Scientology cures serious mental illness.

Okay, really it's gets a family killed because they swear that their crazy daughter didn't need help. The irony exceeds the tragedy.

God Hates Lee Polikov!

Lee Polikov the County Attorney for Sarpy County filed several charges against Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Fred Phelps. While protesting the funeral of Nebraska Army National Guard Spc. William "Bill" Bailey she allowed (probably told him to) her son Jonah to stand on a US flag. She was charged with negligent child abuse, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, flag mutilation and disturbing the peace.

She is innocent of those charges. The government is completely out of line here. The Phelps aren't a hate group, they always pitch their message as God's message rather than their own, it is always "God Hates X" and never "I Hate X" (this is actually a pretty important line, as is the fact that they are non-violent). The law passed a year or so back banning protesting at a funeral is extremely unconstitutional (it bars one type of activity whereas other activities are fine). I don't think that the theological arguments they make are that flawed. One can, and they do, make a pretty good case Biblically speaking. If the Bible wasn't completely stupid and idiotic, unsubstantiated, and morally bankrupt... they might actually have a point.

If you really think that the Phelps children should be taken away, you must also conclude that we should steal Amish children as well. While we're at it, why don't we take away those poor home-schooled kids? We might also want to get our paws on Suri Cruise (although unlike the other two this might rally some support).

Really, they only thing I think they are doing wrong is believing the Bible is the word of God. They could be far more moral if they, rather than believing the entire book, would just cherry-pick the sane parts. One can, with a bit of work, make a religion out of parts of the Bible that one could show to their neighbors without too much embarrassment. Though, that does require a substantial amount of gutting. And personally, I don't think that there is much reason to keep the bathwater, if you already threw out the baby.

I tend to have more respect for the Phelps than I have for your average religious person.

QM

Kent Hovind

Understanding creationism is certainly a worthwhile thing to do, if for no other reason than the entertainment value. However, since the first video is almost unwatchable (though worth it for the laugh), I've included the second video a stress reliever.

Ten years for making such stupid videos? He should have gotten longer for his support of this heterodox God idea. Where's a good stake burning when you need them. The state abhors blood too.

California during the hottest summer on record.

You got to love global warming. The rest of the week is set to be 100f+ (hot). And that's only because they can do weather predictions for only the rest of the week.

Well, at least it will sweat the disbelief out of some people easily fooled by transparent PR campaigns against science.

Blinky the Fish and Nuclear Power

As all of you know, from my never having mentioned it before, to all of nobody who reads this blog. I am a firm supporter of nuclear power (gay rights and abortion too... gotta keep up my liberal cred). I think that nuclear power is one of the best and most available methods of stopping greenhouse gas pollution within the near future (when we really need to do so in reality). Modern reactors are safe, and the older reactors (save a few Russian ones) weren't dangerous either. The latest generation are passively safe, which is to say that they cannot melt down. Moreover, we are currently using about 1% of our nuclear fuel before calling it nuclear waste and putting it away forever. If we recycled the fuel and burned off the plutonium, we could use our current nuclear reserves to power our country for the next several hundred years at least (probably in the thousands).

Whence Blinky?


A third eye is most likely not due to a genetic mutation such as could be introduced via nuclear radiation (nuclear power releases less radiation than coal burning power plants (by a lot)). Rather it is much more likely to be due to a developmental error where a second embryo is reabsorbed into the first causing a very minor chimerism/conjoined twins situation.

Why don't Christians cite Wernher von Braun more often...

I understand why people cite that Newton quote (paraphrasing): "I'm too tired to bother to actually solve the N-body problem and develop perturbation theory and instead will force people to wait another century for Laplace, so I'm just going to say that God makes the planets stay in orbit."


But, why not Wernher von Braun? Here was a rather famous scientist who was unabashed about religion: "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death."...*...

Sure, he was a nazi and a stupid one at that. Nature does know extinction. In fact, most species are extinct. The idea that because our matter isn't created or destroyed that we, as the complex organization of matter we are, are immortal is just stupid beyond belief (though apparently not beyond belief). I'd love to see this quite more often.

