Elitist Bastard Language
It’s one thing to act like an elitist bastard, but quite another to
speak or write like one. You can walk the walk, but can you talk the
talk? Here are some rules to help make sure you don’t lose bastard
cred.
“I don’t want to explain”
I’m going to pick on
a random freeper
(via
FSTDT)
because he makes an argument that I’ve seen elsewhere: in response to
a question about how gay marriage might possibly affect him and his
own marriage, he writes
er it’s forcing me to explain to my kids why two men or two women are doing what they are doing.
I have to explain that nature did not intend for two of the same sex to be together and that they like to be together for perverted sexual acts
So people’s freedom to marry whomever they love should be restricted
because you don’t want to explain it to your children? Puh-leeze!
I hate to break it to you, honeycakes, but explaining the world to
children is what parents do. It’s part of the job description. Oh,
and when I say “explaining the world”, I mean the world as it is, not just as you would like it to be.
(Thanks to Fez for letting me borrow his sarcastic endearment set.)
Logic Fail
BarryA at Invisible Science Uncommon Descent:
I will demonstrate that under very clear United States Supreme Court precedent, the subjective motives of a policy maker are simply irrelevant in determining whether the policy violates the Establishment Clause.
Let us begin at the beginning – the Lemon test. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971) the Supreme Court established the following three-part test for determining whether a governmental policy violates the Establishment Clause: “First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose;
(emphasis added)
Creationist logic:
Call Me Father
I am now a minister. Whee!
I just got a certificate from
Universal Life Church
saying that I have been ordained and “[have] all rights and privileges
to perform all duties of the Ministry.”
Word O’ the Day
Found while looking up something else1:
misogallic adj. characterized by hatred of the French.
1: In case you were
wondering, the thing I was looking for was another word for
“homophobe”, since homophobes sometimes say that the word doesn’t
apply to them, because they’re not afraid of homosexuals. I haven’t
found anything better, so may I suggest “misohome”?
Another ID Argument Doesn’t Stand Up to Scrutiny
Over at casa de Dembski,
DaveScot tries to debunk a debunking of an ID argument. It goes
something like this:
Michael Behe: The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly
complex, that is, all of its components need to be in place before
it’ll work. It can’t have evolved by gradual addition and improvement,
because none of the subparts do anything until they’re all put
together.
Nick Matzke: Ah, but the Type Three Secretory System (TTSS), a
sort of bacterial syringe, is made up of proteins that look an awful
lot like ones used in the flagellum. That is, you can build
something useful using just some of the parts requied for a
flagellum, and that gives natural selection something to work with.
For instance, the flagellum could have evolved by adding parts to a TTSS.
DaveScot:
Ah, but I have here a paper about a species of bacterium that started
out with a flagellum, but lost most of its parts through natural
selection, leaving only the parts needed to construct a TTSS.
To which I reply below the fold.
QOTD
The conflict in Georgia also upended Bush’s travel plans. He decided to postpone by one or two days a planned vacation beginning today at his ranch in Crawford, Tex.
Yeah, I’m sure he remembers how bad it looked when hurricane Katrina struck while he was on vacation. Then again, most New Orleans residents are black. Georgians are Caucasians.
Badoom-sha! Thank you, I’m here all week.
Election Math
One cluster of reasons people sometimes give for not voting is that
“none of the candidates represent my views, and I’m tired of voting
for the lesser of two evils.”
(Another, of course, is plain old apathy. A coworker of mine is very
straightforward about not caring about who gets elected. He knows
he’ll catch shit from the rest of us if we catch him complaining about
the government that he didn’t bother to help elect, and he doesn’t.
For people like him but who aren’t quite out of the closet, here are
some tips on
pretending to give a shit about the election.)
Webster Cook Won’t Be Expelled
Since PZ’s on vacation, I might actually get a chance to scoop
Pharyngula with the
news
that a panel at the University of Central Florida voted unanimously to
dismiss all charges against Webster Cook and his friend Ben Collard in
the Crackergate matter. Good.
HT
Bill Donohue.
Like Letting Students Grade Their Own Homework
The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.
[…] Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that this is as stupid as
letting the defendant at a trial decide whether he’s guilty or not, so
I won’t belabor that point.
But even with the best intentions on everyone’s part, this is still a
stupid idea.
There’s a joke about an old engineer called out of retirement to help
fix a machine at the factory where he used to work. After poking
around, he puts a chalk mark on the part to be replaced, and submits a
bill for $30,000, itemized as follows: “Chalk mark: $0.50. Knowing
where to put the chalk mark: $29,999.50”.
The EPA is in the best position to tell where environmental chalk marks should
go. It’s what they do. That’s why they have environmental experts. The
department of transportation may be great at planning and building
roads, but they can’t be expected to accurately predict how their work
affects the environment, any more than the EPA can be expected to
design and build an efficient highway system.