Astronauts can be total dumbasses, too

I have talked to many creationists who, when asked for evidence that the universe was created by a god, tell you to look at the trees. They think the fact that the world can be beautiful is sufficient to prove the existence of a supernatural being, and therefore you should be converted to Christianity by contemplating biology, but I’ve been thinking about biology for a few decades, and I look at a tree and am impressed by the chemistry of photosynthesis, and don’t see any Jesus in it.

Look at the trees is shorthand for the most vapid, shallow, stupid kind of creationist argument. In a propaganda coup, Answers in Genesis has found three astronauts who are willing to endorse religious beliefs because they saw the grandeur of the Earth, because people float in space, and the Earth is a beautiful planet. They claim the Bible is absolutely true, it’s inerrant, it’s sufficient for everything we need, it’s not a science book but where it speaks to science it is absolutely accurate, 100%. Watch this video and see your respect for these men plummet.

Nauseating. AiG is hosting them at some event at the big fake Ark this summer (buy your tickets now!), but all I see is a couple of pilots and mechanics who have been persuaded by religious nonsense to believe in anti-scientific ideas. Sad.

Ironically, there’s a chunk in the middle of this video where they get quite irate about people who think the Earth is flat or that the moon landings were fake. It’s utter foolishness. And frankly it’s becoming more concerning, If you can get caught up in that kind of system of belief, you’ve completely detached yourself from the truth. The truth of scripture, that is, he quickly adds, before going on to denounce the wicked lie of evolution.

Tragically, we’re going to have to nuke Florida

There is something deeply, deeply wrong with the culture there, and it needs to be defeated.

In world war two, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis. We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender, he says. That needs to be the same here. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture, and it needs to be defeated.

That’s GOP Rep. Randy Fine making a suggestion for a final solution of the Palestinian problem — just murder everyone in Gaza. They’re evil, don’t you know, every single one of them.

Judging his state on the basis of Randy Fine, Ron DeSantis, and Marco Rubio, I’m forced to conclude that we need to nuke them all until it sinks into the sea. I know it isn’t very humanist of me, but I’m defining “Floridian” as a word meaning “goblinoid,” and they’re fair game.

Can we wait a few days, though? I just ordered some black widows from a Florida company.

Also wait until Trump is vacationing in Mar-A-Lago. He’s frequently there, you won’t have to wait long.

It’s a rough season for boots

My wife forced me at trowel-point to work in the lawn this morning. We’ve got a big patch that was torn up by a backhoe in order to replace a broken water line, and she bought a lot of topsoil that needed to be spread over it, and we got some prairie wild grass and flower seed that we sowed over it.

My boots were caked with mud, clay, and gravel. My back is aching. I’m sweaty and dirty. I think I’ll go walk a kilometer or two and hope I can scrape off some of the residue.

No sympathy for the toadies

Awww. Some Trump apparatchiks are feeling uncomfortable.

I have a source inside the Trump regime who feels, in their own words, a little disillusioned. This person says they signed on to the Trump team because of DEI going too far and because woke culture was dividing the country, but is now concerned about the blatant criminal behavior of Donald Trump. Really? His last administration didn’t show you that? Well, OK.

DEI never went too far. If you think it did, that says more about you than it does about the policies, which were all about reasonable recognition of disparities. Everyone complaining about DEI are simply bigots who resent any awareness of their privilege.

Woke culture was not and is not dividing the country. If you want to be concerned about any attitudes, wake up to the culture of greed and so-called rugged individualism. What divides the country is that some people are incapable of sharing the wealth. We’re the richest country in the world with huge numbers of the poor, and a government that likes the idea of starving them to death as a tactic to end poverty.

The problem here, dear reporter, is that your source is a colossal asshole who cannot be trusted. They do not like the corruption, but the instant a trans person or a black person wanders into view they’ll go running into the arms of their orange Daddy. Screw ’em.

Deadwood must be cleared

Back in December, there was a race for committee leadership in congress that exposed the flaws in our gerontocracy. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (age 35) ran for the house Oversight Committee lead against Gerry Connolly (age 74), a guy most of us had never heard of, who looked his age and was particularly cadaverous since he had been suffering from esophageal cancer. If they had any plans for the future, Ocasio-Cortez was the obvious choice…but the equally old Democrats all voted for Connolly. This was insane, short-sighted, and stupid, and additionally was incredibly selfish of Connolly, but I guess power demands its perks. Democrats said he was “feisty”. “Feisty” is kind of a death sentence as far as I’m concerned.

Now Connolly has predictably died.

