God shouldn't have invested in default credit swaps he didn't understand...

An alternate title was "Devil Take the Hindmost."

HJ

My day with the communists...

How do? I've been drinking. I had a beer the size of an artillery shell and have moved on to local Missouri wine. We will see if it is possible for my typing to get any worse.

I was listening to the radio this morning, very early this morning, and the field reporter for the BBC in Cuba was talking about how the economic downturn hit the hand-rolled cigar industry fairly lightly. He ended his report speculating: "Perhaps during trying economic downturns, people turn to tobacco and alcohol for comfort." And I thought, "Booze! That's the answer!"

Well, not really, but it is a good reality delaying tactic for now. I spent most of the day reading and taking notes from Jedgar's book again. Man, that boy was a loon. It's pretty depressing. I did, however, find my movie clip for next week, and it is for all the entertainment value, completely consonant with the, let's face it, overtly religious proselytising about teh kommiez. Seriously, Jesus likes the free market. It's from archive.org, a really fun little site that is getting worse and more youtubey. Drats. The part I'm interested is about 5 minutes in, so you'll have to watch a little bit. If you are looking at pornography, you've gone too far.

http://ia360921.us.archive.org/3/items/Perversi1965/Perversi1965_512kb.mp4

How was that for a stretch? Eh? These 1950s-60s shorts are fantastic for getting a snapshot into public perceptions during the Cold War. I see them as only slight exaggerations. By far, my favorite short is "Duck and Cover." See if you can find the suicide monkey!

http://ia360911.us.archive.org/2/items/DuckandC1951/DuckandC1951_512kb.mp4

When I give a teaching demonstration, I sometimes show that and then talk about "How do we describe the apocalypse to children?" Talking about older texts, advertisements and readings, I find are useful ways of exposing assumptions about audience and explaining the choices that authors make....but enough of my pedagogy!

I was in the office all day visiting with students. The ones who care came in. There is a short paper coming up, and I let them know that I am willing to help them at all stages of the writing process. They took me up on it today. About 4 or 5 of them came to my office hours, which is just enough. One student is writing about "manifestos" and the role they play in validating conspiracy theories. That one will be fun to read.

Got a cat to take to the vet tomorrow. She's got what I think is a fatty lump on her back (it's sort of mobile and spongey), but better safe than riddle with cancer. Yay! or, Yuk!

HJ

The newest Skeptic Circle is up!

#106 is at Disillusioned Words. Go there now, or you-know-what happens to the kitten in the blender...

HJ

Entire Internet Disappoints...News at 11:00

Yeah, I was looking for major distractions tonight, and dey waddin't nuddin! Does that mean that I will have to regale my readership with stories about how I managed not to fall asleep at work today? Because I have had far more compelling pimple breakouts.

So let's talk about disappointment. When I started college in 1994, CCD cameras were just coming to within the price range of the physics department (where I was an astronomy lab assistant). If I remember correctly, the camera that we had was a fairly unwieldly box, and you had to clamp off the telescope pretty tightly to keep it from tipping back. Fast forward to the present day (lingering only on adult situations and nudity) and these little cameras are ubiquitous. Yay! Every man a photographer!

I started watching birdies a few years ago, something that I still do from time to time, and because I have a hard time recognizing birds, when I saw a new one, I wanted to take a picture of it so I could identify it later. And that's when Jesus himself invented the binoculars with a CCD camera mounted on it. I mean, sweet mother of fuck! All the other birders will be envious! I thought, and it won't help that I will taunt them mercilessly!

So, the birthday comes around and all I want is this pair of binoculars. And my family comes through for me. Yay! I take them out, put in the batteries, flip open the little screen and take a picture. It is at that point that I learn that the image that the camera snaps is not magnified, the memory holds about 2 images, if you are lucky, and I don't have a memory stick anyway.

HJ

Obama's education plan...

Like many people, I often need time for big ideas to sink in. And I listened to the State of the Union on NPR two nights ago, only watched it for a little bit...that guy plays the part well, I'll have you know. Nancy Pelosi was smiling so much I thought she was going to or had already pulled something. I thought that it was a pretty good speech, peppered with the inspirational motivation formalities that one expects from such a presentation. Some rhetorical moves that suggested that he was aware of Americans' wariness of putting money into the hands of banks, who, as far as I am concerned, have had their chance and should be broken up so that we can allow a couple of them to fail.

I was only sort of interested in the reaction by conservatives, especially since it was clear to me from listening to Jindal speak afterwards that they weren't going to be trumpeting his delivery. Presidential candidate? Methinks probably not. The only reaction that even had a chance of catching my interest was by Michael McBride at Townhall.com, and that was because his title was "The Presidency as a Series of Teleprompter Speeches." I thought to myself, "Thank god the new President can read."

Anyway, something that made my ears perk up figuratively was his call for all Americans to get some schooling beyond high school. My first thought was "more sections of writing/English would open up." My next thought was, "Wow, not everyone belongs in college." But on the whole, I think that it is a laudable goal, probably inspired by the GI Bill, itself a truly extraordinary piece of legislation.

Today there are few new jobs advertised that I would apply for. I need to consider drafting a more coporate version of my CV; if the academic market falls through, I will be pounding more traditional pavement this summer. I have tinkered with my CV so much, I'm scared to touch it.

In the mean time, here's the quote of the day, which I just stumbled over in the Masters of Deceit by Jedgar Hoover:

"Through the Communist Party, the mentality of the Russian Bolsheviks is being transmitted to America, together with the belief that man can be completely redesigned from a child of God into a soulless social cog."

My rejoinder of the day is a quote from WWII veteran Edmund Volpe, a college graduate and future literary scholar who recounts a day at Ft. Wheeler (GA) when he had been assigned to KP and watched platoons march by outside his window:

Under identical helmets, not one man was distinguishable from another. Each uniformed figure was a stamped-out cog in a gigantic marching machine. At twenty, I had never doubted my significance and future importance to the universe. But I knew suddenly I had metamorphosed into number 31337580. That day I enjoyed KP. At least for a few hours, I had escaped that inexorable maw that chewed up unsuspecting individuals and turned them into identical links in a never-ending human sausage for the delectation of the war gods.

HJ

Haircuts, J. Edgar Hoover, and the grocery store of death

There's very little going on in my life right now. Sure, I'm reading J. Edgar Hoover's The Masters of Deceit, but that is not very uplifting. Oh, Jedgar hated the atheists, and he keeps stressing how atheism is the first step toward communism. Idiot.

I have started going to a new grocery store. Road work has rerouted my commute past a different branch of the chain that I usually attend. The only problem is, however, is that it is what me and my roommate call "the Schnucks o' Death." OK, every so often there is a drive-by in that strip mall. The food is not as good as my usual Schnucks, the workers are surly but at least are really bad at their jobs, and the lines actually grow backward from the counter as you are waiting to check out--I swear. Dingy and disorganized, but on the way. I'm willing to settle.

Next to my usual Schuncks is a barber shop. I hate having my hair cut. It's the fact that someone is futzing with my head, the outcome is sort of a crap shoot and I hate when they try to sell me hair gel I do not need. There are haircuts in hell, of this I am sure. Well, my new beard needed its first trimming pretty badly, so I asked them to neaten it around the edges. I guess it's ok, but I have the strong sense that my face is in a frame.

I'm at home unattended right now. Animala is off teaching. She has a 3.5 hour long class at a community college. The other day, she said that she did "argument, fallacies, and logic" in one class. Jeepers!

HJ

Will power...

At this point, up to 4 weeks after I interviewed at 2 different schools, it takes an immense amount of will power not to call, write or show up late at night with a baseball bat and a handful of petroleum jelly on the doorstep of those people who are making the hiring decisions. I know that I am still a candidate until they say otherwise. But this is getting old. I have already scheduled every waking moment for the foreseeable future for fretting about this. I have checked my email hundreds of times (especially at work), I have glanced at the wiki 6 times a day. I call home to ask my roommate if there has been any word. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

With my luck, they will call while I am fretting and I won't be able to get to the phone.

HJ

Brannon Howse Can't Stand Hearing He's a Conspiracist Nut

Even though he is.

What is most striking is the lack of running commentary in Bud Kennedy's article in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Indeed, he does a lot of what I try to do, lets the stupid speak for itself. OK, I do more commentary, but still, I quote so nobody can say I'm making this shit up! Turns out that Brannon, like a dog with worms, dragged his ass across the driveway that is Texas. His Code Blue rallies are epic, I understand, and he's coming to St. Louis! Yay!

