Red pen? Check. Girded loins? Check. Will to live?

Maybe not.

I am a goddamned saint, I'll have you know. I am doing read throughs of my students' first papers right now. I will reread them all again later on and assign grades to them, but holy crap, I'm getting tired of the topic I picked: Power. Yeah, I'm a monster. Almost every paper talks about Hitler and his oratory. They seem unaware that he had the everliving shit beaten out of people who disagreed with him.

This one is my fault. Usually, I give students a lot of leeway to pick topics they want to write about, but this...ouch. I decided that I am going to have to not mark up every paper that I get as much as my obsessive compulsiveness compels me to. I still have 25 six-pagers to get through. This means reading quick, finding only the really scary problems (like organization and what I am calling "thesis WTF," and other major issues). Maybe marking up after each page? My ESL students will get extra comments, but really, I need to fly if everyone is going to get at least a little meaningful criticism back. No guitar playing for Bing tonight.

Anyway, I spent the afternoon at my university library working. If it had not been for the irritating undergrad who apparently had not heard of the newfangled invention they call "the Keenexes" and opted to sniff and snort like the punchline to a cocaine joke, I would have to say it was a successful work period.

Alright. These fucking papers of doom aren't going to completely fuck themselves up by themselves.

Think about that, won't you?

HJ

God sends idiots to Haiti to steal babies for Jesus

I don't know. I don't know if I am more offended by the idiocy or the stupidity.

HJ

Atlanta Skeptics in the Pub...

i TOATLLY GOT PUBBED. hEEHee.

hj (caps lock maverick)

An evening off...

Not much of an evening off, really. I will, however, elbow some room into my schedule to read a little Thomas Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been sitting next to my bed for a few months now. I did take the car and drive to Guitar Center tonight to look at pedals, you know, for fun. I have $100 to spend on pedals today, and I spent it on a used Boss Flanger (BF-3). I love that store, what with all the guitars and the sound effects and everyone treating you like you are sooooo cool. I believe the proper form of address there is "man," as in, "Hey, man, can I help you?" or, "If there's any pedal you want to hear, I'm right here, man," or, "That will be $65, man." It's like a verbal tick, almost.

I did not play my future Gibson while I was there. It would only have broken my heart. There is exactly the guitar I want up on craigslist right now for $500, but that's cash, dang it.

I have been trying to figure out exactly what the mechanics of my guitar set up are. I get the whole "vibrating string in the general area of a magnet (the pick-up) generates an electrical current" thing. I think I even understand why humbuckers, uh, buck hum (it has to do with destructive interference, I think). I would like to know why the tone that I hear when a string is plucked but the guitar is not plugged in is the same as the tone that comes out of the amp when it is. The other things that intrigues me is what the effects pedals are doing to the sine wave (does that make sense? if not, then, "doing to the signal"). It seems that realistically, there are only so many things that you can do to a sine wave. You can fiddle with the wavelength, changing the frequency, jack up the highs and lows (or just the high or just the lows), zoom in on just one part at a time (wah sweeps from high frequency to low to high, making that porno sound), you can delay and double the signal a little bit (reverb, digital delay/decay), you can alter the shape of the curve dramatically (so instead of a curve you get basically slopes that come to points), you can step up and down through the frequencies sharply, and you can cut off the highs and lows (distortion). You can make them louder and softer. You can shave off fuzzy bits, accenting the highs and lows, I suppose (compression)...what else? How many aspects are there to the signal that can be manipulated? The nice thing, however, is that you can mix and match signals. Say you want to play a jangly Edge-style thingy. Well, compression gives you clear(er) tones, chorus gives you an eighties sound (I think by creating slightly detuned echoes), digital delay gives you the repeat and decay that you want. (I hear that he actually runs digital delay twice for extra Edgy goodness.) But you don't have to stop there! You can add or subtract sounds to your little heart's delight. Of course, if you get to wacky, you end up just making noise, which can be fun.

Oh, feedback. Forgot about feedback. I can't control feedback only because I would have to play very very loudly. There are reportedly pedals out there that can give you feedback and other sound effects, but I've never tried them. Oh, another nifty thing that is out there is use one aspect, say, the strength of the signal as determined by how hard you hit the string to trigger a wah sound. This way, you can play a single notes quietly without extra distortion, but when you start really smashing the suckers, your wah/phaser effect comes on. I guess you can split signals (well, other people can) and then run them through different effects chains. I would have to think about that to figure out how that might be different from running it through a series of effects in parallel. Ok, I thought about it. It would be different, depending on the order and type of effects.

Anyway, that's me thinking out loud about pedals.

Now, what about autotune?



HJ

Animal Liberation Press salutes suicide...

The man in the story below died:



I got an email from the ferret fetishists over at the "Animal Liberation Press," a sort of clearinghouse for the cowards who burn down research labs while under the impression that the universe is better off for their having existed.

Serious news.

A man set himself on fire Wednesday outside Ungar Furs in Portland, Oregon. After dousing himself with gasoline, he attempted to enter the store, shouting “There are animals dying! Animals dying!” After police extinguished the flames, he was taken to Legacy Emanuel Hospital where he later died.

