If I’m really good, in my next life I get to be a librarian

Librarians noticed something about their clientele.

Of the 5,000 people who visit the San Francisco Public Library every day, about 15 percent of them are homeless, PBS reported. After years of watching this underserved demographic float through to get Internet access, a restroom and often, just refuge from the cold, the library realized…

Wait. Before we go on, allow me to channel my inner Libertarian/Republican.

THEY REALIZED THESE PARASITES WERE LEECHING OFF THE TAXPAYER, SO THEY INSTALLED UNCOMFORTABLE CHAIRS TO PREVENT NAPPING AND REDUCED THE HEAT TO 50°F AND REQUIRED PROOF OF HOME OWNERSHIP TO USE THE WIFI AND PUT IN PAY TOILETS AND HIRED SECURITY GUARDS TO ROUST THE RIFF-RAFF.

Actually, that wasn’t their response. They realized…

it was in an auspicious position to stage effective interventions.

So, in 2009, the library hired Leah Esguerra, who is believed to be the nation’s first psychiatric social worker to be employed full time at a library, SFGate reported. Since the program started, about 150 homeless people have received permanent housing, and another 800 have enrolled in social and mental health services, according to PBS.

The success is due in part to the fact that the library has become a hub for homeless people, and that those involved in the program approach homeless patrons with empathy.

Holy christ, Jesus has returned to Earth as a swarm of librarians.

That is so awesome. That is exactly how a community should respond to the underprivileged and needy, by helping them.

Do you have to take a test for basic humanity in order to become a librarian? I’m not sure I’m angelic enough to ever meet the requirements.

And if that tingled your feels, you are now required to read this Superman comic.

Every day is April Fool’s Day for fools

I guess Ken Ham is feeling the sting of all those comments about the absurdity of his efforts to build a “life size” ark — he’s got cranes and steel reinforcements and concrete and a swarm of construction crews laboring to assemble his boondoggle, yet somehow, this giant imaginary boat was supposed to have been built by one guy and his sons 4000 years ago, out of wood. How to reconcile the contemporary tech of his construct with the basic woodworking skills of a Mesopotamian carpenter? Easy! Imagine they had super-scientific engineering technology that has been lost to us! You want proof? He’s not joking: archaeologists found non-stick frying pans in Roman sites, therefore, Noah might have had diesel trucks.

The truth is that we don’t know what kind of technologies Noah had—details are not given in the Bible. But we do know that all people are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and man was intelligent, resourceful, creative, and innovative from the beginning. We also know people were already working with metals such as bronze and iron and were playing musical instruments (Genesis 4:21–22) long before Noah was born. People were also living over 900 years—imagine what geniuses like Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, or Thomas Edison could’ve accomplished if they’d lived that long! By the time of Noah, they may have had technology we would envy today.

And we find evidence that this might be the case. In the generations after the Flood, Noah’s descendants built pyramids in Egypt and ziggurats in South America that engineers have been trying to explain for years. Since much of their technology disappeared with these civilizations, we still don’t know how they accomplished these architectural feats. But we’re continually getting glimpses of the genius of ancient man.

A recent discovery made in Italy sheds more light on the intelligence of our ancestors. If you cook, you probably know the frustration of everything sticking to your frying pan. Well, people 2,000 years ago did too! So they invented non-stick frying pans. Found in a garbage dump near Naples, the high-quality pottery pans featured a “red-slip coating” to keep food from sticking.

That is, they had pans made with really fine-grained clay, to give a particularly smooth surface. Yeah, I’m convinced. Maybe Noah did have CAD and giant cranes, because Roman pottery.

cranes

And for all that, his damned boat still won’t float.

Milo Yiannopoulos is a fraud

Shocking. It turns out that Milo Yiannopoulos is ghost-written. Everywhere. He’s got interns writing his articles, his talks…I wonder if he’s so lazy that he’s got them writing his tweets.

Yiannopoulos confirmed in an interview with BuzzFeed News that he has about 44 interns — a mix of paid and unpaid — writing and conducting research for him. But he denied that other people write stories for him start to finish.

Two people write Breitbart stuff for me, he told BuzzFeed News, but ghostwriting is too great a word. [Nope. Ghostwriting is exactly the word. –pzm] He said that the majority of his interns are researchers and that some write speeches for him. I have two books coming out this year, he said. It’s completely standard for someone with a career like mine to have researchers and assistants and ghostwriters.

A career like his…what career? He is, supposedly, a writer. What he does for a career is write stuff. He doesn’t have any other job. His wikipedia page identifies him as a journalist. He’s employed at Breitbart as their tech journalist — he doesn’t know much about “tech”, but I guess he’s as qualified to be labeled that as “journalist”.

You know, if he were calling himself an astronaut, and it turned out that the only people to step into a rocket were his paid staff and volunteers, It would be fair to call him out on that phoniness. If he said he was a movie star, but had a team of proxies who were doing all his acting for him, I’d wonder why anyone needed him at all. He’s got about as much of a career as a Kardashian, apparently, famous for being famous rather than talented, and mainly his job is posting selfies and preening.