(See you there, Brannon!)

My favorite bit of the article:

For about 30 minutes, Birchman Baptist Church — home of the Southern Baptist Convention of Texas’ state president — took a sharp turn toward conspiracy-theory paranoia, race-baiting suspicion and apocalyptic end-times obsession.

In a revival that seemed like something out of the 1950s, Howse even declared, "Joe McCarthy was a good guy." That was the mid-’50s commie-hunting Wisconsin senator who could find a socialist under every rock.

At an event promoting a "Christian worldview," Howse gave a sermon that was more John Birch than Birchman.

If it smells like a conspiracy theorist and hair gel, looks like a conspiracy theorist wearing hair gel, and (shudder) tastes like salty back bacon and hair gel, it's probably Brannon Howse.

YOU ARE A CONSPIRACY THEORIST AND IT'S WEIRD! GET USED TO IT, BRANNON, OR GET A NEW TUNE! THIS IS NOT ABOUT "CHRISTIANS" THIS IS ABOUT A CHRISTIAN.

HJ

Sean McDowell: Bodie Hodge Stupid

I was going to some real-time blogging during Obama's speech, but then I came across this at Worldview Weekend. When I saw the title, I know exactly who had written it.

Is the Chimp-Mauling Darwin's Fault?

Sean McDowell had single-handedly undone all of the promises that the Internet would lead to a general improvement in the condition of men by making the dissemination and reception of information readily available to everyone. Damn it.

This week we received the sobering news that a 55-year old woman was nearly killed by a 200 pound chimp.

Were you drinking? (Alternate joke: What, are you mad that the chimp didn't finish her off?)

Her face was so severely disfigured and unrecognizable that one news station reported the victim as a man. In case you are wondering how a chimp could be so powerful, an animal expert on CNN (Larry King Live) reported that chimps are roughly five times as strong as human beings. The poor woman was utterly outmatched. My heart is truly broken for this woman and I hope and pray she will experience fully recovery.

"But that will not stop me from exploiting her misery. Muahahahahahaha!!!"

Nevertheless, we need to ask a basic question: How could something like this happen? How is it that we live in a culture where people think it's safe to have a chimpanzee as a pet? Where do people get the idea that we ought to take a wild animal and treat it like a human being? The chimp owner treated the animal like a son who ate at her table, slept in her house, and even drove her car.

Some people keep alligators in the bathroom. Some let their pet jaguars babysit. This woman had a full-grown ape. I would posit that a more reasonable explanation is that I am surrounded by morons.

Still, I let my cat drive the car--but she's really good at it!

Ideas do not exist in a vacuum.

Well, some do, Sean. Ahem.

In fact, there is one culprit for the idea that human beings and chimps are really not that different and should be treated that way: Darwinism.

There's a reason that children laugh at you, Sean.

The Judeo-Christian tradition has always taught that humans and chimps are different in terms of kind (Genesis 1-2).

Which is pretty stupid, seeing as how "kind" is a made-up category, that Europe seems not to have come into contact with them until the 1500s, and you put the tit in "tufted titmouse fucker." (Which reminds me of a story! Capt. Inappropriate is a birder. Once he was looking at a hard to identify bird and wondered what it was. He decided that he didn't know, but that it was "getting fucked by a male indigo bunting.")

While animals are a good part of God's creation, it is uniquely humans who bear the image of God. Many animals are wild and should be kept that way. On the other hand, Darwin propagated the idea that humans and chimps have a common ancestor and only differ in terms of degree (See Darwin's The Descent of Man). If humans and chimps are really not that different, then why not expect chimps to act civilly? After all, ideas have consequences.

Which is why no Darwinian household is complete without its own chimp! (Man my head is full of a lot of useless pop culture--I think that it displaced all that calculus! What about this SNL skit?)

Last week the world celebrated Darwin's 200th birthday. Universities placed tributes to Darwinism on their home page (examples include Oxford and Cambridge) and major networks such as BBC ran extensive programs devoted to Darwin's great contribution to the world.

Yet, ironically, this week we witness a brutal act that seems to logically follow from Darwin's ideas.

Logic? You wouldn't recognize logic if you found it biopsying that thing on your scrotum. Which part of 5 times stronger than a human and fiercely territorial did you not understand, dipshit? That's reason enough to keep you hands out of the big chimp's mouth!

You may be wondering how I can possibly link Darwin to this atrocious event. But think about it, if humans are deeply related to chimps then why not expect them to act that way?

No. Simply no.

Darwinists regularly point out the genetic, structural, and behavioral similarities between humans and chimps (of course, they conveniently overlook the profound differences). Yet, since Darwinists argue so fervently that humans are closely related to chimps, then shouldn't chimps be expected to act like humans?

To a degree, of course, they do. But then there is the no "big-ol' people brain" thing.

Shouldn't Darwinists take some responsibility when some people actually put their ideas into action?

You know what? Now that I think about it, the Bible actually has a king keeping an ape as a pet. See for instance 1 Kings 10:22, I believe (yes, I did that from memory).

Fuckhead.

HJ

A warning to all hiring committees...

Make a fucking decision or this kitten goes into a blender.

HJ

Hey, Ken! Stop giving Bodie the Important Questions!

When I read the title of tonight's text, which I take from the Book of Bodie, "How could Moses be the author of Deuteronomy when his obituary is listed as the last chapter," I summoned my flock, namely Animala and a couple of cats: "You have to read this. Bring me the good book. And a Bible!"

If you will open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 34:1–12, with which Bodie opens his sermon.

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is across from Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan . . . . So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day. Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished . . . .

"[...] Except he still died. Funk dat," saith the Lord.

This is a question that Animala has posed on several occasions, most of which refer to the just as stupid Naked Archaeologist, who as she is pointing out over my shoulder, is neither naked nor an archaeologist. Finally, Bodie is going to give the authoritative answer that Animala has been fretting over these many years. Maybe now she'll be able to get a full night's sleep.

Moses is considered the author of the first five books of the Bible; the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 31:24). Liberal scholars have rejected this claim, and theories abound as to the “true” authorship.

And by "liberal scholars" you mean "scholars," including biblical scholars, linguists, and textual scholars. Pshaw!

Despite the detractors, the life and death of Moses are contained within these books, along with the account of the creation of the universe and the calling of the chosen people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel).

Bodie, nobody is doubting that the life and death of Moses are contained in these books, Mr. Deflecting-from-the-main-point-fallacy-pants.

Then, instead of an argument, Bodie gives a plot summary, including a bit where God does some ad hoc interring, which is way beneath his pay grade. But then he starts to get to his insightful, learned, and dare I say it, revolutionary justification for claiming that there is no contradiction. (I half expect him to say that Moses was a zombie. Animala: "I think that the Book of Zombie Moses was one of those that did not make it in---Zombiticus.")

At the time of the writing, books were contained on scrolls.

Oh, sweet fucking Christ. If they were scrolls, they weren't "books." Of course, details will only get in the way when you are debunking liberal scholars.

The ending of one book and the beginning of the next were not clearly delineated. In modern translations there are many instances where the last verse is considered the first verse of the next chapter in the Jewish text. This does not mean that there is an error, but that the demarcations are different.

Saith Animala: "It's the last book of the Torah, for fuck's sake, Bodie!" There are always five books in the Torah, Bodie, it's like a whole big Jewish thing that they do. And whether or not the last bit "counts" as Torah or is a big fucking deal. It's the difference between "You have a Torah" and "You don't have a Torah." Is not the Torah set....no don't answer that. Just jump off something.

More important is questioning whether or not there is enough evidence to support the claim that Moses was in fact the author of the Torah. You cite, go figger, the Bible, specifically Deut. 31: 24: "When Moses had finished writing down in a book the words of this law..."(NRSV). It seems clear from context that the reference is to...Deuteronomy! Possibly just the Song of Moses (referred to in verse 22 and recounted a few verses later). I mean, even your KJV translation seems to make this clear. It's weak at best. Is there any other evidence in the Torah that it came from a single author? Well, actually no, and even if there was good evidence that the whole thing was written down by one person (for instance, a single continuous story from creation to Moses's dirt nap with the Baby Jesus, a fairly consistent perspective, a single style, the same word used for God throughout, not telling two different versions of the creation story, for instance), you'd still have to make the case that that one person was MOSES. You have a lot, a lot of work to do to do that, possibly find a bit in there that says: "Then I went back to Pharoah, and you'll never guess what that sneaky Yahweh did...he hardened Pharoah's heart! That's my Yahweh!"

