If you’re trying to come up with names for an exotic element with amazing properties for that comic book, fantasy novel, or role-playing game you’re writing, here’s a list of apocryphal elements (there’s also a similar list with more details). These are all genuine false alarms from the world of science, guaranteed to have been generated from the twisted minds of actual chemists and physicists.
We really need elements called Ultimium and Extremium. Neokosmium isn’t bad, either.
The latest Gene Genie #6 is rich in genetical goodness, but the rap video about Mendel? That’s pure wickedness. I almost regret that my genetics lectures are over for this term, so I can’t inflict it on my students.
I even tried going back and changing some of my answers to get a slightly less extreme result, but it sensed my true nature over the tubes of the internet.
I did discover that if I lied in response to every question, I could get it to judge me as “angelic”.
(via Circe)
We’ve been experiencing a great howling windstorm since yesterday — it seems to be a common event every spring around here that we get a storm or two just to teach the trees that this is supposed to be prairie. Our excitement for the day is that this huge old willow in our yard lost another limb, something like what happened two years ago. At that time, a major limb smacked down on the south side of the tree; this year, an even larger branch smashed down to the north. That monster is significantly bigger around than I am.
Here’s Skatje sitting in the wreckage. She was very enthusiastic about getting out there and sawing at some of the lesser branches so we could swing the debris out of the road and the sidewalk. We’re going to have to get a professional tree service to take care of the rest.
We’ve been lucky so far — the deadfalls have paralleled the house, and no one has been under them. Looking at what’s left of the tree, the next big branch to go is either going to fall to the east and take out our car, or to the west and take out the neighbor’s garage. Old Man Willow is out to get us, we may have to terminate him first.
It’s strange (but typical) how creationists will simply make up an answer to that question that trivializes the number of discovered fossils — the latest is DaveScot, who claims they “wouldn’t fill a single coffin.” Afarensis tallies them up. Would you be surprised to learn that DaveScot was making it all up?
It was as inane as you might have expected. It turns out that
their “proof” of the existence of god was the coke can argument. If you don’t know what that argument is, here it is: it begins about 2½ minutes into this, and is over about 3½ minutes in. He could have done it all in one minute!
I’m sorry, but if you’re at all convinced by that pathetic argument, please, get help.
Comfort simply asserts that everything that exists had to have a creator. He goes on to build a silly argument: buildings must have a builder, paintings must have a painter, therefore creation must have a creator. We’ve been having a storm here in Morris, so I guess when I hear thunder I should assume there is a thunderer.
Anyway, I guess I don’t need to tune in to the broadcast on Wednesday, and I don’t have to worry about bothering a priest to tend to my conversion—those two guys are blithering cretins.
Frank Tipler claims to have proven the existence of god with phyics. Will this be the sort of answer we’ll see in Ray Comfort’s promised 13 minute proof?
That recent D’Souza article is a rich vein of lunacy that I have to tap once more. D’Souza has additional tools to woo conservatives in his toolbox: how about the naturalistic fallacy?
So the Republicans find themselves confused about science (especially evolution), and are arguing among themselves about how to cope with reality. Perhaps you think this is a promising development—they’re at least considering the issues, and their hidebound attachment to fantasy is weakening. Can we someday hope that the Republican Party will once again be the home of pragmatists? Will the political props supporting creationism disappear? Does the fact that only 3 of the Republican candidates raised their hands to deny evolution promise that reason may yet reign?
No. There is another tactic growing stronger in the ranks of the creationists, one that is stealthy and devious, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the majority of Republicans (and Democrats!) adhere to this peculiar view of evolution.
For a perfect example of the new creationist strategy, look to Dinesh D’Souza. Not only is he a good example, but he’s also stupid enough to let all the flaws and inconsistencies in this new view hang out, exposed for all to see.
Christopher Hitchens’ appearance on the Daily Show was a disappointment—largely because Hitchens seemed to be half in the bag, and Stewart kept stepping all over his words trying to make them funny, and the short format was not to the favor of a fellow who tends to speak in complete sentences and paragraphs. So how about a half hour interview with an alert Hitchens, with an interviewer who’s interested in hearing what he has to say, and gives him the opportunity to speak at more length? Here’s Hitchens on the Charlie Rose show.
Much better, even if I disagreed strongly with Hitchens on much of what he said.
More than half of the interview is taken up with discussing the Iraq war. I agree with Hitchens’ assessment that an important nation in the Middle East is on the road to destruction, that it is going to be a failed state, and that by pulling out we diminish the power of the US in the region. I also agree that it is a great tragedy, and that leaving Iraq will mean many of our supporters will die. Where I disagree, though, is that Hitchens thinks the war was inevitable and necessary, and that the US did the right thing by invading. I say we sowed the seeds of defeat when our government decided the appropriate response was to invade with crushing force, and make Iraq a treasure chest to be looted by military contractors. The current ongoing debacle can be blamed directly on the credulous boosters for war as a prerequisite for nation building, of whom Hitchens was one.
The last half is a discussion of his new book, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). I haven’t read it yet—my copy is supposed to arrive this next week—but I’m looking forward to it, and there’s some hope from this interview that it will be a solid piece of work. This part of the interview was much less contentious than the first half, I thought — I’d be curious to see what a Christian pro-war Republican would say, though.
