Catching Up on the Non-Prophets Radio Show... Irony Alert.

So I'm up to Season 5, Episode 3. From Feb. 2006. "It's described: Jeff discusses Richard Dawkins' television documentary "The Root of All Evil". And Catholics are building Ave Maria, their own creepy theocratic town in the Twilight Zone -- er, that is, Florida. Much, much more!"

"Root of All Evil. I watched it on this small slow site called youtube 'Y-O-U-T-U-B-E Dot Com' it had this guy Ted Haggard on it. He's creepy." -- Wow, it's funny some times to catch the time warp.


The episode prior to the Kitzmiller verdict was classic too.

Ego Surfing Gone Bad.

Ego surfing is where you enter your username into Google and see what it turns up. The main reason I go by Tatarize rather than Tat is because it Tat is too common (only really good for high score tables) and the thrill of palindromes is overruled by the ability to find all references to yourself on the internet.

Today, I needed a link to a picture of myself and decided to just send a couple hyperlinks.

Well, I did a Google Image Search for Tatarize.

Wow. First image was a bit of a shock.

In case anybody cares, the guy who runs that site is crazy and goes by Dr. Curry and refers to himself in the third person. He works at a community college and has a law degree. His absolutely obsessed with the Pledge of Allegiance and swears it's socialism come to take over America. And not just socialism but Nazi socialism... which isn't even socialism at all. He swears that the swastika is setup to have the center part resemble the 'S' in socialism and resemble the 'S' in Hitler's signature. The fact that Adolph Hitler doesn't have an 'S' in it, impressed nothing on to this. Proper tellings of history don't phase him either. The arm extended is a Roman salute. He even wrote a brief in Newdow's Pledge Case.

2006-06-13 Amicus Brief of Rex Curry filed. [71K]

In any event, I engaged him as I engaged all crazy people for sport. And well he posted of his glorious victory against me on his web page.

Just freaky.

God Snot, teetering on the edge, switches to Obama.

Well, now that John Edwards has dropped out of the race, I'm supporting Obama without the nagging feeling of betrayal. I, like many people, was torn between Obama and Edwards. Initially I supported Edwards because he spoke to a lot of the core values I endorse. He wanted to get rid of the lobbyists and reform those things you can't reform because of the lobbyists and also because he was white. Not that there's anything wrong with race, but I was worried that racists would keep Obama down. A good section of this country is downright unacceptably hatefilled and I thought this race was too important to avoid the same charismatic, southern, Christian, white, male mold that has served this country well since the founding fathers stopped getting elected (mostly deist). However, I was ready to jump ship after South Carolina. Specifically for the reason I didn't want Clinton. I think the Hillary Clinton lacks coattails. There's honestly close to two decades of built in hate. And even people who stand no chance of voting this their state blue (electoral votes are such that if you live in Illinois or California, there's basically no point voting; you should always vote). However if they drive out to vote against Hillary, a number of other pivotal candidates will lose. There are opportunities to make large strides in the Senate and some strides in the House but mostly if democratic voters vote and to an extent if Republicans don't (addendum: if you're a Republican go ahead and ignore the always vote advice). Well, Obama drove out so many voters in SC and young voters in Iowa that I was tempted to switch based on the fact that he could win in a landslide and drive a vast number of voters to the polls who might not have gone otherwise the the voting booths as Democrats.

With Edwards out of the race. Obama has it pretty well sewed up. That and the coattails issue. I have a choice now between negative coattails and positive coattails. Also Hillary is pretty right wing. Her position against video games may put her heavily loved by mothers, but not so heavily on the other side of me. Also, I view her as an establishment figure.

I was ready to jump ship and now I will. I hope Obama will choose Edwards as VP. Hillary could be secretary of state, Dean the surgeon general. It could be one happy family. And we could replace everybody incompetent with competent people. Ah, competence!

The Sarah Connor Chronicles rocks.

