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This American Life was great this weekend — if you missed it, the audio for the show “A Little Bit of Knowledge” is posted on the website now.

In addition to a great piece by Dan Savage on his 6-yr old son and his Catholic mother arguing about whether he and his partner should get married (guess which one is in favor? really makes you think about how much gender roles are ingrained at an early age), there’s a good segment on physics crackpots.

In particular, the story interviews a guy named Bob who fervently believes that Einstein misunderstood the relation between Energy and Time. Bob compained: “There is a climate within the physics community that anyone who comes into the zone and hasn’t gone through the same steps that they have is regarded with distain.” Perhaps. But apparently his theory contained the “kind of mistakes a freshman sociology student would make in a first year physics class”, according to the physicist he managed to convice to look at it. I think every professional physicist must get a few emails of this sort every week. I’ve noticed that these emails always contain a lot of italics and bold and ALL CAPS. I got one this week, which contained sentences like these “When the electron rotates around its own diameter, its speed is more than the rectilinear motion of a quantum of light.” It also pointed to a lovely website which seemed to claim that quantum mechanics proved the existance of God. Or something like that, it wasn’t really in complete sentences.

The segment also mentioned John Baez’s famous Crackpot Index, in case there are any aspiring crackpots out there who want to assess themselves. Anyways, I’m not sure why physics seems to attract such a high number of people who think that they have finally figured it all out, if only those dastardly and convention-bound physicists would listen, but the Bob in this story is not that unusual. My favorite justification that he came up with for why theory must be right and Einstein wrong was this: “E=mc^2 doesn’t make sense because it’s difficult to understand.”

Speaking of gay marriage and crackpots, and things that are difficults to understand, that’s a bit like how I feel about Rick Santorum, who I just managed to catch on the day after re-run of the Daily Show. I heart Jon Stewart, but this was severely disappointing. Transcript here, video here. At least he realized it was bad — here’s what he said today: “A real controversy over the relative suckiness of that interview. Some people thinking it sucked, whereas other people thiking it suuuuuucked.”

I’d vote for suuuucked. This guy is not just obsessed with man on dog sex, and is not just your run of the mill homophope. This is a guy who thinks that church pedophilia was caused not by pedophiles, but by the “sick culture” created by liberal academics in Cambridge, and who thinks not allowing public prayer in schools is oppressing the Christians. But, at least we learned that he’s opposed to segregation!

But luckily, in a rare switch, CNN picked up the slack from Stewart on the very same night, and Aaron Brown asked Santorum whether he believed there was a right to privacy inherent in the constitution. No, he does not. Specifically, he was asked about the Griswold vs. Connecticut decision, which upheld the right to birth control for married couples, and he said he thought this case was wrongly decided. Aaron Brown: “Why would a conservative argue that government should interfere with that most personal decision?” Video at Crooks and Liars. If you agree with Rick that the government should limit your access to legal contraception, by all means, join Jesus General’s campaign.

Tags: crackpots, Savage, Santorum, Stewart

Regarding Grokster:

"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice Souter wrote.

Regarding guns:

Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved the National Rifle Association's top priority ahead of a $491 billion defense bill, setting up a vote on legislation to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits over gun crimes.

"The president believes that the manufacturer of a legal product should not be held liable for the criminal misuse of that product by others," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

[Senator Larry] Craig said such lawsuits are "predatory and aimed at bankrupting the firearms industry," unfairly blaming dealers and manufacturers for the crimes of gun users.

"I wouldn't urinate down his throat if his heart was on fire."

— James Carville, referring to independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader (quoted by Eric Alterman)

Steven Johnson, author of the book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, has an open letter to Hilary Clinton about the whole GTA controversy in today's LA Times. Snip:

Dear Senator Clinton:

I'm writing to commend you for calling for a $90-million study on the effects of video games on children, and in particular the courageous stand you have taken in recent weeks against the notorious "Grand Theft Auto" series.

I'd like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids -- a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.

I'm talking, of course, about high school football."

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