Wait, so it wasn't just a suicide? He was attempting to burn down the building with him? With people in there? Keep that in mind.

The man was identified as 26-year-old Daniel Shaull from Kansas. Among the local activists I have spoken to, none are familiar with Shaull by name, nor recognized him as being a part of the active, long-running campaign against Ungar Furs. Yet the location and witness reports strongly indicate this man sacrificed himself to bring attention to the horrific treatment of animals on fur farms.

[...]

Ungar Furs is a retail fur store in Portland which has been the target of a prolific campaign by local activists. Ungar became a target after frequent protests successfully closed another Portland fur store, Schumacher Furs. The owners of Schumacher Furs gave animal rights activists full credit for shutting them down in 2007.

Amidst a range of speculation, I think it is important to assume this is a genuine action by a person driven to make the ultimate sacrifice by the severity of animal suffering.

Assume nothing. According to KATU news:

The father of a man who set himself on fire Wednesday in downtown Portland and died from the subsequent injuries said his son had mental issues and had tried suicide before.

Hey, but when life gives you turds, animal liberationists make turd pies! I don't know what "genuine action" is supposed to mean, but a mentally ill, suicidal man's immolation-o-gram can't possibly be anything but very, very sad. He was not in control of himself. But let's give you guys the benefit of the doubt and say that he was sane. Then he tried to set a store on fire with people inside it. He would rather people die than raccoons. (What, you think they are using high quality fur?) There is no way that this guy can be justifiably raised to "martyr" status.

When every legal channel to affect change is closed, people will increasingly be driven to actions which bring both attention to the plight of animals, and a disruptive effect to those who kill them.

Please set yourself on fire, Jerry Vlasik. Please, please, please, please.

Shaull is not the first to give his life in the U.S. animal liberation struggle. This is a time to remember William Rodgers, who took his life in an Arizona jail in 2005 while being held for numerous Animal Liberation Front actions. It is also a time to remember Alex Slack, who took his life while awaiting trial for the A.L.F. bombing of the Utah Fur Breeder’s Agricultural Cooperative in 1999.

Criminals who were about to face the music for what they had done? If I had done what they had done, I'd be in prison too and I'd deserve to be. I thought that was the whole point for you people. You aren't doing anything daring, or at least not making a protest that is worth a damn, unless you have something to sacrifice. And they wanted out? Should have thought about that before joining the militant wing of the ASPCA!

If anyone knows Daniel Shaull, please contact Voice of the Voiceless, so that we can make the full story of this action known.

"We would like to exploit the mentally ill for our own purposes!" Seriously. His father even said he WASN'T AN ANIMAL RIGHTS NUT. Your glorying in the death of a sick person and wearing the mantle of their suffering is at least as sick as wearing a fur coat.

To those who claim the animal rights movement is “violent”, this action should be yet another reminder that every casualty to date has fallen on our side. Daniel Shaull is just the latest victim.

EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU MENTIONED KILLED HIMSELF! It's self-inflicted violence, which is actually a metaphor for certain segments of the animal rights movement, as you are looking to shut down industries that greatly enhance human life. This was not a sacrifice; there is nothing redemptive about a sick man's suicide.

HJ

HJHOP sort of mentioned on Skeptic Zone! Almost!

I can close up shop and return to the mother world, I think. My work on this planet is done.

I was anxious to hear from Dr Rachie about the alt med kerfuffle of the last week. Everyone had been talking about her, and we had not really heard too much from her. I wanted to hear what she had to say. It was like she had read my mind (or my blog), because she discussed it all in the Think Tank, the show's final segment, which starts at 57:55. And along the way, they mentioned the Jihad of Happy Pancakes. It made me titter. You should listen to the whole podcast. They have an interview with Eugenie Scott, who is a really swell lady.

If you want to vote for Rachel Dunlop for the twitter health award, go here.


HJ

R.I.P., J.D. Salinger

Sad news.

HJ (phony)

The 129th Skeptics' Circle is Out!

It's been a while since I participated in the Skeptics' Circle, and I had a little bit of a jog-jam, but Skeptvet was more than accommodating. I hadn't even submitted my trip to the Creation Museum! Skeptics need to know these things. It's a very good edition, and will keep me busy tonight, I can assure you. (By Shatner's thundering trousers, I love these things.)

I think that a highlight is the nightmare scenario acted out in vivid color at the Cubic's Rube. It's the type of blogging that makes you realize how important skepticism in fact is. It's a must read. There will be a quiz.

If you want to appear on number #130, you can at The Lay Scientist. You send those submissions to layscience@googlemail.com.

HJ

Some days it's on and you just know it.

Today in my class, I had it. There are days where you are on your game, where your message is tight, integrated and interesting. I was there.

