Reader Ben (and blogger at Eclecticsanonymous) recommended this video.  He wasn't wrong.  It comes in five parts on Your Tube.  Here they are:

CDC facts about the HPV vaccine.

Here, you can explore the Epidemiology of the various strains of the HPV virus.  Note that strains #s 16 and 18 are the most common strains found in new-borns.  The HPV vaccine covers those strains.  Yet the religious right still opposes the use of the vaccine under the argument that contracting HPV is a “Lifestyle choice”  While a person might make that judgment on the mother, it seems a rather harsh one to make on her innocent infant. (never mind that 1 in 4 women will be raped in their lifetime, and 22% of these will be raped under the age of 12…lifestyle choice?  Who “chooses” to have a spouse cheat (26 – 50% depending on if you buy the conservative estimate or the liberal one) on them and bring an STD home?  

It is estimated that 50% of the sexually active population is infected with HPV at some time in their lives.  It is estimated that 90% of all cervical cancer is caused by HPV, which is the second leading cause of death in women world-wide.  HPV is also implicated in a number of other urogenital cancers which affect men and women…as well as genital warts.

Transmission possibilities include: sexual transmission (most likely) transmission from mother to infant, between children who have been the victims of sexual abuse, and non-sexual contact with infected urogenital secretions ( no confirmed cases, but the possibility exists unlike with some other viruses)

Still, control of this virus on a epidemiological level is portrayed as inconsequential to public health, and the equivalent of heart disease, despite is ubiquity and links to several types of cancer…and despite the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing not only contraction of the virus, but  also in reducing the risks of lesions in already infected women.

Cost is another argument, but estimates on the opposing side merely pit the cost of mandatory vaccination against a single life (the absolute highest I’ve heard in cost per life saved is $1M.  I’ve also heard the cost estimated as low as $81,000 per life saved).  Since estimates of value of lives saved to society are frequently in the multiple millions, it seems fair enough.

After all, Religious Conservatives celebrated the Supreme Court decision that would save an estimated 3,000 unborn recently.  Yet an expected 3,700 women not dying of cervical cancer in the country is considered negligible., and not worthwhile.

They don’t talk about the money saved in pre-cancerous lesions that needn’t be treated, in transmissions that don’t occur.   Plus, those figures fail to mention if they took into account incidences of other potentially fatal and/or life-shortening urogenital cancers which have been linked to HPV (some of them affect men as well).

Add to this the number of different strains of HPV, and the dangers of allowing them to spread unchecked through the population, recombining to create new strains with greater ability for transmission, infection, and a greater possibility of affecting long-term health (risks which would be lowered by control of the virus); and you make a pretty good case for mandatory vaccinations.

Maybe it’s not a slam-dunk, but aspersions about “life-style choice”, and assertions about lowering the resistance of young girls to having sex seems more than a little trivial.

I DID find a JAMA article about mandatory HPV vaccinations.  It recommends against mandatory vaccinations.  Why? Because backlash from the anti-vaccine crowd could politically endanger the mandatory status of already mandatory vaccines.

 Cowards. “Oh, the anti-science people will get us if there’s anything remotely disappointing about the policy.  Run away Run away.”

One of their other arguments is that they haven’t seen suggestions as to who would pay for it.  Although legislation usually covers that…and it really isn’t the purview of the doctors.  Finally, they say that public funding of the vaccine would likely lower the amount of money spent in other areas.  That is an interesting question, and it would be interesting if we could see how public funding of the vaccine for poor people might actually lower the cost of treating conditions caused by HPV.

I notice that all of the objections raised in the JAMA article were political in nature, and not medical nor even went into any depth to really look at the epidemiological effect of mass vaccination.

The JAMA article is in response to the ACIP recommendations for girls 9-12 years of age.

