kimmy

Have a Blessed Easter, AW! -k

Yes, our hereditary figurehead can't be Catholic. This much is true. Since our head of state has no political influence in this country, that's not actually a response to my claim that If you're not aware of the strong entanglement between the Republican party and the religious right, or the resulting influence of the religious right on political discourse at the state and federal level, then I don't think there's any point talking further. A non-Christian could, theoretically, become president of the United States, but almost every sane observer agrees it's not going to happen any time soon. You don't have a long weekend? No wonder you're so grumpy today. -k

For those who really honestly believe in small government, it's the obvious position. The question, for them, is not "why should the government legally sanction gay marriages?" but rather "why should the government be involved in marriage at all?" Bill says that he's always supported the idea of civil unions, and remains "meh" on the use of the word "marriage". I can't vouch for that, but I see no reason to doubt it. One thing I will point out: if you have seen Bill O'Reilly's famous interview with David Silverman, you're familiar with the "tide comes in, tide goes out, you can't explain that" exchange, where Silverman was (for the first and only time in his life) struck momentarily speechless, able to respond only with the facial expression that everyone now recognizes: or better known as I read an interview with Silverman in which he was asked what was going through his mind at that precise moment. Silverman responded that that was the moment where he realized that the Bill O'Reilly you see on TV is a character he portrays. He explained that prior to the on-air segment, he had an excellent chat with O'Reilly backstage, where Bill asked him many good questions and was up-to-date with American Atheists and seemed to have a thoughtful and well-informed understanding of atheist issues. Then they get on-air, and Bill comes out with "tide comes in, tide goes out, you can't explain that", and that's when Silverman says he realized that it was just a game that O'Reilly plays for his audience. I have not watched the Jon Stewart-Bill O'Reilly debate, although I heard it was excellent and well worth watching. However, people who have watched it say that they were similarly impressed with Bill O'Reilly in that he showed a level of insight and intellect and warmth that he doesn't normally share with his TV audience. In short, I think that Bill O'Reilly isn't really a buffoon, he just plays one on TV. -k

Yes, religion has more legal status in Canada, the UK, the Scandinavian countries, and many other western democracies, than in the US. And yet the fact remains that religion is a more powerful political and cultural force in the United States than in any of those countries. Norway is among the most atheist nations on earth, yet up until last year they had an official state religion. Conversely, the United States, the one western democracy where separation of church and state are enshrined in law, church attendance and religious belief are higher than other western democracies. It's the first-world nation where the most people believe in Biblical creation and the fewest people believe in scientific evolution. It's the one western democracy where a non-Christian couldn't possibly become the leader of the nation. But enjoy your long weekend, whether it is federally recognized or not. -k

The Breitbart/NewsMax/Fox/etc right-wing media outlets had access to the same polls and information that everybody else did. They went to great lengths to convince their readers that these polls were unreliable. When an outlier poll showed their guy gaining ground or winning a battleground state, they put it on their front page. This was not just a matter of some people getting it wrong, this was a willful attempt to deceive their audience, for purposes of propping up their political allies. Dick Morris explained his landslide prediction on the Hannity show after the election. Morris was working for Romney (a fact never mentioned on Fox; they billed him as "former Clinton advisor Dick Morris") and said that "the Romney campaign was falling apart, people were not optimistic, nobody thought there was chance of victory, and I thought that it was my duty at that point to go out and say what I said." It wasn't a guy who just got it wrong, he was trying to give his employer's campaign a boost. Fox is a media arm of the Republican party; Breitbart is deeply involved in the Tea Party faction, yet you guys seem to think they're objective sources of information. Why is that? I hear this "3 million" figure a lot, always from Tea Party types who are trying to make the claim that they need to be "more conservative" to get Republican voters out to the polls. But does it actually hold water? Where does that 3 million figure actually come from? At one point, people spoke of Romney bringing in 3 million fewer votes than McCain did (although by the time all the votes were counted Romney actually had slightly more votes than McCain). Is that the source of the 3 million? One reason I am skeptical that they can get 3 million more votes by being more conservative is that the core audience for that kind of message-- white evangelicals-- turned out in record numbers in the last election. They might not have been excited about getting out to vote *for* Mitt Romney, but they were damned sure excited to get out to vote *against* Barack Obama. The second reason I doubt that they can get 3 million votes by being more conservative is that this sort of thinking neglects to consider how other voters might react. Tea Party types think 3 million conservative voters felt "disenfrachised" and "disenchanted" because they thought Mitt Romney was too moderate. Maybe they're right. Maybe if they had picked a hard line social conservative like Rick Santorum or Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann, those 3 million people would have felt "enfrachised" and "enchanted" and gone out to vote. But how many people who voted for Romney would have stayed home if the Republican nominee had been a hardline social conservative? Furthermore, it also fails to consider how many people who stayed home might have gotten out to vote for Obama if faced with the possibility of an extreme conservative president. Anyway, whatever. While the current Tea Party mythology holds that they need to go far to the right to get real conservatives out to the polls, I doubt it's a winning strategy. I guess we'll see. -k

