Clarus Visum

Debate still rages among the ignorant

2009-02-10T12:21:00.001-05:00

The LA Daily News posted an article about Darwin in which they immediately drew the fallacious parallel between evolution and atheism, basically right from the get-go. This is the very beginning of it:

Around Hollywood and the rest of the U.S., billboards carry the messages "Imagine No Religion" and "Praise Darwin - Evolve Beyond Belief."

Across the Atlantic, hundreds of buses traveling the roads of England are plastered with the sign "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

As scientists and organizations around the world prepare to mark Charles Darwin's 200th birthday on Feb. 12, his theory of natural selection presented in "On the Origin of Species" still arouses a tempest of controversy - mostly centered on the question of whether life is the result of chance and natural processes or divine design.

So immediately I got annoyed. I posted in the comments section, along with many others who took issue with the whole “raging debate” angle of the article, that implies the long-disproven ‘theory in crisis’ argument creationists often insist on making. To make up for the long time without any content, I’m going to go ahead and list my favorite comments with terrible arguments and/or insane statements in them, linking to appropriate responses within the comment, or reacting in red double brackets if a single link won’t really work.

Dale Z: “Let''s either 1) Some divinity created us...OR 2) The sun, shining on a rock spontaneiouly generated molecular life. Hmmmm, even if one were not religious....option "1" is more likely. I really don't see why there is a debate.” [[me neither, but it’s a shame you don’t understand why]]
simply: “James is simply "delusional" - as is any darwinist. they believe their world is flat, when the evidence contradicts their conclusions!!! [[irony overdose detected]] science is defended, but when one takes a look (which we all should) one realizes that it is just pseudo science that they believe in.”
Jonathan Razon: “It is my earnest prayer that God will enlighten the mind of those people advocating the rejection of God's existence and instead praising Darwin. "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are saying......"”[[this is just amazingly condescending and arrogant]]
Danny: “It's actually nice to read an article that gives the Intelligent Design community a chance. I'm one of the "wackos" who believes the universe is far too complex to be accidental. Have you heard of irreducible complexity?”
M Bergeron: “The teaching of evolution in the states is all about the capitalist publishers who have made tons of money passing off a theory as if it were fact.” [[he then goes on to insist the story would be much different if creationists were allowed to indoctrinate in public school, as if church isn’t enough. Uh, yeah, it’d be different, as in more-people-brainwashed-into-rejecting-established-science different]]
lll: “darwin was an idiot.
it is proven scientifically the time for selection process to turn the nearest creature of humans into human being is more than the scientific age of earth and solar system.” [[now we reached the ones who are just randomly making things up]]
Craig: “there is enough evidence that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead to stand up in a modern day court of law.” [[…what?]]
JBS: “Darwin does absolutely nothing to explain how any of these species that naturally select traits got here in the first place. Let me repeat that--ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.” [[Uh, firstly, Darwin’s dead. Secondly, species don’t “naturally select [their own] traits”. Nature (the environment) does that. Thirdly, evolution is part of biology. You know, biology: The study of living things. Any special reason you’re demanding for something within the study of living things to explain events that occurred prior to the origin of life?]]
garf: “There is a physics theory that says anything left on its own will fall into a state of randomness.
In other words stars are burning out and mountains are falling down. How then would life achieve higher and higher levels of order when everything else in the universe is doing the opposite?”
Regulas: “The debate continues because the non believers and so called atheists do have a god, it's Darwin. [[These people are so simple-minded that they can’t see anything except through the lens of “competing religion”]] The tree huggers have a messiah, Al Gore and their cult is global warming. Both of these are lies but Darwinism is straight from Satan himself in his on going effort to destroy our faith in the the creator, God. [[see also]] The same science the darwinians praise so much has already shown that the simplest one celled organism is so complex the odds of it ever just coming into existence by chance is so large it is impossible. Darwin himself denounced his own theory, I repeat, theory of evolution as a falsehood before he died. [[Even Answers in Genesis is willing to admit this argument is nonsense]]
I brush the dirt off my feet after trying to convince one of these non believers their is a creator and you will meet him one day unless you choose not to like they do. I feel sorry for them and their lack of faith. [[arrogant fool]]

Okay, ten is more than enough; I’d be here all day if I were to point out everything that was dumb in those comments. I did refute a lot more stuff than is written here in those comments, if you want to take a look there.

Our galaxy's a lot bigger than we thought and more interesting discoveries

2009-01-10T09:48:00.001-05:00

(via Bad Astronomy)

In case you didn't know, the center of our galaxy is a supermassive black hole. Here's some perspective: this black hole is 4 million times the mass of our sun, but since there are about 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the mass of this black hole is actually 0.002% of the mass of the galaxy. In other words, if the entire population of Earth represented the total mass of our galaxy, the mass of the black hole would be smaller than the population of Kansas City.

Using a bunch of telescopes around the Earth, astronomers have discovered that our sun orbits this black hole a lot faster than originally thought. Instead of 220 km/s, it actually orbits at 270 km/s. That's over a hundred thousand miles per hour faster!

