P.T. Barnum was right

There’s a sucker born every minute, and you’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

The Creation “Museum” is expanding and building a theme park. It’s simply a fact that Ken Ham’s Institution of Ignorance is doing business like gangbusters — it is well-attended and successful, has low-brow appeal, has negligible operating expenses (unlike a real museum), and is drawing in crowds of rubes and doing a great job of separating them from their money. I’m not at all surprised that Ham is rubbing his hands together and calculating new ways to fleece the flock; it’s what his kind does.

It’s a bit embarrassing having this gigantic, growing symbol of the failure of American education metastasizing in our midst, but it’s not their fault. The way we’ll fix it is not to shut down the stupid place, but to teach people that creationism is foolishness, so that Ham’s flock shrinks.

Otherwise, though, there’s also the hope that this may be a fatal attack of hubris. There have been other cases of evangelical Christians building theme parks, and they don’t end well. Balancing on that thin line between preachiness and fun isn’t easy, and I don’t think the thin-skinned and frighteningly dour Ken Ham can do it.

So, how did Hitchens do?

There was a debate in Toronto yesterday, between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair on whether religion is a force for good in the world, and I think readers here properly predicted the results: Hitchens was dynamic, clear, and forceful, while Blair was a simpering, weak, maker of feeble excuses. It is resolved: religion is wrong and evil.

You can get full accounts from the BBC, the Guardian, and the New Humanist.

From the crazy part of Minnesota

Minnesota State Representative Tom Hackbarth is a Republican. How can you tell? By his deranged behavior.

A security guard at a St. Paul Planned Parenthood clinic called the cops last week after he spotted a Republican state lawmaker with a loaded gun in the parking lot. But the pol says he was only “checking on” his online girlfriend, who he thought may be on a date with another man — a claim police have not been able to corroborate because the man did not have a phone number or address for the woman.

Because that’s how married (but putatively in the midst of a divorce) Republicans look for their girlfriends: by hanging out in Planned Parenthood parking lots with a gun. It’s totally charming that he didn’t know her address and phone number, since they were just “online” friends — I guess he was just bringin’ the real by stalking her with a gun.

I am really amused by his disclaimer.

“I was not a jealous boyfriend,” he said. “I was just trying to check up on her. It’s totally a misunderstanding.”

Yeah. Just checking. With a gun. That’s how we all monitor our wimmin.

Are you surprised that his district overlaps with Michele Bachmann’s?

This is not a cephalopod, part 1

Enough. Everyone is describing this new species of deep sea worm as squidlike. IT IS NOT. It’s segmented, it swims with undulations of bristles, it’s got appendages on its head, not its foot, that it uses to trawl for food.

i-48a2543c7ec6dfe8269766833ca5480f-squidworm.jpeg

It’s a lovely beastie, but how can anyone mistake it for a squid? What’s next, is the Guardian going to cover a sheep-shearing in Scotland and talk about all the four-legged squid gamboling about?

Blair v. Hitchens poll

Tonight, Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens will debate on whether religion is a force for good. I’d love to hear Hitchens on that subject, but Blair? That’s almost as comical as having Hitchens debate Bush on the subject. The newspapers are relying on two tools to promote the event. Hype:

Together, Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens are two of the great British thinkers on religion.

Wait, Blair…isn’t he the simpering me-too former prime minister who was our American lackey in the UK? The one who converted to Catholicism, an act that clearly marks him as mentally deficient? Hmmm.

Oh, well. The second tool is the online poll:

Is religion a force for good in the world?

Yes 17%
No 83%

They haven’t even had the debate yet and Hitchens is already winning!

Not this again!

What is wrong with people? It’s just a frackin’ book!

A 15-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after allegedly burning an English-language version of the Qur’an — and then posting video footage of the act on Facebook.

No. It is obscene to start jailing people for destroying their own books, simply because some oversensitive wackos think it is magical. Apparently, this girl burned it on school property, though — call her on creating a fire hazard. But not for contradicting someone’s delusions.

And the kooks defending the arrest aren’t helping their own cause.

Catherine Heseltine, chief executive officer of the Muslim public affairs committee, said burning the Qur’an was one of the most offensive acts to Muslims she could imagine.

Oh, really? Ms Heseltine’s imagination is not very impressive.

How about digging up their grandfather’s body, sawing off the top of the skull, and using it for a dog food bowl? Or how about walking up to their mother and pissing on their burqua?

Or hey, how about cruising over a Muslim country with a Predator drone and opening up on suspicious-looking crowds with Hellfire missiles? Would it be more offensive if the missiles had Bible verses painted on them?

It really diminishes the quality of their outrage when they have tantrums over such trivial and harmless offenses. Man, if I hadn’t already buried my only copy of the Qur’an, I’d be taking it out back right now and setting it on fire.

Our Republican choices

So North Korea is rattling the sabre again, and I’m hoping some serious, mature people on our side will step up and act responsibly…but I’m pretty sure we won’t find those people on the Republican side. So far, their responses range from the stupid to the evil.

Here’s Sarah Palin babbling away on the Glenn Beck show (Can you guess that this is the stupid part of the range?)

CO-HOST: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea? […]

PALIN: But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies. We’re bound to by treaty –

CO-HOST: South Korean.

PALIN: Eh, Yeah. And we’re also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

I really think calling North Korea was nothing but an accidental slip of the tongue, but even without that, the totality of her comments are vacuous, simple-minded chit-chat. And this insipid person wants to be president?

At least she’s better than the odious Glenn Reynolds.

JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW: North Korea fires artillery barrage on South. If they start anything, I say nuke ’em. And not with just a few bombs. They’ve caused enough trouble — and it would be a useful lesson for Iran, too. We can’t afford another Korean war, but hey, we’re already dismantling warheads. . . .

Yeah, because the oppressed people of North Korea deserve to have the flesh seared from their bones in a nuclear hell. You might be able to easily convince me that the ruling dynasty of that sad country deserve it, but civilized people don’t commit such barbarities, and especially don’t commit them indiscriminately against entire populations.