Romney is a Good Chrisitan. And nobody should say otherwise...

...until after the primaries.

Sure, the Book of Mormon is the like the anti-Koran. Reading the BoM made me laugh at so many places it was silly. Reading the Koran just made my eyes glaze over. There's certainly criticism there, but don't sink the leaky boat until it's the one they put in the race.

When I was a kid, Mr. T came to my school.

When I was a kid attending Richmond Elementary School in Fullerton California, Mr. T came to our school and myself and other children were taken outside.

I recall my thoughts:

I don't know who this is, but he wears a lot of jewelery and has a funny name. I want to play on the monkey bars. He's saying something about drugs. I bet I could do one of those twirly flips on that one bar. Who is this guy? Why do people care?

Hidden Palms, troubled by a lack of zombies.

The CW show Hidden Palms, already fast tracked for cancellation is probably due to the very obvious lack of zombies. None of the main actors had any chemistry at all, and in fact, I didn't care who died or who lived as I watched the show. The only thing which could have kept my attention would have been a zombie outbreak. Just one undead individual coming back to life and turning the show into a zombie flick. I would have happily finished watching the season. Why don't people just start murdering people left and right with the undead when a show starts going downhill. Wait Mr. Executive, we have something great up our sleeve... zombies!

It's so easy, why didn't I think of that.

The secret is truly powerful.

Spot ten critial errors in the following video, or you're a complete moron.

If you wish to opt out of the challenge due to the mental pain the video is causing you. Feel free. It shouldn't take more than a minute to rack up the ten.

Westboro Baptist Church - God hates the World

http://view.break.com/278059 - Watch more free videos

Why do people dislike the Phelps? I think it takes a lot of courage to stand up for what you believe in, when what you believe in is so insane as to warrant near disbelief. They believe that the US is like a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah and that all the bad things which happen are the result of God's hatred for America because we are all "fag enablers" -- Apparently not doing what it says to do to homosexuals in the Bible (kill them/their blood will be on them/Lev. 20:13). They feel inclined to warn people that God hates them, and thanking God for the instruments of his wrath (AIDS, IED, Iraq).

Biblically I don't think their argument is that bad. Really, if you read the Bible it's a reasonable conclusion to come to if you are inclined to accept that the Bible is not horrific fiction worthy of scorn.

It seems pretty clear that they are using their first amendment rights to free speech to spread their first amendment right to religion via their first amendment right to protest. Their Biblical interpretations aren't bad... the only thing really that bad in this whole debate is the Bible. Anybody who believes that is going to be this batshit insane. But, they are within their rights and non-violent.

And if you notice from their theology and certain interviews they gives that they never interject their own opinion on the issue, it's always God. God hates fags. God hates America. They are careful not to express such beliefs directly. This is a very real line that they do not cross. It is, I feel, much the same as the line which many atheists are careful not to cross by insulting people. Focusing instead on the beliefs people have rather than the people themselves. Apparently people recognize this distinction just as often in their case. They are very careful to present the Biblical view on reality rather than their own. It is akin to God hates the sin, God hates the sinner.

If the Bible were not cruel bronze-age immoral fiction, they would have a pretty good point. Sadly however, this actual reductio ad absurdum isn't more widely understood. Rather we are left with the vague hatred which says gays shouldn't be allowed to marry their lovers or care for children. Really this is just a purified form of the Biblical hate bantered around to deny people rights. They aren't shallowly using the Bible to justify their own hate, they are presented the hate the Bible expresses as truth. I prefer the Phelps' God's bigotry to the kind which is effective in creating constitutional amendments to get introduced on the floor of congress.

I flew my ship into her Super High Gravity Location, if you know what I mean

In an official renaming probably as successful as renaming Uranus (your anus), Uranus (Yur a nus). Black holes deemed offensive to people of African descent are being renamed Super High Gravity Locations. From now on rather than Black Holes we shall have these SHaG Locations.

