Ask Questions! Ask Questions! And then...

Glenn Beck is going to tell you exactly how to think for yourself, and then he's going to tell you exactly what to do with your new independence!



Okay, Preacher Glenn, I'll ask a fucking question: where the hell is the letter 'C'? 'C,' you know, as in conspiracy?

This is beyond hilarious, and beyond pathetic. "I don't know if we're going to turn into an oligarchy or what we're going to turn into, but unless you ask questions, we're going to turn into something." Yeah, no shit.

Later on (in the longer version of the video) he says he's tired of being a vitim! Bwahaha. Was the set rew smothering their giggles, or were they (more likely) hyponotized like bunnies by the harisma given off by this guru, who looks like he's trying to strangle the air with his hands? (Something he obviously learned from Dick heney.)

Faux News: They report, you de_ide!

These worthless fucks get paid for this rap!

(P.S. That should be "hoking"!)

Oh, and don't forget to head on over to Pharyngula for your Friday ephalopod. They've got mother-effing ephalopods, man!


UPDATED: Oh, oh, oh! Glenn Be_k says that I am on fire! My goodness, we liberal bloggers "can just stick around, because I think you can help America learn some more things." Oh, yeah, baby. There are lots of things to learn, Glenn. Spelling is just the beginning.

"You can't have an oligarchy without the czars!" Yeah, and you can't be a communist, either.

And you couldn't talk about Americorp Brown Shirts, Obama concentration camps, and whether Barack Hussein Obama was circumcized, now could you? (Okay, can you right-wing nuts decide whether or not it is patriotic to be circumcized? Because apparently Limbaugh thinks it's another fascist takeover.)

Dumb fuck.Anagrams for "oligarchy":
cigar holy
larch yogi
a richly go
a lyric hog
archly go I
hag cry oil
gaol cry hi
ha coy girl
rah icy log
ya rich log

SECOND UPDATE: Glenn Beck, modern day Savonarola.

No Pubic Socialism!

Hahaha! This pretty much sums up them durn teabaggers/Nobamas, don't it?

No pubic option? What are we going to have then, blondie - a pubic requirement?

One is tempted to say, "Get a brain, morans!"

You anti-health care, "death panel" people are killing me! Oh - sorry.

Don't Lose Weight! Because...

...you might rewrite the laws of gravity and make everything fly apart! Because, you see, William Dembski, still having a problem with a computer program that Richard Dawkins wrote back in the 1980s, in Apple BASIC no less, makes yet another claim that Dawkins is perpetuating a fraud *yawn* on the public (and naturally I had a problem with that).

*Gasp*

WilliamD: Gentlemen: If Dawkins is tuning the parameters differently for the program as described in the book and for it as exhibited in the BBC documentary, isn’t he in effect using a different program?

Me: Uh, duh, no! Great job, Mr. Isaac Newton of Information Theory.

This man is a mathematician? Would he like a secretary/quasi-librarian/archivist and belly dancer to explain programming principles to him? He and his followers still have a problem understanding how an algorithm in a program that was, yes, programmed by Dawkins is an analogy for natural selection?

Of course, Dr. Dr. "I'm not jealous of Dawkins at all" has been verrrry quiet since making that gaffe.

I have news for you Dr. Dr. Dembski - April is fast upon us. You can run but you can't hide (or add, it appears).

UPDATED: Wesley has a post up about how long it's taken Dembski to "reproduce" Dawkins' code, and so does Ian Musgrave. Of course PZ has weighed in. I don't have time for this - I'm writing a paper about how archival theory could be informed by anthropology, evolutionary theory, ecology, and information theory, and I've already wasted too much time trying to get Joe G. to answer me about what he really knows about information theory.

SECOND UPDATE: I love this sarcastic riposte by "CS." Remarks by wags like that convince me that even if intelligent design belonged in schools, only an anti-IDist would be qualified to teach it.

"I'm Pro-Life and I Need My Abortion"

UPDATED: Man tries to plow SUV into Planned Parenthood in St. Paul.

At Pharyngula, PZ Myers posted a video of anti-choice protestors who believe that abortion should be illegal, because it is "murder," the "taking of a life." Yet when they are asked what should happen to women who have an illegal abortion should these activists get their wish and abortion is outlawed, these people have no answer. (Sorry, there seems to be no embedding allowed for this video.)

One dip in the video says, "Well, pray for the woman to never have any more abortions." Others say that the abortion is "between her and her God" or "on her conscience." What is the point of outlawing something if there is no punishment for breaking the law? They still have no answer.

Are these people serious about outlawing abortion - or is that effort merely a recruiting effort by the religious right, and a "goal" that would cease to unify people were it to ever be accomplished?

Or, are they carefully guarding the secret that they do believe women should be imprisoned, or even put to death, perhaps stoned, for having an abortion which they claim, after all, is "murder"?

I stated in my comment that some of the protestors, like certain high profile anti-choice fanatics, had probably had abortions and wanted to keep it legal and available for them, and I received a reply with a link to the most astonishing article you'll ever read.

"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion: When the Anti-Choice Choose"

Many anti-choice women are convinced that their need for abortion is unique -- not like those "other" women -- even though they have abortions for the same sorts of reasons. Anti-choice women often expect special treatment from clinic staff. Some demand an abortion immediately, wanting to skip important preliminaries such as taking a history or waiting for blood test results. Frequently, anti-abortion women will refuse counseling (such women are generally turned away or referred to an outside counselor because counseling at clinics is mandatory). Some women insist on sneaking in the back door and hiding in a room away from other patients. Others refuse to sit in the waiting room with women they call "sluts" and "trash." Or if they do, they get angry when other patients in the waiting room talk or laugh, because it proves to them that women get abortions casually, for "convenience".

