Six dead baby skeletons in a bag behind a hospital in India.

Passing along a note sent to me yesterday from Jason:

I’m sending this message to let you know about something cool that’s going to be happening this Thursday night, and to invite you to be a part of it!

As you may or may not know, today is Charles Darwin’s birthday. To mark the occasion, my friend Randy Olson is going to be having the DC premiere of his new documentary, “Flock of Dodos,” this week — Thursday night, to be precise. “Dodos” is a funny and insightful exploration of the “intelligent design” movement, and the failure of mainstream science to effectively rebut it. Randy’s personal cause is to help scientists communicate their work in plain English to the rest of us, so this isn’t your standard “evolution true, ID false” screed; it challenges both ID advocates (for misleading the public) and evolution advocates (for failing to reach the public effectively). If you’re interested in evolution specifically, or science in general, you will enjoy this movie. I’ve seen it and I believe it deserves a wider audience, which is why I’m letting you know about this opportunity.

Here are a couple of reviews of “Flock of Dodos”, if you want more information:

• New York Times
• NPR

The premiere is happening this Thursday, February 15, at 8:00 PM at the Avalon Theater in DC. Tickets are $12 each, and there will be a Q&A with Randy after the film. This is the only DC showing currently scheduled, so if you’re interested in seeing this film, now’s your chance. Tickets can be purchased at the box office, or via the Avalon web site.

The plural of “person” is “people,” not “persons.”

I don’t care how much you want it to be.

“Impact” is also not a verb, despite how many government bureaucrats have failed to learn the word “affect.” If you mean it in a physical sense, the verb is “hit.”

Deal with it, people.

Check out these South American kids with a thankfully unhansonesque sibling trio doing a tribute to Emerson, Lake & Palmer:

Somebody’s got a copy of In Concert.

In India, a man was accused of raping a deaf-mute neighbor. The police failed to do anything, arguing that the deaf-mute couldn’t give evidence. (What, the booming Indian tech economy can’t afford a few rape kits?) This is kind of doubtful, because here’s how they found out:

Communicating through hand signals, the woman, a mother of three, said she was raped in a field last Sunday when returning home from work in Rampur, 330 kilometers (205 miles) northwest of Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh.

So the village elders stepped in.

Their punishment? A 5,000 rupee ($110 US) fine and 51 slaps to the face in public.

“We can’t do more than that. The village court doesn’t have powers to arrest anyone,” said Hasan. “By public slapping, the court wants to put (him) to shame.”

I think this illustrates the challenge facing India. Despite the booming tech sector, there is a completely different world in most of the rest of the country that isn’t going to be contributing very soon until a minimum level of modernization happens. The US has grown a lot in no small part since 1970 because the South finally started joining the 20th century and was able to contribute.

So here’s a provocative question: could the most important economic development in the US in the latter half of the 20th century have been Brown v. Board of Education?

Even though it’s not my favorite type of humor, Borat is really funny because it’s pitch-perfect. The rubes he makes fun of aren’t the sweet kind you cringe when he abuses (mostly) but some deserving assholes who I hope lose their jobs. Three quick reactions:

1. When the scene with the University of South Carolina frat brothers was over, I leaned over to a friend and said, “…and that’s why I left.” Seriously, if the President of the University has any questions why I never give them a dime, he should just watch that exchange. He was hired to stop the “other” USC from getting to be too prominent and too smart for the ignorant hicks who make up its board of trustees. They’re much more comfortable with the kind of students you see on the screen than me. The evangelical Christian church scene brought also back some bad memories of South Carolina.

2. It was jarring when every time I could understand some of the “Kazakh” coming out of Sacha Cohen’s mouth, it was Polish–a language spoken about a couple of thousand miles from Kazakhstan. I’m guessing Sacha’s family were Polish Jews before the war. None of it was Russian, though I think some of the language in the village scene was.

3. I’ve been to Kazakhstan, and in case you’re wondering, no, it’s not really like Cohen lampoons it to be–while that’s part of his joke, the irony is that he’s reinforcing the type of prejudice he’s exposing in others. On a similar theme, his fake anti-Semitism is not taken up by anybody else in the movie. Southern rednecks hate blacks first, and Jews are way down on the list, now even behind Muslims.

Little ways life gets better are important. The title of Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution blog is a reference to this. So I’m going to start keeping track of small things that make life better or give you a bit of hope.

So what better way to start, than with the inimitable Neil Patrick Harris? More specifically, the lede of the recent AP story about him:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Neil Patrick Harris is gay and wants to quell any rumors to the contrary.

Addendum: A shout out to Reverend Ted Haggard: you could learn a thing or two from Doogie.

(Contains spoilers about the latest episode of South Park if you haven’t watched it yet.)

John Beyer at Mediawatch apparently has sand in his vagina. It may be a job requirement, though, said job appearing to be to get worked up over every imagined slight in the world. What’s brought him to my attention? This:

Mr Irwin’s family are obviously still grieving about their tragic loss and it seems inappropriate to me that South Park should be trying to make some capital out of it.

To lampoon somebody’s death like that is unacceptable, and so soon after the event is grossly insensitive and shows a great deal of disrespect for his family.

OK, the “grossly insensitive” bit that’s got Beyers’s twat in a twist? In an episode lampooning MTV’s show about spoiled rich girls getting massive sweet 16 birthday parties, Satan decides to have such a party for Halloween (in the South Park universe, Satan is just a big red gay guy, and hell is populated by everybody who isn’t Mormon). It is, of course, a costume party. So Satan, who has been acting more and more like a spoiled bitchy girl all night, is alerted that some of the guests are complaining about a guest who has come dressed as The Crocodile Hunter. Satan goes up to him and says, “Dude, you’re going to have to leave. I mean, it’s just too soon, that’s not cool.”

“But Satan, it’s me, Steve Irwin! I am the Crocodile Hunter.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, you have to leave. No costume.”

That’s it. That’s the total thing. It’s a funny bit, doesn’t insult Steve Irwin (apart from being a denizen of hell, but remember that in South Park only Mormons don’t go to hell), and even acknowledges the potential controversy. For South Park, that’s damn near reverent.

If this causes you gynosiltification, you probably should cut down on the TV and Internet use and go swimming–but maybe stay away from beaches. And consider a good plastic surgeon.

*South Park reference here

Why yes, he does. You can now stop asking.

Military-industrial complexes are pretty!

Backdated for your entertainment.