'legitimized' the easy way -- without submitting to peer review -- just give them a Creationist spin and send 'em on over to the Hamster.

If fish could scream, the ocean would be loud as shit. (Thanks Mitch.)

Some actual text from the Museum:

Views about fossils have come and gone. But fossils do not tell us where these creatures came from or how they died.

Um. Sometimes they do. Go check out a children's paleontology or archaeology book from the library. You'll find plenty of examples there.

Genesis also gives an eyewitness account of a catastrophic, worldwide Flood, about 4,350 years ago

This got me thinking. What was happening worldwide at around that time, according to "secular" scientists? Has anybody ever made parallel timelines? I'm just wondering what that flood is supposed to have been interrupting. Not that the AIGers would agree -- they already know what was going on at the time because they've read the bible.

Most fossils are a silent testimony to God's worldwide judgement.

So fossils are God's way of saying, "If you don't listen to me, this is what'll happen." How...merciful. I've thought it for many years, but this emphasizes the fact that the Christian god (as a literary character, of course) is a complete asshole.

POV switch! Back to the reviewer:

The display also included a really poorly reconstructed Iguanadon eating a cycad tree model. The artist must have read that Iguanadon had pebbly skin texture and gave him giant platy pebbles unlike what skin impressions really reveal about this dinosaur. The cycad plant is so bad that it looks like a giant pineapple.

People, do your research. You knew you were gonna be scrutinized by unsympathetic viewers. It's not rocket science. Give the job to a Bible college intern or something. Make sure they've got an internet connection and a library card, throw a few bucks their way for some journal subscriptions, and you're done.

Re: the Ark display:

I really loved the animated figure with the Yiddish accent.

Oh no. Where's Mel Gibson and his historical linguistics team when you need him?

Paleozoic sedimentary rocks are depicted as forming catastrophically in underwater environments, although many terrestrial environments, including tidal flats, soils, and desert dunes are well represented in the Paleozoic. Another biggie in Flood geology is having Pennsylvanian coals form from floating forests that are catastrophically buried. There is a really nice mural of a "floating forest" on one wall. Most Mesozoic terrestrial and marine environments are also depicted as forming under water. One plaque reads "as the sea level rose, flood waves reached farther and farther inland. Ecosystem after ecosystem of plants and animals were carried out to sea and buried." An accompanying cartoonish diagram depicts a dinosaur walking underwater with its mouth open and leaving footprints.

I just don't think I get this. Terrestrial ecosystems form underwater? I have to be missing something. Please let it make more sense than this.

The presence of a marsupial-dominated vertebrate fauna in Australia must really worry the creationists. A most remarkable explanation is given: "marsupials, which have pouches, can nurse their young while moving. That may explain why on each continent [marsupials] were the first mammals buried and preserved after the Flood."

Uh. Is that true? Are marsupials the earliest mammals found on every continent? And when they say "first mammals buried and preserved," do they mean those that are farthest down in the strata? That are dated as being the oldest? Do they buy into "secular" dating methods for fossils/artifacts at all? Is that statement based on anything factual or was it pulled out of their asses (and/or their bibles)?

Races apparently begin with Noah's sons and are dispersed after the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel. After Babel, Ham's descendants go to Africa, Shem's to Arabia and Asia, and Japheth's go to Europe. This is basically insane, outdated 19th Century quack anthropology, but no one else seemed to notice. Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and Cro-Magnon are claimed to originate from these refugees from Babel and became cave dwellers.

Erectus originated from Noah's sons? Were they Homo sapiens? So they evolved backwards?

It was most fascinating and disturbing to see religion sold in the same way as diet pills, male enlargement creme, baldness cures, and the Bass-O-Matic ™.

Heh.

The walls had a number of fossil displays, but most were not yet labeled.

I wonder if they use any of the fossils for specific, fact-based displays? I hope the "yet" above is correct and they will label them as time permits. Otherwise, it's sounding to me like they just threw in a few fossils here and there to make the place look credible. Which is a huge waste.