[UPDATE:  I found a reason why the fundies might now rally behind the HPV vaccine.  Apparently, there was a study that showed that it is possible that having the virus might inhibilt the implantation of zygotes into the uterus.  In other words...HPV could cause "abortions".  They won't do it to save women, or babies that are born (since it's a "lifestyle choice") but maybe they will do it to save teh unborn babies]

Neil at 4Simpsons took his daughter to a Penguin Encounter for her birthday.  He posted pictures.  It looks like such an awesome experience for his daughter.

I think I would have done just about anything for an experiance like that when I was that age.  Kudos to Neil.

And really, despite all the differences, how can you really be THAT different from a fellow penguin fan?

Bill and Opus in 08!  Bringing us all together.  LOL!

Byron: But where is it written that all our dreams must be small ones?"

Captain John Sheridan: Our new friend just said all the security in the world can't stop a lone gunman dedicated to exchange his life for the target, and he is right. So you may as well live instead of being a prisoner.

Captain John Sheridan: If more of our so-called leaders would walk the same streets as the people who voted them in, live in the same buildings, eat the same food instead of hiding behind glass and steel and bodyguards, maybe we'd get better leadership and a little more concern for the future.

Susan Ivanova: May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk.

The world would be a much better place if everyone watched Babylon Five.

But we live in a world where people would much rather view the reality of what and who may have killed Anna Nichole Smith, who fathered the baby and who gets her money than care about the fantasy of the heroic fiction of the possible future.

So, in the knowledge that we have to live here, with the mundane, another quote:

G'Kar: It is said that the future is always born in pain. The history of war is the history of pain. If we are wise, what is born of that pain matures into the promise of a better world, because we learn that we can no longer afford the mistakes of the past.

This is the Christian Right I know. Anti-Semitic, promoting the execution of homosexuals, saying that God does not hear the prayers of Jews, defending child abusers and child abuse because parents "own" their children by God's ordination. 

I know also have come to know a lot of really nice Right-wing fundamentalists. They wouldn't hurt a fly except in self-defense. But they don't have to. They just have to defend and support and send money to and vote for the craven, manipulative, cynical, censorous, hypocritical leaders. As long as good people stand behind these dogs, we are in danger from them.

(Hat Tip:  Jason Bock)

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

                                                 -- Sinclair Lewis

My folks came down to visit over the last few days.  We had a nice visit.  They brought a ½ lb. bag of fresh morel mushrooms from the woods behind their house.

So today for lunch Rocky and I had Bourbon Salmon, fresh steamed asparagus and $20 worth of sautéed Morel mushrooms for lunch.  You gotta love a state where you can go out into your back yard and pull a couple hundred dollars worth of delicacy out of your backyard three weeks out of the year.

My mom and dad got to see Adventure Boy’s band concert (with the obligatory post-concert visit to Cold Stone), and Dad went with to Grasshopper’s cello lesson.  My mom and I took a lot of walks with the dogs, and went to the dog park.  They watched the video of the Middle School’s production of The Music Man, which Adventure Boy played in the pit orchestra for.

And now I get to relax a little and decompress until August.  I love my folks and all, but there ARE a few issues  J

Dear Readers, this is cut and pasted directly and word-for-word and in its entirety from Pharyngula.  I don't think anyone will mind, as it is an attempt to let someone who is being witchunted by the the Bible-bashers defend himself in yet another venue.

The Discovery Institute has mounted the latest in a long string of creationist smear campaigns against me in Iowa. While I have never called for Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez to be fired, or even to be denied tenure, there are plenty of creationists who blatantly direct our university to fire me.

All such efforts have failed because they clearly distort the facts and my academic record. Here are some of the most significant questions and distortions voiced in these attacks:

1. Avalos is not a scientist, and so cannot critique ID
I have a formal degree and a year of graduate work in anthropology, which is home to the study of human evolution. The study of human evolution is a legitimate scientific field. I have published numerous articles on science and religion.

Nature and Science also have recognized my expertise in the area of science and religion in a number of news articles. See, for example, my quoted comments on scientific studies or prayer in Science, 276 (1997): p. 359; and on religion and violence in Nature 446 (March 8, 2007), p. 115.