A few behave in a very hostile manner, such as calling clinic staff "murderers." Years ago, a clinic counselor in British Columbia told me that one of her patients went into the procedure room apparently fine with her decision to have an abortion. During the abortion, at a stage when it was too late to stop the procedure, the woman started screaming "You murderers!" and other invectives at everyone in the room.

I, too, have heard these stories, of local anti-choice leaders who head straight back to the picket line after getting their abortions, or procuring them for their privileged daughters. A co-worker even told me about a doctor who threatened--at the probable cost of his own career for violating confidentiality--to expose a local anti-abortion nut whose daughter "couldn't have a baby ruining her college career" if he ever caught that activist protesting outside his clinic again.

Amazing, isn't it?

This Lady's Not for Burning!

NEWS FLASH: The undecider has undecided his being undecided about the debate and will debate tonight. Well, I'll be in class until 10:00 p.m. - learning about witchcraft and pornography and that kind of stuff, of course - but no crystal balls are allowed (think about it), so I won't be able to watch. It's too bad, too. Have fun.
---
Hey, witch-hunters and purity police - burn this!

In the late 1990s I was reading about a drive by newly-converted African Christians coming to America to "convert" whites who were not sufficiently Christian, because we largely don't believe in spirts, demons, angels, and fairies but instead put our trust in godless intellectualism. I kid you not. Unfortunately it's still a story largely overlooked by the media.

One of these tinfoil-hat The-End-Is-Near "bishops," Thomas Muthee, blessed Sarah Palin's candidacy for governor and invoked protection against "witchcraft" in front of a congregation full of allegedly sentient beings. (Video and story at link.)

The church where Palin was "saved" is one of the most extreme in the nation. Palin herself tried to get a book by a (relatively) moderate pastor in a nearby town banned. (Real advocates for "teach the 'controversy'" aren't they?) She has fond memories of Thomas Muthee, not of Rev. Howard Bess.

Transcript of part of this lunatic's "blessing" of Palin:

Number three, or number four [NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!], it’s the area of education. We need believers who are educationists. [And "I'm the educationaler"...nice one.] If we had them, today we would not be talking about the Ten Commandments being kicked out of the church, I mean out of our schools. [You know, that's a pretty bad slip.] They would still be there. One of the things that you, you know, I would love you to know, I’m a child of revival of the Seventies, and that revival swept through the schools. They are open to preaching, you know, open. Open. Wide open. You go to any school, there is what we call Christian Union. Christian Union is nothing more but a bunch of kids that are born again, spirit-filled, tongue-talking, devil-casting. Is anybody hearing me? All over the country! Is anybody hearing me?

We need God taking over our education system! Otherwise, we, if we have God in our schools, we will not have kids being taught, you know, how to worship Buddha, how to worship Mohammed, we will not have in the curriculum witchcraft and sorcery. Is anybody hearing me? [emphasis mine]

Hey, Thomas Muthee - fuck you. Don't attempt speak for this nation or its educational system. Of course you have no flipping idea that Wiccans (and Muslims, and Buddhists, and atheists) are protected under the First Amendment - since when have you been in the thinking business?

Thomas Muthee, you're a murderer. You achieved your political power by accusing helpless people of "witchcraft." As a result of your fear-mongering eleven elderly people were accused as "witches" and burned to death by your frenzied, superstitious followers.

Plus you drove another woman out of town on fear on stoning, and you still brag about it! Get the hell out of my country and take your ignoramus "missionaries" with you!

Oh, sorry, I was also speaking to Sarah Palin. Hey, foreign policy/energy expert - can you see Russia from where you stand? Well, I can see the stars at night, so I guess that makes me an expert on the universe. So get out and find a cosmos you like better, and let those of us who care about what the Constitution actually says have our country back.

Dear John - I'll say it again: you should have chosen Elizabeth Dole.

"A Mussolini Presidency"

I previously said that I would not post any more about Ben Stein, so this is submitted without comment.



"Ego deficit problems." I'm holding my tongue on this comment.

Oh, and by the way, the economy continues to be hunky dory.

Incidentally, I just became debt-free. It certainly wasn't by following the words of Benjamin Stein.

UPDATED: Not all debt is bad debt. You need a credit history, after all.

UPDATED: Charles Krauthammer - until now I had respect for you. Have you lost your mind?

Am I the only person who thinks we are rather fortunate in this election to have two candidates who at least have some class? Granted, McCain is a big disappointment to me for embracing Bush, plodding down Baghdad streets with armored soldiers while asserting that all is peace, and pandering to the "agents of intolerance" he once had the balls to challenge - but he is still head and shoulders above the rabid dogs like James Dobson who can't accept him, and insist upon embarrasing him. Is it too much to ask that the talking heads in the media can the "terrorist/too old/African mumus/black love child/missing thesis" BS and focus on the issues?
---
SUFFALUPAGUSDATED: I'm Ben Stein, and I've Erred Financially.

But I have some consolation! Yes, I lost money. But I didn't lose billions the way the top dogs at some banks did.

And neither did most Americans, you twit. (Boy, that's real consolation.)

I didn't borrow tens of billions from my depositors and lose it in subprime mortgages.

Dude, I thought you said there was no subprime mortgage crisis? When did it suddenly become real to you?

I didn't make my stockholders pay me bonuses and options worth hundreds of millions - only to lead my stockholders to ruin.

You didn't ruin any of your financiers? What are the numbers for Expelled again?

How could I have made so many idiotic mistakes? [Um...] How am I ever going to explain myself to my son that his inheritance disappeared?

