Carnivalia, and an open thread

Dinosaur City!
Theme park plans to open in 2008 in Texas. The article doesn't specifically mention whether the featured dinosaurs are more than 6000 years old, but Don Lessem is the force behind it. He's legit, I recommend his book Kings of Creation. This could be a nice antidote to Creationist museums popping up here and there.

Dr. Deepak Chopra recently made two posts on his proof of afterlife.

These posts didn't appear in Huffingtonpost. There could be two reasons: Huffpo may have warned him from posting pseudoscience or more likely he may have been wary of the critics who exposed his ignorance in his earlier posts on genes.

Here are the links for anyone is interested or want to be reassured and reaffirmed of Chopra's science writings.

What Happens After We Die? (Part 1)

http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/11/what_happens_af.html

What Happens After We Die? (Part 2)

http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/11/what_happens_af_1.html

Dr. Chopra says tells Richard Dawkins that he is a "bigot and a fundamentalist" on his face! on British televison.

Here is an interview(where he recollects the incident) of Deepak Chopra speaking about his book, Life After Death: The Burden of Proof on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC in Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1147

In this interview he says that he would love to have a debate with Richard Dawkins about God. He says that Dawkins idea of God has gone out of fashion about two hundred years ago!

PZ's student's link to the lung cancer vaccine inspired me (so to speak). While I like the idea of the vaccine, I don't like thinking it could be added to the list of miracle cures for largely preventable conditions.

Did anyone else see where "Toys for Tots" rejected a shipment of a bunch of Jesus dolls?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/14/toy.jesus.ap/index.html

Michael La Roe, director of business development for both companies, said the charity's decision left him "surprised and disappointed."

"The idea was for them to be three-dimensional teaching tools for kids," La Roe said. "I believe as a churchgoing person, anyone can benefit from hearing the words of the Bible."

One of the quotes:

"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again"

Lovely.

Given that Toys for Tots distributes gifts to kids of all (or no) faiths, I concur with what they've done here. I just hope no one gives one of my kids one of these things.

Deepak Chopra asks:

What Happens After We Die?

We rot. Next!

MikeM, I saw that too. Nothing like clueless fundies who just can't mind their own business. They seem to go out of their way to be annoying, like Amway salespeople. On a related note, my aunt is mentally ill. One way that we know that she is going through a rough time is when she gets overly religious. I wonder how many of these people have crossed a mental health line and while they may not be a threat to others, they may need help.

Red rain from outer space?
This is utterly ridiculous. I leave the debunking as an exercise for the reader. I'll give you one hint: You can find out at Wikipedia that the red rain fell over a three month period, always in the same region of India.

I'd like to remind people that it's one week from the Skeptics' Circle deadline.