Some people just can't take a hint, and saying "I don't ever want to receive another email from you, ever" is met with a confused and startled expression and copious blinking instead of the faintest hint of understanding.  Late last week, another mass-forwarded urban legend-type email was sent to my wife's work account by this asshole again:

     You were absolutely clear, I asked my missus, that you insisted upon no further correspondence from that child-fondling pervert?  Absolutely clear, she asserted.  Since the pedo is semi-engaged to my wife's employee, she didn't want to make too many waves (I say semi-engaged because he is still married to a woman who cuckolded him many months ago, and obviously can't remarry until filing for and successfully completing a divorce) so she dropped a casual hint to her employee that she remind her beau that contact from him remains unwelcome.  For whatever reason, he got the idea that this was my doing and a few hours later, an email sent through an anonymous remailer arrived in my own In-Box that said "...face to face confrontations are for real men." 

     I'll allow a few moments for that last bit to process.  A convicted pederast, through an anonymous remailer, accused me of being less than a man for not confronting him directly over his insistence on annoying my wife at work with other peoples' writings that amuse him.  The irony and hypocrisy and utter hubris was enough to leave me stunned speechless for many minutes before I found the right words for a response.

     I wrote - and I'm paraphrasing here - that the overwhelming need he feels to force himself upon those he feels are weaker than he demonstrates a sort of underlying psychological pathology that should be examined and diagnosed by a mental health professional as soon as possible, and that in the meantime should he find himself possessed by the urge to force his presence upon an unconsenting other, he should lay down in front of a heavy truck instead.  In deference to Florida's new "Shoot First" law and the public knowledge of his conviction for lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under 16 years of age, paying a visit to my home would be unadvised.  Two or three times, I repeated that he should seek professional psychological counselling before he decompensates and hurts someone else - especially another child. 

     Unbelievable, isn't it?  Why he isn't behind bars has never been adequately explainted to me.  In today's newspaper, I read a story about a first-time drug offender facing up to a 60 year sentence - yet someone who commits a sex crime against a child under 16 years of age walks free.  Should you find yourself visiting or moving to (not recommended by me) the Tampa Bay area, make certain you check out this website before settling on a location, especially if you have children.  I'm not sure why, but Florida is chock-full of sexual criminals, many of them violent repeat offenders. 

     That's yet another reason I'll be happy once this place is in my rear-view mirror.  Perverts, and bad weather.  Selah.

Refuting Creationist Arguments

   Creationists explain the existence of diverse organisms and their characteristics as miracles: as the result of direct supernatural intervention.  It is impossible to predict miracles or to do experiments on supernatural processes, so creationists do not do original research in support of their theory.  (About the only quasi-exception to this statement was their claim to have found commingled human and dinosaur footprints in fossilized sediments in a riverbed in Texas, supposedly showing that these organisms were contemporaneous.  Even most creationists now acknowledge that the "human" prints are a mixture of fraudulent carvings and natural depressions.)  Thus "creation science," rather than providing positive evidence of creation, consists entirely of attempts to show that biological phenomena must, by default, be the products of intelligent design.  Here are some of the most commonly encountered creationist arguments, together with capsule counterarguments. 

1.  Evolution is outside the realm of science because it cannot be observed.

     Most of science depends not on direct observation, but on testing hypotheses against the predictions they make.  The structure of DNA, for instance, is known from data that conformed to predictions in the Watson-Crick model, and has still not been directly observed.  Besides, although we have not observed, and cannot expect to observe, the origin of new higher taxa, modest evolutionary changes of characters have been observed in many species, new species of plants have arisen within the last century, and natural allopolyploid species of plants have been "re-created" by hybridizing diploid species.

2.  Evolution cannot be proved.

     Nothing in science is ever absolutely proved.  "Facts" are hypotheses in which we can have very high confidence, because of massive evidence in their favour and the absence of contradictory evidence.  Abundant evidence from every area of biology and paleontology supports evolution, and there exists no contradictory evidence.

3.  Evolution is not a scientific hypothesis because it is not testable: no possible observations could refute it.

     Many conceivable observations could refute or cast serious doubt on evolution, such as finding incontrovertibly mammalian fossils in incontrovertibly Pre-Cambrian rocks.  In contrast, any puzzling quirk of nature could be attributed to the inscrutable will and infinite power of a supernatural intelligence, so creationism is untestable.

4.  The orderliness of the universe, including the order manifested in organisms' adaptations, is evidence of intelligent design, just like the orderliness of a machine designed for a particular function.

     Order in nature, such as the structure of crystals, arises from natural causes, and is not evidence of intelligent design.  The order displayed by the correspondence between organisms' structuress and their functions is the consequence of natural selection acting on genetic variation, as has been observed in experimental and natural populations.

5.  Evolution of greater complexity violates the second law of thermodynamics, which holds that entropy (disorder) increases.

     The second law applies only to closed systems, such as the universe as a whole.  Order and complexity can increase in local, open systems due to an influx of energy.  This is evident in the development of individual organisms, in which biochemical reactions are powered by energy derived ultimately from the sun.

6.  It is almost infinitely improbable that even the simplest life could arise from nonliving matter.  The probability of random assemply of a functional nucleotide sequence only 100 bases long is 1/4¹⁰⁰, an exceedingly small number.  And scientists have never synthesized life from nonliving matter.

