A majority (60%) of Australians think same-sex marriage is just fine. The story has an associated poll, though, and the results are tipped just a little bit the other way. What’s wrong here? Fix it!
Are you in favour of same-sex marriage in Australia?
Yes
44%
No
55%
We might have some opposition on this one. A Christian, anti-science, anti-choice, anti-gay organization called Salt Shakers is pushing this poll, too. We must defeat them. Steamroller the salt shakers!
Ah, poor Wisconsin…our neighboring state to the east, where the people are frail and frightened, and unable to cope with the rigors of reality. (That ought to get a few of them fired up, don’t you think?)
There is a little dustup going on in the town of West Bend, Wisconsin. The local bluenoses noticed that there are books that discuss human sexuality in the library — and some of them are even written for teenagers! Teenagers, of course, never think about sex and have no interest in the subject unless some vile prurient publication stirs them up, so the crusaders for purity are stridently demanding that these books be removed from view.
One particular target of their fury is a book by Francesca Lia Block, Baby Be-Bop, which commits the sin of writing positively about young gay men and negatively about gay bashing. A group called the Christian Civil Liberties Union has filed suit over the book, since it exists at the library, and they don’t like it.
The plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, say their mental and emotional well-being were damaged by the book at the Library, the claim states.
That must be one powerful book. It sits on a shelf balefully, emanating damaging gay-rays that permeate the whole town, and disrupting the sexual health of its inhabitants. Perhaps the elderly are especially fragile and sensitive to its effects. Imagine some tired old codger, exhausted after a lifetime of aggressive heterosexuality, sitting in his easy chair before the TV, and suddenly he starts feeling frisky at the sight of Matlock reruns — it must be distressing. And the fault must lie in some kids’ book sitting in a library a few miles away, undermining their ancient manliness.
The prudes have created a blog, and it’s clear that it isn’t just gay sexuality that terrifies them, it’s any sexuality. They link to a couple of pages from books that horrify them: they don’t like sex ed with illustrations kids can understand, fiction that talks about high school kids’ experiences with sex and drugs, or books about female sexuality.
It’s pathetic and sad. I shouldn’t laugh at Wisconsin too much, though, since this really is the work of a timid minority — the city had a referendum on whether the library should censor these books, and the majority said no. That has just inflamed them, though, and now the puritans are suing for the right to burn books.
It always gets down to that with the knuckle-draggers, doesn’t it?
I offer them a compromise. They already have the right to burn books: all they have to do is buy a copy, take it home, and toss it into the fireplace. That’s not at all illegal! Unfortunately, what they want is the right to burn other people’s books, and I’m sorry, that would be uncivilized.
A short while ago, the blogosphere was irate over the outing of the identity of a pseudonymous blogger, Publius. The outing followed the usual pattern: pseudonymous blogger annoys right-winger who can’t cope, right-winger lashes out by revealing the name behind the pseudonym (as if that somehow addresses the criticisms), then right-winger sits back and starts defending himself: “he deserved it”, “he shouldn’t expect to be anonymous”, “anonymity is bad, anyways”. It’s so damned stupid.
I have no problem with people using pseudonyms, especially since, as in the case of Publius, there was a consistent voice behind the name, and the person was not trying to avoid being called on his ideas (the fly-by-night, daily change of names by some trolls and sock puppets is a different thing altogether — that is an attempt to avoid being pinned down). When an outer decides to reveal a name behind the identity, though, that is simply an act of cowardice — an attempt to run away from engagement with the ideas to switch to personal intimidation. It is contemptible, no matter what your motivation.
Now we have another example: the Canadian Cynic has been outed. A sanctimonious right-wing she-git declared his identity because he called her mean names, and then justified it this way:
Outing bloggers isn’t usually my thing. I don’t see a point to it. But when you repeatedly abuse and demean people because they do not march in lockstep with you, I’m sorry but you deserve it.
Ah, sweetly stupid rationalizations — don’t they do such a good job of exposing the quality of the intellect behind them? It usually isn’t her thing…but she did it. I want to see a murderer try this defense: “I don’t kill people every day, it was just this one time!” Yeah, that makes it OK. Then she says she didn’t see a point to it…so what was her point? She doesn’t have one. She’s just lashing out angrily, as we can see in her next excuse: he deserved it. She sees it as a punishment. Which, of course, is why she also links to his business in her outing post.