ID is regarded by virtually all scientists and scholars of religion to be a theological argument, and I have the training to evaluate theological arguments. I have a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in biblical and Near Eastern Studies from Harvard.

I may not be an astronomer, but my article, "Heavenly Conflicts: The Bible and Astronomy," passed the editorial review of Mercury: The Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 27 no. 2 (March/April, 1998), pages 20-24. There, I critiqued fine-tuning arguments before I even heard of Gonzalez.

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is the SAME organization that has published, via a sister publication (Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific), some of the work of Guillermo Gonzalez.

So the irony is that it is the scholar of religion whose work passed the editorial review of a legitimate astronomical organization, and it is the astronomer who has not published a refereed article on ID in an astronomical journal.

2. Avalos's book, Fighting Words, blames the Jewish people for the Holocaust
This is an outright canard. I see the Holocaust as the synthesis of many factors. But I place much of the responsibility on a long Christian history of anti-Judaism. I explicitly (Fighting Words, pp, 195-96) say that Hitler's plan is an updating of Martin Luther's famous seven-point plan for the Jews.

This outrages creationists because they have long held that evolutionary theory led to the Holocaust (e.g., Richard Weikart's biased and grossly uninformed From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004]). I show that every major feature of Holocaust had a long religious history that predated Darwin.

That some authors of the Hebrew Bible (1 Samuel 15, Deuteronomy 7) advocate genocide is a well-known fact recognized by nearly all Christian and Jewish scholars, and not a statement against Judaism or an effort to blame the Jews for the Holocaust.

Moreover, Jewish scholars who have reviewed Fighting Words have viewed it positively. Note these comments about Fighting Words by Prof. Martin Jaffee of the University of Washington:

"Hector Avalos (of Iowa State), joins the conversation with a lucid, provocative, and deeply disturbing study of the role of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in fostering the conditions necessary to liberate human ingenuity in the services of unspeakable acts of carnage."Source: Comparative Religion (A Publication of...The University of Washington (2005-2006), p. 3 (http://jsis.washington.edu/religion/46756.CompRel.NL.pdf)

Finally, perhaps the DI should also note that I have also been a member of the Jewish Studies Committee at Iowa State for many years. My doctoral research won a dissertation grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

3. How can Avalos, an atheist, teach courses on the Bible and religion?
Unlike learning Bible in Sunday School classes, courses on the Bible in public universities are descriptive not prescriptive.

We study what people believe about the Bible, and not what people should believe. We report what different viewpoints (including Christian, Jewish, and secular) say ABOUT the Bible, without forcing students to believe in any viewpoint.

Such pedagogy is premised on the idea that a professor can objectively describe what other people believe about their religion. If that were not the case, then Christians could never teach about the religion of anyone else in a public university either.

My ability to be objective has been validated by the fact that I was named Professor of the Year at Iowa State in 1996, after being nominated by CHRISTIAN students. I was named Master Teacher in 2003-04. I usually receive some of the highest, if not the highest, teaching evaluations in my department, and most of the students are Christians.

And while pro-ID advocates make much of the fact that Dr. Gonzalez supposedly promotes ID only outside the classroom, they always erroneously assert that I promote secular humanism inside the classroom.

In addition, some of my books and articles have been published by well-recognized Christian presses, including Abingdon Press, Hendrickson Press, and Eerdmans (Dictionary of the Bible).

4. Avalos is too anti-religious to teach in Iowa
The Discovery Institute will first have to convince a number of churches who have invited me to speak with the full knowledge that I am an atheist.

My lectures based on Fighting Words and on other topics have been delivered, by invitation, at the following Christian churches in Iowa:

Collegiate United Methodist Church, Ames, Iowa, February 15, 2007
West Des Moines United Methodist Church, January 7, 2007
Westminster Presbyterian Church (Des Moines), November 7, 2006
Bethesda Lutheran Church, Ames, IA, December 7, 2003
Unitarian Fellowship, Ames, IA, November 10, 2002

Open-minded Christians do want to hear an alternative viewpoint from me, and we have had many constructive discussions.

