MandyU's blog

So, looks like a society mainly devoid of an emphasis on traditional Christian values and the "power" of the Moral Majority is the happiest place on earth! I like Disneyworld, but I always thought it was a little fake. This must really be it. And they don't even have great weather. What they do have is paternity leave, a high divorce rate, and the highest birth rate in Europe. It seems like the key to happiness is to accept things as they are and do simple things like get divorced if you're miserable. Children's welfare isn't even a concern it seems since custody is almost always shared and family structures are large and supportive.

Wonder what the job market is like in Iceland? Is there anyone reading this blog who lives in Iceland who would like to make the rest of us extremely jealous by informing us about how awesome it really is?

I found this over at The Park Bench today. I was never a big fan of Dr. Katz when it was on Comedy Central, but I am a fan of people pointing out how bizarre and absurd some of god's commands were/are.

toothpastefordinner.com

If only it were true.

It does free up quite a lot of time on Sunday or Saturday or Friday night for you, so atheist weekends are longer.

The biotech industry inserted a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that is responsible for creating a toxic protein into cotton to protect it against the bollworm moth. So now we have fields of human genetically modified cotton in fields across the south. Talk about putting pressure on the bollworm moth caterpillars. In response they have evolved a resistance to the Bt protein!

So either
1. God is taking time out of controlling world affairs and answering prayers to mess with the genetics of the bollworm moth so they can live to destroy the US cotton crop. (Maybe God really wants to break out his polyester from the 70's again.)
or
2. We have some more compelling evidence to add to the evolution "debate".

This might be old news to some of you, but I had no idea this was how Chuck Norris felt about bringing religion into the classroom. I'm mildly devastated. My brother conquered his fear of the ocean when he was younger by pretending he was Chuck Norris kicking the ocean's ass. That memory feels dirty now.

I guess I should be all that surprised when There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.

Here's a great story. Apparently, Jesus is back in the form of a 61 year old ex-heroine addict who is banned from 3 countries. Hurry up, go see him in Orlando. Get your "666" tattoos! What are you waiting for?

During my lunchtime Science reading today I came across this article about Chimps fashioning spears and vigorously poking them into trees to kill bushbabies while they sleep (since they are nocturnal). I'm really out of the macro-biology scene...I didn't even realize that chimps ate meat. In another interesting twist, it appears that the females are the ones doing the hunting. Now, the sample size for this study is pretty small (only 10 spear hunts out of 22 viewing periods in one study in Senegal) but I still think this is pretty interesting. The New Scientist article that I linked to even has video.

Merck is in the spotlight again. Here we go...PREVENTABLE CANCER!! How long have we been waiting for something like this? Wait, we wouldn't want to encourage young girls to get this vaccine. They will probably go have sex then. We can't encourage 11 and 12 year olds to have SEX! We have to stop this lobbying effort.

In my lunch time reading of Science today I came across a little side bar on Richard Dawkins' new US/UK non-profit foundation. This charity will support research on "the psychological basis of unreason" and dedicate some effort to fighting the well funded creationist and intelligent design folks. The web page doesn't look quite completed yet, but they do have a nice video of the mission (also available at YouTube)

I thought you folks might be interested.

I know I can't get the old Bell, Book and Candle ceremony, but I still want to be off the Roman Catholic Church roster. I would like to declare my relationship with the church NULL and VOID...it's Citizen's Divorce Time! Although we are only using mouse stem cells at work and I haven't had an abortion or physically assaulted the pope, I think I've still publicly excised contempt of the church (canon 1369) and could be excommunicated latae sententiae under canon 1364 (Apostasy, heresy, and schism). I have heard that the "baptismal watermark" is held to be indelible, but I'm holding out hope that even though I was baptized and confirmed (complete with the "peace be with you" slap in the face), I can renounce this life philosophy that I decided on back when I was 11 and still in love with Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block. Has anyone out there been pronounced anathema? Any advice on how I could go about getting some official papers on this? I think my plan so far is to write a letter to St. Aloysius and let them in on what I think. I figure at the very least they could write me up in the church bulletin.