"Inheritance"? Ben, I thought you said in your book to make your kids pay their way through college and to not give them anything?

How will I ever pay for my livelihood when I'm older and grayer?

I think that's a question a lot of people who didn't grow up with the toys and the privileges that you did are asking, Ben. Are we supposed to feel sorry for you?

Expelled: Imagine!

FINAL UPDATE: Heddle has a great post on this whole thingie.

I'm entering the countdown to finals, so have fun here.
-----
Well, folks, where do I begin?

Since all the excitement about PZ’s expulsion from a free screening of Expelled, a lot of things have happened. It's almost too much to recount.

The free screenings and RSVP links disappeared from the website – and only certain people (atheists, skeptics, scientists, etc.) who had already RSVPed to see the movie started receiving e-mails saying that their upcoming screening were “cancelled” when they weren’t. The goal was obviously to have only sympathetic audience members at these advance screenings. (In some cases, the screening times were abruptly moved one hour earlier, angering the sympathetic members of the audience who naturally did not get a cancellation e-mail and thus showed up at the original run time.)

A Scientist and skeptic who received these apparently fraudulent e-mail “cancellations” of Expelled was Evolutionary Biologist John Lynch. (This blog post includes “before and after” screengrabs of the official Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed website showing the screenings “disappear”)

A couple of the commenters on his blog managed to attend the screenings anyway:

Commenter Brad on his experience:

Commenter Ken McKnight on his experience:

More on this story from Troy Britain:
"Expelled Promoters Just Can’t Stop Lying"

Mark in Santa Clara on his experience:
"Expelled Has Gone Truant in Santa Clara"

Meanwhile, this is what happens when you are invited to pay $10 to see an advanced screening of Expelled: you don’t get to see Expelled. You have the "privilege" of getting to see film clips already available all over the internet, and to watch Ben Stein win an award. This is what happened to Troy Britain.

"Expelled! The Movie Rip-off and the Event at Biola", again at Troy Britain's blog.

The producers of Expelled plead for a grassroots effort from its sympathetic audience to “adopt-a-theatre” on opening day, April 18, 2008. How pathetic. Do people really want to [I]rent a theatre[/I] in order to see a movie? (Just like Michael Moore, eh?)

This account is at James F. McGrath’s blog: "Freedom Friday"

Blogger Troy Britain contacted me to learn where I got the Expelled RSVP link to forward to PZ Myers. I told him that I got the link from Glen Davidson’s comment at After the Bar Closes, but that the source for Glen was a Christian blog promoting the film Expelled and exhorting the general public to sign up for these advanced screenings! That’s right, folks, we got this “top secret” URL from a Christian blog on blogger, a public site.

Troy’s blog: "The Expelled RSVP Sites: Getting to the Facts"

Of all the media outlets that have reviewed this flick (despite the producers’ Soviet-style blackout on advanced reviews of Expelled, would you have expected Fox News to pan it? Well, they did. In fact, they tore it to shreds!

Fox News (!) pans Expelled: "Ben Stein: Win His Career"

Man, it must suck to be a conservative when even the conservatives think you suck.

But it gets worse:

Those opening and closing scenes of the movie? In which Ben Stein seemingly addresses an audience of Pepperdine University students in a full auditorium? Where they cheer him at the end? Looks like a real bunch of students think NeinStein is hip and that his message was well-received, right?

It turns out that Pepperdine University students accept evolution, so the filmmakers had to rent the auditorium (it was not an event sponsored by the university), and hired actors to play "the students."

It was with some irony for me, then, that I saw Ben Stein's antievolution documentary film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, opens with the actor, game show host and speechwriter for Richard Nixon addressing a packed audience of adoring students at Pepperdine University, apparently falling for the same trap I did [creationism].

Actually they didn't. The biology professors at Pepperdine assure me that their mostly Christian students fully accept the theory of evolution. So who were these people embracing Stein's screed against science? Extras. According to Lee Kats, associate provost for research and chair of natural science at Pepperdine, "the production company paid for the use of the facility just as all other companies do that film on our campus" but that "the company was nervous that they would not have enough people in the audience so they brought in extras. Members of the audience had to sign in and a staff member reports that no more than two to three Pepperdine students were in attendance. Mr. Stein's lecture on that topic was not an event sponsored by the university." And this is one of the least dishonest parts of the film.

The producers/promoters of Expelled, Premise Media, have been served with a cease-and-desist letter, alleging plagiarism of an animation of the inner workings of a cell produced by Harvard University.

ERV’s blog:
"Expelled: Expelled for Plagiarism"

and

"I Love the Smell of Roasted Creationists in the Morning" (ERV again)

Wesley Elsberry’s blog:
"Okay, Expelled, but Plagiarism Will Do That for You"

PZ Myers’ blog:
"Peter Irons Drafts a Letter"

Panda’s Thumb:
"Will the Public See Expelled?"

The producers of this turdfest that is Expelled have also admitted that they never sought permission to use the John Lennon song, “Imagine”, which is played if the film over some archival footage of Josef Stalin, while Ben Stein screams that liberals want to turn our country into what Lennon (or Lenin?) envisioned, from the administrator of John Lennon’s (not Lenin’s) estate – namely his widow, Yoko Ono.

The Wall Street Journal's article.
(requires subscription)

Entire article available here:
Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

At this point, the scandal is growing heads like a hydra. Already everything I posted here is old news, because new news is still coming out. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable!

Excuse me, but it’s normal procedure to expell a student for plagiarism, and this is now plagiarism plus stealing.

