Introducing Bloggor®

This is just a raw concept at this point, but I think it has potential.

See, just anyone can be a blogger, but only a blogger who adheres to the highest ethical standards can call himself a Bloggor®, else our attorneys'll haul his butt into court so fast, it'll make you say "tortfeaser," and not in a good way, if you know what I mean. Here's how it works: You agree to our Bloggor Code of Ethics (TM) and pay us cash. We only send your password out to a valid street address, so we know where you are. We let you use our mark, link to our site, and in some cases, host your pathetic little blog. If it becomes clear that you have transgressed, we will out your sorry little butt AND file suit for breach of contract. Simple, isn't it? It's not just a concept, it's a whole new paradigm!

I can live with this

You are a Social Liberal (75% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (31% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

but who's the lady right where I am?

...And your little dog, too!

This story just makes you plumb proud to be an Amurkan, don't it? From CNN:

Cops: Couple ordered hit on grandkids
Wanted to stop testimony at son's rape trial, police say
Friday, June 2, 2006; Posted: 12:35 p.m. EDT (16:35 GMT)

TAVARES, Florida (AP) -- A couple tried to hire a hit man to kill their three grandchildren and daughter-in-law to stop them from testifying against their son in his rape trial, authorities said.
The couple, ages 60 and 59, were charged with four counts each of criminal conspiracy to commit murder. They were being held without bond.
Police said the pair initially offered $100 to an undercover sheriff's deputy to kill their son's wife, their 10-year-old granddaughter, two step-grandchildren, ages 14 and 16, and the family dog.

Gee, thanks! TMI, maybe?

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?

You will be smothered under a rug. You're a little anti-social, and may want to start gaining new social skills by making prank phone calls.
Take this quiz!








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Courtesy Orac

I get it: Environmentalism is da Bomb!

I doubt this similarity was intended, but somehow it resonates. Obviously, the little girls with their flowers represent fragile innocence and gosh-darn wholesomeness. The threat is, on the one hand, (alleged) hypermilitarism and nuclear conflagration. On the other hand, clearly it's regulation of greenhouse gases that'll snuff out that little sweetheart quicker'n you can say Kyoto!

Or was this really a subliminal homage to "Daisy Girl"? After all, the subconscious doesn't know that equating environmental regulations and mushroom clouds is laughably nonsensical.

I think the whole thing is creepy. You?

You say 'Dangerality;' I say 'Dangerosity'

...on his return to his room, [he] found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast...


Contemplating DHoism the other day, I caught myself musing, Sure, there's a bunch of dangerous professors out to destroy all that we hold dear. Obviously, most of these guys (and gals) are happy to stay undercover like the silverfish that they are, but one particularly flagrant example has decided to embrace his inner Dangerous self, even touting his status as Professor of Dangeral Studies! Well, why not bring these low-lifes out into the daylight -- we'll see how dangerous they really are. This is, I guess, the essential thesis and raisin dater of DHoism.

So, one thing led to another, and it wound up with me deciding that I oughta do my little bit to help give the whole field a kick-inthekiester-start. Yeah, I know. I'm the exact opposite of the tweedy academic type. Anything I could propose would be looked upon suspiciously, not to say with a certain detached bemusement. After all, a wink's as good as a nod, to a blind bat! Since Dr. Horowitz has kinda kindly offered a philosophical foundation for the enterprise, what's most lacking is a theoretical framework for discussion. All the other cool disciplines have one, and some have several.

So, further musing ensued. Without benefit of mescaline, cannabis, or Klonopin, it was slow going. I realized I needed a noun. All the cool theoreticians hit upon a neologism that served to crystallize that thing regarding which they theorize (or, in German, Gesundheit). Some, less creative theory guys hijack a perfectly innocent noun and, zombie-like, force it to do their bidding. "So," I'm thinking to myself, "should it be dangerosity or dangerality." Sorta like Ginger vs. Mary Ann. Which led to a blinding flash of the obvious:


WAIT JUST A COTTON-PICKIN MINUTE! I'll take BOTH, thankyouverymuch. Then, just like benzene rings organizing themselves in front of my eyes, the whole thing fell into place. Consider, if you will, the following figure:



As any fool can tell, ... uh, well, let's try it again:



where Dangerality is defined as "the propensity [of a professor] to spout such obvious liberal shibboleths as 'The evidence for human causation of global warming is overwhelming.'"

Dangerosity, on the other hand, represents straightforward Islamofascistic Bush-hating.
Note that this deceptively simple schema gives us a straightforward classification system for the Dangerous Ones (Dangies?), and, Wallah! a metric by which they may be compared, to be called Dangerousestness, wiz, the distance from the origin, given by the formula SQRT(AL^2+OS^2). Thus, in the example above, we see that Prof. B*, although not the most extreme on either Danger Dimension, is definately the most Dangerousest of all.

You can thank me later, David.

*Whom Prof. B might bé is left to the reader as an exercise.

Remarkable insight from GWB

I agree with the man; the best moment of his presidency was when he reeled in a perch bass. As he told Bild am Sonntag:

You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best. I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake.