     It is true that a fully self-replicating system of nucleic acids and replicase enzymes has not yet arisen from simple organic constituents in the laboratory, but the history of scientific progress shows that it would be foolish and arrogant to assert that what science has not accomplished in a few decades cannot be accomplished.  Critical steps in the probable origin or life, such as abiotic synthesis of purines, pyrimidines, and amino acids and self-replication of short RNAs have been demonstrated in the laboratory.  And there is no reason to think that the first self-replicating or polypeptide-encoding nucleic acids had to have any particular sequence.  If there are many possible sequences with such properties, the probability of their formation rises steeply.  Moreover, the origin of life is an entirely different problem from the modification and diversification of life once it has arisen.  Knowledge of the latter does not require knowledge of the former.

7.  Mutations are harmful, and do not give rise to complex new adaptive characteristics.

     Most mutations are indeed harmful, and are purged from populations by natural selection.  Some, however, are beneficial, as shown in many experiments.  Complex adaptations usually are based not on single mutations, but on combinations of mutations that jointly or successively increase in frequency due to natural selection.

8.  Natural selection merely eliminates unfit mutants, rather than creating new characters.

     "New" characters, in most cases, are modifications of pre-existing characters, altered in size, shape, developmental timing, or organization.  This is true at the molecular level as well.  Natural selection "creates" such modifications by increasing the frequency of alleles at several or many loci so that combinations of alleles, initially improbable because of their rarity, become probable.  Observations and experiments on both laboratory and natural populations hav edemonstrated the efficacy of natural selection.

9.  Chance could not produce complex structures.

     This is true, but natural selection is a deterministic, not a random, process.  The random processes of evolution, mutation and genetic drift, do not in themselves result in the evolution of complexity, as far as we know.  Indeed, when natural selection is relaxed, complex structures, such as the eyes of cave-dwelling animals, slowly degenerate, due in part to fixation of neutral mutations by genetic drift.

10. Complex adaptations such as wings, eyes, and biochemical pathways could not have evolved gradually because the first stages would not have been adaptive.  The full complexity of such an adaptation is necessary, and this could not arise in a single step by evolution.

     The response to this common objection has two parts.  First, many such features, such as hemoglobins and eyes, do show various stages of increasing complexity among different organisms.  "Half an eye" - an eye capable of discriminating light from dark, but incapable of forming a focused image - is indeed better than none.  Second, many structures have been modified for a new function after being elaborated to serve a different function.

11. If an altered structure, such as the long neck of the giraffe, is advantageous, why don't all species have that structure?

     This naive question ignores the fact that different species and populations have different ecological niches and environments, for which different features are adaptive.

12. If gradual evolution had occurred, there would be no phenotypic gaps among species, and classification would be impossible.

     Many disparate organisms are connected by intermediate species, and in such cases, classification into higher taxa is indeed rather arbitrary.  In other cases, gaps exist because of the extinction of intermediate forms.

13. The fossil record does not contain any transitional forms representing the origin of major new forms of life.

     This very common claim is flatly false, for there are many such intermediates.  Creationists sometimes use rhetorical subterfuge in presenting this argument, such as definining Archeopteryx as a bird because of its feathers, and then claiming that there are no known intermediates between reptiles and birds.

14. The fossil record does not objectively represent a time series, because strata are ordered by their fossil contents, and then are assigned different times on the assumption that evolution has occurred.

     Even before The Origin of Species was published, geologists who did not believe in evolution recognized the temporal order of fossils that are characteristic of different periods, and named most of the geological periods.  Since then, radioactive dating and other methods have established the absolute dates of geological strata.

15. The similarities among organisms that biologists ascribe to common ancestry - i.e., to homology - are actually examples of common designe used by the Creator.

     Anything can be "explained" by the will of an omnipotent Creator, but we have no way to obtain information about the Creator, and no way to test this hypothesis.  Certainly, many homologous features make no adaptive sense (e.g., gill slits in both fishes and mammalian embryos) and are hard to envision as the products of an optimal, intelligent design.  Evolutionary theory predicts that the degree of similarity between homologous features should generally decline with time since common ancestry, and this is generally the case.

16. Vestigial structures are not vestigial, but functional.

    According to creationist thought, an intelligent Creator must have had a purpose, or design, in each element of his creation.  Thus all features of organisms must be functional.  For this reason, the existence of adaptations is not a strong argument for evolution.  However, non-functional and even maladaptive structures are expected if evolution is true, especially if a change in an organism's environment or way of life has rendered them superfluous or harmful.  Organisms display many such features at both the morphological and molecular level.

17. There are no fossil intermediates between apes and humans; australopithecines were merely apes.  And there exists an unbridgeable gap between humans and all other animals in cognitive abilities.

     The array of fossil hominids shows numerous stages in the evolution of posture, hands and feet, teeth, facial structure, brain size, and other features.  The mental abilities of humans are indeed developed to a far greater degree than in other species, but many of our mental faculties seem to be present in more rudimentary form in other primates and mammals.   Both functional and nonfunctional DNA sequences are extremely similar between humans and African apes.

18.  Disagreements among evolutionary biologists show that Darwin was wrong. Even prominent evolutionists have abandoned the theory of natural selection, and the entire study of evolution is in disarray.

     Disagreements among scientists exist in every field of inquiry, and are in fact the fuel of scientific progress.  They stimulate research, and are a sign of vitality. Creationists misunderstand or misinterpret evolutionary biologists who have argued (a) that the fossil record displays abrupt shifts rather than gradual change (punctuated equilibrium); (b) that many characteristics of species may not be adaptations; (c) that evolution may involve mutations with large effects as well as those with small effects; and (d) that natural selection does not explain certain major events and trends in the history of life. In fact, none of the evolutionary biologists who hold these positions deny the central proposition that adaptive characteristics evolve by the action of natural selection on random mutations. All these debates arise from different opinions on the relative frequency and importance of factors known to influence evolution: large-effect vs. small-effect mutations, genetic drift vs. natural selection, individual selection vs. species selection, adaptation vs. constraint, and so forth. These arguments about the relative importance of different processes do not at all undermine the strength of the evidence for the historical fact of evolution - i.e., descent, with modification, from common ancestors. On this point, there is no disagreement among evolutionary biologists.