So what does this mean? Well, since it is the combined gravity of everything in the galaxy between the sun and that black hole that determines that speed, this difference in speed indicates that our galaxy is a full 50% bigger than we originally thought! We used to think that the Andromeda galaxy was the biggest 'in town', but with this new discovery, we're apparently about the same size.

Oh, and also, we also discovered that the Milky Way actually has four spiral arms and not two like we used to think. So we're a lot bigger and we just discovered two more arms. We're ready to take on the ~~world~~ universe.

Microsoft patents subscriber PC plan

2009-01-03T15:37:00.001-05:00

In an astonishing move, Microsoft patented what they call a "Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience" (oh, Marketing had fun with that one), which is verbal sleight-of-hand (sleight-of-mouth, if you will) for charging you for the amount of hardware resources that you use, as opposed to you paying one price when you take a computer home, and then, you know...owning it.

I know a lot of companies are realizing they can make more money this way, but this is really going too far. People want to own the stuff they buy. Without even mentioning the ethical and privacy implications the 'phone-home' infrastructure required to even make something like this possible would have, nobody is going to want to pay by the cycle for using their computer. Microsoft still has a sizable market share, and if they were to switch over to this in a big way, it would have a massive chilling effect on innovation of new technologies. After all, this is a system that penalizes power users, similar to the ridiculous bandwidth cap that Comcast imposed on its subscribers with the scarcest of prior notice.

The people who come up with the great ideas are going to be a lot less likely to do so with the technologies of companies whose message to them seems to be "Hey, take it easy there." Keep it up, guys. The USA is already practically in the third world of Internet access, why not do the same to the hardware end of things, right?

Surprise, surprise: speed cameras easily fooled

2009-01-01T14:31:00.001-05:00

Maryland high-schoolers have been messing with teachers/classmates they don't like by creating fake license plates, sticking them onto their cars, and then deliberately speeding through spots where speeding cameras are set up, getting tickets sent to the victim as if they were speeding. The fake plates are obvious to personal inspection, but indiscernable to the cameras.

While this is ultimately hilarious, the more serious message here is that impersonal eye-in-the-sky surveillance being used to catch crimes is doomed to failure. Until the machines are good enough to outsmart thirteen year-olds, we probably shouldn't be ticketing people based on their judgment. In the meantime, we have this gem.

The Montgomery County Police said they have not seen or heard of this prank occurring but said they will keep an eye out for people committing the crime.

Well, alright then! I don't know about you, but I'm put at ease. By the way, officers, how exactly do you plan on distinguishing between the average speeder and someone who is deliberately and maliciously speeding in order to get some unsuspecting third party a ticket?

RIAA gives up on suing music downloaders

2008-12-29T19:20:00.001-05:00

After several years of futility, the Recording Industry Association of America has finally realized that they're not going to scare everyone away from downloading music by hunting down and suing individual people (35,000 since 2003, apparently). So are they going to just chill out and find something more worthwhile to focus their time and energy on? Well, not quite.

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

This is kind of like trying to get the people who fill potholes to be the same guys who give out speeding tickets. Not only that, but how exactly does the RIAA expect ISPs to detect this? There is no way for an ISP to pull this off in any way that isn't easily-defeated by users. Yet another waste of time. This is how you eliminate illegal music downloading, by the way.

Recommended Blogs section revamped and Add This button added

2008-12-20T19:08:00.001-05:00

I just realized today that Blogger has a built-in 'gadget' for a list of blogs that includes a fun little icon, and the title of the most recent post to it, dynamically-displayed. So I quickly replaced my generic link list with that gadget, and I think it looks great.

In addition, I grabbed a versatile sharing button from Add This and plopped it into the Other Links section, while also spacing out the list items in that list a bit and removing some CSS that apparently was completely unnecessary. Oh well, looks good to me.

A few new aliases for this blog

2008-12-19T18:39:00.001-05:00

I recently noticed that tinyURL now allows you to choose the string of characters and the end of the shortcut URL (provided they aren't taken, of course). So, I jumped at the chance and created a few 'shortcuts' to this blog that take a bit less time to type out than this full URL:

That's all for now.

Who originally came up with the "War on Christmas" nonsense? The answer may surprise you

2008-12-19T18:36:00.001-05:00

It wasn't any group of insecure religious nuts who first started talking about this, no sir. It was in fact a group of insecure racist nuts.

Back during the culture wars of the 1990s, Peter Brimelow, then a Fortune magazine editor, grew incensed with the increasing use of the phrase “Happy Holidays” by retailers like Amazon.com. “I just got real interested in the issue,” Brimelow told The Daily Beast, “because I noticed over the years there was this social shift taking place where people no longer said ‘Merry Christmas.’”

In his 1995 book, Alien Nation, Brimelow argued that the influx of “weird aliens with dubious habits” from developing nations was eroding America’s white Christian “ethnic core,” and in turn, sullying its cultural underpinnings. The War on Christmas was, in his view, a particularly pernicious iteration of the multicultural “struggle to abolish America.”

