Category: Uncategorized

Just in case you wanted to know what the White Buffalo looks like.

The New York Times is very, very excited:

Scientists have discovered fossils of a 375-million-year-old fish, a large scaly creature not seen before, that they say is a long-sought missing link in the evolution of some fishes from water to a life walking on four limbs on land….

Other scientists said that in addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils were a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who have long argued that the absence of such transitional creatures are a serious weakness in Darwin’s theory.

Given the past history of missing links, I’ll be interested to learn if there are any Darwinian faithful whose belief is dependent on this fossil being genuine. I can’t imagine there are, since the ur-faith has survived numerous frauds in the past.

Now, it’s entirely possible that the discovery is genuine, its purported significance is real and there is no fraud involved. Does it prove anything? No, it is merely a proposed solution to an obvious hole in the hypothesis, and will rightly boost confidence in that hypothesis.

But should this prove to be another fraud in the long and colorful history of evolutionary science, or even a simple misinterpretation of the paleontological data, it will be interesting to see if the New York Times will cover the story so prominently, or explain how this is a “powerful rebuttal” to evolutionists and “should undercut the argument that there is… evidence in the fossil record of one creature becoming another kind.”

As I’ve said many times in the past, I am an evolutionary skeptic, not an anti-evolutionist. I do, however, find it amusing that otherwise rational evolutionists will so readily accept ontological arguments in favor of their hypothesis that they reject in most other facets of life.

After reading the novel this weekend preparatory to writing a requested essay on it, I’m going to break the first rule here and talk about it. First, this is one of the gayest novels ever written. It’s not really about fighting, it’s about cruising, and if you can’t see that from the very first page, where the protagonist is metaphorically performing a Monica, well, let me introduce you to a concept known among the literati as “the metaphor”. (One could also argue that it’s quasi-occultic based on that scene and later developments, but the Ourorobos theme is not sustained whereas the gay one definitely is.) The suppression and frustration of men should not be taken literally here, it is representational of sexual frustration and the sublimation of homosexual desire.

What I found interesting about Fight Club, beyond the doppleganger aspect, was how the author got the psychological aspects of the transition to becoming a fighter correct while getting the details of physical combat so gloriously wrong. For example, the twenty-minute fight? Even trained fighters are exhausted after six two-minute rounds with breaks in between and many full-contact bouts are scheduled for only three rounds. My guess is that he was involved with a full-contact fighter or perhaps a wrestler for an extended period of time.

I’ll be interested to hear from the VPQF to either sustain or criticize my take on the book. And no, I haven’t seen the movie.

No wonder he decided that some people need killing:

The more I argued with them, the better I came to know their dialectic. First they counted on the stupidity of their adversary, and then, when there was no other way out, they themselves simply played stupid. If all this didn’t help, they pretended not to understand, or, if challenged, they changed the subject in a hurry, quoted platitudes which, if you accepted them, they immediately related to entirely different matters, and then, if again attacked, gave ground and pretended not to know exactly what you were talking about. Whenever you tried to attack one of these apostles, your hand closed on a jelly-like slime which divided up and poured through your fingers, but in the next moment collected again. But if you really struck one of these fellows so telling a blow that, observed by the audience, he couldn’t help but agree, and if you believed that this had taken you at least one step forward, your amazement was great the next day. [He] had not the slightest recollection of the day before, he rattled off his same old nonsense as though nothing at all had happened, and, if indignantly challenged, affected amazement; he couldn’t remember a thing, except that he had proved the correctness of his assertions the previous day.

Sometimes I stood there thunderstruck. I didn’t know what to be more amazed at: the agility of their tongues or their virtuosity at lying.

It’s not often that you feel a sense of sympathy for one of the most infamous mass murderers in history, but it’s interesting to consider how the young Hitler learned to take this petty, individual dishonesty which he found so frustrating and apply it on a much grander scale to such lethal .

I found both sides of this coin to be quite interesting and relevant, Why Religious Believers Don’t Take Intellectuals Seriously and Why Intellectuals Don’t Take Religious Believers Seriously. I think he makes a better case against the intellectuals, – by which he actually means academics – (and I can just hear Renee saying “you would, wouldn’t you”), but then, as an academic himself, he is more privy to the intellectual sins of his peers.

