69, nice

It’s my birthday, and my age is the kind of stupid joke I might have sniggered over when I and my friends were virginal nerds going har-de-har-har around the D&D table fifty years ago. Reality is less amusing.

Here’s the objective assessment.

My knees…if I were a racehorse, I’d be shot. If I stand for long periods of time, the bones tend to sink into the cartilage like its marshmallow fluff and they lock up on me. I might be able to walk away stiff-legged, but I’m desperate to put my butt on a chair and not move for a while. Fortunately, in this day and age I don’t have to worry about running away from sabre-toothed tigers, and even if I had the knees of an athlete, the tiger would catch me anyway.

My back is the current troublemaker. After my little fall last month, it feels like my spine is made of disjointed legos, fishhooks, and shards of glass. It’s much better than when it first happened and I was in so much pain I thought I was going to die, but the process of repair is far from complete. I’m not in pain most of the time, except when I bend, or go to bed — and then it takes forever to find a position that minimizes the grinding. It’s healing, but annoyingly slowly.

My brain seems to be functioning OK, but how would I know?

One nice development is that I developed a scotoma several months ago, a blind spot in my right eye caused by a broken blood vessel. It hasn’t gone away — if I blink fast so the visual field changes from light to dark at a rapid rate, I can still visualize it as a horizontal line of dark blurriness — but neural plasticity for the win. I don’t notice it most of the time, because my brain has rewired itself to compensate and fills in the gap with information from my visual map. I suppose if you aimed a frisbee at just the right angle at my right eyebrow, it could fit into the visual gap and I wouldn’t see it.

So, my weakness right now is against charging frisbee-flinging tigers. I’ll try to avoid them so I can make it to the next funny number, which is 420, I believe. I was fortunate to have timed my birth to completely skip the whole 6-7 nonsense.

A new level of cowardice

I heard all about the American torpedo attack that sunk the Iranian frigate, Dena, in the Indian Ocean. I couldn’t miss it — multiple channels on YouTube were replaying the footage over and over again. There’s an Iranian warship sailing along, when suddenly it was struck in the stern by a massive explosion that lifted the vessel out of the water, breaking it’s back and leading to its rapid sinking. It was glorious war footage, I guess.

Then Pete Hegseth is on all the news, bragging about the victory and all those dumb, blind Iranian sailors who met their fate at the hands of the brave American navy.

At least 87 sailors were killed in the torpedo attack in international waters in the Indian Ocean, and the Sri Lankan navy responded to the Dena’s distress call and rescued 32 survivors, but 61 members of the crew are still missing. The U.S. didn’t respond to the call, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth crowed about the attack to reporters on Wednesday.

“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” Hegseth said, calling it a “quiet death.” As a result of the attack, an Iranian supply tanker that was also near Sri Lanka, the IRIS Bushehr, has taken refuge in the island country.

The news stories, until now, didn’t mention one horrible, ignoble fact.

The U.S. Navy’s attack on an Iranian frigate, the IRIS Dena, on Wednesday was the first time an American submarine has sunk an enemy ship since World War II. But the Dena may not have been armed because it was returning from an international exercise in the Indian Ocean, and the U.S. Navy likely knew it because it was taking part in the same exercise.

Both the United States and Iran were taking part in the MILAN 2026 exercise, organized by the Indian Navy, on February 15–26, with the U.S. sending a maritime patrol aircraft and Iran sending the Dena. Iranian sailors from the ship paraded on land before India’s president.

The exercise in question required ships not to carry any ammunition. Normally, the Dena carries various missiles and guns, including anti-ship missiles. Because the U.S. also took part, it would have been aware that the Dena was unarmed. Former Indian Foreign Minister Kanwal Sibal accused the attack of being “premeditated as the US was aware of the Iranian ship’s presence in the exercise.”

To add to the United State’s shame, the IRIS Dena immediately sent out a distress call; the Sri Lankan navy responded to rescue survivors. The American navy, despite obviously having a ship nearby, ignored the SOS.

Pete Hegseth is a motherfucking chickenshit coward. “Warfighter,” my ass.

This feels weird

Hey! I’m going to be speaking at an Iowa Atheists event tomorrow, which has me mildly shocked. I hope I haven’t forgotten how to talk, or worse, that the only thing I can talk about is spiders (No! Do not talk about spiders! People find it either boring or horrifying!)

It’s been a long time. You know, I’ve been effectively blacklisted by all the major atheist organizations because I’ve loudly criticized some of the atheist saints, like Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens, and then got attached to some hated shibboleths like feminism (but I’m not a woman), or gay liberation (but I’m straight), or trans rights (I’m also not trans), or some other heresy. The last time I talked to an atheist organization about speaking was about ten years ago, and that was painfully tentative — the person I spoke with wanted to check my availability, but they were afraid that some members of their group hated me so much that they’d veto the suggestion…which is what happened, I guess, because I never heard from them again.