We were talking about a chapter of a book by Michael Barkun, in which he discusses conspiracy theories and does a smashing job of sorting and classifying them. Now, I was working with good stuff, mind you; it was evident from the get-go that the students thought it was interesting to read. Indeed, one mentioned that they appreciated that we had read the classic Hoffstadter article, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" first, which appeared in the chapter. I still am surprised to hear that students are impressed that what we are reading has to do with what we are discussing in class. I think it happened last semester with Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. You say, "You know there's a reason for that, yeah?" have a laugh and go on with things.

And I was worried about class today. I was up late last night messing around on my guitar (playing Ruttles songs for the first time! Lots of fun!), not getting a lot of work done. This morning I was a little rushed to get to campus and forgot to download NPR's most popular stories, which is a morning ritual, so I was stuck with a BlogTalkRadio show that I had already listed to half of. I wasn't thrilled with the limited selection, but then, in the middle of the interview with Timothy Greene Beckley (who apparently has written about lots of weird things and apparently believes that the earth is both hollow and populated), came the following snippet (Beckley speaks first):



Yeah! Totally crazy! And I knew that I would have to edit it down to what you just heard and share it with my class. There were a lot of laughs, and we discussed about how sweeping conspiracy theories get. In the above 6 minutes or so, we are introduced to a number of prominent characters in the theater of the paranoid, including the media, corporate executives, Congress, alien abductees, higher education, Obama, the State Department, the CIA, the Men in Black, the military, the FBI, UFOs, a shadow government, Nazi scientists, the Illuminati, inter-dimensional extraterrestrials, and lastly an ambassador from the Galactic Federation of Light. You have people willingly suspending standards of evidence and admitting it. It's everything you need to know about conspiracies in a nutshell!

Ah, so that went well. I have a lot of stuff to read about fears of slave revolts now. It's a busy week at Chez Bing.

HJ

Fucktardgate

I have a feeling that these idiots are going to disappear for a long time.

What the hell were they thinking?

Woodstein, get on this!

HJ

Answers in Genesis: Limbless locomotion apparently undesirable

Answers in Genesis recently promised us that they would answer some, uh, questions in Genesis. We're talking about the basic ones, like were there really penguins in the Garden of Eden? In Mesopotamia? (I shit you not, they have a penguin in the Garden display at the Creation Museum.

See?

But for some reason AiG always sends the "challenged" kid who bites out to pinch hit for them when they have a real stumper. Today, Bodie Hodge is talking about (I can't believe he is an adult) whether or not the talking snake of the Bible had legs. Vocal chords, higher reasoning and rhetorical acumen get a pass, presumably.

So, he starts with a few passages from the Bible about a talking snake, and we see how, presumably, he is going to proceed in this series--by sharing what a long line of deluded idiots have said about these stupid fucking questions. First, he overanalyzes the everloving shit out of the Greek and Hebrew words for serpent, revealing nothing. Snakes are snakes--in other languages too! Who'd'a' thunk?

Anyway, then we see what a whole bunch of people I can't respect had to say, as if their just-as-ill-informed opinions had any bearing on the truth of the matter. Seriously. Fuck 'em. I have other things to do than read through Bodies of Ages Past.

So what does Bodie decide?

The problem with leaving the serpent “as is” is that it reduces the curse to almost a meaningless status. If such a philosophy is to be held, then the parallel comments by the Lord to the woman and the man should also be statements to just “put them back in their place.” This raises theological issues. It would mean that the other effects of sin listed in Genesis 3, such as thorns and thistles, increased pain and sorrow for the woman, and mankind returning to dust, were merely statements to put human beings back in their place, not real changes. This seems highly illogical, as it would have death before sin in humans, with man already returning to dust (recall Romans 5:12).

Wow. You have a presupposition and then force the story around what you believe, thereby interpolating completely made-up shit. This is a microcosm of young-earth creationism.

Of course, Bodie does not consider some of the ridiculous extensions of his judgment here. The first of which is "Why is slithering a curse?" Snakes are highly adapted critters, and there is evidence to suggest that the efficiency of legless locomotion is equal to that of leg-o-motion. Let's just say that a curse that is worth a shit means that there is some sort of misfortune, inconvenience or deficit caused by its casting. By the standards of your argument, the curse was completely meaningless because efficiency of motion would remain largely unaffected! There is nothing lost other than the fact of having legs. How is this a curse? Snakes climb trees better than I do, find themselves in big balls of slithering sex more often than I do, and they can catch mice like it's nobody's business. The last time I tried to catch a mouse with my mouth, it did not end well. I really don't see how leglessness is inherently undesirable enough to be called a curse.

And then there is the fact that this entire line of inquiry is not unlike wondering whether or not Charlotte the Spider had good handwriting. It's a freaking story!

HJ (very proud of the image)

This is a reply to a post at another site that gets mentioned in the comments of the original post

Someone has stolen my secret patented formula for generating bloggy rage. It was very, very clever. It was at Coyote Crossing, which I will have to watch.

HJ

Everything you know is wrong

There I was, the only thing between me and 3 young earth creationists was a warm bagel. I was at Einstein's having breakfast and missing my bus. It is a type of crazy that I have only once experienced in the wild.

