tales of an ordinary girl

I recently finished listening to this podcast from the National Constitution Center and it had a lot of new ideas. I wasn't really aware of a lot of the rules surrounding the election process, so it was enlightening in the least.

If you have some time, give it a listen. Right click on the Original audio source link and select save as to download it to an mp3 player.

Original audio source

Original Source

I started the day with wandering through the shops, something I haven't had much time to do this time around. The shops area pretty much always the same, so unless there's something I'm especially looking for, then I skip a lot of the shops. The t-shirt shops are usually pretty fun and some of the woo-ist shops (or woo-woo-ist as Randi would say).

The first panel I went to was the live recording of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. The video clips they filmed at the convention with Superman, a Klingon, and other assorted costumed people were a lot of fun. James Randi, Derek Colanduno, and Pamela Gay were guests on the show.

Then the Skpetic Zone, formally the Skeptic Tank or the TANK vodcast had their live podcast. Ginger Campbell and Phil Plait were guests.

Later in the day I went to another panel by Lori Lipman Brown about Pastafarian? Zoroastrian? Atheist? Monothiest? Can't we all just get along?. She brought up a good point about allies. If atheists are going to get past discrimination we're going to have to have allies that aren't atheists, since we are still a small percentage of the world (or America). She encouraged people who don't consider themselves non-theists to stand up for the rights of non-theists.

Jeff Wagg presented a discussion about Skepticism vs Dogma about as true skeptics we can never be 100% confident in anything. Even if we draw good conclusions from the evidence presented, new evidence should make people re-evaluate their positions. I agree to an extent. Being skeptical means that I have to evaluate all evidence, even if it means re-visiting topics I feel confident about. However, no one can live life without making decisions and judgments. My decisions and judgments may be wrong, but that's why I have other skeptics around to challenge me.

Finally there was a panel on The Future of Skepticism - Where Do We Go From Here? with James Randi, George Hrab, Jeff Wagg, DJ Grothe, Lori Lipman Brown, Ben Radford, and Karen Stollznow. It turned into a discuss of atheism and skepticism, with Jeff stating they should stay separate. I'm not convinced. I'm not going to criticize someone's personal belief as long as social policy and ethics are based on reality. I still agree with DJ who said that traditionally skeptics have stayed away from religion, because science cannot speak to religion because it is not material. But that when people are using religion to impede science, knowledge, and to actively discriminate, then we need to focus on those areas as skeptics, whether believer or non-believer.

Then I headed off to a zombie film festival. One of the shorts was really good, but unfortunately I can't remember the name of it. I'll find out and try to post a link to it later on. I bought a bottle of wine and smuggled it in and I'm not sure if the first festival started out with some uninteresting shorts or if they just got better as I got more inebriated. The wine made everything a bit surreal.

Unfortunately I fell down a stair (very embarrassing) in my rush to get food between a couple of sessions and sprained my ankle - though, not badly. It didn't really bother me yesterday, but it throbbed last night and although it's just stiff and a little sore it's tough to walk on. So I'm going to miss any sessions today. My flight isn't until 4:00 and I have to check out at 11:00. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the next 6 hours, but it will not include lugging my suitcase along with me. Maybe I should just get a cab to the airport and spend the time waiting for my flight.. or get an earlier flight.

I'll post a wrap-up of Dragon Con sometime in the next week as well as some clips of a few of the sessions in the next couple of weeks.

Original Source

Well, it's actually the first official day of Dragon*Con, but it's the second day here in Atlanta for me.

I started the morning early, getting up at 8 am for registration. I didn't want to wait in a line. Of course I ended up in the absolutely slowest line and waited for about 30 minutes as it advanced at a snail's pace.

I spent some time artfully arranging our postcards near the exit of registration and interviewing a few unsuspecting attendees. And I realized I was carrying too much. And it was way too hot to worry about carrying a sweater, so I headed back to my room for a few minutes before the Con started in earnest.

