Evolutionary relationships are just whatever Ken Ham decides

Time to revise all of taxonomy, according to Ken Ham. He was annoyed by a sign at the local zoo.

Humans are animals? Something must be done!

From a biblical worldview perspective, humans are different to animals. Only human beings are made in the image of God. ““Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”” (Genesis 1:26).

God made animals differently, “And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds”” (Genesis 1:24). When God created Adam, He brought animals to him to name to show there was no one like him, as none of the animals were made in God’s image, “But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:20).

Because of the emphasis today that man is just an animal & thus affecting people’s view of humanity & how they view various moral issues, I suggest Christians use the criterion “made in the image of God,” for an additional Kingdom. This would place man in his own Kingdom, The Human Kingdom. We need our children to understand that humans are special & made in God’s image, whereas animals are not made in God’s image.

He’s gonna fix that. First step: redesign that zoo sign.

Humans are as different from all other organisms as paramecia are from sequoias, or elephants from mushrooms. The evidence for that is a) the Bible, and b) Ken Ham.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to demand a full phylogenetic analysis of that tree. I don’t think Answers in Genesis can do it. I don’t think they have the slightest conception of the rigor required of systematics.

The Christian rot is everywhere

Hey, isn’t that Achilles from the movie Troy? I had no idea he was Christian.

I am not at all surprised by the revelation that evangelical Christians think they’re waging a holy war against trans people. Now we have even more evidence, in the email lobbyists write to politicians, with both incessantly claiming that God is on their side.

“Under His wings,” one lobbyist wrote in an email. “The Devil never sleeps,” another person sent in an email chain about the distinction between gender and sex. “I pray for the 2nd coming more and more.”

These missives are part of a trove of leaked emails between South Dakota GOP Rep. Fred Deutsch, anti-trans lobbyists, and other state lawmakers about anti-trans policies that are filled with language so deeply religious that, at times, the communications read like scripts from The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s the language, one expert told VICE News, of Christian nationalists who believe they’re engaging in a holy war.

The way these people talk to each other…it’s all Bible references and piety, while they’re advocating to increase the suffering of children. For someone like me, who is rather firmly anti-religious, it’s repulsive.

The repeated notes about “blessings” and “prayers,” as well as sign-offs like “God bless you” and “Under His wings,” proliferate throughout the emails, which frequently reference explicit religious motivations for targeting trans people.

“Know that many have prayed and are praying for you this day. Do not back down, nor should you be afraid. Know that the Lord is with you. The children of South Dakota belong to him. He is jealous over them. Let his jealousies be spoken forth in the House of Representatives of South Dakota today so that his children would be made safe. Know you are HIS representative today. Do not be afraid. Stand firm in what is right,” wrote Vernadette Broyles, a lawyer and president of the Georgia-based Children and Parental Rights Campaign, which mobilizes against “gender ideology,” in 2020.

They can’t muster a good argument or a rational defense for their behavior, so they resort to claiming Biblical authority. It’s lazy and stupid and done for an evil purpose, and damn the evidence. For the Bible tells me so (which it doesn’t, actually — most of this stuff is interpolation and reading their biases into the text) is all they’ve got.

Emails from 2020 show right-wing lobbyists and politicians rejoicing after Idaho passed two anti-trans bills. One of the bills, which is still being fought by the ACLU, bans trans women and girls from girls’ sports, and is rooted in the myth that trans women have a leg up in sports, though evidence has consistently stated the opposite. “Dear Friends,” wrote Young, the Idaho representative, “I cannot thank you enough for your help and support! It is official—Governor Little signed both H500 and H509 today! Many tears and prayers of gratitude! The fight goes on!” Young sent the email to nearly 30 people, some of whom have also lobbied against abortion, including Deutsch.

It’s the same story with the abortion holy war. It’s all based on emotional biases and ignorance, bolstered by a misreading of their holy book. I bet if we had a trove of email from anti-abortion lobbyists and politicians, it would be full of the same sickening god-talk.

It’s also driven by paranoia and a persecution complex. They actually believe that trans people are an overwhelming powerful force bent on destroying a tiny band of Christian martyrs, so they need to eradicate them first.

“Stopping the existence of transgender people and the acceptance of trans people in the public sphere is to them some sort of religious imperative,” Lecaque told VICE News.“It’s particularly fascinating that this group that has all this money, control in state legislatures, control of the house, they had a presidency, is acting like somehow they are David in the struggle.”

None of this is particularly surprising, and none of it is new. Today’s Christian nationalists believe that America is an inherently holy, Christian land, and that it’s their duty to restore God’s kingdom in order for Jesus to return. Part of this means that they think the country’s laws, policies and cultural institutions should reflect evangelical Christian values, VICE News previously reported. As a result, contentious cultural and political issues, like drag queen story hours and “critical race theory” are perceived as Satanic. Indeed, the Devil came up in the leaked emails.

“I completely agree that it is Christian Nationalism, although I tend to refer to it as religious extremism,” Shupe said in an email to VICE News. “Christian Nationalists are a danger to the LGBTQ population, and society in general: a genuine threat to people’s lives and safety. They feign compassion while doing everything possible to strip us of our civil rights and ability to safely exist and participate in society.”

