I’m still here, so sorry to regular readers (especially those who don’t use RSS feeds) for the gappy posting of late. I’m thinking that this blog needs a spruce up, a new direction maybe, but I’m not sure where to take it. On one hand I’m thinking I should post more on skeptical topics (that’s proper skeptical topics, not this "climate skeptic" bullshit). Then there’s the compulsive need to redecorate and go for a new look, which inevitably means things will get a bit ugly around here before they get pretty again.

I went and saw Young @ Heart yesterday, a lovely weepy documentary about a chorus of old people who tour with modern songs, ostensibly to demonstrate that "you’re never too old" to try something new or do something you love. One old chap in particular reminded me of Alan Arkin, and I came to this decision: When I am old, I want to be old exactly like Alan Arkin– he has just the right blend of abrasiveness and sensitivity for an old man. Also, on a similar theme, I finally got around to seeing The World’s Fastest Indian, and indeed it was a wonderfully sweet film.

I continue to post frequent comments on Ray’s terrible creationist propaganda blog, in the probably vain hope that perhaps some of the credulous suckers who read it might actually start thinking for themselves a little. I think it’s good mental exercise to talk with people who disagree with you, even if they never appear to pay attention to what the other side is saying (and think that every biblical non sequitur they utter is somehow a fatal blow to our fragile empirical worldview). Ray is truly an ass, enthusiastically misrepresenting and misquoting atheists every chance he gets. We are but straw men to him no matter how carefully we explain our (rather simple, easily defined) positions. But just because someone is an ass doesn’t mean it is safe to ignore them, for he is working to build an army of asses, who would yield their collective influence to FUBAR public education and science as we know it.