Evolution? Evolution is an undeniable fact. Microbiologists can demonstrate evolution in their laboratories with fast-breeding, short-lifespan microorganisms like bacteria. The evolution of drug-resistant bacteria is an example of the process at work. Perhaps you mean something more specific when you ask what support there is for evolution? Einstein, as far as I know, didn't have any biology credentials at all; I'm not sure what he has to do with this. As for Nagel, I'd never heard of him before. But this article makes it clear that he doesn't have any science credentials either. He is a philosopher. His objections to evolution are not that it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny, but rather that he objects to the idea that physical processes are the guiding force in the evolution of consciousness, because he believes consciousness has some quality that transcends physical processes. I'm not even sure what you can say in response to that. I'd like to highlight this quote from the article: What does "a defense of the untutored reaction of incredulity" mean? To me, it sounds like he is trying to defend "I don't understand how it works, but it doesn't make any sense" as a valid position from which to debate an issue. "I don't understand the science behind the process of evolution, but it doesn't make sense to me." It reminds me of Pliny's objections to relativity from prior threads. The idea that untutored incredulity is a legitimate debating position is probably very popular with untutored incredulous people, but science isn't a democracy. -k

Sure, Pliny, I'm telling you there's a chance. What are you on about this time? A chance of what? -k

Jesus sounded like a pretty cool guy. Plus, he gets me days off. -k

I would like to point out a couple of things: First off, "Betsy is right to wonder" incorrectly implies that betsy wonders. She doesn't. She is not a skeptical critic of evolution, she is a close-minded critic. She doesn't know how it works, she just knows it is wrong. Kind of like you and movies, August. You know which ones you hate before you've even watched them. So with Betsy. She's not searching the internet for information about the origins of life, she's searching the internet for web-pages that validate the opinion she already holds. Secondly, "and I won't belittle her faith" implies that Betsy's a victim of abuse, rather than the instigator. In fact, she is the instigator. She starts these threads-- and there have been dozens of them over the years-- for the purpose of attacking world views different from her own. -k

Translation: you're searching through Creation.com and AnswersInGenesis and Living Waters Ministries for pages that say "stasis disproves evolution". You'll probably find some, and it won't matter at all because those guys are just as wrong as the first guy. Just because a stupid idea is popular with other stupid people doesn't mean it isn't stupid. -k

Very well. Here you go. http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/topic/22477-15-questions-for-evolutionists/?p=890634 All that has been exposed here is your inability to recognize that the "sources" you like to refer to are a bunch of garbage. Anybody who completed Grade 12 biology ought to be able to recognize that the guy you're citing doesn't know what he's talking about, and yet you're trumpeting his web page like it's the biggest thing to hit biology since Watson and Crick. -k