But hey, is there really that much of a difference these days? Xenophobia is xenophobia. Only someone who is very insecure would care about their proprietary holiday greeting being replaced with a greeting that includes everyone celebrating something this time of year. I mean, just think about the kind of mental state it takes to get so inflamed at the notion of a custom being changed to be more inclusive. Some people would just rather we be divided, I suppose.

Swedish body-snatchers...sort of

2008-12-10T16:21:00.001-05:00

A group of neuroscientists in Sweden have achieved the illusion of "body-swapping". It's not quite as sci-fi as it sounds; basically, these guys have succeeded in completely fooling people into thinking that inanimate 'bodies', like those of mannequins, were in fact their own bodies.

In one experiment, the team fitted the head of a mannequin with two cameras connected to two small screens placed in front of volunteers' eyes, so that they had the same view as the mannequin.

When the mannequin's camera eyes and a participant's head were directed downwards, the participant saw the mannequin's body where the person would normally have seen their own body.

The researchers created the illusion of body-swapping by touching the stomach of both the mannequin and the volunteer with sticks. The person saw the mannequin's stomach being touched while feeling (but not seeing) a similar sensation on their own stomach. As a result, the person developed a strong belief that the mannequin's body was actually their own.

Poking people in the stomach with sticks...for science! How many people can say they made a breakthrough, and got paid, for poking people with sticks?

Even more interestingly:

This illusion worked even when two people looked different or were of different sexes.

I can't help but wonder how many male subjects instinctively reached for their chests upon being 'swapped' into a female body.

And then there's this:

It did not work when a non-humanoid object -- such as a chair or large block -- was used.

Now this makes me wonder where the 'stomach' on a chair is. Is it on the cushion, or maybe the lower part of the back, but the front side of the back? You know, where it's technically still the back, but it's the forward-facing part, so it's more like the front?

I'm weird.

A crappy reindeer game

2008-12-09T11:00:00.001-05:00

A zoo in Illinois is selling, from its gift shop, "christmas ornaments handcrafted out of reindeer dung". Now, I know what you're thinking: "How do I know it's really reindeer dung? They aren't going to shortchange me with inferior dung, are they?

Well, don't you worry about that; they will provide a certificate of authenticity with each all-natural ornament. You can either have your dried chunk of reindeer feces clear-coated or "rolled in glitter". Imagine, for only five dollars you can have a ball of glittery reindeer turds!

The newspaper said Friday that while reindeer are not small animals, their waste products come out in small chunks suitable for the branches of a tree.

Hey, thanks for letting me know, nameless newspaper. I was thinking of just putting it where the star goes until I got that tip.

Bonnie Cox: You Fool!

2008-12-07T15:39:00.001-05:00

Recently, a person (apparently) named Bonnie Cox sent a truly ridiculous e-mail to PZ Myers for encouraging people to write to the Cincinnati Zoo to voice their concern about the national embarrassment, the Creation Museum, basically trying to lend credibility to itself by getting the zoo to sell joint tickets to both places. The writing campaign worked, and the zoo backed out of the 'deal', preserving its reputation among rational people.

But Cox just couldn't bear the thought of a group of people she disagrees with being able to convince the zoo not to align themselves with anti-science charlatans, so she e-mailed PZ, and he posted it to his blog. Since he didn't release her e-mail address, I can't send the following to her directly, but here it is 'for the record', my response.

Professor P.T. Myers
Dr. PZ Myers
Division of Science and Mathematics
600 E 4th Avenue
University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267

Dear Mr. Myers,

I am writing to you concerning the email campaign you instigated against the Creation Museum and the Cincinnati Zoo and your personal vendetta against Mr. Hamm. I don't know what your ultimate agenda is in propagating a writing campaign to a Zoo in a state you don't live in and your taxes don't support,

Actually, the "ultimate agenda" was painfully obvious from the beginning--get the Cincinnati Zoo people to realize their credibility and commitment to proper science goes down the toilet if they align themselves with a virulently anti-science organization such as the Creation Museum.

but your ignorance is apparent. How someone so intolerant and closed minded could possibly be considered educated is beyond my comprehension.

Firstly, I wonder if Bonnie would "tolerate" evolution or abiogenesis being taught at her church. Secondly, this statement coming from her would be more accurate if she spoke it to a mirror.

What scares me more is that people like you are teaching our children.

Apparently the idea that evidence-less nonsense isn't treated with just as much respect as centuries of real, hard, unsexy science is terrifying to Ms. Cox.

You don't teach science. You indoctrinate with propaganda.

Where's that mirror? This one's even better for it. You're defending an institution that teaches religion while pretending it is science, remember? Don't forget your place, Bonnie.

Also, I'd bet anything you can't even properly define evolution, let alone be knowledgeable enough to construct a cogent argument against it.

Darwin has about as much evidence proving natural selection as you have in proving there is no God.

