Category: Uncategorized

As I said before, it’s like listening to a deaf man musing on the intricacies of melody:

Dan Wolter, a spokesman for the University of Minnesota system, said of Mr. Myers’s site that while “there is no question that those views do not reflect the views of the University of Minnesota, Morris, or the system,… they were made on a personal blog and everyone has a right to free speech.”

Mr. Wolter said the Web link was taken off the biology’s department’s page because “it was a violation of university Web policy” to link to personal sites without a “this does not represent university views” disclaimer. He said the content of Mr. Myers’s speech was not at issue….

As a tenured associate professor, Mr. Myers would be difficult to fire, but could more easily be denied promotion to a full professorship. Mr. Myers said such efforts from Catholics would be “thoroughly contemptible.”

Mr. Wolter said he could not say whether the university’s response would be different if Mr. Myers went through with his threat, nor could he say whether acts outside the classroom can, in principle, provide a basis to revoke tenure.

It would be fascinating to know what grounds PZ would provide for supporting his assertion that it would be “thoroughly contemptible” for Minnesota Catholics to lobby for his firing or against his future promotion. They’ve certainly got far more cause for going after his job than he ever had for going after their beliefs. And shouldn’t he expect them to behave in a contemptible manner, given the total contempt he has always demonstrated for them?

While it would be highly unusual for PZ to get fired over what was nothing more than a silly statement of intent, when one considers the hostile attention he has brought to his university backwater, I expect he has been warned that he will be disciplined if he is stupid enough to carry on with the announced cracker abuse. The delinking of Pharyngula is an obvious shot across the bow, as is the statement by the university spokesman distancing the university from PZ’s views. At this point, only an utter idiot would proceed with flouting the university’s authority and its distaste for bad press; proceeding as planned would offer clear justification for a firing on the basis of blatant insubordination.

We already know that PZ is a coward at heart – he is “the Fowl Atheist” after all – so he’ll be warned to leave the crackers alone, the stolen crackers will go unmolested, and the tempest in the teapot will come to an end… until the next socially autistic miscalculation. Afraid to abuse a cracker! What a sadly ironic fate for such a brave little atheist militant.

Dave has begun contributing to WND. What do you think? He strikes me as a bit out of step with the neoconservative National Greatness doctrine:

Conservative Christians can jive with this analysis of the welfare state’s failure. It’s clear that Christ spoke not to Caesar when he advocated helping the weak, but to every individual, even the poor themselves. The founders understood this concept. The revolution got the state out of the way so Christ’s movement could work in a free society to transform lives. Nevertheless, America has lost its faith in God. We have turned to man to solve our problems. Blinded by ignorance, we have forgotten Washington’s warning: “Government is force.” When man uses force to try to “fix” lives, he always fails. We are selfish. We do not know how to run people’s lives. Institutions we use to consolidate “power” only highlight this reality.

Tony Snow exits the scene with customary grace and dignity. In pace requiscat:

We shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Gail Collins worries about the collision of sexual cultures:

This sure sounds like trouble to me: A generation of guys who will settle for nothing less than a porn star meets a generation of women who expect their boyfriend to crawl through their bedroom window at night and just nuzzle gently until they fall asleep.

Never fear. Technology will keep the peace. We’re less than 20 years away from talking, moving pornbots that will outperform ninety percent of the female population. The real money, however, may turn out to be in the sexy, undead vampitrons; apparently a significant percentage of women are fantasizing about a cold, lifeless thing that looks like a man already. Especially since neither will model require much of an extensive vocabulary.

“I understand.” “Really?” “She didn’t!” and “Yes, of course I’m listening.” vs a series of prerecorded moaning and shrieking.

This will, of course, leave the Earth to the Mormons and the insignificant remnant of the evangelical community that remains steadfast in its opposition to robo-humpery.

In TIA, I established that the militant atheists aren’t anywhere nearly so bright as they would like to think they are. PZ’s latest shenanigans have neatly underlined this fact in a whole variety of ways, as this email I received yesterday from a government-employed Pharyngulan named CR demonstrates:

SIR,

I support P Z Meyers and the work he does defending Science in America. At what point did he loose his free speech rights? Is this not the land of the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Please READ the first amendment, the highest law in the land. PZ speaks for many of us who cannot speak for fear of reprisal. Does he now have to live in fear because he is able to say what is on his mind?

