Something is supposed to happen today?

I haven’t been paying any attention at all to QAnon. Apparently Something Big was predicted for today, 5 December, and Colin McRoberts Jennifer Raff is confident it won’t happen, because Q is a fraud.

This time, if you weren’t already aware, Q and his most dedicated followers have been predicting Big Things for December 5. Exactly what Big Things depends on what and how much you read between the lines of his choppy little nuggets; Q mostly stopped making specific predictions after a series of embarrassing failures. He learned the lesson of horoscope writers and started making vague, open-ended predictions, so that no matter what happens he can always go back and claim to have predicted it. But people wouldn’t pay attention to Q if he didn’t promise apocalyptic drama, so whatever you think he’s predicting, it’s supposed to be a big deal.

Ah, but what does he know? The Q insiders are well aware that the prediction is actually about the size of the President’s bowel movement, and everyone will be dazzled with the insight when he tweets, “Made a big poopy. The biggest!” later today.

Read the rest of his post for the well-known information about the mechanics of conspiracy theories and prophecies, and how to recover from the delusions. Also, that is the most awesome photoshopped illustration of how right-wing conspiracy mongers think of themselves and their enemies.

Where were the freeze-peachers when Minnesota Republicans took over?

I am amused. This is so typical. When the Republicans took over the Minnesota House, they installed a button to silence opposition.

The outgoing Republican speaker of the Minnesota House had the power to silence debate with the push of a button. His Democratic successor says one of the first things she’ll do when she takes over is remove the master mute button.

The GOP leadership quietly had the button installed on the back of the rostrum after the 2015 session came to a particularly raucous end. Labeled “chamber mute,” it silences the microphones at all of the other lawmakers’ desks simultaneously. Democrats became aware of it when Speaker Kurt Daudt pushed it during an acrimonious debate in 2016. They’ve been stewing ever since.

Now if only they could install a mute button to shut the electorate up — you know they want to.

Holy crap — I almost feel sorry for Milo Yiannopoulos

Almost. He had his 15 minutes, and then he was supposed to just fade away, but apparently his disappearance from public life is going to be preceded by setting himself on fire and taking a swan dive into a giant pool of explosive sewage. His self-indulgent lifestyle is about to implode.

The scale of Milo Yiannopoulos’s financial problems have been laid bare in an extensive tranche of documents seen today by HOPE not hate. The financial documents reveal that the once-darling of the Alt-Lite has racked up personal debts to the tune of $496,000, a figure that has included $47,499.63 owed on his credit card and $20,000 to the jewellers Cartier.

However, Yiannopoulos’ financial problems could be far worse, with one document suggesting he owes $1,600,000 to Milo Inc. alone. On top of this is $400,000 owed to his former partners the Mercer Family and $153,215 to the law firm Meister Seelig & Fein for charges related to his now dropped legal case against the publisher Simon and Schuster.

I’m kind of impressed, actually. He believed his own hype and just went nuts, and now it’s time to pay the piper, which he can’t, because he has no talent or skills.

One can only hope that all the narcissistic alt-righters and Intellectual Dark Web preeners meet a similar fate, although I doubt any of the others were quite so extravagantly profligate.

What kind of weird hell is Charleston, Illinois?

Anyone live there? Or near there? I was just pointed at their Parks & Recreation department, which has been busy promoting a very Christian life, despite being listed as a “government organization”. Like this:

I guess it is the Charleston Parks & Rec department’s job to take people out of Charleston and drive them all the way across Indiana to a Christian religious indoctrination camp. It just seems way out of bounds for a city government.

Then I noticed other events that they’ve sponsored.

Really? Daddy-daughter dances and Mom-son dates? Could all of you creepy Christians learn that there are healthy parent-child relationships, and they don’t try to mimic courtship rituals?

Charleston has a large regional university, Eastern Illinois, but even that doesn’t offset my impression of the town as a bizarre little theocracy full of glassy-eyed Christian zealots who wouldn’t think of complaining about how the city government has been hijacked by fundies. Maybe there are some residents of the region who can correct me, unless the kinds of people who would read freethoughtblogs have all been incinerated in a wicker man over the years.

What does “university-level course” mean?

The Discovery Institute is touting something called a “university-level course” by Michael Behe. I have no idea what that means. A real university course is part of a curriculum, a program of study that leads to a degree; there is supposed to be an integrated body of knowledge behind it and surrounding it. We also emphasize lab work in the sciences, so there’s a mix of lecture and hands-on research. We also tend to rank the level of a course by how many prerequisites are required — you don’t get to take my development course unless you’ve also taken cell biology first, or you’d be wasting everyone’s time.

So what is this “course” Behe is offering? It’s 41 video episodes. No prerequisites. They don’t say if you get college credit for taking it, but I can safely say the answer is “Hell No.” They’re using “university-level” as a meaningless adjective. It’s not offered through any accredited university, it’s just YouTube for creationists.

In these videos, Behe discusses the history of thought on evolution and intelligent design, and then delves into the science behind natural selection, random mutation, and irreducible complexity. He covers criticisms of ID as well as relevant new discoveries.

The lectures are accompanied by quizzes to help track your progress, perfect for everyone from high school students up through college professors! Don’t miss it.

The course is a $50 value. But you can get it free by pre-ordering Darwin Devolves.

Oh, it has quizzes. Is Michael Behe going to grade them? You know, we don’t just test students for the heck of it — it’s to assess how they’re doing, how the material is being received, whether we’ve got good comprehension. I’ve often looked at test results and said, “Uh-oh, they didn’t get concept X…I better go over that again, try a new approach, get them to engage these ideas”. Will Behe be interacting with his “students” at all?

No, of course not. I wish people would learn that there’s more to teaching than just marching through a series of presentations.

I also like how they claim it is a $50 value. How did they determine that? Are they even aware that that would be a ridiculously low price for what they’d like to pretend is equivalent to a 3-credit full semester course (3 class hours a week for 15 weeks…of course, we don’t even know how long each of these videos are)? And then it turns out it’s not $50, it’s completely free when you buy a book.

That tells me it’s worth $0, which is a fair price for the value.

I shouldn’t be surprised. They’ve been pretending to be scientists for years, now they’re pretending to be educators…and are equally incompetent at both.

There haven’t been any examples of media hagiography of awful people lately, have there?

I wouldn’t know. I was in the gym yesterday (it’s become the only place where I’m subjected to broadcast media) when I saw Karl Rove and other awful people from the 90s who I’ve tried to forget, and my brain shorted out, I saw a Tunnel of Light open before me, and my short-term memory flitted away like a cloud of butterflies. Still, I’m sure this is referring to something.

I changed my mind. No longer satisfactory.

Yesterday I said I was satisfied by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s response. Today, after reading a flood of comments and counter-arguments, I am convinced that there are many things wrong with it, from thinking that well-meaning explanations of intent after the fact are sufficient amends, to the weird handshake learned from a mysterious Native elder. All I can say is that when someone I have prior sympathy for says “Here’s why I didn’t mean to harm that person”, I should learn to cut through the excuses straight to the operative phrase, “I harmed that person“. OK, now what, Dr Tyson?

Also, an affirmation from someone with prior leanings in your favor is pretty much meaningless. He needs to listen far more to his critics, as do we all, and address their concerns. Most of all, he needs to respect the people he’s harmed, or their numbers will grow.

One last thing: I also looked at the comments of his other defenders. I was horrified to see how many of them are comparing Neil deGrasse Tyson to Brett Kavanaugh — I am not going to be one of them. I hope Dr Tyson is also appalled, and recognizes that this is a sign he’s going in the wrong direction.