OK, here’s one.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
OK, here’s one.
In the US, we have buffoons trying to stumble into the highest office in the land; in the UK, all the buffoons (the ones who were rah-rah for Brexit) seem to be frantically scrambling away to avoid becoming prime minister. Farage, Johnson, Gove, all making epic pratfalls in their desperate race to avoid being tagged “it”, and now Leadsom has bailed out. That leaves Theresa May holding the bag.
I have to wonder how awful May must be to want a job even the clowns want to shirk.
Of all the things Twitter needed to improve their service, allowing meaningless polls of your subset of readers wasn’t one of them. But there you go, you can create polls and get the biases of your readership expressed in cold, hard numbers that mean nothing at all.
Here’s an example.
Do you agree that Black Lives Matter #BLM is the new black version of the Klu Klux Klan? (Retweet)
— Let's take a poll (@ASatyanarayanan) July 11, 2016
Do you agree that Black Lives Matter #BLM is the new black version of the Klu Klux Klan?
80% Yes
20% No
(I think you’ll need to go to this link on Twitter.com and have a twitter account to vote.)
So here’s a guy who has a lot of racist friends, who has made an utterly stupid racist statement, and is asking all of his fucking racist buddies to validate it.
Thanks, Twitter.
But it’s all right, we all are. Zimmer has begun a series called Game of Genomes in which he has had his whole genome sequenced, and is being led by a group of scientists through the analysis. So far he’s made a good summary of the procedure, and a general overview of the state of his genome.
In my own genome, Gerstein and his colleagues discovered 13 genes in which both copies appear to be broken. I have another 42 genes in which only one copy looks like it’s defunct.
It may sound strange that my genome has dozens of broken genes that cause me no apparent harm. If it’s any consolation, I’m no freak. The 1000 Genomes Project revealed that everyone has a few dozen broken genes.
Our genomes are not finely engineered machines that can’t tolerate a single broken flywheel or gear shaft. They’re sloppy products of evolution that usually manage to work pretty well despite being riddled with mutations.
I’ve probably passed down some of my uniquely broken genes to my children. Perhaps, long in the future, one of those broken genes will become more common in humans, and end up in every member of our species. That’s certainly happened in the past. My genome catalog includes about 14,000 genes that have been broken for thousands or millions of years, known as pseudogenes. Once they lost the ability to make proteins, they simply became extra baggage carried down from one generation to the next. Thanks to a genetic roll of the dice, they ended up becoming common. Now these 14,000 pseudogenes are found in all humans today.
As you can tell, it’s a nicely written summary that doesn’t require a huge amount of scientific background to understand. Good stuff!
On the recommendation of Russell Glasser, I gave Hearthstone a whirl today. I was impressed — that is one slick piece of work. I had no idea what to do or how it worked, but it’s beautifully designed and led me through the gameplay entirely painlessly — and even with a fair bit of fun. I enjoyed it, but I don’t know that I’ll get addicted to it. I guess I’m just not into card games.
The other game I tried out today is the fad of the hour: Pokemon Go. I have never played Pokemon before; my kids were all into it on their gameboys, and they also played the card game, but I was a very bad dad and didn’t join in at all. So this thing was a complete mystery to me, and still is. Unlike Hearthstone, the explanations within the game are virtually nonexistent, and you have to just stumble around and try to figure out what the heck to do.
I finally figured out the first bit, and Mary and I went on a nice sweaty (it’s hot!) walk around the neighborhood and caught Pidgees and Weedles and a Bulbasaur and an Oddish and an Evee. Unfortunately, now I have no idea what to do with them, now that I’ve got them, because the game just assumes you’re a Pokemon pal already. If you’ve got any hints, let me know.
One nice thing is that they’re both free. I guess there’s stuff you can buy as you get further into them, but I’m so dang casual there’s probably not much risk of temptation.
It’s terrible that police officers were murdered in Dallas — that was an unforgivable act of inexcusable violence. But now the police are lashing out, and it’s going to make everything worse. DeRay McKesson was arrested in Baton Rouge: he was “flagged” as a troublemaker for his role as a spokesperson and as someone who was photographing events, and tackled and thrown into jail.
Police, I beg you: stop. You are doing yourselves no favors by denying the legitimacy of the protests, and any sympathy for the genuine difficulty of doing your job is going to evaporate if you continue to confirm a reputation for brutality.
Also, the visuals are going to simply demolish the case for a valuable service that “protects and serves”. You cannot win against this.
Jonathan Bachman
I have to ask, who arrived dressed for violence and rioting? Who stands both fearless and with dignity?
If you’re one of those people who argues that it’s the criminality of the citizenry that provokes police violence, that if only black people would stop committing crimes, they wouldn’t get shot, you might want to look at the data: there is no correlation between community violence and the violence of police responses.
While some have blamed violent crime for being responsible for police violence in some communities, data shows that high levels of violent crime in cities did not appear to make it any more or less likely for police departments to kill people.
Over the past several years, police departments in high-crime cities such as Detroit and Newark have consistently killed fewer people per population than police departments in cities with much lower crime rates such as Austin, Bakersfield, and Long Beach.
Rather than being determined by crime rates, police violence reflects a lack of accountability in the culture, policies, and practices of the institutions of policing, as investigations into some of the most violent police departments in America have shown. Campaign Zero, among other initiatives, seeks to directly address the policies and practices that contribute to police violence.
Here’s another report from a black policeman that explains a lot of what is going on.
On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.
Protesters shut down I94 for about 5 hours last night, in a peaceful protest. I’m sure a lot of people were inconvenienced. It probably made people late getting to movies and parties and dinner reservations. Drivers were probably cussing about having to take detours.
It was still better than getting pulled over and shot.