So basically, Bodie's solution is "Well, just change the fricken Torah. Duh." Duh indeed, Bodie. Duh indeed.

HJ

Ask a stupid question to stupid people...

...get caught in the Twilight Zone:

I wrote the following letter a few weeks ago to Penguin publishers:

I am considering drafting a book proposal for a critical edition of Author's Novel, which in its most recent edition was a New American Library edition. I wonder if there is a contact number for someone associated with the NAL edition who might direct me to the current copyright holder. This is very preliminary, of course, and I am trying to gauge the feasibility of such a project.

Thank you in advance,

Bing McGhandi, Ph.D.

This is what I got back, and it is so completely bizarre, I had to share it with you:

Dear Bing,

Thank you for your inquiry. This title STORY OF GARDENING is out of stock indefinitely and we no longer have copies available for sale.

You might want to search the online Bookstore Directory at the American Bookseller's Association website at http://www.bookweb.org/aba/members/search.do. (Click on browse this directory.) There you'll find a list of over 2,200 booksellers, complete with addresses and descriptions - many of whom carry out-of-print books and hard-to-find books.

If you need additional assistance, please feel free to contact us.

I'm scared to contact you, quite frankly.

HJ

Jerry Vlasik pisses his pants and also lies outright...

ALF front man (no, it's not an ambient band) Jerry Vlasik issued (surprise) a completely dishonest press release this morning. Not that I expected anything different from a man with such a completely bent conscience. I'm highlighting the important part here:

For Immediate Release
February 22, 2009

Federal Authorities Arrest Peaceful Protesters
Animal Liberation Front, Other Clandestine Groups Prosper as Result

(Is it me or does it sound a little North Korean?: "Imperialist Swine Napalm NK Town of Ping Pong: Glorious Phoenix of Unity Rises from Ashes of Abject Despair!" Also, "clandestine" is another word for "cowardly." Also, we're going to bust up that "peaceful" bullshit.)

San Francisco, CA: Federal authorities have arrested four animal rights activists accused of protesting animal abuse at UC Berkeley and Santa Cruz, a FBI press release reported Friday. None of those arrested has been charged with acts of economic sabotage or other illegal acts of animal liberation on behalf of animals imprisoned, tortured and killed in University of California laboratories. Instead, these arrests have targeted above-ground, legal animal rights protestors and blatantly abrogate their first amendment rights, civil liberties and right to hand out pamphlets. Thomas Paine, American's best known pamphleteer, must be rolling over in his grave. According to the FBI press release, the activists are accused of "chalk[ing] defamatory comments on the public sidewalks", protesting "generally in all black clothing and wearing bandanas to hide their faces", and distributing leaflets with the contact information for vivisectors on them.

The irony is, that by targeting legal protesters, federal and state authorities are inadvertently encouraging more illegal direct action on behalf of non-human animals. One has only to look at the increased number of actions of economic sabotage, vandalism and live animal liberations over the last 2 years (see www.animalliberationpressoffice.org or www.directaction.info) to realize that LEGAL activists are being increasingly driven into clandestine and anonymous actions, morally justified but illegal actions which are rarely punished.

As a supporter of direct action, the Animal Liberation Press Office is pleased at the increase in actions by the Animal Liberation Front and other clandestine groups; the increase is expected to continue as long as authorities persist with their heavy-handed abuse of legal protesters. In today's climate, it appears that it's less risky by far to engage in underground activities then in legal pickets.

Press officer Jerry Vlask, MD states: "The University of California needs to be held accountable for wasting millions of taxpayer research dollars on useless animal research, while more accurate, efficient and inexpensive investigative techniques are available in this twenty-first century to study human illness and find cures. Harassing legal picketers makes little sense, and it's ridiculous to portray the four activists arrested on behalf of tortured and abused animals as "terrorists"; the real terrorists are those who maim, imprison and kill innocent non-human animals for their own personal gain."

Of course, the actual press release is not so selectively edited:

February 20, 2009

Four Extremists Arrested for Threats and Violence Against UC Researchers On February 19 and 20, the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested four animal rights extremists suspected of terrorizing University of California researchers. A complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday alleged Adriana Stumpo, 23, of Long Beach, California; Nathan Pope, 26, of Oceanside, California; Joseph Buddenberg, 25, of Berkeley, California; and Maryam Khajavi, 20, of Pinole, California used force, violence, or threats to interfere with the operation of the University of California in violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Mr. Pope and Ms. Stumpo were arrested Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina by the FBI and members of the Charlotte Joint Terrorism Task Force as they returned to the United States from Costa Rica. The two appeared in federal court in Charlotte this morning, and will be extradited to California to face charges. San Francisco Joint Terrorism Task Force members, University of California Berkeley Police officers, and FBI agents arrested Mr. Buddenberg at the Alameda County Courthouse this morning. Ms. Khajavi was also arrested this morning in Oakland. Both appeared before United States Magistrate Judge Nandor J. Vadas in federal court in San Francisco today. The arrests stem from a series of threatening incidents beginning in October 2007: On Sunday, October 21, 2007 a group of approximately twenty people, including Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, and Ms. Stumpo, demonstrated outside a University of California Berkeley professor’s personal residence in El Cerrito, California. The group, some wearing bandanas to hide their faces, trespassed on his front yard, chanted slogans, and accused him of being a murderer because of his use of animals in research. The professor told police he was afraid, and felt harassed and intimidated by the extremists. On Sunday, January 27, 2008, a group of approximately eleven individuals, including Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, Ms. Stumpo, and Ms. Khajavi, demonstrated outside the private residences of several University of California Berkeley researchers over the course of the day. At each residence, extremists dressed generally in all black clothing and wearing bandanas to hide their faces marched, chanted, and chalked defamatory comments on the public sidewalks in front of the residences. One of the researchers informed authorities he had been previously harassed and the incident had caused him to fear for his health and safety. On February 24, 2008, five to six individuals including Mr. Pope, Ms. Stumpo, and Ms. Khajavi, attempted to forcibly enter the private home of a University of California researcher in Santa Cruz. When her husband opened the door, a struggle ensued and he was hit by an object. As the individuals fled, one yelled, “We’re gonna get you.” The professor and her husband both told the FBI they were terrified by the incident. On July 29, 2008, a stack of flyers titled "Murderers and torturers alive & well in Santa Cruz July 2008 edition" was found at the Café Pergolesi in Santa Cruz. The fliers listed the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of several University of California researchers and stated “animal abusers everywhere beware we know where you live we know where you work we will never back down until you end your abuse.” The investigation connected Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, and Ms. Stumpo to the production and distribution of the fliers. Distribution of the fliers preceded two firebomb attacks outside researchers’ Santa Cruz homes, both of which are still under investigation by the FBI. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (Title 18 U.S.C. § 43) states that whoever uses or causes to be used any facility of interstate commerce for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise, and in connection with such purpose, intentionally places a person in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to that person or an immediate family member, or conspires or attempts to do so, by a course of conduct involving threats, acts of vandalism, property damage, criminal trespass, harassment, or intimidation, shall be imprisoned for not more than five years. “With so many legal options to make their voices heard and to effect policy change, it is inexcusable and cowardly for these people to resort to terrorizing the families of those with whom they do not agree,” said Charlene B. Thornton, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco office. “The FBI intends to pursue those involved in this sort of extremist activity to the full extent of the law.”

It's pathetic that Jerry has to fake his indignant press release.

Of course, the problem is that Jerry and his band of fellow failed genetic experiments may be so completely batshit (don't harvest bat shit, or you are exploiting the bats) that they actually believe that this is what these people were doing. Perhaps he is only reading the parts he wants to read. I don't believe that, however. I strongly suspect that his twisted ideology allows Jerry to be as completely dishonest as he desires.

HJ

Irony

This link came across my feed this morning:

Stupid American’s Have Put Their Future in the Hands of Liberal Elitists Who Intend to Destroy Our Way of Life

Yeah, well, when you learn how to use the plural we'll start talking about divesting some of that power back into your hands.

Kind of reminds me of a post last night from RateYourStudents:

Student: "Oh man! Where in the world do you come up with that crazy shit?"

Me: "I read it in a book. It's the same book you've got under your arm. You can find out exactly what chapter this crazy shit comes from by looking at today's schedule in the syllabus."

HJ

Arrest made in UC animal rights cases! Suck it, Jerry Vlasik!

Charles Huckabee at the Chronicle blog reports on arrests made in the long series of cowardly night time tantrums on the part of animal rights activists, who should be put in pillories and left for the birds that they love to pick at.

