“They aren’t shooters. They are poseurs.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been posturing again. And she has been caught.

I wouldn’t have noticed that. I know next to nothing about guns, and am not at all interested in learning more. There is a great deal of detailed gun knowledge out there, and serious people who can instantly see the deeper problems with that photo. The fellow who noticed that error went on at length about the foolishness of firing a .50 BMG. Here’s the conclusion; if you don’t do Facebook (you are brilliant), I’ve included Joohn Choe’s full comment below the fold.

Trashy weapon, threatening posture, and always, a thin veneer of Instagram “gun-bunny” posturing overlaying stark ignorance and rank mediocrity: that is Taylor-Greene’s other gun pic, that’s Boebert’s “guns to books ratio” pic from earlier this year, that’s Cawthorn, that’s Gaetz, that’s pretty much the entire Q caucus if you look back at them.
Read “threat” and “scary” into this behavior and you are, to some degree, falling into the trap they want you to; and it’s not even an accurate reading, because the truth of this behavior is even less flattering than being a threat.
It’s just crass, unoriginal posturing; it’s all show and no go.

Let’s get Taylor-Green and Boebert and Cawthorn and Gaetz out of congress, OK?

[Read more…]

I’m mad as hell, too

Like Amanda Marcotte, I’m tired of the WATBs who have decided to perpetuate the pandemic as a political game.

…who I am mad at is the willfully unvaccinated, people who, out of irrationality and often raw Republican tribalism, got us into this mess in the first place. I am incandescent with rage that millions of Americans are putting it on the rest of us to protect them from COVID-19, just so they can avoid a simple, free shot that is available at every pharmacy.
Republicans, always ready to destroy lives for some perceived political gain, aren’t even hiding anymore that they think being pro-COVID is good politics. As CNN reports, there’s “a GOP-wide effort to use the fears and frustrations of Americans worried about another round of school closures and lockdowns as cudgels against their Democratic opponents.”
But, of course, the return of restrictions is the direct result of Republican efforts to dissuade Americans from getting vaccinated and keep those COVID-19 case rates high. It’s important to remember that this is still a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Case rates are rising rapidly among the unvaccinated, who tend to reject other prevention measures along with vaccines. There are also breakthrough infections, though they affect fewer than one-third of 1% of the vaccinated.

It’s not just the inconvenience of wearing a mask these awful people are rejecting — it’s the vaccine, which is incomprehensible to me. It only takes a few minutes, you walk in to a pharmacy, you fill out a little paperwork, and you walk out with greatly enhanced resistance to the virus. Why would you not do that? The right-wingers have to invent all kinds of nonsensical excuses about microchips and imaginary serious side-effects to justify their recalcitrants. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to suffer the larger inconvenciences, and the pandemic continues on.

Or worse. Here’s a professor at Texas A&M who had the experience of a student dying.

It’s not worth it if even one student has to die to get an education. And Texas is one of the worst.

In Texas, Republican leadership and right-wing ideology has led to low vaccination rates and subsequently to hospitals overflowing with COVID-19 patients. Gov. Greg Abbott, being a Republican, refuses to do anything to mitigate the spread of the disease. So instead, he’s leaning on hospitals to deprive other people of necessary medical care, such as delaying surgeries, to keep hospital resources free to tend to the waves of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. However angry I am at losing my gym class (also important for physical health, I’ll point out), it likely pales in comparison to the rage of someone who has to put off surgery to fix a debilitating but not fatal condition, all because some Fox News junkie thought a quick jab in the arm takes away his “freedom”. Not being able to walk because your knee surgery keeps getting delayed is the far greater loss of freedom.

I’m doing my part, wearing a mask indoors everywhere I go. My university now requires a mask for everyone, and has also mandated vaccines, but everywhere I go in town, no one is wearing a mask…and we know that only 50% of the population of Stevens county is vaccinated, in part because this is a largely Republican part of the state. Would you believe that only 46% of the Trumpkins are vaccinated? They’re dragging the rest of us down!

Aubrey de Grey exonerated! Not.

I guess the Aubrey de Grey affair, in which he was accused of sexual harrasment and lost his job, has been concluded with the release of the independent investigation’s report. De Grey has his own peculiar twist on it.

Now that the relevant portion of the independent investigator’s work is finished, and especially because her report quoted the full text of the email in question, I am at last in a position to apologise – which I gladly do publicly – to Laura Deming for my email to her in 2012, about which I had forgotten until the investigator reminded me of it. As STAT reported three weeks ago, I consider that that email would have been a mistake even if she had been five years older, because we were in a mentor-mentee relationship. I catgorically deny Laura’s current (though, as she made clear on August 10th, not contemporaneous) view, shared by the investigator, that I sent that email with improper intent – but my email does not become OK just because improper intent is now being misread into it. It’s also no excuse that I had interpreted the email from Laura to which I was replying as light-hearted, rather than as expressing “concerns about mentors doing stuff like that” (as she wrote on August 10th), and allowed myself to be emboldened by it. Laura: I unreservedly apologise.