If I am not anti-religious enough to be speaking in churches, why am I too anti-religious for public universities?

5. Avalos spearheaded an atheist plot in Iowa
Not true. Any success against ID in Iowa has come because we have assembled a coalition that cuts across religious lines, and includes Christians, Jews, Hindus, and secularists. They all recognize that being against ID is to be against pseudo-science, and not to be against religion.

Christians can recognize that, even if God exists, there are bad arguments for the existence of God (and ID is one of them).

Pro-ID forces in Iowa can usually muster only fundamentalists, who write letters in the local papers defending ID with biblical passages. Thus, these letter writers only expose the fact that ID is a religious position, and not a scientific one.

The Discovery Institute has only itself to blame for its string of defeats in academia and in court. The DI underestimated Iowans who know the difference between science and religion. And these smear tactics will not help the DI with those who know my academic record best.

There is a hilarious video over at Pharyngula.  I've GOT to figure out how to imbed video into my blog.

[update: Thanks to Mark at Denialism.com, I am seriously DANGEROUS now!  Moooo-hahhaha.  I can embed video]

The story behind South Dakota’s abortion ban. Click on this link, and go read the whole thing.  Whether you approve of abortion or not, is this how you want your laws being made?

  If the “pro-life lobby is so righteous, how come they have to delete testimony:

The dissenters--Linda Holcomb, a family therapist; Dr. Maria Bell, the sole gynecologist on the committee; Senator Stanford Adelstein; and Looby--say the final report distorts the information and testimony the task force surveyed. Though the testimony was evenly divided between citizen and expert witnesses in favor of legal abortion and against it, most of the testimony in favor of legal abortion was omitted from the final report or discredited to what Looby considers a libelous degree.

Claim not to remember the testimony they are deleting:

Hunt is evasive when questioned about this omission. "There were a lot of statements made that didn't make it into the report," he said. "I don't remember that many doctors making that kind of a statement." But an examination of the testimony sheds light on the contention: Of the nine physicians who testified, eight claimed it was not medically advisable to create an environment where abortion was illegal.

Falsely represent testimony, skew testimony,

Missing testimony isn't the only troubling aspect of the report; the witnesses were routinely misrepresented. For instance, the report claims that "close to 2,000 women who have had abortions made statements detailing their experience...over 99 percent of them testified that abortion is destructive of the rights, interests, and health of women." These figures actually refer to 1,500 affidavits originally collected as part of an Internet campaign, brought in by a Texas-based litigation firm, The Justice Foundation, and its antiabortion offspring, Operation Outcry, during the October 21 meeting of the task force. There were also seven out-of-state Operation Outcry representatives invited to testify before the task force, even though the day was reserved for South Dakotan testimony only. Though Hunt says he can't remember who had invited Operation Outcry, Allison, the self-identified "pro-life" chair of the committee who often voted with the prochoice minority, says that Hunt was responsible for bringing in all the pro-life witnesses. "He may not remember, but I'm guessing he knows," she added.

Just plain lie about science

Looby says that she and the other minority members spent hours trying to correct errors in the report during the final meeting but were routinely voted down. The final straw was the report's contention that there is a link between breast cancer and abortion. The report claimed that "reasons to suspect such a link are sufficiently sound," though nearly all the evidence the group had accumulated supported the contrary. Looby and Bell made a motion to amend the claim, which was tabled without discussion. At that point, Looby, Adelstein, Holcomb and Bell left the meeting in protest. The final report was then endorsed nine to one, with Allison the lone dissenter.

And deny responsibility for writing the resulting legislation?