HJ

Kid in shitty situation needs help--asshole!

The more I read about the extremely strange far religious right, the better I feel about myself. It's good to know that you're better than somebody.

Anyway, a week and a half ago, the "leave Brittney alone" guy got to ask Obama a question:

"Oh, it's such a blessing to see you, Mr. President!" the student gasped. "Thank you for taking time out of your day! Oh, gracious God, thank you so much! Ungh!"

OK, it wasn't the Brittney guy, but seriously, all this guy was missing was the bed sheet and a prescription for Prozac. Indeed, when he does much of anything, he comes across in much the same way: "Oh, sweet lovely baby angels! I'll have a number 3 without pickles and onions, and bless your precious pants for getting me a Coke with that, you god among men!"

A spokesman for a conservative youth group decided that he ought to have an opinion about this question and furthermore decided that it would be a good idea to make sweeping generalizations and crazy conclusions based on unrepresentative samples. Of course, OneNewsNow latched onto the story like a....big latching thing. It's called "'Entitlement' mentality reflected in Obama's questioner."

So after the encomium on how awesome Obama is as a deity among men, the kid explains himself:

Osegueda went on to share with the president that he has been working at McDonald’s for four-and-a-half years and cannot find another job. He then asked Obama if he has any plans to help better his life:

“Would the fact that I’ve been there for as long as I’ve been there, do you have any plan or any idea of making one that has been there for a long time receive any better benefits than what they’ve already received?"

This kid is working poor and putting himself through college. But check out the take from Jason Mattera from Young America's Forum:

"That happens to be the mentality today," says Mattera. "It's...no longer 'What can I do for myself?' or 'How can I enrich my own life?' -- it's 'What can Uncle Sam do through displacing wealth that I never created and that I didn't work for, but I think I'm entitled to?'"

Speaking of taking money that you haven't earned, I wonder if Young America's Forum takes donations? Freeloading entitlement-based organization.

This kid has been generating a lot of wealth for other people at slave wages. It's not that he isn't willing to work, it's that he has no other opportunities to work. He doesn't want a handout, he wants a freaking job. And you know what, this kid instantly made for himself the network to end all networks, something that motivated self-starters are really good at doing. I believe he was offered a job shortly thereafter. Way to go, kid!

Part of the problem I see here is the widespread notion that poor people just lack incentive or drive. This is clearly not the case. It is much harder to move up the economic ladder than people would like to believe. It is a basic principle of capitalism, it seemeth me. It takes capital to participate in the economy: you don't have it, you have no chance of growing that wealth. At the same time, even if you do have capital, you put it at risk when you invest it--there is a lot of luck involved, putting your money in the right venture at the right time. Someone who will be successful out in the market will be someone who sees an unusual opportunity and goes for it. Indeed, I have hopes for a kid who, when he has a chance to improve his position, takes it. That's exactly what this guy did.

HJ

HJHOP (solo) Movie Review: Sukiyaki Western Django

It is impossible for me to express the irreparable damage that Sukiyaki Western Django has done to the western, colloquial English, and my will to live. No, I take that back. The actors in the movie would be unable to express that damage, and if they did, it would only be phonetically.

My guess is that the movie takes place in the future. The American western is one of the few literary modes tied to a specific geography, so for Quentin Tarantino to do his samurai-western with an all Japanese(?) cast, he’s going to have to pull a Philip K. Dick The Man in High Castle-style alternate reality, which he sort of does, I guess. The Japanese have moved in as far as Nevada several hundred years in the future, but it is for some reason by all appearances the 19th century. There is extensive “quoting” of earlier films. There were some spaghetti western sound effects, some Eastwood-style smoking action, girls with garters dancing in a saloon (I think it was dancing, I’m pretty sure it was a saloon), a town taken over by baddies, some fun being dragged by horse, some bushwhacking, and a kid who is struck mute after seeing his father shot, a la Lee Van Cleef’s God’s Gun. So I appreciated the glances back at westerns that were worth watching (except for God's Gun, which you watch for the badness).

But sis. The first probrem wassa accents. Sey wassohard t’unnerstan. An sey sounned rike sey war recorded backwaas and den prayed back in reverse. Not a good move. There was so much else that you had to work to understand, the accents were just distracting. I had to play the subtitles, which in itself is not a bad thing (I believe I did that for Billy Elliot too). There was a lot of mud. There were some cheesy explosions, and Quentin’s cameo at the opening should have ended in his death. I mean, the War of the Roses meets the Yakuza meets The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The most farcical line was when, we’ll call him Henry, says to his band o’ thugs: “What, don’t you know your Shakespeare?” Dude, these are Japanese cowboys—not bloody likely, nor you, given your accent, which was the elocutionary equivalent of the rape of Nanking.

I tell you, that movie was the worst 35 minutes I forced myself to get through.

HJ

HJ

CaJuN CrAzY CrEaTiOnIsT NeWs!

King rat Ken Ham's fellow rodents at the Answers in Genesis Shrine to Ignorance post a weekly summary of all the news that they have failed to understand. I hold that summary upside down and give it a thorough dunking. Today, I am doing two entries. Why? Because AiG's website makes me wish I was instead vomiting blood. Someone else's.

1. New York Times: “Boycott by Science Group Over Louisiana Law Seen as Door to Teaching Creationism”

Some evolutionists are taking the culture war over origins to the next step: boycotting an entire U.S. state in protest of the state’s education laws.

Well, Louisiana is like Arkansas (see below), only more so. Louisiana has always had a problem getting educated. Anyway, governor Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's answer to, "So, who in this room is fucking insane?" (he once had an exorcism, I hear) signed a bogus anti-evolution law recently, against the advice of his college biology teacher. Who knows better, I ask: a guy who spent his life studying biology or a loon who thinks that he can chant away the voices in his head?

Clearly Louisiana is not up to the standards of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, who announced that they will be taking their national conference and tourist dollars to a state where people are not driven by religious orthodoxty--Utah. Hang on...

2. The Guardian: “Defying Darwin”

Stephen Moss of Britain’s The Guardian aims to answer the question “who exactly are” creationists? Will his answer be on target or way off base?

Oh! Oh! Mister Cart-air! Does he say, "ideologically driven zealots who are incapable of not making utter asses of themselves?" You know, the content of this particular article does not really interest me, but a couple of the quotes by creationist asshats do!

Brian Edwards, Ken Ham's "friend," says this

Edwards: “Most scientists believe in evolution because they believe that most scientists believe in evolution.”

Maybe that's how things work down among the creationists (you have to have met a biblical creationist to become a biblical creationist), but we know that this is simply wishful thinking. Indeed, at the first articulation of the theory, two people independently came up with the same conclusions based on observation. (OK, Wallace had a fever that may have helped some, but he was by that point an expert on tropical critters and was in a position to benefit from a smidge of malaria, or whatever he had.)

UK's Assholes in Genesis front man is Monty White, who says of evolutionists:

“They’ve got proof of change within species. But the Bible doesn’t teach fixity of species; it talks about kinds. You can’t extrapolate from change within species to say that an ape-like creature can turn into man.”

It does not talk about kinds. "Kinds" is a Ken Ham-ism for "whatever we need to cram every damned animal into an ark." The "kind" is not a real biological concept. Fuck, it's not even a theological one!

That's that. I've got some executive-level fretting to do.

HJ

I say we bomb Arkansas forward into the Stone Age...

As a state, you are an abomination. Arkansas, I hate you. Passionately. This came from The Washington Post:

Arkansas is one of half a dozen states that still exclude non-believers from public office. Article 19 Section 1 of the 1874 Arkansas Constitution states that "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court."

I mean, seriously, what is your fucking problem, Arkansas? We knew that Texas, where atheists are similarly second-class citizens, was a complete loss, but we could at least take heart in the fact that it was destined to sink into the Gulf of Mexico under the weight of cow shit. Arkansas is not so interesting. What do you have? The Legend of Boggy Creek is the high point of Arkansas' artistic contribution to the world. You pretend like you have Ivory-billed woodpeckers to seem like you have a claim to fame and to attract birders, but that's a sham. Sure, you produced a Rhodes Scholar once, but that was only because you illiterate fucks thought that it was an award given out to people who took the bus to school.

I'm going to keep an eye on this one.

I am starting a one-man boycott of all things Arkansas (basically, He-Haw, Waffle Houses Wal-Mart and Wild Turkey).

At least they are getting the government that they deserve.

HJ

(PS: make sure that you read the end of that WashPo article.)

Ken Ham has his own special logic. Douche.