Here is where Bonnie displays projection and ignorance in clearest terms (thus far). You can tell from the above sentence that Bonnie has been indoctrinated into seeing evolution as if it's a competing religion, rather than the cornerstone of modern biology it is. You see, Bonnie, science is different from religion.

In a religion, you've got a main guy, and he's the singular and eternal authority. By viewing evolution through this lens, you clearly show that you think Darwin is 'the guy' of evolution the way God/Jesus or whoever is for Christianity. But not only isn't he, but in science, there isn't 'a guy' like that at all.

See, unlike in religion, science is driven by evidence, not by authority. Now, when someone is the first guy to come up with a concept that the evidence ends up supporting in a big way, we give the guy a lot of credit, all well-deserved. Darwin's the first guy to come up with the concept of natural selection, and after a century and a half, not a single piece of evidence has contradicted that idea. On the contrary--the evidence has invariably supported and reinforced it since then, especially when genetics came about.

Darwin would literally have a hard time recognizing modern evolution (the study, not the event) if were alive today. Because also unlike religion, science is not static. It's not like one guy comes up with something, all the scientists get together and nod vigorously, and then we declare it a fact and that's that. Darwin 'only' blazed the trail--the Theory of Evolution 'belongs' to countless biologists and other life and earth (well, you're not going to find fossils in a lab, are you?) scientists who have tested and in turn refined the crap out of it.

You are quite free to believe what you want to believe,

Which, of course, has nothing to do with this because science is not about "belief". If I pick up a rock and drop it, it will fall no matter what I believe concerning gravity. This is just another attempt at trying to convince yourself that nonsense creationism is on par with actual science by applying religion vernacular to the science regardless of whether it makes sense to do so. In other words, face it: creationism is a belief, evolution is not.

but unless Hitler was your mentor, you should know that you have NO RIGHT to interfere with other organizations or businesses that want to colaborate just because you disagree with their arguement.

Because Hitler waged one HELL of a letter-writing campaign. Poland wasn't actually invaded and its people weren't actually shot at, they were just buried under tremendous piles of letters containing disagreements.

I know it's a lot easier to attack a straw man than reality, but the reality is that sending a letter or an e-mail to the Cincinnati Zoo doesn't "interfere" with anything; all they did was voice their disapproval of the Creation Museum's sneaky attempt to lend its anti-scientific message credibility through affiliating itself with a public zoo, and the zoo decided to listen. Ration and reason win again.

This only proves your hatred of people of faith. What are you afraid of?

What is the Creation Museum afraid of, that they have to pretend their message is scientific when it is obviously religious and anti-science? If the Creation Museum wasn't so afraid of receiving the ridicule it so rightly deserves, why does it try to hide its true intentions? All PZ helped to do was prevent people from being fooled into thinking that the Creation Museum is a place, like the Cincinnati Zoo is, where one can learn.

It is teachers like you that have exploded the growth of home schooling.

Don't blame teachers for parents' fear of reality.

It is professors like you that have encouraged the installation and growth of faith based and Christian Colleges. So for that, I guess I have people like you to thank. Thank God my children will have somewhere else to go.

Because if there's one thing a good parent will do, it is shield their children from learning about the world, and then wonder why they can't compete in the global economy when they grow up. Oh, wait...

I don't want them learning the fairy tale of evolution,

Hey, you know how no one gets polio or smallpox anymore? Guess why. Hint: it wasn't because people prayed really hard.

Modern vaccines exist as a direct result of our knowledge and understanding of evolution. They couldn't exist without it. As a result, living in a world where polio and smallpox are no longer a threat, while simultaneously declaring that evolution is a "fairy tale", makes as much sense as taking a deep breath in order to loudly declare that air is a fairy tale.

I want them to be free to investigate ALL available arguments. All of them.

Investigating arguments that have zero evidence would be a waste of time. Scientists have no fear in considering alternative explanations. You just need two things to go along with them for them to be taken seriously: a testable hypothesis, and evidence (which generally comes from testing said hypothesis). Creationism has neither, and therefore isn't even science to begin with. So why are you surprised that it gets the same amount of attention in peer-reviewed journals as the "argument" that a magical gnome's farts guide the progression of life?

I mean, the theory of evolution is all you have? Seriously?

It is the only theory that fits all the evidence. It's all anybody (who is intellectually honest) has. I'm sure Bonnie will let us all know when she comes up with a testable hypothesis for creationism.

Science isn't in the box, professor. You can't prove evolution

You wish.

Of course, technically you're correct, but on a level your complete ignorance of science would likely prevent you from ever realizing on your own. Science, and I mean all science, doesn't "prove" things. Nothing in science, including the explanations for why you don't float off the Earth into space, and why something like "e-mail" can exist in the first place, is 100% certain. Absolute certainty is an impossibility for a species with such imperfect perception as ours. However, what we can do is rule things out through experimentation. And that's how science works. Nothing that we discover with science is treated like some 'absolute truth'. Everything is provisional, and subject to new evidence. That's what makes science so powerful--its adaptability to our ever-increasing body of knowledge.