If you know that something is wrong, since you admit to avoiding doing it, and if you know that there is no point to it other than to try to hurt someone personally and materially, there is a simple rule to follow: don’t do it. If you do it anyway, that just means you’re a self-confessed douchebag.
Besides, those of us who have known Canadian Cynic for a long time are just laughing. Larry Moran has known his identity for years. So have I.
It’s an open secret — the people who outed him are no geniuses, that’s for sure, and it wasn’t that hard to track him down. It was pointless, trivial, and accomplished nothing but expose his critics as petty cranks, confirming what CC has been saying about them all along.
And will his exposure change his behavior? Why, no. Like I said, many of us have known him for a long time, and by his work against creationism (under his full name) and his acerbic posts on usenet (under his own name). I expect him to be even more vocal now.
Case in point: he’ll be speaking in Toronto on 3 July, on the subject of Creationism, ID and the Douchebaggery of Really Bad Arguments: An Evening with the Canadian Cynic.
Ooooh. He sounds really intimidated.
I think she’s dropping a hint about paternal roles.
Read an online debate between Troy Newman, stooge from Operation Rescue, and Cristina Page, a legitimate advocate for reproductive rights, and then vote on who made the best case. Newman made the same hypocritical arguments the anti-abortionists always make, so I know where my vote went. But of course the knee-jerk goons from Operation Rescue have already hit the poll, and Newman is claiming to have won.
Well, sure, the poll shows Newman leading Page 54:46 right now, but that might just change soon. You think?
I thought I knew of all the institutions of higher learning in my neighborhood, but I seem to have missed one: The University Of Metaphysical Sciences, located in the small town of Kandiyohi, Minnesota. I even know exactly where that is — it’s just outside of Willmar, where my wife works every day.
You might be wondering what, exactly, you would learn at a University Of Metaphysical Sciences. Well, that isn’t clear. You get to learn about Colors and Symbols, and Chakras, and how to connect with Angels (if I were younger, I’d be tempted to get a degree in that, just so I could use it as a pick-up line), and Miracles, and the Energy of Money.
How much does it cost? Tuition is a low, low $2000. It’s even cheaper than it sounds, because they assure us that most students can complete a full Ph.D. program in only a year — it’s so quick and easy, they even recommend that you get two doctoral degrees! I’m feeling slow and inadequate now…it took me five years to get just one.
What about accreditation? Well, accreditation, they assure us, is entirely optional and not necessary, but just in case, they do have accreditation from the American Alternative Medical Association and the American Association Of Drugless Practitioners. That really should count as just one, though: their webpages look identical, only the names, fonts and backgrounds have been changed, and they all trace back to the same small town outfit in Gilmer, Texas. They seem to be in the business of selling certificates to hang on a wall (only $285, they accept both Visa and MasterCard), so at least they seem to be UMS’s peer institutions!
And just what can you do with a Ph.D. in Metaphysics? I wish I could say you learn how to fly, negate energy fields, and speak dolphin, but this is all you can do:
A degree from University Of Metaphysical Sciences qualifies a graduate to perform official ceremonies such as ministerial work, weddings, spiritual counseling, teaching, lecturing on the international circuit, credentialed book writing, setting up a spiritual center, and a variety of other services.
Isn’t that just…fluffy? Makes me want to run down to Kandiyohi and, I don’t know, piss in their mail slot or something. Or maybe explain to their students that their accrediting institutions are mail drops in Texas, that their degrees are completely worthless, that none of their credits will ever transfer to a legitimate college, and that no, a mail-order diploma from a joke like UMS does not give you any credibility on the international lecture circuit.
The endless thread continues. Our creationist cretins in the old thread are still jabbering away, making progressively less sense as time goes by, and various sub-themes continue to branch from it, but I can’t keep track of it all. Talk about whatever you want here.
