South Dakota legislature declares that astrology can explain global warming

The stupid never ends, it seems:

Here in the U.S. we have a never-ending competition among the states to see which one can enact the dumbest laws. This past week, the South Dakota House of Representatives passed a law that tells schoolteachers how to present the evidence for global warming. The lawmakers who wrote the bill clearly don’t believe that global warming is a reality, so they simply created a law to promote their version of reality. Interestingly, they used the same strategy used by creationists in their efforts to ban the teaching of evolution: the “teach the controversy” approach, where you claim you simply want children to hear both sides of the issue. But the part that really got my attention was the law’s claim that “astrological dynamics” are one of the driving forces behind global climate change.

Source (h/t Peter Watts).

A mysterious comment

In response to this post, I got a rather puzzling comment:

Astrology is the ancient practice and study of the stars and planets. Its history goes back to Babylonian times. Astrology is not the same as astronomy. Astronomy studies only the science of the planets, stars and universe.

horoscope, astrology (http://astrologyquestions.com)

I'm not sure what to make of it. The website it directs you to is fairly basic, seemingly directed at people who have never heard of astrology (and how many people, at least in our culture, can that be said to apply to?) The comment was cut and pasted from that website. I'd like to find out more about the poster's motivations, but since the comment is anonymous I can't do that. It reminds me of nothing so much as those religious zealots who think that directing you to John 3:16 will be enough to make you say "Gosh, I didn't know that! I guess I'd better accept Jesus as my saviour right away!" (They tend to be selective in that regard; they usually don't direct you to 4 Kings (aka 2 Kings) 18:27 for some reason).

I got my bike back from the shop yesterday- just in time for the return of shitty weather. Looking out the window, it looks like we got a couple of centimetres of snow last night.

Bad news for the astrology buffs...

A British researcher has conducted an extensive study of how much influence people's star signs have on their choice of a mate. The conclusion- none at all:

A new study of 20 million husbands and wives has concluded that a pickup ploy linked with the Age of Aquarius is all wet.

According to a University of Manchester report released this week, asking a potential partner "What's your sign?" offers no more insight into the relationship's likelihood of success than consulting a Magic 8-Ball.

The investigation, which draws from 2001 census data in England and Wales, is thought to be the largest-scale test of astrology ever undertaken.

"If there is even the smallest tendency for Virgos to fancy Capricorns, or for Libras to like Leos, then we should see it in the (marriage) statistics," says study author David Voas, senior research fellow at the university's Centre for Census and Survey Research.

Assuming even one set of lovebirds in 1,000 is influenced by the stars, Voas says, favoured combinations of signs would appear an extra 10,000 times in a sample of 10 million couples.

Instead, he says the spousal pairings were instead "just what we'd predict on the basis of chance."

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but hey, you still have the tarot cards, Ouija board, and chicken guts, right?