To add the cherry on the top of this frosted cherry-picking cupcake, the producers sent me a spam e-mail to my school account exhorting the “friends of Expelled to "help the film" in its hate speech against atheists, skeptics, legitimate scientists, and anyone else who doesn’t pass their moral purity test. I informed them that spam was unprofessional and that the only reason they had my address was that they had required it – first for me to RSVP, and then again in the theatre, where I was told that I had to give it again on an “agreement form” not to illegally videotape and distribute the film.

And, being that I was required to give them this information, that should have ended their use of my e-mail address. (I did not give them my snail mail address, though the form asked for it – and interestingly enough, this “agreement form” had no place for a signature, just for my printed name.)

Very, very unprofessional, I must say. Just astonishingly stupid, clumsy, and unethical. Boy oh boy, what an example to the upcoming class of students entering college. These guys have some nerve to preach to the rest of the nation about the state of our educational system.

All I can do is sincerely thank the makers of Expelled for exposing the methods of creationists to the nation at large. For years, these people have operated in secret, allowing only the most controlled speeches and presentations to the public, so that everyone remains on message. Now in complete disarray, their publicity machine has done more to destroy the concept of intelligent design as “science” in the public mind that anything I could have done or said. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for this high-publicity disaster.

At Rotten Tomatoes, the rating for Expelled is 10% (less than Ishtar and Howard the Duck) and falling.

Now, it is evident to all why intelligent design has no place in science classrooms or in academia at large: it is a cheat, and its advocates are cheaters. And cheaters don’t belong in class – let alone teaching in our nation’s classrooms.

But one thing that you don't do - you don't piss off Yoko Ono.

UPDATED: Well, there I was, about to add a comment that I don’t really need to hear “Imagine” one more time in my life, either, because the song has become banal, kitch, the atheist’s equivalent of “Kum-bay-ya” (another song that I wish I could never hear again) – and then Corrente goes and rewrites John Lennon’s famous anthem especially for Ben Neinstein. And it’s hilarious.


Imagine there’s no science
So many people do
Nothing to study or wonder
The end of seeking truth
Imagine all the country
Dumber than a post…

You may say Ben Stein’s a schemer
But he’s not the only one
Many a fool would destroy us
A new Dark Age will have begun

Imagine no progression
Evolution canned
No need for artful discussions
A devaluing of man
Imagine all the children
Burning all the books…

You may say I’m a boomer
And my time will fade away
I hope someday you’ll stand up
And keep ignorance at bay

SECOND UPDATE: Oh for the love of Darwin, now someone over at John Lynch’s site has written “Bensteinian Rhapsody.” (One of my favorites!)

Anyone? I just filmed a sham,
Put some lies into your head,
Libelled Darwin, coz’ he’s dead,
Honor, you know I once had some,
But now I’ve gone and blown it all away-
Anyone? ooooohhhhh
Was it mean to tell those lies?
You’d learn more science by watching Rocky Horror-
Anyone? Anyone? My reputations now in tatters-

Too late, my crime is done,
Dembski told me I did fine-
Behe’s squirming, (he’ll be fine),
Goodbye science lessons-you’ve got to go
Gonna leave your kids behind and hide the truth
Adolf, oooooh (a shame he wasn’t atheist)
I’ll just have to lie,
I’ll just pretend that he wasn’t Christian at all--

guitar solo -

THIRD UPDATE: Ed Brayton weighs in on Expelled. And I notice that anonymous trolls who come here and criticize me (a woman) for speaking up don't have a complaint about them speaking up.

Don't come here and tell me what to say. If you don't like what you see here, leave.

FOURTH UPDATE: I told you it was a hydra. Premise Media, which produced Expelled, is now countersuing XVIVO (which produced the Harvard animation). In other words, it's a SLAPP. And ERV is totally convinced that the fact that Premise, based in Canada, filed its bogus lawsuit in Texas, not in Canada nor in Connecticut, where XVIVO is based, has nothing at all to do with the fact that Texas has no anti-SLAPP laws. ;-) She has issued a challenge to Premise Media.

Vaginal Re-Gifting

Just when you thought this country couldn't get any dumber:

Victoria Watts, a 23-year-old single mother of two small children who lives in Canton, Ohio, lost her virginity at 16 with her high school boyfriend.

She was the granddaughter of a Pentecostalist pastor and the daughter of an assistant pastor, and she believed sex outside marriage was wrong. “I felt really bad from a religious standpoint,” she recalls of the experience. “My thoughts were really clouded because I was so emotionally bonded with my boyfriend. That overshadowed my religious world.”

Though the relationship lasted for seven years and produced two beautiful children, a part of Watts always felt guilty. She wished she could step back in time and recapture her lost virginity. Thinking of how “I could have ruined one of greatest fulfillments of my life,” the first time having sex with a husband, she wanted to “have that opportunity again. I know my [future] husband deserves a whole person.”

So Watts engaged in a lot of prayer and thought, and now declares herself a virgin once again. “The most important thing was to realize what my values were and what I want in the future and the bigger goals in my life," she says. "That’s why I can call myself a renewed virgin.”

Across the country, "revirginization" appears to be gaining steam. Spiritual efforts to reclaim virginity emerged back in the early 1990s and now, prompted by abstinence-only school courses taught to thousands of girls nationwide, and by religious teachers, there are reports of more and more young women like Watts attempting a sexual do-over. Other women are opting for a more radical route to reclaim their virginity: surgical replacement of the hymen, the small membrane that stretches from the walls of the vagina and that typically breaks when a woman first has intercourse — or for many other reasons, from tampon use to vigorous exercise.

