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pharyngula | July 21, 2008This Sunday, I'm going to be on Atheists Talk radio, and I'm actually going into the Twin Cities to do it live and in person. The gang who do the show like to head out to Q. Cumbers restaurant afterwards—and the invitation is open to everyone. If you'd care to join us for a Pharyngubrunch, meet us there at 11am on Sunday. You might also get a chance to say hello to C.L. Hanson!
pharyngula | June 27, 2008Here is an important suggestion, if ever you should find yourself living in rural Minnesota.
Always roll up your car windows at night.
Wait, you say — that seems unnecessary. This is a trusting part of the world, where petty crime is rare, and people leave houses and cars unlocked all the time. Why not leave the windows down so that the interior is cooled by soft breezes in the summer months?
There are two reasons. Remember them.
You never know when a rainstorm might flare up, soaking your car seats. This is a fairly minor concern, however.
Open cars are giant insect traps. You have not…
pharyngula | June 13, 2008You may have heard that the midwest, my little corner of the universe, has been hit hard by storms. My specific little area has avoided the worst, and we've been watching the major storms fly by on the television, just clipping us as they rip past, but we have been inundated — on Wednesday, in particular, it was one of those days where you huddle inside while the thunder rattles the windows and the water gushes out of the sky. There is a lot of construction work on the road in front of my house, and they had to stop while the roadbed turned into a sea of mud.
So where we are, it's…
pharyngula | June 5, 2008Michele Bachmann is the Minnesota representative who embarrasses us all. She is, of course, a Republican, and one of the dumber ones — she's our anti-gay, anti-science, anti-American, far-right-wing kook, and we need to get her out of office … she's up for re-election this year.
My oldest son Alaric is an activist and organizer for the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party here in Minnesota, and he's campaigning for the sensible opposition, El Tinklenberg. He's asked me to promote an event going on TONIGHT, a fundraiser and rally for Tinklenberg in St Cloud. If you're somewhere in the region, stop by.…
pharyngula | May 27, 2008In case you too have an obsessive fascination with our home on the prairie, Morris, Minnesota, there is another blog based in my neighborhood, and the latest talk is about all the construction going on. College Avenue, the street running in front of my house, is being ripped up and reconstructed, a process that's supposed to go on for a few months. Anyway, there's a strange fabric fence that's been put up between us and the university, which the precocious young man living near us has decided is a Physicist Fence, to protect us from wandering physicists, presumably drawn by the sound of heavy…
pharyngula | May 26, 2008Greg Laden has posted a video that is wonderfully representative of life in rural Minnesota. If you can grok this short movie, you will have come a long way towards comprehending Minnesota.
esiegel | May 20, 2008Some of you who've been following astronomy for awhile might remember this report, where a group of astronomers reported finding a giant "void" in the Universe.
What is a void? Well, galaxies are distributed pretty randomly, but because of gravity, they cluster together. A small example is our local group which looks like this,
and a larger example is the Virgo cluster, which is about 1,000 times as massive as our local group, and looks like this:
Well, a void is the opposite of a cluster, where you have a large volume of space that's simply empty of galaxies and matter. This press release…
pharyngula | May 16, 2008It's the end of our semester, and there's another transition here: one of our colleagues, Dave Hoppe, is retiring, to our regret but to his happy progress. We all got together for a retirement dinner yesterday, so here's the happy crew, the entire UMM biology discipline.
From left to right: Chris Cole, Tracey Anderson, Margaret Kuchenreuther, Dave Hoppe, PZ Myers, Timna Wyckoff, Pete Wyckoff, Van Gooch
We hope Dave can still drag himself away from his lakefront home to say hello to us all now and then!
pharyngula | May 1, 2008I've been neglecting my prayers today — I've got all this writing to get done, and I chose to actually sit before my keyboard and move my hands and think with my brain, rather than calling upon the Lord to do my work for me. I've actually gotten a fair amount done.
Now comes the part where one might expect some heavenly reward for one's pious industry, but I don't believe in that, either. I'm going to have to do something myself … so here I come, Iron Man! We have a late night premiere showing of a first run movie in Morris, so of course I have to go.