I just thought that if you were living under a rock or something, and saw some passing stuff for it. I highly recommend you watch it. It's one of the best scifi series to come around for a long time. It also has Summer Glau, and to steal a joke from Kazim's Korner (which also recommends it) it's roughly akin to the XKCD suggestion of River Tam Beats Up Everybody.

Wow, you have a small penis and a small brain.

My brother in law had a great idea. Let's steal their great idea and sell sugar pills pretending to make your penis larger. Apparently you need to be far more evil than to do that than the plan originally seemed to require.

According to Enzyte's former VP it's a lot more to it than that.

When customers ordered a product, the company's goal was to keep charging their credit cards for as long as possible, Teegarden said.

He said first-time customers were automatically enrolled in a "continuity program" that sent Enzyte to their homes every month and charged their credit cards without authorization.

"Without continuity, the company wouldn't exist," Teegarden said. "It was the sole profit of the business."

If customers complained, he said, employees were instructed to "make it as difficult as possible" for them to get their money back. In some cases, Teegarden said, Warshak required customers to produce a notarized statement from a doctor certifying Enzyte did not work.

"He said it was extremely unlikely someone would get anything notarized saying they had a small penis," Teegarden said.

Ouch dude. That's cold. The AOL you with the no cancel, then make you ask for a proof you have a tiny penis.

I guess there's more to the science of tiny penis pill selling than claiming it's twice as effective as their sugar pill.

If I was stuck on a dinky liferaft...

If I were stuck on a dinky life-raft, which met this other life raft with another person and an injured guy. I wouldn't eventually just untie the other life raft (now taking on water) go even if the injured guy gave me his blessing. I'd drag him into my boat whether it hurt him or not.

This may seem exceedingly moral, and I certainly wouldn't tip my hand in that regard. If a rack of lamb wanted to float away I wouldn't let that happen either.

LDS leader has died. Next oldest guy takes power.

You pretty much move to the leader spot of the LDS by being the oldest person there. Now, there's another opening as Gordon B. Hinckley had died.

Yeah, you don't care. Neither do I.

Incompetent Design to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic

Update: Battle Hymn of the Republic, Project Gutenberg. The MP3 audio is good.

281 Tricks to Irritate an Atheist.

http://onclepsycho.canalblog.com/archives/2004/06/05/35086.html?

2) Tell them that if there's no God, they might as well go out and kill people.

5) Insist that there is a God, and show them where in the Bible it says so.

8) Make up statistics.

12) Use multiple versions of Pascal's Wager as though you thought them up yourself.

14) Post inane arguments on the Internet, and never follow up on them.

15) Say that seperation of church and state isn't in the Constitution; insist that the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments.

19) Point out that we all take things on faith.

21) After losing the argument say, "I pity you."

29) When given a Bible verse that looks bad, tell him that's what the verse says, but that's not what it means.

30) Argue that the Bible stories are not myths . . . they're parables. And they're all true!

37) Explain that the lack of proof doesn't mean it didn't happen.

44) Accuse him of being an agnostic, since he isn't 100% positive that God does not exist.

58) Insist that faith is the only logical answer.

59) No matter what he quotes from the Bible, say that it's out of context.

83) Quote Psalm 14:1 to him.
99) State that Christianity has done a lot of good along with all the mass murder.

124) Say that evolution is not proven -- therefore the Bible is correct.

125) Tell him it's his responsibility to prove that God doesn't exist.

143) Show that the Bible must be true because when you take the original Hebrew letters, spread them out and twist them around, you can spell words.

155) Use the word "presupposition" incorrectly, repeatedly.

173) Tell him that everyone has faith in SOMETHING.

219) PUT ALL ARGUMENTS IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU'RE YELLING AND SCREAMING!

223) Avoid taxes and regulations because you're doing God's work.

244) Grossly misunderstand the word "theory."

256) Ask if he's ever heard of Jesus Christ.

280) When he shows up at your wedding, bearing an expensive gift for you, return the favor by sicing your minister on him after the ceremony.

281) If he has cancer, tell him with a sickeningly sweet smile that you will pray for his recovery, because someone needs to.

