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12/11/09, 21:01
"she uses pure science and reason to shoot down creationism *without* coming off as a doucheshit"
What science and reason? Did we watch the same video? She gave a rapid and simplistic overview of legal and legislative initiatives, while constantly snickering in a superior and self satisfied manner. There wasn't a drop of science or reason in the entire video. 4 stars because she's right and has every right to snicker. -1 because Dawkins might be insufferable but at least he learns ya something. He's a frontline asshole who treats this like life and death and draws blood.
You know what? Minus another 1, because these titles are ludicrous. Some of us actually have to be out there arguing with people who really believe the earth is 6000 years old and there once was a shell of ice encasing the atmosphere and dinosaurs are really just huge iguanas and the Grand Canyon couldn't have formed slowly because water would have had to flow uphill and the Moon would have been touching the earth a million years ago, and these people are our friends and coworkers who we can't just bloody well go "YOU'RE CRAZY AND WRONG HUR HUR" and leave it at that. I have to counter this crap point by point, and explain what science is and isn't on top of that, like I've got to read Popper and Kuhn and shit like that in my spare time, and the more I do the more I sympathize with these poor bastards and their damn ignorance. I hate to tell you this, Mz Edumactor, but you and your kind (i.e. the bespectacled snickerers) have soundly failed to teach the majority of Americans the basic, basic principles of good scientific practice. Your semantic wrangling over what is and isn't free speech is irrelevant: the second they get out of your grasp free speech rules, and the rest of us have to step up and fight this battle one to one. A goddamn century you've had evolution taught as truth in classroom, and what do you have to show for it? If we go by the numbers: diddlysquat. I'm almost ready to say, let them have their disclaimers and alternative theories, and maybe people will finally see how paper thin and patently false they are. What are you afraid of? That you might actually have to put some work in? "What if our textbooks are wrong?! How can we teach if we can't just follow the text blindly and assign reading for homework??!! OOOH NOOOO."
"Still Crazy After All These Years" should properly read "Better Organized Than Ever And Cunning Like Foxes." Or, sorry, properly it should be titled, "A Brief Overview of Recent Creationist/I.D. Proponent Legal Strategies in the Field of Education," but I suppose that doesn't have quite enough partisan smugness to sell a book.
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+1 for amusing slides. |  | Constantin Pīrvulescu vs Nicolae Ceauşescu (subtitles in the annotations)
10/02/09, 19:51
Balls? He said he was on the list when he wasn't, expressed dissatisfaction at that the speeches before the Central Committee weren't more interesting, claimed to never have seen a Communist dictator seize power illegally in all his 60 years as a Party member, imagines that anyone cares whether he "votes" or not, and ends mumbling about how the horde of assembled hooters should be more polite to him, when after all he had been perfectly *mumble grumble*
I think he must have had a stroke. | | British comedian Tommy Cooper Dies (On live TV)
07/19/09, 00:46
The Daily Mail is a more reliable source? | | Sen. Graham Admits He Would Have Lacked The Courage To Desegregate Schools
07/18/09, 23:09
Holy shit. That took some serious balls to own up to. Mad props, Graham. I need to find the rest of this statement... perhaps it was some coded assurance to his racist base that he's their pal, or something like that... | | Rep. Tiahrt (R Kansas) wonders what would have happened if Obama's mother got money for an abortion.
07/18/09, 23:05
Ah, rats... THA SUGAH RAIN might have the last word on this. This hasn't been very useful in the end. I shall have to revise my pitch with more pretty phrases, but if I do that everyone will mistake me for a Socialist, I fear. | | Arab Festival 2009: Sharia in the US
07/18/09, 17:13
Well, to be fair, that was some bullshit security. Goddamn Scientologists, when will they answer for their crimes?! | | Joe Rogan vs Crazy Lady
07/18/09, 16:56
Hey, damn straight! I ALSO am a relationship expert, now that he mentions it. | | Rep. Tiahrt (R Kansas) wonders what would have happened if Obama's mother got money for an abortion.