I'm glad he realizes everything else was a load of BS.

Oh Jeebus, a Rebus!

Reports of subjunctive's death sadly NOT overstated

I took this wonderful phonecam shot at a SCHOOL, thankyouverymuch, obviously pertaining to a WRITING assignment. Sheez, I know it's amabalA, but can't the ENGLISH teachers at least get it right?

I Got the POW-UH!

I'm sorry, Professor Meg. I just couldn't resist. I do think the guidelines you published are reasonable, and I agree that you probably meant authority and are not totally obsessed with total world domination.

But I could be wrong.

BTW, anyone else notice that kids these days can't even spell (or punctutate) "blah, blah, blah" anymore?

Plenty of Blame to Go Around

I know, I know, long time no post. So sue me. But wait, there's a whole boatload of blame to divvy up over the Algebra kerfluffle:

First, to PZ, for an excessively, overthetoppishly, righteous smackdown of Richard Cohen.

RC: I have lived a pretty full life and never, ever used—or wanted to use—algebra.
PZ: If sheep could talk, they'd say the same thing.
Me: SSSSCOOOOOOOOORRRRRE!!!

Next, to Gabriela, for not even showing up for class 62 of 93 times. To get the sympathy thing going, you have to at least look like you're making an effort.

Then, to the relevant school system(s), who apparently haven't heard that insanity means doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. Surely they knew when algebra became a graduation requirement that they had a high failure rate. They could have added remedial classes, done some early intervention at the "pre-algebra" level, in other words, tried to make a difference. But it sounds as though all they could do was Mulligan classes after the fact. Too little, way too late.

And finally, to Richard Cohen, for demonstrating with a clever blend of verbal jiujitsu and Calvinball, that a lack of algebra can be seen in association with really putrid reasoning:

Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not.
The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were
whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a
readable English sentence.

Now, if I understand his drift (?!?!), he's saying that if algebra were really the highest form of reasoning, then mastery of algebra would endow students with a knowledge of history and dynamite syntactic skills. Obviously these counterexamples show that is not the case, therefore any stupid BS he writes must be true. Or maybe I don't get his drift.

Richard, this is moi: Writing is the use of symbols to convey certain abstract ideas. So is algebra. But the discipline of learning the rules of symbol manipulation in algebra can help to train your mind to evaluate if one sequence of symbols follows from another. This is a skill that could benefit you in the job for which, amazingly enough, you get paid actual money. It's never too late to take that first step.

New irony meter needed

Prison official regarding lifer with cardiac disease, asked what would happen in event of cardiac arrest:

"At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. "We would resuscitate him," then execute him.

The World Ends Tonight

I'm linking to WorldNetDaily for the curious reason that I agree with Vox Day, for the most part. This bloweth my mind.

America was founded on the principle that it is right to sacrifice blood for liberty. It is telling that the Bush defenders make precisely the opposite argument, that it is right to sacrifice liberty in order to avoid the shedding of American blood. In this they are, like the Dear Leader, avowedly anti-American.

Would you like a glass of Chagrin with that?

So, d'you ever haul out the old blunderbuss, load it up painstakingly, aim it to perfection, and fire off a blistering round exactly at the wrong target? Yeah, me neither. But if I did, the experience might be something like this response I crafted to a blog comment that I later concluded must have been intended sarcastically. So, in the interest of retrieving the projectile and redirecting my fire at the proper recipient, here goes. Guest Blogger Ross Douthat, writing at Andrew Sullivan's daily dish, said of the so-called Christmas Wars:

"...the larger reality is that ... there is a significant chunk of this country - [the cultural elite] - that doesn't much care for Christianity, at least if it's practiced seriously and its basic dogmas are left intact."

Speaking as a fairly regular churchgoer whose views typically align with those of the so-called cultural elite, I think Douthat, and by extension those in the "Christianity under siege" community, seriously misunderstand how they are perceived. There is impatience with the gullibility of those who are taken in by such transparent buffoons as Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson, and George W. Bush. There is disgust with the hypocritical sanctimony that is all too often the public face of the "Religious Right." There is bemusement, sure, when you get cut off in traffic by a car with a bumper sticker proclaiming, "Christians aren't perfect -- just forgiven." There is horror and disbelief at those who do not appreciate what a blessing we have in the wall of separation between church and state. And there is annoyance with the missionary zeal that amounts to intolerance of anyone else's brand of spirituality.

With regard to the serious practice of Christianity's basic dogmas, well, if more Christians lived a life of humility, peacemaking, and genuine charity, I think even the jaded cultural elite would stand in awe.

This is Instructive

From a Nightline interview:

TERRY MORAN (ABC NEWS): Are you troubled at all that more than 100 people in US custody have died, 26 of them now being investigated as criminal homicides, people beaten to death, suffocated to death, died of hypothermia in US custody?

