I ♠ missionaries

If there actually were a god, Cyclone Sidr would have spun through Bangladesh, selectively eliminating all the two-faced scumbag missionaries who exploit the poor in the name of their deity. Chris Mooney cites an example from the Baptist Press:

In the hours before Cyclone Sidr reached the coastal areas of Bangladesh, Southern Baptists and other Christians began praying — aware that the Category 4 storm potentially could usher hundreds of thousands into an eternity without Jesus.

“Last night a lot of people died and entered an eternity of suffering,” Neely said. “Almost none of them has heard a Christian testimony or biblical explanation of who Christ really is. They have never heard the truth about who God really is, who they are in His sight or what God’s plan is to save us from our sin through Christ.”

The title of the source article is also offensive: “Their prayer: that faith in Christ follows cyclone “. That’s looking on the bright side, I guess — all the destruction, the desperation, and the displacement represent marvelous opportunities for the scoundrels and scalawags of religion to move in and harvest souls for Jesus.

I sometimes hear people claim that religion provides consolation to the bereaved. This is a perfect example of the opposite: a manipulative religion used to incite anguish and fear and misery in the minds of survivors.

The whaling lie

Well, the Japanese whaling fleet has left port to go slaughter some whales. This is bad policy for several reasons.

  • Killing endangered animals is always a bad idea, and the Japanese don’t even do it humanely. This is bloody slaughter for the sake of bloody slaughter, and it’s going to harm large species that are easily tipped over the brink into extinction.

  • It’s basically done as a subsidy for the whalers. This is not really a profitable business. I get irritated by the local farmers who are raising corn for ethanol, an exercise in inefficiency and waste that gets them government money…but getting money for killing large rare animals is more vividly worse.

  • The biggest reason I despise Japanese whaling is a bit selfish and narrow, I have to confess. It’s because of this:

    Japan kills more than 1000 whales a year in the Antarctic and also the Pacific Ocean using a loophole in an international moratorium that allows catching whales for research.

    That is such a lie. It demeans science. Japan is not throwing money into their whaling fleet as a research tool; I know what marine biological research looks like, and it rarely involves harpoons, flensing knives, and a cannery. Give university marine mammalogists the money to equip boats to pursue whales, and they won’t look like this:

    i-84ee34f6b14dbdb3ef3a5181f9f0e9ae-whalingboat.jpg

    Note the big “RESEARCH” stenciled across the hull. It’s a lie. It ought to say “BUTCHERY”. The research done by whalers is miniscule, and could be better done without the associated killing.

Keep an eye on Polk County, Florida

It may be our next trouble spot. They have a creationist majority on the school board, and they’re saying stuff like this:

Despite the Pennsylvania case, some school board members want both intelligent design and evolution taught in Polk schools. They say they have received numerous e-mails and phone calls in support of intelligent design.

“My tendency would be to have both sides shared with students since neither side can be proven,” Tim Harris said.

Tim Harris, you’re a moron. You need to recognize this fact soon, so that your self-confident ignorance doesn’t lead your school district into a catastrophic law suit that will make you a poster boy for the taxation and education problems that will ensue. Look at Alan Bonsell. That could be you.

“Those who are unaware of history are doomed to repeat it” is really true here. I say this as a friend and fan of public schools—thinking that you are serving a pious community by trying to sneak religion into your schools is a formula for disaster.

Sensible residents of Polk County: I have a suggestion. You should get together and buy each board member a copy of Humes’ Monkey Girl, and tell them to read it…and that they’ll be tested on it. If your school board members are functional illiterates, make them watch the PBS documentary on Judgment Day. The clear message of the trial is how the hubris of certain school board members led the whole district into folly and financial ruin. Another message is that the people they think are their friends, the fellows of the Discovery Institute, will abandon them at the first hint of trouble, and that those who stay you might wish had left, since in the case of the Dover trial it was Behe and Minnich who helped kill the case.

And to people everywhere: if you can, run for your local school board. These small groups of people have tremendous influence on American education, and yet you will find the most remarkably stupid people seated on them, people who campaign on a platform of destroying public education. You will receive no glory and no fame and the power you exercise will not be appreciated by the students it benefits, but we need hundreds of thousands of smart people to take those seats and steer education in a rational direction. If you don’t, there are a million Tim Harrises waiting in line to run it into the ground.

Our local newspaper embarrassment

My fellow Minnesotans know what I mean when I groan over our local conservative columnist at the Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten. Her latest column is a tirade against the horrible culture of victimhood in our universities, citing a recent incident in which a student newspaper editor decided to decorate the office with a handmade noose to motivate his black co-workers. Kersten thinks this is just awful. Not the insensitivity of the editor, of course — being ignorant of history is par for the course for Republicans, as is race-baiting. No, she’s appalled that he was fired.

The column is a hoot. She even obliviously quotes the guy making a “but my best friend is black!” excuse.

Is “megachurch” a synonym for “sex scandal”?

It sure seems that way. Yet another tawdry series of escapades by Christianists:

The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother’s wife and fathered a child by her.

The story has some cheering news, though.

At its peak in the early 1990s, it claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. By soliciting tithes of 10 percent from each member’s income, the church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary the size of a fortress.

Today, though, membership is down to about 1,500, the church has 18 pastors, most of them volunteers, and the Bible college and TV ministry have shuttered — a downturn blamed largely on complaints about the alleged sexual transgressions of the elder Paulks.

Ah, I love to see a church imploding.

Beaten to the vulva

Scooped! I’ve long adored vulvas, having written a few things on how to develop a vulva and how to evolve a vulva, so I’m a little peeved that this upstart at scienceblogs, Greg Laden, has written up a recent story on nematode vulva evolution before me. Aaargh, all vulvas must be mine! I’ve just got too much other work stacked in front of me.

I may have to revisit this story later, though. I made a quick skim of the paper and don’t see quite how they arrived at their conclusion, that vulva evolution is dominated by selective events rather than chance. I can’t say they’re wrong, but I’m going to have to read it more carefully before I can agree with it.