Kookfight!

Abby has a classic battle of the kooks. In one corner, Leonard Horowitz, a raving looney who begins the debate with an official denunciation of Duesberg, speaking as the mouthpiece of god, arguing that HIV/AIDS is the designed product of evil militarists. In the other corner, the calmer, but still goofy, Peter Duesberg, who claims that the HIV virus cannot possibly cause AIDS. They don’t like each other, and Horowitz is particularly shrill.

And just to make it even more hilarious, the venue: this is from a recording of some New Age health nut radio program, and the commercials that intrude are for weird things like Himalayan Salt Lamps (They’re ionic! They’re natural!) and Health Magnets (the North Pole has special healing powers) and hemp as a dietary supplement (I’m sure it’s high in fiber).

It’s funny until you realize that there are people who actually believe this crap, then it becomes scary.

You need to see Horowitz’s introductory rant, which mds transcribed.

I, Dr Leonard Horowitz, respecting and representing thousands of scientists and physicians worldwide whose voices have been neglected and silenced, as a diplomatic officer for the World Organization for Natural Medicine, as a representative of God, knighted in the Sovereign Orthodox Order of Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem, as a Levitical priest in the bloodlines of Moses and Yeshua the Messiah, I do hereby indict you, Dr Peter Deusberg, for the deaths of millions of people worldwide, for your role in the creation of AIDS, as well as in the disinformation that sustains this, and related medical genocides. This official indictment condemns you for the mass killing and pharmaceutical enslaving of millions of people to AIDS, infectious cancers, and myriad immune pathologies, resulting from your and your collaborators’ manipulations, creations and disseminations of viruses, using genetic modifications and vaccinations, you conducted or abetted. You, along with your colleagues, including Dr Robert Gallo, prostituting virologists and molecular biologists, working for the National Cancer Institute, and paid by Litton Bionetics, a biological weapons contractor for the United States military, having advanced the special virus cancer program during the late 1960s, through the 1970s, are hereby held accountable for the people, and to God, for these crimes against humanity, resulting in this global tragedy of the pandemic now called AIDS, for other cancers, and other autoimmune illnesses that are now devastating populations. This indictment is served publicly and officially, with accompanying evidence of the official contracts, actions taken and payments made to you, published in the Special Virus Cancer Program Reports, that have been now made public during several investigations by many independent investigators. This official indictment, served as a humanitarian action, prays to the courts of Heaven and Earth that you will be punished to the fullest extent of the law, both man’s and God’s, and condemns you, for eternity, for the mass slaughter and enslavement of humanity to HIV/AIDS, and these other illnesses.

Try measuring that on the Hovind Scale.

A charming event in liberal California

Some people practice their own special brand of Christian tolerance.

In learning about Central Valley Cafe Scientifique, we stumbled upon a startling incident that may or may not reflect on the scientific climate in the Valley.

The cafe’s next speaker, Fresno State professor Dr. Ryan Earley, found his car tire punctured this week and with a nasty note on his windshield saying: “Fuck you Darwinist. Take your car to heaven.”

Which side in this argument believes in turning the other cheek again?

Indiana Jones open thread

You all know how the Indiana Jones movies are written, don’t you? Let me recreate for you the day Steven Spielberg sat down with his head writer to put together the outline of what would be the fourth installment in the franchise.

Spielberg: Guys, here it is: the secret formula for a successful Indiana Jones movie. [Spielberg waves a tattered 3×5 index card around] Take this, and let’s get to work.

Writer: Steve…this is just a scribbled sentence with some blanks.

Spielberg: Right. Haven’t you ever played Mad Libs?

Writer: OK, but don’t you kind of have this memorized? Why go through the motions?

Spielberg: I’ve forgotten everything on that card, so don’t worry, it’ll be new and fresh. Hollywood does this to you after a while—first it sucks the creativity out of you, then the memory goes, and you become a creature of short-term instinct. Go ahead, ask me questions to fill in the blanks, and we’ll get this picture started!

Writer: Umm, name a “villainous group”.