They looked normal, if by normal you included a trio wearing similar collared shirts and sensible dull sweaters. They gave off a preppy Borg vibe. They were discussing how true the Bible was, and all sorts of spurious bullshit was coming out of their mouths. How people had discovered "something" on Mt. Ararat (yeah, more Mt. Ararat), how they didn't know where the water came from or what the flood level would have been. In short, these people kind of knew that there was something bullshitty, but I listened to them just brush aside these concerns and put the ass in reassert.

It was strange to watch 3 adult men my age, in their early thirties, seriously discuss fairy tales without feeling, well, like children. It was awful. And one of them had a Bible ready to check the Scriptures on any point that they had. I was tempted to jump in on their conversation. (If there is one thing that religious people like to do, it is talk about their pal Jesus. And I really wanted to pounce on these problems and say, "Yes, it is OK to think about these things, and you should not accept the first proposition that claims to have the answer. You need to be reasonable." Their doubt was already there, peeking out for a second. And that's when it occurred to me, that these fellows were collectively combating doubt, really being one another's doctrinal enforcers. It seemed like their mutual religious policing was exclusive, because I tried to make eye contact with them, but they were busy subjugating their reason to goof. It was a little depressing to watch.

On a more interesting note, and in what could clearly be another post, it seems that Americans are not the only ones in between jobs. The Spirit rover on Mars is currently going through a change as it transitions from a roving science platform into a stationary science lab. Turns out the little guy's wheels are stuck after all and he will be staying put. Not bad for a mission that would have been a success if it had only lasted a few weeks.

HJ

Mike Adams, Ass Ranger

I found my first blog entry about Mike Adams, Docktor of Physik with An Especialitee in Malajustments of the Humours, a craven sociopath who blatantly disregards human life and whose parents clearly failed.

In a related note, crank, failure and charlatan psycho Mayer "Baby-Crusher" Eisenstein sent me a mass email where he lamented an email he got from a real doctor:

January 15,2010

Dr. Eisenstein,

As I assume my new role, I need your help to encourage patients to get the H1N1 vaccine. The vaccine is safe and effective, and limits the spread of H1N1. If you haven't already done so, I strongly encourage each of you to get your H1N1 vaccination. It's important to lead by example.

Sincerely,

Regina M. Benjamin,
U.S. Surgeon General

The pig has been warned.

Dr. Eisenstein's Comments:

Wow,wow wow, billions of Dollars spent by the Obama administration to scare the public about the Swine and Seasonal flu and millions spent to market it and millions of Americans say " No".

The Obama adminstration just does not get it. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Eisenstein speaks from years of experience as a charlatan.

Flu shots are dangerous and ineffective.

Not one penny has been spent to educate the public about the value of Vitamin D in preventing and treating H1N1 Swine Flu. Yet the Surgeon General is still trying to push this dangerous and ineffective vaccine on us. When will they learn?

Wow. That's because there is no science to back this up. When will you learn? You are the least of all things, you monster.

HJ

I Declare Today International Dr. Rachie Appreciation Day!

Because I can. And why the hell not? In the first place, it's practically a crime she has not yet been given her own constellation. (It would, of course, have to be one in the Southern Hemisphere.) But when she is apotheosized, you will hear it here first.

Just short of apotheosis.

How shall we celebrate International Dr. Rachie Appreciation Day? Many people think that it should be a day of quiet reflection and listening to back episodes of The Skeptic Zone, but I can't possibly imagine that Dr. Rachie would want us to spend it sober.

First, of course, there must be the ceremonial donning of lab coats!



Next, there is the ritual trampling of the unclever (George Hrab may be used if no unclever people are available):

I was actually in the room when this happened.

And it just wouldn't be International Dr. Rachie Appreciation Day without the distribution of pamphlets!

Also, if Dr. Rachie sees her shadow, that means that we are due for another 6 weeks of summer, which is odd because it is winter here in Atlanta. In no small way. However, if she doesn't, the observant need to speak with an Australian accent until the next installment of "Dr. Rachie Reports."

Oh, there will of course be the most solemn taunting of naturopaths, which is by far my favorite tradition!



HJ

There are not enough expletives in the world to adequately describe Mike Adams.

I will have to be content with "squirrel fucker" and move on, his odiousness is so overpowering.

I have been following a great thread over at Respectful Insolence, Orac's place. Mike Adams is being ripped apart savagely by his betters (a group that technically includes almost everyone). And while I like to see this guy get exposed as the conscience-deprived, craven monster that he is as much as the next person, there is not much I can add to that particular thread other than my unwavering devotion to Dr. Rachie. That having been added, I feel it is my duty to move on and open a blistering barrage of my own against Adams, who is really pissed off at skeptics. Go figure.

The following suspicious looking sausage comes from an email that I got from Mr. Woobags himself. (Adams publishes his work in emails and on the prestigious Internet instead of journals where skeptical editors would hold him responsible for what he said.) It's called, "What 'skeptics' really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe," but I prefer to call it, "Coffee Mugs, Tea Cup Poodles, Toy Cars, and Other Things I Have Jammed in My Ass: The Autobiography of Mike Adams, Fuckwit."