281) When ending your conversation with the atheist, promise to read whatever book the atheist may have mentioned, knowing darned well that you yourself never made it through Leviticus.

2008 Election Guide.

2008 election guide.
(via grrlscientist)

Stop the Utah Land Grab... evil terrorists and ultraliberals want Utah preserved!

Honestly the weirdest site I've seen for a while.
Stop The Land Grab in Utah

Would These Terrorist-Supporting Dictators Vote For This Land Grab?

Almost certainly. Why? Because this land grab would hurt America's ability to produce American energy. That means we will have to buy more foreign energy. And that means that these monsters will get more of our energy dollars to fund terrorism against America.

And with a name like Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance you'd think they'd want somebody to strip mine Utah.

I've been to Utah, it's actually mindblowingly beautiful. I'm astounded most of it isn't already part of the national parks system.

I'm too sexy for my brain.

So oddly enough another debate on Debate.com I managed to stump some creationist by posting a well documented easy explanation of evolution with a number of topical notes as to how exactly it all goes together. Explaining why there are marsupials Australia. He apparently tried for a bit and ended up posting several questions to me. You know, you see the same arguments being cut and pasted so many times you neglect to realize that there is a real person who really believes those arguments doing the cutting and pasting... and he's really stupid.

--"first were did the orginal orginism come from?"

I don't know. We have some generally good ideas as to some of the steps involved. There are easily generated organic molecules, fantastic catalysts, tiny easily produced replicative molecules, strong evidence that DNA even at very short lengths is fairly crystalline (crystals have a simple replication). Outside of these good suggestions we just don't know; I don't know.

--"how do you figure in the great flood?"

I don't. The great flood is a myth. There's no evidence geologically, biologically, historically, plausibly that it occurred. There was a time when geologists actually believed it, but a preponderance of the evidence made even the most ardent of finally admit that there should be some evidence and clearly was not. For example, we have societies which show continuous existence during the time of this supposed flood. The oldest living thing on the planet is a Creosote bush in the Mojave desert 11,700 (5,700 years older than the universe) years old. Further, we have uninterrupted tree ring records from all over the world going back about 11,000 years. Further, floods leave a very distinctive mark in the rocks. Just as we can tell that some globally bad thing happened by looking at rocks 64 million years ago from anywhere on the Earth, a local flood would leave a similar mark on our geology.

-- "how do you figure that this earth of ours just came about by chance with all the thins that had to be so perfect for us to live?"

If the Earth didn't exist in such a fashion to allow life to arise it would be impossible to be here and ask that question. There are 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000 stars in the universe. Probably a good number of planets around those stars. The fact that life arose on a planet which life could arise on is of very little mystery. Also, to say that the planet is perfect for us is a bit like saying my hand is perfect for a glove. We evolved on this planet and so we are well adapted to the changing conditions. Further, our species is unique in that we adapt not only to our environment but have adapted our environment to us. You'll find humans in the eastern part of the US living happily even though that part of the country is pretty frozen.

--"why are we the most advanced species?"

We aren't. Evolution doesn't work that way. It isn't a race to some advantageous goal it's a bootstrapping little edges to drive a population. There are far fewer organisms existing than could exist, if you look at the breeding patterns of any organisms from bacteria, to rabbits, to insects, to humans you find that within a short number of years it should be possible to coat the planet. However, there's a struggle for resources and different members of different species fight for their own advantages. Sometimes small genetic tweaks will cause an organism to be slightly better or worse in this struggle. The worse organisms are quickly driven extinct whereas the slightly better organisms will use this edge in their struggle to survive passing on this improved genetic characteristic to more offspring and becoming a major factor in the species. This doesn't say anything about a species being the most advanced or the best. Every species is as well adapted within their struggle to survive as humans are adapted within our struggle to survive. There's nothing inherently superior about humans over rabbits, over grass, or birds. We are just as adapted towards our survival as they are towards theirs. There isn't a goal in evolution so the suggestion that we are closer to that goal than lions is a rather misguided idea. Lions are adapted to their struggle and we are adapted to ours. Generally organisms occupy different niches so it's a lot like apples and oranges... apples are adapted to their niche and oranges to theirs.