No one claimed specific authorship of the report. "We were supposed to sit down, go through it, critique it, make motions, and we didn't know who wrote it because no one would say," Allison recollects. "I think there were several authors, but the only knowledge I have of who authored it is what I've read in the paper, honestly, because no one would 'fess up during our meeting." Hunt, whose statement on the report's authorship is "I wasn't necessarily part of any of the drafting," contends that it was a group effort and that several members had been e-mailing drafts back and forth before the final meeting. "There were probably six or seven members who wrote different sections of it and then pooled their information," he says. "I know that there were three or four other members who kind of went through the draft trying to tie it all together." Neither Looby nor the other surprised members were privy to the alleged e-mail drafts. "We got the feeling there was a lot of national-level professional input," Looby says.

Sue got a promotion.

Because Sue is AWESOME!!!

Unless something changes, California's prison budget is set to top it's spending on Universities within five years.

Go read this article about HPV vaccine:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/pollitt

Here’s the money quote:

I remember when people rolled their eyeballs if you suggested that opposition to abortion was less about "life" than about sex, especially sex for women. You have to admit that thesis is looking pretty solid these days. No matter what the consequences of sex--pregnancy, disease, death--abstinence for singles is the only answer. Just as it's better for gays to get AIDS than use condoms, it's better for a woman to get cancer than have sex before marriage. It's honor killing on the installment plan.

And another one:

As they flex their political muscle, right-wing Christians increasingly reveal their condescending view of women as moral children who need to be kept in line sexually by fear. That's why antichoicers will never answer the call of prochoicers to join them in reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available: They want it to be less available. Their real interest goes way beyond protecting fetuses--it's in keeping sex tied to reproduction to keep women in their place.

Here is another article for the layman, but more science-oriented about the virus, the vaccine, and the reasoning of the people opposing it:

http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/05/11/texas_where_the_living_is_cont.php

Here, you can get the facts about HPV Vaccine: http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/57/1/7#SEC5

These humans, with their screwed up priorities:

"Come on Jay, we gotta get Grasshopper to the school bus on time.  Rush rush rush."

Sigh.  Don't they know that you have to stop and smell the irises once in a while?

And then lick them?

And then shove your head right in the middle of the Iris bed, and shake your head around to get the smell on you?

They just don't know what they're missing.

http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/heliocentrism-is-an-atheist-doctrine/

This is so awesome!  It's so over the top, I'm leaning toward spoof.

(Hat Tip: Pharyngula)

You can go here and sign a petition to free Kent Hovind from his imprisonment for tax evasion.  Read the heartfelt pleas from his supporters.

Kent Hovind was sent to prison for real crimes that he was really convicted of.  Saying he’s “innocent” because God told him to do it is a little nutty.  Don’t think so?

Well, maybe you also don’t think it’s nutty when a woman claims that her husband isn’t guilty of child abuse because Satan targeted him for temptation due to his desire to be a preacher.

Religion is fine as far as it goes, but it cannot be allowed to justify anti-social behavior.  Someone might be a “man of God”, but even religion can’t mask the fact that ugly is just plain ugly; whether it is thought, word or action.

That takes a special combination of religion, stupidity, and insanity.

Add to that the holy warrior persona, and you’ve got yourself a big barrelful of ugly.

Something that seems to be on the rise.

(two hattips to Pharyngula)

It’s the answer!  All we have to do is wait until the “right” smears, defames, harasses, and sets their troll posse out with threats against the children of all the conservatives in the country.  The answer is so obvious.  Unleash Bill O’Reilly  and Bill Donohue, and let them do their damage.  One by one, people will wake up when their little liberal child is the one standing in the crosshairs of a fallafel-weilding maniac. I just don’t know if the country has time to let them completely discredit themselves.

The Daily Kos has more about the strange case of Amanda Marcotte.

“Her parents didn’t know what to do, either. "It was interesting to see, because they’re Fox News-watchers; they buy into the whole thing," Amanda says. "So I don’t think it ever occurred to them, the human face of someone Bill O’Reilly will slander for political gain. They didn’t stop to consider how much he slants things, and lies, until it happened to someone they knew."