(NaturalNews) In the world of medicine, "skeptics" claim to be the sole protectors of intellectual truth. Everyone who disagrees with them is just a quack, they insist. Briefly stated, "skeptics" are in favor of vaccines, mammograms, pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy. They are opponents of nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, chiropractic care, massage therapy, energy medicine, homeopathy, prayer and therapeutic touch.

No, not everyone who disagrees with them is a quack. Be fair: sometimes they are just idiots. The skeptical viewpoint assumes as little as possible and demands high standards of evidence. With respect to public health and medicine, the skeptic favors proven treatments and takes the reasonable stance of opposing enduringly unproven non-remedies. From this simple definition alone, if a skeptic has deep reservations about a treatment modality, then we can assume that the evidence that a skeptic has seen about the modality has not met his or her high standards. And as a skeptic, I am not opposed to nutritional supplements--if you have scurvy, take some vitamin C. If you are anemic, get some freaking iron. But the brute fact is that most supplements are unnecessary in normal, healthy individuals with normal diets.

But there's much more that you need to know about "skeptics." As you'll see below, they themselves admit they have no consciousness and that there is no such thing as a soul, a spirit or a higher power.

No consciousness? Really? Really? It's one of the most bizarre claims ever. I report that I am conscious. There. And what does God have to do with whether or not vaccines work?

There is no life after death. In fact, there's not much life in life when you're a skeptic.

I'm willing to go so far as to say that the evidence for life after death is positively underwhelming. I will also say that the evidence of life before death is much, much better.

What skeptics really believe
I thought it would be interesting to find out exactly what "skeptics" actually believe, so I did a little research and pulled this information from various "skeptic" websites.

I WANT REFERENCES, YOU SHITHEAD! WHO SAID IT? WHAT DID THEY SAY? WHY DO THE INDIVIDUALS YOU LOOK AT REPRESENT ALL SKEPTICS EVERYWHERE? Why won't you give some references for your reader to follow up on? You know, so they can check your work? Medical studies are copiously footnoted, just in case the researchers missed something. You pull things out of your very, very crowded ass.

What I found will make you crack up laughing so hard that your abs will be sore for a week. Take a look...

Luckily, this dick stain is selling a cure for sore abs---and it only takes a week to take effect!

• Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they've never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and "good for your health."

Wow. You're an idiot. I don't know whether ALL vaccines are safe and effective. Homeopathic vaccines sure as hell aren't. Lots of vaccines have proven ineffective early in development, and those are the ones that don't make it to market. There are people who are are immunosuppressed, who are allergic to a vaccine ingredient, or who otherwise are not candidates for vaccination. These people DEPEND on everyone who can be vaccinated actually being vaccinated. For otherwise healthy people to not get vaccinated is selfish, short-sighted and personally dangerous. I have no idea how many vaccines can safely be given at any one time. That's why I see a doctor. (A skeptic should not be afraid to say, "I have no idea.") Has anyone ever proposed giving 900 vaccinations at once? I mean, because a person may safely receive an unlimited number of vaccines in their lifetime (which may or may not be true), that in no way implies that they could safely be given all at once.

• Skeptics believe that fluoride chemicals derived from the scrubbers of coal-fired power plants are really good for human health. They're so good, in fact, that they should be dumped into the water supply so that everyone is forced to drink those chemicals, regardless of their current level of exposure to fluoride from other sources.

Holy shit. Seriously? Fluoride scares? Are you afraid it's going to take away your vital essence?

General Mike Adams

• Skeptics believe that many six-month-old infants need antidepressant drugs. In fact, they believe that people of all ages can be safely given an unlimited number of drugs all at the same time: Antidepressants, cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping drugs and more -- simultaneously!

Bullshit. There are clearly drug interactions that doctors need to be careful about. This is why a medical history is absolutely imperative for every single patient. And pumping kids full of antidepressants? Where the hell did you get that? You are an unhinged loon and should be in a mental institution. Possibly prison. And not a sexy women's prison, but a big sweaty man prison.

• Skeptics believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism and that the only things that can save people from viral infections are vaccines.

Balls. I do not believe that colds are universally fatal. Feeb.

• Skeptics believe that pregnancy is a disease and childbirth is a medical crisis. (They are opponents of natural childbirth.)

No. Speaking as the son of an OBGYN, it's clearly not a disease. It's a medical condition and you'd be daft to imagine otherwise. But deliveries can go wrong and when, say, a cord is pinched (which is unpredictable and can happen to ANYONE), you have about 8 minutes to get the little fucker out. Anything that you do that limits your options in a potential crisis is to be avoided. You need a surgeon on hand. I'm pretty sure that most surgeons would rather the patient deliver vaginally. Whether or not the patient wants an epidural is the patient's decision entirely. (Most of them do.) Physicians would of course rather limit the number of unnecessary surgeries, such as c-sections. All surgeries have risks.

• Skeptics do not believe in hypnosis. This is especially hilarious since they are all prime examples of people who are easily hypnotized by mainstream influences.

