Anybody live, camp or cabin near the Lost 40 or the Boundary Waters? Let these people know.

More of the story here

You may have heard that in these troubled times in Greece, the Greek Nazi “Golden Dawn” party made an alarming gain in the Parliament, taking about 7% of the seats. Here they are being all Nazi-ish:

It isn’t just that they won a few seats in Parliament. This is part of a larger shift towards extremism on the right side of the spectrum, happening in Greece and other countries as well, and it is accompanied by some extreme rhetoric that reminds us of the 1930s.

In case you were wondering if these guys are “real” Nazis, don’t worry, they really do seem to be, even with respect to some of the finer details of Nazism, such as intolerance of Jews.

Here is what you can do. Some time in the next month or two, there will be new elections in Greece. The elections that happened a few days ago produced a result (no strong majority or obvious coalition) that likely will result in this happening. Golden Dawn, the Nazis, have a web site they use as a critical component of their campaign. It is hosted on WordPress.

Shall we sign a petition?

Change.org has one for you:

The Official blog of the Greek Nazi ‘Golden Dawn’ political party which recently won an unprecedented 7% in the parliamentary elections is hosted on the WordPress.com platform at http://xryshaygh.wordpress.com/.

In addition to espousing hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric, denial of the Holocaust, and Nazi salutes, Golden Dawn has a history of direct involvement in organized crime and intimidation with many of their.top ranking members having been indicted and convicted of violent crimes against immigrants and political opponents.

On April 17 behind the cover of anonymity which they always use on their official blog on WordPress.com, they published an article that made thinly veiled threats of violence against Greek reporter Xenia Kounalaki, the editor of the foreign news desk of Kathimerini, Greece’s leading broadsheet.

Source: http://www.euractiv.com/elections/neo-nazi-greek-party-threatens-journalist-news-512538

The WordPress.com Terms of Service state that all content submitted ‘does not contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities’.

Source: http://en.wordpress.com/tos/

We call on Automattic Inc. to stop providing a free platform for Golden Dawn to anonymously threaten and intimidate reporters, immigrants, and political opponents by shutting down their WordPress.com account.

Click here to visit and sign the petition.

Next week, Amanda and I will be Dining in the Dark. It has been determined that I will be wearing a suit.

If you are in the Twin Cities, why don’t you join us! Click Here to find out what it is all about.

I just checked and there are a few tickets left. Better hurry!

Starting now, I will be writing blog post now and then at Minnesota Progressive Project. I’ll be focusing on the intersection of science and politics, the politics of science, and now and then I’l rant wildly about something random.

My inaugural post is HERE. It is about the possibility of a Science Debate in Minnesota and consists mainly of an interview with Shawn Otto.

Starting now, I will be writing blog post now and then at Minnesota Progressive Project. I’ll be focusing on the intersection of science and politics, the politics of science, and now and then I’l rant wildly about something random.

My inaugural post is HERE. It is about the possibility of a Science Debate in Minnesota and consists mainly of an interview with Shawn Otto.

… for the idiot from Madison Wisconsin who has been commenting on this site on a very regular basis for a long time and has recently taken to writing a comment several times a day, using different names, and quite often, using YOUR names. His regular use of the names of regular commenters on this site is very annoying and destructive, the kind of thing only someone with his mental illness/political orientation would do.

The way commenting is handled on this site, Scienceblogs.com, makes it almost impossible for me to stop him from doing this. All I can do is delete the comments as I identify them, and frankly, I don’t have time for that.

I assume that he will continue doing this and will probably even ramp up his efforts after reading this post admitting that there is not much I can do about it. In which case, 1) yes, a right wing asshole Republican/Libertarian who respects each and every one of you, and me, as much as he respects a piece of dog shit on the bottom of his shoe, will have won. And, 2) I’ll either turn off commenting on this site, and move most of my blogging to The X Blog, where I can control commenting, or simply stop managing comments alltogether and let you’all sort it out among yourselves (let me know your preference on that).

The only reason I’m telling you (and him) this is the following: In a few weeks, this site is going to change. We are getting an upgrade in technology which will allow for a normal, modern, system of commenting. You see, the Movable Type system we have in place here was specially designed for Scienceblogs.com many years ago, and modified further over time, and the software engineers that did this were all killed in a tragic bus accident in Peru. Or, at least, one hopes. In any event, they don’t exist any more, and we are stuck with a piece of technology that simply does not work and that can not be fixed. When the new system goes into place, all of these problems will end and the gentleman from Madison Wisconsin will have to go back to biting the heads off chickens, because he will not be able to operate here.

Hat tip: This.

The Heartland Institute is tonight’s tool time for putting out insane ads attacking the theory of climate change. The Heartland Institute is a deep pocketed conservative organization that counts Koch industries, Phillip Morris and Microsoft among its well-heeled donors. The Institute is funding a school curriculum to question the theory that carbon emissions have caused global warming and recently funded billboards in Chicago highlighting the fact that a handful of unhinged individuals believe in the theory. The billboards read “I still believe in global warming. Do you?”

A baby eagle rescued by eagle rescuers … who rescued it from its own nest … has been returned to the nest from which it was rescued. Of course, that scared the parents away but now they have returned to re-rescue the baby.

The author of the historically transformative and widely loved book “Where the Wild Things Are” had died. He was 83.

This was just posted on State Farm’s facebook page:

State Farm is ending its association with the Heartland Institute. This is because of a recent billboard campaign launched by the Institute.

That was a result of this: An Open Letter to State Farm about Climate Denial

Bwahahahaha…

Go “like” it!!!! on Facebook!

Shawn Otto, author of Fool me Twice, will be on Science Friday this week talking about Science Debate with Ira Flatow and Vern Ehlers.

Fri 1-2 CT, 2-3 ET

The following statement is being circulated for signatures and to influence broad public opinion:

“We Say NO MORE”

The killing of Trayvon Martin and 2.4 million in prison make clear that there is a whole generation of Black and Latino youth who have been marked and treated as a “generation of suspects” to be murdered and jailed. This is not an issue for Black people alone but for all who care about justice; it is not a random tragedy. We say NO MORE!

The original is HERE.

These are the faces of all of the American Terrorists known since 9/11, with Shelly Shannon standing in for the killing of an abortion doctor (who’s killer was not found … but Shelly attacked the same clinic years earlier). Missing are mainly Earth and/or Animal liberation front members who are mostly white guys in their 20s or 30s. How many can you name?

Go read this: Are you an atheist? Better be a humanist.