What to expect when you hire a Goon Squad

One of the many disgraceful acts of brigandage our country committed in Iraq was the hiring of mercenary thugs through a company called Blackwater. Unwilling to risk the political fallout from openly discussing and recruiting the number of soldiers necessary to actually carry out their grand plans for invading another country, the previous administration instead threw buckets of money at Halliburton-KBR and outsourced the military to profit-seeking, murderous killers-for-hire who did more to harm than help the war effort. As we ought to have expected, the Blackwater unsavoriness is getting even uglier.

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

These bastards fit right in with the Bush administration, didn’t they? These monsters need to be shut down now, and I hope the Obama administration has the steel to do it.

Briefed on the substance of these allegations by The Nation, Congressman Dennis Kucinich replied, “If these allegations are true, Blackwater has been a criminal enterprise defrauding taxpayers and murdering innocent civilians.” Kucinich is on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and has been investigating Prince and Blackwater since 2004.

“Blackwater is a law unto itself, both internationally and domestically. The question is why they operated with impunity. In addition to Blackwater, we should be questioning their patrons in the previous administration who funded and employed this organization. Blackwater wouldn’t exist without federal patronage; these allegations should be thoroughly investigated,” Kucinich said.

Gene regulatory networks and conserved noncoding elements

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We miss something important when we just look at the genome as a string of nucleotides with scattered bits that will get translated into proteins — we miss the fact that the genome is a dynamically modified and expressed sequence, with patterns of activity in the living cell that are not readily discerned in a simple series of As, Ts, Gs, and Cs. What we can’t see very well are gene regulatory networks (GRNs), the interlinked sets of genes that are regulated in a coordinated fashion in cells and tissues.

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Graduating from shark-jumping to professional synchronized shark wrestling

The birthers are getting even more insane. They’ve trotted out a faked Kenyan birth certificate for Obama, which was predictable and stupid; their media representative, Orly Taitz, had a public meltdown (and seriously, you know you’ve got credibility problems when your media face is a lunatic like Taitz); and now, best and looniest of all, they’re going ape over an exercise in dubious etymology, in which some kook claims the Bible gives the name of the anti-Christ, or Satan: Baraq Ubamah. No, it doesn’t actually say that, but if you pick one phrase that was written in Greek and use a Hebrew or Aramaic dictionary to translate individual words, you might be able to pretend that Jesus said that was Satan’s name.

I cannot believe anyone takes these wackaloons seriously.

Anyway, MarkChu-Carroll takes a flamethrower to the abuse of Hebrew, and determines that if we play the same sort of game with his name, he must be the anti-christ. Well, maybe—but I think that we can resolve which one must be the True Anti-Christ with one simple question: which one did PZ Myers vote for in the last election?

Oh, no, not the Aquatic Ape hypothesis!

I’m getting a lot of email asking me to talk about the aquatic ape theory, the idea that humans went through a semi-aquatic stage in their evolutionary history. It’s complete nonsense; its proponents spew out a lot of inconsistent and mutually contradictory noise to ‘support’ their claims, and there is no evidence anywhere for such a stage. I don’t need to say more, though, because Jim Moore’s Aquatic Ape page is the definitive web resource for dissecting this fringe theory.

Is it really that hard to understand?

Once again, we’ve got an anti-atheist claiming that the opposition to the nomination of Francis Collins to head the NIH is built entirely on the fact that he is a Christian. It’s nuts. We spell it out clearly, over and over again, and these people seem incapable of comprehending a basic fact.

Every single one of us that has come forward to voice our unhappiness with the nomination has given an argument that is not based on the simple private fact that a nominee prays or goes to church. Such a position would be insane and impractical; we live in a country that is at least 80% Christian, and there is a bias to preferentially select nominees for public positions who are at least nominally religious. If we really felt that being a Christian meant you shouldn’t work in government, we’d be raging constantly at every public office in the country.

Do you see that happening? No. We aren’t interested in what public officials do in their free time. They can have whatever legal hobby they want, they can favor whatever private rituals they want, they can associate with any non-dangerous group on their weekends that they want, whether it’s going to church or gathering to watch football.