It’s not every day that I get to put Ken Ham’s chestnuts into the proverbial trash compactor. On most days, even though he keeps a blog where he talks about how all the mind-damaged people love his stupid museum, the original lunacy comes from his underlings, Bodie, Georgia, Tyrone, and d’Artagnan. But today it was Ken’s turn for show-and-tell, and it was a whopper!

It was extensively titled, in the manner of a 16th century commonplace book, “Creation: ‘where’s the proof?’ When the person you talk to on creation insists that you ‘leave the Bible out of it’, they are really saying the deck should be stacked one way.”

That was a mouthful. But Ken, let’s press the hot curling iron of reason against the tender pink parts of your argument. If we were to start with “naturalistic” principles, or observation, and the Bible was just sitting on your lap, surely if you waded out into the real world, all of it, every damned observation in the world would inexorably point to the Bible. They would be completely and totally mutually confirming. Indeed the world could, in that case, not make sense without the Bible. What’s your problem? Do it!

Actually, Ken inadvertently reveals that he does not actually think that the Bible is good evidence when he paraphrases the original question. I will add emphasis for the lulz (with a shout out to Shalini!):

‘I’ve been trying to witness to my friends. They say they don’t believe the Bible and aren’t interested in the stuff in it. They want real proof that there’s a God who created, and then they’ll listen to my claims about Christianity. […]”

Haha! You suck, Ken.

In order to make his weird, nonsensical case, Ken has to do to formal logic what Jason Voorhees does to groups of summer camp counselors. First he has to hack the limbs off of the concept of "evidence":

Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians all have the same evidence—the same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same.

OK, at least we agree that there is an external world, but that's pretty much where I get off his party boat.

The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions. These are things that are assumed to be true, without being able to prove them.

In Toulmin's model, which is currently the most popular model among writing teachers, the 3 basic parts (there are in fact a lot more) of an argument are the claim, support, and the warrant. The warrant is a fuzzy concept that basically means "what has to be true to connect the support to the claim." I usually teach warrants as "unstated assumptions," because I have never seen anyone explain the warrant very well (not even Toulmin, if I remember correctly--it's been a while). This seems to be what Ken is talking about here. But something that is interesting about the warrant is that it seems to usually take the form of a secondary claim and therefore can be treated the same way as the principle claim. So when Ken has a "presupposition" that "the Bible is the inerrant word of God," that too is a claim that needs its own support and warrants. It can't be its own support, because then you are begging the question. You just can't say, like you did, "These are things that are assumed to be true, without being able to prove them." You usually can examine these assumptions (except when they are opinions, in which case, you don't have an argument). (You also happen to be saying that you can't prove the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, totally submarining your entire creationist project, but I will let that slide because why crush your dreams all at once when I can go about it for weeks and weeks?) I think that there is a real possibility that you are making unwarranted presuppositions about your presuppositions.

HJ

Bing gets published...

My article came out today.  Yay!  So nifty.  Bound copies of my dissertation arrived today as well. Whee!  Still unemployed!  Balls!

Here's a funny story.  My computer obsessed 4-yo nephew Shane announced that he has a website.  Shane.com, he said it was.  So he has a new nickname: iShane.  Heehee.  My brother called with that story today.  Kids are hilarious.

HJ

I'd rather stab myself with a toothbrush than teach a 5/5 load...

Seriously, this community college gig, should I land it, could kill me. 5/5 teaching load (15 hrs each semester), 1/3 of the students are unmotivated. You paint a lovely picture. I'm sorry, but Christ, I didn't spend 30+ years in school to babysit discontents. Jeezis.

Looks like I'm going to go out like Grandma--guns a-blazin'!

Seriously, though. My book? Forget it with a 5/5. Publishing? Not fucking likely. This community college is a greasy pit of academic death and almost certain despair.

Man, I hope any of those other schools come through for me. Including the North Alaskan Cosmetology School for the Blind.

HJ

You’re so vain you probably think that you’re a good songwriter

Carly Simon, we’ve never met. I’ve never talked about you on this website. I never shall again. I had been meaning eventually write this post, and when I heard this song on the radio this afternoon, I wanted to make sure that my impression of the lyrics was correct. It was. This song is, no matter what the speaker implies, is clearly about the dipshit in the apricot scarf. Without a doubt. I really think that you don’t understand your own song. Let me illustrate.

You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht

OK, this makes no sense. In what way is walking onto a yacht unlike other ways of walking? What makes walking onto a yacht unique? Having posed this unresolvable conundrum, you totally blow this off question. Instead, you answer a question not related to walking, but to what this guy is wearing:

Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot

Well, I think that we have pushed douchebaggery, complete with hat tilt and mandana, back to 1973, long before Richard Grieco. Nonetheless, you could wear such an atrocious get-up not only walking onto a yacht, but to the toilet at a Mets game, across the Chain of Rocks Bridge, or even while wading in a tide pool looking for crustaceans, if that’s what floats your…yacht.

You had one eye in the mirror
As you watched yourself gavotte

Cross-eyed gavotting? Also, what type of pretentious person uses the word “gravotte” in a pop song?

And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

And this is where I unload. So far in the song the speaker has used the word “you” in various forms 17 times. Why wouldn’t he think that the song about him, when it clearly is? Eh?

You had me several years ago
When I was still quite naive
Well, you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and

Now, the other person that this song might be about appears, but it turns out you're barely sentient sexual toilet paper. I mean, unless the song is about how much of a loser you are, it clearly is about...well, probably Warren Beatty, according to the Wikipedias.

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

It couldn't be more about "you" if it read:

You you you
You you you you you you you you you you
you you you (you you you!)
you you you you you you you you you you
you you? you you?

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and

"I'm so high..." Other than the alliteration, I can in no way relate to this sentiment.

[...] Well, I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won

Now you're getting all snippy about the horse? Yay for the horse. Don't worry, horse. Bing likes you. I would give you a sugar cube, but your loving owners probably ritually dismembered your corpse years ago. (What's that shit about, by the way?)

Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun

Unfortunately, it was dark and you didn't see a thing. Badda-BING!

Well, you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not, you're with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and [the rest]

How do you know he's not supposed to be with his close friend's wife? Carly Simon got played for a foo' and now she all up in his shit. I think that you should settle this on Springer. I would love to see that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have clouds in my urine.

HJ

Well, I'm officially losing hope now...

This job search, goddamn it. I haven't heard boo from anyone for weeks now. I am working under the assumption that I got nothing this year, which is disheartening. Don't get me wrong, I am still waiting anxiously for these COMMITTEES TO DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS, but the thundering silence has been utterly deafening.

Fuck.

HJ

Finding Jihad: Remember those?

This is a feature where I look back at some of the google searches, as compiled by Google, that lead people to my web site. Think of it as an Alex Haley's Roots for the digital age, because it would crack my shit up.

• "i want my neighbor to molest me" (Mr. Rogers! No!)
• "jason lisle" creation "batshit crazy" (Wow. My entire website summed up, just like that.)
• "win ben stein's money" underwear (Win Ben’s Underwear?)
• a boy fucking in the ghetto (“…and his mamma cried…”)
• air sac on my penis (But can you inflate it to attract the female toads?)
• death row all you can eat buffet (Haha! The joke is on them! Wait a minute…)
• evidence for the existence of the norse gods (The divinely inspired eddas, duh.)
• foldy moldy vaginas (HJHOP: Your source for foldy moldy vaginas.)
• hemingway review of james jones bucket of pus (Um.)
• idiots guide to reiki (All of them.)
• is david berman a jerk (Does the Space Pope consume his own larvae?)
• is it safe to give my account number to vdm publishing (Sure. I have a bridge in Nigeria to sell you…)
• john goodman pancakes (Lots of pancakes, I’m willing to bet.)
• latina Eskimo (I’m guessing improbable.)
• national mall trashed during earth day (This would actually make me smile with rage.)
• nazi koala bear (It’s a dorable and evil!)
• outdouchebagged definition (It’ll be in the OED soon.)
• postmodernism give arguments that lie at the heart of postmordernism (It depends on what you mean by “argument”.)
• will welfare rights at the hospice come with me to a benifer appeal (Give it up man. The dream is gone. They will never get back together.)
• purpose of oprah show? thesis statement (The Oprah Winfrey Show is idiot boot camp.)
• ms claus porn (Well, thanks a lot for ruining my childhood. I’m going to go climb in the bathtub with a toaster now.)

HJ

You should need a permit to be so stupid...

