Archive for August, 2007
What the…
Posted by jim in Fun Is Where You Find It, What The Heck Is That Thing? on August 31, 2007
It’s amazing the things you trip over while cruising the ‘net. Consider this site. There’s some fun stuff here, some good stuff here, and some downright crazy stuff here. For example, go to this page. You’ll find the following passage:
What are angels ? According to the Bible they are Gods messengers of light. But what are they really ?
If you look up the words angles and angels you will see they connect to one another. Light comes down to the earth on an angle because of the gravitational pull of celestial bodies it passes.
These angles of light are photons which scientifically are messenger particles.
Angels of light
Kind of funny, kind of scary, but until now I didn’t realize that the sun’s rays reached Earth at an angle due to gravitational lensing.
Yeow.
The Joys of Cottaging or…
Posted by in Doc Bushwell, One-Link Friday, Spankin' the Crank on August 31, 2007
…Why Bathroom Sex is So Hot.
The Salon newsletter popped up in my gmail files within the past hour with the aforementioned article by James Hannaham. It’s a pretty interesting essay on the allure of public restroom schwinging and whether or not such acts make a guy Teh Gay or Not Teh Gay, as Senator Larry Craig would claim.
From the article:
Imagining that closeted gay men are the only ones involved in bathroom sex is naive, since it assumes that homosexual acts are synonymous with homosexual identity, which is silly. One hardly needs to be reminded of the many hyper-masculine settings with a reputation for fostering homosexual behavior: prisons, armies, the high seas, the Village People, etc. (Historian B.R. Burg has argued that the 17th century buccaneers of the Caribbean engaged exclusively in homosexual behavior. Take that, Johnny Depp!)
Of course, if one is to follow the rationale (har) of the Punch-Doug and Judy Show and its giddy Granite State Grokstering slapstick, fine straight men such as the hapless Larry Craig and Ted Haggard were undoubtedly infected with gay cooties at some point in their impressionable lives. Or perhaps these fellows were adversely affected by the vibes of college women engaging in anal sex.
Sexual repression is all very sad to me, a dedicated fan of Frans de Waal. If only we Homo sapiens, who, even if some would deny it, are a pansexual species, would fully and truly embrace our inner Pan paniscus (bonobo) and set our sexuality free, we might truly provide the lubrication that makes society run smoothly. Penis fencing at project review meetings would be so much more entertaining than unending PowerPointery, and “grabbing biscuits” (see article) might just replace a collegial handshake.
*I’m not sure what exactly falls under the relatively new tag, “Spanking the Crank,” but somehow this fits, I think.
The Joys of Cottaging or…
Posted by docbushwell in Doc Bushwell, One-Link Friday, Spankin' the Crank on August 31, 2007
…Why Bathroom Sex is So Hot.
The Salon newsletter popped up in my gmail files within the past hour with the aforementioned article by James Hannaham. It’s a pretty interesting essay on the allure of public restroom schwinging and whether or not such acts make a guy Teh Gay or Not Teh Gay, as Senator Larry Craig would claim.
From the article:
Imagining that closeted gay men are the only ones involved in bathroom sex is naive, since it assumes that homosexual acts are synonymous with homosexual identity, which is silly. One hardly needs to be reminded of the many hyper-masculine settings with a reputation for fostering homosexual behavior: prisons, armies, the high seas, the Village People, etc. (Historian B.R. Burg has argued that the 17th century buccaneers of the Caribbean engaged exclusively in homosexual behavior. Take that, Johnny Depp!)
Of course, if one is to follow the rationale (har) of the Punch-Doug and Judy Show and its giddy Granite State Grokstering slapstick, fine straight men such as the hapless Larry Craig and Ted Haggard were undoubtedly infected with gay cooties at some point in their impressionable lives. Or perhaps these fellows were adversely affected by the vibes of college women engaging in anal sex.
Sexual repression is all very sad to me, a dedicated fan of Frans de Waal. If only we Homo sapiens, who, even if some would deny it, are a pansexual species, would fully and truly embrace our inner Pan paniscus (bonobo) and set our sexuality free, we might truly provide the lubrication that makes society run smoothly. Penis fencing at project review meetings would be so much more entertaining than unending PowerPointery, and “grabbing biscuits” (see article) might just replace a collegial handshake.
*I’m not sure what exactly falls under the relatively new tag, “Spanking the Crank,” but somehow this fits, I think.
OK, let’s talk about nothing.
