…the Emancipator and the Evolutionizer, together again!!!
Happy Darwin/Lincoln Day everyone!!!
Category Archives: Law
And the award for this years biggest douche goes to…
…the former (abysmal) Governor of California Arnold-don’t bore me with the death of your son-Schwarzenegger:
I’m ashamed for having voted for him in his first run.
Obama Murdering America with TEH GAY!
President Obama’s recent decision to stop defending the so called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has got a lot of “conservatives” squealing like pigs.
For example Rick Pearcey (who seems to be in a perpetual panic about TEH GAY) has got himself worked up into a frothy frenzy over at his “Pro-Existence” blog.
After some foreplay in the form of a lengthy quote from a rancid anti-gay opinion column published in, self proclaimed second coming of Jesus Christ Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times “newspaper“, Pearcey finally ejaculates:
Pearcey: If Obama is successful in his campaign to discriminate against the Creator of the Declaration, and against the Creator’s norms for human sexuality and married life, he may well go down in history as the president who delivered the final gleeful blow in the murdering of America.
So if Obama doesn’t perpetuate discriminatory practices against homosexuals —practices apparently favored by Mr. Pearcy’s deity (who I assume is not the Rev. Moon)— he will be “murdering” America?
Really? Gleefully “murdering” America? Really?
Now I’m not particularly a fan of President Obama and can find plenty to disagree with in his policies, but that is some severely hallucinatory bigotry right there.
Happy Darwin/Lincoln Day!
A day to celebrate science and freedom!
Arizona Shootings, the American Left and The Daily Show
Before I launch into a bit of a rant, for what little it’s worth, I’d like to offer my condolences to the families who lost loved ones and my best wishes for a full and speedy recovery to those wounded in the attack in Tucson Arizona last Saturday (1-8-2011).
For the last few days I have been reading and listening to “liberal” friends and media pundits shrilly denouncing all Republicans, “conservatives” and/or tea-party members as malevolent violence inciting demons who, I am given to understand, are almost entirely responsible for the horrific shootings that took place in Arizona on Saturday. Yes they had a minor assist in the crime from the apparently schizophrenic gunman Jared Lee Loughner but judging by some of the rhetoric emanating from the Left-wing of the country, the real perpetrators of this monstrous act of violence was, in descending order of responsibility: Sarah Palin, various wingnut talk show hosts and Republicans and tea-party people in general.
It is true that Loughner seems to be a deeply disturbed young man but apparently, according to many on the Left, he likely never would have contemplated violence, not even in his most fevered psychotic dreams, had not Sarah Palin used target symbols on a map of North America during the last election cycle; which for all we know Loughner never saw.
Yes, there can be no doubt whatsoever that young Loughner was nigh on brainwashed into doing violence by Palin and her tea-bagger minions and we know this based on… Well he shot a Democrat, and, ah, tea-baggers don’t like Democrats and many of them have engaged in overheated extremist rhetoric, with target thingies, therefore Loughner must be a tea-bagger.
That is sum total of evidence that I have seen presented for Loughner’s supposed tea-bagger motivations. The (apparent) primary target was a Democrat (Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) and some tea-party/Republicans have used extreme possibly violence inspiring rhetoric therefore any violence done to a Democrat must therefore have been perpetrated by someone sympathetic to the tea-party/Republicans and who was inspired by their rhetoric.
Of course slowly over the last few days details about Loughner have started to leak out that if not good evidence against his supposed tea-bagginess, at least seem not to fit the stereotype. This of course led to the equally ridiculous Right-wing backlash. According to some on the Right now Loughner is a “Marxist-loving, Hitler-loving, Bible-hating Atheist Doper ” and his atheism may have contributed to his motivation in some way.
This backlash caused some on the Left to finally start looking for evidence for what they already thought must be true (that Loughner is a tea-bagger). For example my estimable colleague in the fight against antievolutionists, P.Z. Myers, after having “guessed” on his blog Pharyngula that the perpetrator of the shooting would turn out to be a “Teabagger who listens to a lot of AM talk radio“, responded to the conservative backlash by posting a screen shot of what was purported to be Loughner’s voter registration, listing him as a Republican and asking sarcastically: “My eyes are getting a little old. Does it say “SOCIALIST” for political affiliation?”