According to artwork in the film, children in ancient Japan even had pet Stegosaurs.

Man. Japanese kids get all the cool toys.

The special effects consisted of the chairs vibrating every time the angels flew by and water being squirted from a hole in the back of the seat in front of you every time there was a water scene (like the Ark floating in the violent Flood).

You've got to be kidding me.

From a distance it was apparent there were several outdoors dinosaur models there including an outdated tail-dragging Tyrannosaurus.

Again. Research. Please.

Okay. I looked up a bit of AIG's thoughts on fossils, and here's what I found:

Of course, species is a man made term used to describe many variations of the same kind. There are several species of dog, but really they are all part of the same kind.

There aren't many species of dog, if they mean domesticated dogs. And I hope they do, because that's how the lay reader will interpret it. If they don't mean what the average reader will get out of their text, it's dishonest of them to publish it without clarification.

Anyways, all domesticated dogs fall under a subspecies (Canis lupus familiaris), not a species. Poodles, German Shepherds, and Labradors are not species. They're breeds, further subdivisions under the subspecies Canis lupus familiaris.

If you're gonna attack the concept of species and/or naming, at least be clear (and correct) about what you're attacking.

Of course, there is evidence of variation within the kind in the fossil layers. But they obviously didn’t change into each other, since the vast majority of the fossils in the fossil record died together.

They did?? Evidence? Who did the dating/stratigraphy?

Imagine this illustration of bad science:

In 300 years, people began digging in a human graveyard that was from a battle in WWII and find human bodies. They began lining them up by arm length and say that over long periods of time, the arms of people began to get longer!

But this is what evolutionists are doing

*headdesk*

I can't even summon a response to that. If they're that ignorant/deceitful, it's not even worth my admittedly worthless time and effort to refute them.

There is a predetermined age for certain fossils (once again based on assumption), and when they are found in a certain rock layer, that rock layer is given that age. Interestingly enough, the fossils are dated by the rock layers they are in, an example of circular reasoning.

How about some absolute dating methods? I know the good folks at AIG aren't ignorant of the existence of them:

Before we get into the details of how radiometric dating methods are used, we need to review some preliminary concepts from chemistry. Recall that atoms are the basic building blocks of matter.

But that's Just A Theory!

Anyways, this accusation of circular reasoning is dishonest -- they know it's not circular logic if it's correlated with absolute dating. Even if they don't agree with the 'Darwinist's' interpretation of said dates, they can't call the logic circular.

Interesting that Lucy is used as a evidence, considering the fossils reveal that it was a male, as anatomist Dr. David Menton points out.

Wow. Just...wow. Has he tried to publish this information? Is Johanson aware of it? Do any paleoanthropologists agree with him (you'll notice that his degree is in cell biology, not paleoanthropology or even anatomy, though he did teach the latter)?

[Dr. Menton's bio reveals that he's a Brown alum. Nooooooo!!! *Platoon-esque-fists-raised-heavenward*]

1. About damn time. Though, like it says in the article, it needs to be expanded to first-years too.

2. Wasn't Sesame Street supposed to be educational?

What precisely is the lesson to be learned from this? That information can be looked up in books?

And this? That disco is scary and early techno is good?

3. Let's learn about animals!

(From a 16th century bestiary....)

The Hyena

[I]t stalks the sheepfolds of shepherds and circles their houses by night, and by listening carefully learns their speech, so that it can imitate the human voice, in order to fall on any man whom it has lured out at night.

The hyena also [imitates] human vomit and devours the dogs it has enticed with faked sounds of retching.

The Parrot

Its skull is so thick, that if ever you have to admonish it with blows to learn - for it tries hard to speak like men - you should beat it with an iron rod.

Man

Varro says that the kidneys, renes, are so called because streams, rivus, of the obscene fluid [semen] rise there.

The loins, lumbi, get their name from the wantonness of lust, libido, because the seat of fleshly pleasure in men is there, just as in women it is in the navel.