C.S. Lewis' Trilemma

For some unknown reason many layfolks believe that C.S. Lewis is the end all of Christian Apologetics, despite having worse arguments than real Christian apologetics. One of his more famous arguments was the Trilemma: Lunatic, Liar, or Lord. Basically he held that Jesus was either a Lunatic, a Liar, or God. To rule out Lunatic and Liar he basically asked why are you saying such mean things, and then suddenly concluding that Jesus was God. I have no clue how anybody could be bamboozled by this nonsense, but it's apparently as popular as his "atheism is just too easy" argument.

Even skipping the clear problems with his arguments against the first two L-words. We are still left with a false 'trilemma'. We aren't able to conclude that the story is just fiction. It fits perfectly well into the fiction category. The story is written such that it falls perfectly well into the Hero's journey. It makes much more sense from a mythicist point of view than from one based in reality.

Either Hercules was a lunatic, liar, or son of Zeus. Clearly he wasn't lying or crazy. Therefore, he's the son of Zeus. Zeus exists.

Quote: Thomas Paine

"Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true."

Kyle X, Why?

As a guilty pleasure I watch the ABC family series Kyle XY. It's mostly crap, but some of it is interesting. Well, this new season involves some "explanations" which well, do no justice to anything. Kyle, born without a belly button has some amazing abilities including memory and speed and a few other fun quirks. Though, a bit silly at times were vaguely understandable.

So they decided to explain why. Kyle XY was grown in an artificial womb for longer than a typical because Einstein did some experiments and said that it was his long gestation period that resulted in his intellect. He gave up later, but his work was continued by some secretive cabal. Now Kyle's creator was the result of this cabal's plan and was born after 14 months in the womb. Kyle spent the better part of 18 years in an artificial one. Designed by this previous iteration of.

Now, where the hell do I start. First off Einstein was a healthy baby born on time and probably has Asberger's syndrome (form of autism). He didn't do secret stuff in biology he was a physicist, and a pretty good one. He was no Newton but he was damned smart. Now, development of children's brains is done by 9 months and more time isn't going to do anything. Oh, and did I mention that Kyle's creator can move things with his mind. Oh... ah... What the hell! Sorry I can't be more articulate about the problems with the plot, they are so many I can hardly enumerate them.

Elephants must be supergeniuses!

New Computer

So I bought a new computer... it's hot. In fact, it's on fire now. Or so I am lead to believe. I bought the lowest mhz Brisbane core (3600+ X2) processor I could find. And bought a nice feature ridden motherboard Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe. It turns out the overclocking ability on the motherboard is impressive to say the least. It won't freeze until I put the 1.9 ghz up to 2.7 ghz (9.5 x 285), with stock fan and voltage. Now, this is fine and good, save the issue that nothing can properly tell me the temp of my processor. The Asus program claims it's 45C right out of the gate (leaving it off until it hits room temp and turning it on and checking the BIOS). Other programs claim it's icy when I can touch the heatsink and burn myself.

Long story short, I just clocked it at 2.2 and uninstalled all the reading programs. Either it's going to be fine, or it is going to melt down. I hate not really knowing. Guess it gets to sit, running Genetic Programs in a tiny black box in a hot room in Southern California. Hopefully it'll force a bunch of reboots if it's crazy off heat wise.

Heroes with evolutionarily feasible powers

Heroes--Zeroes 1 - The best bloopers are a click away

Odd fact of the day: Blood horoscopes

If you've ever thought it was downright silly to vaguely judge people by their month they were born and assign some kind of freak power on to that information. You should know that other countries judge other things as important. In Japan, they have blood horoscopes. Blood type is often highly advertised and thought to convey significant information about a person:

...those with type A blood tend to be reserved, punctual, and law-abiding, while type Os tend to be more outgoing, passionate, and driven; it is for this reason they are often considered "warrior" spirits. Type Bs are said to be loners and self-sufficient, as "hunters," while ABs are said to be serious and solitary by nature.

Apparently my B- blood makes me a hunter. As well as a good cook. At least blood type does actually have some significance in some aspect of a person's life unlike freak time a person is born. It seems like a very bad day for AB+ people as the blood bank is really low on supply and would have to give you any other type of blood.