local
pharyngula | March 20, 2008The family and I are about to head out to the 34th Annual National Conference of American Atheists — maybe we'll see you there.
If you can't make it, or you just don't like mobs of amoral atheists, you can join a few of us squid-lovin' science-worshipping Pharynguloids on Saturday night (here's the facebook invitation). People will be meeting at:
Date: Saturday, March 22, 2008
Time: 8:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: The Local
Street: Nicollet Mall and 10th Street
City/Town: Minneapolis, MN
I'm going to try to make it, violating the tradition that these PharynguFests lack me, but I can't make any…
pharyngula | March 16, 2008It's almost time for Atheists Talk radio, at 9am central. This week, they're interviewing the marvelous Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) and The Age of American Unreason(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Don't miss it!
pharyngula | March 15, 2008The atheists are coming!
It's nice to see we're getting front page coverage on the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but it's also sending the wrong message. American Atheists are having their big conference in town next week, but we've been here all along and we aren't leaving after Easter. It's a somewhat muddled article, too — the writer seems a bit confused by this whole atheism business.
No one can say for sure how many atheists there are, partly because those within the movement can't agree on the definition of an atheist. Some count humanists, agnostics and practitioners of astrology as…
pharyngula | March 12, 2008I have just walked outside in Morris, Minnesota, and you may not believe this, but there is liquid water falling from the sky. I even spotted an absence of coats, and someone rollerblading. Have I been magically transported to some tropical paradise, like Portland, Oregon?
pharyngula | March 6, 2008We do have a Drinking Liberally chapter here in lovely Morris, so if you just happen to catch this in time, the beer will be flowing at the Old #1 bar downtown at 8:00. We will talk and argue; personally, I want snarl about Holy Spirit Hillary. Someday, can we please have a president who doesn't babble about magic ghosts? Pretty please?
pharyngula | February 26, 2008Today is my very, very long day, but it's going to be loads of fun. This morning, my intro biology students and I are going to shred creationism in lecture; this afternoon, I teach our first fly labs in genetics (warning to colleagues: there may be escapees); and this evening at 6, it's time for our Cafe Scientifique, down at the Common Cup Coffeehouse in town. The first 7½ hours of my teaching day you only get to join in if you pay tuition here, but Cafe Scientifique is free and open to the public!
Tonight, Jamey Jones of the Geology discipline will talk about "Using rocks to tell time and…
pharyngula | February 24, 2008Hey, Minneapolitans — Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists have two big events coming up soon. This week, it's pizza and bowling on the UMTC campus. I'm probably not going to be able to make that one, but the week after, on 6 March, Austin Cline will be speaking on critical thinking and skepticism, and I may be able to get into town for that one. Let's all go say hello to another godless blogger!
pharyngula | February 20, 2008What a perfect situation: it's bitterly cold outside, but the moon happens to be in the sky right outside my front window, so I can see it from the comfort of my living room. It's half gone right now!
Now the moon has gone dark and red! Surely these are evil portents. What god should I worship to bring it back? Who should I sacrifice?
I'd take a picture, but the moon is high in the sky at an angle that would make it difficult to photograph through my window … and I really don't want to go outside. Fortunately, Lindsey Bradsher sent me a picture she just took.
pharyngula | February 5, 2008Turn off your TVs. Don't bother watching the election coverage. I know you've all been wondering how little rural Morris, Minnesota, population 5000, would vote in the super Tuesday voting.
Turnout was heavy, with between 400 and 500 people showing up for the caucus, and the results were … (drumroll, please) … about 2:1 in favor of Barack Obama. A landslide victory!
The full, final, official tally for Morris:
Biden
1
0%
Clinton
139
26%
Dodd
0
0%
Edwards
8
1%
Kucinich
2
0%
Lynch
1
0%
Obama
387
72%
Richardson
0
0%
Uncommitted
2
0%
We had a turnout of 540 people, over 10% of…
pharyngula | January 29, 2008Come on out to Morris this evening — at 6:00, at the Common Cup Coffeehouse, Van Gooch of the biology discipline will be talking about bioluminescence and other phenomena in our Cafe Scientifique. The title of his talk is "Light Giving Life: Real and Artificial," and I know he's planning to bring sample organisms to hand out to the attendees.
pharyngula | January 19, 2008Remember—every Sunday at 9am, you Minnesotans (and clever others) can listen to the Minnesota Atheists radio program on Air America. Tune in tomorrow — it's especially important since I've heard that Air America has actually already lost one advertiser because they had the gall to actually allow atheists to broadcast on their show. We'll have to demonstrate that the program can get a strong audience, so listen in, call in, and if you have a business that you advertise on the radio, think about buying some time on the show. And if you're in the area, patronize the businesses that are open-…
pharyngula | January 16, 2008Somebody has to explain the logic of certain Republican values to me. Introducing something called the "Middle Class Job Protection Act" (which is actually, of course, nothing but a massive corporate tax cut), our own Little Miss Chipper Crazypants, Michele Bachmann, thinks this is good news:
I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We're the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.