I believe that hypnosis is real and is probably of very little practical therapeutic value. Also, it has a definition, you tedious floater.

• Skeptics believe that there is no such thing as human consciousness. They do not believe in the mind; only in the physical brain. In fact, skeptics believe that they themselves are mindless automatons who have no free will, no soul and no consciousness whatsoever.

Clearly a brain is not necessary.

• Skeptics believe that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods (hilarious!).

What the hell are you talking about? Eating live babies is of course better than eating baby steaks, but I'm not here to get into the finer nutritional points of pedo-cannibalism. (I tend to only buy free-range babies.) I'm going to skip down to my favorite "point":

• Skeptics believe that water has no role in human health other than basic hydration. Water is inert, they say, and the water your toilet is identical to water from a natural spring (assuming the chemical composition is the same, anyway).

You know the doctors who are being controlled by the insurance companies and big pharma? They wash their hands before they do surgery, one of the most important practices ever introduced to the field of human health. Guess what they use besides soap? Clean water is probably, alongside vaccination, in contention for the most important development in public health in human history. And then this one flummoxes me, that is if I spelled "flummoxes" correctly: If water in the toilet is chemically the same as spring water, how could it possibly be any different? That makes no sense whatsoever. How did you even think that you could possibly stand for a medical award? Water is water is water. Saying "potty" in the same sentence does not change the content or properties of the water, you feeble, vacuous git.

So, what have we learned? Mike Adams--EPIC idiot. I'm a skeptic and I haven't heard you say a single thing right, Mike. Finally I would like to say that even if everything that you said about skeptics happened to be true, how would that in any way be support for any alt med that you believed in. Your essay is the unholy union of a straw man and an ad hominem. It's a straw hominem. There. You invented a new fallacy, a labradoodle of ignorance.

HJ

Update: Whiny man-bitch Mike Adams' most recent headline reads: "Shorty Awards continues discredited contest, allows hate speech from jackals who attack natural medicine." Haha! You suck at life, Mike. "Jackals." Like you are some sort of imam condemning the west or some Soviet functionary declaiming on the perfidy of capitalism. Very, very amusing. Keep it up, weirdo!

See Skeptico's post (with the best title ever), "Mike Adams: Pyromaniac in a Straw Man Factory."

Superior Skeptical Being Steve Novella has also picked up on the cranky Ranger.

The indubitable Dubito Ergo Sum has picked up the story. This has become a raging shitstorm, people!

PZ has picked it up as well, and good on him for supporting Rachie!

See also Effort Sisyphus' "Asshole" (that came out wrong).

I want to work for The Onion

I'm sorry, but this teaching shit is not working out. I want to contribute to The Onion's thoughtful commentary.


New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion

HJ

Who has a little tiny dik-dik?

The Chester Zoo does!

HJ

It's time for an amendment that makes for damned sure that companies are not entitled to the privelages of citizenship

I live in a country where fuckwits have their fingers jammed high up the assholes of power. Have I mentioned that?

I propose that we give corporations votes too. Why the fuck not?

HJ

Blue Gal should write Obama's Speeches...

Blue Gal sez: "Get it here."



HJ

Oh, yeah...

This is a follow-up post about using the Massachusetts election as a referendum on Obama, and how completely fucking baseless the storyline in fact is. There were no exit polls (I mean, let's face it...they weren't expecting to need any polls since it was KENNEDY'S seat). NOBODY can claim to know why people voted like they did.



I love it when I can make it look like I am not a complete asshat. :)

HJ (Never uses smileys.)

Finding Jihad: The Reckoning

This is going to be a highly specialized Finding Jihad. Sure, there has been a major uptick in the number of people coming across my site using the terms "fuck Massachusetts" (25 hits) and "Pat Robertson voodoo doll" (27 hits), but what gets me is the fundamentally irrelevant shit that draws people here. Let's take a look at the statistics from the last 1000 visitors. 77+% is not referred from a search engine, so I will imagine that people are actually reading of their own volition, but besides my scintillating prose and poop jokes, the biggest draw to this site is, far and away:

lisa edelstein nude

followed by

lisa edelstein naked

Lisa Edelstein is, then, my biggest draw, for reasons I will never know. Look at the other hits related to her:

lisa edelstein topless
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lisa edelstein hebrew (nine hits for this one...odd, I thought)
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Then there is this little run of searches:

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My personal favorite search terms recently have been:
"angel biotechnology"

• foreskin blogger
• oprah's idiot followers
• sample reply to memo for unprofessional conduct (There is a back story here that I want to know about!)
• wine and boobs suck (No, wine and boobs are awesome!)

OK, maybe I shouldn't have all these "Lisa Edelstein" links. Heehee.

HJ

Jean d'arc was a cat!

How else are we to take these findings?

Yep. She was a cat.

HJ

Another White Supremacist Poetry Slam!