-- "why dosnt all mothers have 14 arms? (because they would notice the need for another arm and that magic process would go into effect.)

Evolution is not a magical process. It's a gradual process. If you could gradually require the addition of an arm from a fairly pointless arm stub to a fully functional arm you could evolve one. However, our general body plan is the same as all vertebrates fish had two front fins and two hind fins so now all species originally evolved from fish have this same general plan and gradual modifications (a major change is nearly impossible to occur and be helpful to an organism). Slow gradual change, tweaks which give slight edges to organism in their struggle within their species.

He moved on to the topic of the Big Bang.

The scientific evidence does lead one to accept that the universe began 14 billion years ago from an original point. I highly recommend Richard Carrier's piece on why he was a Big Bang Skeptic and the scientific evidence behind it explaining why he accepts the theory now.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbangredux.html

-- "if that tiny ball of matter was so hot wouldn't it purge it of all living organisms?"

It's worse that that, it wouldn't have been able to become matter for a while. It would have been impossible to have any complex structures at all. However, the Big Bang does not contain living organisms. Those come far later. The universe is 14 billion years old. Our planet is 4.55 billion years old, our sun is a little older than that (few hundred million years or so). However life didn't come on to the scene until about 2 billion years ago. So as far as we can tell the entire universe was lifeless for 12 billion years. Complex life has only been around for about .6 billion, and we've been around for about .001 billion years (high estimate 100,000).

--"if not why do we get sun burns?"

Sun burns are actually burns. The UV rays of the sun actually damage the our skin. Life in the struggle for survival has developed slow gradual tweaks which allow for protection from the sun to reduce the damage to our skins from over-exposure to sun light. However, where light is less abundant (such as northern Europe), lighter skin evolved as a little tweak to increase the production of Vitamin D. Vitamin D is an extremely useful molecule for our development and is produced when UV light hits our skin. So the previous adaptations of increased melanin to protect the skin from the light were not as advantageous in northern environments. So when the gene used for melanin transport in the skin would break (as tends to happen here and there) it became one of those edges in struggle for survival in the northern environment allowing people to produce more Vitamin D. Because of the reduced sun effects the necessity of protection from sun burn was lessened. However, when you move people adapted for dimmer climates (adapted towards Vitamin D production rather than UV protection) into more sun rich climates they aren't as well as adapted as their darker skins cousins resulting in sun burns.

It's similar to Kettlewell's peppered moths experiments where the lighter colored moths were better adapted to one environment (lighter color trees) and darker colored moths were better adapted to another (darker color trees). Slight adaptations to slightly different environments. If you put the lighter color moth on a darker color tree it has a noticeable disadvantage. In the moth's case it's increased predation by great tits in the case of humans it's sunburns.

Putin's a Christian. *dance*

Putin is a Christian. So when he does what he's going to do... we don't get blamed okay.

Who I am kidding, if he does bad he's an atheist... good he'll be a Christian. So the future baseless argument not only is wrong about atheism being a motive or Putin being an atheist.

Dana Jacobson: In Vino Veritas

During a comedy roast apparently Dana Jacobson said some comical roasting things involving Jesus.

She is reported to have drunkenly (alleged) said, "fuck Notre dame" and "fuck touchdown Jesus" and "fuck Jesus" before she was hustled off stage.

And was suspended for a week by ESPN (she's a sports something or other).


Mark comments,

Jesus Christ emphasized "turning the other cheek", loving your enemies and forgiving those who offend you. Piggish sluts like Dana Jacobson and Kathy Griffin are aware of this; therefore, it must give them a sense of power when they open their big garbage can mouths to defame Christianity. If they had made a similar comment about Allah or Mohammed they might have receive a few death threats by now.

It just warms my little heart to see people turning the other cheek.