Posted by kemibe in Sounds Cool on August 31, 2007
Mark Knopfler is my favorite all-time guitarist. I never indulged in this habit myself, although I grew up around musical instruments and could at one point play drums and keyboards reasonably well and dance a thousand miles an hour.
My dad played in a band and was a semi-pro at the guitar. He could do Joe Satriani, he could riff the Edge. Knopfler was out of his league, and my dad stood respectably by and listened.
Knopfler is a great songwriter and a shitty vocalist, and it doesn’t matter. Brothers in Arms was my extended anthem in terms of getting through high school, and getting my chicks for free was reliant on the haunting power stabs in Money for Nothing (which, let’s not fuck around, made MTV what it became) and the crazy 64th notes in Sultans of Swing. If you can, and I both dare you and love you, upload your own Telegraph Road or Industrial Disease. It’s all so good.
These days I run through the northeastern mountains of the United States with an MP3 player and am sometimes pleasantly shocked by what I hear. I am no fan of techno, but I’ll tell you, was so lit up by LCD Soundsystem that I can’t help but offer “Someone Great” to anyone and everyone (it’s never gotten a bad review from anyone I have known).
Jesus, Crist! Why not just bulldoze the Fish & Wildlife “Conservation” Commission outright?
Posted by kemibe in Habitats and Humanity on August 30, 2007
Imagine that you were elected Grand Poobah of the Municipality of Shatton, a place notorious for being plagued throughout the years by dangerously high levels of human waste in the water supply, in its public parks and pools, in the produce sections of supermarkets, everywhere. Something must be done, and one of your first tasks is appointing members to a brand-new, three-person regulatory commission called “Shatton No More.” You select:
- The owner of a thriving Shatton sewage-removal business, whose livelihood depends unconditionally on transporting excrement away from places it shouldn’t be.
- A tent-dwelling schizophrenic handyman noted in The Guinness Book of World Records as having once held the world record for the largest wedding cake made entirely from faeces.
- An incontinent senior citizen and self-described naturalist who has lobbied for twenty years to have Depends and other adult diapers taken off the market in light of their alleged “shame factor.”
On top of this eyebrow-raising set-up, it is then revealed that at least one of these people and possibly all three contributed mightily to your poobahnatorial election campaign.
How much trust would you have in this crew to dive headlong into the crap facing their town — your town?
This is scarcely a parody of current goings-on in that proudly deteriorating bastion of backslapping and glad-handing politics, Florida.
Does bungled methamphetamine production cause marathon running?
Posted by kemibe in Health and Society on August 29, 2007
It’s not a sophisticated hypothesis, but it has a certain plausibility to it: Both marathoners and household accidents related the amateur synthesizing of methamphetamine have become increasingly prevalent in the past 10 or 15 years. Assuming that these phenomena are weakly linked at best is — though sensible — far more mundane than exploring possible cause-effect relationships, however spurious or extraneous these relationships appear.
Maybe meth-making leads to marathons by causing crankheads to run around as a result of either dopamine overload or the need to flee from the authorities, leading in turn to a general yen for perambulation, improved fitness, and finally 26-mile-long footraces. Or maybe I have things backward, and meth-makers who run marathons are chronically tired from overtraining, leading to inattentiveness and the sloppy handling of volatile reagents, thereby setting the stage for untold numbers of mobile homes to explode in the wee hours of otherwise tranquil Sonoma desert mornings.
Anyway, this was one of my first thoughts when I saw this article. My proposed meth-marathon link is obviously silly on its face, but fundamentally no sillier than thinking that a virus is likely to underlie the “obesity epidemic” that has bloated richer nations in the past few decades. But obesity is of special interest to people, and mysterious pathogens enthrall scientists, so it’s somewhat understandable that even some trained scientists can ignore the whipped-cream-covered elephant sitting in their collective lap and focus instead on the phantom fleck of gold across the room.
A-kickin’ the Fannie (or dyin’ tryin’)
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 28, 2007
Remember “Opine Editorials,” the group of antihomo teeth-gnashers who conducted a clumsy incursion on the Refuge back in April when I — still gaily unaware of certain New Hampshire-based cousins of theirs — posted about the N.H. House passing a civil-unions bill (one that was was soon passed into law)?
We got an e-mail yesterday from the author of Fannie’s Room (“political, social, and homo writings for which the first amendment may or may not have been intended)” in which the proprietress pointed out that her recent post about the OpEd-heimers had generated a record number of comments on her blog.
