Category: Elsewhere

The big day is right around the corner! By this time next week, groundhogs (and other weather-predicting rodents, mammals, or otherwise) all over North America will emerge from their dens and tell the rest of us how much more of this winter we have to endure.

Aside from dusting off your copy of the Bill Murray classic, you may want to get ready for the big day by visiting groundhog-day.com for all your groundhog related information needs.

Pet project of a good friend and coworker, the website features a list of active weather-predicting groundhogs, a comprehensive history of groundhog day, a mountain of prediction data going back to Punxsutawney Phil‘s first prediction in 1887, a map view so you can find the groundhog closest to you, and profiles of all these adorable little creatures.

And while they’re not all groundhogs (alternative groundhogs!), they’re not all alive, and some are just a person in a groundhog suit, they all bring a little levity and joy to a cold and dreary time of year, and who couldn’t use a bit of that.

Buzzfeed’s 50 Best Animal Photos of 2012

Everything that’s wrong with Hollywood:

With that in mind, let’s look ahead to what’s on the menu for this year: four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children’s book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title.1

And no Inception. Now, to be fair, in modern Hollywood, it usually takes two years, not one, for an idea to make its way through the alimentary canal of the system and onto multiplex screens, so we should really be looking at summer 2012 to see the fruit of Nolan’s success. So here’s what’s on tap two summers from now: an adaptation of a comic book. A reboot of an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a sequel to an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a reboot of an adaptation of a TV show. A sequel to a sequel to a reboot of an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a young-adult novel.2 And soon after: Stretch Armstrong. You remember Stretch Armstrong, right? That rubberized doll you could stretch and then stretch again, at least until the sludge inside the doll would dry up and he would become Osteoporosis Armstrong? A toy that offered less narrative interest than bingo?

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This week’s awarding of the Nobel Prize in medicine to Robert Edwards for his role in developing in vitro fertilization has thrown a spotlight on the religious right’s deeply offensive stance on this amazing advance in medical science.

Since it was developed, in vitro fertilization has been responsible for the births of over 4 million children. That’s 4 million children that would otherwise not have been born to desperate parents robbed by nature of the ability to have children on their own.

The Vatican continues to speak out against this miracle technology based on anti-scientific delusions about the spiritual properties of a blob of cells and something about IVF separating conception from the “conjugal act.”

Now in USA Today’s Faith and Reason section, Cathy Lynn Grossman takes this thinking to an offensive extreme asking:

“Do you think a baby conceived in test tube is still a child in the eyes — or mind or hands, depending on your theology/philosophy — of God? Does the science behind this merit the Nobel Prize for Medicine or condemnation in the realm of faith and ethics?”

and:

“Do you think a baby conceived in test tube is still a child in the eyes of God? Does the science behind this merit a Nobel Prize, or ethical condemnation? And what about the parents? Is their IVF choice selfish or loving? Are they creators — or merely shoppers?”

It is incredibly offensive and disturbing that somebody would consider questioning a child’s status as a human being because of how they were conceived. What, because my parents did it the old fashioned way, I am granted a soul while a child born of IVF is less of a person in the eyes of god? What a horribly offensive proposition.