Wind-powered walking machines

The Animaris Rhinoceros Transport is a type of animal with a steel skeleton and a polyester skin. It looks as if there is a thick layer of sand coating the animal. It weighes 2. tons, but can be set into motion by one person. It stands 4.70 meters tall. Because of its height it catches enough wind to start moving. MPEG video here. (From Jamie Zawinski's blog.)

ASU "Secular Devils" events for 2006

The "Secular Freethought Society" at Arizona State University (also known as the "Secular Devils") has an event calendar for 2006 on the web. Gerda de Klerk, the group's president, sent me an email inviting me to attend any of them, and asking me to pass it on to anyone else interested. The Eugenie Scott talk I've already mentioned is on the list, along with some Darwin Week events for February 13-17, a film screening of "Bob Smith USA" followed by "Normal Bob Smith and his Unholy Army of Catholic School Girls invade downtown Tempe" on March 3, a talk by John Lynch of the stranger fruit blog on the development of creationism into the intelligent design movement on March 28, among others.

Fictional autobiographies: Frey joins Warnke, "Stratford," Esses, etc.

As many people now know, James Frey's bestseller and Oprah Book Club selection A Million Little Pieces has been exposed by The Smoking Gun as a collection of fabrications--yet Oprah continues to support the book.

There's a whole genre (at least one) of phony autobiography, and those who get suckered into believing them often continue to support them even in the face of overwhelming evidence against them. Mike Warnke's book, The Satan Seller, tells of how he was inducted into a coven of Satan-worshippers and became a leader in the group, leading a debauched life before finding God and becoming a Christian standup comedian. The Christian magazine Cornerstone did a comprehensive investigation into his past, and found that none of it was true. Similarly, Cornerstone exposed "Lauren Stratford"'s claim of being raised by Satan-worshippers, forced to participate in sex orgies, and to sacrifice her own child to be the fabrications of a mentally disturbed woman who was raised in a Christian home. Michael Esses told a story of being a God-hating rabbi converted to Christianity in his 1973 book, Michael, Michael, Why Do You Hate Me? John Todd claimed to be a member of the Illuminati. "Dr. Alberto Rivera" claimed to be a Jesuit priest trained to destroy Protestant churches in a story published as a comic book by Jack Chick. Cathy O'Brien claimed in Trance-Formation of America to have been subjected to CIA mind control and made into a sex slave for presidents and celebrities.

The male versions emphasize that the individual involved was a tough guy, a bad guy, and a leader involved in these nefarious deeds; the female versions, by contrast, portray themselves as victims under the control of evil conspirators. In both cases there seems to be an element of pride in the vivid descriptions of the actions confessed--the motivations behind these are no doubt similar to the motivations of false or embellished confessions in rehab and twelve-step programs.

It's worth noting that the same people are behind a number of the Christian fakes--David Balsiger ghost-authored Warnke's book and was director of marketing for the publisher of Esses' book (and has a longstanding reputation for dishonesty), Jack Chick promoted John Todd and "Alberto."

In Frey's case, publisher Nan Talese admits having long-standing arguments with her husband, Gay Talese, about whether "nonfiction" can include fabrications--her husband defending truth in nonfiction while she defends falsehood presented as fact.

Frey, for his part, has admitted that he has taken some liberties, but asserts in the face of overwhelming evidence from The Smoking Gun exposure that his account is still basically accurate.

Why are so many people willing to support and endorse this kind of dishonesty? Some, like Nan Talese, are doing so explicitly--a position that forgives minor distortions, even when they accumulate into major ones. It allows for "bullshitting" and for "noble lies" of the sort the neo-conservatives defend.

I find it fascinating that some of the biggest defenders of this kind of falsehood are people who claim to be absolutists about morality--the only thing that can be said in their defense is that some of them truly believe it and think the exposures can be refuted. Over time, the position can become untenable for most, and the followers of people like Warnke fall away in quiet embarrassment.

Sam Alito's queer mannerisms

I make no claim to have accurate gaydar, but did anybody see the video of Sam Alito walking down the street in D.C. (shown as the "moment of zen" on the Daily Show, Thursday, January 12) and not think he appeared to be a gay man (of the closeted, married variety)?

Apparently he does have a gay-friendly past. Of course, he defended privacy rights back then, too.

Unfortunately, closeted gay conservatives of the Roy Cohn and Terry Dolan variety are not generally good for the country...

Casey Luskin's lack of integrity

Casey Luskin offered a commentary (on the Discovery Institute's "Evolution News & Views" blog) on Kenneth Miller's testimony in the Dover case in which he expounded on chromosomal fusion and evidence for common ancestry between apes and humans. Mike Dunford and P. Z. Myers responded, pointing out numerous errors and misunderstandings in Luskin's argument. Luskin's commentary has been enshrined as a paper at the IDEA Center website called "And the Miller Told His Tale."

If Luskin or the Discovery Institute were serious about "teaching the controversy," they'd at least acknowledge the existence of these responses. But even the trackbacks for the blog entry remains empty...

Eugenie Scott at ASU

Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, will be giving the Robert S. Dietz memorial lecture at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 2, 2006, at ASU's main campus (Physical Sciences building, room F 166).

Genie will be speaking on "Creationism and Evolution: Historical, Scientific, Political, Legal and Educational Perspectives." I plan to be there.

Bob Dietz was an early advocate of plate tectonics and one of the primary developers of the concept of seafloor spreading, a major factor in its scientific acceptance. He was the faculty advisor for the Phoenix Skeptics, which I originally started as an ASU student group with Mike Norton and Jamie Busch. Dietz was also on the board of the Phoenix Skeptics after it became a non-campus group, and gave a few talks to the group. He had a great sense of humor, which showed in his book, co-authored with illustrator John C. Holden, Creation/Evolution Satiricon: Creationism Bashed (1987), which included some quotations from a pamphlet I wrote a year earlier, Fundamentalism is Nonsense. He died in 1995.

UPDATE: I described Genie Scott's ASU talk here.

Which has an immortal soul, and which makes good McNuggets?

A Pharyngula reader sent in a photograph asking the above question. I vote for the second answer given...

Mouse burning down house story not true

Turns out the mouse thrown into the fire was dead, and wind blew the fire into the house.

Correction here.

UPDATE January 12: Now Mares is sticking by the original story!

DVD region encoding may kill Spielberg's chances for Bafta awards

The DVD screeners for Steven Spielberg's new film, "Munich," which were sent to members of the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (Bafta) were inadvertently encoded for region one (U.S. and Canada) rather than region two (most of Europe). The DVDs, which had already arrived late due to a mess up at UK Customs, are unplayable in the DVD players of most of the Bafta members who received them.

The region encoding scheme is designed to prevent DVDs sold in one part of the world from being resold in other parts of the world. The encoding is actually fairly trivial to bypass, and many inexpensive DVD players made in China (such as those by Apex) have hidden menu options or easily modifiable firmware which allows DVD encoding protection to be disabled.

Premier PR, the company running the "Munich" PR campaign for Bafta, set up several preview screenings of the film in London, but many members of the organization live elsewhere in the UK.

Los Angeles traffic at night-time

Grass Collective makes "moving art" which includes a DVD of Los Angeles traffic at nighttime. It's pretty hypnotic. (Hat tip to BLDGBLOG.)