Spielberg: Easy. Naz…no, wait. I think we did that one. Let’s see, uh, Communists. Yeah, we’re already thinking out of the box!

Writer: Good one, sir. It reminds me of the second Indy movie, when you made the bad guys a mostly forgotten and entirely neglected Indian religious cult. That one surprised everyone with its freshness.

Spielberg: Right! We’re on a roll! Next!

Writer: Name a “famous historical artifact”.

Spielberg: This is always the hard part for a shark-like mind with no long term memory. Hmmmm. OK, Crystal skull.

Writer: “Crystal skull”? What’s that? I’ve never heard of it.

Spielberg: I think I saw something about it on late night cable. It sounds cool, anyway, and it’ll look eerie on film.

Writer: But it does say “famous historical artifact” here…

Spielberg: I‘ve heard of it, so it must be famous. Besides, I bet you never heard of sankara stones before, either, and we made them famous. Now everyone talks about them.

Writer: Oh, right. That second movie again. We really are treading in the footsteps of greatness, this movie is going to be fabulous. OK, last one: name a “dangerous power”.

Spielberg: Yeah, let me think. This is getting hard, I’m just about burnt out here. Are you getting hungry? No? I think I need a little nosh, let me call out for something.

Spielberg [to his office intercom]: Carol, get me a quick bite. An arugala salad, I think. Yeah, that’s what I said. Write it down. You heard me, write it down, an arugala [writer starts scribbling]. Thanks.

Spielberg: Now where were we?

Writer: We’re done! It’s going to be a blockbuster!

Spielberg: Read it back to me.

Writer: “Indiana Jones must race evil COMMUNISTS to acquire the fabulous CRYSTAL SKULL before they can use its power of ARUGALA to rule the world!”

Spielberg: Wow. We have outdone ourselves. I want to see this movie already.

Writer: We’ll be packing ’em in. I’ll just plug in some of the usual plot devices and flesh it out in the script a little bit.

Spielberg: Yeah. But you know, that last bit might be a little…weak…

Writer: Now that you mention it…

[Spielberg and Writer stare at 3×5 card for several seconds, brows knit in thought.]

Spielberg: Aww, screw it. Don’t worry about what the crystal skull does, or why anyone would want it. We’ll just go with the flow.

Writer: Second movie?

Spielberg: You got it. We made that whole damn thing, concocted an all powerful religious cult using thousands of child slaves, all in order to acquire magic rocks that had the power to set leather handbags on fire. And nobody cared! Any MacGuffin will do if you’ve got Harrison Ford.

Writer: Right. I’ll get you 200 pages by, say, tomorrow noon?

Spielberg: Great. Oh, and remember to stick in a couple of scenes with insects crawling all over people. And show Indy with some human weakness with a snake scene. And, oh yeah, that face-melty thing in the first movie was really popular — could we have someone’s eyeballs burst into flame?

Writer: Love it, boss.

I think you can guess…I was a little disappointed. Ford was great, I think he’s become a real icon of the swashbuckling hero genre, and I enjoyed his performance. The movie kept things moving with lots of action, but ultimately, it was the writing or the lack thereof that crippled the movie. There was no point to all the frenzied scurrying, and the ending was a mess, a great big gooey splort of special effects with no relationship to anything else that preceded it.

All right, everyone else who saw it can have at it in the comments. Be warned, everyone: spoilers may emerge herein. Click through only if you are prepared to be disillusioned, if you aren’t already.

It’s going to be 22 May in a few hours

And you all know what that means…the premiere of the new Indiana Jones movie. It’s opening here in Morris at 12:01 am, and Skatje and I will be there…and since it is Morris, the line will be negligible, and we’ll get the best seats in the house, and we’ll have a grand time.

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. It’s so reassuring to know that even an old geezer can be an action hero.

Who else is mobbing the theater tonight?