So only now can he apologize, after the investigators published his offensive email in full. If they hadn’t published it, he wouldn’t need to apologize? It’s nice that he apologizes now, but notice that he says nothing about the final results of the independent investigation, which found him guilty, guilty, guilty. It’s pretty scathing, actually, but I guess he’s in denial.

After a thorough review of the evidence, we make the following findings by a preponderance of the evidence.

First, we find Dr. de Grey purposefully and knowingly disregarded multiple directives (from the acting Executive Director, this investigator, and his own counsel) to retain the confidentiality of the investigation. In his interview, Dr. de Grey not only admitted to this conduct, he made unreasonable efforts to justify it (e.g., downplaying it as a “transgression” that “worked.”)

Second we find Dr. de Grey misrepresented facts to the Recipient. He suggested the investigation concluded Complainant #2’s claims were “100 percent fictitious.” Yet when pressed as to the source of that information, Dr. de Grey acknowledged he extrapolated this interpretation from Fabiny’s comment that he was going to be reinstated. We note in a Facebook post published after his termination on August 21, 2021, Dr. de Grey seemingly acknowledged taking liberty with Fabiny’s comment, characterizing his interpretation of her comment as “exaggerated.” We also note that after Dr. de Grey learned the following day that the investigation had in fact sustained Complainant #2’s claims against him, he made no efforts to correct his earlier misstatement, either to the Recipient or to his Facebook audience (having reposted on August 21, 2021 his original message referring to the claims as “100 percent fictitious.”)

Third, because of the public nature in which this investigation is being played out – including Dr. de Grey’s continued social media comments and his supporters’ prolific responses – we find it reasonable that key witnesses with material information (perhaps even more complainants), would be deterred and intimidated from meeting with the Firm. This deterrence and intimidation could seriously compromise the Firm’s ability to conduct a thorough investigation into ongoing sexual harassment claims, as the Board directed we undertake.

Fourth and similarly, Dr. de Grey’s message to the Recipient – incorrectly declaring the investigation was concluded in his favor – suggests he was privy to details of the investigation before others. Both aspects – that he had advance notice and that it was contrary to the actual findings – inaccurately portray the Firm as lacking impartiality and independence to potential witnesses and parties.

Fifth, we find Complainant #2 reasonably interpreted Dr. de Grey’s message to the Recipient to be a threat to her career. She heard from the Recipient that Dr. de Grey referenced her “career will be over soon.” This is consistent with his actual email. It is undisputed Dr. de Grey made the following statement, suggesting he alone could save her career, but only if she did his bidding: “I find [Complainant #2’s] career is absolutely over as things stand, and the only reason it actually isn’t is because I am a man of honour who refuses to let somebody (especially a meteoric rising star) be burned at the stake while an actual villian gets away scot free and is thereby emboldened.” While Dr. de Grey characterized his proposed course of action in the email to the Recipient as “rescuing” Complainant #2, we do not find this plausible, given the language he used. Dr. de Grey’s message to the Recipient did exactly what the confidentiality admonitions were designed to prevent – attempt to interfere with an investigation by influencing a party’s allegations. Dr. de Grey’s ill-advised message to the Recipient was in fact conveyed to Complainant #2. Indeed, Dr. de Grey intended this course of action by stating, “And you need to tell her so, as probably only you can. Go to it.”

Next, we find Dr. de Grey’s message an attempt to distract from his own conduct – part of which he admitted (sending a sexual message to underage mentee Complainant #1) – and to point to another individual as the “actual villain.” Regardless of anyone else’s motives or conduct in pursuing an investigation, the fact remains that Dr. de Grey is responsible for his own conduct, regardless of how it came to light.

Finally, we find the fact that Dr. de Grey sent the emails to the Recipient from his SRF email account was yet another attempt to unduly influence, at best, and threaten, at worst, the Recipient into taking the actions Dr. de Grey wanted, namely putting pressure on both the Recipient and Complainant #2. In this regard, we note Dr. de Grey’s subject line to the Recipient – “You will thank me.” – suggests Dr. de Grey was doing him a favor by asking him to put pressure on Complainant #2. This can only be interpreted as a demand the Recipient interfere with a confidential investigation and unduly influence a witness.

In closure, Dr. de Grey’s unapologetic interference with the investigation by reaching out to a witness through a third party, and repeatedly posting about the investigation, has generated angry attacks on the accusers and perpetuated misinformation (i.e., that he has been exonerated). This compromises the Firm’s ability to retain credibility and trust with witnesses. We find his attempt to influence a party may chill, and likely has chilled, others from coming forward; was an effort to alter and sidetrack the investigation; and, was reasonably threatening to a party.

