I gave a Nelson laugh to England a while back, for the creationist theme park that was going to be built there. I may have to take it back. It looks like the backers are a gang of confused prevaricators with no concrete plans, just a lot of wishful thinking on their part.
I propose that they crawl into their churches and pray real hard. That’s probably as viable a business plan as what they’ve got right now.
It’s all a bit too convoluted to make for snappy copy, but Dembski had been using Harvard/XVIVO’s animation in his lectures without permission…and now it’s clear from his Design of Life book that he did so in full awareness that he had no right to do so.
Hey, I thought these Christian folk were supposed to be the morally upstanding ones. That’s what they’ve always told me, anyway — have they been lying about that, too?
Ann Coulter is unhappy with Huckabee, but not for his many failings that rational people see as an obstacle—but because he is insufficently critical of evolution. She really wants a presidential candidate to not just deny modern science, but to advocate a platform that proposes to take action in the schools against it.
A mysterious person going by the name Red Mage sent me the following poem. If your kiddies are still awake and having trouble sleeping, you might want to read it aloud to them. Then they’ll really have trouble sleeping.
‘Twas the night before Squidmas, and all through the house
Not a cultist was stirring, not even a Dagon.
The sacrifices were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that Cthulu would not pass past there.The cultists were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of things man was not supposed to know writhed in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long eon’s nap.When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny Old Gods.With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be Cthulu.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he burbled, and shouted, and called them by name!“Now Hastur! now, Ut’ulls-Hr’her! now, Zhar and Lloigor!
On, Eihort! On, Yig! on, on Nug and Yeb!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of horrors, and Great Cthulu too.And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each tentacle.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney Great Cthulu came with a bound.He was undressed all in tentacles, from his head to his foot,
And they were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of monsters he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how scary!
His cheeks were like squids, his nose like a cavernous pit of evil!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the tendrils of his chin was as dark as the city of R’lyeh.The stump of a man he held tight in his teeth,
And the screams it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a not-so-little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jellied remains!He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old Squid,
And I whimpered when I saw him, in spite of myself!
But a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And killed all those he came for, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his tendril aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Squidmas to all, and to all a good-night!”
You’ve got to have something better to do.
We’re having the traditional white Christmas here in Morris: a foot of snow on the ground, temperatures around 10 to 15° below zero C, a nice stiff 10-15 mph breeze, and no one with any sanity stepping outside.
Which rules me out right there. I made the drive to St Cloud and back yesterday, in even worse weather, to pick up #1 Son; I get to make the longer drive (but in somewhat milder weather) to Minneapolis to pick up #2 Son today. You might expect nothing but gibbering madness and exhaustion from me for a while.
So go do something with family or friends right now and get off the damn computer!
And for a little grim pre-Christmas reading, it has preserved all of their last statements on the web.
I wonder how many of them were innocent?
We’re going to have to start calling ourselves the Three Wise Atheists of of Scienceblogs: as Revere reveals in his Sunday Sermonette, he, Greg, and I don’t seem to have much difficulty with this Christmas stuff, and contrary to the Fox propaganda channel, most atheists and cheerful holidays with our families and friends, just like Christians, only without the boring superstitious part. I really don’t understand how people can so consistently fail to get it — our atheist Christmas is so much better than anyone else’s, because we get the presents and feasts and fun without the tedious ritual obligations. We’ve got to start marketing ourselves that way.
Meanwhile, I’ve always said that if you scratch one of those appeasing wooly-headed agnostics, you’ll find a raving fundie underneath (well, at least I said it just now). Wilkins exposes his militant fundamentalist side with his announcement that he’s an Eighth Day Inventist, and uses his militant, angry agnosticism to fuel a vicious tirade against some poor brain-damaged lunatic named Grant Swank. He seems to be a kind of Christmas pinata, because Wilkins seems to enjoy wacking him. Tsk, tsk — those mean-spirited agnostic Eighth Day Inventists. It makes me glad to be a warm-hearted atheist, it does.
At least somebody tried to meet the green gingerbread house challenge—Janet and the sprogs built one, although they cheated a little bit.
Everyone else has until 31 December to send in entries!
And when you hear the grand announcement
That their wings are made of tin.
Then you will know the Junior Birdmen
Have sent their box tops in.
Human beings cannot fly.
It’s simply impossible, and we’ve known it for centuries; there is, however, a conspiracy of committed, dogmatic aerodynamicists who have a vested interest in preserving the myth of Wilbur and Orville Wright, and despite the obvious impossibility of flight which is readily apparent to anyone with common sense, they persist in promoting their “theory.”
There are honest engineers who can lay out in detail for you the impossibility of flight. The dogmatic Wrightists simply ignore weight-to-lift ratios, surface area, power output, and Reynolds numbers. Reynolds numbers prove that humans can’t fly, but you will never, ever see that in any aerospace engineering textbook. There is a world-wide cover-up: they don’t want to risk their cushy grants and their payola from the aerospace industry.
They hide the truth. That strange “flying machine” to the right? It never got off the ground! It fell apart on the first attempt to fly! Yet you still find it portrayed in the textbooks, intact and looking like it’s about to leap into the air. This is a long-running and disgraceful fraud. And if you look at the history of the Wright brothers, you’ll see that they relied on the prior work of people like Lilienthal and Maxim and Boeing and Curtis, all frauds and charlatans. How can you trust a theory built on failure and fakes?
You want to show me what?
That proves my case.
Look at this birdman. We can all agree that that guy never flew — it would be a joke to think otherwise. Yet you expect me to believe that you can add many tons of weight, millions of complicated parts, and make it all out of metal, and now it can fly? You’ve amplified all the problems in the original design a million-fold, and now you try to tell me it works? You silly Wrightists.
No, I haven’t gone insane. I made the absurd argument above just to give you a sense of what I feel when I read the latest from the Discovery Institute. They have this ridiculous site, Judging PBS, that purports to be a rebuttal to the PBS documentary on the Dover trial. It’s actually just another rehash of the dishonesty found in Wells’ Icons of Evolution — a series of misrepresentations of the state of biological thought. I keep hammering on the lies in that dismal book, but the DI keeps using it. In this case, it’s particularly egregious; the PBS documentary didn’t say anything about the specific issues they’re trying to rebut. It’s as if they’ve got nothing else but the same old recycled garbage.
