Seven Minutes of Terror is right around the corner. 5:24 UTC on August 6th. Nature has just come out with a short but nice overview including some very interesting graphics that I know you’ll want to see. Click Here.

I wonder, do these crazy Republicans realize how utterly dumb they sound, and that every time they say something like this the rest of us start humming that song?

A House Republican lawmaker likened the implementation of a new mandate that insurers offer coverage for contraceptive services to Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.

Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly (R), an ardent opponent of abortion rights, said that today’s date would live in infamy alongside those two other historic occasions. Wednesday marked the day on which a controversial new requirement by the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires health insurance companies to cover contraceptive services for women, goes into effect.

“I know in your mind you can think of times when America was attacked. One is December 7th, that’s Pearl Harbor day. The other is September 11th, and that’s the day of the terrorist attack,” Kelly said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “I want you to remember August the 1st, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates.”

That’s from HERE where you can read more.

Meanwhile …

Support for Gay Marriage, expressed by the leader of the Democratic Party several weeks ago, has been codified in the draft Democratic Party Platform, and will be on the agenda for the Convention.

Yes. I just verbed “forward.” Why? Because according to some Grammar Gits, the only correct single-word sentences are those that have a single verb in them. Strange. Surprising. Didn’tknowhtat.

Anyway, the Re-Elect Barack Obama campaign came up with a new slogan for their signs and stuff: Forward. That’s right. Forward. Punctuated. With a period. So the slogan is:

Forward.

and the slogan is not:

Forward

(without punctuation).

It is said that Obama thinks of it as “Forward. Full stop. No questions asked.” That is a great slogan because it implies that a second term president will be asking fewer questions of, say, the Congressional Yahoos or This or That Base all of which have been making it difficult to get. things. done. Others say that the period is a downer for some reason. Like “Forward. Full stop.” but with a different implication than when I said the same exact thing a few seconds ago (assuming you did not take a break while reading this paragraph).

The Wall Street Journal is, of course, hot on this story. Hat Tip: Tricia McKinney

Onward.

What is probably the worst power outage India’s history had has taken out electricity for fully half the country; This is apparently the “second outage” in two days. I’m not entirely sure how they count outages, however. I’m thinking it is more like a big giant outage that then got much smaller then got much (much much) bigger.

There have been all kinds of secondary effects; minors trapped in mines, people succumbing to fire in trains.

The reason for the outage is said to be incorrect levels of draw down from the grid by certain provinces. The ancient and out of date electric grids used in countries like India and the United States require a near perfect balance between production and demand, or this kind of thing can happen. (Go read this book to learn about that.)

In addition, irrigation with ground water reserves has been required due to climate change induced drought in some regions. This uses a great deal of electricity to run pumps.

The Russian Feminist Punk Rock group Pussy Riot, or at least part of it, is on trial and faces several years in prison for acting up. Debbie Goddard has the story in detail.

You may be asking yourself why I’m writing about this. As an activist and organizer, I try to pay attention to other groups’ campaigns and activism efforts, whether populist or fringe, especially when led by young people. I’ll share a few of the reasons this situation is particularly interesting to me….

Read The Rest

American Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney says they are. (Which is funny because he’s Mexican, but whatever…)

Speaking of the accomplishments of Israeli Jews in the middle east, Romney said

“… I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things” including … business climate, … history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the “hand of providence.” He said similar disparity exists between neighboring countries, like Mexico and the United States.

Romney had previously made disparaging remarks about their Olympics to the British and is now on his way to Poland where he will probably tell some Polish Jokes.

Romney’s strategy is clear: Outrage the people of various foreign nations as he travels around the world, and cause the American press and the TV Talking Heads to express outrage as well. This is an excellent strategy to secure his base, who hate all things foreign. We can expect Romney to make a few extra disparaging remarks about France just after his return in order to shore up his position as a George-Bush like World Class Ass.

The Drought of 2012 rivals the Great Dust Bowl years of the 30s and is coming at a time of melting arctic ice, shrinking ice sheets, and extreme events across the planet, matching the projections of Climate models for global warming.

Romney said he would sign a bill returning abortion rights to the states if the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

And, he is in favor of the “person hood” amendment.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Headline of the Century: Secular Men Lament Dearth of Secular Women, Stupidity Ensues

The socio-cultural machinery behind the gender divide in religion vs. nonbelief is fairly well researched and rather broadly understood to be the likely result of women’s socialization toward meekness, obedience, and submission….Try talking to women. Try to actually listen to what we have to say. Don’t become incredulous and try to tell us that our reasons for not participating more are invalid. Don’t assume that one woman’s opinion invalidates another’s. …

Very interesting and timely post, please go check it out.

I normally would have put this here on The X Blog but I wanted it to get more exposure so I put it on Science Blogs, but if you are one of the three or four people who follow X Blog but not Scienceglogs.com here is a link: What is Camp Quest and why is it important?

Camp Quest is a summer camp for “freethinking” children (or, more accurately, children of “freethinking” parents). Depending on where in the US you live, summer camps for children may be very secular, very religious, in betweeen, or more or less oriented towards science and technology vs. sports and so on and so forth. There is a lot of variation. Here in Minnestoa, the majority of camps (by count of camp and I’m guessing by count of “spots” at camp) are affiliated with a religion or have an explicitly religious mission. Having said that, the majority of those camps are linked to “The Y” which is probably the least religious of the religious organizations running camps here. But that is only from looking at the camp literature. I have no idea if within a camp that is not explicitly religiously affiliated there is an assumed internal undercurrent of religiosoity. There often is.

I’m reminded of a story told to me by an old friend. She went to camp for the first time when she was 12. On day one, the girls in her dorm got to know each other in part by exchanging information about what their religions were, and what churches they were members of. She remembers being baffled by this as she came from an entirely secular background. She told the other kids she did not have a religion.

That night she woke from a deep sleep in a state of panic. She had the sense that there was someone sitting on her chest trying to smother her. You may know about so-called “Old Hag Syndrome.” This was not that. She struggled and kicked and freed herself from beneath a pillow and cried out, and this brought people running. Someone turned on the lights.

A fellow camper was trying to smother her. A young Christian girl was trying to kill the demonically possessed atheist. What a way to go.

Anyway, Camp Quest is not like that. Camp quest is the only camp I know of that is explicitly secular. All the other camps are either explicitly religious or potentially kinda quasi religious, although there are a lot of name-brand camps (usually named after a shoe brand) that are very sports oriented. But given the degree of religious activity that happen in the locker room, I would not assume that those camps are secular either.

Anyway, my friend Sarah just spent a week at Camp Quest, and wrote up a blog post about it.

Well, I spent the last week at Camp Quest Michigan. What is CQ, you ask? Well, it’s an awesome summer camp for children of freethinking parents– no, this is not an atheist summer camp, just a camp where kids can learn about science, critical thinking skills, and also do all sorts of fun summer things, like swimming, rock climbing, horseback riding, etc.

Read her account, My Week at Camp Quest, here. If you are thinking of sending one or more of the little ones off to camp, consider Camp Quest, especailly if you are avoiding camp because everywhere you look, instead of some great nature and science studies and some challenging athletics, there’s…something else going on.