Ray Comfort...whatta guy! I swear, he's a virtuoso of goof. This came through Howse's website. It's called: "The Evolution of the Egg: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups." In this, he...redefines...oh, man it's just dumb:

So which came first, the chicken or the egg? For those who believe the Bible, it was the chicken, and the first egg came some time later.

No. There is a correct answer here, and it will be right whether one takes the Bible literally, takes the Bible with a grain of salt, or takes the Bible out back to the pond and drowns it. There is an objective reality with which we have to deal. Just saying.

However, it's not so simple among the Genesis-less generation. Did the first chicken come from the first egg, or was it the chicken that first laid the first egg? Long ago, even Aristotle (384-322 BC) spoke of the egg dilemma. He philosophized: "For there could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds, or there should have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs; for a bird comes from an egg."

Aristotle was so stoned.

Let's get into a little philosophical talk ourselves.

Oh, dear God, no. Hold on. I'm getting my shotgun.

Let's say evolution was responsible for the beginning, and let's say the egg was the first to evolve (before the chicken).

I would just like to point out that there were eggs long before chickens. This is a no-brainer, but when you compound a no-brainer with a no-brainer like Ray, you get...well, this:

Why did it do that? Why would there be nothing, and over millions of years, nothing became simple organisms, then these organisms became an egg? I can understand that a fish evolved legs and lungs over millions of years--because he (and his necessary female help mate) wanted to breathe, and to walk on dry land. But why would a thoughtless egg appear first and then want to become a chicken? How and why did it evolve with a yolk, a white, and a shell shaped like . . . like and egg?

BLAM!!!!! (Thud.)

Haha. Don't worry, I missed. (Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing.) Part of the problem is Ray's utter inability to comprehend basic biology and his willingness to infuse undirected changes over time with volition. I say this fully expecting Ray to, when pressed on this crowning achievement of idiocy, ultimately say, "I was just joking" or "I was just playing with the atheists." No, Ray. You say these things constantly and betray an ever-worsening basic comprehension of evolution. Seriously, you are un-learning. How is that even possible?

If the egg was shaped with a rounded point at each end for ease-of-laying (a square egg would be painful), how did evolution know to make it that shape if there were never any chickens in the first place to know that an egg is made to be laid? Another small dilemma. How did the first egg get fertilized to become the first chicken? What or who fertilized it, and why did he fertilize it and sit on it until it hatched? How did the fertilizing creature evolve and have the ability to fertilize an egg that he found. How did he get the seed into the egg to fertilize it? And why did the (rooster) evolve as a bird? Unless he was an egg first, and if so, we have the above questions to deal with, because his egg would also need to be fertilized. Who did the fertilizing?

All the wrong. All the so very wrong! All the concentrated, dehydrated, instant so very wrong!

I just thought I would remind myself why I stopped covering Ray on this web site. Don't expect to see him for another 4 months or so.

HJ

A shout out!

I want to thank Josh in California and Raytheist, two completely different people who helped me get those f@#%#$ Facebook boxes lined up. It worked!

Personally, I'm getting a little weary of Facebook's policies regarding ownership of data posted on their site. And their past willingness to accumulate massive amounts of data about me and my homies to target them with ads. And their general overall suckines I was not aware of their past record until I heard a report on them from NPR, but I knew that they had a powerful marketing mechanism for delivering data to advertisers. Why can't they turn a profit, I wonder?

Probably incompetence.

My dry erase board went up last night, and I am the happiest boy in all the land. Apparently, there is something quite massive behind my wall, possibly dark matter, because while hanging the sucker, spacetime warped in such a way that my repeated and various screws in the wall were ever so slightly misplaced. This is the terrestrial equivalent of the relativity experiment wherein one of a pair of perfectly synchronized clocks (identical clocks that were set running simultaneously by a flash of light, I believe) was shot around the moon with the astronauts while the other one stayed at home. When the astronauts returned, it was found that their clock was a little bit behind the one that stayed put. The massive body behind my wall seems to have shifted the positions of my precisely measured marks repeatedly. Also, there is gravitational lensing, but you will have to take my word for it.

Aside from ripping a gaping hole in space time, my dry-erase baord is perfect. I wish I could convey to you how happy and relieved it makes me. Think cocaine + orgasm + washing poop off of your hands. So, a typical Tuesday night at Ted Haggard's house. Badda-BING! (or Badda-ME, as the case may be). I know I'm gushing, but seriously, I have not been happier with a purchase since I got my first car! I hate to even write on it, it looks so nice and clean. Tonight, I guess, I start outlining that damned book on it. Yay!

HJ

Teaching graduate students...

So I was substituting for another teacher today. The class was talking about a book and author that I know...better than anyone else on this campus. I have examined the author's personal papers. Anyway, I'm all up in this shit.

It's an upper level class packed with majors. I thought, Yay! A class full of English majors--they'll talk. Also, grad students--yay!

Between questions you could hear the crickets falling asleep.

I have heard the sound of silence more than once in my career, but what got me was the lack of eye contact. People who are able to talk and vaguely interested in the subject will not avoid eye contact as much as people who are deeply ashamed because they should be for not reading. So I asked, "Who has done the reading?"

Out of about 12 students, I got 3 hands. God bless graduate students, every one! I told them to read a passage and gave them 5 minutes to do it. The talk was, well, par for the course for me. There was a little discussion. One of the graduate students asked a question. It was from left field: "Do you think that while AUTHOR was in the hospital he theorized the way that doctors in the hospital decided who could live and who could die?" Truth be told, I had no idea specifically what this guy was asking, only that it yearned for theory. I don't do theory like other people do theory. I hypothesize, always only making self-consciously tentative excursions (or "essays," if you will, ahem, snort). But this one didn't even need speculation: "He didn't have to. It was not an abstract question to him. He saw doctors do it." Then I rattled off descriptions in the book, examples from his memoir by memory, and totally felt like a real teacher.

You know, this is what I want, people. Motivated graduate students asking questions about what I am interested in. Is that too much to ask? And tenure?

And to go home. I want to go home.

HJ

Tom DeWeese's last post before he's off to the boobie hatch...

Ignorant fuck Tom DeWeese, who swears it's not a toupee, needs to do his fucking homework before he makes a pig-ignorant ass of himself. He's a scary loon wacktard whose capacity for critical thinking is perhaps only surpassed by Ray Comfort's.

The name of his post is "Why the UN is Useless to Human Existence." I think that there is some weird one-world government paranoia going on here. He's certainly a conspiracy theorist. Check it. It comes from Brannon Howse's disgraceful site.

First, he gives his analysis of the situation in Zimbabwe. Racist fuck Robert Mugabe is a racist fuck, a naughty person, and a big meano who won't leave. Fair enough. But I think that I realize why the people I profile on HJHOP give so little context to their claims: when they try, they fail miserably.

The world has rightfully vilified the corrupt and brutal regimes in North Korea and Iran. The UN has condemned the genocide in Darfur and rung its collective hands over the fighting in the Gaza Strip. The UN has even sent agents to the United States to investigate our legal system and look for human rights violations.

But what of the tragedy in Zimbabwe? What of the brutal rule of Mugabe? Is he considered an international outlaw? Has the UN sent out a call for troops? Is there an international movement to have him removed from office? Has the UN Security Council met to demand action? Is there an international outrage aimed at Mugabe, as there was against the white Apartheid government of South Africa? Sanctions? Blockades? Protest songs by Bono? Anything? No.

This is going to be fun.

• UN experts condemn ‘intimidation, violence and torture’ in Zimbabwe (From the UN website, asshole)
  
• New Zimbabwe government must tackle human rights abuses – UN official (From the UN website THIS WEEK, asshole)
  
• PRESS CONFERENCE, ON ZIMBABWE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION (From the UN Website, asshole)
• SECRETARY-GENERAL WELCOMES SWEARING IN OF MORGAN TSVANGIRAI AS ZIMBABWE’S PRIME MINISTER, REITERATES UN OFFER OF SUPPORT IN RECOVERY EFFORTS

Do you see a pattern yet, asshole? If you knew how the googles work, you would see that there are ample references to the UN working in Zimbabwe. Fuck! There is even an entire UN mission permanently based in Zimbabwe, you dishonest floating piece of crap.

[...] Meanwhile, rather than divert attention to Zimbabwe and its petty problems, the UN knows it's much more interesting to get back to the investigations against human rights violations in the United States. There's so much more wealth to plunder here.

The UN wants to steal our stuff? Are you fucking serious? And they are going to do it by investigating human rights abuses? What type of fucked-up moonbat logic is that? At any rate, human rights abuses are human rights abuses, no matter where they occur.