One subject I might suggest is what to do with Alan Clarke and RogerS, the two babblers who keep this stuff going. I know, you’re like a bunch of tigers with a cat toy, and you’re all battering these guys back and forth, but they are getting old and stale — they’re clearly brain-dead, and Alan, a supposed computer professional, can’t even fix his web page. It’s nice that they’re confined to limited threads, but in case you hadn’t noticed, Scienceblogs is currently running on an old Commodore with a 1200 baud modem, so these bloated threads are a bit of a strain.
Keep them around for entertainment value? Boot ’em? Give Alan a deadline to fix his web page, or then kick his dilatory butt from the blog? You call it.
When I was growing up, I had no introduction to evolutionary theory. Sure, I assumed it was true, and I went through the usual long phase of dinosaur fandom, but I was never taught anything at all about evolution throughout my grade school education, and what little I did know was largely stamp-collecting. That all changed, though, when I went off to college.
I can’t credit the schools I went to, unfortunately: most of my undergraduate education (with a few wonderful exceptions) was the usual mega-survey course, where the instructor stuck a funnel in our heads and poured in facts for a term — so more stamp-collecting. What happened to me, though, was that I was struck by two thunderbolts at almost the same time. The hot science book that was published during my freshman year was E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology, and I bought it and devoured it and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was more buckets of facts, but in this case, these facts were deployed to illuminate an overarching idea about how the world works…and I found it wonderful.
The second thunderbolt was Stephen Jay Gould. He was doing the same thing, promoting ideas powerfully with evidence and rhetoric, and he was far easier to read than Wilson, and communicated even more clearly. It was also wonderful.
Of course, if you know anything about the intellectual landscape of the 1970s, you know that I had acquired as two scientific god-parents two warring camps who were hellbent against one another in a period of angry evolutionary ferment. I am the product of a broken home! It was especially tragic, because in my naiveté, I thought most of the conflict was a waste, that each side had an important perspective, and that the right answer was an appreciation of the power of selection and an understanding of the other modes of change operating over history.
I’ve long been interested in the battle royale that went on in that period — it’s like a child’s morbid dwelling on the scab of an ugly parental divorce — and in particular with that central figure, Steve Gould. Last week I was sent a copy of a book by David F. Prindle, Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), so of course I had to read it.
This is going too far. As you probably know, Apple has run a long series of ads where they personify computers: the Mac is the young, cool, hip dude, while the PC is the stodgy old loser. It has been a very successful campaign, and various other companies have tried to copy it or defuse it. But sometimes they are too slavishly following the concept and lose any credibility or any awards for creativity. Latest case: OpenBSD proposes a series of ads with their own personified operating systems. It’s never going to happen — they can’t afford the talent they want to use — and it’s also too overwrought. It’s got Vin Diesel as OpenBSD, and Yoko Ono as a Mac (yes, I am offended!), and no mention of Linux (Greg is offended!) but I still approve, because it’s got the only acceptable use of Ben Stein in a commercial, playing the role of a PC.
Ben Stein is shown knee deep in sludge at the bottom of a porta-potty tank. Stein waves up at the camera and calls cheerfully, “Hey there, OpenBSD!”
Vin Diesel wrinkles his nose and replies, “Uh, what are you doing down there, PC?”
In response, Stein cups his hands and scoops up a hearty mass of brown goop. Holding it close to his face, Stein says, “I’m trying out Vista!” He then buries his face in sewage, pulls out gasping and choking, and proceeds to vomit down the front of his shirt.
Diesel looks aghast and says, “That… doesn’t look very healthy, PC. I’ve heard some pretty bad things about Vista.”
A visibly shaken Ben Stein gathers himself and retorts sarcastically, “Yeah, Vista is bad, evolution is real, and I just traded the last unicorn for a bag of magic beans. Wake up, OpenBSD! There’s a whole wide world out here!” Stein stretches his arms wide in the dank confines of the porta-potty’s waste tank.
OpenBSD is a good OS, but I’m not excited by it…but man, I want to see this commercial made, just to get Stein frolicking in sewage. It’s never going to happen, alas.
How will we ever recover from this discovery of a profound inconsistency in evolutionary theory?
I blame whoever gave Will Farrell his Ph.D. in Science.