-- From Evolutionary Biology by Douglas J. Futuyma

Racism, drug abuse, and all of the others did not exist until the Theory of Evolution.

Yet another "No Shit, Sherlock" moment rears itself from the muck and mire that is today's news: so-called 'Intelligent Design' is nothing but creationism dressed up in a cheap suit.  "Georgetown University theology professor John F. Haught said that while intelligent-design proponents do not explicitly identify God as the creator of life, the concept is "essentially a religious proposition."  "I understand it to be a reformulation of an old theological argument for the existence of God," he said." 

Dominionists are persistant bastards, I'll give them that.  They will stop at nothing short of putting their Gawd into Biology class and erasing all references to Eeeviloooshun since it contradicts the fairy tales of Genesis.  In their wee minds, the entire biblical story has to be true or else none of it is true - so anything that points out the obvious (i.e. - human beings descended from an ape-like ancestor, and all currently extant life descended from a common ancestor, changing over vast amounts of geologic time by means of natural selection and descent with modification) must be eradicated or else they won't get to live forever.  I live on a block with two families composed of such miniscule-brained christ-bots, and have had more than an earful of what they believe; I've read the Wedge Document and seen, in their own words, precisely what their strategy is for eliminating modern science.  They'd gladly turn the clock back to the Middle Ages for everyone if that's what it takes.  Too bad the Dominionists themselves would eschew modern medical technology - in no time, natural selection would reduce their numbers to an ignorable level, with a life expectancy of age 30 or so. 

If they could, they'd gladly burn me at the stake - because that's what their Lard wants, after all.

Out come the spin-doctors and their furious hand-waving trying to convince the populace that Bill Bennett really didn't make racist comments on the radio.  Sean Hannity, a vacuous right-wing lickspittle, has received his orders from his superiors and has gone on the offensive.  So has Rush "Sixty 80mg Oxycontin Per Day" Limbaugh - it's the "Soros-funded Liberal Media," not the actual words Bennett spoke from his own mouth:  "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."  Following that with "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do" doesn't substract one iota from the overt racism he let escape.  Bennett himself has refused to apologize for this, calling it a "thought experiement on national radio."  Bennett fucked up all right - he said what far too many white people in America truly believe, but his mistake was saying it in front of a live microphone. It's not that unusual, really - the right-wing marches in lockstep, not one of the mouthpieces will deviate from the script they're given and neither will their slavishly-devoted followers.  Rush's fans call themselves "dittoheads," and for good reason - they're all too-willing to allow OxyRush to do their thinking for them.  If Rush says that it's the "liberal media's" fault, then that's what each and every one of them will gladly chant in unison.  A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth - who said that one again? 

Made by a redneck dude who lives down the road from me.  He's a huge Tampa Bay Buccanneers fan who (fortunately for me) can't spell well.  This coming Sunday, the Bucs play the Detroit Lions.  Driving my daughter to school the other day, I looked to my right and saw this...

You can't make stuff like this up.

   Another story from the "No Shit, Sherlock" file is this lovely article.     

  James/Jeff Guckert/Gannon, gay male prostitute and former White House correspondent given near-unfettered access to the President, is seen on the left at a pro-war/pro-death/to hell with the troops-let 'em rot in Iraq rally held as a counterpoint to the anti-war rally held this past Friday.  According to the police (who always report a lower-than-actually-happe ned turnout) approximately 100,000 anti-war demonstrators showed up; my sources put the number at between 300,000 - 500,000.  Those marching with the prostitute-cum-journalist (cough) numbered - at most - 400.  That's all - just four hundred fuzzy little shitheads is all the whiz-kids at FreeRepublic could manage.  Say: isn't Gannon/Guckert acquiring quite the paunch?  He won't be able to charge the full $1200 for a weekend if he keeps packing on the pounds.  Maybe Pat Robertson's Magic Weight Loss Milkshakes would do the trick!  Someone should write ol' Jeffy a note and let him know - the last I heard, he could be reached at HotMilitaryStud.com (or some such address) since Talon News went belly-up.  If that doesn't work, perhaps leaving a message at the White House switchboard might...

   "Liberal media" my balls.  Had Clinton entertained a gay male prostitute in the White House, the media would have beat him with it like an unwanted stepchild. 

   In case there were any doubts about the Bush administration being irreparably corrupt, this bit of news should dispel them completely.  Michael Brown, the former chief of a horse club and FEMA (in sequential order), has been re-hired as a consultant for the organization he was clearly unfit to run.  There is no way possible to be cynical enough these days...  Incompetence, endemic cronyism, and hubris: practically a list of ingredients for bringing down a once-great country, and none of these are in short supply today. 

   Pat Robertson, an obscenely wealthy religious dingbat with his own television network who recently called for President Hugo Chavez' assassination, now has his own diet shake business.  See what I mean about the "you can't be too cynical these days" bit?  It's not enough that he makes money hand over fist as a religious flim-flammer (and later, in the illicit "blood diamond" trade in Africa ), now Pat wants to help you shed those unwanted pounds with his "age-defying" magic milkshake.  It's a natural move for a bullshit peddler: in between selling tickets to the Invisible Sky Palace, pushing cellulite-melting shakes to his lard-assed followers makes perfect sense. 