Gravity is "just a theory" too, Bonnie. "Theory" is a title reserved for those scientific concepts that have been tested extremely thoroughly, and that now stand alone as the only explanation that makes sense given the entire body of evidence. If there is conflicting evidence, the theory must change to fit it. On the other hand, a creationist does it backwards: s/he begins with the conclusion, and looks for "evidence" to support it while completely disregarding all contradictory evidence.

and you can't prove creation. No one can.

The most sensible thing Bonnie has written thus far, by a wide margin.

So why can't we talk about both?

Because:

They're not both science
They don't both have evidence
They don't both make testable predictions

Creationism doesn't belong in science classrooms for the same reason that Beowulf doesn't belong in an algebra classroom.

We rehash the same dead, unproven, broken theory

I wonder if Bonnie could make one single argument against evolution that isn't an already-destroyed, antiquated argument. She seems like a "747 and tornado" fallacy kinda gal, what do you think?

when there are so many other questions out there to be asked, researched and experimented with?

Slight problem: there is no possible experiment for creationism. That would require an experiment to verify the existence of a supernatural force. How, exactly, does Bonnie suggest we do such a thing? Or does she hope no one notices she's faulting scientists for not having done something impossible?

That sir, is intolerance. That is bigotry. That is ignorance.

Let's not forget that this tirade is the result of her inability to tolerate a few e-mails.

I don't think the Cincinatti Zoo will be thanking you.

Their not being a part of the Creation Museum's scheme is thanks enough.

As a result of your hatred and intolerance toward anyone that says "bless you", The Cincinatti Zoo has lost a very valuable partner,and a lot of visitors to their website.

Yes. A partner who wishes to completely undermine science in favor of pushing religious doctrine disguised as science using the good name of the zoo as PR capital. Truly the zoo has suffered a staggering loss in not pursuing such a partnership.

I would like to point out to you, Mr. Myers, that you are not the only one who runs a blog,and you are not the only one who can write.

Of course not. Do you think he was the only one sending all those letters that caused the Cincinnati Zoo to change its mind?

I may not be a professor, but I know how to write a press release and I know how to advertise. That's my business. So here's what I will do for you.

How about you run a spell check on your e-mails before you send them? Maybe then you wouldn't spell the name of the city you're talking about wrong every single time you write it. If that's how you advertise, remind me to stay far away from your business.

Let's see how your school handles an email blitz from Christians (which I will point out to you sir, comprises of approximately 97% of the population of the United States).

Slight problem with her logic there: most Christians are okay with evolution.

But there's an even greater absurdity here: Ninety-seven percent? Are you serious? Let's see what the CIA's World Factbook has to say about it:

"Religions: Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%"

That comes out to 78.5%. In other words, Bonnie inflated the number of Christians in the US by over 56 million. Isn't there something in the Bible about bearing false witness?

I am suddenly motivated to hit every one of my news sources and let them know how marxist you are.

I guess "Marxist" remains a buzzword for ignoramuses even after the general election. Ten bucks says she can't define "Marxist" correctly without looking it up.

I want every parent in this country to know exactly what dangers their kids face, risking having you as a professor in that school. I want them all to know that it's not good enough to indoctrinate just the students in your lecture hall. You want to make sure NO ONE gets exposure to any possible answers.

If teaching students the results of rigorous scientific study and evidence-gathering is "indoctrination", I wonder what Bonnie thinks of teaching children Biblical literalism, which has no evidence whatsoever?

I want all those Christian families to think twice before ever considering sending their kids to University of Minnesota

Sorry to be the one to break this to you, Bonnie, but most Christians think people like you are crazy.

. . . and don't worry. I'll make sure you get plenty of credit for their decision. Email campaigns can work both ways professor. Oh, I know your school is not the only culprit and you're not the only marxist professor teaching in our colleges. However, we can start with this one.

Evolution is a failed hypothesis. It cannot even be scientifically tested.

Would I ever love to hear her answer to the question "why not?"!

You know it, and most of your radical scientists know it. And this kind of attack from you is just evident of the death throes of the false theory of evolution.

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. Would a theory in its "death throes" be accepted by over 99.7% of all life scientists in the US, and over 99.9% in other countries? This is just a product of an overactive imagination. Regardless of Bonnie's fantasies, the Theory of Evolution has only gotten stronger since its inception, as we find more and more evidence that supports it.

Much like the snake trying to get one last bite as you cut off it's head, it knows it's dying . . . it knows it's not going to win, but it's going to try like hell to do as much damage as it can before it dies.

Excuse me, but as I already stated, there is no competing theory. If evolution were to suddenly be overturned by some very powerful piece of evidence, then I'm sorry, Bonnie, but creationism will not magically take its place. There isn't a dichotomy here. Even assuming her delusion becomes reality, what replaces evolution as the foundation of modern biology would have to be, you know, science. Supernatural-force-no-experiment-can-detect-poofed-everything-into-existence doesn't, and will not, ever be considered science.

Real scientific, doc. Darwin is your god.