The first panel was Skeptics 101 with James Randi Director of the JREF - , DJ Grothe - host of Point of Inquiry, Jeff Wagg - General Manager of JREF, Ben Radford - Managing Editor of Skeptical Inquirer, Phil Plait - President of JREF, and Richard Saunders of the TANK vodcast. It was a good panel. They touched on atheism quite a bit, partially due to questions from the audience. At one point the panel was talking about how theists and atheist could work together as long as the theists accepted reality and then talked a little about how atheism wasn't even a term they really used. DJ spoke up and said that yes, he agreed with the sentiment, but that he called himself an atheist and that wasn't a label he was willing to hide. James Randi also started the talk by calling himself an avowed atheist.

I sat next to the fabulous Meg during the session (Hi, Meg!) and she was pretty cool being a theist and yet still very receptive to the idea of the AGP podcast.

Then I visited the dealer's room and bought a pretty cool shirt that says, "I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person," from Buzzy Multimedia.

The second panel I attended was Lake Monsters I Have Known with Ben Radford. It was a good discussion about cryptozoology investigations and skeptical investigations in general. His least believable monster - the chupacabra.

And somehow I kept following Dale from Saskatchewan around from panel to panel. We ended up talking between most panels and he was the first guy to agree to an interview. Way to go, Dale!

Skeptics and Non-Theists: A Politically Powerful Alliance was next with Lori Lipman Brown. She gave a really good talk about what the Secular Coalition is doing to lobby the government for separation of church and state. I recorded the session and hope to incorporate some of it into an AGP podcast. I asked her about the "defacto" religious test that our politicians seem to be engaged in. After the panel I talked to her a bit about politics and about interviewing her in the future. She was fantastic.

Then I rushed over to the Marriott to see Michael Shermer talk about Shermer's Last Law. It was a good panel and he touched a little bit on why people turn to religion and why religious groups seem to be gaining ground in America.

I have one last event I hope to attend. There's a film festival of shorts, Blood, Shock, and Discomfort at 1 am featuring horror films. These are comic and disturbing. I'm hoping mostly comic.

Anyway, it's been a good, but very tiring day. Tomorrow there's a lot more in store and I can't wait.

Tomorrow evening I'll be heading out to Atlanta for a weekend at Dragon Con. I hope to do some blogging about the Con while I'm there, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have.

If anyone reading plans to attend, send me an email if you'd like to meet. I'll be hanging around mostly at Skeptrack sessions and hopefully doing some promotion and interviews for Another Goddamned Podcast.

If there was one topic that fascinated me when I was studying computer science in college it was emergence. But, much to my regret now, I never went on to further study. I'm not even sure there was further study back when I was in school. But if I were to return, this is what I would study.

Radio Lab recently had a podcast on Emergence that I found to be fascinating. It has a little of everything from sex to uninformed voters to brain patterns. If you're interested in the way a group works and why it's so difficult to grasp, this episode is for you.

What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies, all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony. How? That’s our question this hour. We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, even our very own brains. Featured: author Steven Johnson, fire-flyologists John and Elizabeth Buck, biologist E.O. Wilson, Ant expert Debra Gordon, mathematician Steve Strogatz, economist James Surowiecki, and neurologists Oliver Sacks and Christof Koch.

Of course if you're interested in a group people creating intelligent conversation, then this might be more your style.

The National Constitution Center sponsors a series of talks that are recorded and distributed as podcasts under the name We the People Stories. This one was recorded earlier this year with Jeffrey Sachs, a well-known economist about environmentalism, the economy, and world poverty.

The podcast is over an hour long, but it's very good. If you have time, give it a listen.

You may have no interest in listening to an atheist podcast, but our latest episode is a little bit different than our normal format. We interview the Chaplain at Apostate's Chapel about her recent deconversion. So, if you're ever curious about what makes a person turn to atheism, listen in and see what the Chaplain has to say. Not only is she incredibly well-written on her blog, but well-spoken on the podcast.

Atheism
Funerals Make Me Glad to Be an Atheist
This is why I’m glad to be an atheist. Because I know that, when I go, there won’t be some asshole up at a podium using my death to push his agenda. Instead, my family will be there, remembering me for the life I actually lived and the things I actually did. That’s how I want it to be. That’s how it should be.