I remember the Op-Ed people being, as a group, slightly more adroit at expressing themselves than the more recent targets of the Refuge (although Renee, the first of them to hit Fannie’s Room, is alarmingly like Judy), and far more willing to engage their opponents in argument. Nevertheless, they were, to a one, unable to provide a single consequentialist argument against gay civil unions. This is not surprising, as it has yet to be done by anyone worldwide.
Fannie and her allies have done an admirable job of putting up with these assholes, whom even the notoriously accommodating Ed Brayton banned. They remain nothing but a bunch of spineless, mostly nameless bigots who continue to experience untold amounts of frustration that American society is, for all its idiots and problems, moving steadily away from their Cro-Magnon-esque envisaging of “tradition” and more toward acceptance.
Their only recourse is to litter the Web by perseverating in the same lines of non-thought in sometimes-baroque language, and when I picture them going to bed every night angry and mortified at knowing that gay dudes across America are having what amounts to government-sanctioned oral sex, I can’t help but produce a wide, winning smile.
I don’t have any sedatives handy, so I admit I haven’t read much of the thread at Fannie’s Room yet. I stopped when I got to Renee’s first comment, some kind of doomsday yammerstain about anal sex and college women. (There — if that doesn’t get you good people over there, nothing will.)
The Biblical conversion factor, it not consistent
Posted by kemibe in Hootworthy on August 28, 2007
PZ Myers has unearthed maybe the nine trillionth bad attempt in the history of Christian apologetics to try to reconcile the two differently sequenced accounts of Biblical creation, a task logically equivalent to trying to demonstrate that for certain positive values of A, the equations “A + B = 0″ and “A < B" are both true. (You know that when the basis for virtually all of your beliefs requires a branch all its own called "apologetics," you're in serious trouble.)
The contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 — the existence of which are not surprising given that the Biblical creation myths are borrowed from multiple cultures and, like much of the Bible, do not appear intended to be taken literally — are unambiguous. Equally evident is that the Bible has the earth itself being older than the stars and light itself, something a half-alert child could perceive as unruly.
Magic meets neuroscience in Las Vegas
Posted by kemibe in Brains and Behavior on August 27, 2007
The New York Times ran an article last week about “Magic of Consciousness,” a symposium organized by a pair of researchers at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix and featuring Teller, James Randi, and other prestidigitators specially selected not merely because of their knack for wowing and fooling people, but owing to their interest in — and knowledge of –how their tricks work at the level of cognition.
Important in trickery is the fact that the brain processes only a fraction of the sensory input it receives; from an evolutionary perspective, it’s certainly understandable why a sensory system would feature something akin to redundancy or mammoth overspill. Better to “see” ten hungry bears, including nine that aren’t there, and register the one gunning for your hide than to mistake the only one around for a rock.
One is left with the impression that Teller et al. would be extremely interesting people to talk to even if they didn’t divulge any trade secrets. There’s no mystery as to why these guys are the most ardent skeptics around; their bullshit detectors are tripped at the parts-per-million level.
How to stomp on a lit bag of chimp faeces with panache
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 27, 2007
Over the weekend I remarked that the dolts at GraniteGrok.com had not only evaded this week’s round of simple questions about their stance on gay unions but had corrupted their position further by posting a clip from an indefatigably profane former rocker and right-wing icon. Now, with tear-jerking but predictable irony, they have slid further into their own toxic morass by posting something apparently intended as an insult, or a retort, or something. It consists of a picture of three chimpanzees and a series of sentences that might have been written by those chimps.
I’ll try to keep this brief (but won’t) and to the point. Doug writes:
Who said it?
Posted by kemibe in Health and Society on August 27, 2007
“”The belief that natural elements created matter requires the same faith creationists have that God created the earth. Unfortunately, since no one was around, this neither truth-claim is truly verifiable. It was only a short time ago that humans fabricated this faith that the elements evolved without a creator. While a belief’s life span is not as relevant, it does stand to reason that if life evolved, creator-free, someone would have developed this theory and taught long ago. Instead, we see primitive societies worshiping various Higher Beings and of course, we have a recording of the actual creation in the Bible. Typically, this is dismissed by evolutionists as religion, not science. This is undeniably false – since God created the earth, He was involved in science. He does not require evidence. Only faith. But He is man enough to allow His creation to not choose Him. And He was smart enough to leave no “evidence” for evolution for these wanderers who instead must be as ardent believers in evolution as Christians are in the Creator.”