De Grey’s response to all that was to announce, with a sigh of relief, that he can finally apologize to one of his accusers for one thing, while denying everything else, in spite of the fact that the investigation found him clearly in the wrong on everything. Furthermore, the investigators noticed all the squirrely stuff he was doing on social media to mislead and lie…it was danged obvious to everyone, except of course, to his cult-like fans who truly believe that Aubrey de Grey is going to cure death.

A husband’s revenge

Yesterday was Mary’s birthday. I performed the ritual.

“What can I get you?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Can I take you out for a nice dinner?”

“No.”

“Can I cook you a nice dinner? Whatever you’d like.”

“There’s some acorn squash we need to use up.”

“That’s it? Just bake some squash?”

“Yes.”

So I obeyed. Nothing special. One squash, baked. Done.

Today is the day after her birthday. The geas is lifted, I can do whatever I want. So tonight I whipped up some Cod Provençal: cod cooked in fresh tomatoes from her garden, onions, garlic, olives, mushrooms, corn, and lots of basil. Don’t tell her it was almost as easy as the squash.

See what happens when you don’t give me good ideas?

Iä! Iä! Teilhard de Chardin fhtagn!

I knew it. For years I’ve seen the “dinosauroid” trotted out as an illustration of how dinosaurs could have evolved, if only that little space rock hadn’t messed up their progression. To me, it was symptomatic of a deplorable strain of teleological thinking in biology, and I thought it was totally bogus from the first glance.

Why would anyone think a coelurosaur would gradually converge on an anthropoid form? So much of our morphology is a consequence of variations in our ancestors — ancestors that would not have been shared with dinosaurs. Yet here is this imaginary beast with ape-like details. How would it have acquired those?

Darren Naish has tracked down the history of this bizarre mannequin, and I am totally not surprised: we can blame Teilhard de Chardin, who had a pernicious influence on Dale Russell, the scientist who built it.

I’m confident that another factor contributed to the construction of the dinosauroid, but it’s something more controversial than everything discussed so far and is also harder to establish with any degree of certainty. I think that Dale Russell’s specific personal views on the nature of the universe and the position of humans within it played a role in everything that happened.

We know from the recollections of his colleagues that Dale Russell was religious, with an active spiritual life committed to Catholicism. We also know from statements made by Robert Bakker and others who discussed religion with him that Russell was fond of the ideas of Jesuit priest and palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin (Campagna 2001, p. 7, Noble 2016, p. 41). Chardin (1959) argued for a directionality in evolution, that humans represent a point close to (but not at) the pinnacle of evolution, and that a humanoid stage was inevitable for those organisms approaching evolution’s final stage. Add to this the fact that Russell stated in correspondence his idea that “the human form might be a natural target for selective pressures” (as Russell wrote to anthropologist Noel Boaz in August 1984), and his implication – made several times in interview – that humans (and, by extension, other humanoids) are not simply additional animals (Russell 1987, p. 130, Psihoyos & Knoebber 1994, p. 252). We’re talking here about what’s been called the ‘inevitable humanoid proposition’, a concept often linked both to religiosity and to an anthropocentric view of the universe.

My personal opinion is that the dinosauroid was not, then, the honest experiment in speculative evolution that some authors have implied (e.g., Losos 2017; reviewed here at TetZoo). Instead, Russell had already decided that he wanted to showcase the possibility that human-shaped non-humans were ‘inevitable’, and that they might have a special place in the design of the universe.

Do not, under any circumstances, ever try to read Teilhard de Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man. I did, and it was the closest real-world experience to the horror movie trope of reading the Necronomicon aloud in a cabin in the woods. It contains damnable prose and arcane leaps of logic that defy rational thought. It is infuriatingly stupid.

You’re all going to try and read it now, aren’t you?

Before you throw yourself into that pit of madness, at least read Peter Medawar’s review. Be forewarned. Make sure you have a chainsaw and a shotgun near at hand.

What’s weird, though, is how so many discussions of this idea are gentle, almost apologetic in addressing Teilhard de Chardin’s and Dale Russell’s strange religious bias. Don’t take this stuff seriously — it’s Time Cube level of wrong, pure garbage in defiance of the scientific consensus with no evidence to support their interpretation. Worse, that delicacy in treating the teleological imperative has had some embarrassing influence — Carl Sagan’s worst book, The Dragons of Eden, was rife with it.

Also infected with the Teilhard de Chardin disease: Simon Conway Morris. The tentacles of that mad Frenchman extend everywhere, bringing insanity to all who view them.

The drawing and quartering of Bobby Lee has been done

It’s only a bit over 150 years too late, but I’ll take it — deserved worse. It’s also a barbaric punishment, but it’s only being done in effigy, so you can’t complain too much.

He does have his defenders, though, but it’s too bad that they include a certain stupid ex-president who declares Lee the greatest strategist of them all, except for Gettysburg. Wasn’t Gettysburg ultimately a tactical failure? And wasn’t the greater strategic failure getting involved in the Civil War at all? I’d have to say that Grant totally out-strategized Lee.