Up, up and away

I’m expecting a busy, busy day tomorrow — I have to get up painfully early to drive to Minneapolis and fly off to Atlanta. Y’all remember we’ve got a Pharyngufest at Manuel’s at 6, and I expect everyone to come on down and say hello.

I am not looking forward to another run through TSA. There may also be a hatchet job in the Washington Times tomorrow morning — watch for it. I think I’ll be reading some science papers on my flight, and do not want to hear another word from loons for a while. Skeptics! GECCO! Science! Excelsior!

I get email — special cracker edition!

You asked for it, I deliver. Here’s a good chunk of the opposition email that I’ve received in the last two days; not quite all of it, though, since I got bored and a lot of it has just been going straight into the trash. I’ve tried to cut out most of the identifying names and so forth, but if I missed a few…tough.

Trust me, it’s very tiresome to read.

[Read more…]

Can this possibly get more insane?

The Catholic League has issued another press release. In addition to disparaging the theory of evolution as the “King Kong Theory of Creation” (which is a bit peculiar, since Catholicism does not take a stand against evolution), he accuses me and my ilk (that’s you, fair readers) of hysteria while making this hysterical declaration:

As a result of the hysteria that Myers’ ilk have promoted, at least one public official is taking it seriously. Thomas E. Foley is chairman of Virginia’s First Congressional District Republican Committee, a delegate to the Republican National Convention and one of two Republican at large nominees for Virginia’s Electoral College. His concern is for the safety of Catholics attending this year’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Myers’ backyard. Accordingly, Foley has asked the top GOP brass to provide additional security while in the Twin Cities so that Catholics can worship without fear of violence. Given the vitriol we have experienced for simply exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, we support Foley’s request.

They are increasing security at the Republican convention out of fear of ME? I am puissant. Fear me, O Trembling Republicans. A flick of my wrist, and cathedrals tumble to the earth; a nod of my head, and heathen legions rise up and swarm like flesh-eating locusts over the faithful.

Hah.

The remark about my backyard is amusing — Minneapolis is 150 miles away. It’s also more towards one side of my house; I think Iowa would be my backyard, while Canada is my front yard. I sure hope I don’t get assessed for property taxes on the entire upper midwest.

Quaker cannons in a digital age

While everyone here is distracted by the debate over whether a cracker is tasteless bread dough or a sacred slice of man/god meat, the right-wing source of outrage du jour is a widely published photograph of an Iranian missile test in which one of the missiles was clearly photoshopped into the picture. Gary Farber cuts through the crap and points out that yes, government propaganda agencies will lie to you. So?

If the right wing wants to fuel more hysteria to incite war with Iran, though, it seems like a mistake on their part to emphasize that one quarter of their weaponry are digital confabulations.

Another off-the-wall argument against evolution

One of the best things about following the antics of creationists is that it gives you a better appreciation of the creative power of the human mind…which isn’t anywhere near as powerful as reality. Here’s another example of creationist rationalization that doesn’t hold up well under even casual inspection.

With the notable exception of the American Bison most mammals have two separate pleural or lung cavities. As we all know, one side of our chest can be penetrated collapsing that lung, but the other side remains intact and the remaining lung can support life. The bison has what is called an incomplete mediastinum, that is there is but one pleural cavity containing both lungs. Thus the problem for the Native bow hunter with or without a horse is solved. An arrow must only penetrate the chest at any point and both lungs collapse. The fatally wounded animal would only continue a few yards providing unlimited food, clothing and tools. Before the availability of horses bison could be shot by stealth from a blind or other hiding place. One problem is solved yet another serious comes to mind…a problem seldom mentioned, yet demanding an answer.

The problem is for the evolutionist. Other than providing food for hungry people, of what selective advantage is an incompletely divided mediastinum? From an evolutionary sense this makes absolutely no sense. Indeed conventional wisdom would argue for its elimination from the gene pool. Yet it did remain and fed a continent of Native American for centuries. It must indeed require faith and dedication to remain an evolutionist. I am glad I know the Creator of Bison and Native Americans. You can know Him too.

So, wait…God hates bison? Doesn’t this create a logical problem for the creationist, in that God has made the primary large game animal targeted by the Native Americans exceptionally fragile?

And let’s question that assumption: bison aren’t particularly weak, and there’s no reason to assume that selection would work to promote the evolution of dual compartments in the chest cavity — that’s almost certainly an embryological accident in the first place. How many wild animals are running around with only one lung? Not many. If you’re attacked in such a way that your chest cavity is perforated, the only difference between a separated and unseparated mediastinum is whether your death will be slow or quick.

And of course, I thought the Hebrews were the chosen people. How come God didn’t give the Middle East a population of big game animals they could knock over with a good sharp poke?

Canadian Cynic has a nice sharp rebuttal: “…if God had really cared about native Americans, he might have given them immunity to smallpox.”

Any TAM6 attendees here?

In a great big ugly oops, the A/V geeks at TAM6 were not true geeks in that they screwed up and lost all the audio of an entire day’s worth of recordings at the meeting. This is bad, because it means all the clever slams and insults given to Phil Plait will not be passed down to posterity. If you’ve got recordings of the event, contact the skeptics and help them out.

(I suppose we could all just call in and make fresh new jokes at Phil’s expense, but they wouldn’t sync with our lip movements as well.)