I’ve still got mine

Way back in 2009, the American Humanist Association thought I was worthy of their Humanist of the Year award. I was honored to receive it, and still don’t know if I really deserved it, but I do keep it in my office. I had no idea it could be taken away.

Apparently, you have to maintain your status as a good humanist, which I think is entirely appropriate. If I start promoting bigoted ideas, it should be retracted.

As has happened to Richard Dawkins, who was a recipient in 1996.

Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values. His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient. His subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity.

Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award.

I’m sure that Richard Dawkins has many more awards and honors than I do, so he’ll hardly miss one little trophy, but it still has to sting to be told you no longer deserve this one.

It also sends a message that humanists should regard trans rights as a great good, one not to be denied.

P.S. I also have one of these (Dawkins received a similar award from the IHEU/BHA in 2009). I think that makes me a certifiable humanist.

And this humanist has been saying “Trans Rights!” all along.

I don’t see what it has to do with spiders

It seems like the ‘#spider’ hashtag on Twitter has been flooded with baffling music references and gushing fans going gaga over someone named Hoshi. So I had to look him up. It’s K-pop — Hoshi is a member of a South Korean boy-band who just released a single titled “Spider”. As always, I’m about to inflict it on you.

It’s…alright. If it weren’t for the title I wouldn’t have listened past the first 30 seconds, and I don’t think I’ll listen to it twice. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just not to my taste, but at least my curiosity is satisfied now.

I have found the villain!

Yesterday dawned bright and beautiful; skies were clear, the sun was shining, it was warm, it felt like the start of a fine spring day. Then Mary drove away to help take care of our little granddaughter for a few weeks to a few months, and immediately the gray skies rolled in, the temperature dropped, the winds were howling, and the rain drizzled in. It got cold again. The mice have moved back into the house (the cat is a totally useless mouser, I’m afraid.) And now it’s Monday.

I think I’m going to have to be really mad at Iliana. It’s all her fault.

Oh no! The cuteness defense! I am helpless!

Answers in Genesis is bad Christianity

Never trust this liar

Several years ago, Terry Mortenson spoke at a church here in Morris, and I attended along with several students. It was somewhat entertaining for me, because he lied and misrepresented evolution non-stop, and it was hilarious to look over at the UMM contingent and see all the jaws dropping open, unbelieving that anyone would be this blatantly dishonest. But then, if it’s Answers in Genesis, it’s always bullshit.

Now I’m amused again. Ken Ham is shocked and horrified that one of Mortenson’s speeches prompted a rebuke — he had been told afterwards that his homophobia is unwelcome, as was his unscientific stance on the age of the earth. Yikes. How dare anyone point out that the grand poobahs of Ken Ham’s bizarre cult are hateful and ignorant!

But the worst part, to Ham’s silly brain, is that the person who chastised the official position of his narrow understanding of literalist creationism was … the church’s pastor!!!

In various ways, AiG has been deplatformed by organizations too. This makes many people quite frustrated, angry, and upset. But do you know what is much more upsetting? When AiG is “deplatformed” by a church! And what issues do you think might cause this “deplatforming”? Well, LGBTQ and the age of the earth/universe issues! And actually, I assert that as a result the church itself has been “deplatformed” by the pastor as he is denying people the teaching they need on Genesis. OK, that’s a lot to take in. So let me share with you what happened to our speaker Dr. Terry Mortenson, who was “deplatformed.” Here is Terry’s report in his own words:

So what exactly did Mortenson say? It wasn’t subtle.

Sunday morning [Grace Point Church, Bentonville, AR, on Jan. 17, 2021], I gave a message on the “relevance” of Genesis, similar to what Ken Ham and all our speakers present for a first presentation in a church. I explained that Genesis 1–11 is foundational to the rest of Scripture and showed that the acceptance of millions of years and evolution undermines the Bible’s teaching on sin, marriage, death, the gospel, and morality. With respect to marriage, after quoting Jesus in Matthew 19:4–6, I said that adultery, fornication, pornography, homosexuality, and transgenderism are all wrong because they are contrary to God’s created order and commands.