When it was pointed out that this image was a hoax and that Loughner was in fact registered as an independent, PZ added an addendum noting that is was fake and saying: “I’m a little mystified about why anyone would forge a record like this, though.”
It seem pretty obvious to me why they did it. They faked this image for exactly the same reason PZ, based on zero evidence, “guessed” that the perpetrator would turn out to be a tea-bagger and for the same reason he uncritically posted the fake image in support of his earlier guess. They did it because they wanted to exploit this tragedy to score rhetorical points against their political rivals. The truth can be sorted out later.
That’s fine. PZ has every right to do such things. However it may tend to detract from his credibility when he wants to criticize Answers in Genesis the next time they imply (stupidly) that similar tragedies can ultimately be pinned on Charles Darwin and evolutionary theory, as they did with the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings.
However amongst all the anti-bagger wailing and gnashing of teeth, there were a couples of well known Left leaning pundits that commented on the tragedy whose responses I thought were spot on. First Jon Stewart:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Daily Show on Arizona Shootings, posted with vodpod
Exactly right! Thank you Mr. Stewart.
Secondly with a shorter and more comedic take, Stephen Colbert:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Colbert on Arizona Shootings, posted with vodpod
Once again we have to depend on the “clowns” for reasoned, rational discourse…
New acquisitions for the Britain Research Library
Thanks in part to an anonymous donor the Britain Research Library has recently made a number of new acquisitions in its science, pseudoscience, and political collections.
Science
Arthur, Wallace (1997) The Origin of Animal Body Plans: A study in evolutionary developmental biology, Cambridge University Press, XII + 338
Ayala, Francisco J. (2010) Am I A Monkey?: Six big questions about evolution, John Hopkins University Press, XIII + 83
Keynes, Randal (2009) Creation: The true story of Charles Darwin, Riverhead Books, XVII + 430
Kurtén, Björn (1972) Not From The Apes, Pantheon Books, New York, NY, VIII + 183
Levinton, Jeffrey S. (2001) Genetics, Paleontology, and Macroevolution (2nd edition), Cambridge University Press, XV + 617
Newman, Horatio Hackett (1926) The Gist of Evolution, The MacMillan Company, IX + 154
Pseudoscience
Gibbons, William J. & Hovind, Kent (1999) Claws, Jaws, & Dinosaurs, CSE Publications, 72
Walsh, Robert E. (editor) (1994) Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, Creation Life Fellowship, Inc. VII + 645
Politics
Hayek, F. A. (Caldwell, Bruce – Editor) (2007) The Road To Serfdom: Text and documents, The University of Chicago Press XI + 283
Thanks to whomever it was!
The Rush to ignorance tour continues
Oh boy, Limbaugh was talking about biology again on his show yesterday (Oct. 6th 2010, audio available here):
RUSH: You know, ladies and gentlemen, just as the elitists, the wannabe ruling class people on our side are a little full of it, so are scientists. Many scientists don’t know diddly-squat. In fact, these next two stories are from the “scientists don’t know excrement and God is amazing file.” Two stories, one from Bangkok: “Dracula fish, a bald songbird and a seven-meter (23 feet) tall carnivorous plant are among several unusual new species found in the Greater Mekong region last year, researchers said Wednesday. Other new finds among the 145 new species include a frog that sounds like a cricket and a ‘sucker fish’, which uses its body to stick to rocks in fast flowing waters to move upstream, according to conservation group WWF. With fangs at the front of each jaw, the ‘dracula minnow’ is one of the more bizarre new species found in 2009 in the Mekong River region, which comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China’s Yunnan Province.”
Second story: “Scientists Find 200 New Species in Papua New Guinea — Scientists on Wednesday unveiled a spectacular array of more than 200 new species discovered in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, including a white-tailed mouse and a tiny, long-snouted frog.” How many of you remember, along with me, the horror stories of how many species we are wiping out every year because of global warming. I always said, “How do we know we’re wiping them out? Do we really know there aren’t any more X’s left? Have we scoured every acre of the earth, there really aren’t any more of those?” And how do we know that these are actually new? Were they just created yesterday, the day we found them? How long have these new species been around? And how can they be new if we’re destroying them? And yet, ladies and gentlemen, we will tell a farmer he can’t use his land because a snail darter is threatened. We’re being governed by a bunch of stupid idiot jackasses. [Emphasis mine]
Wait, what..? Did he actually just say…? Arrrrgh!