More signs that Bonnie just doesn't understand that science just isn't like religion.

We have proof that he is dead. Mine is not. You have no proof that he doesn't exist.

Of course, evolution is not in any way atheistic, so this is irrelevant. Regardless, Bonnie, the important part is where you provide evidence that he DOES exist. Or shall we lock Bonnie up for assault, since she can't definitively prove that she's never assaulted anyone ever in her entire life? I wonder if she would find her logic reasonable if imposed upon her thus.

You won't let anyone try to prove it, which I guess answers what you are afraid of.

By Bonnie's logic, she's afraid of the Mystical Farting Gnome I mentioned earlier, since she has made no attempt to disprove His existence.

Let the kids discuss it professor. What are you afraid ot? Research is the mother of discovery.

Be sure the MFG gets equal time. Teach the controversy!

Ninety-seven percent are Christian in this country, professor, think about that. It's a well known statistic. . . I know state taxes don't pay ALL your school's bills.

Maybe it's well-known in the body part Bonnie pulled it out of, but out here? Not so much.

You can post this on your blog, you can laugh or throw it away, delete it . . . I don't care.

In fact, she cares so little that she took the time to write this all out. She is surely the embodiment of apathy.

It is of no consequence to me. I just wanted to let you know how I feel and what I'm about to embark on. Because marxists are not the only ones afforded freedom of speech and freedom to inquire in this country. If freedom to bully others is an ammedment I haven't heard of yet, then I guess we both share that right as well.

I hope this doesn't offend you, but I end most of my letters this way . . . God Bless you. You are the one who needs it.

Respectfully,

Bonnie Cox

Ahem:

One of the most condescending things a theist can do to an atheist is to make a point of announcing that they'll be praying for us. Atheists don't believe in the power of prayer, but even theists can't think that prayer will be more effective for having announced. So what's the purpose? Some say that it's to express well-wishes, but people say that they'll pray for someone when the person is sick or having trouble. One way or another, the theist appears to be expressing superiority over atheists in a passive-aggressive manner. That suggests they weren't interested in serious conversation to begin with.

Bonnie Cox: You Fool!

Never mind the corpse, this sale is one day only

2008-11-28T18:56:00.001-05:00

This morning, an overnight clerk at Wal-Mart was literally trampled to death in a stampede of ravenous shoppers bursting through the instant its doors opened for Black Friday business. According to a former co-worker:

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

This is absolutely unbelievable. How out of your mind do you have to collectively be that something like this is even possible? Although the linked report implies that some people were courteous enough to run around the guy fighting for his life on the floor, I can't find a single report that says anything about a single, solitary shopper actually stopping to try and help this guy. Not one! You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

If you are so deranged that you wouldn't forget about those bargains you came for to take five minutes to try and help someone, then save yourself and all fellow humans some shame, keep your sorry ass at home and shop online. This is the 21st century, for crying out loud!

But it has five stars in the reviews!

2008-11-27T02:09:00.001-05:00

Have you ever wanted to buy a weekly planner for the year that is about to end, but just haven't found one with an exorbitant-enough price tag, or that will ship barely in enough time to use on New Year's Eve?

Well, have I got a deal for you! Introducing the Moleskine (not exactly an attractive brand name) 2008 Weekly Pocket Planner! Available now on Amazon for the high, high price of $74.99! It "usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks", so you can possibly be assured that it hopefully will arrive before the year ends if you buy now!

***

Alright, seriously? Seventy-five dollars? This thing better make my plans and execute them for me, at that price. This isn't some gadgety electronicky newfangled weekly planner, either. No, this is a stack of paper. With a cover and a little elastic strap to hold it shut lest it fly open and reveal your weekly plans to the neighborhood. One of the sample pictures is pretty confusing, too. Could anyone tell me how drawings of various seashells are supposed to convince people to shell out $75 for what is essentially a glorified notebook?

But hey, free shipping. I would buy it just to be ironic, but even a sense of irony has its limits.

It's About Damned Time

2008-11-26T02:17:00.001-05:00

Hey, remember when I said I would chronicle my experiences as a poll worker "tomorrow"? Well, it was true yesterday.

I got into kind of a 'blog rut' from a combination of factors, including satisfaction at the whopping 365 EVs that (eventually) fell into Obama's corner. I'm not sure it's completely gone, either, but I want to transcribe the stuff I scribbled down on my BOARD WORKER HANDBOOK before finally throwing it away. This won't be wordy, I promise. And now, my fake 'liveblogging':

People I helped vote: 53 (yes, I counted)

5:15a - On the way to the polling place (I walked since it's nearby), I met a stray (or not; later on, a co-worker commented that the cat was declawed, and therefore probably had an owner) cat on the sidewalk just outside of the site. Seeing that no one else was there yet, I stopped to pet it a bit, and it ended up following me after that, right up until others showed up and we all went inside. Cute cat.