Blog Against Theocracy 2008 - Details
1. Write a post in support of our United States Constitution, specifically regarding the separation of Church and State. You can write your post anytime, but the blogswarm takes place Easter Weekend, March 21-23. Your post will be linked at the Blog Against Theocracy website during and just after that weekend.

Comedy


Economy
The Bad News at the Pump
Nothing similar is likely to happen now. For the present surge in prices — crude oil costs have risen by 74% over the past year — no such easy solution is in sight. To begin with, we face not a sudden spike, but the results of a steady, relentless climb that began in 2002 and shows no signs of abating; nor can this rise be attributed to a single, chaos-causing factor in the energy business or in global politics. It is instead the product of multiple factors endemic to energy production and characteristic of the current era. There is no prospect of their vanishing any time soon.

Education
Raising California: The rights of a parent
Like any position of power, the power of parenting brings with it a responsibility to use it only when necessary. Children are people too. This may seem a tired statement--this is certainly not the first time you've heard it--but it is rarely recognized for what it really means. No person is the property of another person, and since children of all ages are persons, this includes them. But many parents are eager to make the jump from "My kids are my responsibility," to, "My kids are mine." Since children are too young to make important decisions for themselves, legal responsibilties are often passed on to the parents. This further promotes the idea that they are our property: we have to sign release papers in order for anyone else to use them. But responsibility for a person does not mean that you own them and are free to control their lives in any way you see fit.

Oklahoma’s Proposed “Religious Freedom” Law
The purpose of the bill is clear - to open the door for religious views not only in schools but in the classroom, on homework assignments and on tests. Such a law is an abomination of religious freedom, not a protection of it. It violates the Constitutional provision for separation of church and state, and is also degrades the quality of student education. I suspect that the promoters of the law wish, if nothing else, to make the teaching of certain topics, like evolution, as controversial as possible, hampered by legal landmines. That way teachers and schools are likely just to avoid it altogether, and textbook manufacturers will be motivated to avoid it lest their book sales suffer. This strategy has been unfortunately successful over the last century, creating an American public that is largely scientifically illiterate concerning one of the fundamental pillars of modern science.

Games
Patents on video game mechanics to strangle innovation, fun
We've already seen the danger of these patents. Sega owns patent no. 6,200,138, which is entitled "Game display method, moving direction indicating method, game apparatus and drive simulating apparatus." What this means is that Sega has a lock on the idea of driving a car around a city with an arrow pointing towards the next destination; it's a patent on Crazy Taxi, more or less.

Simpson's Road Rage was a game that featured Simpsons characters driving around a city, picking up customers, and dropping them off in other locations, all with an arrow pointing towards the next destination. When the game came out, Sega promptly sued Fox Entertainment, EA, and Radical Games. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Don't expect to see many arrows in your driving games, unless they've been cleared by a number of lawyers making sure they're not close to Sega's idea of what an arrow can or should point to.

Video game designed to help paralysis patients
Once again proving that video games can be used for more than entertainment, Today's Zaman is reporting that engineers from the Middle East Technical University Technopolis are working on a video game designed to rehabilitate patients who have been paralyzed. The game itself is called "Çiftlik” (Turkish for "Farm"), and can be played with an optical remote control instead of a mouse and keyboard.

Nintendo not allowing holocaust game in North America
The New York Times recently reported on a game by British developer Luc Bernard, entitled Imagination is the Only Escape, which follows the story of a young boy living during the Nazi occupation of France. The game's world is based upon a fantasy land that the boy creates to escape the horrors he has to live through, similar to the film Pan's Labyrinth. Bernard hopes to use the game as a platform to educate children about the Holocaust. "I hope that young children will play it," he explained.

