The long-awaited Creation Museum is set to open in a few months, and the BBC has an interesting story about it. Quote:

On a rocky ledge, there is a pair of small theropods – young T. rex individuals, we’re told. And near to them (“hold onto your hat”, says Ken, anticipating our disbelief) there are two human children playing by a stream.

Most geologists would say humans and dinosaurs were separated by more than 60 million years. And those dinosaurs have very sharp teeth!

“So do bears”, says Ken, “but they eat nuts and berries! Remember, before the sin of Adam, the world was perfect. All creatures were vegetarian.” One of the dinosaurs lets out a rather contradictory roar.

27 million dollars was spent to build this craptastic “museum”. I bet I could think up some better uses for that money. And I think Jesus would agree with me.

It’s been a central plank of George Bush’s social policy: to stop teenagers having sex. More than $1bn of federal money has been spent on promoting abstinence since 1998 – posters printed, television adverts broadcast and entire education programmes devised for hundreds of thousands of girls and boys.

The trouble is, new research suggests that it hasn’t worked. At all.

A survey of more than 2,000 teenagers carried out by a research company on behalf of Congress found that the half of the sample given abstinence-only education displayed exactly the same predilection for sex as those who had received conventional sex education in which contraception was discussed.

I guess sexual beings will be sexual beings.

Interestingly, the liklihood of protected sex is the same for both groups. So is teaching kids how to have safe sex a waste of money as well?

Kurt is up in heaven now.

From Vonnegut’s book A Man Without a Country, regarding the funeral for Isaac Asimov:

We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, “Isaac is up in heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke.

The findings are most striking for post-menopausal women – those with the highest intake of red meat, the equivalent to one portion a day (more than 57 grams) – run a 56 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.

Women who eat the most processed meat, such as bacon, sausages, ham or pies, run a 64 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.

Don’t those percentages seem frighteningly high?

Olivia de Haviland is one of my favorite Hollywood actresses from the 1930’s and 40’s.  Its hard to explain why, exactly.  Perhaps because her most famous role, as Melanie in Gone With the Wind, is so defining that you expect her to be that same sweet, naive and selfless character in real life (though her long-standing feud with sister Joan Fontaine leads me to think this may be otherwise).  And she played similar “good” characters with considerable frequncy.  Of course, she also used this sweet reputation to her advantage when playing “bad” characters.  In my opinion, no one drops the guise of sweetness to reveal cold cruelty better than de Haviland, and it works mostly because it is so unexpected.

Her best performance, for which she won her second Oscar, is in 1949’s The Heiress, based on Henry James’s Washington Square, and also starring Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson.  In the film, Olivia plays a plain and rather boring young heiress, who desparately seeks romance and the approval of her father.  There are suprises in the plot that I don’t want to reveal, but suffice it to say de Haviland gets to show both her sweet and cruel sides in this film.

If you’ve not seen the film, I highly recommend you do.  Happily for us all, it is finally out on DVD.

Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.

The first rule in the conduct code is that bloggers assume responsibility for the content of their blog, including what is said in the comments section. Am I the only one who finds that concept rather scary, just from a possible legal standpoint?

I do believe that people should be repectful on blogs, just as they should be in other aspects of life, and that maintaining whatever level of civility the blogger chooses should not be seen as an automatic attack on free speech. But I think the way blog content is monitored should be up to the personal blogger.

Though the draft of the code of conduct has some good guidelines, the notion that bloggers should be expected to follow them is too restrictive, unnecessary, and runs counter to the non-homogenic nature of the Internet. Most competent bloggers follow similar guidelines anyway. And call me cynical, but I don’t think adding “badges” to your site will solve civility problems on blogs.

Bill Donohue, head of the watchdog Catholic League, said it was “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.”

The hotel and the gallery were overrun Thursday with angry phone calls and e-mails about the exhibit. Semler said the calls included death threats over the work of artist Cosimo Cavallaro, who was described as disappointed by the decision to cancel the display.

This is one of the worst assaults on “Christian sensibilities” ever?   Deserving of death threats?  With all the poverty and war in the world, this is what spurs these people to action?

The lack of loincloth on this particular Jesus seems to have sparked the most outrage.  Rather predictably, those offended can’t see beyond the nudity to any deeper meaning to the sculpture, which is a shame. 

No one talks much about the “commercialization” and “secularization” of Easter, but this sculpture would seem to me to be a rather interesting comment on this trend.  That’s my initial reaction to it, at least.  I’m sure there are many others.  That’s what art is all about, after all.  Interpretation and judgment.  But of course it has to be seen on display as intended to really form an opinion, and for now at least, the public can’t see it.

A new study from the University of Manchester concludes that astrological signs have nothing to do with how romantically compatible two people are:

Dr David Voas from The University of Manchester said that zodiac ‘love signs’ have no impact on our chances of marrying — and staying married.

The Senior Research Fellow at the University’s Centre for Census and Survey Research analysed the birthdays of all 20 million husbands and wives in England and Wales.

The investigation — using 2001 census data — failed to reveal any evidence of attraction between star signs.

Next they’ll be saying that my daily horoscope is so vague it could apply to anyone!

To all of you were meant to be at my tutorial today at ETech, or my keynote tomorrow, you have my deepest apologies. If you want to do something about it–do not tolerate the kind of abuse that includes threats or even suggestions of violence (especially sexual violence). Do not put these people on a pedestal. Do not let them get away with calling this “social commentary”, “protected speech”, or simply “criticism”. I would never be for censoring speech–these people can say all the misogynistic, vile, tasteless things they like–but we must preserve that line where words and images become threats of violence. Freedom of speech–however distasteful and rude the speech may be, is crucial. But when those words contain threats of harm or death, they can destroy a life.

Bloggers are often hesitant to delete comments from their blog, lest they be accused of being proponents of “censorship”, or unable to accept criticism. But criticism is one thing, and threats are quite another. No one has the right to threaten violence. Furthermore, in my opinion, Kathy is well within her rights to maintain whatever level of civility she desires in the comment section of her private blog. And I would hope that fellow bloggers and readers would agree to accept such a level of “censorship”.

Excuse me while I geek out for a moment…

Back in the day, when I was growing up in the 80’s, one of my favorite shows on PBS (and I had many favorite PBS shows) was Computer Chronicles. This show really helped inspire my love for computers and computer science, which is my career today. Every week geeky people with bad hair would show up to discuss a particular computer-related event, product, or issue. And this was in the good old days of computers, when different brands of PCs had personality and weren’t all clones of each other. I lived for the show, but unfortunately my PBS station (OETA out of Oklahoma City) was not very consistent with its programming schedule, so it was mostly blind luck if I ever got to see it.

Happily for all of us, some generous person has made many of the show’s most popular episodes availabe online at the internet archive. You really should check some of them out. Particularly the Apple II Forever show, where the Apple IIgs, my very first computer, is prominently featured.