I'm an English teacher, and I want to give back to the community. For this reason, I volunteer my talents to work with those who need English lessons the most: the white supremacist poets at Stormfront.org. I'm serious. It's far and away the worst poetry ever, worse even than Sting's lyrics; it's the opposite of culture. Behold, the poem, "Skinhead Soldier," by the aspiring poet JayByrd6891. It's the poetic equivalent of hemorrhoid surgery:

Click to embiggen

HJ

Disconcerting end-time email a false alarm...

It was at the top of my mail when I logged in tonight:


PaNiC!!!!

No, wait! Before you start applying that machete to your family members so that their deaths will be quick, you should read the contents of the email (see esp. the highlighted bit):

Click to embiggen.

Actually, I'll start worrying when they stop selling 6-month subscriptions to the EndTimes Newsletter.

HJ

Sweet but insincere

One of the work-study people in my department sent out a letter that ended with the following sentences, which can't possibly be true:

I look forward to helping you allocate easels this semester!

That exclamation marks also shouts, "Liar!"

HJ

Tea baggin' your little sister...

Paranoid conspiracy? You're soaking in it!

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/tea-party-leader-arrested-rape

HJ

I want a Puffin

No, not the fishy tasting (I have on good authority) hilarious little bird. This:



Oh, mama! Sign me the hell up!

HJ

Massachussets "Judgment of Obama" Meme

While the Massachusetts election of Brown is baffling to me, the meme that is making the rounds that it is somehow a reflection of national disapproval of Obama is even more baffling. Maybe I am abnormal, but when I vote for someone, I'm not passing judgment on anyone but the people on the ballot. What the media is repeating seems to me to be like writing an answer to a calculus problem on a history exam.

It is a knock to the President's agenda, of course, but not because of anything to do with him personally, only because a microscopic shift in the Congress was enough to make things much harder for him. Of course, there is no small part of fortune-telling wrapped up in the way in which this is being handled. People are inclined to look at whatever tea leaves happen to be available and associate those fundamentally ambiguous messages (we're imagining a message) with their own political aspirations. There are a lot of people, just under half of politically engaged citizens, by my estimation, who are more than happy to interpret this election as a vindication of everything that they ever believed about America, socialism, and patriotism. This of course is overreaching. One need only contrast the story put forward by the meme with the President's approval rating, which is an imprecise but a better instrument, one at least designed to measure his popularity. Using someone else's election to measure a person's popularity is like using a K2 meter to detect ghosts. According to the AP, Obama's stands at 56% in what is basically an evenly divided country. That's not bad. People say, "Yeah, but he's down from 76% at his inauguration." Don't you think that the comparative approval early on had anything to do with being relieved of the burden of the most unpopular President in history? An undulating bucket of phlegm could have scored a 76% approval in the wake of Bush's disastrous presidency--that early number is hardly a reliable starting point for gauging the progress of this presidency. It is irresponsible for the media to use it as the starting point of their narrative and not put it into some context.

I think (and have the survey data to support it) that people are vastly more frustrated with Congress than with the President.

Obama is not without fault. He needs to pull the stick out and play fucking hardball with his party. The Republicans never seem to have this problem.

HJ

More bus stories? Really?

Maybe they had to close a mental hospital or something. I can't explain the up-tick in "colorful characters" on my bus route.

It began at the bus station on my way home. I was sitting on a square bench, in such a way that I was not looking at the other people waiting with me. The large woman on my right, was "ahemming" strangely. Like a tadpole had borrowed into her vocal cords. It was deep and throaty and you could hear the extra mucus.

Then she did the damnedest thing. She started going from person to person asking for peppermint candies. "My mouth...my mouth is so dry," she was saying. You know, the only thing less interesting than that....no that was it. Nothing was less interesting to me than the moistness of her mouth. Now, even if my mouth was dry and I felt it was not improper to ask people for their private stashes of candy, how would I come to the conclusion that the people around me were carrying peppermint candy?

It was at this point that I noticed that the man next to the concrete pillar across from me had been circling it for at least two minutes. Like a dog, but without the sense of purpose.

Eventually, my bus arrived and disgorged dozens of people who were nowhere near where they were going. Those of us who had been waiting for it climbed aboard. There were about 5 of us or so. I sat in the middle of the bus. Well, an older black man got on board (I would say he was about 55 or maybe a little older), and he engaged the driver in a conversation about Haiti.

We pulled out of the station, and I made eye contact with the fellow who was still circling the pillar. He may still be there.

My cotton mouthed chum sat in one of the reserved seats at the front of the bus, and the guy was fairly shouting over her lap to the driver. All three of them were talking to one another, but they were only striking on each others' topics tangentially, as best I could tell.

The guy had this strange mix of intelligence and kookiness, which was refreshing. He had an understanding of the slave revolt that led to Haitian independence, but then he seemed to think that after that nobody had ever had anything to do with Haiti ever again. The bus driver (I think the one who thought I could help get her invention, uh, invented, honestly, spent a lot of time expounding on the topic but being wrong about it. He was talking about earthquakes and tsunamis and she was talking about, "You know, you could have the dirt on the beach falling away and apartments falling down, like on those hills in California."