07/18/09, 16:39
Kleenex: Thanks for linking to that article. I do vaguely remember that incident, but I was out of the country at the time and thus think I may have been conflating the discussion of abortions with all the other discussions of black people in that book. You must admit, a lot of it did concern issues of race. Obviously, though, as we can see through your link, the later discussion did focus on this issue in a racialized context, which is more what I was refering to than the book itself. Stripping it of that context, the focus returns to marginalized and economically disadvantaged groups, and I think we arrive at my response to phalsebob. The focus on black in this particular context comes from the posting itself - there's even a tag. I just pulled an example out of my ass that I thought people would recognize, in order to say that I understood why Kansas guy could be provocative on this point. Perhaps we can leave the book behind, since I see the reference to it is pissing you off for some reason.
As for social engineering, I can understand if you don't see it. Obviously I'm being a bit provoctive just for the hell of it, but I do think it's there, because if not, what the hell is it? As I asked before, why bother fighting for it, if not to change something? Why not just let rich people do it? And yes, I am basically accusing the left of using abortion, even if unknowingly and with the best of intentions, as part of a vast social engineering scheme to improve the lot of the lower classes. What annoys me is that no one will admit this out of politeness or whatever. I'm pretty damn sure they're talking in this context up in Washington, so why the hell aren't we? And also, in this case, it annoys me that it's unacceptable to even WONDER if this may be adversely affecting the future of certain disproportionately disadvantaged social groups, as dudemo here may be doing. I don't actually know what he's doing, and seriously doubt that is what he's doing. But it's what I'm doing. Whether they be black, or just poor and urban, or just young and female... can't we have a quick wonder if our fantastic expansion of abortion might, MIGHT, have an adverse affect we had not foreseen in the future? I don't even have to say "might," I can guaran-fucking-tee it will, because it always freaking has. If benefits outweigh the costs, then hey, maybe we can get away with it. But let's not sing a happy song and pretend we're saints, just because we can boil it all down to some encouraging aphorisms. Let's sit down and ask ourselves the hardest questions we can. Will we eliminate the next generation of black leaders? Why not wonder, just as an exercise in masochism if nothing else? We won't be able to do it in polite discussion, so why not do it here, where nobody knows our names? We can argue, for example, that a higher rate of abortions in disadvantaged communities would actually INCREASE the chances of exceptional leaders emerging from within them, through a reduction in competition for scant resources and the elimination of adverse influences. Try making that argument in Congress.
As I indicated, though, I don't actually think a focus on exceptional outliers is very useful. I think the guy is nuts for using those two examples to illustrate anything.
As to strawmen, first you accused me of not reading the book and drew conclusions from that, now you're accusing me of taking cues from a rightwing pundit and of setting up strawmen in pursuit of an unthinking personal agenda. I don't really have a response except: Kleenex, stop setting me up as a strawman, dude. I'm entirely willing to have a discussion without my usual theatrics (which I put into the original comment), and to admit an error if I have made one, as I believe I have been illustrating. | | Mitchell and Webb - God and Abraham
07/18/09, 15:20
I had expected I would get tired of the endless submission of these two. But no, no I'm not tiring at all. | | Rep. Tiahrt (R Kansas) wonders what would have happened if Obama's mother got money for an abortion.
07/18/09, 14:47
Toenails: Thanks, man, for your calmness. I was getting worried there for a second.
Obviously, that is a real clincher. I'm kind of leaving it out because, as far as I can stretch my opinions to some weird places, I can't really get past that. The Right sits around a imagines their utopia where strong and moral families working hard will never need to get an abortion. I'm not dumb enough to believe that will ever be true, and so I fell where I fell in the political spectrum. If I had to be totally honest, though, I'd have to admit that this utopia exerts a strong pull on me (I am, after all, of that cultural milieu) and so increasingly hope we might get to a place sometime where we might discuss how to reduce abortions, to make them, "safe, legal, and rare" or whatever it is Clinton said way back when. Obviously, this ain't going to happen anytime soon/fucking ever... so, shit hits the fan I'll be out shouting one-line slogans along with the rest of us. | | Rep. Tiahrt (R Kansas) wonders what would have happened if Obama's mother got money for an abortion.