The word for testicles, testiculi, is a diminutive of testis, witness; there is a minumum of two. They supply to the penis, calamus, semen which the kidneys and loins take from the spinal cord, in order to create a fetus.

The posterior parts of the body are so called because they are at the rear, turned away from the face, lest when we empty our bowels, we should defile our gaze.

4. This is far too much fun.

5. It's always amazing how much the human body can be modified and still function.

1. Sad.

“I don’t see how any human being could look at them for any prolonged period of time without getting physically ill… I thought I would throw-up if I looked at them any longer.”

First of all, how immature is that? Seriously. Grow up. And get yourself a spine while you're at it.

Second of all, how sheltered is this woman if she's so unused to facial piercings that she can't stomach the sight of them? Do we really want someone so ignorant and naive in a position of leadership?

Thirdly, would she have the same reaction to someone with a non-voluntary facial disfigurement? Or someone with facial modifications condoned or encouraged by their culture? She'd be crucified for that. What's the difference between these situations, really?

2. I don't think I know (or have ever known) Brown's motto. I'm not particularly motivated to look it up, either.

Impactful or not, does a college really need a motto? Quick: What's the slogan of your alma mater? An extremely informal and decidedly unscientific survey indicates that many people don't know.

See?

Reed College's underground slogan is "Communism, Atheism, Free Love." Students at Swarthmore College experience "Guilt Without Sex."

Heh. Imagine, I considered going to both of those schools. Shocking.

If pressed, I'd say Brown's motto would be something like "Figure it out your own damn selves" or "You may be about to make a huge mistake, but we're gonna let you go through with it because it's a learning experience."

3. Finally, a public monument I can stand behind.

More coverage here.

4. I like this kid, even if she gets her prepositions a bit mixed up:

“It’s cool ’cause you can, like, think freely by yourself,” [eight-year-old Jane Kovak] said.

And her parents:

As for Jane, her parents believe that her religious beliefs, or lack thereof, should be up to her.

“They have had many discussions about this, and we’ve had our discussions too,” said her mother. “I think that we just give our view, I always tell Jane that she has to make up her own mind, she has to experience her experiences — figure it out for herself.”

Shocking that I went to the "figure it out for your own damn selves" college, eh?

5. I always did enjoy a good blooper reel.

1. Vote for Penn!

2. This makes me even sadder that optional gender-neutral housing at Brown never worked out. Hopefully it will someday.

And some of these parents, under a doctor’s supervision, have even begun to administer hormone blockers to prevent the arrival of secondary sex characteristics until a “gender variant” child is old enough to make permanent choices.

This is where I start to hesitate. What are the long-term consequences of hormone blockers? This reminds me a little of the Ashley Treatment, which is not a good association in my mind. Well-intentioned, but possibly not the best thing to do?

students will often use gender-neutral pronouns like “ze” and “hir”

Good luck with that. It's been tried before, and it's never stuck.

But today many students who identify as trans are seeking not simply to change their sex but to create an identity outside or between established genders — they may refuse to use any gender pronouns whatsoever or take a gender-neutral name but never modify their bodies chemically or surgically. These students are also considered part of the trans community, though they are known as either gender nonconforming or genderqueer rather than transmen or transmale.

I'm all for expanding the gender binary. Other cultures have done it. But I suppose my attitude is just a by-product of my indoctrination at that liberal brainwashing factory of a college I attended. One too many anthropology courses, I suppose.

In the first week of September, he found out that his roommates had complained to the college’s freshman housing director about being asked to share their rooms with a man. They wanted Rey to find somewhere else to live. According to Dorothy Denburg, the dean who spoke to Rey about the situation, these young women were disturbed when Rey told them on the first day “that he was a transboy and wanted to be referred to by male pronouns.”

One of the reasons we need optional gender-neutral housing in dorms.

Part of the couple’s sangfroid is generational — she and Rey see themselves as genderqueer rather than gay. For them, sexual orientation is fluid. Like some of their peers, Melissa and Rey want to be — and sometimes imagine they already are — part of the first generation to transcend gender.

