Schlafly wants to play rough now

Andy Schlafly is one persistent fool. After harrassing Richard Lenski not once, but twice, prompting one of the best smackdowns on the intertubes, Schlafly now wants to take some vague sort of legal action against Lenski to get his own copy of every bit of data Lenski has generated in 20 years … data that he wouldn’t understand, and which would include bacterial samples that he couldn’t maintain, and requiring so much effort to collect (can you imagine having to go through 20 years worth of stored bacterial samples to create a copy?) that it would disrupt research in the lab to an unacceptable degree. That’s what he wants, of course: he’s a petulant incompetent who doesn’t like the conclusions of research into evolution, and who has to be smarting over the international peals of laughter that have been made at his expense.

Here’s the text of Schlafly’s pretentious “challenge” (Sorry, I’m not linking to the Conservapædia fecal pond).

A Conservapedia challenge is an unsolved problem or task that offers the promise of bettering society when lawfully accomplished.

The first Conservapedia challenge is to find a legal means for obtaining public disclosure of Lenski’s federally funded data.

I don’t see how figuring out a legal strategy that will enable creationists to shut down biology labs with harassment will better society.

Coloradans are wimps!

We had a great time at Wynkoop’s tonight, although I noticed that the other attendees at our Pharyngufest were fading out at 10:00 — I had to mention to quite a few people that they had no stamina at all.

Although the fact that they started drinking at 5pm and Wynkoop’s has a marvelous assortment of microbrews might have had something to do with it. Truth be told, I was starting to feel a little woozy myself. Anyway, if you weren’t there, too bad. Here’s a little panarama of the crowd.

It turned out that Wynkoop’s was an excellent venue for another reason: check out this amazing mural that was hanging there. I think it’s something from Ray Troll.

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As long as we’re showing off great artwork…nice tattoos!

Darn. It came out too dark. She has a scarlet A on one arm, and a Darwin fish on the other.

Public intellectuals labeled and targeted

If you’re looking for more members of my tribe, here’s a a list of The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs. There’s no indication of how they determined that these were “top” blogs, or what a “top” blog is (there is some sexual innuendo we could indulge in there), and strangely, Aetiology is classified as a psychology blog…it was probably compiled by a liberal arts professor. Anyway, you can find some interesting blogs here!

Chris Comer strikes back

Chris Comer, who was fired for whispering “Barbara Forrest“, is fighting back. This could get interesting.

Christina Comer, who lost her job at the TEA last fall, said in a suit filed in federal court in Austin that she was terminated for contravening an “unconstitutional” policy at the agency. The policy required employees to be neutral on the subject of creationism – the biblical interpretation of the origin of humans, she said.

The policy was in force, according to the suit, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that teaching creationism as science in public schools is illegal.

“The agency’s ‘neutrality’ policy has the purpose or effect of endorsing religion, and thus violates the Establishment Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said.

Although…every time the evolution issue goes to court, I feel like we’re sailing off into a dangerous fantasy land where decisions will be made on the basis of something other than their correspondence to reality.

Denver bound in the morning

Remember, all the cool people in Denver will be at the Wynkoop Brewing Company around 5 on Thursday evening—I have been warned, however, that there will simultaneously be some peculiar game called base-ball played on a nearby empty field. It appears to be a sporting event in which hooligans compete with scalliwags in determining who can hit balls with clubs and scamper about in circles the most, and its inexplicable popularity means that parking in the area will be in short supply. Use mass transit if you can. Avoid burley men with sticks.

I can see already that I shall have to try a Silverback Smoked Porter while I’m there, to help gorilla conservation and to honor an absent ape.

Hitchens under torture

Christopher Hitchens’ views on war in the Middle East often infuriate me, even while I greatly enjoyed his views on religion. My respect for him goes up, though, because he has done something I wouldn’t: to determine whether it really was torture, he had himself waterboarded by the US military (and if you relish the thought of watching Hitchens actually being tortured, it was recorded on video).

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning–or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and–as you might expect–inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

The answer is clear.

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

It is a dreadful act to perform on the subject, and it degrades those who do it. I’m ashamed to admit that I would like to see all of the proponents of torture in this awful war subjected to this treatment; it is by an act of conscience that we have to say it must not be allowed to happen to anyone.

(via Cycle Ninja)

Our Serious News Media: Newsweek

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Yikes. As everyone seems to have noticed, their cover story this week is Lincoln vs. Darwin, an absurd premise driven by the coincidence of their common birthday, which stoops to quoting their horoscope at us.

As soon as you do start comparing this odd couple, you discover there is more to this birthday coincidence than the same astrological chart (as Aquarians, they should both be stubborn, visionary, tolerant, free-spirited, rebellious, genial but remote and detached–hmmm, so far so good).

And of course, this being our brain-dead media, it can’t actually discuss them as independent people who made their own unique contributions to the world, it has to turn it into a horse race and ask, “Who was more important?” (I won’t give the answer away, but here’s a hint: which one was American?) It’s a glib and superficial bit of tripe.

The only good part is that it does define what a scientist is. This will be handy when people ask what I do for a living.

And Darwin, at least at the outset, was hardly even a scientist in the sense that we understand the term–a highly trained specialist whose professional vocabulary is so arcane that he or she can talk only to other scientists.

You can read more about this major media event at the Sandwalk and RichardDawkins.net. Sad to say, I don’t seem to share a birthday with any major historical figures, precluding any hypothetical rivalries. Although I was born on the same day as a major earthquake in the Aleutian Islands, if that means anything.

Unintended consequences

I rather like the growing bans on smoking in bars and restaurants — it makes them much more pleasant places for those of us who’d rather not inhale poisons from acrid, burning weeds involuntarily. But maybe an exception should be made from places where the burning and inhaling of plant matter is the whole intent of visiting, as is being discovered in the Netherlands.

Millions of people flock to Amsterdam’s “coffee shops” every year to legally buy cannabis and hashish over the counter and to smoke it without fear of arrest, as long as they are on the premises.

But the new law bans tobacco inside café and restaurants, meaning cannabis users are now forced to light up potent and heady pipes and joints loaded with pure marijuana.

So now visitors are getting toasted on extra-potent weed.

Hey, is this just a publicity stunt for the new “Harold and Kumar” movie?