Slate editorial bashes D&D, but we know the truth
Yesterday, writer Erik Sofge wrote a rebuttal to the many touching tributes and comics and remembrances of Gygax that have spread across the web. Erik doesn't think Dungeons and Dragons was a very good game, but it seems very few people are agreeing with him. In fact, many corners of the Internet are calling his piece nothing more than a thinly-disguised troll, a way to get the geeks and Internet people riled up, visiting the site, and generating ad revenue. That could be, but I don't think so. The more I read his piece, the more I'm convinced something even worse is at play here. I thought long and hard about whether to give Sofge's piece yet more publicity, but then I thought it would be good if we used it as a warning, as a worst-case scenario. Even as an apology. See, I think I know what happened to the young man who wrote this piece.

Gibson suing Activision over Guitar Hero guitars
Activision, maker of the Guitar Hero franchise, is being sued for violating a patent by Gibson Guitars, whose products the Guitar Hero controllers have been modeled on. The lawsuit stems from a patent issued to Gibson in 1999, which involves "a system for electronically simulating participation by a user in a pre-recorded musical performance."

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -- Soulstorm (PC)
Soulstorm is an unfortunate way for an incredible game to sail into the sunset. It shows flashes of its former brilliance through two new races that are full of personality and are a lot of fun to play with, but falls flat through a lackluster single-player campaign, mediocre (at best) new air units and two devastating bugs that will kill the multiplayer scene until Relic issues an eventual patch. The Sisters and the Dark Eldar could really reinvigorate multiplayer games, but until a patch is released the Dawn of War faithful deserved a better expansion.

Healthcare
The post in which I continue to attack the damn libertarians
The second idiocy here is that the type of medicine under a universal health system will hopefully be fundamentally different than what we have now. Currently, doctors are essentially penalized for providing more care, and rewarded by insurance companies for providing less care. There is also completely inadequate support for preventative medicine. Despite these measures to reduce cost we still manage to spend more per capita on healthcare than any other nation, are ranked almost dead last among industrialized nations for provision of care (mostly due to access problems), and have over 40 million uninsured. These facts make a prima facie case for the need to reform our medical delivery system. The current system is unjustifiably stupid economically, and the restructuring of healthcare delivery has the potential to gear medicine more towards better disease prevention, screening, and overall increased quality of care as people are less fearful of being dinged by their insurance company for the crime of getting sick or being diagnosed with a disease.

History
Scary Science That Humans Have Foolishly Embraced
Roman historian Pliny the Elder notes that asbestos in clothing "affords
protection against all spells, especially those of the Magi." If that’s not handy enough, the Romans also discover that asbestos is a strong building material, and that it can make tablecloths flame retardant. (Simply burn off the food to clean them!)

Curiously, Pliny also warns against purchasing slaves who’ve worked in asbestos quarries. He writes, "They die young."

Life Stories
Ten Years Ago Today
And thus it was, standing in the living room of a cheap apartment that we were being shown in Leesburg, Virginia, I had what I expect was the lowest moment of my adult life. I was standing in the living room with gray walls, gray carpet and gray window blinds, on an overcast day, listening to my wife ask about the much reduced amenities relative to the apartment we lived in at the time, and it felt like my life had hit some sort of rewind — that I had managed to come so far, and now this was the bend in the curve, where things started their downturn.

Go Outside and Watch Some Birds
At about three o’clock, a red-shouldered hawk landed on an extremely thin branch of a naked sycamore near the back of my house. He was relatively small for the species: a male, no doubt. He widened his tail and pumped it up and down a few times, trying to catch his balance, while the other birds, suddenly confronted with the possibility of a swift and unexpected death, flew into the thicket, a short but safe distance away. The bravest of the cardinals and goldfinches peeked out from time to time to see what the hawk was up to. Not much, as it happened. After a few minutes of watching the ground — waiting hopefully for some rodent to come for the spilled seed, although none did — he coursed away.

Miles to go
It seems to me that I have spent most of my life "going places". On the road. In boats, planes, motorhomes, buses. I learned to walk on the train crossing Canada, they told me. And I am still wandering. There is so much to see, so much to do; there is always something new and interesting around that next corner. I rejoice in the feel of a highway unfolding ahead of me, the mystery of where it will lead, the scent of future discoveries.