Plus, if they keep this up, they are going to do real number on the state of morality in this country by forcing them out of their jobs:

Today, Marcotte is unemployed and—since she gave up her apartment for the abortive move to North Carolina—without her own place. But she’s doing alright. She recently signed a contract to write a book for Seal Press, called Not Your Darling (due out in Spring 2008) and has moved in with her boyfriend — who agreed to support her for a year while she writes. (The catch: she has to do the same for him next year). In the meantime, you can find her on Pandagon.net.

Minnesota ranked # 3 in the nation for volunteerism.

Minnesota ranked #1 for youth voter turnout.

Minnesota ranked #5 for median family income.

Minnesota ranked #4 for students ranked as advanced in 4^th grade math

Minnesota ranked #1 for high school graduation rates (per capita)

Minnesota ranked #10 for residents with a Bachelor’s degree or higher (33% of pop)

Minnestoa ranked #13 for percent of children with all parents in the labor force

Minnesota ranked # 21 for welfare caseloads (per capita #17 in real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #11 for Patents issued

Minnesota ranked #19 for Employment

Minnesota ranked #22 for abortion rate (for real numbers, but #20 for out-of state non-residents, so Minnesotans who have abortions are less common)

Minnesota ranked #18 for % of women who never marry (#19 for men)

Minnesota ranked #42 for divorce rate

Minnesota ranked # 39 for violent crime per capita.

Minnesota ranked #29 for bankruptcy filings (real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #4 for over-all health index

Minnesota ranked # 43 for child death rate (real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #45 for Infant death rate (real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #40 for Chlamidia (per capita)

Minnesota ranked #41 for suicides (per capita)

Minnesota is #2 for accepting refugees (per capita #4 for real numbers)

Not surprisingly:

Minnesota ranked  #8 for tax rate pre $ GDP

Minnesota ranked #4 for tax rate per capita

Minnesota ranked #12 for total tax burden

Strangely, enough, I’d rather live in Minnesota than some low-tax, conservative, “family values” state.  I like living in a state that actually values people, families  and civic life.

I need to start a list of all the things I do that are "Evil".

Now I find out that heaven isn't going to allow Science Fiction either?  Forget about it.  I don't want to go.  I want to spend eternity wherever James White and Richard Biggs, and Andreaus Katsulas (among others) are.

You can keep the harp.

Go to:

http://www.progressivehistorians.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1443

Progressive Historian has posted the text from an old Moral Majority pamphlet from 1981.  It has 26 “don’ts” for students.  Some of them are actually pretty good.  Most are just silly.

#’s 1 & 2  made me laugh:

1. Don't get into science-fiction values discussions or trust a teacher who dwells on science fiction in his/her "teaching."

2. Don't discuss the future or future social arrangements or governments in class.

So I was taking off with Grasshopper to go meet his new cello teacher (really nice guy), and we get to the corner and there is an accident.

One of the local spoiled teenagers took the corner too fast (as they do) ran off the road, sheared off a fire hydrant, and into a telephone pole.  His little red convertible sports car was a mess.  No one appeared to be hurt, but there was a crowd of hysterical teen-aged girls standing around doing the teenaged drama girl vogue.  So I assumed that he must be little Mr. Sports Hero.

The lady in front of me was stopped and rubber-necking for what seemed an eternity.  Finally, she eased out into the intersection, and I followed her.

Then, she slowed down and weaved toward the shoulder.  The break lights came on and she slowed even more.  In the middle of the intersection.

I thought, “Oh no, you are NOT going to sit there and do more rubber-necking with me hanging here in the oncoming traffic lane.”

So I steered around her, only to find her wandering back towards me, and accelerating.  I had a choice.  I could slam on the breaks and pull back behind her, or I could accelerate, weave temporarily into the oncoming lane (which was empty) and get past her.  I chose the latter.

I was past her by the time she noticed me.

Whereupon she laid on her horn, and laid on the gas and spent the next mile within a foot-and-a-half of my bumper, leaning out the driver’s side window, waving her hands, and yelling.