In addition, since Trump’s ascendancy to peak corruption in January, two other aged Democrats have flopped over dead of old age: Raul Grijalva (age 77) and Sylvester Turner (age 70), both of whom had been diagnosed with cancer. The Democrats are losing representation and votes to inescapable mortality. All of them may have been the very best liberal politicians, but good intentions do not impress the grim reaper.

We cannot make an unconstitutional decree that people above a certain age may not run for office, but the Democratic party could decide to purge the party leadership of all those ancient gomers at, for instance, the age of 65. They wouldn’t be kicked out of the building, but they would be required to make room for a younger generation. I think that would revitalize the party, and encourage people to retire at a reasonable age.

I’m 68. I can say this. I’d be accommodating if I were forced to step down from my position, IF the US provided for a livable retirement wage (retiring senators and representatives have no worries there) and IF the US supported the educational system well enough that they could maintain staffing (again, congress is never going to be left short-staffed).

Take the hint, Chuck Schumer (age 74).

Bret Weinstein is an ignorant clown

I’ve posted a new video, but I’m making it complicated to see.

OK, I’ve put it on my Patreon account. If you’re a sponsor, you can watch it there right now, ad-free. I’m going to be doing that from now on, I think. Join and you get it before everyone else!

It’s going to go live on YouTube at 6pm Central time today, so if you’re patient, you can get it for free there. YouTube will stick a few ads in it, I’m sorry to say.

Or if you don’t want to wade through this video nonsense, I’ll post a transcript right here at 6pm, so you can just read the damned thing. That’s especially good if you don’t think my amateurish video abilities are worth a half hour of your time

The video is a dissection of Bret Weinstein’s conversation with Joe Rogan about Tucker Carlson’s idiotic denial of evolutionary biology, so it’s not as if this is essential stuff. I try to explain why Weinstein’s vague handwaving about mysterious “layers” of genetic information that no one knows about except him. Here’s some news: we do. We don’t know everything about information in the genome, but we know enough to be aware that it isn’t magic.

Anyway, check back in about 6 hours for my explanation.

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Boots

I live in a small town, a town where very little changes from day to day. I walk downtown almost every day, and almost a week ago I noticed something in a parking lot.

They’re still there. They are becoming part of the unchanging substrate of small town life.

I had to look more closely. After all, maybe they contained feet and I would become part of a rural murder mystery! Television and novels tell me that happens all the time.

They don’t contain feet. They seem to be stuffed with damp, moldering leaves, which is a little odd, but not sufficient to warrant calling in a small town sheriff.

They seem to have been worked hard — the leather is stretched and scuffed, the seams are loose but still holding everything together. They’re in the kind of shape where, if they were my boots, I’d start thinking I definitely need new shoes, but I’d tell myself I could keep using them for one more year. Which I’d tell myself again every year for a couple of years.

I checked. They wouldn’t fit me. They were much too large and very wide. In fact, I was surprised by how big they are. Whoever owned them had to be at least 300 pounds, and I could tell these boots had a hard life every day. Maybe they’re relieved to be resting in an empty lot, soothed by the rain, communing with the bugs that come around to visit.

It’s weird. Somedays I’m intensely curious about where they come from, who left them there, why they abandoned them here, what kinds of interesting things their owner did while wearing them…other days I’m like “Hello, boots. I wouldn’t mind joining you sometime. Tell me about the life of an old boot decaying on the pavement.”

This post has no significance, I’m just contemplating some soggy old boots.

My family secret

I have evidence of my father’s criminal past. I wonder if I carry Criminal Genes?

James Clayton Myers, 1952

He was a good looking rogue, I’ll say that for him.

Most of that is a lie, though. He liked fishing, and would play hooky to go down to the Green River and fish for steelhead, or hike up into the mountains for trout, but he didn’t own a gun (never liked them at all), so the only way he could have attempted murder is by whipping the game wardens with a fishing pole.

I think his inmate number is fake, too. He lived at 106 E. Willis St., so that’s where the first part of the number comes from.

I also think he was closer to 5’8″, if that.

Dear god, she’s the Secretary of Homeland Security?

The person who has been appointed to oversee immigration in this country is a world-class moron, and is obviously unfit for the job.

In a recent Senate hearing, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem made a concerning misstatement regarding the constitutional principle of habeas corpus. When Senator Maggie Hassan inquired about its meaning, Noem responded:

“Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”

Senator Hassan promptly corrected her, stating, “That’s incorrect.”

If you know what habeas corpus is, raise your hand. Congratulations, you’re better qualified for appointment to the highest positions of authority in the United States than is Kristi Noem.

I think “habeas corpus” is the nickname she gave to the open gravel pit behind her house where she has the corpses of her family pets and horses.