no more mrs nice bucket

did anyone else giggle at the irony in the fact that the VERY SAME day president obama was given the nobel peace prize, the US bombed the moon? the prize must only apply to earth...oh wait, we don't do that here either.

tens of people watched the spacecraft crash into the moon live online and were sorely disappointed that you couldn't see anything happen (there were predictions of a terrific plume of debris on impact). NASA's preemptive attack had an interesting reason - the search for frozen water under the moon surface. yet here comes that sick feeling i get when this country does something that i just know we are going to fuck up. when coca-cola opens a plant on the moon, you'll know what i mean. we will be told that the moon will welcome us as liberators, but we know better.

another notable thing in the news recently was the new information on ida, the fossil found in germany that was heavily and strategically marketed as the missing link in human evolution. i wrote about this before, trusting the history channel too much. turns out, ida doesn't have a place on our evolutionary tree; she wasn't a lemur-monkey. she was just another lame lemur.

worth seeing again

amazing photos of saturn taken by the cassini probe were released recently. this is a composite of 75 images of saturn at equinox. the pictures show the greatest detail ever seen of her rings. find more here.

opposable thumbs, but ain't got no brain

or, the evolution of stupid... a recent find in africa revealed a new, much older, chapter in human evolution. lucy, the oldest known pre-human until this find, lived 3.2 million years ago (mya). the new find, called ardi, lived 4.4 mya. this is another step in finding the common ancestor we share with modern apes.

the theory of evolution is not a theory in the everyday sense of the word, theory; that it is a guess that might be true. it has been shown to be fact -- species evolve over time. in the 150 years since Darwin published his book, mountains of evidence has accumulated that supports the theory of evolution through natural selection. NO evidence has been found to support creationism. surprising? of course not, creationism is a lie. intelligent design is just about the least intelligent thing religious people have invented. well, aside from religion itself.

all religions have creation myths. but not all religious people have to believe that crap. if you take the bible literally, if you really think a guy lived in the mouth of a whale for a week, you're an idiot. and you make jesus cry.

there have been numerous polls & surveys that have tried to identify the percentage of americans that believe in evolution (a very good summary and critique of many here). of course, the wording of the survey questions have a great influence on the results. the most recent one i've heard of was released june 2009 by the british council international (you can take the survey here). they surveyed 10,000 adults in 10 countries. here are some of the numbers:

• of those who know of Darwin's theory, people in India are most likely to agree with it (77%). of the 10 countries, the US ranked 9th; 41% disagree that there's enough evidence to prove it (Egypt was 10th at 25%).
• 30% in the US disagree with the evidence supporting the theory of evolution (as opposed to Darwin's natural selection theory, specifically)
• people polled in the US, South Africa, and India are the most likely to think god created everything and that all species have always existed in their current form (each at 43%).

these are the same morons who believe the planet is less than 10,000 years old. the same simpletons who think dinosaur fossils were planted by god to test our faith. really?!?! you think this god you invented really hid bones in the ground to fool humans into not believing? and you are just too smart for that?

just perhaps, people do not believe in jebus because religion is a silly waste of time. it is not necessary to maintain human good behavior, in fact it gives people more reasons to kill each other. comforted by delusion, religious people bumble through their devilish lives. if i hear another grieving mother on the news saying that her son getting shot was part of god's plan, i'm going to puke. there IS NO PLAN.

a terrifically stupid video here tells the story of how one retard found god. he and 2 other guys were waiting for a taxi when they were caught in the crossfire of a shooting. one man was shot in the head and died, but "primary dumb guy" was shot in the head a lived. this taught him that god has a plan for him. apparently a much nicer plan that the dead guy's plan... is that really the god you believe in?

i think the best evidence for evolution may be that we are slowly evolving away from religion. we won't see freedom from the mental illness that is christianity (and all others) in our lifetimes, but it is coming

sweet dreams are made of cheese

about a week ago, a close friend's dream and my job crossed cosmic paths. we both killed santa claus...

lala had a dream in which she and i were in college together hanging out (in an undoubtedly smoky room) when suddenly we ran to the window. tanuel had somehow gotten her hands on a missile and was preparing to launch. after a military file video of the launch, bloody reindeer began, wait for it... raining from the sky. followed soon by a mangled sleigh and the fat red one. all beyond CPR.

the next day, unaware of this prophecy, i was leading a discussion in a class using google earth. we were talking about the continents when an autistic student reminded me about the north pole. so i spun the globe to show it and talked about the icy cap of our planet. the same student then announced that this is where santa lives, "and he is real," he stressed, reassuring himself. other students in the class were starting to tell him that santa is not real, but he wasn't hearing it. i delicately told him that santa was not real, and moved on with his dreams all over my new shoes.

a few days later, lala told me about her dream, and i was struck by the beautiful circle drawn by our in-santa-cide (too on the nose?)

summer fun

a beautiful surprise greeted me when i got off the plane in ND; a call from one of the most fabulous women on the planet, rrrrachel, who was visiting from barcelona. after i got back home, we played in a sweaty park and frolicked with the fairies.

"my love" by the bird and the bee accompanies the video

can't forget my poncho goblin

the return to school remains overwhelming, even after 10 years of teaching. how i handle the stress has greatly evolved and improved yet there's no way to transition smoothly from summer vacation

mode (when my attention span need not exceed an episode of the tyra banks show), to having to pay attention to 4 hour workshops. i completely get why junior high students are not ready to sit still when school starts.

as usual, we started classes the day after labor day, to allow families to repeatedly attend the minnesota state fair. this year, they sold "fist of bacon" -- strips of bacon stacked 4.5 inches high, breaded, and deep fried. doesn't just reading that make your heart slow down? ew. not sure what sounds more horrific, the bacon or the fair.

i imagined that my labor day weekend would be extremely lazy and gleefully uneventful. but an unexpected and fantastic twist unfurled thursday night. a couple calls magically brought a plane ticket to good ol' ND to play with the fam at the cabin. didn't take many pictures, but had an amazing time. we had incredible weather -- 85 and sunny -- both days, so the pontoon rides and captain morgan flowed with ease...

so's your face

i'm thrilled to have a major part of my home improvements finally completed, the kitchen & entry way flooring, but several things still remain... regardless, here is the photo essay.

the original plan was to just have my new laminate flooring put on top of the ugly existing floor (right) BUT when the installer arrived, he discovered that my front door wouldn't work if the floor got any higher (unbeknownst to me, there were already 4 layers of flooring down). so i had him install the flooring in the kitchen only. then i had to pay for the entry way to be abated because there was undoubtedly asbestos under there. above is a shot from the beginning of the abatement, below is the tent he put up to safely remove it all.

after the flooring was removed in the entry way, this is what i lived with for a month - the beautiful floorboards. i had to wait for different laminate to arrive and had my trip out west, so the final install was delayed.

the entry way install was finally done last monday. yay!

and yay for my 50th entry on this blog...