As long as they realize that plenty of people are still perfectly happy identifying with traditional gender roles. And don't look down on those who do.

While many gender-nonconforming students don’t have “top surgery” in their freshman years, they may still struggle with their colleges’ medical services, not because they want specialized treatments but because they want health care that is sensitive to their new identities. As one gender-noncomforming student complained to me, he hated that health services insisted on treating him “like a girl.”

They're in the medical field. They're not gonna lie about your anatomy. But maybe some sort of staff orientation about gender identity wouldn't hurt.

“gender identity” was recently dropped from the 2007 Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA.

Wait, what? It was in there, but then they took it back out? The hell.

Earlier at lunch, Melissa joked about whether they were even in a relationship, “I’m not sure: Rey doesn’t do labels.”

Heh. I liked the guy until that point, but people who "don't do labels" tend to piss me off.

“Some transmen want to be seen as men — they want to be accepted as born men,” he said. “I want to be accepted as a transman — my brain is not gendered.["]

Well, no, it's not. The word 'gender' refers to societal constructs that correspond -- to varying degrees -- to physical/biological states. Not the biological state itself.

3. An interesting piece about atheism and raising children (via Friendly Atheist).

I really like the author's approach. The more I think about it, when/if I have kids, I'd want to expose them to as many different religions/beliefs as possible. Go visit different churches, temples, etc., and discuss them all. Excluding the more extreme, fundamentalist groups. Children don't need to be exposed to fundamentalism. Churches should be given movie ratings. I'm not sure if Westboro would be R or NC-17. Any votes?

4. Kansas strikes again.

5. "There is no way that modern humans, I believe, could have evolved from a species like Neanderthal," Sawyer said. "They're certainly a cousin - they're human - but they're one of those strange little offshoots."

Does anyone believe humans evolved from Neanderthals? I wasn't aware that anyone who knew anything about paleoanthropology still thought that.

1. This is pretty awesome. It'll be interesting to see if it's proven in the future or not.

2. Cute.

Though of course, I have to nitpick.

And lead us not into supernatural explanations, deliver us from denial of logic.

Is it hypocritical of me to agree with eschewing supernatural explanations but not with relying solely on logic? I mean, logic is, after all, dependent on human intelligence, which is obviously fallible. But that doesn't mean we should make stuff up to fill in the gaps, either.

3. You've gotta be kidding me.

SAY ‘BYE-BYE, PLANE’

Last July, 19-month-old Garren Penland – who’d just endured an 11-hour delay at Houston airport – said those words repeatedly (as children will) during the safety briefing on a Continental flight. “The flight attendant said, ‘Okay, it’s not funny any more. You need to shut your baby up,’ ” claimed his mum, Kate. Unfazed, Garren kept going, and mother and son soon ended up on the tarmac.

Would the same kid be kicked off the plane for crying? Probably not. That makes no sense.

And I have to say this makes me think about what would happen if someone with echolalia were on a flight. I suppose there's no constitutionally protected right to sit on an airliner, but still....

4. NAGPRA in action. Locally. Sort of.

The 200-foot-deep portion along Marine Drive eventually will be the site of a Lower Elwha cultural center and museum.

Sweet. This is what all archaeological sites should turn into. So nerds like me can go visit them.

After the first remains were unearthed at Tse-whit-zen, tribal members worked beside archaeologists to remove the burials.

Good, but it would've been better if they'd involved them as soon as they realized it was an occupation site connected to the tribe.

5. Laura Linney makes me proud to be a Brown alum.

NYT: As a graduate of Brown University do you think acting requires intelligence?

LL: No.

1. Yay!

2. The mouse-over makes it worth it.

3. Possible alternative employment opportunity?

4. Remember O'Reilly's expose on Brown's SexPowerGod party? Someone finally realized that it, as well as many of his other segments, was just an excuse to talk about girls making out with each other.

5. I have no idea how school vouchers work in reality, but I actually don't agree with the church-state separationists on this one. If the vouchers work for religious schools as well as prep schools and whatever other private/alternative education options are around, I don't see the problem.