Well, good for Grace Point Church of Bentonville, AR! It’s about time more churches pointed out that Ham and his ilk aren’t at all representative of the majority of Christians, although they like to shriek that they should be (it’s like how the organization One Million Moms is actually just a handful of prigs). Ham even admits it that he’s part of a tiny minority.

Sadly, the majority of Christian leaders compromise Genesis in some way.

Sadly, Grace Point Church is not without flaw: they invited Mortenson in the first place and, although they admit that the Earth is old, the dislike evolution and want it to not be true. I guess it is a major step forward when they are speaking out against homophobia, at least.

I’m also happy to see a smug obnoxious twit like Mortenson getting slapped down. Maybe progress in greater tolerance will have the added benefit of breaking AiG someday.

The racists/fascists/white supremacists have a grand plan

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar are firing up a new America First caucus. It is something to behold.

Wow. “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and a return to “European” architecture, whatever that is. They didn’t bother with a dog-whistle, they’ve installed a foghorn on that jalopy.

They should have gone all out and spelled it “Amerikkka First”.

I notice that Louis Gohmert wants to join. I guess he figures to bring the intellectual artillery.

Maybe I’m not man enough for this lens

This morning, as I was futzing about in the lab, I decided to give my Laowa 25mm f2.8 Ultra Macro 2.5-5.0x another shot. This is an amazing lens — look at the magnification on that thing — but I’ve been struggling to find a place for it in my workflow. It’s not an easy lens to use! Short working distance, narrow depth of field, requiring a lot of light, and having no aperture control in the camera…I haven’t got the hang of it at all. I initially thought maybe this would be a good lens to use in the lab, because it is so finicky, but has the potential for a lot of close-in detail, but no, in comparisons I did this morning, using my Wild dissecting scope with a camera tube gave me more mag, and was orders of magnitude easier to use. The Canon remote control software is dead easy: put a spider under the scope, you’ve got centimeters of working distance, and you can just click a button to capture images.

I could not imagine handing a student the Laowa and telling them to document the morphology of some spiderlings or embryos. I could show them the Canon software and scope and they’d be happily churning out data in minutes.

So it’s not a lab lens, for sure. Maybe a good field lens for tiny subjects? It would be a bit like carrying a microscope into the field, without the bulk and awkwardness. A bright sunny day, some little beast on a blade of grass, and a little patience and this thing might come into its own. All I need is a sunny summer day, which are a bit scarce right now, and I’ll take it out for some field tests.

For now, this is the best, which is far from any good, that I could capture this morning.

[Read more…]

Maybe they mistook him for Thor

Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns, a Minnesota man, got very upset when a Menards employee told him he had to wear a mask in the store, so Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns smacked him with a piece of lumber and then fled the store.

He was not shot.

A policeman stopped Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns and was talking, not shooting him, through the driver’s side window, so Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns grabbed his arm, rolled up the window, and dragged him down the road.

He was not shot.

Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns then took a hammer and hit the policeman in the head.

He was not shot.

The police eventually stopped Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns and dragged his sorry ass off to jail. He wasn’t even tased!

I would like to commend the Hutchinson police department for their proper forbearance in the face of extreme provocation. That’s how it should always be done, even for people who don’t act like they’re the god of thunder. Yes, he’s white.

I wonder what would have happened if he’d looked like Heimdall?

Yay! James O’Keefe banned from Twitter!

Why did it take so long?

“The account you referenced (@JamesOKeefeIII) was permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules on platform manipulation and spam,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Daily Beast.

The social-media platform specifically outlined how Twitter policy dictates that users “can’t mislead others on Twitter by operating fake accounts” and that “can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts.”

That’s all he does, is create stupid staged videos that he thinks “prove” liberals are out to get conservatives. Well, duh. Only anyone who lies and cheats to defeat the opposition party, as O’Keefe does, are doing anything wrong. I favor banning all of them, no matter where they are on the political spectrum.

He is, of course, planning to sue.