The latest numbers from Dan Phelps

The latest numbers for attendance for the Ark Park are in, and as one might expect, show a steady decline.

This year in November 2018 the Ark Encounter sold 40,193 tickets.
Last year, November 2017, the Ark Encounter sold 51,914 tickets.

About -20% from the previous year, eh?

A nightmare for Ken Ham, but it is entirely possible that hoards of 4 year olds are overwhelming the place, brought by their lifetime member parents or guardians.

I can’t wait to see what winter months bring. It might be financially wise to close the place for January and February, but Ken Ham can’t lose face by doing such a thing.

Here are all previous numbers since the safety tax began, for your convenience.

2017:

July: 142,626 (Safety Fee amount: $71,313.00)
August: 106,161 ($53,080.50)
September: 83,330 ($41,665.00)
October: 93,659 ($46,829.50)
November: 51,914 ($25,957.00)
December: 36,472 ($18,236.00)

2018:

January: 13,250 ($6,625.00)
February: 17,961 ($8,980.50)
March: 62,251 ($31,125.50)
April: 67,613 ($33,806.50)
May: 73,353 ($36,676.50)
June: 113,901 ($56,950.50)
July: 135,922 ($67,961.00)
August: 98,106 ($49,053.00)
September: 69,207 ($34,603.50)
October: 89,434 ($44,717.00)

A few words of caution in interpreting these numbers. The Ark Park is absurdly overpriced, and Ken Ham is raking in a heck of a lot of profit…so the numbers would probably have to drop a lot more before he goes in the red. Also, the numbers come from reported attendance, used to calculate a safety fee or tax to the city of Williamsburg. Ham is such a venal little toad I wouldn’t be surprised if he intentionally under-reports (if he can) to save a little money.

I’m also unsurprised. Any theme park will have a drop off in attendance after the shiny newness wears off. 20% in a year, though…ouch. AiG is probably frantically trying to think of new ways to spark interest in their ridiculous young-Earth pretense.

I recommend that they should jump on the flat-earth, no moon-landings, anti-vaxx bandwagon. There’s no end of gullible people in that crowd. They won’t bat an eye at the claim that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old.

The movie this week was Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse

Everyone was raving about this movie, so I walked into it with elevated expectations, which is usually the kiss of death. But it wasn’t! Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse was excellent! It has an interesting, complex story without relying on the “Villains aiming to destroy the world!” trope — even the primary bad guy, the Kingpin, had a believable motive.

But best of all was the artwork. This was a comic book movie that was not afraid to be a comic book movie, stealing comic book styles and comic book art and comic book plots, and then reveling in the freedom of computer-assisted animation. It just flies along playing visual games in a way that highlighted the story. It’s also damned optimistic, and lately we really need that occasional taste of escapism.

I went alone to the theater, because when I told my wife it was a super-hero movie, she was turned off and uninterested. It’s too bad, because she missed out, and I think she probably would have enjoyed it, too. Maybe when it comes to Netflix…

Israel has become a sacred cow, and you can guess what I think of such beasts

Unbelievable. The state of Texas requires people to affirm a loyalty oath to Israel in order to be employed in education.

A children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told she can no longer work with the public school district after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation.

This is an attempt by lawmakers to coerce citizens to hold certain political views. It’s an odious law and a disgrace to any country that tries to enforce it. But it’s not just Texas: 17 states have passed similar laws, including the blue state of New York.

The law, known as HB 89, charges the Texas Comptroller’s Office with making a list of “all companies that boycott Israel” and provide the list to state agencies. Those agencies will then be barred from contracting with those companies. State pension funds are also prohibited from being invested in firms involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

The bill passed the state House 131-0 and the state Senate 25-4.

Texas is now the 17th state to pass such a law, with other such states ranging from California to South Carolina. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo implemented a similar measure by executive order.

That is sickening. How can such a law have such overwhelming support from legislatures? What next? Laws demanding that you be fired if you don’t eat beef, that you have to hold a concealed carry permit to be a teacher, that Communists can be blacklisted…oh wait, they already tried that one.

