[LINK] Some Friday links

[rfmcdonald]

• The Lounsbury at 'Aqoul links to an article in The Washington Post exploring the United States' policy of giving preferential treatment for members of Iranian religious minorities among immigration candidates.


• Centauri Dreams links to an article on the superterrestrial planets of the Gliese 581 exploring the effects of tidal heating--Gliese 581 c receives three times as much energy from tidal heating as Jupiter's famously volcanic moon Io, while Gliese 581 d might be so hot as to not be a solid body.


• Ken MacLeod reproduces an article that he wrote on creatuionism, an interview with a zoologist. His subject makes a good point in noting that creationism's recent rise isn't connected so much with religious as it is with the declining status of rational discourse..


• Joe. My. God reports that Sally Kern's son Jesse declares himself --suspiciously?--celibate. Not gay. Of course not.


• Language Hat links to a Ken MacLeod post on what he argues is the last-gasp use of Gaelic on Scottish road signs to argue that language revitalization movements can be unpopular target populations because it makes them aware of the extreme diffciculty if not irreversibility of choices made in their recent past.


• feorag at The Pagan Prattle reports that a Scottish Roman Catholic bishop has say that there exists a large and well-organized GLBT conspiracy working on destroying Christianity with a singular purpose. (Yes, I'm thinking of that Der Stürmer joke.)