Southern Baptist notes:

This woman's words were far more offensive then what Imus said and she should be fired AND charged with a 'hate crime'

Apparently nobody has informed him that a hate crime is typically a crime with a hate component. Not crime. Not hate. She was apparently poking fun at Notre Dame for invoking Jesus all the time.

The comments run the gamut from "she should be fire" and "this way way worse than Imus (Nappy-headed hoes) or Kelly Tilghman (Tiger Woods could be stopped with a back alley lynching).


Although there are some bright spots, Justin notes:

Way to go, Dana! You have plenty of supporters. Say what you want. Especially about crazy mythological beings.

Is the America or what?

Apparently people think that "Fuck Jesus" is a hate crime or even slightly parallels suggestions of back alley lynchings.

Fuck Jesus.

Jesus Loves the Little Zygotes

Jesus loves the little zygotes
All the zygotes in the world
Jesus gives them birth defects
Missing fingers, crooked necks
Jesus loves the little zygotes of the world

[Frank Zindler]

The Emperors New Clothes

Did anybody ever notice that in the Emperors New Clothes that if the Emperor had wanted to turn down the cloths, he could have just done so on the grounds of not wanting incompetent people to see him naked?

Also, in the Boy Who Cried Wolf, shouldn't the towns people be blamed. They put a kid in charge in whom they had no confidence. What's the point of the guard if he actually sees a wolf you won't believe him?

*shrug*

The Monty Hall Riddle and Atheism

The Monty Hall Riddle riddle is presented by Wikipedia thusly,

A thoroughly honest game-show host has placed a car behind one of three doors. There is a goat behind each of the other doors. You have no prior knowledge that allows you to distinguish among the doors. "First you point toward a door," he says. "Then I'll open one of the other doors to reveal a goat. After I've shown you the goat, you make your final choice whether to stick with your initial choice of doors, or to switch to the remaining door. You win whatever is behind the door." You begin by pointing to door number 1. The host shows you that door number 3 has a goat.

Do the player's chances of getting the car increase by switching to Door 2?

The problem as generally intended also assumes that the particular door the host opens conveys no special information about whether the player's initial choice is correct. The simplest way to make this explicit is to add a constraint that the host will open one of the remaining two doors randomly if the player initially picked the car.

The solution is counterintuitive but clearly correct.

Once the host has opened a door, the car must be behind one of the two remaining doors. The player has no way to know which of these doors is the winning door, leading many people to assume that each door has an equal probability and to conclude that switching does not matter (Mueser and Granberg, 1999). This "equal probability" assumption, while being intuitively seductive, is incorrect. The player's chances of winning the car actually double by switching to the door the host offers.

The chance of initially choosing the car is one in three, which is the chance of winning the car by sticking with this choice. By contrast, the chance of initially choosing a door with a goat is two in three, and a player originally choosing a door with a goat wins by switching. In both cases the host must reveal a goat. In the 2/3 case where the player initially chooses a goat, the host must reveal the other goat making the only remaining door the one with the car.

What does this oddly quirky and counterintuitive problem have to do with atheism?

Picture a thousand doors, one door for each religion as well as atheism (not strictly a religion or strictly excluding religions).

Let's suggest you choose one of these doors on some criteria, for example, your parents chose this same door. Having chosen this door, you can clearly see that the majority of remaining doors contain no prize. You can see the logical and obvious wrongness of many of these remaining doors. You are able to view them with a skeptical eye and reject them for being as absurd (as they clearly are).

Now, if the odds of each door having the prize is taken to be absolutely random. What are the odds that the initial door was the correct door?
-- 1/1000.

Now, you realize that these other doors can't have the prize. Your choices of doors has been reduced to your initial door and atheism. Either your choice has the prize or it doesn't. So what are the odds now? Two doors remain: your religion and atheism. What are the odds that your religion is the correct religion?
-- *STILL* 1/1000.
---- and the odds of atheism is now 999/1000.

The odds seem equal because you are left with two choices and all door were initially equal chances. The odds that you were right initially is 1/1000 and the odds that you were wrong were 999/1000. A critical eye, able to see the wrongness of the other religious doors, doesn't change the 999/1000 odds that you were wrong. Rather those odds are divided up between the remaining one door of atheism.