Psycho much?

No mystery where these little rich bastards learn their driving habits, is there?

I might add that less than a month ago, we had a three-car accident on this same stretch of road that involved two cars leaveing the road due to all three most likely speeding by way too much, one car passing the other, and a near-miss of a head-on collision.  The whole road was closed down for about 45 minutes while they cleared the cars.

This is the same stretch of road where I narrowly missed a head-on collision with a woman who was passing another car in a no-passing zone (fortunatly, I was able to break in time, and did not lose control of my car.)

About a mile from there is the intersection where I was rear-ended while stopped at a stop-light.  The woman who ran into me claimed that I "came out of nowhere".  Apparently, so did the three cars in front of me.

Sheesh.  I think the whole town needs a refresher course.  I like Eden Prairie a lot more when I don't have to drive (why does a 90-lb bleach-blond-fake-tan-Tammy-Fae-make-up trophy-wife need a Hummer?  And how come they're so angry all the time? And do they think the Jesus fish and "W" stickers will ward off car accidents?)

Hate never looks like hate to the haters.

To them, it looks like defending their religion against unbelievers.

Defending their country against invaders.

They portray themselves as defending their right to speak and act against “assaults” on their beliefs by people whose only offence is to exist in the face of their hatred.

Yet more proof that the Discovery Institute is "in error where the truth is concerned".

The Panda’s Thumb points out that eugenics principles were not only around before Darwin, but that eugenics principles are detailed in religious texts, and also that some creationist anti-Darwinists throughout history have embraced eugenics.

And yet, somehow Darwin is to blame for eugenics?

Here’s the thing.  Eugenics and eugenicists existed BEFORE Darwin.  Many of them misused theology to support their ideas and even misused the Bible to support their ideas.

Along comes Darwin and his observations and theory… and SURPRISE!  A bunch of illogical, self-serving ideologues, who already proved themselves capable of misappropriating information to support their immoral ideas MISAPPROPRIATED INFORMATION TO SUPPORT THEIR IMMORAL IDEAS.

Tinkle came along after Darwin, reject Darwin soundly and roundly, yet continued to advocate eugenics, as the Panda’s Thumb points out, right up to the eve of the moon landing.

Huh.  Then along comes the Discovery Institute, and claims that those ideas originated with Darwin, when they very clearly pre-date him and anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of history and a functioning brain could bother to figure it out.

But they don’t want to.  Why?  Could it be because they are a bunch of illogical self-serving ideologues who misuse information to support their immoral ideas?

[Update: Denialism.com has a wonderful post about the lying ways of "Pro-family" groups as well.]

Discuss

While you are at it, you can also discuss Neil's implication that a cluster of cells should have more rights than the woman it is living inside of because you can't prove that it is less of a person than she is.

I wasn't going to say anything about this, but a discussion cropped up on Neil's blog, and I found I was able to articulate my feelings better than I thought I would be able to.  So I thought I would post it here:

For me, Falwell became an easily recognized symbol for all the very real preachers and rank-and-file Christians who thought and acted and talked as he did.

Not that he is responsible for their abuses of their faith, but it is difficult to separate him from them when his words would come out of their mouths over and over again as they took their actions, justifying themselves with his words (as well as the words of Dobson and Robertson, etc.).

To me, he was an icon that bad people used to justify their abuses of faith.

In justice, I try to remember that personal bias and remember that he was just a man that has lost his life.

Unlike some out there, I can’t be happy he’s dead, because the man behind the symbol probably didn’t deserve to die anymore than anyone else does…and nothing good will come of his death because the symbol will live on without him, and unlike the human behind it, there is no possiblility now that it will ever change.

Neil at 4simpsons provides a link to a blog claiming that a new classification of the fossil remains of  “Lucy” is another nail in the coffin of evolution.  Apparently, “Lucy” has been moved to another branch on the Hominid family tree.  Interesting also how the creationists claim that “Lucy” disproves evolution because she has physiological traits in common with a chimp.  She also still has many traits in common with a modern human, but that is ignored.  At the same time, they claim that a “lack of transitional fossils” disproves the theory of evolution and natural selection.