I demand that the Tom DeWeese admit that he has no idea what he is talking about and retract his insane article. Any person with a mote of self-respect or concern for his credibility or good name would retract it instantly, with copious apologies for having used up so many precious resources during what has obviously been a useless human existence.

HJ

Kin Jong Il is on the move...He's like a supervillian!

Heehee.

HJ

Sean McDowell: We're losing hegemony over religious discourse....We win!

Tonight, I want to talk about Sean McDowell's latest article. God only knows why. I have a feeling it is a similar compulsion to the one that people who burn themselves and slash their arms feel, only less yucky. OK, slightly more yucky.

It's called: "Thanks to the New Atheists," and it is an oozing pustule of deliciousness. I found it scrawled on the wall of the trucker stop bathroom called Worldview Weekend.

I would like to take this opportunity to officially thank the New Atheists. By "New Atheists," I am referring to Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation), and all the other recent atheists and agnostics who have been so viciously criticizing the Christian faith.

We don't want your thanks. We want you to stop breeding. Or at least fucking with kids' minds, if you simply must pump out dozens of them at a go.

Given that I am an evangelical Christian, you may be thinking, "Why on Earth would you want to thank them?"

Actually, I had moved on to the box of discounted Valentines chocolate that I got Animala tonight ("It was fifty percent off, which means I only love you half as much this year.") Fuck.

Let me explain.

Evangelicals should never, ever say this. Because invariably whatever never clarifies things. So, please, don't explain. Really. It's fine. Would you like some chocolate? Are you allergic to coconut?

Many of you are familiar with William Dembski, one of the leading architects for the intelligent design movement (my co-author for Understanding Intelligent Design). In 1988, he finished what he thought was his last graduate degree in mathematics from MIT. What struck him so significantly was how readily his colleagues regarded Christianity as pass�.

If he is the architect, I will assume that you are the crane that collapsed during construction. What is "as pass"?

They completely dismissed it as lacking intellectual vitality and did not even consider it worth engaging. They certainly didn't think it was dangerous and in need of eradication (as the New Atheists do).

Don't worry, we still think of it as lacking intellectual vitality and beneath serious engagement. And you clearly misunderstood the message. It's not Christianity that we oppose, it is all forms of superstition, unsubstantiated beliefs and hostility toward critical thinking. Your personal variation on a general problem is only a speck to be flicked away with the rest.

Don't flatter yourself.

As a Christian committed to the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus, the easy dismissal of Christianity troubled him. How could they simply dismiss Christianity with hardly a second thought?

OK, I'm not going to say that the easy dismissal is grammatically a committed Christian. That would be very English teacher of me. Also, how the FUCK did he know what the people he worked with went through? How many of them were enslaved to a system that offered unfulfillable promises and unfathomably horrific threats to them? How many struggled to come to a separate peace with the people who they trusted but betrayed them for a bad idea?

Dembski decided to pursue further studies in philosophy and theology, which, of course, helped prepare him for his contribution to the ID movement.

Wow. After getting a degree in mathematics, you would have thought that might have gotten a FUCKING DEGREE IN BIOLOGY!!!! Sorry. That slipped out.

Although unheard of just a few decades ago, ID has now grown internationally and pressed Western intellectuals to seriously entertain the idea that the universe is the product of design, not chance.

Well, it's still unheard of in respectable journals.

To be sure, many intellectuals vehemently reject Christianity. But here is the good part: they can no longer ignore it.

Are all of those scientists whose minds Dembski read now fretting over your sad little tome, Sean? No.

This suggests that the naturalistic worldview that has for so long dominated Western culture is crumbling and Christianity is again on the table for discussion.

Your evidence hardly supports your conclusion. "They are criticizing us, therefore their worldview is collapsing!"

The discussion is certainly not always friendly. In fact, Dawkins has become famous partly for his venomous attacks on Christianity. In The God Delusion he says the Christian God:

�is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genodical, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully" (p. 31).

No, he was talking about Yahweh of the Old Testament, who is a demonstrably different character than the fuzzy sky fairy of the New Testament. And I never get tired of reading that line. Yay! Let's look at it, Sean.

• Jealous--"You shall have no gods but me." Also, your golden calf is naughty.
• petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak--Lot's Wife.
• a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser--I can't even begin to list all the towns that had to be liquidated. But let's look at Jericho (Joshua 6:21). Nothing is left. Everyone. People who were no threat, the young and old. That's a genocide to write home about! Or the Midianites! FUCK!
• misogynistic homophobic racist--"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, ¹⁸ but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. " Nice sexist twat, that god. Or the infectious cootie: "If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean." Homophobe? "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." Yeah, homophobe. Racist? Well, if you ain't chosen y'ain't shit.
• infanticidal--Killing of the first born of Egypt, whose crime was....?
• filicidal-- The attempted sacrifice of Isaac. God should have called child and family services.
• pestilential--locusts, boils, toads, etc.
• megalomaniacal---"Check out what a huge pillar of fire I am! Also, check out the rivers of blood. I'm pretty neat!"
• sadomasochistic---He made Job his gimp.

I think that everything else is redundant. So, where is Dawkins wrong? And not being nice and being right are not exclusive categories, Sean.

Like Dawkins, many Western intellectuals now treat Christianity with open contempt. But (ironically) this is progress.

Ironically, that's not irony.

If Christianity was not making progress, these books would be unnecessary. Christianity is making powerful intellectual inroads, even at the highest levels of academia.

We are openly ridiculed! We win! If I hear the "we're getting treated like such shit, therefore we're winning" argument one more time, I'm going to have to mock you for the fail.

HJ

"Barack Obama is tired of your motherfucking shit."

He says so himself, in what is one of my favorite things in the history of the world. Of course, it is on April Winchell's site. She's my source for very earnest corporate songs about toilets and Hindi versions of Abba songs. Now she has a distilled batch of clips from Obama reading his books, quoting a colorful person that he once knew. And he's swearing like Cheney. It's pretty awesome.

Just go. Just. Go.

HJ

Joy! Bliss! Office supplies!

I think I realized that I was finally an adult when I started to foster warm feelings, and indeed strong opinions, regarding the aquisition of office supplies. Printers, pens, binder clips (o! heavenly binder clips!), all of these have on more than one occasion called out to me with their siren song, lulling me into a pleasant sense of productivity.


But this one takes the cake.


Last night, as Animala and I mulled over our upcoming massive joint writing project, it hit me--what our project needed was an investment in office supplies. One office supply, in particular. And I got it for under $50:
O! 36"X48" dry erase board, with your easy-hang system! I shall dote over your melamine surface, all the while encouraging Chinese infants not to lick your surface! Your squeekiness as I write and your wipability bewitch me! The scent of your markers intoxicate me, but only because I sniff them habitually! You make outlining and revision so easy, and I think that when I put you in my living room, you will technically count as furniture! You are what I make of you! My tabula rasa on the wall! You facilitate collaboration and will allow us to experiment with different chapter designs before we totally botch our first drafts! Is it any wonder that I spend today in a daze, anxiously waiting for tomorrow's delivery?

Oh! I get to buy markers and erasers! Yay!

HJ

A note to all English departments hiring everywhere...

HURRY THE FUCK UP!

Did that sound, I don't know, like it came from desperation? I try to cultivate level-headed discourse here (heh), but I'm about to go ape-shit waiting for these fucking impossibly slow searches to break one way of the other.

This is where I am right now. I am in the waning months of a non-renewable contract. In order to plan, say, the rest of my fucking life, I need to have some indication of where the fuck I'm going to be next year, even if it is in St. Louis. Still. I need to plan, and it would help if these fucking schools would get off their fucking asses and start making some fucking decisions. With the contraction of the job market, this is the last year that I can only somewhat unreasonably expect to land a job. Next year, good fucking luck. The jobs are already so few this year.

Also, double fuck.

HJ

Chris Perver is my hero...

Seriously, I think that the end times are coming because the weird extremes of the religious are approaching maximum gullibility. I'm fairly certain that if I get a couple more of these exponentially denser thickos' writings the entire universe will collapse into a singularity between the ears of one of these people. And my money is that it will collapse between the ears of Alfred E. Neuman look-alike Chris Perver. Because--wow! Fucking wow! It's staggeringly beautiful, the idiocy!

It's at Bible Prophesy Today, is called "Greece Discloses Details of Airline Encounter with UFO," and it pretty much embodies everything that I realized skepticism could combat. All at once.