7:45a - After I started learning what to do (that instructional course was woefully inadequate, so I was basically learning as I went along), about the tenth guy walks in, and greets everyone with a warm "Hi! ...I don't know what to do." I've never seen someone so confidently announce their ignorance before (not since the last time someone tried to convince me that evolution was wrong, that is).

10:27a - Someone brings in what is apparently a mix of a collie and a golden retriever, who obediently sits near the door as its owner(s) vote. It begins to sink in that this is a pretty boring job.

2:04p - Sometime before this, the same cat walked right into the area and started ambling about, hanging more around me than the others (aww). There wasn't a sudden noise or anything, but I noticed that suddenly it became started and ran off. Hmm.

7:35p - (Can you tell how little else I had to jot down?) Co-workers go and get cat food and leave it just outside. Feline in question quickly returns and chows down for a while.

***

Well, that's it. Just because this is the last post I'm going to write about the 2008 election (far as I know), I'm going to mark this post "Politics" just for the hell of it. Don't expect me to write much about Obama's 'transition' process, because frankly, I don't need to watch someone get their props and put on their costume before they go out on stage. I'm here for the show. Don't expect much talk about politics until then, if at all. This never was a 'political blog' anyway--I was just psyched about getting a smart President for the first time in a long time.

Congratulations to President Obama and Vice President Biden!

2008-11-04T23:14:00.001-05:00

Projections now have Obama winning at least 297 electoral votes, and with that, we will have a new President. Congratulations to him and all of his tireless supporters who worked harder than ever before to bring the change we need to this country.

Well, the easy part's over. Now it's time to get to work.

P.S. I got too caught up in things to liveblog, plus I reasoned that no one was going to look to me for updates, when I myself would likely be getting them from the same sources they are. I'll blog about my experiences as a poll worker tomorrow.

Off to the Polls

2008-11-04T05:05:00.001-05:00

Showtime.

So much for that plan

2008-11-04T02:52:00.001-05:00

I made specific plans to go to bed much earlier than usual yesterday in order to be well-rested when 4:00 am came around, at which time I would hurriedly prepare myself to head over to the polling place I'll be working at and be there by 5:15.

So much for that plan.

I just can't fall asleep. Hell, I don't even feel sleepy; not really, anyway. I guess I'm just too excited. So at a few minutes before 2:30, I got up out of bed, checked my inbox, and started typing this.

Fivethirtyeight's got McCain's win percentage at under 2% presently, and I just saw a "cute" (I'm not sure why that was my first reaction upon reading it--maybe the sleep deprivation is affecting me after all) story where an apparently very small town in New Hampshire has already finished voting, with the decision being Obama 15, McCain 6 (Obama with 71% of the popular vote--imagine seeing that on a national scale).

On a far sadder note, I also heard earlier 'today' that Obama's grandmother, who he affectionately referred to as "Toot", died. It's a terrible shame; I'm sure she would have loved to see the result of this election. On the other hand, Obama is probably glad that he took time out of his campaign to visit her when he did...or perhaps, he knew she was not "long for this world", and visited her because he knew this, and just didn't make it public. Either way, it's a tragic loss, and my heart goes out to him.

Now, I'm just going to relax for a while. It's nearly 3:00, so I'm probably not even going to try and get any sleep for this last hour. Get out and vote, everyone! Do it for Toot.

Down to the wire

2008-11-03T11:14:00.001-05:00

I know I've been absent a bit on the blog--but I've been fairly active on MyLot during the home stretch of this election.

I'm going to be working at the polls for the first time tomorrow, and I'll give as detailed a recounting of that experience as my memory will allow when I get home, as well as live-blogging (if possible--if early voting is any indication, I might be out pretty late tomorrow) results as they come in. And with any luck, my "Reasons Not to Vote for John McCain" label will be renamed "Reasons John McCain lost the 2008 Election".

Vote.

McCain's vote fraud problem

2008-10-22T11:39:00.001-04:00

Not much of a summary for this, since I already kinda summarized it in the video info of its YouTube page. It's summarized pretty well here, but I'll just say that, unlike ACORN, this is real vote fraud that's going on on the 'other' side. See for yourself:

Notice how it's two incidents in McCain's case? He loves to double down.

ACORN post updated once more

2008-10-18T16:16:00.001-04:00

FactCheck has already taken on McCain's baseless allegations about ACORN when it fact-checked the final debate. This time, they've focused on ACORN. Here is a snippet from it, which is repeated in the initial ACORN post:

Neither ACORN nor its employees have been found guilty of, or even charged with, casting fraudulent votes. What a McCain-Palin Web ad calls "voter fraud" is actually voter registration fraud. Several ACORN canvassers have been found guilty of faking registration forms and others are being investigated. But the evidence that has surfaced so far shows they faked forms to get paid for work they didn’t do, not to stuff ballot boxes.

I'm also going to update the post from earlier, since it's probably easier to take in this new information if I repeat some of it in the update post, rather than just pointing people back to the bottom of the initial post every time.

The nation's most accurate pollster?

