Saturday Catching Up

Here are some things I've come across this week that I thought were interesting:

• I've now watched all of Penn & Teller's Bullshit! Season One. I watched Season Two a couple of months ago. As a consequence of this viewing, please welcome The Amazing Randi to the sidebar. Season Three is not yet on DVD and I don't have Showtime. Btw, if you want to have brunch with Teller... (I think Penn must be more of a blinner guy than a brunch guy.)
• Word Munger had a good post the other day about teaching rhetoric and critical thinking, mostly as a response to the I.D. controversy (about which topic P&T:BS!-SSN1 featured a show). Meanwhile, Dr. Free-Ride, Ph.D. says that I.D. is not even interesting as philosophy, much less science. Here's what James Herrington said about it at Tech Central Station (which I've also been meaning to blogroll). Keep in mind that just the other day, I saw the ad copy for a mainstream-looking "science" video for kids that specifically and clearly asserted that modern DNA research proves that evolution is impossible. Not just questionable, mind you, but impossible. (I guess they could be talking about TTLB...)
• This is the site of the recently concluded World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunisia.
• When I had a job that involved writing, editing, and proofing a lot of words for a nitpicky, educated audience (I mean that in a good way, of course), one of the first things I did was read "Lapsing Into a Comma" by Bill Walsh, copy desk chief of the Washington Post Business Section. Here's Blogslot, the blog component to his site, The Slot: A Spot for Copy Editors.
• Here's the Einstein Formula Generator.