It’s The Carnival of the Godless Christmas Extravaganza!

You might also enjoy the 24th Skeptics Circle.

All the cool stuff you ever wanted to know about animals is available in Friday Ark #66.

We can’t forget, in celebration of Christmas, the 92nd Carnival of the Cats.

Pharmaceutical companies are waiting for the feds to develop a vaccine for HIV.  There appears to be no financial incentive for them to work on developing one, so they’ll let scores of people become infected and die from the disease while they wait to turn a profit from the taxpayers’ dollars.  Disgusting.

While originally reported as the NSA spying on two or three dozen Americans, we’re now finding it to be much broader than that.  In fact, the NSA tapped into major telecommunications networks so that they might eavesdrop on all phone and internet traffic, not just that belonging to individuals of interest.  Oh, but I’m sure that’s what Bush meant when he said this warrantless and unconstitutional spying “was limited to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to al-Qaida.”

DarkSyde, in his usual demonstration of prose and scientific prowess, gives us yet another wonderful essay: Science Friday: A Cosmic Season’s Greetings.  You don’t have to be a scientist (or even interested in science) to enjoy this installment.  It’s really good stuff.