There has been some amount of caterwauling in the "How Intelligent Design Works" thread due to the fact that I have been making fun of betsy's "top 100 list" in that thread without actually confronting it. Ok, due to popular demand, here it is. I could have a go at any or all of those items, but I will just take this one: That's it. That's all I need. That is irrefutable evidence that the writer doesn't understand the theory he says he's trying to ridicule. If you say you're going to disprove calculus and then proceed to demonstrate that you can't even do basic algebra, you've forfeited the right to be taken seriously. If you say you're going to disprove evolution, and offer up "why have cockroaches and horseshoe crabs stayed the same for eons?" you've forfeited the right to be taken seriously. It is such a dead giveaway that he has no idea what he is talking about that he might as well include "if humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" on his list too. There you go, Betsy. Happy now? -k

Typical from you. You're not capable of identifying what actual science is done by the "intelligent design" movement to support their theories. You're not capable of recognizing how badly informed the author of your "Things evolutionists hate" list is. And you're not capable of answering the question that has been posed to you. You're a propagandist. -k

And I was referring to your very odd notions of what qualifies as a "reliable source". What scientific support is being provided for creationism? What credible scientists are doing work in this field? What makes you think that there's a controversy in the scientific field at all? Evolution is part of the science curriculum because it has scientific value. But now we have creationists lobbying politicians that the curriculum should "teach the controversy!" as if there were any controversy. nuh-uh. I'm rubber and you're glue, it bounces off me and sticks to you. The kind of links you provide expose your own BS. You're willing to believe literally anything as long as it agrees with your beliefs. That you can't even recognize how bad the guy's list is is a damning indictment of how badly informed you are. -k

Are the advantages from being "white", or from being "not African American"? Maybe everybody except African Americans should have to wear an arm band? I vaguely recall seeing statistics indicating that black people who have immigrated to America from other countries fare better economically than black people born in America. It could be that the issue is not in how America views black people, but rather something culturally specific to American black people. -k

What qualifies as a reliable source to you? You just cut and pasted a long list of stuff from a guy whose main qualification appears to be that he has a website. Is he a "reliable source"? Are Ken Ham and Kent Hovind "reliable sources"? Is the Discovery Institute a "reliable source"? -k

Other than somebody using her quote on their website, she isn't involved. -k

There's no debate on this issue in the scientific community. The creationists aren't even trying. They have nothing to offer in that arena. They instead target their message to people who simply don't have adequate information to know any better. Children, Joe Six-Pack, grade-school teachers, politicians. They focus on two main themes: falsely claiming that there's a controversy in the first place, and misrepresenting evolution to invent misleading reasons why it doesn't make sense. Betsy's "top 100 list" is a typical example. Either through malice or ignorance, the author continually misrepresents evolution, natural selection, and makes arguments that might appeal to somebody who doesn't understand the topic but have no actual bearing on the issue. The good news is that the creationists have overwhelmingly lost this fight. -k

No, it does not mean "indoctrination, Kremlin style". Steinem posits that prejudices are learned behaviors, and that we could overcome prejudice by "unlearning" the prejudices we have learned during our lives. -k

I haven't had trouble with videos, but have been having the same issue with images as the others. I am glad to hear there is a work-around, but it seems like the editing interface is starting to go senile or something. -k

Yeah, I think people earning $60,000 and up can afford to brown-bag it. If that's the best example of the effects of sequestration that she can come up with, maybe sequestration isn't so bad. -k

A dog-whistle? I think it's more like an August-whistle-- a secret message sent at a frequency that only you alone, among all earth's inhabitants, can hear. Everybody else in Canada heard a warning against unsustainable borrowing, or meddling in the real-estate market, depending on your point of view. August heard a ploy to win votes by playing the role of surrogate husband to single female voters who want to be lectured about their spending. I'm speechless, really. -k

I recently stumbled onto some more recent Motorhead songs that I had never heard before. I really liked these: One More ****ing Time God Was Never On Your Side I love Lemmy's voice. -k

Wow, that was intense! That's pretty cool. (Except for the singer's attempt at dance.) It reminded me of Kyuss. I have been listening to the Sheepdogs and the Black Keys a lot lately. -k

I'm not making fun of Shady for being wrong about the election. I'm making fun of the premise that living inside the Breitbart/Fox/WND echo-chamber makes Shady better informed than the rest of us. I mentioned the election because it drew such a sharp distinction between the people who get their information from the echo-chamber and people who go to "the lame-stream media". -k