This was a fun one!  I got a new mic for Brian that gives us a more consistent level for him with less noise.  We had a bunch of crap going on, and were a bit rushed, but still had a good session.  We kept on topic for the most part and got to all our stories (although we really only cared about the Enterprise thing).

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Well, I’m not totally happy.  I’m kind of sick, and felt a bit thick-headed throughout, and I think it shows.  In any case, we had a couple of interruptions requiring edits this week, but nothing too bad.  We recorded on a Wednesday morning, and I may get this published tonight!

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A little bit later in the week than I’d like to be publishing, but I hope everyone will bear with us while we work around my new schedule.  We went a bit long again, but I promise, we’re trying to keep it down to around an hour moving forward.

News Items:

Marvin’s Martian Microbials

Researchers from universities in Los Angeles, California, Tempe, Arizona and Siena, Italy have published a paper in the International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences (IJASS) citing the results of their work with data obtained by NASA’s Viking mission.The twin Viking 1 and 2 landers launched in August and September of 1975 and successfully landed on Mars in July and September of the following year. Their principal mission was to search for life, which they did by digging into the ruddy Martian soil looking for signs of respiration — a signal of biological activity.

The results, although promising, were inconclusive.

Now, 35 years later, one team of researchers claims that the Viking landers did indeed detect life, and the data’s been there all along.

We talk about how cool this would be, how it’s not really conclusive as yet, and tie it in to the religious angle in that we both assume the fundies will brush it off as lies or insignificant.

Romney’s non-polygamy and the Race for President

Conservatives have criticized [Montana's Democrat Governor Brian] Schweitzer for bringing up Romney’s religion in this way, pointing out that President Obama’s Kenyan father was married to more than one woman at a time. “Both Romney’s parents and grandparents were monogamous, so tying him to the polygamous practices of his great-grandparents is a nasty piece of business and no more relevant to the 2012 campaign than an investigation into the marital practices of President Obama’s ancestors in Kenya,” writes Jonathan Tobin, senior online editor of Commentary magazine.

I resist briefly, but Brian brings me around to the conclusion that this has no real good side to it.  It was a crap, low-brow move, and he deserved the pundit pud-slap.

Moderate Christians are following REM’s suggestion

WASHINGTON (RNS) A growing tide of young Americans is drifting away from the religions of their childhood — and most of them are ending up in no religion at all.One in four young adults choose “unaffiliated” when asked about their religion, according to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.

Some bad reporting, but still interesting numbers.

NY State Exam Questions not quite redux

We almost reported a couple of weeks ago on a list of words the NY State school board was prohibiting from standardized testing.  We didn’t because, contrary to many reports I heard on the story, this only applied to standardized test word questions, and seemed designed to avoid inflaming emotions in students taking these tests.  Now, the test itself is out, and one of the questions has a whole bunch of people wondering WTF? Continue reading →

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Wow!  I can’t believe I sat on this for three days.  This has been ten minutes from done since Tuesday night, and I just thought I’d done it and published somehow.  Sorry everyone, please enjoy!

News Items:

The Pope says No to Frock-ing Women (wink wink nudge nudge)

Pope Benedict XVI has denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying Thursday they were disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on the church.
Benedict made the rare and explicit criticism from the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in his homily on Holy Thursday, when priests recall the promises they made when ordained.
In 2006, a group of Austrian priests launched the Pfarrer Initiative, or pastor initiative, a call to disobedience aimed at abolishing priestly celibacy and opening the clergy to women to relieve the shortages of priests.
Last June, the group’s members essentially threatened a schism, saying the Vatican’s refusal to hear their complaints left them no choice but to “follow our conscience and act independently.”

This gets me back on my ‘Why are you still a Catholic’ rant, and us into a good discussion about the Papacy.

The Philosophies of America’s Presidential Frontrunners

Republicans, Obama charged, are engaged in an attempt to impose a “radical” change of vision on the country – “thinly veiled social Darwinism” that allows us to “think only about ourselves” and not about “our fellow citizens with whom we share a community.”
Mitt Romney lost no time in taking up the ideological challenge. Just days after Obama laid down the gauntlet, Romney agreed that this was the philosophy election: “This November, we will face a defining decision. Our choice will not be one of party or personality. This election will be about principle…if you worked hard, and took some risks, that there was the opportunity to build a better life for your family and for the next generation.”

We agree this is a very well written, balance article on a subject that needed it.

Pregnancies now require a time machine in AZ

Arizona Bill Says Pregnancy Begins Before Conception!  A new bill up for a vote in Arizona could mandate that pregnancy be considered to have started up to two weeks before conception may have actually occurred.

Just another attempt to encroach on a woman’s right to choose.

Newsflash! Some homophobes may be latent queers.

Homophobes ‘may be secretly attracted to people of the same sex’ -

Homophobes could be attracted to people of the same sex but are not admitting it to themselves, a series of psychology studies has found.

Researchers in New York, Essex and California say they’ve found evidence that gays and lesbians remind homophobes of themselves  – which is why they develop an intense aversion and fear of them.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120406234458.htm

Items of Interest:

Matt - Google Plus Hangouts – free video chat

Let friends know you’re free for a video hangout, any time, anywhere. Then catch up, watch YouTube, or… just hangout.

http://hangoutcanopy.com/

A plugin that lets you see who’s hanging out.

Brian - GeekandSundry YouTube Channel

A new youtube channel from Felicia Day and Whil Wheaton. My review of their premiere show, Tabletop, http://youtu.be/X9QtdiRJYro, and a brief description of other upcoming shows.

The Game:

Rick Santorum ends bid for GOP nomination

(CBS News) Rick Santorum suspended his bid for the presidency on Tuesday, removing the last significant obstacle in Mitt Romney’s now all-but-certain march to the Republican presidential nomination.

We lament the loss of one of our more prolific sources of funny news items.

Matt’s PSA:  White House Solicits Inspirational Gay-Themed Videos For LGBT Pride Month Challenge

Listener Feedback:

We apologize to a couple of our early supporters for unintentionally ignoring their emails.  We really are dumb sometimes.

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We both felt good about this one after we finished.  Good topics, some good discussion, and a few chuckles.  We really need a new game, though.  Please send suggestions, we’re just not that creative!

News Items:

Genetic Engineering for Climate and Profit!

We just touch on this, mainly relating it to the story from last week’s episode about another paper related to bioethics.

Abstract
Anthropogenic climate change is arguably one of the biggest problems that confront us today. There is ample evidence that climate change is likely to affect adversely many aspects of life for all people around the world, and that existing solutions such as geoengineering might be too risky and ordinary behavioural and market solutions might not be sufficient to mitigate climate change. In this paper, we consider a new kind of solution to climate change, what we call human engineering, which involves biomedical modifications of humans so that they can mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. We argue that human engineering is potentially less risky than geoengineering and that it could help behavioural and market solutions succeed in mitigating climate change. We also consider some possible ethical concerns regarding human engineering such as its safety, the implications of human engineering for our children and for the society, and we argue that these concerns can be addressed. Our upshot is that human engineering
deserves further consideration in the debate about climate change.

Ender’s Game the Porno! and other missing details

Evolution of a Complaint, in reverse order:

A middle school teacher who read to his students from Ender’s Game is on “administrative leave” because a parent complained to the school that Orson Scott Card’s classic novel is “pornographic.” The parent also went to the local police, who have not yet pressed criminal charges against the teacher, according to the Aiken, SC Standard. Continue reading →

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