Once upon a time, we had this thing called the 40 hour work week — the idea was that it was…
pharyngula | December 1, 2007How nice that we should start the first of December with a howling snow storm.
This is prairie winter: not your big fat flakes falling gently, but hard icy snow slicing horizontally with a stiff wind; no quiet hiss of steady accumulation, but the rushing roar of wind and weather blowing billows of crystals everywhere. We'll have thick drifts against the house before this is done.
I'm glad to be sitting quietly in a warm house, and I think I'll put on another pot of hot coffee. Later, when it dies down though…then comes the cold feet and the tired shoulders that go with shoveling snow. At…
pharyngula | November 27, 2007Finally, Morris has achieved winter-like weather: snow and 0°F temperatures. We've been puttering about with temperate nonsense like a warm, wet October and an early November with temperatures in the 30s °F, and I've rarely had to bother with a coat, until today. It's about time!
pharyngula | November 22, 2007As fellow Minnesotan Greg Laden warns, we're getting a visit from another dishonest hack of the Discovery Institute, John West. On Friday, 30 November, at 7:00 in Room 155, Nicholson Hall on the UM campus. I may just have to stop by. He's going to be babbling about an extended argumentum ad consequentiam: "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: The Disturbing Legacy of America's Eugenics Crusade". Yeah, once again, we're going to be told that reality is dehumanizing.
One thing that greatly peeves me is the sponsoring organization. This is a parasitic religious organization that sucks leechlike on academia…
pharyngula | November 20, 2007One of our Minneapolis Christian talk radio stations, KKMS, is organizing a trip.
Join Jeff & Lee as they travel with Heartland Tours & Travel to the Creation Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio! Jeff & Lee will be doing a live broadcast from the museum, and you can be there to see it all happen! of course, there will be other great stops along the way - Chicago (and famous Chicago pizza), the Wisconsin Dells with it's huge waterpark, shopping at the Tangier Outlet Mall and more! this is a tour that will inspire your faith and make lasting family memories.
Don't you think they could…
pharyngula | November 19, 2007My fellow Minnesotans know what I mean when I groan over our local conservative columnist at the Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten. Her latest column is a tirade against the horrible culture of victimhood in our universities, citing a recent incident in which a student newspaper editor decided to decorate the office with a handmade noose to motivate his black co-workers. Kersten thinks this is just awful. Not the insensitivity of the editor, of course — being ignorant of history is par for the course for Republicans, as is race-baiting. No, she's appalled that he was fired.
The column is a hoot…
pharyngula | October 30, 2007Tonight's the night for the inaugural meeting of Café Scientifique-Morris for the 2007-2008 school year. The topic is:
Food or Fuel? A simple multi-scale integrated analysis of agroecosystems
It will be presented by Abdullah Jaradat of the North Central Soil Conservation Research Lab; I suspect he'll be talking about their research into newer, better crops for the production of energy. It should be good, come on down to the Common Cup Coffeehouse at 6!
Unfortunately, this will be one I have to miss. I have to catch a plane to San Diego for the Beyond Belief conference (perhaps I shall be…
pharyngula | October 25, 2007The Minnetonka school district is one of the best in Minnesota, with an exceptionally concerned and active set of parents and teachers who work hard to keep informed and support their schools. They established an organization, TonkaFocus, to oppose creationism in the schools and attempts to demolish their international baccalaureate program, a very smart move — pro-science parent activism is always something to encourage.
Minnetonka was also the home district of Dave Eaton, an ID sycophant who was a crony of the odious Cheri Yecke, and who was responsible for some of the shenanigans in our…
pharyngula | October 22, 2007I knew of D.B. Cooper, the famous mystery man who jumped out of a plane with a few hundred thousand dollars ransom money, and was never seen again — I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, so of course I was familiar with the story. Now here's a weird little twist: there's a new suspect in the crime, and he's the brother of a fellow here in Morris, Minnesota.
Not me, I didn't do it. I was only 14 when D.B. Cooper made his jump.
(Hat tip to Jeffrey Shallit)