The state canvassing board certified the results this afternoon; Al Franken is our senator, by 225 votes. Also, the Minnesota supreme court has denied Coleman’s request to reconsider some rejected ballots, but of course he’s going to sue.
Forget all that, though, and welcome our new senator. Not many can do this:
A while back, I posted some email from Debra Rufini that had been forwarded to me — a long list of stupid arguments for creationism. Now, almost 6 months later, she has discovered my posting, and she is hoppin’ mad.
Hello there Mr. Myers,
I must say that I’m incredibly flattered that you’ve gone to all the trouble to ‘attempt’ to tackle my 50 points. One would assume that seeing as tehy were so ridiculously stupid, that you’d rather fob me off as yet just another ‘religious fool’. Had I written to you (Which I hadn’t even done), representing the Flat Earth Society, I could guarantee that you wouldn’t waste your time on a response. If you did, you’d look pretty stupid.
It’s obvious that you really loathe me without even knowing me, and to be honest with you, I reckon I’d be a pretty miserable, angry person with a chip on my shoulder if I also believed that I was no more than worm meat at the end of the day. I do find it interesting that almost all athiests tend to have this angry & patronising streak in them. If only you would find the love of Christ, and it would all be gone.
It’s not a very professional approach to call people rude names, simply because tehy don’t agree with you, is it?! Sounds like you were the sort of child who threw a tantrum whenerver he didn’t get his sweeties. I would have respected you far more, had you given an adult approach, and responded in a civil manner, in the process not making yourself look so immature.
This ‘thick as bricks’ author has the commpon sense to believe that a mind is responsible for the complexity of life, as opposed to a vast volume of mindless time. Unaided time alone cannot be the great magician that you seem to believe is the case.
It takes a fool to believe that a randomly chewed up piece of chewing gum plus a whole load of time – hey presto; da da – results in a fully functioning Porshe!
Jesus called us to love those who persecute us, so that’s exactly what
And it just kind of ends there.
If you look at my original post, you’ll notice that I didn’t waste any time on it — I just posted her list with little attempt to address the flamboyantly obvious inanity of her arguments. It was like a letter from the Flat Earth Society.
I am not surprised that atheists in the vicinity of Debra Rufini seem angry and patronizing. They’re probably also annoyed and exasperated.
Raise your hand if you think chewing gum for a long time will produce a fine German-engineered automobile…
Yes? You in the back? Oh, you were just scratching your nose.
Hmm. Guess there aren’t any fools here. OK, is there anyone here who thinks biologists believe in gum-to-car transmutation?
Debra! Of course! OK, there is one fool here. Maybe she’ll give us the joy of her commentary in the thread down below.
Hang on! I just got the remainder of her message!
Sorry, something happened there – don’t know what!
I was just saying that as Jesus taught us to love those who persecute us, I shall do the same. I pray for you, just as he did for those who crucified him.
Kind regards,
Debra.
P.s. This was typed in a rush, so should there be any spelling mistakes, it’s not because I have the intelligence of a flea. I would like to also point out to you that should this get put on your website, (as I’m sure you’d like to rip me to shreds even further), I shall be deleting any abusive or hate mail I receive either from yourself or any of your other bitter friends.
What a relief. It just wouldn’t be creationist hate mail without the “kind regards” signoff.
Everyone is also asking me for a list of children’s books on evolution, and it’s always hard to come up with any titles. I am now saved: Charlie’s Playhouse has a list of 89 kids’ books on evolution!
You know, Darwin Day is coming up, and we could create a new tradition of educating young’uns on 12 February…
Deja vu — I’m up for one of those Weblog Awards again, and once again, there’s Phil Plait, and once again, there’s the awful faux science blog, Climate Audit. I think we’ve been here before.
One strange thing: in the list of nominees, all of them are listed by the blog name alone, except mine: it’s “Pharyngula (PZ Myers)”, but not Bad Astronomy (Phil Plait) or Neurologica (Steven Novella) or Greg Laden (Greg Laden). What’s with that? Is there some other Pharyngula blog out there, run by someone with a different name, so they wanted to dispel the confusion?
Voting begins at midnight, and this is the weird one where you get to vote every day.
This is the day the Canvassing Board will announce their decision in the Minnesota senate race, and since he is ahead by 225 votes, that means Al Franken will be declared the victor.
Expect 5-alarm histrionics from the right wing, howls of outrage on talk radio, and the wing nut blogs to go ballistic. Also expect the Coleman campaign to charge the state supreme court and demand to be handed the office. It will be very entertaining. The freakout is only warming up.