Yes! Christianity is the poison in America’s veins. It’s everywhere. It is the Goliath that you find imbedded in every city, every small town, and every little farm across the country.

It’s not the only cause for the prejudice, though. I have to wonder about the atheists who are happily siding with religious extremists to condemn the trans ‘agenda’.

Those dirty, filthy, disgusting rainbows

The puckered sphincters who run Wisconsin schools constricted a little more. They banned a song from a first grade class.

Administrators at a Wisconsin elementary school stopped a first-grade class from performing a Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton duet promoting LGBTQ acceptance because the song “could be perceived as controversial.”

Students at Heyer Elementary School in Waukesha had prepared a rendition of “Rainbowland” for their spring concert, but school officials struck the song from the lineup last week. Parents in the district say the decision was made because the song encourages LGBTQ acceptance and references rainbows.

Superintendent James Sebert, who did not immediately return a call on Monday, confirmed to Fox6 that administrators had removed “Rainbowland” from the first-grade concert because it might not be “appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students.” He also cited a school board policy against raising controversial issues in classrooms.

Sebert has previously prohibited rainbows and pride flags from being displayed in Waukesha classrooms and suspended the school district’s equity and diversity work in 2021.

It’s just hatred all the way down, isn’t it? Mr Sebert must gnash his teeth in frustration when he steps outside after a rain. All these horrible people with sticks up their ass seem to be pretty good at clawing their way into positions of petty power, I must say.

Of course, you know what I must do: I must post the song and help it spread.

Damn. That’s so obscene…to a dirty little mind.

Eradicate the guns, not the people

The Washington Post graces us with articles on what an AR-15 bullet does to a human body. It’s unsettling stuff, especially when they describe what happens to actual, named human victims. The only people who would want to own these murderous devices are psychopaths, so why haven’t we criminalized them already?

If you have to ask why the US has these devastating shootings, the answer is simple: it’s the guns.

The debate is over. Stop arguing for lethal weapons and do something about it.

This comic is appropriate.

No, I honestly don’t think further research is warranted

You might not want to follow Holly Dunsworth on Twitter — she might sometimes spring an ugly surprise on you. Like this paper from the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine. Here’s the entirety of the content of the paper.

Many accounts refer to insertion of finger into anus mostly for gratification from stimulation of prostate gland, but index case Mr. M. continued doing this to get rid of constipation that eventually led to feelings of guilt, stinky fingers, not able to defecate normally, and dysphoric emotions. Further research is needed to find out the phenomenology of this condition.

Key words: Depression, smelly finger, stinky finger

INTRODUCTION
Many of us might have once tried to push finger from our rear end, but experiences vary from feeling pleasurable to disgust. Well many times, habit of same can lead to shame-ridden heart with all dysphoric emotions.

CASE REPORT
Index patient Mr. M. 13 years of age, male, and belonging to middle socioeconomic status visited clinical psychologist with the complaints of sad mood, extreme guilt feelings, and anxiety. Above all, these symptoms seem to be secondary to his repeated act of inserting finger into his anus. The patient reported that he used to have constipation and that resulted in spending more time in toilet. Once he accidently put his finger inside his anus and found that it helped him easy defecating. Subsequently, it became his habit and he knew this was easy way out. However, soon this act started intruding his life. First, he started spending more time in washroom doing same. Second, his fingers would stink like shit even if he washes hands repeatedly with soap or apply mustard oil on hands. Many people including his family members commented on him that he was stinking and the patient used to cover his hands in front of others. Third, repeated insertion of finger led to bleeding heavily. He would feel sad and anxious most of the time along with the extreme feelings of guilt associated with the act. The duration of the condition was reported to be 3 months. Depression and anxiety symptoms were found to be subsyndromal rather waxing and waning around the thoughts of the act and guilt-ridden thoughts such as “why am I indulging into such act?” and “Is it that I can’t defecate normally now?.” Many times, the patient tried to stop this act, but he was not able to defecate and thus continued despite his sad mood and guilt feelings.

DISCUSSION
Index case could not be explained on obsessions and compulsions or habit and impulse disorder as no intrusion of thoughts or compulsions or impulse to action was present.[1] Neither could this be explained by olfactory reference syndrome where only patient has sense that he or she is producing a foul smell (and not necessarily smell of feces) which is not the case in objective reality here.[2,3] Discussion regarding anal expulsive character described by Sigmund Freud from fixation at anal stage might be quite possible here. Research speaks about pleasure by touching one’s prostate.[4] Apparently, the act does not seem to be the stimulation of prostate gland as patient was getting pleasure from not by inserting finger but when he defecates profusely till he would not pass any stool but only mucus and blood. He does it, so that he can defecate easily and pleasure is felt by defecation. However, still pleasurable feelings by touching prostate gland cannot be discounted and is a close differential. Searching the internet, we could not find anything related to this condition except one case that is very much like the index case.[5] That self-reported case also describes experiencing of symptoms such as shame, putting finger to defecate, sense of pleasure after defecation, smelly fingers, and disturbance in sociooccupational functioning. While history taking, index patient revealed that many times he found same foul smell from his first cousin who is just 9 years of age but he could not enquire her/him. The statement, if speaks about the same condition, increases the possibility of role of genetics in the condition. However, this would be just speculation and premature conclusion thus needs further exploration. More research is warranted to explore the phenomenology of the condition.

