A manifestation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Zimm MacLeslie
Zimm MacLeslie (age 4) sitting on the shore of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park.
I’m experimenting with a larger image size with this post.
The USA – Country of Morons?
PZ Myers has a blog entry today discussing a survey about peoples attitudes towards evolution. The good ol’ US of A came in almost dead last in the number of people who believe evolution is true.
Some quotes from the survey:
The total effect of fundamentalist religious beliefs on attitude toward evolution (using a standardized metric) was nearly twice as much in the United States as in the nine European countries (path coefficients of -0.42 and -0.24, respectively), which indicates that individuals who hold a strong belief in a personal God and who pray frequently were significantly less likely to view evolution as probably or definitely true than adults with less conservative religious views.
—
The politicization of science in the name of religion and political partisanship is not new to the United States, but transformation of traditional geographically and economically based political parties into religiously oriented ideological coalitions marks the beginning of a new era for science policy. The broad public acceptance of the benefits of science and technology in the second half of the 20th century allowed science to develop a nonpartisan identification that largely protected it from overt partisanship. That era appears to have closed.
Go read PZ’s blog.
Then go hang your head in shame.
Old TV Shows for Kids
Were the TV shows that I watched as a kid really better then the ones now? I think so.
Today at work someone sent around a link to a pretty funny music video about Pi that riffs on the old Zoom TV show.
I started reminiscing about the old TV shows that I watched as a kid – mostly on Public Television.
- Zoom (Which is still on/on again?)
- The Electric Company
- Schoolhouse Rock – not really a TV show, but shorts
- Sesame Street – Still on and still great!
- Captain Kangaroo
I’m sure there were others that I’ve long forgotten. But the internet has not forgotten them. There are some fun sites out there from people who remember.
A while ago I ran across this blogger who was reminiscing about learing to read with Morgan Freeman on The Electric Company. They have a really good entry about how many stars were on it and how cool it was.
And many of these show are now available on DVD. Time to relive my youth?
My kids don’t get to watch a lot of television. We usually watch movies on DVD, but not network TV. I still feel kind of bad that they didn’t get a lot of Sesame Street when they were younger, but I think they will live.
When they do watch now, it’s dumb network cartoons. The ones where the characters stand around and talk. Yu-gi-oh, that kind of stuff.
It’s annoying to me.
Ze Frank on Terrorism
Ze Frank’s show yesterday was an excellent monologue about terrorism and terror.
I Love Old Advertisments!
The Ad*Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment “Library 2000” Fund, presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University. The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History in Duke University’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.
Ad*Access. Go check it out!
A great quote
Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist! It’s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You’re almost certainly going to be okay. And in the unlikely event you’re not, do you really want to spend your last days cowering behind plastic sheets and duct tape? That’s not a life worth living, is it?
–Senator John McCain
I agree whole-heartedly.
(Not) Haystack Creek
Update: I’m pretty sure this is not Haystack Creek now. I still need to find a map to figure out which creek it is.
I believe that this is Haystack Creek. It is located just East of the Weeping Wall on Going to the Sun highway in Glacier National Park. I’m going to try and find a detailed map and make sure this is Haystack Creek.
Only Traitors Try to Make Us Afraid of Terrorists
BoingBoing points to a good paper about how only traitors try to make us afraid of terrorists (pdf)
Comments from Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing:
In this mind-blowing, exhaustively researched Cato institute paper by Ohio State University’s John Mueller, the case against being afraid of terrorism is laid out in irrefutable logic, backed with credible, documented statistics about terrorism’s risks. From the number of fatalities produced by terrorism to the trends in terrorism death to the fact that almost no one has ever died from a military biological agent to the fact that poison gas and dirty bombs in the field do only minor damage — this paper is the most reassuring and infuriating piece of analysis I’ve read since September 11th, 2001.
Excerpt from the paper:
Much of the current alarm is generated from the knowledge that many of today’s terrorists simply want to kill, and kill more or less randomly, for revenge or as an act of what they take to be The shock and tragedy of September 11 does demand a focused and dedicated program to confront international terrorism and to attempt to prevent a repeat. But it seems sensible to suggest that part of this reaction should include an effort by politicians, officials, and the media to inform the public reasonably and realistically about the terrorist context instead of playing into the hands of terrorists by frightening the public. What is needed, as one statistician suggests, is some sort of convincing, coherent, informed, and nuanced answer to a central question: “How worried should I be?” Instead, the message the nation has received so far is, as a Homeland Security official put (or caricatured) it, “Be scared; be very, very scared — but go on with your lives.” Such messages have led many people to develop what Leif Wenar of the University of Sheffield has aptly labeled “a false sense of insecurity.”
I don’t think I’ll be flying anywhere soon
New flying security rules are now in effect. In Europe, no carry-on baggage is allowed at all.
These measures will prevent passengers from carrying hand luggage into the cabin of an aircraft with the following exceptions (which must be placed in a plastic bag):
- Pocket size wallets and pocket size purses plus contents (for example money, credit cards, identity cards etc (not handbags);
- Travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets);
- Prescription medicines and medical items sufficient and essential for the flight (e.g. diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic;
- Spectacles and sunglasses, without cases;
- Contact lens holders, without bottles of solution;
- For those traveling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger);
- Sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight (nappies, wipes, creams and nappy disposal bags);
- Female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed (e.g. tampons, pads, towels and wipes) tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs;
- Keys (but no electrical key fobs)
In the good old USA, no liquids are allowed to be carried onto the plane.
Passengers are not allowed to have gels or liquids of any kind at screening points or in the cabin of any airplane.
They said this includes beverages, food, suntan lotion, creams toothpaste, hair gel, or similar items. Those items must be packed into checked luggage. Beverages bought on the secure side of the checkpoint must be disposed of before boarding the plane.
There are several exceptions to the new rule. Baby formula, breast milk, or juice for small children, prescription medications where the name matched the name of a ticked passenger, as well as insulin and other essential health items may be brought onboard the plane.
Apparently, a terrorist plot has been foiled, which is the cause of these new rules.
No flying for me, thanks.
But I would like to know how this stops people from checking bombs in with their luggage?