I'm the worstest Dad ever.

Yesterday's crisis starts as I'm walking from first Avenue to third in downtown, through a rather unpleasant neighborhood (a drug rehabilitation outpatient center is on second, and there's a dive bar on third, so the locals can be rough, although the city put a dog park in across the street from the bar in the hopes of attracting more upscale people to the neighborhood) and Omaha calls me.

She tells me that I'm going to be unhappy. Yamaraashi-chan came home this afternoon to tell her, "I can't wait for the concert this evening!"

( "What concert?" Now with extra Mom-generated angst! )

Boltzmann's Brain!

Opponents of Evolution Adopting a New Strategy

Good article in the New York Times about how all of the so-called "academic freedom" bills that have been introduced in various legislatures are nothing more that attempts to sheild creationist teachers from legal threats if they try to teach non-science to your kids. The head of the Texas School Board lets the secret out when he admits that he holds to a worldview that has no room for modern science. Fun times!

Marvel Comics Bans Smoking for all Characters.

The link goes to some glorious new art, although the ban was two years ago. Seriously, WTF? J. Jonah Jameson without his cigar? Wolverine can continue to slice and dice bad guys, but he can't get a light? What about Nick Fury? Say what you will, the smoke was part of these guys' iconography!

Colorado governor signs transgender anti-discrimination bill. Intelligent Design proponents demonstrate Poe's Law.

William Dembski, one of the leading proponents of Intelligent Design, protests.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's signing of a transgender anti-discrimination bill points up the lunacy that ensues in a world without design.

Uh, okay, Bill. Whatever.

Poe's Law: "Unless explicitly made clear that the material is parody, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

WND: Pagan Blessing Sought For New Building

Apparently having solved all the world's other problems, World Net complains bitterly about a private construction company's tradition of placing a tree atop its buildings for good luck. (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars. )

Anti-Gay Lawyer Must Pay Legal Fees

Oh, this is a sweet victory. The Rev. Grant Storms gave a speech "against Homo-Facism," in which he imitated gun noises and said, "There's twenty! Ca-ching, glory, glory to God, let's go drive through the McDonald's and come back to get the rest." A gay rights group accused him of advocating the murder of gays (sounds open and shut to me). A lawyer for Grant sued the group for defamation. Not only did he lose, but he has to pay both court costs and the other sides's fees. His response?

"I'm a Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. I'll have life everlasting. I can use that assurance to try to deal with this decision and the ramifications of it."

"I take comfort in knowing that my cosmic spacemonkey will fling his napalm-laden poo at all who oppose me." Blessed, indeed, are the meek.

This is so wrong of me

But in the last panel of today's Kevin & Kell, Lindesfarne is suddenly hawt.

Purely geek, purely for me:

• A Behavior-Based Distributed Algorithm Library for Programming Swarms of Robots
• Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing
• Things: Task Management on the Mac.

March 98, 2008

What the frack is up with this weather? It was 50°F (10C) when I stepped outside this morning, cold, wet, overcast and miserable. Are we not going to have a spring this year? This is like 2002, when we had no summer. Winter just hung on and on and on until Fall came around again. It's like the year's just going to go Jan Feb Mar Mar Mar Mar Oct Oct Oct Oct Nov Dec.

Dammit, I want to spend more time outside. I want to plant my damn tomatoes!

Yamaraashi-chan and I spent a lovely hour outside Wendnesday evening, even though it was overcast, so she could try out her new inline skates with an adult to hang onto. She's having trouble standing, and she's definitely not ready to start providing her own power, but it's a start. I have to find some athletic activity she enjoys. She rolled around in the driveway and shouted "Daddy!" every time I got more than three feet away. I felt very father-like. And a meme confirms it:

83 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

(I saw someone release a PDF of these very old documents from the 1930s, and I'm so please to see someone put it together as on online meme.)

Tonight, we're taking her out to celebrate her birthday. Not sure what yet. We'll think of something. It's her night, we'll let her choose the restaurant.