   In the "no shit, Sherlock" file, I located this doozy: religious beliefs are positively correlated with rising murder rates, increasing numbers of abortions, elevated sexual promiscuity, and suicide.  According to this study, done at a Catholic (!) university, belief and worship are associated with the above negative attributes, dispelling the oft-repeated "religion is necessary for a healthy society" maxim.  As I've repeated over and over, religion is unnecessary to have good morals and to live a good life.  Since ridding myself of religion, I've been a much happier person.  My secret suspicion is that people like Pat Robertson are closet atheists themselves, and they're only in this business because it beats real work. 

   Near the place where Frank Little was murdered in Montana, a massive ecological nightmare resides called the Berkeley Pit.  This pit, a leftover from the copper mining heydays of the Anaconda Mining Company when open-pit mining was a preferred technique, filled with acidic groundwater over the years.  Copper, arsenic and other toxic metals leached into the pit as well.  An excellent film about Frank Little, the Anaconda Mining Company, and the Berkeley Pit called An Injury to One tells the story better than I could describe - if you get the chance to see the movie, don't pass it up (I caught it on Sundance Channel a few months ago) 

   Our president asked for donations from Americans to help rebuild Iraq has netted a grand total of (drumroll, please): six hundred bucks.  So much for the majority of the U.S. being steadfast supporters of the war.  Asked to open up their wallets and dig deep, only $600 was collected.  It'd be funny, were there not so much carnage and destruction.

   Thirty-four days - I can hack it.

   Scarcely ten minutes ago, I shooed away the bank's appraiser who had been going room to room in my house taking digital photos and scribbling notes onto a goldenrod notepad.  He was a portly gent, with a shiny bald patch covering the better part of his head and bifocals perched on the tip of his bulbous nose, and he wanted to make idle banter with me.  It was probably the better alternative to venturing out into the Hurricane Rita-generated rainstorm, but I wasn't interested.  "If that'll be all," I stated bluntly while motioning towards the front door, "I have some errands to run."  He blinked furiously, as though I had woken him from a mid-morning nap, shook my hand while wishing me good-day and finally left.  Since this was the last time I'd have to suffer a stranger poring over my private life, I saw no reason to prolong it with unnecessary small talk.  I put on the tea kettle and rolled a joint with the remainder of the hydro bud left over from last night's smoke-out session.  It was supposed to be a Silver Haze hybrid, but its density and acrid odor betrayed its mostly indica heritage. 

   I needed a good buzz in order to deal with the customer service department at the insurer who had just cancelled our hurricane insurance policy.  After successfully navigating a touch-tone menu almost certainly designed to discourage technophobes and the impatient, ten (or maybe twenty?)  minutes of hold time awaited; an endlessly-looping recording of elevator music played, interrupted by an annoying nasal-toned woman's voice insisting that "...your call is very important to us; please continue holding."  Finally, a human voice at the other end explained that our insurer was "reducing its overall exposure."  Eh?  What's that mean, I asked.  It seems that this hurricane season was just too much for these clowns, and they'd rather cancel the policies of customers like me - who've never filed a claim and always paid their premiums on time, every time - than assume the associated risk.  It's been almost a hundred years since the Tampa Bay area has taken a direct hit, and almost no one remembers what that was like.  Back then, there was little development and only a fraction of today's population.  Being on the West side of the State makes it difficult for those angry swirling storms to hit us.  But no matter - now, we have no coverage and just under three weeks to sweat it out before this becomes Someone Else's Problem. 

   This is among the other bullshit I'll not be missing anytime soon.  Insurance companies in this State are only loosely-regulated, treated with kid gloves by the law.  Since living here, we've gone through a different insurer almost every year - they collect their premiums and then they split.  They're among the most risk-averse sissies on two legs, the sort of whiny dweebs you'd never want to take gambling.  But no matter - sixteen, seventeen days from now, and this will be only an unpleasant memory.  What are the odds another hurricane will plow through?  I'd rather not consider it. 

   Every now and again, WingNut Daily shits out a column so laughably ridiculous that I can't resist the impulse to point at it and heap upon it the scorn it so richly deserves.  Lifted from today's article:

There's nothing rational about it. It's a visceral hatred and rebellion by people who can't live within the parameters of their Creator.

So they deny He exists.

How can one seriously deny God exists?

Let's say you come across a beautiful, gold watch. Do you consider that this timepiece possibly was the result of a series of random circumstances and came together over billions of years by chance?

No. No one in their right mind would consider that a possibility.

If you walk through the woods come across a building, do you consider the possibility that it came together naturally with no intervention by any creator?

No. None in their right mind would consider that possibility.

Yet there are people - lots of them - who look at our world and see no Creator.

There are people - lots of them - who look at man and see no Creator.

There are people - lots of them - who look at the Bible, the inspired, inerrant Word of God, and conclude that it is the work of man.

People see what they want to see, and don't see what they don't want to see.

Why is it that we recognize buildings had builders and watches had watchmakers, but we don't all recognize that much more sophisticated creations had a Creator?

Because some people - many people - don't want to face the truth. They don't want to recognize they are accountable to someone other than themselves. They don't want to recognize they are in denial. They don't want to recognize they are lawbreakers. They don't want to recognize they are in a state of sin that will damn them for eternity.

  Some days, the news is so weird that the paperboy drops off the morning edition without looking me in the eye and who can blame him?  Scarcely days apart, our Governor's son got himself locked up in a Texas hoosegow on public intoxication and resisting arrest charges, and a very recently-resigned senior White House official was swept up in the scandalous Abramoff fiasco.  A copy of young Jebby Jr.'s arrest report can be viewed here .  In the meantime, our dear leader's poll numbers show his popularity circling the drain, so to speak. 