This is not to say that much of his criticism against religious believers is ill-placed, but it tends to apply against the subset of the group that many Christians don’t find intellectually respectable themselves. And the idea that what he characterizes as “ultraconservative” pastors don’t ever preach on Matthew 25: 34-46 and the requirement to provide for the sick, homeless, hungry and imprisoned is simply ignorant, to his credit, however, he appears to be open to the possibility that he’s incorrect on that score.

Let’s just say that he wouldn’t get an A in debate:

No VD, apparently, it’s the JOURNALIST here who has limited comprehension skills. Let’s review. (A) You pointed out that teaching is not a demanding job. The usual salvos against teachers were then lobbed by you and (your band of yes-men and polygamy-ready ‘wimmin.’) (B) I agreed that in certain cases, teaching is not difficult. (C) Then, I segued into a discussion on how the profession of JOURNALISM is not that difficult EITHER (despite the fact I’m aware VD has difficulty taking in that which he dishes out.)

First, it has been proven many times, and in a variety of ways, that teachers are vastly overpaid for less work and lower performance than would be acceptable anywhere in the private sector. They get away with this because most of them are unionized government employees; they are the equivalent of DMV employees.

Far from being yes-men, most of the regulars here – to say nothing of the readers – disagree with me on many things, including polygamy. Most of them don’t even support the same political party I do. This the teacher’s first demonstrably incorrect assertion, it is far from the last, as I am not a journalist and I don’t believe anyone here will accept the ludicrous notion that I have any difficulty in taking criticism.

I have never said that journalism is difficult, far from it. The chapters of Media Whores that were posted here previously would surely disabuse anyone of the notion that I think it is a difficult occupation – not profession – or a noble one.

One would suppose that a journalist distinguishing himself from other journalists by advertising himself as ‘a Christian libertarian’ would have prepared himself with at least an AWANA club CUBBIE’s level understanding of the word of God before expounding on any topic having to do with Biblical matters. Claiming to be a Christian journalist, your Bible knowledge is less than the mathematical proficiency of the LEAST prepared math teacher I’ve ever heard of been prepared in mathematics.

Again, I’m not a journalist. The teacher’s ability to debate, or lack of it, leads one to conclude that most of his discussions are held with such CUBBIES and fellow school teachers. It’s much harder to win an argument when you can’t monopolize the floor and threaten to dock the other individual’s grade, isn’t it, Mr. Teacher. As for your cogent, persuasive and well-documented case against the depth of my Biblical knowledge, I refute it thusly: is not!

First-time mothers have “the matrix opened” by firstborn children. First-time fathers do not. Your “convincing” defense for polygamy from the Bible’s book of Numbers (offered in your blog with the past month) fell apart. I’ve watched teachers who are big enough to admit mistakes and/or to offer to look up information they don’t have.

This teacher is so limited in his ability to comprehend what he reads that he does not realize that the defense for polygamy from the Book of Numbers was not mine. I merely posted it as an interesting way of looking at the issue, whereas my defense of the institution has three primary elements, none of which are based on Numbers: 1) the many examples of men favored by God who were married to more than one wife, 2) the requirement of a church elder to have but one wife, which implies that other members of the church may have more, and, 3) the negative fruit of monogamy, which can be seen in the soul sickness and dying populations of the West.

As I wrote before, it is ironic, if not troubling, to realize that the American church accepts that which the Bible tells us God hates and hates that which the Bible tells us God accepts.

Let’s see a journalist do the same.

And for the third time, I’m not a journalist and have never claimed to be one. I have admitted mistakes before. I will almost surely do so in the future. However, there is no reason for me to do so here, as this teacher has not pointed any out. While he is perfectly free to express his opinion about whatever he likes, a naked assertion is evidence of precisely nothing and neither asks for nor requires an admission of error.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to hit the couch to read some Flaubert and watch Arsenal finish off Juventus. Have a good afternoon….

Not a bad result at all. Arsenal ran the hateful bianconeri right out of the Stadio delle Alpe with but three moments of danger, all of which Herr Lehman dealt with forthrightly. Freddie missed a good chance, young gun Fabregas missed a great one by drilling the ball right at Buffon and Alexander Hleb ran out of steam or he probably would have put one away.

It’s been a good week for soccer. Last night we beat the bottom-dwellers, (who for some reason always give us trouble), by a score of 3-1 to take a 11-point lead in the league, but I’m hobbling around today thanks to the injury to our left winger. He couldn’t run and we had no substitutions left, so I switched positions with him, (the manager had me in at forward even though I’m usually on the wings now), and ended up trying to cover both positions.