This passage was written by:
A) An atheist, best-selling author, and doctoral candidate in nueroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles
B) An atheist, best-selling author, and professor of psycholinguistics at Harvard University
C) An atheist, best-selling author, and philosophy professor at Tufts University
D) An atheist, best-selling author, and ethologist at Oxford University
E) A fundamentalist Christian blogger and graduate of Lee University
I admit I loaded this “quiz” a bit, but I couldn’t think of much else to do with that muddled load of shit up there. I’m fairly certain that every sentence that makes something akin to grammatical sense contains at least one bad assumption, factual error, or outright lie.
Bonus points to those who can name the referents of choices A through E without looking any of them up.
LOLGonzales
Posted by kemibe in Hootworthy on August 27, 2007
(Original photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times.)
Once again, religion is the basic problem
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 27, 2007
It’s probably time to cut myself off. I do not need to renew my ongoing fascination with the shambling wreck of self-congratulatory ignorance, hypocrisy, and gleeful cowardice I’ll call Meet the New Groksuckers (to account for both their blog and their radio show) every time they say or post something stupid. I’ve established several times that this is what they’re about and all they’re about, and have given plenty of examples. It’s been clear for some time that they have no interest in discussing anything I’ve brought up, and that despite their nominal gripes about the names I’ve called them, they’re not-so-secretly happy for the attention because they would rather be hated than ignored, and they lack the wherewithal to even begin effecting the things they would love to see pass.
This blog has, in the recent past, sent GraniteGrok.com more hits by a two-to-one margin than any other source besides Google, which sends them lots of visitors who aren’t looking for them. Since wingnuts equate noise and activity with validity, this state of affairs surely has their collective pecker oh-so-tentatively easing its way out of the terminal, morose flaccidity that set in once Craig Benson was ousted as governor and formerly ruddy New Hampshire officially entered a hopeful period of cyanosis.
I think I can say without unduly crediting my analytical or rhetorical powers — I mean, let’s be real — that every example of verbal pyrotechnics and each creative slur I’ve used to debunk and describe this sad, bland trio has been accompanied by more than enough point-by-point refutations of their various and deeply stereotypical bleatings to satisfy any objective interloper. They continue to type stuff and push buttons and expend a modicum of energy making sure we know their bodies aren’t yet as dead as their minds, but this is functionally meaningless; they concede defeat every time they back down from a question and offer noise instead of answers.
That’s a windy way of announcing that they’ve embarrassed themselves again. It’s one thing for me to sit here and take apart specific arguments, but the Groksuckers ensure that all anyone really has to do is point at them. So, one more time, this is what I will do, and then I promise to let these twits be unless they show irrefutable signs of earnestly answering any of the charges made against them by this blog and its commenters. Feel free to hold me to this. (Yes, even you, Brian.)
This will be twofold. First I’ll say a few things about an exchange Judy Paris and I have been having, inspired by perhaps the most hysterical OH NO HERE COME THE HOMOS! screed I’ve ever seen. I’m reproducing part of this exchange here; for those who don’t want to give the Grok Stars another hit, what preceded the material I’ve cross-posted below was another of my challenges to Judy to explain both her basis for condemning homosexuality in a secular world and her continued reliance on a discredited source to justify her Jar-Jar-Binks-ian “a-gay is not-ta a born-a that way!” idea. In response, she wrote an incoherent and self-defeating tirade about the Bible, most of which I quoted (the stuff in italics) in my subsequent comment.
Does Judy defend herself ably this time? You decide. It’s long but comprehensive:
Brits fattening up on booze
Posted by kemibe in Health and Society on August 27, 2007
Ever efficient, the citizens of Great Britain are reportedly killing two health birds with one stone by tacking on an extra day’s worth of calories each week in the form of alcohol. I doubt they’re alone in the industrialized world in this regard. (The linked article mentions something called “alcopop,” which sounds like either the sound made by cracking open a beer or something your dad becomes after a few too many, but is evidently a beverage.)