   I cringe when that approach gets used on me because it means proselytisation is just around the corner, and the implication that my lack of belief is less than sincere.  If religion and theism work for you, then that's great.  Credo consolans roughly translates to "I believe (because it) comforts" and roughly approximates the depth of the religious beliefs I used to (but no longer) have.  Modern life is often frightening, and believing that an all-powerful being overlooks each and every aspect of your life might be a comforting - if not creepily voyeuristic - thought for some people. 

   Only after long and careful deliberation did I conclude that I lacked belief in gods.  Being raised in a religious household, it was difficult and often painfully disturbing to examine these beliefs critically and honestly.  Throughout my religious education and upbringing, I was taught - repeatedly - that the absolute worst sin of all was to deny the existence of God, and only after getting far past that taboo did it become clear to me that this boundary was put in place and continually reinforced to prevent me from honestly questioning the "gospel truth."  The unanswerable questions came forth in a torrent: how is it that Zeus and Odin are false, yet the Christian god is real?  If it is omnipotent and can do anything, then why hasn't it ever spoken to me?  Why did it allow the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge, and countless other atrocities to occur?  If the Adam & Eve story is nothing but a fable, then what about Original Sin?  And on & on & on...   The imaginary constructs came crashing down, all at once.  For me, God wasn't merely dead - he never existed, and never could have existed in the first place. 

   Letting go of beliefs like those is liberating but painful all at once.  It was not unlike the way I felt as a kid when it dawned on me that it was my parents, not Santa Claus, leaving presents under the tree on Christmas.  When I tried passing along this knowledge, I encountered stubbornly-resistant kids my age who'd refuse to acknowledge "Santa isn't real" as truth; some of them nearly became violent, and some stopped being friends with me.  It's pretty much the same today - not too many people enjoy spending time with others who don't share their religious beliefs, and even fewer will spend time with the openly atheistic.  I'd wager that most would get offended hearing their religious beliefs compared to belief in Santa Claus.  Most Santa-believers would be likewise offended at the comparison, I'm sure. 

   Maybe someday, it was suggested to me recently, I'd embrace religion again and (to paraphrase my far too-religious brother) "get things right with the Lord."  Such a suggestion is offensive to me because it suggests that I'm less than sincere about not believing in all things religious.  Putting the shoe on the other foot: maybe someday you, as a theist, will come to your senses and realize that atheism is the only rational way to live.  Offended?  You should be.   No one likes being told - or having it suggested, implied, or bluntly stated - that their lifestyle or beliefs are "wrong" and that they should follow the "right" path.  My life is satisfying and full and exciting just the way it is, and I see absolutely no reason to change.  I'm happy being me and finding my own way. I prefer using my own intellect and my own moral code.   

  What a beautiful, comforting insignia - just what any citizen suffering from a catastrophic natural disaster wants to see right after watching their homes fill with noxious polluted water and their neighbours drown.  It could have been lifted from an SS standard-bearer's flag...

  Once the buyer's bank appraises our house, the sale is all but a done deal.  The closing takes place at the midpoint of next month.  We're contracturally bound to sell the house to the buyer, and he's likewise bound to buy at the mutually agreed-upon price - my realtor has given us assurances on the latter part, despite my nagging sense that last-minute haggling will take place regardless.  No matter: less than a week elapsed from listing to a concrete offer to buy, and I have absolutely no doubt that we'd have even the slightest bit of trouble finding another one in a similarly short amount of time.  Previously, when the buyer's realtor tried making us budge over our selling terms by threatening to withdraw the offer, we said "fine" and "good luck."  Before lunchtime, we had an apology and assurances that such game-playing would not occur again.  I'd prefer not to sell to a rich guy who's just buying this place as a gift for his spoiled son - if I had my dithers, I'd sell only to someone with kids.  Alas.

   On an unrelated note, I again restate my assertion that - outside of the bible - no evidence supporting the existence of Jesus Christ exists.  Were such proof available, we'd never hear the end of it.  Examples of beliefs and myths from religions/cults bearing uncanny resemblance to those seen in Christianity are either discounted as irrelevant or ignored altogether.  Not that it should matter to believers since they're supposed to base their religion upon faith instead of reason - although it's clear why comparative religion classes aren't as popular as they should be.

  The note reads:   "I think I may need a bathroom break? (sic) Is this possible?"  The author - the President; the recipient - Condi Rice.

   Written by the guy who's supposed to be in charge.

    Just when I think I'm too cynical for my own good, something occurs to remind me that it's impossible to be cynical enough.

   Nothing in Biology makes sense except when seen with the light of Evolution  &nbs p;  - Theodosius Dobzhansky, Geneticist & Evolutionary Biologist

   The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is covering the "controversy" (in name only) of evolution this week in a series they're calling "Evolution, Schmevolution."  While they're poking fun at both "sides" (science vs. Creationism), there is no raging debate in the scientific community regarding the veracity of evolution because no contradictory evidence exists while there is an abundance of evidence supporting evolution. 

   It is ridiculous that there is any ongoing discussion at all about evolution in this country, which is supposed to be a scientific giant in the world.  Cranks like the ones at the Discovery Institute (misnomer personified) have given rise to the mistaken idea that "theory" is synonymous with "wild-assed guess" when nothing could be further from the truth.  Their alternative, Intelligent Design, is a far cry from a scientific theory: there is absolutely no supporting evidence for ID, ergo ID is not a theory.  No tests confirming ID exist.  Intelligent Design is an unnecessarily verbose and obtuse way of saying "God Dunnit." 

   My distillation of the evidence supporting evolution:

     1.  The fossil record: a temporal order of taxa, with many examples of transitional species from ancestral to derived forms (although far from complete, explained by the relative rarity of the conditions which permit fossilization to occur).

     2.  Structures which make no sense in terms of functional design: vestigial structures (e.g. - the vermiform appendix and coccyx in humans), pseudogenes, non-coding DNA, synonymous base pair substitutions, features which appear briefly during embryonic development.