07/18/09, 14:29
phalsebob: Granted, but my sin is even worse than that, in that I'm trying to go beyond the book (I wish I'd never mentioned the book, it's fucking irrelevant to what I'm saying) to draw some broad social conclusions. It's attempted omniscience and I'm hardly qualified, but I decided years back that this was no point to shut up about it (esp. on the internet) because there ain't no other way I'll learn nothing.
Let's forget the book. Basically I'm saying, the Pro Choice argument rightly (IMO) points out, among many other things, that abortion should be legal because a great number of women (and their families) are incapable, for whatever reason, of raising them. It is not only unjust to force them to, but a terrible social burden on the rest of us to have poorly raised kids running around. Where I start to get queasy is that there are, clearly, social groups in this country that are, as a consequence of specific policies (for example, the neoliberal economics I mentioned, also the drug war, all the institutionalized racism... I'm just throwing them out, pick whatever reason you have to explain it), economically disadvantaged. In addition (or perhaps as consequence), they also have less access to education, more exposure to violence, less cohesive social networks, etc. I think of these things as well understood, but we can discuss this if you disagree. Then you have what I flippantly termed one "technoliberal" response to this, which is to expand access to abortions to these disadvantaged groups. It's far harder to, you know, solve all the problems. Harder to rebuild an industrial base, harder to reform schools, harder to end the drug war... In the meantime, a convenient technofix - e.g. abortions - will be employed to alleviate the problem. It is, and I'm not denying it is, a kind of solution, but it does raise some unsettling questions in the mind of many people. It's the same thing liberals always do when push comes to shove. We know we should probably solve global warming by cutting back on our wasteful lifestyles. But that's soooo hard. Better to buy fancy new hybrid cars and pray that solar power becomes less of an urban myth sometime soon. Of course, the current conservative response to all these issues - close your eyes, hum loudly, pretend it's not happening - is even worse, which is why I vote the way I do. Doesn't mean I have to stop worrying about it.
As to Cena, no I'm not him, but don't you just love how on POETV, some guy will be just clicking along, making witty remarks, five starring cats, for months and months, and then something comes up and they snap and pour out 5000 words and piss everyone off? I'm chuffed that my chance has come up. ... although it does rather often, for me. | | Rep. Tiahrt (R Kansas) wonders what would have happened if Obama's mother got money for an abortion.
07/18/09, 12:56
Stanleypain: Well, neoliberal economics are the ones that get blamed for moving our manufacturing base overseas. Which in turn gets blamed for poverty in the black communities, which relied heavily on manufacturing. It's not a very sophisticated argument, to be sure, so you're fine in disagreeing with it. I'm generally a neoliberal myself. | | Rep. Tiahrt (R Kansas) wonders what would have happened if Obama's mother got money for an abortion.
07/18/09, 12:52
No need to get aggressive, buddy. I did read the book, but will admit that it was when it came out, and as that was a while ago and I don't have it beside me at the moment I may have forgotten some of the provisos and "ha ha we're not SUGGESTING" qualifiers that simple decency included. Because of this I almost didn't press submit, but you've gone ahead and confirmed the thesis for me. So thanks. Can you confirm that the example he used was in fact the violence in the black communities? I promise I'll trust the word of you, some guy I read on a website.
Look, all I'm saying is, I can see the other side. No one read that book and came away saying, "Freakonomics said that all economic data is inherently open to interpretation." It was one of the most widely read and influential books of the last several years. Wendys is using it to sell their burgers, for goodness sake. Vast swathes of society were discussing it. And now we have here, apparently, a bill that drives the cost of abortions lower. So that poor people can have better access to them. Because poor people need abortions. Why? Well, womens rights, constitutional right to privacy, and NONONO, Why especially POOR people? Why? Seriously, if you want to discuss something, let's ask ourselves why abortions shouldn't just be for those who can afford the doctor's fees.