Photography
Watching Pictures In The Clouds


Podcasts
Another Goddamned Podcast #6: March 6, 2008
St. Patrick’s Day falls during Holy Week this year. OH NO! We toast one another with green beer while throwing this non-controversy right in the Papal face. But then we find a topic we really disagree on. Lifeguard wants to be Aquaman. Which superheroes would the other Herd members choose? And who can kick whose ass?

Politics
McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide."

Religion
Self-Correction
By contrast, religion is a system of thought notably lacking in mechanisms for self-correction. The vast majority of religious beliefs do the exact opposite - assume that all significant truth was handed down at that religion's founding, perfect and complete, and that nothing of significance remains to be learned. There is no reward in religion for those who introduce new beliefs into the system or argue against old dogmas. In fact, most religions are set up specifically to discourage that possibility, with some going so far as to pronounce curses and divine wrath on anyone who tries it. There is no system of voting or other means by which the lay believers can express their discontent or call for a change of direction. And in many religions, there is an oligarchical elite of clergy who choose their own successors, shutting ordinary followers out of the decision-making process altogether.

Letting go of Jesus
Within the treatise, Hume, like a good Scotsman, appealed to common sense: You have never seen a brick suspended in the air. Wood will burn and fire will be extinguished by water. Food does not multiply by itself with a snap of my fingers. Water does not turn into wine. And in a deceptive opening sentence, he says, “...and what is more probable than that all men shall die.” In fact, “nothing I call a miracle has ever happened in the ordinary course of events.” It’s not a miracle if a man who seems to be in good health drops dead. It is a miracle if a dead man comes back to life—because this has never been witnessed by any of us. We only have reports, and even these can be challenged by the ordinary laws of evidence: How old are these reports? What is the reliability of the reporter? Under what circumstances were they written? Within what social, cultural and intellectual conditions did these reports originate? Hume’s conclusion is so simple and so elegant that I sometimes wish it, and not the Ten Commandments, were what Americans in Pascagoula were asking to be posted on classroom walls:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish...

If You Support Gay Rights, I’m Ditching Class
Silence isn’t the issue. It’s pure, simple bigotry. And to tell children to stay home from school because of… well, I can’t exactly figure out what they’re staying home from… isn’t just damaging to their education, it takes away their ability to see other perspectives, discuss those beliefs, and even voice their disagreement.

Mortal Sins Expansion Pack
o how better then, if the old sins aren't doing it, to make new ones? Brilliant, I say! That Vatican knows how to maintain marketability but I REALLY have to question the choices for the new seven, especially when it's guilty of at least 3 of them. That seems odd. I wish they had called me first. I could give them some ideas. They might not like them, but they'd go over a lot better. For instance what about molesting children? And add aiding and abetting those who molest children? I'm sure others here could suggest a few more. Hell, anyone could have suggested ones that you're not guilty of yourself. I mean, duh!

Science
An Avalanche on Mars


False Memories in the Courtroom and Elsewhere
The issue is of very practical importance in the courtroom. Eyewitness testimony is still commonly relied upon as key evidence in trial, including murder trials. This is despite the fact that for years there has been evidence from memory researchers that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Now another assumption of the courtroom regarding memory has apparently fallen. New research suggests that the testimony of children may be more accurate than that of adults - the exact opposite of prior assumptions in the courtroom.

Skepticism
Magical Thinking
The article explores the human tendency toward magical thinking, and examines several examples. Hutson challenges, “Even if you’re a hard-core atheist who walks under ladders and pronounces ‘new-age’ like ‘sewage’, you believe in magic.”

Sociology
Robots with Delusions Are Better
The concept of free will is regarded as shaky at best among the scientific and skeptical community, however, the implications go largely undiscussed. For example, the defense that people aren’t responsible for their actions won’t work in the courtroom.

Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right?
“We worship at the altar of progress, and to the demigod of choice,” Dr. Chatterjee said. “Both are very strong undercurrents in the culture and the way this is likely to be framed is: ‘Look, we want smart people to be as productive as possible to make everybody’s lives better. We want people performing at the max, and if that means using these medicines, then great, then we should be free to choose what we want as long as we’re not harming someone.’ I’m not taking that position, but we have this winner-take-all culture and that is the way it is likely to go.”

So some crazy people I know had this crazy idea of starting a podcast discussing the world from an atheistic point of view. I must have been crazy too because I joined them.

After a few false starts we have our first podcast available at the Another Goddamned Podcast blog. It's an excellent podcast, in my opinion, even though I still can't get used to hearing myself talk. We're still improving though, and we'd really like feedback from people out there in the Atheosphere. Give it a listen and let us know what you think.

Our first podcast is titled Barack Obama: Pandering to the Pious.

Government
Are you being watched?


Morality
Animal Rights
We debate with ourselves about these things and to illustrate the good arguments, we have committed a fallacy of transference of ourselves onto the subject, animals. This may be helpful in driving home a point, but it is not accurate in my opinion, because in dealing with the ethical treatment of animals it is ourselves that should and could change, not the animals. They pretty much are going to continue doing what they do no matter if we leave them alone or cause their extinction. I don’t believe that animals need rights, which is demonstrated with evolution and nature. The dinosaurs didn’t need to exert their right to survive the extinction process, even though it was natural and other animals profited. No court existed to appeal to, so by claiming that animals have rights, we must condemn evolution and nature for arbitrary crimes which inevitably resulted in ourselves.

Movies
I Am Legend (but not the same one)
The novella is a pure 1950's style piece of science-fiction horror; the threat was caused by mankind's war-like nature and the book ended basically with the destruction of the species. The movie is a somewhat conflicted story where both the threat and the cure are created by science and the military is cast as heroic, yet the end is very religious, with the angry-at-God Neville finding belief in the end, our salvation "is in the blood", and a church prominent in the colony of the immune. The novella was about the end of us; to our replacements we were the misfits, the evil to be destroyed. What would follow us was completely alien. The film is about arrogance and redemption. What follows the plague is a reborn humanity.

Nonbelieving Literati
The Lonesome Sparrow
As it turns out, there was no ulterior reason. The Ranao just sang, and I wanted to scream at them, every time they pointed to god that it was so obvious that there was no god driving them to discover this new world, that it was their own, innate human quest for knowledge that pushed them. I sensed that the author wanted us to arrive at the conclusion that God does have a plan, but in the end, her sole surviving believer seems to question not only the plan, but the existence of god. Or does he?

Politics
Caucus Conundrum: Considering Compelling Candidates
Which brings me to yesterday. Although I had not paid much attention to Bill Richardson so far, I saw that he was in town giving a speech and attending a few house-parties. So I decided to go and see for myself. I was impressed. I asked him about education and he was right on the mark. He knows that we are in dire straights for science and math teachers. When I asked Bill to guess how many of this year's ~60 student class that I teach (mostly junior/senior biology majors) were planning to be teachers, he correctly stated "zero" (usually 2-4 in previous years). This is scary—where will the next generation of teachers come from?? Richardson's plan includes a national minimum salary for teachers ($40K), which is a great start. Bill has a national service plan that would pay college tuition in exchange for voluntary national service. He's not just talking military here, either. His credentials in the international diplomacy arena (where we have lots of catching up to do) are really amazing. When I asked him about Science Debate 2008, he was interested and asked me to forward some info to the campaign (which I did).

Gamers: POTUS candidates hate you for your freedoms
Since Romney was the only Republican to weigh in, it's hard to sum up general Republican attitudes. It's possible to sum up Romney's, though: Get Tough on Filth. "I want to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion," he said. "I've proposed that we enforce our obscenity laws again and that we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence and that we go after those retailers."