     3.  Characters shared by disparate organisms: mitochondria, chloroplasts, homeobox genes, the universality of DNA and RNA coding, L-amino acids alone incorporated into proteins.

     4.  Phenomena predicted and explained by evolution: coevolutionary "arms races" between antagonistic species (predator vs. prey, parasite vs. host), mimicry, harmful interactions between members of the same species (e.g. - siblicide, infanticide), transposable elements ("selfish genes")

     5.  The causes of evolution being documented by experiment and observation: genetic drift, isolation and gene flow, artificial selection.

   This is hardly an exhaustive list, and a better educated biologist could compile a far better and more persuasive series of arguments than the ones given here.   There are literally entire bookshelves in libraries devoted solely to the subject, and go into far more detail than I am capable.  My four year degree in Biology doesn't make me an authority on evolution, but it does give me an appreciation of its workings not shared by the average person.  At every step along the way, in every class, evolution played a vital role in explaining the two most important questions a scientist must ask:  (1) What am I seeing?  and (2) Why am I seeing it? 

   It  ;frustrates me that far too many people haven't moved past the Scopes Monkey trial yet, and it's frightening to consider that a well-funded effort to get the myths of the Book of Genesis into public school science class is underway.  Creationism should have been left to die and rot on history's scrapheap a long time ago.  Proponents of this ridiculous movement make this country an international laughingstock.

   Rush Limbaugh, a braying loon for the radical right, said about Cindy Sheehan - a Gold Star Mother whose son, Casey, was killed in action in Iraq -

   LIMBAUGH: I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it. It's not real. It's nothing more than an attempt. It's the latest effort made by the coordinated left.

   Limbaugh spewed this verbal diarrhea back on 15 August, and I wrote about it five days later.  You can listen to Limbaugh saying the above paragraph in his own words through this Media Matters link using QuickTime.

   Exactly as one would expect a man devoid of conscience or ethics, Limbaugh now denies ever saying that bit about Cindy Sheehan.  He has had the quote removed from his website and insists he was misquoted, or that he's the victim of a liberal smear campaign and that his Sheehan quote is an out-and-out fabricated lie. 

   In addition to having an Oxycontin habit of such magnitude that it would shame the average pill-freak, Limbaugh is a pussy afraid of taking responsibility for his own words.  How anyone claiming to have a speck of self-respect could admire that creep escapes explanations.

   Unreported in U.S. media, this story should have been a source of national outrage and disgust.  Emergency officals in New Orleans confirmed its veracity, although I'd like nothing more than for this story to be proven untrue.

    Doctors at an unnamed hospital, upon understanding that rescuers and evacuation assistance would not be forthcoming, were forced to make the unconscionable choice to euthanize some of their patients.  Although these were the sickest of the sick, most of them all but certain to die within days if not sooner and the majority having "Do Not Resuscitate" orders, their healthcare providers gave them lethal overdoses of morphine to hasten their demise.  They saved the patients deemed healthy enough to survive, and euthanized the ones too sick.

    Those interviewed by the Telegraph (also reported by the Daily Mail) gave their accounts only under the condition of anonymity.  Euthanasia is (not surprisingly) illegal in Lousiana, and doubtless some overweening prosecutor would see to it personally that those responsible would lose their professional licenses at the very least, possibly even insisting on imprisonment.

    In the event either myself or someone I love is terminally ill with a degenerative and painful disease, I'd want euthanasia available as an option for my family to decide.  At no time, however, should a healthcare provider be put into the position of having to decide whether to apply euthanasia for a patient.  I strongly believe that only the patient him/herself and their loved ones should get to decide when to euthanize.

    Things like this aren't supposed to happen in the United States.  It's surreal considering that it did happen, and it happened here.  It should be a national shame, were it reported here.   

Undoubtedly much to the chagrin of fundamentalists and the superstitious, Michael Newdow won yet another court case challenging the Constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance.  His previous case where he sued on behalf of his non-custodial daughter was thrown out by the Supreme Court, which determined he had no standing to sue.  Not this time - this time, he is acting as legal cousel for three unnamed families.  Watch for the religious kooks to use this as a rallying cry to the faithful to send in cash by the bucketful, completely ignorning the history behind the Pledge.

Originally composed by Francis Bellamy (an avowed Socialist) in 1892, the Pledge was first published in a children's magazine.  The "under God" part wasn't added to the Pledge until 1954 during the McCarthy "Red Scare" Era, one of the more embarrassing and shameful parts of American history.  The reasoning at the time was that all atheists must also be communists, ergo forcing schoolchildren to recite the magic words "one nation, under God" would eradicate this distasteful political philosophy. 

Newdow is absolutely 100% right, and that's why he won his case.  The Supremes were cowards not to consider the case on its merits, choosing to dismiss it on a technicality.  Making schoolkids acknowledge a deity was wrong in 1954 and it's wrong in 2005 - it'd be just as wrong to make them say "one nation under NO gods," not that religious dingbats can understand it. 

So good going, Newdow.  Keep fighting, and keep on winning.

  No, not the short story collection penned by Salman Rushdie that led to a fatwa issued by a less-than-amused Ayatollah Khomeni.  I'm referring to the actual verses later removed from the Koran when it was "discovered" they were inspired by none other than the pitchfork-wielding red suit-wearing arch badguy Satan.  The story goes something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Vers es" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Vers es" target="_blank"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Mohammed really, really wanted to make Islam appealing to the inhabitants of the city of Mecca.  One day, Satan tricked Mohammed into amending a Koranic verse which, after a bit of infernal editing, ended up incorporating three popular Meccan goddesses into his otherwise monotheistic religion.  Have you thought of al-Lat and al-'Uzza and Manat the third, the other (pre-edit) These are the exalted Gharaniq, whose intercession is approved (added post-edit).  After the including the mention of their three favourite goddesses, the citizens of Mecca now had a more accepting view of Mohammed and his new religion.  Later, the angel Gabriel informed Mohammed of this most grievous error and (so the story goes) the Satanic bits were expeditiously removed.