So what’s different about Collins? He doesn’t keep it to himself. He is openly and avidly evangelical, brags about adding religious messages to NHGRI announcements, and recently built a high-profile website that promotes evangelical Christianity. I don’t mind a Christian in charge of the NIH, but I do object to a missionary, especially one who has said some awfully stupid things about science, being put in control of such a large chunk of our country’s science budget.

I find it difficult to believe that the people who have been sowing this lie, that the “New Atheists” oppose Christians in office because they pray or go to church, are so stupid to believe something so patently untrue, or so carefully negated in our arguments. It seems to be pure malice: they are trying to discredit us with disinformation. I guess I have to get used to the fact that the other side likes to fight dirty.

Answers in Genesis is proudly Bible-based

If you’ve been following the comment threads lately, you already know that we’ve had a new arrival who has been inspiring much hilarity, Pastor Tom Estes. He seems to be much dismayed at us atheists, and is promising to meet us at the Creation “Museum” on Friday, to discuss matters. He also has a blog where he has been fulminating about the event and wallowing in his own incomprehension. It’s funny stuff — he doesn’t understand why we would care about the Creation “Museum”, and at the same time claims that the myth of Genesis is supported by science. Now if only he would realize that those two claims answer each other: we care because people like Pastor Tom and Ken Ham are misrepresenting the science.

Getting back to the hatred of Ham and the Creation Museum, why? Why do you all care? Especially when you consider that you have the truth? Why not leave us goofy Christians alone on this one? I cannot help but believe that atheists are threatened by Ken Ham because he doesn’t need the Bible to disprove evolution, he uses science.

That’s right, sacred science.

And not only that, he doesn’t care what the scientic community’s lemmings think of him. And then, on top of that, he has the nerve to educate as many as possible about the truths of science, which is what the Creation Museum is all about. Thus, he needs to be brought down.

But how? What is Myers going to do? I ask because I’ve been to the Creation Museum, and it’s all science. There’s not going to be any Bible-thumping going on. Ken Ham shows how science proves the Bible, and not the other way around, so Myers will have his hands full. (I know atheists are chuckling, but I assure you, it’s true.)

Something stands out in that little wail: Ken Ham “doesn’t need the Bible to disprove evolution”? “There’s not going to be any Bible-thumping going on”?

Pastor Tom doesn’t know his hero very well. All you have to do is look at the Answers in Genesis mission statement:

Goal: To support the church in fulfilling its commission

Vision: Answers in Genesis is a catalyst to bring reformation by reclaiming the foundations of our faith which are found in the Bible, from the very first verse.

Mission:

  • We proclaim the absolute truth and authority of the Bible with boldness.
  • We relate the relevance of a literal Genesis to the church and the world today with creativity.
  • We obey God’s call to deliver the message of the gospel, individually and collectively.

Bible-thumping is right there at the heart of the organization. That’s their whole premise, that the Bible is literally true and all science must conform to it. The Creation “Museum” isn’t about science at all, but is entirely about a peculiar, quirky, very specific interpretation of the Bible.

I’ve also read Jason Lisle’s book, The Ultimate Proof of Creation, which isn’t the ultimate anything, contains no proofs, but does boldly proclaim the absolute truth and authority of the Bible. Right at the beginning, it asserts that the Bible is a central tool in their proselytizing, and that the good creationist should reject the blandishments of secular tempters who demand evidence other than the Bible. (It really is an awful book, too — long, preachy, and whining non-stop about logical fallacies — with the author commits freely — and nowhere does it provide a scrap of reason why we should accept the literal account of the Bible).

But don’t just take my word for it. I recently and fortuitously received a copy in the mail of the closest thing to a scientific publication ever authored by Ken Ham, thanks to a generous reader. Even better, it’s a double-whammy: it’s authored by two of the biggest names in creationism, Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis and John Morris of the Institute for Creation research. These are authorities in their little wacky subdomain of pseudoscience.