Just as well. I’ve got an hour or more of macrophotos and videos of spiders that no one would want to see, anyway. If any of those groups that blacklisted me somehow decided to bring me on, that’s what they’d get, and it would serve them right.

Today I’m driving to the Twin Cities. Tomorrow at 2pm in Des Moines I’ll be talking about social justice, instead, which would make them cry even harder.

Kristi Noem has been taken out to the gravel pit

We knew it had to be inevitable: Noem has been fired. All that cosmetic surgery and dental work to please her boss didn’t help.

Unfortunately, she’s being replaced by Markwayne Mullin, one of the dumbest sad-sack MAGAs in the Trump camp. This must be the smell of war he’s been talking about.

Questions remain: will Kristi ever get her blankie back? What about her boy toy, Corey Lewandowski? I hope there’s a camera crew around when she knocks on the door of her husband, Bryon.

And of course, we all want to know who the next cabinet member to get two bullets to the back of the head will be. Markwayne is new, but I think he’s in a good position for it.

The rot is everywhere

Over the last several years, a man named Darren Beattie has been busy on Xitter promoting a crude, ignorant form of eugenics (even “sophisticated” versions of eugenics are deplorable and wrong, but Darren favors the ugliest kind.)

Population control? If only! Higher quality humans are subsidizing the fertility of lower quality humans.

When a population gets feral, a little snip snip keeps things in control. Could offer incentives (Air Jordans, etc.).

Pay smart people to have more kids, disincentivize stupid people from having kids. So simple but molds destiny on deep intergenerational level.

In September 2023, he responded to news about migrants from Africa who rioted in Israel by suggesting that the Israeli government “literally just round them up and drop them in the ocean.”

Let the ‘human rights groups’ whine… drop them in the ocean too!

It isn’t “politically correct to say, but low-iq, low-impulse control populations lack higher reasoning and moral faculties. They require strict corporal punishment and threat of violence to function properly within a society. Instead of anarcho-tyranny, we need Singapore for the dumb and violent, and Sweden for the more elevated.”

The same low-IQ trash who watch the fast and furious franchise. Beginning to wish the whole population reduction conspiracy were true.

Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.

You may say “So what? Trolls like that are a dime-a-dozen on Xitter” or maybe “Typical mindless bot.” Except…he actually has an official position in the Trump administration.

He was a speechwriter (!!!) for Trump in his first administration, but got fired when people noticed that he was attending white nationalist conferences. It was a simpler time, when a few people in the White House could be slightly embarrassed by overt racists.

Don’t worry that Darren might have gone hungry — he was quickly hired by Matt Gaetz as a speechwriter.

And then Trump won his second presidential race, all concern for propriety vanished, and Marco Rubio snatched up this eloquent writer and promoted him to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, and Trump made him acting president of the United States Institute of Peace. “Diplomacy” and “Peace” are not words I would apply to him, but Trump and Rubio think different.

Beattie has since been replaced as Under Secretary of State by Sarah Rogers, a former lawyer who worked for Philip Morris to protect them from litigation, and then worked for a law firm specializing in clients like the National Rifle Association, tobacco companies, and venture capitalists in AI. She seems to be much more muted and diplomatic than her predecessor, but I still wouldn’t trust her.

He’s still president of the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. I don’t know what he does there. Go out for lunch with Stephen Miller?

If you want to know more about the Republican agenda, talk to Darren Beattie.

That put the fear of God into me

This government is clearly planning to put boots on the ground in Iran. They’re declaring that it is Jesus/Trump’s will to launch Armageddon now.

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.

From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

When our military leaders start using apocalyptic language at the start of a war, worry.

“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be “afraid” as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

— MRFF active duty NCO client, writing on behalf of themself and 15 other unit members

Let’s hope that this doesn’t happen and that we aren’t sifting through the ashes looking for something to eat next week. And if it doesn’t happen, every single one of these goddamn bible-thumping murderous commanders must be dismissed and drummed out of the military in disgrace.

While we’re at it, can we also get the names of all the White House personnel who are currently lining up to put inside bets on the date of the invasion on Polymarket? They need to be jailed or executed, too.

Their claims of apostasy are grossly inflated

No questions allowed.
Obey even if he doesn’t exist.

Mano Singham considers an essay from one of those people who say they were an atheist, but have now returned to their faith. Mano treats it thoughtfully and respectfully, and I can appreciate that, but nowadays my response to such a claim is “You’re full of crap, bye.”

I know, I’m a bad, rude person.

Unfortunately, it seems like even the most fervent, fanatical televangelist has a similar story about having been a heretical wastrel in their youth, but then they found Jesus and are now saved. It’s part of a redemption arc, and also part of a slur against atheists, that they only deny God because they are immature and hedonistic and haven’t thought seriously about faith.