The good news was that the manager moved me up from number 15 to number 13 before the game, which means I’m guaranteed a full half of play instead of just cleanup and injury duty. I’m simply not good enough to crack the starting 11 nor do I have the stamina to last the full 90 minutes on the wing, but I earned us a penalty last night and stole the ball that created another goal, so I’ll hold my spot and maybe move up to 12 if I can manage another decent game on Friday. We’re playing the #2 team on the table, so a win will put us 14 points up and pretty much lock in the title.

UPDATE: No, I’m not a diver. I loathe the likes of Juve’s Nedved, who tried to fake his own injury immediately after taking down Toure from behind and justly earning his second yellow on the night. I earned the penalty by moving into position for a pass from our other striker; when he slipped the ball across the box to me, the defender threw himself to the ground in an impossible attempt to block the pass and only managed to deflect it with his outstretched arms.

Because we all know that’s not possible:

A new study shows that autism may be linked after all to the use of mercury in childhood vaccines, despite government’s previous claims to the contrary.

An article in the March 10, 2006 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPandS.org) shows that since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the alarming increase in reported rates of autism and other neurological disorders (NDs) in children not only stopped, but actually dropped sharply — by as much as 35 percent.

Using the government’s own databases, independent researchers analyzed reports of childhood NDs, including autism, before and after removal of mercury-based preservatives. Authors David A. Geier, B.A. and Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D. analyze data from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS) in “Early Downward Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines.”

The numbers from California show that reported autism rates hit a high of 800 in May 2003. If that trend had continued, the reports would have skyrocketed to more than 1000 by the beginning of 2006. But in fact, the Geiers report that the number actually went down to only 620, a real decrease of 22 percent, and a decrease from the projections of 35 percent.

Considering that it is the government which is more than a little culpable for the ill effects of vaccines it regulates, and in some cases, requires, I hardly think it is surprising that various agencies swear up and down that vaccines are not harmful, could not possibly be harmful, and besides, even if they were harmful, they stopped putting the stuff that isn’t harmful in the first place in them.

What moron could possibly believe that line of illogic? And yes, I am looking at you. And you.

I particularly enjoyed this quote from a previous study that Saw No Evil: “The IOM stated that the evidence favored rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal and autism, that such a relationship was not biologically plausible, and that no further studies should be conducted to evaluate it.”

It is very easy for me to believe that they very firmly hoped, wished and prayed that no further studies WOULD be conducted. It is that “should” that damns them as knowledgeably attempting to bury the smoking gun.

A teachers union flees from John Stossel:

Last month, 500 angry schoolteachers assembled outside my office. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) was furious that “Stupid in America,” a “20/20” show I did on education, suggested that some union teachers were lazy. They shouted that I didn’t understand how difficult teaching was, and chanted, “Shame on you!”

Randi Weingarten, head of New York City’s union, took the microphone and hollered, “Just teach for a week!” She said I could select from many schools. “We got high schools, we got elementary schools, we got junior high schools!”

I accepted. I even said I’d let the union pick the school….

Finally, four days before what was supposed to be my first day of class, they canceled. Officially, “they” were the public school administrators who said it might be “disruptive” and that it might “set a precedent” that would open their doors to other reporters.

Too bad. Letting cameras into schools would be a good thing. Taxpayers might finally get to see how more than $200,000 per classroom of their money was being spent.

I wonder why the union even made the challenge. I suspect the UFT didn’t expect me to say yes. When I turned out not to be easily intimidated, the teachers’ union and the government school monopoly folded.

It’s not only that they are lobotomizing the children of America, they’re also chickenshit to boot. If you’re afraid to let a television journalist – a practitioner of what is not generally found to be among the most intellectually gifted occupations in the world – have a crack at doing your job because he might reveal just how easy it is, you’re truly a pathetic specimen.

I rather doubt that Stossel would be overwhelmed. We have between 20 and 30 kids between the ages of 5 through 8 who show up for soccer every week. I have no trouble maintaining discipline even though I’m usually on my own, and I also teach them tactical concepts which demonstrably involves more complex thinking than they are currently required to do in school in addition to the technical drills.

“If the attack comes from the one side, defender on that side attacks the ball. Where does the other defender go?”