Yeah, well, something tells me that we don't have to worry too much about hymens breaking during "vigorous exercise" other than the kind of exercise that is supposed to break hymens.

Religion gives one an excuse for everything.

Just put an "r" between the "g" and the "i" in my post title, and there you have it. That's what it is, folks.

And Now For Something Completely the Same

Well, you knew that Fred Phelps was going to protest at Heath Ledger's funeral, didn't you?

Honestly, this nation needs billboards that say, "Phelps. A National Turd."

Creationist morons want the military to spend more on parapsychology and remote viewing.

WHAT IS REMOTE VIEWING?
Remote viewing could just as easily be called “enhanced instincts and intuition” or maybe “unconventional internal perception.” Remote viewing is the ability to use and improve the “sixth sense” that most or all people reportedly have to some degree.
Remote viewing has reportedly been used successfully in many intelligence and reconnaissance efforts but its use has been limited.
The official remote viewing program was variously under the control of the CIA, Army Intelligence and Security Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Air Force in the ‘70s, 80s and early 90s. Project STARGATE was only the last of a series of code names for an effort also known as SCANNATE, GONDOLAWISH, GRILLFLAME, CENTERLANE and SUNSTREAK.
Remote viewing is a skill that seems impossible, beyond belief. [Um, yeeeaaaahh! Excuse me, you're a grown man?] However, remote viewing experts say years of research and practical application of remote viewing in real-life operational settings have proven that it works and works well. That which is not known can become known.

Oh, quite. By all means, let's throw our tax dollars in the toilet because all of the "evidence" for parapsychology isn't "in yet." We can think of no less than an infinite number of crackpot ideas for which the "evidence isn't in yet."

How about some billboards that say, "Fairies. Given them a chance." Well, frankly I wouldn't put anything past Clear Channel. Well, hell, I'll just grab a Tarot deck and nail a Pentagon contract! WTF?

But naturally when it comes to how evolution shaped the eye (over 40 times independently in nature), or homologues we've found in the genes that constructed the bacterial flagellum, or digestion in cows, suddenly "what is not known" can never become known. We'll never be able to answer it, so obviously, the answer is - Goddidit! No "molecules" to milk, people.

Well, that's news to farmers everywhere. (It's not a widely-known fact that rural farmers, at least in Minnesota, have less of a problem with the theory of evolution than do suburban dwellers for whom milk only comes from the grocery store.)

Oh, and abortion may cause cancer in rats. Stunning news, no? Proves that abortion causes breast cancer? Not really. You see, rats don't have breasts. The thing is, it's true that scientists can be wrong - especially isolated, politicized, conspiracy theory spouting Lone Rangers with an agenda.

Business as usual, folks. Which means, ironically, we're winning. :-) (Photo: Ray Comfort in “The Way of the Master” before he lost his own banana argument.)

UPDATED: Um, Ray Comfort invited atheists to his party at his blog, so I went, but my question about why other Christians have accused him of "false teaching" hasn't appeared yet. Oh, well. People shouldn't have accused me of "worshipping Satan." Moi?

In other exciting developments, Kucinich is nicer than Hillary. Blaaaaaah. I also predict that Tuesday will follow Monday. What are the chances?

Find Ben Stein’s Marbles…

…because he’s lost them. Quick! Before he starts crying again.

First, this voice-of-profit-cy, or lack thereof, lost his listeners’ money for them last summer, after he expelled a lot of hogwash about financial stocks just before they turned into something you wouldn't wipe your nose with.


(Note that comments at You Tube are closed because THEY [“Darwinists”] are all out to silence this self-styled economist by engaging in free speech about Ben Stein’s revisionism, you know.)

Now, Ben Stein is huffing about the “invisible government” of Goldman Sachs – Goldman Sachs, for pete’s sake – and how it “sells fear,” and how its "highly placed economist" (must be Stein's code word for someone having a job), Dr. Jan Hatzius, presides over a “culture of the KGB,” making it "the closest I have recently seen to such a world-running body [i.e., another conspiracy]." Oh, my dog! My cat! Another conspiracy!

(There's an alternative link for Stein's commentary at Disinformation.com.)

Excuse me, but in light of this and his hyperventilating coming attractions for Expelled (“If you see this film you could lose your job…Is there anyone out there who can stand up for freedom? Anyone? Anyone?” etc.), just who is selling fear here?

Apparently there's something called Ben Stein Watch. ;-)

Ben Bernanke sounds off on Stein’s accusations against Goldman Sachs

Paul Krugman, also of the NY Times, also replies to Stein.

I, too, was puzzled by Ben Stein’s conflation of a bank’s total assets with its capital, and assumed he was moving the goalposts as his intelligent design colleagues do. But, amazingly, it appears that I gave Stein too much credit in this, for apparently he doesn’t know the difference.

Ben Bernanke and Paul Krugman – and now, a "Darwinist" - well, you know what that means. It’s a conspiracy! No, I’m not kidding. Ben Stein digs himself in further, and even Krugman’s detractors are shocked. And as one observer remarked about Stein's assertion that housing prices have never declined over 15% in a very long time, one shouldn't drive while only looking in the rear-view mirror! (LOL! That is a good analogy for creationism as well.)

BTW, if you Google “Ben Stein” and “crying,” Amused Muse’s “Win Ben Stein’s Funneh” reached number 9. Thank you!

Well, anyway, I found all this out because Ben Stein was interviewed on Glenn Beck’s show. Glenn Beck! That Glenn Beck?



Hey, uh, Beck, what happened to the "end of the world on August 22" as prophesied by your favorite Princeton professor? I guess you should get up from your knees and thank "Darwinists" for ruining that, too?