Wow.

Did I mention the wow?

So, this douche tells the story of Olympic Airways flight 266 from Athens to London. The pilots reported seeing an object. One that they could not identify! And it was FLYING!

The object was reported to be star-like in appearance, but much larger and of constantly changing shape.

Venus. It was Venus. Its apparent motion is easily attributed to the autokinetic effect, which is according to Schick and Vaughn "how, for most people, a small stationary light in the dark will be perceived as moving. This happens even if the person's head is perfectly still." Also, even though people, for some reason, give pilots' testimony greater authority than, say, Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel, they are still limited by the same perceptual biases that we are. For instance, and again according to Schick and Vaughn's most excellent and enjoyable How to Think about Weird Things, "on June 5, 1969, near St. Louis [yay!], the pilots of two airlines and an Air National Guard fighter plane had a close encounter with what they said was a whole squadron of UFOs. It was late afternoon when the copilot of one of the airliners first spotted the UFOs." An observer from the FAA who happened to be aboard one of the airliners said that the UFOs almost hit the plane, something that the fighter pilot also reported happened to him. Well, turns out that an alert and quick-, uh,-shuttered photojournalist caught a picture of the object, a meteor breaking up spectacularly 125 miles away from the planes. Without any point of reference by which to gauge distance, pilots' brains fill in the knowledge gaps with data that, if true, would tend to help them survive ("It's nearby--better dodge it!" the brain warns).

The sighting was confirmed by the pilots of two other airliners within the vicinity, as well as the Control Tower and another Greek Air Force base. Two F-16 aircraft were scrambled to intercept the object, which subsequently shot off vertically at incredible speeds.

This, apparently, is made up. Or is an elaboration. Two F-16s were sent up to investigate, but the Telegraph does not include the other sensationalistic details, and you know they would. The control tower and Greek AF base, it seems are pulled into this because they would have to contribute to the story and the other "two airliners" are likely the F-16s, Furthermore, the Telegraph fails to mention that the F-16s saw anything. Which is odd, because it's the unreferenced Telegraph article that Al here is quoting.

Alfred goes on to to cite a slew of other bits of "evidence" culled from the British UFO Research Association's web site, who recently announced a summer crop circle series (yikes!), UFOwhipnet.org (who claim that Alexander the Great's elephants saw UFOs, and are also proof that anyone can get a ".org" extension), and lastly UFOevidence.org, which makes a claim about Christopher Columbus seeing a UFO before hitting land, which is worth making a tangential jaunt for:

Christopher Columbus and Pedro Gutierrez while on the deck of the Santa Maira, observed, "a light glimmering at a great distance." It vanished and reappeared several times during the night, moving up and down, "in sudden and passing gleams." It was sighted 4 hours before land was sighted, and taken by Columbus as a sign they would soon come to land.

If I hadn't recently read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, in many ways a sorely deficient ideological tome, I would not have already known exactly what they were referring to. There was a substantial monetary prize for the first person to spot land. Pedro saw land first it seems, but Columbus claimed to have seen lights the night before and got the prize instead. Why hadn't anyone else seen the lights? Well, of course they disappeared pretty quickly, but Columbus was still the boss and won the pot. It's a dubious story at best (and Zinn, let's face it, has issues he's working out in his history book), and to take it as evidence of UFOs is fucking bonkers.

All right, but where does this feed into the whole weird religion thing that I was talking about? Alfred sez:

Some UFO experts now discount the idea that these objects are extra-terrestrial in origin[...]

Oh, thank Christ! I thought this was going to get weird!

[...] and instead believe they could come from another dimension within the locality of Earth.

Fuck.

Even if interstellar travel was physically possible, and there is little evidence to suggest it is, why would highly intelligent beings bother to travel billions of light years across the galaxy to some remote planet, only to perform ridiculous manoeuvres such as buzzing aircraft and frightening people before mysteriously disappearing into thin air?

I can't even begin to decide which rock to throw first! Let's just go with, how can you possibly justify the statement about 'intelligent beings' from a bunch of unrelated stories which make mention of "light"? I mean, set my hair on fire and call me Michael Jackson!

Looking at the phenomenon from a Biblical point of view [...]

Oh, shit....here it comes. Time to bust out the Vaseline(tm) and the Vietnamese Spin-Fuck Chair(tm) I bought for Animala's valentine!

it becomes clear as to what these UFOs actually are and why they are here. Following Lucifer's sin, the devil and his angels were cast out of God's presence [...]

He cites Luke 10:18 as his reference for the casting out. The sin of Lucifer and certainly the war of the angels is largely of Milton's creating, unless there isn't a better passage than that one. Check out Luke:

¹⁷The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name." ¹⁸He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

Where do you get Satan's "sin" from that? Dumbass.
The Bible states that these fallen beings presently reside in the first and second heavens, also known as the atmosphere and outer space (Ephesians 2:2).
Here's the context of that quote, and I have no idea how he gets either the first and second heavens, or more improbably, the goofy interpretation of the atmosphere and outer space:

¹As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

Totally out to lunch.

The interaction of angels with the human race is recorded for us throughout the Scriptures, yet it seems to be limited to three main roles. Conveying messages (Daniel 9:22, Luke 1:19, Acts 10:22), executing judgements (Genesis 19, 2nd Chronicles 32:21, 2nd Samuel 24:16) and preserving believers (Daniel 6:22, Acts 12:7, Hebrews 1:14).

Sentence fragment. Revise.

There is no tangible interaction between the angelic host and any governmental authority or body.

Thank fuck! Biblical proof for the separation of church and state! Also, how weird is this getting, by the way?

Even demonic interaction with the human race seems to be Divinely restricted to a certain extent. Some of these 'extra-terrestrials' are able to convey messages to certain individuals (compare 1st Kings 22:21-23). These messages usually take the form of New Age teaching, that mankind must 'evolve to the next level of enlightenment' in order to escape a coming time of trouble, and that only when we become one will they be able to intervene on our behalf.

That weird, apparently. The references are back to himself, which I guess makes sense, even if the words that he has decided to put together above make no sense in their current configuration. The funny thing is that the "certain individuals" he talks about is some dillhole named "Blossom Goodchild - a 'direct voice channelling medium'," who failed to predict the arrival of aliens. Now, instead of just being a loon with a stupid avatar name (hey, Bing is cool!), Alfred takes him seriously--he says that this guy was experiencing something other than delusions. I mean, it's one thing to be deranged and another to invest authority into someone else's delusion to support your own delusions! Wow.

And even then they only seem to appear to people who have previously opened themselves up to occult experiences or other related phenomenon. That seems to be all they are permitted to do at this point in time. This may be why despite thousands of years of UFO sightings, no official government contact has ever been made with an extra-terrestrial civilization.

Again, he is "identifying" UnidentifiedFOs, a fact which he seems to be unaware of. This guy has no logical defenses whatsoever. Critical thinking is completely absent. What must it be like to uncritically accept every proposition that is thrown your way? It must be pretty tiresome. But on the bright side, he owns a number of famous bridges in London.

During the tribulation period, a war in heaven will erupt between God's angels and those that follow Satan (Revelation 12:7-12). The demonic host will be defeated, thrown out of the atmosphere and outer space, and cast down to Earth in anticipation of the last battle. A voice in heaven pronounces the jubilant news for those that dwell in heaven (angels and believers), and a solemn warning for those that remain on Earth.

This is where his shit got simply scary. Scary familiar, that is. Because one of my favorite film clips to use when teaching about "ethos" or "authority" makes the exact same claim!

Jack and Rexella (yes, it's Rexella)! Hi guys! You dead yet, Jack? I'm keeping my fingers crossed! The problem is, of course, that Jack and Rexella are complete and shameless frauds, selling shitty advice. Alfred here has nothing to gain, which suggests that he actually believes this stuff. And the links in his article makes it seem as if he has believed this for quite some time!

Following the war in space, a one world government is set up which will be headed by the Antichrist and empowered by Satan himself (Revelation 13).

Oh, dear. And yes, he said "war in space."

"It's Jesus Christ---he's gone from suck to blow!"

Alfred goes on to posit that the mass appearance of UFOs may coincide with the rapture (well, obviously) and that the governments of the world will seek to unite with one voice to have dialogue with these UFOs, or some exponentially dumber speculative shit that really I would line my rabbit cage with, heaven forbid I'm ever put into a rabbit cage.

This is the point where I would sum up by stating a moral and possibly use the word "pigfucker," but this time, this is so wrong, I think that I am just going to weep.

HJ