Turn Them Shits Up

1. Fun facts brough to you by this thing:

Koalas sleep for 22 hours a day, two hours more than Sarah!

Sarah is the oldest playable musical instrument in the world.

Sarah was banned from Finland because of not wearing pants!

Contrary to popular belief, Brown University is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases it may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.

A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find Missouri.

Cats use their atheism to test whether a space is large enough for them to fit through.

Iceland will become gaseous if its temperature rises above -42°C.

Some hotels in Las Vegas have boobies floating in their swimming pools.

2. Sad. Though I suppose a school is a private institution and can discriminate as it sees fit.... Wait. Public school. And since when do schools require their bus drivers to be role models? I certainly wouldn't want to model myself after some of the wacko bus drivers I encountered as a kid.

The whole husband-vampire thing is a little weird, though, I have to admit.

3. Rock on, Iceland. Rock on.

Of course this won't work anywhere else in the world, given natural resources and population density. But good for them nonetheless.

4. Like shooting fish in a barrel, this. Still funny though.

The Saga Continues

1. Not really much I didn't already know here, but interesting all the same.

2. Yes, the Herald prints opinions that it doesn't necessarily agree with. But they only print those that are so outrageous that no one takes them seriously.

Stewie's Sexy Party

Apparently Brown University should be ashamed for allowing (and partially funding) orgies on campus.

College students wearing provocative clothing and dancing? Drinking, even? Possibly...having sex??!!!1/11/

Surely not!

Manual Labor

1. Got paid approximately $50/hour to mow the front yard and along the driveway. Not bad. Though I'm sure I look like the Supreme Dork of the Universe when I'm mowing. Complete with visor, sound-proof headphones, and cargo vest. Not to mention singing along to my walkman who-knows-how-loud since I can't hear anything over the mower or through the headphones.

2. Scary.

3. Why oh why didn't this happen *before* I left?

4. Unpacking update: sorry, no amusing lists as of yet. My only comment: I own entirely too much stuff.

Party @ Tha Dumpster

1. The Commencement program mis-capitalized my last name. Typical.

2. Mom and I stayed in a motel just west of St. Louis last night. When we pulled into the parking lot, there was a group of eight or nine construction workers having a barbeque near the dumpster.

3. The sight of a Brown Morning Mail in my inbox brought on a mild sense of nostalgia. It's too soon for this.

4. Unpacking and sorting begins tomorrow. Amusing lists forthcoming.

Inevitable.

1. Being sick for Campus Dance sucks. That is all.

2. More Wonder Boys:

It seemed to me that Q. was talking about the nature of the midnight disease, which started as a simple feeling of disconnection from other people, an inability to "fit in" by no means unique to writers, a sense of envy and unbridgeable distance like that felt by someone tossing on a restless pillow in a world full of sleepers. Very quickly, though, what happened with the midnight disease was that you began actually to crave this feeling of apartness, to cultivate and even flourish within it. You pushed yourself farther and farther and farther apart until one black day you woke to discover that you yourself had become the chief object of your own hostile gaze.

3. Last day at Greenlock was yesterday. Goodbye, Blue (a.k.a. "Jaws").

4. I hate iPods. And iTunes. With a vengeance. I will prevail.

YES!

1. So happy.

2. New Star Wars: far exceeded my all-time-low expectations.

Self-Promotion.

1. I have to write a blurb about myself for the Anthro. dept. commencement ceremony:

"This paragraph should state something like why you chose Brown, Anthropology, RI; or you could just thank your parents, grandparents, professors, friends or whomever…..you could also write about how you got here or where you are going from here."

Can they be any more vague?

Ack. I do not want to write this right now.

2. Apparently my bot has absorbed some of my opinions on religion:

OtherBot: I never pray, I wouldn't know.
MyBot: That seems like a wise path to take.

It begins.

Done with classes = no discernible circadian rhythm.

Somehow I'm less than delighted. This means I am getting old.