Maybe during the battle of Armaggedon all the conspiracies against Ben Stein battle each other, and the winner gets to be teh Beast.

Ev-y-dense - I Haz It

Someone with a blog named "Whateveresque" has more LOLs regarding the Creation Museum:

In the meantime, it's coming up on the anniversary of Billy Dembski's fart-a-mation (now sans fart noises), and sure enough, he's pulled off another goombah faux pas to add to the legacy of intelligent design.

This time, he was caught stealing a video produced by Harvard and passing it off as ID evidence by adding captions and a voice-over reinterpreting the animation. When the plagiarism was discovered, Dembski tried to say, "Oh, hai, I just founds it on teh internet, do it b'long to anywun?" But Harvard didn't buy it and skewered Dembski with a "cease and desist" letter. ERV has the story.

Now Dembski has come out with a "New ID Briefing Packet for Educators," but one of his own commenters noticed something wrong with the (as it turns out) completely bogus "phonetic" spelling in the phony definition:



"On the front cover of the newly available packet, the topmost image is a faux dictionary entry for “intelligent design.” Problem is, the phonetic spelling of both words is incorrect. The second syllable of “intelligent” is “tel” not “te.” The ampersand is not part of the international phonetic alphabet. The third syllable should be “li” and in the fourth syllable the vowel sound is a schwa (I don’t trust the browser to correctly reproduce the schwa symbol). Likewise, the first vowel sound in “design” is also a schwa and the second is a long i (a lower case i with a line over it).

"Not a very intelligent design for a publication intended for educators."

LOL! I'll say.

And by sheer coinkydink, I "happened" to "find" this on the internet. Anybody care if I change it around a bit?






UPDATED: The plot thickens. Dembski throws a hissy-fit because another writer gets a sneak-peak at his new article - legally. *Eye-roll*

Shimmies to ERV.

SECOND UPDATE: Dembski didn't alter the original. He really did "find it" lying around the internet. Well, that's still makes it pretty stupid that he used it, but I've got some owning up to do. So I'm very sorry, William Dembski, to have doub - uh, to have believed in you? Well, you know what I mean. At any rate, I was wrong about the Dembster. This time. So, I have to eat my dat (long story). ;-)

The Times, They Are A-Strangin'

Seminary President Paige Patterson and his wife, Dorothy -- who goes by Mrs. Paige Patterson [no duh?] -- view the homemaking curriculum as a way to spread the Christian faith.

In their vision, graduates will create such gracious homes that strangers will take note. Their marriages will be so harmonious, other women will ask how they manage. By modeling traditional values, they will inspire friends and neighbors to read the Bible and then, perhaps, to follow the Lord.

I read the above excerpt at Aetiology regarding the bizarre new curriculum at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, but you have to read the entire article to believe it. It reads like a Gong-Show reject:

God values men and women equally, any student here will tell you. It's just that he's given them different responsibilities in life: Men make decisions. Women make dinner.

This fall, the internationally known seminary -- a century-old training ground for Southern Baptists -- began reinforcing those traditional gender roles with college classes in homemaking. The academic program, open only to women, includes lectures on laundering stubborn stains and a lab in baking chocolate-chip cookies.

Philosophical courses such as "Biblical Model for the Home and Family" teach that God expects wives to graciously submit to their husbands' leadership. A model house, to be completed by next fall, will allow women to get credit toward bachelor's degrees by learning how to set tables, sew buttons and sustain lively dinnertime conversation.

As offensive as this is to thinking women, I have always suspected that this "gracefully submit" bullshit is really all about controlling and emasculating the men. And, to my not-surprise, it turns out that all this passive-aggressive suckiness is for the emotional manipulation of men:

Laney Homan, 30, drew excited murmurs with her talk on meal planning, complete with a recipe for a surefire "freezer pleaser" -- a triple batch of meatloaf (secret ingredient: oatmeal). Thanks to a computerized system for generating grocery lists, Homan said, "I've actually trained my husband to shop for me.

"Laughing, she threw her palms toward the heavens and added: "Praise Jesus!"

How very "submissive." Add to this the disgusting sight of women talking of their role as homeschooler for their children, with the requisite Godly Calculus and a good dose of mincing, worse-than-quiche creationism thrown in, and you can just about imagine what a barrel of monkeys childhood is going to be for the average boy (and the average tomboy, as I was) under this femin-nancy dictatorship. But the men are starting to get wise to these tricks - they're even starting to (gasp!) think for themselves - carefully:

Many male graduate students at Southwestern take a class in masculine leadership, where they are admonished to put their wives' needs before their own even as they flex their authority. [Does this sound suspicious to you?] But there's no broader curriculum on a husband's role, leading Dusty Deevers, 30, to wonder what he and other male students might be missing. Labs on mowing the lawn? Trimming hedges? Balancing a checkbook? "Many, many men would be well-served by something like that," Deevers said.

Andy Cecrle, 42, takes it one step further: He would like to see a homemaking class for men, or at least a survival boot camp. He happens to know his way around the house and is proud that he changes his children's diapers. But he knows many guys don't even have a clue how to start the washer.

"What if my wife is sick and my kids need clean clothes? It may not hurt to have some basic tips," Cecrle said. Then he added cautiously: "A lot of people would take great exception to what I'm saying."

Felts is one of them. The whole point of taking college-level homemaking, she said, is to ensure that her husband won't ever feel that he has to darn a sock or do the laundry. Those are her jobs. [emphasis mine]

Yep. First it's helping the wife with the poopy kid - then it's running the dishwasher when the wife is sick - and the next thing you know, you have a flour-fingered pinko liberal male on your hands! Aaauuuughhh! ;-)

Crack the whip - er, the whipped cream, ladies. Don't let up on the emotional blackma - I mean the emotional mauvemail one instant!

