2007, Epsilon Clue, Page 2

FFS Politics Religion

Mitt Romney Says Something Stupid. Again.

In other news, dog bites man.

From CNN:

“Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone,” he said.

What universe is he living in? I guess this means that Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are among the freest countries on earth, freer than western Europe or North America. Oh, but those are Muslim countries, so they probably don’t count.

How about the Middle Ages, then, when pretty much all of Europe was fiercely Christian, of one stripe or another? Would it be worth pointing out that stuff like the great American experiment came up after that, after the Enlightenment had taught that hey, maybe we can do better on our own, without relying on a god? Would it be worth reminding Romney that Thomas Jefferson took a razor to his Bible in an effort to, in effect, improve upon the received Word of God?

Heck, has he forgotten that the very first amendment in the US bill of rights includes the right freedom from religion?

By the way, Mitt, this has nothing to do with you being a Mormon, and everything to do with you being a pious git.

Andrew Arensburger

Dec, Thu, 2007

FFS Religion WTF?

Highway of Holiness

Light the Highway is a group of people who apparently think that I-35, which runs from Laredo, TX to Minneapolis, MN, is God’s chosen interstate, because Isaiah 35:8 reads:

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.

(I-35, Isaiah 35. Get it?)

It’s unclear to me whether this is a Poe or not, but reading that site is like being beaten over the head with a stick made of frozen crazy.

OTOH, they may be onto something: the 495th line of Isaiah is 26:19, which reads:

But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.

which sounds a lot like I-495 (the Washington Beltway) to me.

(Tip o’ the tinfoil hat to Martin Wagner.)

Andrew Arensburger

Dec, Wed, 2007

Links

Snow!

It doesn’t happen here very often this early in the season, but it’s currently snowing! See this artist’s rendition:

(Artist’s rendition may not be 100% accurate.)

This isn’t prairie winter, mind you: this is Washington area snow, the kind where even a quarter-inch is enough to close schools and send panicked citizens scurrying to buy up all remaining supplies of milk and toilet paper. There’ll be mile-long backups on the Beltway before this is over.

I’m glad to be sitting quietly in a warm office, and I think I’ll make some hot chocolate. Later, when it dies down, though… comes dealing with traffic, and morons who won’t go above 20 mph even though they’ve lived here all their life and it snows at least once every single year. At least it isn’t sticking to the roads.

(Yes, I’m gently poking fun at PZ. Pompous Minesotan. Who does he think he is, lording it over us with his weather?)

Andrew Arensburger

Dec, Wed, 2007

FFS Religion

The Crossword War on Christianity

If you thought Bill Donohue’s knickers were in enough of a twist over The Golden Compass to tourniquet a combat battalion, think again:

Many fans of crosswords look forward to tackling the New York Times’ Sunday issue. Several enthusiasts contacted the Catholic League, however, to report that they were troubled by a question in yesterday’s puzzle. The work, titled “Putting on Some Weight,” featured several answers that contained the word “ton.” For instance, the clue “I’m not interested in having tea!” led to the answer, “DON’T GIVE ME ANY LIPTON.”

Puns are standard fare for crossword puzzles, but one example from yesterday’s game is a little too cute. The clue for Number 98 across asked “Crucifix?” The corresponding answer was “SEXTON SYMBOL.” Surely the authors of the puzzle, and the editors of the New York Times, would do well to avoid such cheekiness when it comes to the figure of Christ crucified.

I’d love to meet him sometime. There could be so much fun to be had in pushing his buttons.

Andrew Arensburger

Dec, Tue, 2007

Intelligent Design

Teach the (Other) Controversy!

External Delivery the Future

The theory of external delivery holds that certain features of how Christmas presents are delivered each year are best explained by an external source, not an internal source such as your parents.

Andrew Arensburger

Dec, Mon, 2007

Atheism Religion

Dinesh D’Souza, Mental Mosquito

I propose a new unit of measurement: a megaScoville shall henceforth be known as a D’Souza, because the stupid, it burns!

Here’s the first part of a debate between Daniel Dennett and Dinesh D’Souza at Tufts University:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw7J15TeDG4&rel=1]

(Follow the “More From:” link to get parts 2-15.)

I warn you, though: you may need to make a SAN roll. Not only does he have the gall to say to Dennett’s face that consciousness can never be understood by mere humans, he then proceeds to use—I kid you not—Pascal’s Wager.

Is Ungrammatical Text Really Harder to Read?

I’m in the middle of Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works. He talks about experiments in which subjects are shown letters in random orientations, and have to figure out whether the letters are mirror-flipped or not. What was found was that people have to mentally rotate the letters they see, so that they’re right-side-up, at which point they can tell whether the letters are mirror-reversed or not. This rotation takes time.

I wonder if similar work has been done with respect to words and text. It seems that when I’m reading text with a lot of typos, or 1337-speak, or poor punctuation, or inappropriate homonyms (e.g., “who’s” when it should say “whose”), it takes me longer to read than to read text with proper sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. I wonder whether this is just an illusion, or whether it actually takes more mental work to read the text as written and translate it into proper English.

Andrew Arensburger

Nov, Wed, 2007

Evolution FFS Religion

Reality Can Be Mean

GMAFB:

DUNDEE UNIVERSITY has been accused of “antagonising Christians” with a forthcoming Christmas lecture that challenges one of the central tenets of the faith.

Second-year dental student Emily Mackie said the university’s decision to call its inaugural Dundee Christmas Lecture “Why Evolution is Right … and Creationism is Wrong” is badly timed and insensitive to Christians.

The article shows a photo of Mackie holding a ticket to the lecture. Since she’s a dentist in training, maybe she can go and tell the lecturer how wisdom teeth are evidence of God’s design.

(HT Jesus and Mo.)

Andrew Arensburger

Nov, Tue, 2007

Creationism WTF?

I Don’t Get Creationist Humor

Over at the “playground” section of the Expelled site, there’s a video of a can-can where the dancers’ heads have been replaced by those of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Eugenie Scott, Sam Harris, and Charles Darwin. This was made with a tool at JibJab that allows you to replace people’s heads in videos they provide.

As humor goes, IMHO it’s on a par with Mad-libs, so I’m somewhat surprised to see it on the website of a serious creationist movie like Expelled. Unless, of course, it’s being marketed to people who think “Oh yeah?! Well you’re French!” is a biting intellectual retort.

I’d HT Chez Dembski, except that that post seems to have been removed (s’okay, it was basically just a link to this “review”). Oh, and just to give you an idea of where this video ranks in Dembski’s opinion, this video was removed, but “The Jude Jones School of Law is still up (albeit sans fart noises).