These newly discovered species are new to science Rush, not the planet. Anyone with an IQ higher than that of a stock of broccoli should have understood this.
Of course the real hilarity here is that he is making such mind bogglingly stupid statements in in the context of claiming that it is really scientists who “don’t know excrement”.
Ah, the arrogance of ignorance.
Rush Limbaugh’s clueless rant about evolution
This last week I had the misfortune to hear Rush Limbaugh flapping his yap attempting to defend Christine O’Donnell’s ignorant comments about evolution. Unsurprisingly his comment were a grab bag of typical creationist nonsense. Here is the audio of the beginning of his diatribe:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Paraphrasing from the audio: “If humans evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?”
This is logically exactly the same thing as asking “if my cousin and I are actually related, then why does my cousin still exist?”
The Collective Responsibility Fallacy
Note the collective "you".
I’ve noticed that a particularly nasty bit of insanity has been running rampant lately, “collective responsibility”. This is the “thinking” that if one or a few members of some group (racial, ethnic, religious etc.) commits some crime or other objectionable act then the whole group to which they belong somehow shares in their guilt.
The claims of collective responsibility have been flying lately from people involved on two somewhat related topics, the so called Ground-Zero mosque* and the threats by a few Christian preachers to burn copies of the Qur’an**.
The building of the mosque or “community center” or whatever, has brought out clear arguments for the collective responsibility of Muslims for the 9/11 attacks by those who oppose its construction. One need only to listen to a little talk radio or watch a few relevant YouTube videos to hear people say things like: “They attacked us on 9/11 and now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero”, as if we were attacked by all Muslims that day or that all Muslims approved of the attack.
Likewise the mere threat by cult leader Pastor Terry Jones (and a few other like “minded” preachers) to burn a Qur’an sparked often, violent protests, in Afghanistan where cries of “death to America” and “death to Christians” could be heard as if all Americans or all Christians were involved with or supported the idea of burning the Qur’an.
This is essentially the same logic used by racists and bigots that says a black/white/Hispanic (whatever) person stole from me therefor all blacks/whites/Hispanics are thieves.
In this case it is “A few Muslims attacked us on 9/11 and therefor all Muslims share blame for 9/11” and “A Christian (or American) preacher is going to burn the Qur’an, therefor all Christians are guilty of this blasphemous behavior.”
I am reminded of a great line in the movie Gettysburg when a fictional Union Sergeant (“Sgt. ‘Buster’ Kilrain” played by actor Kevin Conway), is asked by his commanding officer (the historical Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain played by Jeff Daniels) his opinion of black people:
You cannot judge a race. Any man who judges by the group is a pea wit. You take men one at a time.
Anyway I have no big answers or particularly insightful wisdom to impart on this. I just wanted to go on record with my opinion that collective responsibility, and it’s close intellectual cousin “guilt by association”, are stupid, lazy, fuzzy headed nonsense and if our species can’t wean itself from engaging in these fallacious forms of reasoning then I truly fear for our future.
[* I know I am coming late to the game on this but my two cents on the Ground Zero mosque are that the people behind it have just as much right to build it (assuming it is compatible with local zoning laws etc.) as a group of Christians would have to build a church or a corporation would have to build a strip joint. However, I do have to wonder what the group wanting to build the mosque is hoping to accomplish. If it is to encourage feelings of good will towards Islam in the U.S. it is obviously doomed, rightly or wrongly, from a practical standpoint.
** As for the idea of burning the Qur’an, I think the idea of burning books, any book, is both base and stupid. But however stupid burning a Qur’an might be, this does not justify threats of violence in retaliation. Violence, or even the threat of violence in response to words or expressions of ideas (like book burning), however stupid or offensive is outside the bounds of civilized behavior and cannot be tolerated. ]
Qur’an
Classic Badass Quote
Stealing a concept from my friend Ed Brayton, the following is a quote from George Orwell which I recently ran across and thought was brilliant:
Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. – George Orwell
This is from Orwell’s essay: Politics and the English Language (1946), do give it a read.
[Hat tip to Jerry Coyne for the reading suggestion.]
Playing Chess with Pigeons 