(Shimmies to Aetiology and to Vladimir Nabokov. Bitch-slap to SWTS.)

Garden of Eden [Snake] Oil

I've been watching this company, Zion Oil, for a while. Ed has the full story of this guy, another poor, deluded man [John Brown, probably a brother of Charlie - wink!] wrecking his finances and his reputation and his life over some wild god chase, because he believes Israel has oil based solely on some sophomoric interpretation of a bible verse. Pathetic - but guess who else is in on the scheme? And he wants people to invest, so that his own stock holdings in Zion don't go to, um, hell.

(Anyone remember The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon? Yes, the true believers got upset at us atheists for pooh-poohing that turd as well. We're so mean, not to enable the addictions of others to this claptrap.)

Shimmies to Ed at Dispatches.


UPDATED: Hey! I've got a solution for John Brown. He needs to employ Uri Geller.

He [Geller] claims that he has accumulated wealth in part by performing dowsing services to find commodities such as oil, gold, and minerals, but that the companies he has worked for are reluctant to admit it. In recent years, he has performed demonstrations such as spoon-bending much less frequently in public.

Yep, a good ole American tall tale, old Geller! He's coming out with a new show.

NBC has announced Phenomenon, a new reality competition series that will follow mentalist Uri Geller and Criss Angel Mindfreak illusionist Criss Angel as they search for "the next great mentalist," will premiere on Wednesday, October 24 at 8PM ET/PT.

Just great. This will keep those twits on The View in ecstasy for weeks.

I keep hearing the argument that "atheism and the idea that science can solve every problem [for the record I don't believe that anything can solve every problem] is an idea from the Seventies!" Well, now a fraud from the Seventies has his own show again, despite being humiliated by Johnny Carson and James Randi. I guess people think that's better, somehow.

Shimmies to Rev. BigDumbChimp.

The Right Stuff

If you had the honor of meeting one of the Apollo astronauts, what would you do?

Shake his hand?

Ask for an autograph?

Give him a kiss on the cheek? *Shimmy!*

Tell him, "This is an incredible honor, sir - you are one of my great heroes!"

Well, that's what I'd do - probably all four. I certainly would not say, "Tell me about the orbiter being faked," or call any of them a "coward, and a liar, and a thief"!

It's kiss-an-astronaut day. Despite NASA's current (and huge) problems, these guys still have the right stuff. Holy crap, do they!

Shimmies to Rev. BigDumbChimp.

"God Hates Minnesota"

Fred Phelps. The collapsed bridge. Another protest.

No comment.

The Mod Squad

Comment moderation is back on.

Do you know how fucking sick I am of this?

Legion was banned long ago. I let Legion in for laughs. Mistake.

Corrected now. Good-bye, Legion.

UPDATED: It's off. Jump on me, kill each other, what do I care - I'm having a bad week, okay?

SECOND UPDATE: Everything is better. If you want a laugh, check out my eviceration of Legion here. Sorry, Chimpy, but war is war.

I Hate the Taliban

UPDATED: RAWA's (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan's) Photo Gallery. WARNING: Graphic photos of life under the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The nightmare for the people, especially the women and girls, of Afghanistan continues. It's a testament to the women that they aren't extinct by now. It's a wonder anyone manages to live and find some joy in Afghanistan. (We had a chance to change things, and we're blowing it. Americans have forgotten about Afghanistan.)
-----
Well, because I make nice noises about not hating anyone, this one will have to go into the "I'm not proud of it" folder, but may I say that I hate the Taliban!

I opposed the Iraq War from the start. I did not oppose the war in Afghanistan. We would never have closed our embassy in Kabul had I anything to say about it, and I wanted to arm women in that country ever since the civil war that began in the 1990s. If we had stepped in earlier we wouldn't have to be waging a larger war there now (a war that got forgotten in our foolish rush into Iraq).

Even women in the Dark Ages were allowed to walk in the sun. The Taliban are the most unimaginably barbaric collection of rotterers I've ever seen. Now they've killed a second hostage. And you thought I hated Jerry Falwell? They make me sick.

Cowardly, repulsive, sociopathic bunch of pig-ignorant bullies who know nothing and build nothing. Kill a helpless hostage – real manly. No wonder they have to force women to marry them. No wonder that even in ultraconservative Afghanistan they have to break down people’s doors and force fathers to hand over their daughters. They’re burning down schools. They’re beating men for cheering at soccer games and cutting off body parts because men shave their beards or women wear lipstick. I mean, these people are just unreal.

I’m not proud of it, but just before the fall of Kabul I read that these same lunatics who had run to the front lines yawping “Death to America!” had turned tail and were fleeing back to the Pakistani border as fast as their ugly legs could carry them, and I laughed. When I read that Mullah Omar was yelling over an open radio channel for the Taliban to stop running away “like chickens with their heads cut off,” I turned to my co-worker and gleefully reported, “The Taliban are running away like chickens with their heads cut off!” Yeah, Mullah Omar, what a winner – he murdered a man just to have his wife. And Ayman al-Zhawahiri, he’s a real piece of work, now his wife and daughters are dead, because he dragged their asses to Tora Bora (along with his favorite concubine, Osama bin Laden), and what does he have to say about their deaths? “Oh, they’re fine, they’re in heaven.” Lah-te-dah, al Qaeda and the Taliban love death more than we love life, so it’s no big deal to sacrifice your family for the cause, but I don’t see al-Zhawahiri and Mullah Omar and Osama killing themselves. I thought Osama wanted to die for the glory of Islam? It’s been five years and all he’s done is warn Americans not to go trick-or-treating again this year. (Or maybe he’s trying to bore himself to death.)