Why shouldn't abortions just be a matter of choice like a hybrid car is a matter of choice?
I'll settle for economic justice, if you will. And we'll ignore the book. And ignore the fact that, no doubt, some people aren't.
I'm just too much of a cynic not to heave a little sigh and go, you know, sometimes I see where the other side is coming from, man. We have a constitutional right to privacy in the matter of our abortions. Everything else has a whiff of social engineering to it, and that shit sometimes has odd consequences. I ain't gonna vote for them. It's just an intellectual exercise. | | Rep. Tiahrt (R Kansas) wonders what would have happened if Obama's mother got money for an abortion.
07/18/09, 11:17
Frankly, I wonder too, sometimes. There's a sort of technoliberal line going around recently, epitomized by that shockingly irresponsible "Freakonomics" book and all its ilk, that somehow mass abortions have saved us from social chaos. The thesis is that since poor people with little ability to raise their kids right were able to get abortions, their kids didn't grow up to become criminals and kill us richer folk. The evidence being, apparently, that in the 80s and early 90s the blacks were doing cocaine and rioting a lot. And now they're not, because abortion became legal just in time to eliminate the next generation of coke-snorting rioters. There was a bunch of vague numbers too - that entire book, and the whole genre it's spawned, is basically "1+1=WHATEVER THE FUCK $ELL$" but I digress - basically, that was it.
I thought I was reading the Robot Mein Kampf for a second. Now I have to sit silently through conversation after conversation as my friends babble on how our elegant abortion policies saved us all. I have to be silent because no one can bring shit like this up without getting shat all over. They change the topic to women's lib to do the shitting, and raise their voices, and put on righteous faces. We're all white, of course. And have jobs.
Of course, whitey here is just playing cynical politics, and anyway his examples are sort of the exceptions that prove the rules. Both had extended family networks that were able to absorb them and put them through college. Obama's had the extra bonus of being highly educated, and Thomas' of possessing the reflexive work ethic of the rigidly religious. For the rest of the black people, pooped out into communities ravaged by neoliberal economics and a militarized drug policy, better that they should be helped, uh, "out" in OTHER ways, amirite? | | Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
07/18/09, 03:45
One pander to the 'net generation at a time, please. | | MTV logos made on an Amiga by a 16 year old
07/18/09, 03:34
I seriously doubt MTV threatened to sue them for this shit. I sincerely hope the kid got an A* for this (but, seriously, who doesn't? it's the GCSEs) but if he decided that meant he was a genius and sent it into MTV expecting to get on TV, I expect MTV sent back a basic boilerplate copyright notice, told him he couldn't do anything commercial with this, and made him cry into his Obi Wan Kenobi pillows. I expect MTV gets coked up videos from thousands of zomg talented teenagers with computers and time on their hands every day. They get a package glued up with stars and sprinkles and little magic marker hearts, and rubber stamp a thank-you-for-watching-cease-and-desist letter right onto the return postage. I expect that's why they stopped marketing to anyone but brainless retards, so they wouldn't attract any more unsolicited "talent" beyond the occasional naked 16 year old boy setting himself on fire. | | Ducks on An Escalator
07/18/09, 01:19
What was up with that? Did they call ahead to the mall, and say, like, "I'm going to bring a bunch of ducks to the mall and just sort of throw them down the escalator and see what happens?" And mall security says, "Hell, we're pretty bored, so why not?" | | 7 Questions That'll Make Atheists Think!
07/18/09, 01:16
God I'm sick of this. "Here's another crazy person saying stupid shit and we can all mock it." FIVE STARS TO PROVE MY SMARTNESS.
I want some people hurting their balls. And some cute animals. I WANT SOME CUTE ANIMAL BALLS IN MY FACE RIGHT NOW. | | Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
07/17/09, 19:07
Sense and Sensibility and LAKE Monsters, I believe. | | A furry models his 'dolphin muzzle mask.'
07/16/09, 23:24
Good point. That narrows the worst thing I can imagine down a bit. | |
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