   It's a silly story, but Muslim scholars become understandably incensed at the mere mention of it (just ask Mr. Rushdie) since it begs the question "are there other parts of the Koran that Satan tricked Mohammed into writing?"  Well, as an atheist, that's not the first question that comes to my mind - for me, it's obvious that the inclusion of these goddesses (provided this story has basis in fact) was done to bring the Meccans into the fold and, quite possibly, to save Mohammed's and his followers' asses.  Prior to their conversion, the people of Mecca were openly hostile to Mo & his posse.  Giving a nod and a wink to the three pagan goddesses was preferable to, let's say, death and utter rejection. 

   That young Muslims memorize the entire book while head-bobbing like mental patients gives me a serious case of the creeps.  That as recently as 1989 a death warrant was issued just because someone alluded to a silly story about the devil tricking its author into inserting bits about polytheism is positively horrifying.   You'd think that if the all-powerful being was so insulted, he'd do something about it himself: having to rely on earth-bound followers to carry out his will seems less than omnipotent.

   The sooner inhabitants of the Earth come to understand that their invisible sky-buddies exist only in their imaginations, the better off everyone will be.  Whatever useful purpose religion served, it's no longer needed.   

With grateful acknowledgement to W.C. Barwell, taken from alt.atheism:

IS THERE A GOD?
Strong Atheism's answer.

A BASIC DEFINITION OF GOD.

The general overarching definition of god as per
the major religions of the world is:

A. God is personal, God has will and conciousness.
B. God has free will.
C. God is the creator of all.
D. God is omnipotent.
E. God is omnibenevolent.
F. God is omniscient.
G. God is that which nothing more powerful
   can be imagined.
  
These are the basic attributes that can be claimed for
the god of orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and
Hinduism.

Omnibenevolence and omniscience are actually logically
derivable from the claimed attribute of omnipotence and
so aren't not truely independent attributes, and may be
considered special aspects of omnipotence.

There are other attributes of god, that he is the only
such god, that he is is immortal and that god has always
existed that are not important for this discussion and for
now, can be ignored. They are secondary arguments and in
no way are foundational or truely necessary, except those
that can be logically derived from the attributes listed
above.
 
A CLASS OF GODS

It is important to note here that this is a definition
not for a particular god, but an entire class of gods.
Sub-theories about god are not important here.  Christianity
claims one may attain salvation only through Jesus, Islam
claims the Christian dogma that Jesus was the son of god is
blasphemous. Ideas like this though, are of little importance
to the overarching and general claims made for a personal,
creator, omni-everything god.  I have coined a term,
The Grand God of Grand Theologies for this sort of god.
Grand theologies are those theologies that have adopted this
class of god as their basic attributes concerning the nature
of god. But it is important to remember here that what is
being discussed here is a class of gods, not particular gods.

THE FOUR GREAT THEOLOGICAL TRADITIONS

Again, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism hold
to this basic Grand God and are typical Grand Theologies
holding to this basic class of god as their basic
definitions of what god is at god's most basic level.

A big problem with this class of gods is, it collapses
rather easily into internal self contradiction.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.

The problem of evil was first written down by Epicurus
in about the third century BCE.

Today's formulation is:
A.  God is defined as omnipotent;
B.  and as omnibenevolent.
C.  Evil exists.
D.  God therefore, is not omnipotent as claimed.
E.  Or God is not omnibenevolent as claimed.
F.  Or god is neither omnipotent or omnibenevolent.
G.  Or god is not existant.

THE FREE WILL DEFENSE

The free will defense of the problem of evil goes back
to St. Augustine who popularized it.  It is still popular,
and is championed most notably today by Alvin Plantinga.

God gave man free will.  Man freely chooses to do evil.
Ability to do evil is less evil than lacking free will.

THE FREE WILL DEFENSE DEBUNKED.

God has free will.
God is omnibenevolent, he has a good nature incapable
 of doing evil.
 
A. If god can have free will, and a good nature, this good
   nature is not allowed to cound againts god's free will.
B. Nor is god's lack of ability to do evil
   allowed to count against god's omnipotence.
C. Likewise, man could easily have a god like
   free will and a god like good nature.
D. Inabilty then to do evil would no more count against
   man's free will than it does for god's free will.
E. If so, it also counts against god's free will and god
   does not have free will as claimed.
F. If god does not have absolute and total free will, thus
   free will is not a true necessity at all.
F. If god is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, and can give
   man a god like free will and a god like good nature
   incapable of moral evil, god must do so or god is not
   moral, not omnibenevolent.
G. Evil exists because he allows it to.

So free will does not exist, or it does and we can have
a god like free will and a god like good nature.
Either way, free will cannot explain away the existance
of evil. This free will defense then, is a failed argument.

OMNISCIENCE VERSUS CREATORHOOD OF GOD

God is defined as creator of all in most religions.
And god is claimed to be omniscient, all knowing.
 