Many people know the basics about the energy supplied by the three main macronutrients: Carbohydrates and proteins each supply 4 calories (actually kcal, but obviously no one’s really counting) per gram, while fats provide 9. Ethanol, while technically a carbohydrate, has a yield of about 7 calories per gram. That means that a one-ounce (28-gram) shot of 40-percent-by-volume (80-proof) vodka or other spirit offers about 70 calories. (Seven times [0.4 * 28] = about 80, but this simplified calculation ignores the different densities of water — 1 g/ml — and ethanol — 0.79 g/ml).
revere on the Ultramodern Anti-Atheist B.S. Factory
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 26, 2007
revere at Effect Measure is always a pleasant read thanks to imbuing his well-founded positions with strength and emotion (which we can all do) while tempering their delivery with just the right level of subtlety, irony and restraint (which would be nice to be able to do). Then again, he’s had like 250 years to practice ringing warning bells.
Naturally I enjoy his Sunday Freethinker Sermonettes, and today’s, which takes on Matt Nisbet’s recent commentary on atheists (also noted here), has sparked a great discussion in the comments. (Nothing personal against Matt, but I don’t think Blake and Torb-j-double-dotted-o-rn are the kind of commenters you want to argue with unless you bring your best game — and a valid point or two.)
Writes revere:
When Ted Nugent is your hero, you’ve thrown in the shark, jumped the towel, etc.
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 25, 2007
Although the GraniteGrok.com crew was aware that I had no intention of calling into today’s edition of Meet the New Press, their putrescent weekly gabfest and de facto blog companion, I figured they wouldn’t be able to help mentioning the Chimp Refuge anyway. I listened to the podcast earlier tonight, and sure enough, the host, Doug Lambert, wasted little time fielding a call from Judy Paris so they could talk about what a badass she is.
He left out the fact that she is an emotionally driven, scatterbrained, cowardly, faith-choked hypocrite, probably because this — along with the Groksters’ neat evasion of specific indictments made against their claims here by myself and others — is essential to their foundering purposes.
I get that there are untold numbers of sloppy-minded people stumbling around America wearing vacant expressions and living mindless lives, but I have yet to figure out why so many of them are drawn with such zeal toward endeavors such as political punditry that only highlight their ugliest, most brazenly ignorant facets.
God’s Warriors on CNN
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 25, 2007
Earlier this week, CNN ran a three part, six hour series called God’s Warriors. I haven’t heard or read anything about it didn’t know about it at all until intrepid commenter Bill from Dover tipped me about it today.
The network is running encore presentations this weekend at 9 p.m. EDT each evening; last night’s presentation on Judaism is lost to the aether for now, but you can still catch tonight’s on Islam and tomorrow’s on Christianity.
I’m not sure why CNN chose to present the Abrahamic cults in the order they have. It could be because Judaism, Islam and Christianity are ordered from the least number of worldwide adherents to the most, or possibly because the producers believe that Judaism is less insane than Islam, etc. Regardless, I don’t know how more faith-driven stupidity I can take, so I don’t know that I’ll be watching myself.
Raiders of the Lost Parts
Posted by kemibe in Hootworthy on August 25, 2007
I’m glad there are people out there with as much free time as I have, and friends of mine who can track those people down.
Why prosecute Michael Vick if abortion is legal?
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 25, 2007
This is argument is being sincerely presented on, you guessed it, one of the forums within the official Major League Baseball site. Someone named “Preacher54″ (aren’t they all, though?), posting on the “State of the Redsox.com Nation” board, writes:
our nation is sick, this guy kills some dogs and may do time or lose his job. yet the abortion industry thrives is promoted by our politicians and if people cry out and say its wrong there silenced or ignored. i dont get it. yes what he did was wrong we all realize that, but does his punishment fit the crime? or does color play into this? maby mike could do a couple abortions and placate the political correct crowd and all would be made well. something is wrong.
Why prosecute Michael Vick if abortion is legal?
Posted by kemibe in We're Doomed on August 25, 2007
This is argument is being sincerely presented on, you guessed it, one of the forums within the official Major League Baseball site. Someone named “Preacher54″ (aren’t they all, though?), posting on the “State of the Redsox.com Nation” board, writes:
our nation is sick, this guy kills some dogs and may do time or lose his job. yet the abortion industry thrives is promoted by our politicians and if people cry out and say its wrong there silenced or ignored. i dont get it. yes what he did was wrong we all realize that, but does his punishment fit the crime? or does color play into this? maby mike could do a couple abortions and placate the political correct crowd and all would be made well. something is wrong.
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- Doc Bushwell is a biochemist and a medical writer who serves as a slavering minion of the dark lords of Big and Little Pharma; Jim is an engineering professor with a fondness for running shoes and drumsticks; and Kevin Beck is a self-exiled member of the clan who refuses to stay gone.
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