I had to look to see if any of the usual Freeze Peach Warriors had anything to say about this story. Not much; 4chan has a long ugly thread about it, in which a few people do stand up for principle, reluctantly, but the majority are screaming slurs and insisting that no Muslims ought to be allowed to even exist in America. Sam Harris has just resigned from Patreon…because they banned a couple of racist, misogynistic scumbags, Milo Yiannopoulos and Sargon of Akkad, from their service, so we can guess what side he’d take, and we know what he considers pressingly important — the privileges of bullies and racists over the rights of citizens.

Satire is dead, again

Some alt-right wackaloon has announced a new vidyagame, Jesus Strikes Back: Judgment Day. It features a gun-toting Jesus, “Dolph”, an Austrian with a toothbrush mustache (not to be confused, they insist, with Hitler), an orange blonde guy named “Tromp” (not to be confused, etc.), “Pootin” (ntbc…), “Mussolino”, etc., etc., etc. as the heroes, who are on a mission to kill “radical social justice warriors,” “radical feminists,” “radical LGBT militants,” oh god I’m already bored and tired of this bullshit game, and it hasn’t even been made yet. Oh also, one class of enemies are “Doctors”, who vaccinate people.

The story of JSB:JD is so utterly complex that it simply cannot be conveyed by mere words on a webpage. It is a story so beautifully crafted and rich in detail that it could of very well been written by Tolstoy himself. A story so powerfully moving that it is guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of even the most reserved, indifferent man.

JSB:JD follows the story of seven different men on their own one-man-crusade to destroy the radicals and the New World regime, and how this shared goal forces their destinies to entwine. With the odds stacked against them, they have nothing to rely on except the triumph of the will if victory is to be theirs. Although they may not share the same beliefs or characteristics, their shared hatred of the radicals and New World regime unites them together, ultimately forming mankind’s last hope for salvation against the tyrannical regime.

They may not always see eye-to-eye, but they must put aside their differences if they ever wish to liberate the world back to rightful law and order. They must struggle against all odds – against the whole world – if they are to be victorious.

Fuck, I don’t care. I don’t care if they’re trying to satirize SJWs, anti-SJWs, or whatever…this is just bad, clumsy, unfunny, tedious crap.

If it makes them feel better, they can go ahead and claim they owned me. Don’t give a damn. Except to say that my cynical despair over the state of humanity is confirmed once again.

We can all stop worrying about climate change now

Thanks for the reality check, Steve Milloy!

All we need to do now is learn how to live with temperatures of 465°C (870°F for the benighted among us) –we’ll need to use some kind of refrigerator for baking, since that’s a little on the high side. I suppose we could breathe CO2 if we completely changed our biochemistry and metabolism. I guess while we’re doing that, we could also learn to stand unharmed in concentrated sulfuric acid at 90 atmospheres of pressure. Small changes. You know, nothing like the unbelievable stuff the Warmists are proposing, like meters of sea level rise.

This is Milloy’s bio.

Co-founder http://BurnMoreCoal.com . Trump EPA transition team. Eagle Scout. Biostatistician. Lawyer. Author. FOX News contributor.

I think the new Trumpster slogan ought to be “Turn Earth into another Venus”, since there are nothing but good associations with the goddess of love.

How can you not want to live there?

Santa, all I want for Christmas are spider eggs

When I got home from my week in Denver last night, the very first thing I did was rush off to the lab to check on the spiders. They were fine! Completely unperturbed by a week of neglect! They even produced egg cases for me! Well, one healthy egg case. Vera continues her habit of dumping dessicated dead eggs in ill-formed egg cases, which you may recall was something Gwyneth did before she died, too.

Oh, yeah, then we checked on the cat. She was fine, too.

On our way home

We’re in the midst of our trek from Denver to Morris, Minnesota, and we are sad. We had a lovely week with our two month old granddaughter, here in the arms of her grandmother.

Maybe she’s not so disappointed at our departure.

Kidding! She was a good little girl the entire time we were there, and we thought about smuggling her home with us. Here’s a nicer picture of Iliana sitting at the restaurant table like a serious adult.

Now we just have to figure out how to find the time to go back again.