“TO COVER THE HOLE!” (That’s what we call the open space in front of the goal.)

“Where does he watch?”

“THE OTHER SIDE!”

“And does he just stand there?”

“NO, INTERCEPT THE PASS, UNLESS THE ATTACKER BEATS THE FIRST DEFENDER. THEN ATTACK THE BALL!”

“If the first defender gets beaten, does he chase the ball?”

“NO, RUN ACROSS TO COVER THE ATTACKER COMING DOWN THE OTHER SIDE!”

I think it confuses parents of new kids when the first thing we do after warmups is to sit down and talk, but two championships in two seasons has proved that a team of players who think and are able to react to fluid situations will beat teams comprised of bigger, faster and better players almost every time. Two years ago, my starting defenders were six and seven and they made a grand total of three mistakes in back the entire season. I still miss those two….

Teaching can be exhausting and it is often frustrating, but it is not hard. And lest some cretin of limited brain capacity and mysteriously high self-regard point out that he was once educated by a teacher in southern Nebraska who was not a punk, thereby disproving everything I have ever written or will write in the future, I shall add, ala Scott Adams, BOCTAE.

From the New York Times:

The deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested on Tuesday and accused of using the Internet to seduce someone he thought was a teenage girl, the authorities said.

According to the sheriff’s office in Polk County, Fla., where the charges were issued, the official, Brian J. Doyle, 55, of Silver Spring, Md., had a sexually explicit conversation with a person he believed was a 14-year-old girl whose profile he had seen on the Internet. In reality, the sheriff’s office said, Mr. Doyle was talking with an undercover sheriff’s detective.

I wonder if this might be one reason why the Justice Department hasn’t been in a hurry to look into the list of 1,500 homosexual chickenhawks whose financial information was collected by an underage male prostitute. It sure would be a surprise if there happened to be the names of a few members of Congress and high ranking federal bureaucrats there….

Hari misses the larger context:

Far more irritating, however, is the passage by RAW. The context in which you used it makes it look to the unobservant like a quote from New Scientist or somesuch, when RAW is really an occultist novelist with strong opinions. From one so intelligent, I expect more from you.

Given that yesterday’s post was made in the context of an entire column largely dealing with some of the ideas put forth by that particular occultist novelist, I find your criticism to be spurious. I could not care less how things might look to the unobservant; I expect commenters here to be capable of ad

Renee, ever the rationalist, is suspicious:

I notice #4 isn’t cited.

Sorry, it’s from the same New Scientist article. One thing that is likely not clear to those who have not read it is the obvious chagrin that permeates the entire piece, it is clearly written by a rationalist who is somewhat appalled to discover where the applied reason of the scientific method is leading him.

She adds:

“Even if more evolved people have spiritual beliefs for evolutionary survival it doesn’t mean what they believe in is true.”

Absolutely! However, the post was in response to TP’s false claim, (apparently based on his second-circuit engaging in defense of his theoretical loyalty to the third-circuit), of atheism’s manifold benefits. At no point did I argue that such things were proof of the verity of my religious faith, or, for that matter, of anyone else’s.

Still, it seems to me that the rational action, in light of such evidence, is to seek to embrace spiritual truth in addition to reason based on material proof. And there is justification for doing so beyond the material benefits, as surely the coincidence of the consistent superiority of an ancient text over 2,000 years of accumulated human wisdom, decades of education and doctoral degrees must inspire a spirit of inquiry in even the most robotically rational mind.

I would encourage everyone to jettison their dogma, be it of Science, Church or State, when approaching ideas both old and new, and attempt to consider them with a genuinely curious and open mind. It is written that Creation is stranger than we can know, so there is no reason to intentionally limit our understanding of the universe(s) to a scientific model that we already know beyond any shadow of a doubt to be both errant and incomplete.

It is obvious that the scientific mind is fundamentally crippled when Carl Sagan blithely insists, with absolutely no evidence, that 122,500 people were mass hallucinating on five separate occasions in 1917 during the Fatima incidents. Again and again, we see how quickly the self-proclaimed rationalist resorts to an ontological argument – I can imagine it, therefore it is – in defense of what is otherwise logically unsustainable. Reason is attacked in her own defense… Sagan must destroy the village in order to save it.

None of this should be taken to imply that the scientific method is not useful, (in fact, quite the opposite is true), only that it has strict limits that those who revere it are far too inclined to ignore.