And 44 interns? That’s ludicrous. What is there left for him to do after 44 people have written his text, edited his words, done all the labor of writing?

Worst of all, he’s outsourcing his writing to…goons from 4chan. That explains a lot, actually.

I tried to read Orrin Hatch’s defense of Republican obstructionism

I really did. I got as far as the first sentence: Justice Antonin Scalia was among the greatest jurists in our nation’s history, and decided that the flavor of that bullshit was going to be just a little too rank. So I skipped to the last paragraph, read Considering a nominee in the midst of a toxic presidential election would be irresponsible, and realized that I have become wise in my years in skipping all the crap in between. What’s making this election toxic, I wondered? Has Hatch looked at his fellow party members?

Fortunately, a historian examined Hatch’s rationalizations for me. Reeking ordure confirmed, and that mysterious scent stinking up the joint? That’s cowardice.

If Hatch and his fellow Republicans want to vote against Judge Garland, they have every right to do so. But they should stop being cowards. They should make a substantive argument against him. vote against him, and accept the political consequences of that vote. They should stop pretending that this reckless path they have chosen is anything but a desperate attempt to hold onto a Supreme Court majority.

Dishonest, cowardly, and contemptible. That’s our Republican party!

April science talks

I’m doing some sort-of local (on the other side of the state, that is) talks in April, so my Minnesota pals will have an opportunity to stop by and argue with me. The first is on Sunday, 17 April, in the Rondo Library in St Paul, at 2pm. It’ll be a slightly updated version of a talk I gave a few times last year.

Bad Biology: How Evolutionary Psychology Corrupts Evolution

The most powerful and versatile tool in your toolbox is the adjustable wrench. Not only can it tighten and loosen both nuts and bolts of all sizes, but it also makes an excellent hammer, can be used to punch holes in objects, and it also performs as a serviceable canoe paddle.

If that lack of respect for tools makes you cringe, now you know how PZ Myers feels. Natural selection is one of the most powerful concepts in evolutionary biology, yet many people use it excessively and inappropriately as a kind of quasi-miraculous explanation for everything. Most biologists know better, though, and realize that there are many other forces operating on evolution.

The dangerous aspect of the abuse of natural selection is that it allows the naturalistic fallacy to run rampant. If selection inevitably optimizes everything, then whatever is must be for the best – so human nature must be exactly what allows us to survive. This attitude is used to justify the status quo, whether it’s racism, or the superiority of Western culture, or the inferiority of women. This can only be done by ignoring the multiple forces that drive evolutionary change.

Prof. Myers will be explain what these other forces are, and giving examples of the abuse of science to justify several fallacies: so-called “scientific” racism and evolutionary psychology. He’ll also discuss how lack of knowledge of basic evolutionary biology can lead professional scientists astray.

Yes! Let’s annoy the evolutionary psychologists some more! They deserve it.

Then, the next weekend on Saturday 23 April at 10am, I’ll be joining the West Metro Critical Thinking Club to talk science education for a while.

STEM and the liberal arts: How do we teach science?

There is a constant push to change education from an experience that broadens the mind to one that focuses students on a vocation. We’ve got universities hiring business people with no educational experience to make them more profitable, and people seriously questioning the value of disciplines like philosophy, psychology, sociology, or anything that others disparagingly call “soft” subjects. At the same time, there are advocates of reform who think algebra is useless, and that we waste too much time teaching mathematics that, they think, no one will ever use.

I’ll be presenting an interdisciplinary, liberal arts perspective on science education — we need all facets of human knowledge if we are to adequately comprehend our own narrower fields of interest. I’ll be interested in getting a discussion going about what attendees expect from a college education.

I’m not sure of the location just yet — somewhere near the Ridgedale Mall.

Come on by to either one or both!

Could I ever vote for a Blue Dog? Maybe.

collinpeterson

I have never voted for my representative, Collin Peterson.

Peterson is a co-founder of the Blue Dog Coalition, the caucus of moderate House Democrats, and is known for his conservatism. He’s anti-abortion, opposed to embryonic stem cell research, against same-sex marriage and supports the death penalty. He is also avidly anti-gun control.

I can’t stand the guy. Look at that list: he opposes everything I favor. So every time I’ve had to go into the voting booth, I look at his name, and his opponent (who is always something worse), and I just leave it blank. I’m not voting for him or a Republican.

But I might have to change my habits, hold my nose, and punch that ballot in the future. Not only is Peterson endorsing Bernie Sanders, but the Republicans are getting increasingly vile.