DICK CHENEY (VICE PRESIDENT): I won't accept your numbers, Terry. But I guess one of the things I'm concerned about is, that as we get farther and farther away from 9/11, and there have been no further attacks against the United States, there seems to be less and less concern about doing what's necessary in order to defend the country.

A reasonable followup, alas, an up not followed: So, tell me, Mr. VP, just how many criminal homicides are necessary to defend our country? Are you saying we should be encouraging our armed forces and intelligence agencies to commit more criminal homicides, so we'll be even safer?

My question: If defending our country means throwing away the constitution, is it really worth saving?

It's Called Burden of Proof, Counselor, Or, When Snide Attacks aren't Enough

This op-ed printed recently in the Birmingham News just cries out for a detailed rebuttal. Since items from the News only stay online for 7 days (edit: it appears I'm wrong about this), I've taken the liberty of reproducing the entire piece here, except for the author's email.

Prove it or admit you can't
Sunday, December 11, 2005

The debate over evolution, natural selection, creationism and intelligent design seems to me mostly a jumble of intellectually dishonest arguments. As with so many of society's debates, polarization of political positions has resulted in mere thinly veiled, snide attacks on the intelligence of those holding the opposite position.

Darwin hypothesized two essential prongs for his theory of evolution: (a) that species "evolved" one from another through some process; and a bolder one, (b) that the process was exclusively one of natural selection (survival of the fittest). Many people, and apparently most scientists, have accepted both prongs as fact. (See National Geographic Magazine, November 2004.)

Some religious people - the creationists - are troubled by the first prong, because it appears inconsistent with a literal interpretation of Genesis' description of creation.

Scientists are dismissive of creationists because of the fossil and geological records of the Earth's development. Creationists are hard-pressed to cite scientific evidence opposing that record, and Darwinists then claim victory for both prongs of Darwin's theory. Here, the scientists abandon their intellectual honesty.

Most people uncomfortable with Darwinism find trouble only with the second prong of his theory - the more speculative theory that development of species occurred solely through a process of natural (random) selection, without input of any "supernatural" or "intelligently designing" force. These believers in "intelligent design," if they are religious, may view Genesis as allegorical and not literal.

On the second prong of Darwinism, however, "intelligent designers" have the widely held view (88 percent, according to National Geographic) that an intelligent force has been at work in the universe with a role in the development of species.

Darwinists who attack intelligent design have scant evidence for their second-prong theory - that change occurs exclusively by natural selection, in no way attributable to intelligent design. Their best argument is that slight variations appear in species that could in theory have occurred naturally.

Understandably, they are in the uncomfortable position here of proving a negative. Consequently, they most often resort to two other arguments, both fundamentally dishonest.

First, they often obfuscate the debate by falling back on the weightier evidence for Darwin's first prong. Second, they define away their proof problem. Since they cannot prove that intelligent design did not cause the changes or proliferation of species, they argue that such a notion is inherently nonscientific, and that such a causation is out of bounds in any scientific discussion.

A little intellectual honesty is in order. Having stated a theory that expressly excludes intelligent design, science should admit it is incapable of proving or disproving intelligent design. Such proof is simply beyond the tools available to mortal man.

Having admitted that, they should admit - to that extent - that Darwin's second prong, natural selection of species, is not proven fact and cannot be proved fact, but merely a valid scientific theory that cannot be proved to be the ultimate causation of development of species, to the exclusion of intelligent design. They may legitimately state it is the only "scientific theory," but they must be willing to admit clearly the implications of that phrase.

As a believer in intelligent design, and one with some training in science, I can live with schools teaching Darwin's theory so long as this truth is admitted clearly within the context of that teaching. It is not asking too much of science that it admit what it can and what it cannot prove.

Attorney David M. Wooldridge lives in Homewood. His e-mail address is [redacted]
© 2005 The Birmingham News

I'll offer my thoughts and snide attacks in the next post.

Now this is truly funny.

The Museum of Depressionist Art. Just go there.


Pictured, Buddhist Monk misses Nirvana due to Cell Phone Interruption.

OK, Ready! Gimme an 'F'!

So the Fordham Foundation graded (almost) all the states' published science education standards and, oopsy, we Flagged it! Yes, that's Dear Alabama, right in that diagonal swath of failure extending from Kansas to Key West. Y'know, Toto, I THOUGHT we weren't in Kansas anymore, but now I'm not sure. Maybe if could espy a cadre of Discovery Institue scientists, we'd know for sure...

Oh! Here they are:

Grey Lady Gets Shrill

I'm so old, I remember when columnists writing in the Times were only allowed to call BS on GWB if they promised not to call him a liar. So now the NYT reports to choir practice and joins the chorus.

Money quote:

It's obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein's weapons and his terrorist connections. We need to know how that happened and why.

Mr. Bush said last Friday that he welcomed debate, even in a time of war, but that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." We agree, but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are rewriting history.

More ponies, anyone?

Pardon, Your IDiocy is Showing

New insights from the frequently-regarded-as-flat state of Kansas:

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

I guess the good news is that class time devoted to IDiocy will be diluted by the need to make time for phrenology, alchemy, and astrology.