Had you chosen any other door, you would have quickly been able to dismiss the other religions, just as you are dismissing most of them now. However, the possibility that you should dismiss them all is still available.

Your newly found critical eye for other people's religion does not increase the chance that you are right. The fact that Islam is wrong because you're Christian or Baptists are wrong because you're Methodist does not increase the chances that you are right. Your chance of guessing right is the same before you dismissed other religions as it is after you dismiss them. The possibility that you were wrong is the same before you dismissed the other religions as before you dismiss them. However, that possibility is now divided by the only possibility left: they are all wrong (atheism).

If you take a look at a religionist similarly born into another door-choice using his critical eye on your religion while you are use your critical eye on his religion. You know that his door contains no prize and he is simply wasting his life. Why doesn't he switch over to your door?
-- He doesn't switch because your door is just as absurd as his door.

Now, given the choice do you switch doors?


There is certainly a Pascal's Wager objection here. Even with only a 1/1000 chance, you could make up skewed prizes. If the prize is behind atheism is only that getting to live your own life, happy and content with love, satisfaction, and joy until you die. You could say that your door has the prize: eternal bliss and infinite life.

Further, your door is quite certain that anybody who picks that any other door is going to get tortured forever. Now that poor co-religionist standing next to a clearly bogus door is really making a critical mistake! Honestly, he's going to get tortured forever and his religion is bogus. He really should switch to your door! Why doesn't he?
-- He's thinking the same thing.

Why don't atheists come over to your door?
-- Because, your door has no prize! The only thing that's even possible is living your own life, happy and content with love, satisfaction, and joy until you die.

Why don't people change to your religion? For the same reason you don't change to their religion... there's no prize there!

Sure, your door has some pretty awful threats for the unfaithful, who lack fidelity, the infidels: but that doesn't mean that your door is the correct door.

The fact that there are so many mutually exclusive religions actually increases the chance that atheism is correct. The fact that all those other religious people adhere to wrong religions doesn't increase the chances that your religion is correct.

It isn't an equal choice between your religion and no religion. The choice is slim to none that your religion is the correct religion and you would be well advised to use that critical eye on your own religion.

If you realize the real reason why you reject other people's religions, you will realize the reason I reject yours. As the saying goes, "they can't all be true, but they can all be false."

Brick Testament: Proving God is evil in Legos.

The last CotG had an entry about a loss of faith in faith when the individual in question (skullsinthestars) encountered Deut. 29:19-21 in Lego form.

It's quite funny... the reasonableness of the first frame and then the bad-guy Yahweh the following frames.

According to the content notice: " The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children." -- Praytell how does one morally object to anything in the Bible. I thought that's where I morals came from?

4 kingdoms...

Some biologists have apparently started to use genomics to redefine the kingdom systems into things which actually are related and not just dump the groups off into a big pile if it doesn't quite make sense. The result is four kingdoms...

Plants
Opisthokonts
Excavates
SAR

Where do we fit in you might ask... we don't. There are eukaryotic, bacteria, and monkeys. We're monkeys.

Okay, we're actually Opisthokonts related to the amoebas and fungi all animals are subgrouped in here. So you're a monkey and an opisthokont.

Why does Obama get to declare delegate victory in Nevada but not in NH?

Final NH breakdown:

* Hillary Clinton has won 9 New Hampshire delegates (3 statewide, 6 district-level)

* Barack Obama has won 9 New Hampshire delegates (3 statewide, 6 district-level)

* John Edwards has won 4 New Hampshire delegates (2 statewide, 2 district-level)

* 22 Democratic delegates were at stake in the New Hampshire primary

* There are also 8 Democratic “superdelegates” in New Hampshire. Of those, 2 support Clinton and 3 support Obama, according to a CNN survey.

That looks remarkably like Obama gets 9 delegates vs 9 delegates and 3 superdelegates vs 2. So Obama gets 12 to Hillary's 11?

Silly system.