A certain astronomer was impressed with this video:
Cool animation for sure (and even better in hd), but Bad Evolution. Once again, we get the portrayal of evolution as a progressive process, driven by lots of bloody (oily?) battles between individuals. This is the kind of thing that perpetuates common myths about biology.
Also, cyborg women are not the end result of evolution. They’re more like a delightfully exotic weird side-effect, way out on the fringe of diversity.
A newspaper editor sent me this bizarre little letter. Apparently, the writer, a Mr Nick Lally, was spamming it all over the place, and his copy was also sent to addresses at these domains (actual email addresses stripped to protect the already put-upon):
@ncnnow.com, @krcb.org, @krcb.org, @californiaconnected.org, @humboldt1.com, @ksee.com, @telemundo.com, @koce.org, @cbs.com, @nbc4.tv, @angnewspapers.com, @modocrecord.com, @arcataeye.com, @pulitzer.net, @goldcountrymedia.com, @bakersfield.com, @bakersfield.com, @berkeleydailyplanet.com, @eastbayexpress.com, @canyonnews.com, @bhweekly.com, @bigbeargrizzly.net, @paloverdevalleytimes.com, @carmelpinecone.com, @carmichaeltimes.com, @chicoer.com, @chicoer.com, @triplicate.com, @gte.net, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @davisenterprise.net, @independentvoice.com, @ivpressonline.com, @herburger.net, @nctimes.com, @eurekareporter.com, @timesstandard.com, @dailyrepublic.net, @pressbanner.com, @fontanaheraldnews.com, @goldcountrymedia.com, @mcn.org, @fresnobee.com, @herburger.net, @gilroydispatch.com, @theunion.com, @hmbreview.com, @pulitzer.net, @thevalleychronicle.com, @freelancenews.com, @pinnaclenews.com, @hb.quik.com, @pe.net, @pulitzer.net, @valleysun.net, @kvsun.com, @recordbee.com, @compuserve.com, @lodinews.com, @pulitzer.net, @gazettes.com, @jewishobserverla.com, @laopinion.com, @dailynews.com, @DowntownNews.com, @latimes.com, @losbanosenterprise.com, @paloaltodailynews.com, @maderatribune.net, @maderatribune.net, @malibutimes.com, @MammothTimes.com, @mantecabulletin.com, @mcn.org, @almanacnews.com, @modbee.com, @modbee.com, @montereyherald.com, @morganhilltimes.com, @mtshastanews.com, @ktsftv.com, @sainte.tv, @indiancountry.com, @napanews.com, @marinij.com, @sierrastar.com, @ojaivalleynews.com, @dailybulletin.com, @dailybulletin.com, @ocregister.com, @palipost.com, @hax.com, @avpress.com, @paradisepost.com, .wilson@sgvn.com, @arguscourier.com, @arguscourier.com, @mtdemocrat.net, @bizjournals.com, @angnewspapers.com, @ptreyeslight.com, @portervillerecorder.com, @busjournal.com, @redbluffdailynews.com
That looks like he had found a directory of California newspapers and was sending his important missive to all of them. Lally is not from California, which makes me wonder if he flooded all the other states in the same way…let me know if you see some garbage with his name in it in your local paper.
Anyway, you’d think that such a widely disseminated letter must contain very important information, but I doubt that the gang here will be surprised at all to learn that it is a poorly written collection of creationist crap. I’ve put it below the fold for your grisly appreciation.
By the way, the author claims to have been a science teacher. I wonder how many young minds were poisoned and how much inquiring curiousity was stifled by this ignorant know-nothing.
The Countess has been nominated for various awards for her writing, and she’d like our help in getting the word out.
I warned her that you people aren’t a flock of sheep who will just follow the beckoning, nubile arm of any horror/fantasy author who cocks an enticing eyebrow at them, so I twisted her arm a bit. If she wins an award with our help, she will write a story just for us. Isn’t that incentive enough? I thought about demanding that it include cephalopods, but decided I’d rather be surprised. So go vote, maybe we’ll get a story!
(Does anyone else feel a bit like a Lost Boy now?)
As Wilkins notes, they’ve admitted it now: the producers of Expelled lied to make their movie.
The documentary links such scientists to Nazis. The reaction was what one would expect.
“We wanted to generate anger,” Ruloff said.
“We always knew we’d get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle.”
Nice guys. You know, it’s pretty easy to get people angry with you by lying about them, but that doesn’t mean it’s a productive strategy.
It did get an uninterested middle to pay attention, though, he’s right on that. Of course, what most of those people quickly learned was that Ruloff was a dishonest fraud. That probably wasn’t his intent.
We had a new addition recently: check out Culture Dish. It’s a biology blog! We need more of those around here.