Chad Hartman: I would say this sir, I think you are genuine in what you want [but] I don’t think a lot of these people want the help you are offering. I would say this you have talked about the issue of sexuality and have caused plenty of criticism. I just want to ask you if you still stand by what you said a few years ago that homosexuality is unhealthy sexual addiction. Do you still stand by that?
Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen: Yes I do, and I know — I have friends who are homosexual, and I have friends who are former homosexuals, okay? So it is uh — you know the CDC — the Centers for Disease Control — which is not a right-wing organization, I think we can all agree on that — recently came out with the report that we have between 65 and 100 million Americans that have an STD. 65 to 100 million. We’re approaching one third of our population has an STD.
Hartman: Many heterosexuals obviously…
Gruenhagen: This whole concept of promiscuity outside the bond of marriage is not working out real well, and people say, “Well, that’s a social issue.” Do you understand the billions and billions of dollars in health care costs those diseases brings?
Hartman: You are telling the millions of people in this country who are homosexual — and the rest of their lives are no different than me or yours — but that the reason they have described themselves as homosexual is because they have an unhealthy sexual addiction?
Gruenhagen: Yeah you can go on the internet and there’s treatment for sexual addictions right here in Minnesota, whether it’s pornography or unhealthy sexual behavior. You can receive treatment for that and be free from those compulsions.

OMG. The Republicans are making Collin Peterson look liberal! And compelling me to <choke> compromise!

Boy Scouts taint Unitarian Universalism

ConnDad

My sons were involved in the Boy Scouts of America a bit as they were growing up, especially my middle kid. We had fun: camping, making campfires, running around in the woods, setting things on fire, archery, making even bigger campfires, etc., all that important stuff. But it also made me uneasy, because the Boy Scouts of America was an awful organization. We had to keep our lack of religious belief quiet, and as more and more horrible information about their policies towards gay kids emerged, it became increasingly uncomfortable. But hey, we were straight white people who could pass for Lutherans, we didn’t have to worry about those other people, and I wasn’t aware of all the bias built into the system. What’s really a shame is that at the time my kids were into it, we lived in Philadelphia…and I didn’t know Margaret Downey, nemesis of the BSA then, and I’m proud now to know her now and her fight against their discriminatory practices.

I was kind of relieved when the kids lost interest. It’s really hard to stand up for principle and what is right when it might make your own children unhappy. If I were to do it all over again, with the knowledge I have now, I’d try to discourage them from even starting up. And I’d refuse to participate myself at all, but at the same time I wouldn’t go all Christian on them and say I’d disown them if they didn’t follow my moral principles. It’s a tough gig, having to deal with other people.

But still, the BSA is a poisonously evil organization.

And now James Croft joins in the battle, in a very good post in which he scorns the BSA and their “Declaration of Religious Principle” (you have to sign a loyalty oath to a god to join), but also the fact that the Unitarian Universalist Association has re-affiliated themselves with the scouts.

Last week the Unitarian Universalist Association – the national organization which represents all Unitarian Universalist churches in the USA, some of which are Humanist congregations, and many of which include significant numbers of Humanists – renewed ties with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), praising the recent changes they have made to policies regarding gay boy scouts and scout leaders. As I’ve written before, those changes don’t go nearly far enough: the BSA still allows local troops to discriminate against gay people, and until that policy is totally overthrown, I would be against re-affiliation. Allowing your member organizations to engage in homophobic discrimination is to be party to homophobic discrimination, and the UUA should not re-affiliate for that reason alone. Furthermore, trans boys are still not fully included in scouting, and this movement to re-affiliate by the UUA is part of a long history of trans people’s dignity being shoved aside once gay people have got what they wanted. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

I agree.

But Unitarian Universalism now? The UUs have always bugged me a bit, too — you’re a religion, and you can’t even bring yourself to a specific conclusion about deities? — but I’ve been accepting because the spirit of freethought isn’t specifically about being an atheist, but about rejecting organized religion and being tolerant of other people’s ideas, but if they’re happily joining up with an intolerant organization, I can’t give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.

The Unitarian Universalist Association is the national representative of a religious movement which prides itself on radical religious inclusivity, and the BSA is manifestly not a “radically inclusive” organization. It goes out of its way to actively insult people who don’t believe in god – which includes many members of UU congregations and a number of respected UU clergy. Imagine the outcry if the UUA had re-affiliated with an organization which said similar things about Jewish people, Muslims, or Pagans: no re-affiliation would have been possible or acceptable to the UUA under such circumstances, and they certainly would not have considered such a move without consulting UU representatives of those faith traditions.

This is betrayal. There’s no other word for it. The UUA has decided which of its members are important and which are not, and atheists, agnostics, and Humanists have been unceremoniously dumped as the UUA gets back into bed with an organization which practices religious discrimination and spiritual coercion of children. There are many wonderfully affirming and inclusive Unitarian Universalist churches and clergy who are fully accepting of and welcoming to Humanists. But to those Humanist members of UU churches who reach out to me frequently to express their despair that the Unitarian Universalist Association doesn’t seem to care about them or want them, I now have only one message: you’re right.

We keep hacking these deep rifts, but it’s necessary — the guiding principle should be based on humanist ideals, not simply atheism or anti-theism, and organizations that can’t support those ideals are not allies.