 Let’s see, a fossil that has some traits in common with one set of creatures on the earth, and some traits in common with another set of creatures on the earth, though now believed to not be a direct ancestor of either one of them somehow disproves the theory that they have a common ancestor and the differences are due to changes over time in the genetic code that lead to different species with a common ancestor?

Kirk Cameron demands to see a croc-o-duck before he believes that evolution happens, but then these people insist that a “chimp-o-human” is somehow proof of the opposite?  The discovery of a third cousin somehow proves that you and your first cousin don’t share grandparents?

Evolution and natural selection necessitates the existence of branches in the evolutionary line.  Yet, somehow, the discovery of branches is supposed to disprove the theory?

Creationist “logic”:   “The theory says that B follows A.  Therefore, if A is true, then B cannot be true.  If A is false, the B cannot be true”.

 Whaaaaa?

There is no way to win against such…I was going to say illogic, but somehow, that doesn’t cut it...

Both Neil, and the blogger he points to claim that the “mainstream media” would never cover something like this.

Untrue.  The mainstream press covers this sort of thing all the time.  When new evidence is discovered that changes our understanding of the world, it is most certainly covered.  This, for instance.  Or this.

And CNN will almost certainly be all over it in their race to catch FOX in a contest to see who can out-pander the other for the viewership of the somnolent masses.

My mom and I were just talking this morning about the peat-bog fires that are a common event up where my mom and dad live in Northern Minnesota.  There's been one peat bog fire that has been burning, under the surface, for as far back as I can remember being aware of such things.  It's generally seen as an unfortunate fact of life...

...but now I wonder...are those sub-surface peat-bog fires the sort of thing that could result in Pyrolysis?  I have no way of knowing for sure if the peat bog fires are proceeding without the benefit of oxygen...but I suspect it's quite likely, as they burn under a layer of soil.

And if so, they are apparently a potentially useful method of carbon sequestration.

That would be just cool.  I wonder who I would ask to find out about such a thing?  At least there would be SOME benefit to having fires that nobody can put out burning under "ground" for years and years and years...and which are otherwise a dangerous, potentially expensive, hazardous nuisance.

Oh, and by the way, really DO follow that link and read the article.  There is a suggestion that systematic controlled pyrolysis could be one possible remedy for some of our environmental problems...disposing of waste, enriching the soil, producing alternative fuel and sequestering carbon all in one fell swoop.

The catch, of course, is that carbon sequestration must become more economically desirable.

Lehmann said that as the value of carbon dioxide increases on carbon markets, "we calculate that biochar sequestration in conjunction with bioenergy from pyrolysis becomes economically attractive when the value of avoided carbon dioxide emissions reaches $37 per ton." Currently, the Chicago Climate Exchange is trading carbon dioxide at $4 a ton; it is projected that that the price will rise to $25-$85 a ton in the coming years. (quote from article, follow link for more)

(Hat Tip:  A Blog Around the Clock)

I ran a mile today as a warm-up for sparring class.  I was able to breath the entire time! (and for the eight laps up and down three flights of stairs.)

If these new meds keep working, who knows, I might be up to try a half-marathon by the end of the season.  No marathons for me, though.  I need more speed if I'm going to try that.  I can't run for five hours straight.  I'm not like the man who runs all day.

Oh!  So THAT'S what they mean by "fetch"!  I don't get it...

...if they want you to bring it back, why don't they just say "Bring it back?"

Why do they always have to make things so complicated?

This New York Times Article is interesting mostly because I have heard NOTHING about this case.  I suppose because I don’t watch the be afraid, disaster is everywhere show local news.  But I know lots of people who watch the local news.  You would think someone would have mentioned it.

Maybe someone else who is local can comment on it.  This is the area where my husband grew up.  There has been a lot of animosity between the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and the general population.