A.  God created the Universe and all in it.
B.  God is omniscient, all knowing, he knows all in
    the Universe and he knows the future of the Universe
    and its contents.
C.  If god creates a Universe, he will know that in 13 billion
    years this Universe will have a man named John Smith in it.
D.  If John Smith is good and saved, or evil and damned, God
    will know that.
E.  As he knows that the Universe in its present state will
    have a John Smith, god may then contemplate the future state
    of Smith and decide if he will tolerate an evil Smith.
F.  If yes, Smith will be evil only because of a specific personal
    and will choice made solely by god.
G.  If Smith is evil, then evil exists solely because of a choice
    made by god. In fact all moral evil done by creations of god
    will be evil and do evil only because of personal and willful
    creations of god allowing evil acts to be done, by direct
    decision of god.
H.  If evil exists in a world with an omniscient creator god, it is
    solely and only because god allows evil.
I.  If evil exists solely because of personal choices of god, god
    then is not as defined, omnibenevolent.
J.  Man and any other sentient being in such a Universe cannot have
    any free will, not even in principle. A Universe with a god
    that creates all and knows all precludes free will for all
    beings god creates in the strongest possible manner.
   
    The Grand God of Grand
    Theology is thus self destroying, it is incoherent
    and contradictory as a theory.
   
THE SITUATION SO FAR.

1.  A minimalistic class of gods is defined, this Grand God,
    has been defined here with as few terms as possible. 
2.  The problem of evil dooms such a claimed god.
3.  The attempted defence, free will is fatally flawed.
    God's good nature and free will doom claims free
    will makes evil necessary for man to have free will.
4.  Omniscience and creatorhood of god further doom claims of
    god's omnibenevolence and man's free will  Free will cannot
    exist for man. All evil is the direct and knowing creation
    of god contradicting claims of omnibenevolence.
5.  Since Free will for man is totally impossible, free will
    cannot be a good quality, much less neccesary.
   
Here, the Grand God of Grand Theology has collapsed. As has Grand
Theology. As pointed out, this destroys the claims and viability
of an entire class of possible gods, all secondary and tertiary
claims for such a god of this class also fail, as do dogmas or
secondary claims.

If a these Grand Gods cannot exist as defined, specific gods
cannot, nor can claims such as this or that Grand God sent this
or that relevation to man or some prophet.

1.

   - End of List -

   Disappointment - in a word, how I felt right after learning how someone I had looked up to had taken a cheap shot at Fahrenheit 9/11.   Penn Jillette, co-host of Bullshit! on Showtime, did so in an interview he gave to my local newspaper promoting his own film The Aristocrats.  He hoped out loud that March of the Penguins would overtake F9/11 as the top-grossing documentary, describing the former as a "..movie based on love" and the latter as one "based on hate."

   That's his opinion, and so what?  I don't expect those I admire to think exactly as I do.  Maybe he didn't see the same film I did; maybe he honestly believes that the war in Iraq is a noble undertaking worth the loss of life and limb our military personnel continue to suffer two years hence.  Whatever his problem with Michael Moore or his film, I can only wonder.  Describing F9/11 as "based on hate" truly perplexed me: I re-screened the movie twice and looked closely for this hate.  Contempt, I found.  Total disrespect for a man occupying a post he clearly does not deserve - that was present as well.  Righteous anger was palpably obvious.  But hate?  Nope.  Hate makes no attempt to hide itself - were the film truly inspired by hate, then there would be unnecessarily cruel and baseless attacks upon its subject.  F9/11 is painstakingly documented, and I found only one occasion where Moore might have crossed the line (playing the opening riffs to the instantly recognizable song Cocaine when discussing Dubya's failure to take a TANG drug test) but even that is debatable. 

   Since reading that interview, I've been troubled by Penn's barb and by the goofy penguin documentary itself.  Too many self-identified "conservatives" (who, curiously enough, don't believe in conservation) have thrown their weight behind Penguins, including the netkooks at World Net Daily (q.v.)  And then I read this at the New York Times http://tinyurl.com/837h3" title="http://tinyurl.com/837h3" target="_blank"http://tinyurl.com/837h3 :  

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3838714&" title="http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3838714&" target="_blank"http://www.wistv.com/Global/s...;nav=0RaPeQEJ

So that's that - Brownie handed in his name badge, cleaned out his desk and set off for greener pastures.

It's about goddamn time, the lying piece of crap...

Too bad no one actually qualified for the job will get it.  Some loyal bootlicker will either get promoted or appointed to the position, and the American people will be no better served as a consequence.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0 " title="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0 " target="_blank"http://www.time.com/time/nati...,8599,1103003,00.html

   Michael "Brownie" Brown clearly lied on his resume.  Apologists might argue that he "stretched the truth" or maybe told a "little white lie" here and there, making light of the plain facts before them.  There's no getting around it - he deliberately misstated his qualifications and experience, and that alone should be reason enough to tender his resignation.  His bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath only strengthens the argument that Brown never should have held the #1 position at FEMA in the first place.

   When George O'Leary was found to have lied on his resume, he immediately resigned his position as head football coach at the University of Notre Dame and gave public apologies on behalf of his now-embarrassed former employer for having sullied their integrity.  http://www.cnnsi.com/football/college/news /2001/12/14/oleary_notred ame/" title="http://www.cnnsi.com/football/college/news /2001/12/14/oleary_notred ame/" target="_blank"http://www.cnnsi.com/football...  There is no such classiness seen in Michael Brown or in his superiors.  Rather than demand he clean out his desk, Brown was simply relieved of his command and made to return to Washington.  No one, it seems, will take responsibility for FEMA's delayed and inadequate response: insisting those in charge take responsibility when things go awry is now called "playing the blame game" or "playing politics."  

   Meanwhile, http://www.sundayherald.com/51690" title="http://www.sundayherald.com/51690" target="_blank"http://www.sundayherald.com/5... political appointees-turned-lobbyis ts continue to rake in taxpayer-funded cash by the wheelbarrowfull and the world turns foolishly on.