Since when has PZ ever defended Science? And against what? He can’t even bring himself to mention the most dangerous threat to science in America these days, namely, the application of Title IX to the science departments in American universities. The atheist persecution complex revealed here is also interesting. Reading this email, one would never know that atheists are not and have never been systematically persecuted by Christians, whereas atheists are actively murdering, jailing, and otherwise persecuting Christians in at least four countries around the world today! Jews and Christians don’t have a persecution complex, both religions have endured violent persecution for centuries and are experiencing it today.

Anyhow, the punchline is the title of CR’s email: Save PZ from stupidity. Based on the copious evidence available at Pharyngula, I’d say it’s decades too late for that.

The first dominoes begin to fall:

The federal government took control of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank on Friday in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

Buckle your seatbelts. Even if you come out of it well, a lot of people you know won’t.

If religion is, as some scientists have conjectured, the physical product of human evolution, then regardless of whether or not it is a spandrel, it should be possible to fix those who lack god belief if fixing other forms of autism turn out to be treatable through gene therapy.

Three out of the five “autism genes” newly discovered in the lab are particularly intriguing. Unlike some other defective genes linked to autism that are permanently disabled, the new genes are simply idle — present, but not turned on for one reason or another.

“That gives us the potential, in the long run, to develop therapies that may be able to reactivate those genes that are silent,” said Walsh.

It would certainly be interesting to find out how many atheists would welcome such therapy if it became viable; how ironic it would be if science proved to be the end of atheism rather than religion after more than two centuries of Enlightenment propaganda insisting upon the opposite.

If you are atheistic or agnostic, would you seek out this hypothetical therapy? If so, why? If not, why not?

I lift weights from time to time with a Sicilian rapper upon whom I have affectionately bestowed the appellation “Gangsta”. He either shows up at the gym looking like one of Capone’s hit men from 1930’s Chicago, or like a basketball jersey-wearing Crip circa 1992, complete with the bandana. He’s a good guy, and introduced me to Marracash, a fellow Sicilian who is currently one of the leaders of the Milanese rap scene.

It’s no Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, but as rap goes, Badabum Cha Cha is pretty good. I find it interesting that Italians can’t do metal, but they can rap and do catchy dance music, while it’s the other way round with the Tedeschi. The video reminds me of Welcome to the Black Parade, which is one of my favorites, although the song isn’t as dark as the imagery would lead you to assume. Can you imagine an American rap song with straight-faced references to the rapper’s uncle and grandfather? I did like the line about how the world is a whorehouse under the stage, though. That’s a succinct summary of my perspective on law and politics.

Or, as is clearly far more likely to be the case, a suffering vampire with a soul:

Up to 40 rabbits have been killed in Dortmund and Witten – and in almost all the attacks the killer decapitates the pets and bleeds them dry.

Clearly this is the sign of a German vampire with a noble soul, who, unwilling to drink the blood of humans, has in his desperation turned to the degrading alternative of lapine blood in order to sustain himself and keep the deadly hunger at bay. Where, oh where, is the strong, independent woman who will, despite her pride and fear of losing control, heroically allow this dreadfully dangerous creature to drink the red nectar that he so badly needs? Is there no selfless female soul fearless enough to dare risking her life… and maybe her heart?

Pat Buchanan points out the obvious:

After the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, Austria got from Kaiser Wilhelm a “blank cheque” to punish Serbia. Germany would follow whatever course its ally chose to take. Austria chose war on Serbia. And World War I resulted.

On March 31, 1939, Britain gave a blank check to Poland in its dispute with Germany over Danzig, a town of 350,000 Germans. Should war come, Britain would fight on Poland’s side. Poland refused to negotiate, Adolf Hitler attacked, and Britain declared war. After six years, the British Empire collapsed. Germany was burnt to ashes. Poland entered the slave quarters of Joseph Stalin’s empire.

Lesson: No great power should ever give to a small ally or client state a blank check to drag it into war.

I’m sure there’s a few historical examples that ended better than the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and British empires, but it’s a sobering reminder of the fragility of empire. Republican “National Greatness” advocates are foolish to so easily dismiss the wisdom of George Washington’s advice to avoid “entangling alliances”. What’s thought to be good by the little dog is seldom good for the big one it recruits to fight on its behalf… and it seldom ends well for the little dog either.