I was pretty sure that the man was going to come up with the term "mudslides," and he did.

Peppermint Patty assured the other two that she was sure worried about that dirt falling into the ocean.

Then the old man said, "And we can't do a thing to help them. Our military is all over the world right now, fighting wars for oil and killing people." Then, he dropped the crazy bomb: "One day Jesus is going to come back and judge us and there will be four years of rain. Four years without the sun. Can you imagine what the would do? There would be nothing, no crops left! The Bible says so."

I'm pretty sure that was A Hundred Years of Solitude, but whatevs.

Peppermint Patty: "We need to pray to Je-SUS." (The way she said it had that strange raising on the second syllable.) She seemed really concerned about the coming four years of rain.

He became more animated and I would have grabbed some audio except for it being totally rude and probably illegal (even though I can't imagine that someone shouting on a bus could have a reasonable expectation of privacy).

HJ

Bodie Hodge Advertises His Upcoming Humiliation!

In the next few weeks, Answers in Genesis' special-needs administrator, Bodie Hodge, is going to be addressing your very basic, your "I-can't-believe-I-have-to-say-this-to-a-grown-up-who-bred" questions. He gives us a heads-up as to what questions he is going to answer. I think that I am going to try and test my psychic powers. On the left, I will give my predictions for what Bodie is going to say; on the right, I will give the correct answer.

* Did the serpent originally have legs?

He'll either say, "Not necessarily," or if he argues from the English translation, "No serpent has legs, as if it were a very astute piece of original biology.

It's like asking, "Does the tooth-fairy use birth control?"

* Shouldn’t the Woman (Eve) have been shocked that a serpent spoke?

He'll say, "The Bible does not rule it out."

A few days ago, she was someone else's rib. Also, God is her tailor (Gen 3:21). Nothing phases this chick.

* Wasn’t Satan the serpent, not some animal?

Actually, this is interesting, because Genesis doesn't actually say it was the devil. It's been interpreted as the Devil forever.

All fables have talking animals. It is characteristic of the form.

* Why do we get punished for what Adam did?

He'll quote the Bible about how we are all sinners or some such shit.

It's clearly the evil gene.

* Is original sin (sin nature) passed through the father’s genetic line?

I think he will say yes, because Jesus who was born without sin didn't have a baby daddy.

Who asks that question?

* Biblically, could death have existed before sin?

God said everything was very good, and because death is bad, death could not have existed. If a huge rock fell on Adam, he would not have been crushed. It would have bounced off of him like he was Superman. So gravity did not work before the fall either.

Why not ask the tribes Adam and Eve's kids bred with? Or, why is God talking about death where there is no death. I mean, they would not have understood "death." It would have been without precedent.

* Why didn’t Adam and Eve die the instant they ate the fruit?

"Ah, but can you not also build a bridge out of stone?"

Why not ask the tribes Adam and Eve's kids bred with? Or, why is God talking about death where there is no death. I mean, A&E would not have understood the concept of "death," in much the way Bodie would not understand the concept of a breath mint. (I was at the museum, you remember.) It would have been without precedent. Actually, the Bible doesn't literally say that Eve should not eat the fruit. She's not around until after Adam is told. We just assumed it because God punishes her too, but it could be that he could just really fucking hates women.

* Did Adam and Eve have to sleep before the fall?

If sleep provides some restorative function, then no, because anything that was perfect would not have to be restored. But they might have anyway, you know, for fun.

*SMACK* GET! *SMACK* A! *SMACK* REAL! *SMACK* JOB!! *SMACK SMACK SMACK*

* If Adam knew of good and evil, because he was programmed with language, then why did God create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

"Words schmurds."

Adam and Eve actually communicated telepathically. Language is but a pale reflection of the ideal world of Platonic forms.

* How can God, who is, according to Scripture, perfectly Holy, create anything that can be unholy (or fallen)?

"He didn't. We fucked it up," or "It is not of God's nature."

Hey, do the math!

* Shouldn’t Eve have been a clone of Adam?

Goddidit! Don't bring science in!

Cain and Able were the product of very elaborate masturbation.

* Was Abel eating meat soon after the curse when he wasn’t supposed to be (Genesis 1:29), since he kept the flocks and sacrificed an animal in Genesis 4:2–4?

"No."

"Oh who the fuck cares?"

* When did Adam and Eve rebel?

"Just after the beginning...."

"Eve probably did after God issued his fatwah on her, since she wasn't implicated in the original commandment.)

* How long ago was the Curse?

He'll say, "It is ongoing! Look at all the evil."

There is no curse. There are no talking serpents. There are no rib-ladies. There are no knowledge-apples of death.

* Wasn’t the Curse and death a good thing to keep the earth from being over populated?

"No. Only a liberal would say that."

"Only a Christian could possibly formulate so stupid a question.

Bodie concludes:

The first installment of this new series lands next week. Get equipped for this skeptical age.

I bet it makes a plopping sound when it lands. Prepare to defend yourself against critical thinking and reason, Christians! En garde!

HJ