That actually got published in a real, if rather minor, journal, and indexed on PubMed.

That’s a rather impressive reach to assign a potential genetic cause to the behavior, but not worse than what’s routinely said on Quillette.

America, land of school shootings and train derailments

There was another school shooting, this time in Tennessee: 3 dead kids and 3 dead staff, and the shooter killed on site.

Nothing will be done.

There was another train derailment in North Dakota, an hour and a half away from me. It spewed ethylene glycol and propylene into the environment, all because the railroad companies don’t like spending money on rail maintenance.

Nothing will be done.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be lots of talk and argument and indignant posturing, but nothing of substance will be done, and these terrible things will continue happening. This is a religious country, so they must be acts of God, don’t you know.

Thoughts and prayers, everyone.

Behold! The resurrected mammoth!

Eat your heart out, George Church. The Australians have beaten you to the goal of resurrecting the wooly mammoth, and here it is:

It’s a meatball is what it is. Just a meatball. Probably not even a very good meatball.

Vow worked with Prof Ernst Wolvetang, at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland, to create the mammoth muscle protein. His team took the DNA sequence for mammoth myoglobin, a key muscle protein in giving meat its flavour, and filled in the few gaps using elephant DNA.

This sequence was placed in myoblast stem cells from a sheep, which replicated to grow to the 20bn cells subsequently used by the company to grow the mammoth meat.

“It was ridiculously easy and fast,” said Wolvetang. “We did this in a couple of weeks.” Initially, the idea was to produce dodo meat, he said, but the DNA sequences needed do not exist.

They replaced one protein in cultured sheep cells with a protein containing the mammoth sequence. That’s sort of it? I’m not impressed. There is much more to the flavor of meat than myoglobin: there’s fat distribution, muscle type, and pardon me, vegetarians, but also blood supply — white vs. dark meat. There’s texture, which is going to be in large part a product of activity in the living animal. None of that is here in that meatball. It’s the equivalent of those ‘nuggets’ made from pink slime.

And the creators are afraid to even taste it!

No one has yet tasted the mammoth meatball. “We haven’t seen this protein for thousands of years,” said Wolvetang. “So we have no idea how our immune system would react when we eat it. But if we did it again, we could certainly do it in a way that would make it more palatable to regulatory bodies.”

Oh come on. It’s mutton with a bit of elephant myoglobin tossed in. It’s mammal meat. People eat sheep and elephant without any notable reactions from their immune system, this isn’t going to be any different. The truth is they’re the people who saw the sausage being made, watched the cells getting filtered out of a flask, precipitated into a damp mass, compressed to squeeze out the tissue culture medium, and rolled out into a lump of homogenous goo and cooked. Of course it’s unappetizing. No worse than watching living animals being butchered, but still not something you want to put in your mouth.

The research team probably stood around the meatball when it was cooked, arguing about it.

“You first, Ernst.”
“No, no, the honor is all yours, Franz. I insist!”
“Ladies first. Sheila, would you like the first bite?”
“Uhh…umm…I already had lunch. I know! Mikey will eat anything! Mikey?”
“I have a better idea. Let’s just put it on a rock and take a dramatic photo.”

Now they’re flying the meatball off to the Netherlands, where it will be unveiled in a museum. Anything but eating it.

Genius investor!

I admit, I’m impressed. Elon Musk has thrown away $24 billion in less than half a year. That takes real money savvy.

Elon Musk has revealed that he believes Twitter is currently worth $20 billion, or less than half the $44 billion he purchased it for just five months ago.

In a companywide email Friday obtained by the New York Times about employee stock grants, Musk admitted that the company’s value since going private, in his estimation, is roughly $20 billion; in the aftermath of Musk’s acquisition, many advertisers — the social network’s main source of income — fled the service, and as Vox reported earlier this week, haven’t returned.

That’s not the punch line, though. This is the punch line:

Elsewhere in the email, Musk said that at one point Twitter was four months away from running out of money, which sparked the need for mass layoffs and other cuts. However, an optimistic Chief Twit also told the employees that still remain there that “I see a clear, but difficult, path to a >$250B valuation,” and that he now views Twitter as an “inverse start-up.”

As ever, Elon Musk is the master of hype and self-delusion. No, he doesn’t have a plan to increase the value to $250 billion. Right now, he’s playing games with checkmarks that people can buy. I never saw the point of getting verified and getting blue checkmark on my twitter account back in the day, when the company was run by only semi-incompetent management, and now that Musk is imposing weird arbitrary rules to get people to pay for it, I have even less interest. He thinks this will help him increase the value of the company by $230 billion? That’s nuts.