Here is that science text:

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I get email

Spare me the obsessed. Vincent Fleury is still haranguing me over my review of his bad paper. He argues for a simplistic mechanical view of development, saying “Tetrapods are formed by a flow of cells which has a hyperbolic (saddle) point around the navel.
it is not tautological. They form from the navel upwards, and from the navel downwards, with a partial symmetry, quite obvious by the way, once you know it.” This is complete nonsense, of course; while cells certainly move in interesting ways, the movement is not sufficient explanation of the phenomena, and it’s definitely not true that you can describe development as occurring from the navel outwards.

He’s written me again to complain and make some demands.

Dear PZ Myers

I am sorry to inform you that your website is used by a person “Oldcola” for a personal crusade, in which you are enrolled un willingly and manipulated.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/an_ontogeny_of_toilet_drain_be.php#comment-1812597

You should be more careful with your reponsabilities on your forum.

When you have made up your mind about “swirling vortices” I would appreciate the withdrawal of your post against my paper, the explicit and public withdrawal of the word “crackpot”, and your apologies altogether.

With warm regards.

Vincent Fleury

The post stands and will not be going away.

I did not use the word “crackpot” even once in my review! I’ll use it now, though: Fleury is clearly a crackpot.

No apologies.

Regard that warmly, Vincent!

Vincent Fleury just wrote again. He’s going to get legal advice, and then contact me again. With warm regards.

I hope his lawyer is sensible enough to warn him that this is a fight he cannot win, and the more he wrestles with the tar baby of the internet, the crazier he’ll look.

Never trust a guy named ‘Hayseed’

Israel has no oil, but some people wish it did, for the worst of reasons. This is an amazing story of a con artist and his willing victims…and nothing is better at leading the sheep to slaughter than religion.

When James Cojanis heard the first rumblings of Armageddon, he was sitting in his San Jose home with the radio tuned to a popular Christian show called The Prophecy Club. Featured that day was a charismatic Texas oilman named Harold “Hayseed” Stephens. Speaking in the rousing cadence of a Southern preacher, he told listeners that “the greatest oil field on Earth is under the southwest corner of the Dead Sea”–and that his company, Ness Energy International, was about to tap into it. In doing so, he said, it would drain the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, prompt Arab countries to attack Israel, and at last touch off the great battle that would usher in the end of days.

As soon as the show was over, Cojanis got on the phone to find out how to invest in the venture. Days later the 70-year-old retiree received a form letter addressed, “Dear End Time Servant.” It claimed that the oil reserves at Ness’ planned drilling site ranged “from one billion to 40 billion barrels…putting this prospect in a class of the super giant oil fields of the world.” Without a second thought, Cojanis bought $120,000 worth of stock in Ness. “Faith is a gift God puts in your heart,” he explained when I visited him in October at his cluttered town house, piled with crumpled boxes of prophecy-themed newsletters and cassette tapes of old Christian radio shows. “And I didn’t have any doubt that Ness was a plan of God. He raised up Hayseed Stephens to find Israel’s oil.”

Eight years later, Ness has yet to sink so much as an initial borehole for a Dead Sea well. In fact, for most of its existence it has never even held exploration rights in Israel. Its U.S. headquarters, a barnlike storefront topped with an open Bible sprouting an oil well, was shuttered in 2006. Since then, its stock price has fallen from a high of nearly $5 to a mere 3 cents; Cojanis’ $120,000 investment is now worth $3,000. Not that he’s worried. “I’m glad the stock price is in the tank,” he says. “When they hit oil and the stock goes sky-high, that means Armageddon is around the corner.” At that point, he plans to use his gains to spread the word that the end times are here, preparing as many souls for heaven as possible.

It’s always a shock to see these cheerful people who love, love, love the idea of Armageddon, and want nothing more than for it to come as soon as possible. This isn’t a hard concept to grasp: if your ideal expectation for the near-future is a world-wide catastrophe that has hundreds of millions of people dying in nuclear fireballs, there’s something wrong with you.