How Would You Feel?

Creationist Dentist Dropped As Chair Of Texas BOE

Yesterday the Texas Senate voted to drop Dentist and all around general douche bag Don McLeroy from his job as the chair of the Texas Board of Education  Alas, Don will still be able to proselytize his ignorance since he will remain on the school board as a member.  Of course this also means Texas Gov. (weren’t you going to secede from the union or something?) Rick Perry will likely try to appoint another creationist nutjob. You know, someone like Cynthia Dunbar who authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square.

Don "asshat" McLeroy

Stay tuned, while things are trending in a positive direction those nutty Texans aren’t done yanking around with this yet…y’all.

Reason For Hope

Or perhaps I should say there is hope for reason.

Right after Obama took office there were a multitude of anti-evolution education bills popping up all over the country.  After the Texas Board of Education science and creationism debacle things were definitely looking bad for legitimate science education.  However I’m happy to report that in the past few weeks anti-evolution bills in Florida, Missouri, Alabama, and now Oklahoma have all gone down in flames.  We’re talking a solid rejection in what is the heart of the Bible belt.  And as I’ve noted before even the educated in Texas are pushing back.

It’s about f’ing time proper science stood up and smacked foolish superstitions around a little.

Anti-Evolution Texas BOE May Get Neutered

In a remarkable triumph for actual thinking Texans the embarrassing circus that is the Texas Board of Education may get many of their powers revoked.  After a long history of inept decisions and the recent “science standards” debacle the Texas legislature has introduced no fewer than six bills that would reduce the state board of education’s power.

Provisions being debated right now include stripping the Texas board of its authority to set curricula and approve textbooks, instead transferring those powers either to the Texas Commissioner of Education, the state education agency, or a legislative board.

Other provisions would transform the entire board to an appointed rather than elected body, require Webcasting of meetings, and take away the board’s control of school funding.

Good luck with that.  Seriously.

Currently Proposed Texas Science Textbooks

If This Church Van Is a’Rockin…

Most adults caught trying to lure a 7th grader into their van would be arrested as pedophiles, however if you live in Colorado Springs those creepy bastards are frequently also known as members of Cornerstone Baptist Church.

Yes, representatives of the Cornerstone Christian church have recently tried to lure seventh-graders at the nearby middle school into a church van.  Since these fuckwits have gotten into trouble in the past for baptizing children without parents’ permission one can only hope that’s what they had in mind.  I’m sure that’s a completely safe assumption since it has never been reported that churches have had any problems with other forms of child abuse.

Oh sure if anyone else tried to do this there would be at least criminal child abduction, abuse, and kidnapping charges filed in minutes…but since it’s the local church they received a very stern talking to from the school administrators…oh, and the kids were given a reminder to not talk to strangers or get into stranger’s vans.

Great.  Everyone feeling better yet?

Students at other nearby elementary schools have also been approached by church members, and church proselytizing has been escalating in recent weeks with church members coming on school property to preach the Bible or proselytizing from public sidewalks outside the school. Luckily for any concerned parents the school is taking the hard line of thinking about seeking a no-trespassing order if church members resume harassing children on school property.  Yeah, that almost sounds like the appropriate action.

Maybe the National Acadamies of Science truck should swing by and snag a few kids from the Cornerstone Sunday School and drive away for a few hours to serve cookies and milk and teach them an evolution 101 class.  I can’t see why the church should have a problem with that since they’re doing much the same thing…right?!

Religious Non-profit Tax Compliance Meets X-Men Movie Trailer

Words can’t recreate the experience.  Make sure your speakers are turned all the way up to a truly Godly “11” on a scale of 1-10 before watching this.

Are you ready?  Seriously…do you think you can handle this level of IRS Non-profit compliance awesomeness ?!?!

LET ME HAVE IT BITCHES!!

Mayor Eve And Village Idiot Adam

Never mind the title, just go listen to this and enjoy.  Trust me on this.

Jonathan Goldstein’s telling of the Adam and Eve story

Evolution And The Swine Flu

Line up bitches.  Over here we have flu shots for the heathens who trust science…and over here prayers and tea bags for you faith based conservatives.  Good luck with that.

Transitional Fossils And Evolutionary Biology

An excellent video of a lecture by Neil Shubin, Associate Dean of the Biological Sciences Division at the University of Chicago.

He  discusses how he and his team came to find the transitional fossil Tiktaalik and how his diverse fossil findings allowed him to devise hypotheses on how anatomical transformations occurred by way of genetic and morphogenetic processes.