Imagine, if you will, an amusement park set to open in the not-too-distant future. But instead of roller coasters and cotton candy, this one will have"juvenile giraffes" and odes to the good ole days. Which to the founders of this wonderland occurred about 6,000 years ago, when man and T-Rex blithely roamed the Earth together.

The year will be 2014. And the land of enchantment that commences operation that year will be a creationism theme park, which will exist aboard a "500-foot-long wooden replica of Noah’s Ark containing live animals," so kids can learn how the Earth really began and ignore all that tripe about the Big Bang.

It will accompany the already rocking Creation Museum in Boone County, Kentucky, which is devoted to a literal interpretation of the biblical story. This leads to certain challenges, of course, as Charles Pierce points out in his book Idiot America, such as providing a theoretical basis for how humans and dinosaurs co-existed, before the latter shuffled off this mortal coil.

Which explains why Creation-Museum dinosaurs are afforded the privilege of donning an "English saddle, hornless and battered," to remind them of their main purpose during their brief terrestrial experience: Serving as our Lippizanners.

Just imagine how much fun the Kentucky Derby must have been back then!

Perhaps, worst of all, not only is this scientific Frankenstein being built, but at the announcement of its pending, um, creation, was not some far-right loon, but the Kentucky Democratic Governor Steve Beshear. Perhaps its simple coincidence that in a year's time, he shall once again stand before the voters of Kentucky as a candidate for governor. And that he arrived at the unveiling with a potential offering of over $37 bn in taxpayer-funded, tourism development incentives.

Yes, I know, surely the Pirates of the Garden of Eden ride will provide jobs and lead to increased tourism for the area, but if the only requirement is to provide visitors with fantasy and pool a few shekels, why not just screen Russ Meyer movies or hand out signed copies of George W. Bush's Decision Points?

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Since Max did an Indiana band for the Music Club, I thought I'd throw in a plug for the Indianapolis Children's Museum, which my kids and I visited just this morning. It rocks. The dinosaurs crashing out of the building (above) is almost as cool as the new installation which will be completed this summer: a full-sized brachiosaurus mother and child peeking under the roof of the atrium entrance. (artist's rendering)

Open Thread below...

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Edicts of Nancy (satire): Dinosaurs had teen pregnancies, too, which proves to white trash "Christianists" that the earth is 6,000 years old.

Debate Tracker has clips from all the debates thus far.

If this isn't enough links for you, by pure coincidence my own humble blog is hosting Carnival of the Liberals today. Ten more great liberal blogs to choose from. I'll be here all week try the veal and send tips to bluegalsblog AT gmail DOT com .

The Creation Museum, a $27-million tourist attraction for those who don’t care for modern science, will open its doors this morning near Cincinnati. The LA Times had an interesting editorial on the facility.

[B]efore the first visitor risks succumbing to the museum’s animatronic balderdash — dinosaurs and humans actually coexisted! the Grand Canyon was carved by the great flood described in Genesis! — we’d like to clear up a few things: “The Flintstones” is a cartoon, not a documentary. Fred and Wilma? Those woolly mammoth vacuum cleaners? All make-believe.

Science is under assault, and that calls for bold truths. Here’s another: The Earth is round.

Continue reading »

The less I say, the better. I truly do respect people's right to practice their faith. However, that respect ends at the point where they attempt to force their beliefs on anyone else, especially when their practice involves giving our children patently wrong information under the guise of education.

HuffPo:

Over at Blue Jersey, we revisit the story of a Kearny high school teacher, David Paszkiewicz, who told his students that 'that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's ark,' and "you belong in hell" if you "reject" Christianity. He also singled out a Muslim student to tell her that she is definitely going to hell.

Kearny school officials have certainly taken their time in handling the incident, which occurred at the start of the school year and became public in November.

In December, the Kearny school board continued to obfuscate who was at fault, silently implicating the young student who had secretly taped Paszkiewicz's classroom sermons for fear officials wouldn't believe him. In January, the teacher published a rambling letter in the local paper, explaining why the Constitution allows him to tell his students they are going to hell. He even insinuated the student who taped him was a part of a broader conspiracy:

It is my firm conviction that there is an effort afoot to undermine the very underpinnings of our freedoms.

This morning, the New York Times tells of Kearny's official reaction: Student's Recording of Teacher's Views Leads to a Ban on Taping

This was pretty hysterical. On HBO's The Sopranos, while Tony is recovering from a gunshot wound, he was visited by an Evangelical-Bob Brewster-armed with Chuck Colson book-told him that Dinosaurs lived with people and evolution is the agent of the Devil. Tony who is starting to look into the after life because of his near death experience is fairly receptive to the thought.
Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (h/t Sean)

Brewster: Evolution, which is Satan's plan to deny God. Evolution and salvation are mutually exclusive.

Christopher analyses the situation in his typical fashion.

Christopher: What's he saying? There were Dinosaurs back with Adam and Eve?

Tony: I guess.

Christopher : No way. T-Rex in the Garden of Eden-Adam and Eve would be running all the time-scared shitless, but the Bible says it was paradise.

Pharyngula: "Further signs of the dumbening of America: Half a century ago the creationists noticed they were losing credibility, so they put on lab coats and started calling themselves 'scientific creationists'. Now they've added a bag of cheap plastic toy dinosaurs to the costume. It would be comical if it weren't for all the dumb-as-rocks journalists falling for the disguise....read on"

Ballon-Juice just made my day: "The 2005 Creation Mega-Conference, slated from Jul. 17 to 22 in Lynchburg, Va. tackled several prominent issues facing the creation/evolution debate, such as the dinosaurs, the flood and Big Bang theory...read on.

Here's my favorite: Dinosaurs were also explained. According to John Whitcomb, co-author of the seminal creationist book, The Genesis Flood (1961), Noah’s ark carried 1,000 different kinds of dinosaurs as well as all of the other species, and the book has sold more than a quarter of a million copies in English…read on

As John says the report is so rich that any attempts at snark would simply fall short, so I will not even try.

This isn't a satire.

Ken Ham has spent 11 years working on a museum that poses the big question — when and how did life begin? Ham hopes to soon offer an answer to that question in his still-unfinished Creation Museum in northern Kentucky.

Notice the headline of the Yahoo News Story:

Creation Museum Sparks Evolution Debate

I didn't know there was a debate going on, except in Wingnut Kansas.

Ham's beliefs are that the Earth is about 6,000 years old, a figure arrived at by tracing the biblical genealogies, and not 4.5 billion years, as mainstream scientists say; the Grand Canyon was formed not by erosion over millions of years, but by floodwaters in a matter of days or weeks and that dinosaurs and man once coexisted, and dozens of the creatures — including Tyrannosaurus Rex — were passengers on the ark built by Noah, who was a real man, not a myth.

Emailer Jerimiah says: I'm thinking of setting up a different fundamentalist museum of my own to battle both science, and religion. It's the museum of whatever thing I can Imagine, yet claim absolutist real. It'll be great, because it'll serve to reclaim all reality in terms of my own personal fantasies!!!

It's a giant step backward in science education," says Carolyn Chambers, chair of the biology department at Xavier University, which is operated by the Jesuit order of the Catholic church. The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Pleasant Ridge, takes issue with Ham's views — and the man himself. "

Jerimiah says: "For example: Man does not come from sand like in the bible, or from primates for that matter. Man comes from MANnequins. Man was sparked to life in an ancient cave dwelling department store by the Toyota company before the fifteenth flooding of the world!!!! You see, I can bullshit anything, and claim it real!!!! I don't even have to test it; just claim it theoretical, as valid as any science theory out there!"