It’s good, though. This is how you get attention for an important cause, not by being meek and staying out of people’s way, but by standing up and making people aware that these things matter.
A guy named David Shakespeare has a complaint.
I wonder sometimes! I wonder why this website has ads that fill up the lower window of your webpage
To pay for the server, and give a few bucks to the writers, obviously. You might also notice that there’s a link up on the top left of the page that says GET FTB AD-FREE. You don’t get to complain about the ads when we have an option to support the network while ditching all the ads.
Also, I don’t particularly like the ads either.
that show huge breasts, busty celebs, and loaded sexual innuendo
Oh, really? I get ads that say Easiest Way to “Remove” Wrinkles
, 1 Fruit That “Destroys” Diabetes
, New 20/20 Vision Breakthrough Leaves Optometrists Speechless
, and Watch: Alzheimer’s Reversal “Cocktail” Changing Lives
. I think the ad company has noticed that I’m ancient and wizened. What is it inferring about you?
But here’s a hot tip: at the bottom right of that block of ads, there’s a little note that says “Paid content” with a question mark. If you click on that, you’ll get an option to show only “family-friendly” ads! Don’t say I never did nothin’ for you. You have the power to make those huge breasts transform into ads for wrinkle cream.
Actually, I blame you for the ads. Because David Shakespeare is not pulling his weight to support a site he clearly reads, we’ve got to run ads to keep the lights on. (It’s OK if you can’t afford or would rather not pay for a subscription…but then, you don’t get to complain that we have ads.)
—all this—all the while demonizing Richard Carrier
What “demonizing”? I rather regret that we couldn’t get to the bottom of those accusations — but he quit when all we’d done is start an inquiry.
for lude behavior via accusation!
We were not inquiring into lude
behavior. There were accusations of harassment. That’s serious, and we weren’t going to just pretend that nothing happened.
What’s the world coming too?! My goodness,
OK, Ward Cleaver, the disingenuousness is already getting old. Grow up.
and the double standard,
What double standard? No one here is opposed to sexual behavior. We’re concerned about sexual behavior without consent.
along with the ‘so-called’ contempt of Carrier over the accusers…
You’re not making any sense now. I also don’t have contempt
for Carrier, but quite like him personally, and respect his work…but if we’re getting concerns about problematic behavior, we’re not going to sweep it under the rug.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Double standards on both ends of this argument.
First, this was not a legal proceeding; nobody had dragged him into court. Secondly, we hadn’t assumed guilt at all — we were in the process of investigating some troubling accusations. If this were a court case (and it wasn’t), you’re arguing that you can’t even try someone with due process because that’s a violation of the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
Golly gee willikers, David Shakespeare! You’re a foolish little troll. Now fuck off.
I get a lot of snide, ignorant notes like this, all making the same complaints. I’m beginning to suspect there’s a troll factory somewhere that stamps stupid ideas into the heads of dull, unimaginative people.
Ken Ham took Bill Nye on a personal tour of his big ol’ fake boat, and they argued some. I think Ham came away with the idea that he won.
We’re glad Bill Nye took me up on my friendly offer to show him the Ark. During his visit I was able to personally share the gospel with him very clearly. On the first deck, I asked him, before a crowd of people including many young people, if I could pray with him and was able to pray for him there. Our prayer is that what he saw will have an impact on him and that he will be drawn to the gospel of Jesus Christ that is clearly presented at the Ark.
Many people have tried to share the gospel with me, as well, and it’s never been done clearly. It can’t be done clearly: have you ever read that Jesus story? It’s an incoherent mess, and makes no sense. Now maybe Ham performed a miracle and and explained it lucidly, but I rather doubt it: I’ve listened to him and his usual approach is to condescendingly talk down to people in that sing-song voice he uses when preaching to children.
I’d also tell Mr Ham that prayer doesn’t work, and that his whole pointless project is saying that we’re going to win, and he’s going to lose.
Look at this detail from a display in this photo: One world, two views
. I can tell already what theme he’s hammering on in the Ark Park, and it’s the same one he repeats over and over again in the Creation “Museum”. We’re all using the same evidence, he claims, and the only difference is in the interpretation, which in their case is informed by evidence the scientists reject, the literal testimony of the Bible.
It’s a lie. They ignore most of the evidence, and what they do let in they have to twist and distort to make it fit. We’re looking at a great big jigsaw puzzle, and we’ve assembled enough of it to get a general idea of what it illustrates — a very old Earth — and what Answers in Genesis loves to do is to grab a couple of random pieces, pound them together until they mash up, and then tell you that the Bible clearly explains that this mangled cardboard shows that the Earth is very young. It’s frustrating to listen to, and touring his “museum” is an exercise in chronic irritation, as every exhibit is a dishonest mess, all justified with that pathetic excuse of One world, two views
, and hey, this is just our opinion, and it’s just as valid as everyone else’s. Only it’s not. AiG doesn’t get to have their own facts.
But this is also their weakness, and how we’ll win, eventually. Their big, expensive projects are monuments to the fact that prayers and the Bible are not enough, and they know it. They desperately desire to have evidence on their side, to the point that they have to start inventing their own and misrepresenting the facts.
Bill Nye is not going to be persuaded by the fake Ark, because he knows what the actual evidence is, and seeing the place lying at every point is the opposite of persuasion — it’s active dissuasion to anyone knowledgeable at all. It’s a giant affirmation of ignorance, and so the ignorant will revel in it, while everyone else will be repelled.
This is why I’m not afraid to encourage scientists and atheists to visit: what needs to be done to correct its influence is informed discussion of its fundamental dishonesty. To do that, we need to witness it. But unless we fail to educate the public, this foolishness is ultimately doomed.