2008-10-18T15:21:00.001-04:00

The TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics claims to be "the Nation's Most Accurate Pollster!" Yes, they capitalized all those words as if this is some official title. However, upon looking at the site, I quickly noticed this:

I say, is that an inaccuracy I see? Sorry, guess you lose the title you made up.

ACORN post updated again

2008-10-18T13:20:00.001-04:00

My original post on the McCain campaign's nonsensical claims about ACORN has had another report added to it, this time by ABC News. The following excerpt is quoted in both locations for convenience's sake:

Charges of potential vote fraud volleyed by Republicans, including Sen. John McCain himself, are out of proportion to reality, according to election experts.... McCain's voter fraud worries -- about Acorn or anyone else -- are unsupported by the facts, said experts on election fraud, who recall similar concerns being raised in several previous elections, despite a near-total absence of cases.

"There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Becker should know: he was a lawyer for the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort.

"The Justice Department really made prosecution of voter fraud of this sort a big priority in the first half of this decade, and they really didn't come up with anything," he said.

"We're chasing these ghosts of voter fraud, like chickens without a head," said Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Barnard College in New York who has researched voter fraud and fraud claims for most of the past decade. "I think it's completely overblown, I think it's meant to be a distraction."

"This stuff does not threaten the outcome of the election," said Minnite. "How many illegal ballots have been cast by people who are fraudulently registered to vote? By my count, it's zero. I just don't know of any, I've been looking for years for this stuff."

Search my blog

2008-10-17T16:23:00.001-04:00

I've added a search bar to my blog, for easy reference. Search results will open in a new window, and they're powered by Google, in case anyone is interested.

So, WHO is the reeeeal Joe the Plumber?

2008-10-16T18:57:00.001-04:00

The most famous plumber in America, recently replacing the well-known, generic porn plumber, was mentioned over 20 times during the final Presidential debate. He is Joe the Plumber, and he was brought up by John McCain as someone who apparently was supposed to be this quintessential everyman who would be hurt by Obama's tax plan. Joe (real name: Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) got attention by 'confronting' Obama with a story that he was a hard-working plumber who was looking to buy the business he'd been working in for over ten years, but he was concerned because he said it would put him in the $250,000+ tax bracket, and wouldn't that mean he was going to get higher taxes? See the full exchange of that below:

So, there's the background. Here's the ironic/funny stuff that's been uncovered since, in no particular order:

Joe doesn't have a plumbing license, and apparently don't need no stinkin' license, either.
Direct quote this time, because I can't really say it any better: Joe is also "not registered to operate as a plumber in Ohio, which means he’s not a plumber."
That part about Joe buying his employer's business? Part of a question at his job interview six years ago.
"Tom Joseph, business manager for Local 50 of the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters, and Service Mechanics [claims] that Mr. Wulzerbacher didn’t undergo any apprenticeship training." He considers it "disreputable" for guys like Joe to "[go] out there with no training whatsoever."
Joe lied when he said he was "getting ready to buy" that plumbing business. The Toledo Blade later reported that Joe "said he makes no where near that much money but he would not say how much he makes or if he ever expects to make $250,000. Court records from a divorce show Mr. Wurzelbacher made $40,000 in 2006." Pretty significant difference, if you ask me.
You've got to laugh when you find out that a guy who was making a big deal about the concept of paying a bit more in taxes is revealed to owe over a thousand dollars in back taxes himself. $1,183, to be exact.
Joe voted for McCain in the primary (his first vote since registering in 1992), and he reportedly said he likes Sarah Palin. Is it any surprise, then, that he referred to some of Obama's comments in the exchange above as "socialist"? Sounds like someone been getting his daily dose of talking points.
Joe considers himself "a fan of the military". Okay, now I know he's really swallowing those talking points. As opposed to who, Joe? Has anyone ever been told by someone else that they're "not a fan of the military"?
Joe's example of someone who has "a lot of pull" in the election is Matt Damon. Huh?

All in all, this is just plain goofy. You can tell from a lot of the things Joe's on record saying that he seems to wish everyone would just leave him alone.

Well, I guess it's a little too late for that, Joe, but you can always join the effort to remove yourself from Wikipedia if you want.

Republicans, you've got your work cut out for you

2008-10-15T19:31:00.001-04:00

There was a focus group conducted in "an upper-Midwestern state" in which people were shown basically a take-no-prisoners pull-out-all-the-stops attack ad against Obama. It was the kind of ad the guy running the group thought would be the best for McCain to run now.

He apparently was quite surprised by the fact that, despite the groups' overwhelming acceptance of the attacks as being true, most of them, while practically attacking Obama in the same sentence, said they were still going to vote for him. Here's the statement that got my attention the most:

Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack.

Got that? This is a person who got the idea (apparently from the ad) that Obama was actually a member himself of the Weather Underground, and basically has accepted the (obviously false, but I digress) claim that Obama is literally a terrorist, and still--STILL--is going to vote for him.

Wow. You guys are screwed.

P.S. I'm still voting, and so should everyone else. Twenty days remain--make sure you're a part of history come November (if not sooner)!