BAD radio reminder

Our local evangelical radio station is about to dump a load of tripe on the Twin Cities. I’m going to be tied up in domestic duties for a while, but if anyone else wants to tune in to KKMS (short for Khristian Krap for Mendacious Scoundrels) in about a half hour, here’s the drivel you’ll get to hear:

5:00 Hour – “Understanding the Science of Creation”

Dick Fischer, Founder and President of the Genesis Proclaimed Association joins us to explain some of the scientific facts that support the creation story found in the book of Genesis.

I’m going to try to catch some of it, but 5-6 is family time today. It’s gotta be ripe, though.

Heh. I caught the first bit — this is turning out to be amusing. The guest started out by completely surrendering science to the scientists, saying that he had no problem with an old earth, and that he wasn’t going to argue with evolution. He’s still a loon, though: he claims that the book of Genesis is historically accurate in a literal sense. The DJs sound nonplussed, since he’s one of them, a biblical literalist, but he’s arguing for a different literal interpretation of the Bible.

You can practically hear the sizzle as their brains melt.

Do we care about Expelled anymore?

Apparently, a New York judge has upheld the injunction against the movie, so there will be no new showings, and DVD rights are in limbo.

The movie is dead anyway, so it doesn’t seem to be a significant decision. It’s not as if theater distributors are lined up clamoring for more copies of this stinker. Although, to be honest, I would like the rights cleared up, because the only way I’m ever going to see it is if I can rent the DVD from my local store.

Another reason to wear underwear at all times

Uh-oh. The creationist expectation of an abrupt transformation from one species to another has been demonstrated: the picture below is of a chicken egg that was cracked open to make a meal, and inside … a dead gecko. A bird giving birth to a reptile?

i-8966009833c1f2a32e4e535a7c618c5d-gecko_egg.jpg

Actually, no, sorry. A chicken giving birth to a lizard is the kind of thing creationists imagine that evolution predicts, but which would actually surprise and disturb scientists if it happened — we’d have to rethink a lot of genetics if a solid instance were documented.

In this case, there’s an alternative, if rather disgusting, explanation. The poor mother hen had a gecko crawl up her cloaca (probably in a pushy attempt to sell her insurance), die somewhere in the oviducts, and then got incorporated into the egg before the shell was laid down. The deposition of a calcium-containing shell is one of the last steps in egg production, so it’s possible…it would just take a very persistent suicidal gecko, or one that was profoundly lost.

Don’t tell Geoffrey Simmons — he’s been on a credulity junket lately, crowing about every functional adaptation, including the egg, as proof of purposeful design. I don’t know about you, but a system that muddles excretion with reproduction and that allows random lizards to crawl up your butt and squat in your oviduct doesn’t sound like great engineering to me.

Birth pangs of a police state

Minneapolis is hosting the Republican National Convention this summer, and that means we’re seeing an uptick in sleaze (you might want to avoid public restrooms when these guys are in town). The most bizarre part of it all is that the FBI is looking for villains in all the wrong places.

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant–someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

Vegan potlucks now fall within the definition of a terrorist cell, as defined by the US Attorney General? What are they going to do, threaten a mass assault by kumbaya-singing hordes in birkenstocks armed with lumps of tofu?

This is not about protecting citizens. It’s about silencing the expression of dissent, no matter how mild.

Happy Birthday, Laura King!

A few months ago, Laura King was riding a bus in Argentina with some nerd named Jeff Buckley, and they started talking about some weirdly amusing little blog called “Pharyngula”, which led to a long discussion of evolution, which led to a relationship*, which led to her now-boyfriend asking me to send her birthday greetings over the internet while she’s spending her special day working at a field station.

So…Happy Birthday, Laura King! May your every year make you smarter and wiser, and may you continue to contribute to human knowledge.

This brings back memories. Growing up in the Puget Sound area, every morning before school we would watch the local television clown, JP Patches, who would do jokes and skits and introduce cartoons. Every show would end with JP reading off the list of boys and girls who were having birthdays that day. I have become that noble clown now — it’s a good day for me.

*I hope. If I’m enabling some creepy internet stalker, I’ll feel awkward, for sure.