I think Mano has it exactly right.

I left religion for purely logical reasons. not emotional ones. I found that however hard I tried, I just could not reconcile the scientific view that everything occurs according to natural laws with the traditional religious view that seemed to require an entity that could bypass those laws to act in the world to change the course of events. It took me a long time to overcome the emotional attachment to the religious beliefs that I had. So while I can understand how logical reasoning can make one leave religion, I cannot see how it can drive the reverse process, as Beha seems to desire.

Same here, except that my family faith tradition didn’t have much of an emotional attachment to Christianity, so shedding it was relatively trivial. I agree, though, that there are no good rational reasons to compel return to a faith, which is why I reject any attempts to rationalize it. It feels good to you, it connects you to friends and family, you have fond memories of your time in church…that’s fine. I believe you. Go ahead, I’m not going to deny your feelings. But if you try to tell me you have compelling, logical, scientific reasons to believe in a god, I’m going to tell you you’re full of shit.

This guy, Christopher Beha, has his own simple excuse.

To ask “How am I to live?” is to inquire as to not just what is right but what is good. It is to ask not just “What should I do?” but “How should I be?” The most generous interpretation of the New Atheist view on this question is that people ought to have the freedom to decide for themselves. On that, I agreed completely, but that left me right where I’d started, still in need of an answer.

That’s about as superficial a rationalization for becoming a Catholic as I can imagine. Why become a Catholic? Because you need someone to tell you what to do. Maybe Mr Beha should then ask, “Why should I trust this guy in a clerical collar or this holy book to know what I should do?” He’s not looking for an answer, he’s looking for an authority.

The more complete interpretation of the atheist view is that there is no one to tell you what to do with your life. And anyone who is telling you otherwise is lying to you.

Get this guy outta here

The Lancelet recently published an editorial condemning RFK jr, titled Robert F Kennedy Jr: 1 year of failure. That link will give you the entire thing — I might as well, since quoting the parts that tear into his record and his policies gives you about half of the whole article anyway. He has been a disaster.

10 days after his speech about trust and openness,
HHS rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public
comments for new rules and regulations, silencing
the voices of many of the stakeholders he pledged
to serve. Kennedy has summarily dismissed advisers
and experts, communicated policy changes on pay-
walled media, fired a whistleblower, and overseen
the revisions of guidelines and recommendations,
contradicting decades of established science, often
to the benefit of industries he formerly condemned.
Under Kennedy’s leadership, the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) shuttered programmes studying the
health effects of air pollution, HHS withheld a report
linking alcohol consumption to cancer, and the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew warnings
of potential harm from consuming products (such
as raw milk and chlorine dioxide) falsely marketed as
treatments for autism. His changes at CDC have driven
26 states to reject official guidance on vaccine policy,
and in December the CDC awarded an unsolicited
$1·6 million grant to conduct a vaccine study in Guinea-
Bissau that raised so many ethical concerns—the design
would have risked exposing thousands of unvaccinated
children to hepatitis B—that it has been compared to
the infamous Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.
HHS under Kennedy has made a habit of throwing
good money after bad science. Amid the Trump
administration’s cuts to research funding and personnel
there has been a harmful shift in priorities. Cutting-
edge discoveries and clinical investigations—on
subjects ranging from mRNA vaccines to diabetes and
dementia—are denied crucial resources while junk
science and fringe beliefs are elevated without justifiable
explanation. Under Kennedy’s leadership, politicisation
at the NIH, FDA, and CDC is imperilling the future of US
science and innovation and throttling the public health
enterprise that keeps the country safe today.

And then, the consequences! Growing measles and pertussis epidemics, worsening maternal morality rates, ridiculous campaigns against food dyes while ignoring capitalisms malignant promotion of processed food. He’s a train wreck that leaps from track to track smashing every benefit of the scientific and educational infrastructure of the country. We’ve replaced NIH and NSF with TikTok.

We have to get rid of this guy.

Despite these developments, Kennedy has continued
to spread misinformation and push politicised agendas
at the expense of the country’s most vulnerable. When
called to account for his decisions by Congress, he has
been evasive and combative. The destruction that
Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations
to repair, and there is little hope for US health and
science while he remains at the helm. Calls for his
resignation now number in the thousands. Congress
must exercise its duty of oversight and hold Kennedy
accountable for his record, or else accept responsibility
for endorsing President Trump’s decision to let him “run
wild on health”.

Unfortunately, even if we drop-kicked his leathery ass into a sewage pool today, Trump has another fraud queued up for the position of surgeon general, Casey Means (she is not a doctor, despite the media habit of gluing that prefix on her name). Don’t let her get any power, or we’ll have to go to all the trouble of excising her like an infected cyst.