It looks like a darned good action movie…
pharyngula | May 1, 2008We have some local scoundrels, who also tend to be entangled in the right-wing Christianist nonsense. One of the notorious kook/thieves in these parts was Robert Beale, a multi-millionaire tax evader who has just been convicted. The story features arcane, desperate legalisms this wacko used to avoid paying taxes — did you know that if you live outside the District of Columbia and U.S. Islands, you are a non-resident alien, according to the Constitution, according to Beale?
This dishonest, greedy sleaze deserves one thing from us: our prayers. On this National Day of Prayer, pray ferociously…
pharyngula | April 25, 2008There's a rumor that it's late April, and this is supposed to be Spring … but I just looked out my window and it looks like we're having a blizzard right now.
It's not April, it's Minnesota!
pharyngula | April 24, 2008B asked me the other day to mention his dad's blog sometime, so of course I will do so. Observe the Banana. It's part of the tapestry here in little ol' Morris.
Aries: Look. The reason for your headaches is all the head-butting you do. Switch it up a little, and next time life throws one of those little annoyances your way, trying biting or kicking instead.
pharyngula | April 24, 2008Monday, 12 May, 2:30pm. This is your chance.
The Residence Hall Association on my campus is having a fundraiser to send some members to a national conference, so they'll be selling pies … to throw at faculty. I'll be standing there for that half-hour, so students and anyone else who wants revenge can join in.
I expect a long, long line now. I'll be very disappointed if I don't have a horde prepared to be mean to me. And do note that this will be especially messy: the beard, you know. You won't be getting your money's worth with those clean-shaven professors.
Gemini: Avoid reading anything…
pharyngula | April 19, 2008I mentioned some of the good stuff in Morris this weekend, and some are imminent: at 3:00, it's Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood at the Morris Theatre; then at 8:00, it's the Auditorium of Creationist Blather, as Angus Menuge argues with me about whether neuroscience leaves room for god (answer: no. Hey, that was quick!). You Twin Cities residents can still make the movie if you leave right now — we're about 3 hours away.
Or you could rent the video and watch it at home, and apparently the debate will be recorded, so you'll be able to watch it on the interwebs later on.
pharyngula | April 10, 2008Let's see…gentle rain showers, warming temperatures, a few flowers beginning to bloom? No, this is our latest weather prediction:
A winter storm warning remains in effect from 1 pm this afternoon to 7 am cdt Saturday.
Heavy snowfall is expected across central through southwest areas of minnesota beginning this afternoon and lasting through friday. The precipitation is expected to begin as a period of rain and snow...but a quick transition to all snow is expected across west central minnesota this afternoon. Visibility will be reduced to less than a quarter mile at times in heavy snow and…
pharyngula | April 10, 2008I've been getting a lot of email about this putatively Islamic public school in Minnesota, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy. It's a wretched situation — this is a school associated with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, and clearly all the students and families involved are Muslims who want a little bit of cultural isolation, and I suspect there is a lot of religious indoctrination going on behind closed doors — and I think it's a bad thing that this school is receiving state tax dollars.
I've been reluctant to jump on this story, though, for a couple of reasons. The main person fanning the…
pharyngula | April 3, 2008I'm going to head out the door shortly for my drive down Minnesota back roads to Little House on the Prairie country — if I get there early, is there any place in town that's good for coffee and wifi? I was planning to find a cheap hotel for the night, too, and leave from there to catch a plane in the morning. Locals, tip me off to any possibilities!
pharyngula | March 31, 2008Hey, look at this: Dan Dennett is coming to Minnesota State University in Mankato this week. I hope he shows up wearing that pimpin' hat.
Dennett, one of the nation's most original and influential philosophers, will talk about "Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" on April 3 and "Evolution and Evitability: Free Will and Responsibility" April 4. His April 3 lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Centennial Student Union Ballroom. His second talk will begin at 9 a.m. the following day in CSU 253, 254 and 255. Both are free and open to the public.
I may have to swing out that way for the first…
pharyngula | March 24, 2008One of the many virtues of my university is that, because of our history and policies, we get better than average contact with Native American cultures. Tonight, at 7:30 in Edson Auditorium, we get to hear from Sherman Alexie.
Sherman Alexie (b. October 7, 1966 Spokane, WA) is a prolific artist who is
an accomplished writer, poet, stand-up comedian, screenwriter, director,
and editor. He is a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian who grew up on the Spokane
Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA. He attended high school in Spokane, WA
and graduated in American Studies from Washington State University.…