Stupid idiots. Who but a moron fights a B-52 or a Predator with a rifle? Who but a selfish ideologue extraordinaire brings his children along to the cave where he’s holed up, and teaches his kids to yell “Allahu Ahkbar” when he shoots off his rockets? I always felt sad when I read that, knowing that if these kids lived they would grow up to be like their dads. I saw some of the photos of kids that were left behind on CDs and on laptops in those caves – beautiful little faces, small innocent minds to be corrupted by the filth spewed by these people.

I keep reminding myself that once these awful people were those innocent kids, but it just makes me feel worse.

"President" Bush Commutes Lewis "Scooter" Libby's Sentence

The rule of law is officially broken in the United States of Amnesia.

This is an outrage among many outrages committed by this rogue administration.

It's time to impeach, people.

UPDATED: For the record I was also outraged by the pardon, by President Clinton, of Mark Rich. And incidentally, who was Mark Rich's attorney? Lewis "Scooter" Libby!

SECOND UPDATE: Keith Ellison joins the effort to oust Vice-President Dick Cheney.

"Doood! Evolution is, like, sooooo bogus!"

Dude, so like, a buncha hipsters totally went to the gangsta Creation "Museum." Fubar. Fubar. Don't even!

My man Wesley, my man Jason, my man Professor Steve Steve, and teh hawt science chica Dr. Tara had a really great time. NOT!

Something that Tara mentions reminds me of that hideous "Shreck" thingie that John and I went to at Universal Studios:

We were told by the employees that it was a satirical look at evolution. All I have to say is, if they think that was satire, they really need to read some Twain or Swift.

The premise was that the angels Michael and Gabriel were talking to a lost and wandering camper--a frustrated soul who was looking for meaning in the world, but didn't want people to "think she's stupid" by believing that science was wrong about evolution. The whole movie, while slick, was like an extended Chick tract (Big Daddy comes to mind, as part of it consisted of "Mike" and "Gabe" harassing a science teacher...."duuuuude, like, evolution is sooooo bogus").

And special effects were out in full force. The chairs vibrated with thunder, or when the angels "whooshed" away, and the chair backs squirted water during the rainstorm. (This was SUPREMELY annoying).

Yes, it is. It also creeps me totally out because it reminds me of those "feelies" in Brave New World.

My brother noted that these distractions occurred frequently when they made a really astounding claim that might make a person think--"let's distract them by spraying water in their face!" An interesting theory...

This theme presented itself throughout the museum. I guess my one main surprise was that despite hailing themselves as an alternative science museum, there really was fairly little science there. Sure, there were videos to watch and many of the exhibits had narration, but just based on the displays, they really half-assed (hell, more like quarter-assed) the "scientific objections to an old universe and evolution" part of the "museum." Instead, the focus was more typically on "why Christianity is good for you" and "why human reason is wrong".

As if! Look, I don't know how to say this nicely - but this shit it not about science at all. It never has been. It's about making people as boring as possible.

(What if you started talking about a particularly exciting football game and I cut you off with, "Do you actually think that those two teams are creating the game through their meaningless struggle, like two amphibians on a beach? Don't you know that IT IS JESUS WHO PLAYS THE GAME? The players aren't sufficient in themselves to make football happen! There has to be a Master Player controlling everything! You tell me who won, and I'll tell you that that's just how God plays with Himself." Would that make me sound like a person interested in sports, and curious at all about the rules, plays, players, and strategies? Well, that's how I feel when people tell me, "You tell me how life evolved, and I'll just say that's how Goddidit." Gee, thanks for your sermon. Now I'll just go find some people to talk to who are curious about what I'm curious about. Bye.)

What this doggerel is about is a running grist mill of mediocrity - making everyone into everyone else. No sparkle, no disobedience, no real curiosity - all reactions, no deep thoughts (though plenty of cherry-picking, emotional arguments, appeals to authority, and other such logical fallacies). I get tired of the Hitler allusions to the right wing but I must tell you, the photos of this sideshow's "exhibits" reminds me of those putrid art exhibitions of banal paintings that Hitler held. And the dire warnings of evilutionism's "corruption" - straight out of Goebbel's exhibition of "Degenerate Art."

And don't get me started on the megachurch - Nuremburg rallies parallels, because Richard Dawkins hit the nail on the head with that one.

Shimmies to Pharyngula, Aetiology, Panda's Thumb, EvolutionBlog, and the NCSE.

More Stupidity about Atheists from Newsweek

Yeah, we've never built anything. Right.

How about the Enlightenment?

How about evolutionary theory? (Now evolution's predicted "demise" is the year 2025. Naturally, I have my own ideas about that.)

How about women's rights?

Bad atheists, bad, bad! You don't believe in something that doesn't exist - it's an outrage! I'd rather vote for Paris Hilton or the JFK terrorist plotters than you. They should take your citizenship away!

And we can see by watching this video the kind of company that atheists keep!
Isaac Asimov
Carl Sagan
Richard Dawkins
Francis Crick
Marie Curie
Katherine Hepburn
Marlon Brando
Noam Chomsky
Susan B. Anthony
etc., etc., etc...

UPDATED: Yeah, it's not like this nation has its hands full with religious fanatics or anything...

SECOND UPDATE: Rev. Barking Nonsequitor takes on Chuck Norris! Rev. Barky is my hero! And did I mention that Rev. Barky is teh sexeh...? :-) (Sorry, Barky, is that okay?)