I Need a Hero
What I want, in the words of Bonnie Tyler, is a hero. I'm holding out for a hero. I'm holding out for someone whose goal is to lead the country, not simply be the leader of it. I have to believe there's someone out there who can protect us without hovering over us like helicopter parents. I have to believe there's someone who will "triage" the issues by order or urgency, focusing on keeping the country safe from terrorists and corporate misconduct funding research for cures for diseases, not preventing two consenting adults in love from marrying. I want to make medical school an option again for the best and brightest, who have long abandoned 6-figure medical school debt and insurance company mayhem in exchange for the high life on Wall Street.

Religion
Exploiting Death: A Christian Funeral
It is that last point that brings me to the funeral, because for some two hours I endured shameless exploitation of my aunt in the name of advancing religious belief. Not one but two pastors spouted a stereophonic cacophony of christian bullshit and propaganda that made me ill, with brief intermissions for a mediocre singer running down the christian death hits like Amazing Grace, which I had no idea had so many verses. Now for the record I should say that my family is very religious and my aunt was a regular at church. There were two pastors because the first was hers for some 40 years and the second was hers of the last 10 or so after she was forced to move to the suburbs by her kids after she had her incident fending off burglars in her home in South West Philly. The newer one was younger, very energetic, and on a mission to use this event to spread the fucking good news quoting scripture after scripture of not just the guarantees of salvation after death but of how if you don't accept the J man, you're doomed. But of course, a large part of these things is to bring comfort to people by blowing hot air into that fantasy balloon of the great afterlife awaiting us all. In fact, the term he used for the service to kick off his sermon was that this was a "resurrection celebration" and later a "graduation ceremony". There was plenty of nonsense about the joys awaiting us and how we should be so happy for her now but first and foremost was always pushing the importance of "giving yourself up" to Jesus, "serving" Jesus, "being faithful" to Jesus, and of course how the only way to god is through the J man.

Science
Laws of Nature, Source Unknown
Steven Weinstein, a philosopher of science at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, termed the phrase “law of nature” as “a kind of honorific” bestowed on principles that seem suitably general, useful and deep. How general and deep the laws really are, he said, is partly up to nature and partly up to us, since we are the ones who have to use them.

Wallace podcast
The man who almost scooped Darwin. Redmond O'Hanlon chooses naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace as his Great Life. When you compare their jungle adventures, there's a similarity between the two. Dr Sandy Knapp adds to the general enthusiasm for beetles, butterflies and bugs, and Matthew Parris presents.
Note: Here's a working link.

The weather sucks this morning. Last night we had freezing rain and it's supposed to continue all day today, turning into snow tomorrow. My commute usually isn't bad, but I can imagine today might be lengthy.

I stopped listening to local radio years ago, preferring music or for a bit XM radio (which was OK for a while, but didn't really pan out for me). But a few months ago I started trying out listening to podcasts on my daily drive into work and now I'm hooked. Here are some that I'd recommend.

Blueshift
Blueshift is produced by the Astrophysics Science Division at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. There are only five episodes so far and they're spotty about releasing new ones, roughly once a month. The topics are very interesting though if you enjoy astronomy.

Game Theory
I haven't listened to this one for very long. I came across it while searching for a podcast on gaming news. Why doesn't anyone produce a 30-45 minute podcast on the gaming news of the week without all the extra "morning show" fluff? Well, this one comes pretty close, though it's more Euro-centric. Several of the hosts also appear on the PCG Podcast.

GameSpot Presents the HotSpot
A weekly podcast produced by CNet's Hotspot, now infamous for the firing of Jeff Gerstmann. This podcast is much more centered on console games than PC games, but other than the "morning show"-like atmosphere, it's a pretty decent podcast about gaming.

NPR: Movies
I'm close to unsubscribing to this podcast. It's a conglomeration of broadcasts about select movies, including the most annoying movie reviewer on the planet. They have interviews with directors and actors that are pretty interesting sometimes, but that's about all it has going for it.

PC Gamer Podcast
The official podcast of PC Gamer magazine, the podcast focuses more on PC games than console game, although they do talk about consoles a bit. It's a decent podcast. Occasionally they also have guests from Maximum PC magazine as well. They're pretty good at providing news, reviews, and general gossip in the games industry weekly.

Point of Inquiry
I have just started listening to this podcast, so I have no real comment as of yet. The guest lists include Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson (seriously, I could squeal every time I hear him speak), Steven Pinker, and Christopher Hitchens. The official description looks good though.

Point of Inquiry is hosted by DJ Grothe and produced at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, NY.CFI, a think-tank collaborating with the State University of New York on the new Science and the Public Masters Program, is devoted to promoting science, reason, and freedom of inquiry in every field of human interest.

RPG Land
This podcast only has five episodes so far and is badly in need of better sound equipment. Even so, they talk about the games I love the most (RPGs) and their reviews are really comprehensive. I hope going forward they concentrate more on the reviews than other parts of the show they've experimented with.

Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American
The podcast is hosted by Steve Mirsky, an articles editor and columnist at Scientific American. It's a pretty decent general science podcast with some emphasis on skepticism.

Skepticality: The Official Podcast of Skeptic's Magazine
Although I wrote an "angry" letter to Randy Olson over an episode of this podcast, it's still a great podcast. Even his interview was very good other than that one issue. Derek and Swoopy, the hosts, talk with scientists, skeptics, authors, and others within the rationalist movement.

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
This is my favorite podcast by far. This podcast is sponsored by the New England Skeptical Society, the James Randi Foundation, and Skepchick.org. They've been podcasting for a while and it shows. The episodes are always put together well and the hosts have a great rapport that comes across as fun and casual without being overdone. Other than talking about current news, they interview scientists, skeptics, musicians, and even a former President.

Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena
This podcast is a one-man show hosted by Brian DenningDunning. He takes on pseudoscience, the paranormal, and religion with critical thinking and rationalism. The podcasts are generally short (10-15 minutes), but packed with good arguments.

Twango: Big Heathen Mike's public channel
Big Heathen Mike's blog, Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant is great. I haven't listened to these podcasts yet, but I'm looking forward to them.

WebbAlert
I try to watch these on my computer in the evening. It's a daily video podcast hosted by G4TechTv's Morgan Webb about the latest news in technology. They're about 6-7 minutes long. Just long enough to get my dose of tech without zoning out.

This season the big news in gaming doesn't seem to be about the record-breaking sales of Halo 3 or even the rash of new video games released in November. It's about the recent firing of game journalist, Jeff Gerstmann.

On November 28, CNet's Gamespot fired Jeff Gerstmann without official comment. Within hours the internet was talking about it and linking his firing with a written and video review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The unfavorable review was released on November 13, during a time when the game publisher of Kane & Lynch, Eidos, was advertising heavily on the Gamespot website. Jeff also bagged the game pretty heavily on the November 13 episode of the Hotspot, a podcast sponsored by Gamespot.

CNet's early silence only fueled the rumors. A few days later they announced that they could not disclose the reasons Gerstmann was fired due to legal reasons, but stated it wasn't due to any pressure from a publisher or advertiser. The crew of the Hotspot reacted on the November 7 episode by stating that although they were angry and missed and supported Jeff, his firing wasn't due to just one review.

The circumstances do seem to indicate that the review influenced management actions at the Gamespot, even if it wasn't the only reason. Personally, I think a divide between the parent company CNet and Gamespot has been revealed by not just the firing, but the reactions of the employees who, I'm sure, want to keep their jobs.

And even if the review had nothing to do with the firing, public opinion has called the integrity of the company into question. What does this mean for Gamespot? If they allow an advertiser to pressure them into re-evaluating reviews, even if the reviews aren't changed it doesn't bode well for them. Reviews are meant to be impartial if they are to be trusted. Their reviews will be scrutinized heavily for some time, but does that guarantee impartiality, as the Hotspot crew points out?

And what of the parent company, CNet, who provides reviews on a much broader range of products, including most electronics. I use them myself when I'm unfamiliar with a technology. Will they be harmed by the scandal or is gaming still too small of a niche market to influence the traffic of people shopping for things as mundane as cameras and mp3 players? And with most of the fingers pointed at them, will they end up taking the blame?