New year, same as the old year. In 2020, I went into the spring term worried about this new virus everyone was talking about, and then it just got worse and worse until all in-person classes were cancelled mid semester and everything fell into chaos as we struggled to turn our courses into something new.
I’ll be content if 2022 doesn’t turn into a reprise of 2020, or 2021, or 1350.
It brings a tear to my eye to see a couple of conspiracy theories come together with a dash of the apocalypse.
Challenge accepted. I have an elegant little disproof I’m polishing up right now, which I anticipate publishing on 6 January.
If you’re bored and feel like exploring all of life, try the One Zoom explorer. It’s a graphical interface to a collection of data about phylogeny.
It’s interesting and useful at the top level, but as you dig down into the twigs and leaves, it starts to fall apart, lacking in detail. That’s what you’d expect if you’re trying to track about 1.5 million documented species (somewhere over 10 million species total). It does help communicate the diversity and complexity of life, though.
Let’s look at vaccination rates for every county in the US against the percentage that voted for Trump, shall we?
That’s his legacy, ignorance and death.
A lot of presidents in every party can claim to have left a legacy of death, but this is a stunning anti-accomplishment that might only be rivaled by Ronald Reagan and W.
You better join us for our livestream this afternoon, because we’ve lined up an all-star cast. Aron Ra! Dark Lilith! Emma Thorne! GonnaGoForIt! The only person not invited is Kent Hovind, I think.
Good news: Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty. I think we can also consider this a conviction for Jeffrey Epstein, since there has to be a child rapist to receive delivery from a child trafficker.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime paramour of financier Jeffrey Epstein, was convicted on sex-trafficking charges after a trial that centered on what types of enabling conduct — including befriending young girls and teaching and scheduling them to massage an older man — should be considered criminal.
Maxwell, 60, was accused of recruiting teenage girls to massage Epstein at his homes in Palm Beach, Fla., New York, New Mexico and elsewhere between 1994 and 2004.
Epstein allegedly paid the girls hundreds of dollars in cash for the massages, which involved sexual touching and which he expected three times a day. He died by suicide 28 months ago, while awaiting his own trial.
The jury found Maxwell guilty on five of six counts, including conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking of an individual under 18. She was found not guilty of enticement of one individual under 17 with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.
Also, though, I must ask what has happened to the BBC? They asked Alan Dershowitz to provide commentary on the verdict.
After Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty Wednesday on five of six sex trafficking counts for her role in procuring young girls for her former boyfriend and serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to abuse, BBC News took to the airwaves to analyze the proceedings. And they brought on Alan Dershowitz, notably named by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre as one of the men (she has also claimed Prince Andrew sexually assaulted her) she said Epstein and Maxwell allegedly forced her to have sex with repeatedly when she was underage. Dershowitz has denied the allegations.
He is currently suing one of Epstein’s victims, so the BBC should have known better — there’s an obvious conflict of interest. Dershowitz should have known better, too, but he’s nothing but a sleazy hack already.
Another reminder:
Big day of remembrance and reflection for all our heroes of Science and Rationality. pic.twitter.com/eZNX0cnPQp
— Kieran Healy (@kjhealy) December 30, 2021
Maybe the BBC should convene a round table conversation with Pinker, Krauss, Dawkins, Summers, etc. to sadly discuss the fate of their old friends.
Belatedly, the BBC says “oops”.
Come on, every news service. Scratch Alan Dershowitz off your invitation lists already, just like all those scientists should have automatically shunned Jeffrey Epstein.
I cannot resist. Tomorrow (30 December) at 1pm Central, I’ll be hosting a livestream to laugh at Kent Hovind. It might just be an hour of belly laughs.
As I predicted, Kent Hovind & Matt Powell were so stung by Emma Thorne’s video that she’s the subject of their “wack-an-atheist” video tonight.
What’s most hilarious, though, is that they’ve been flailing about for 20 minutes now, and their audio is totally fucked up. It’s unintelligible. Both Powell and Hovind are sitting there, and they haven’t once looked at their audience’s chat, where everyone is yelling at them to fix the audio.
Amazing. He’s done now. He streamed for 42 minutes and never once noticed all his fans screaming at him in the chat that the audio was broken.
Most of you missed it (lucky you), but we do have YouTube’s automated transcript of the whole show. It only includes the words the machine could make out, so it’s a bit…abbreviated. Savor the one time Kent Hovind made sense.
00:23 wednesday
00:42 oh
00:47 okay
01:23 is
01:35 them
01:49 [Music]
01:56 [Music]
02:02 okay
02:04 [Music]
02:11 [Music]
02:34 foreign
03:28 here we go
03:35 [Music]
03:57 okay
04:01 oh
04:26 thank you
04:51 something like that
05:04 hello people my name is evan welcome
05:06 back to my channel welcome
05:13 this is going to be
05:14 my
05:16 last video
05:36 is
06:01 oh
06:28 is
06:41 um
06:58 two weeks
07:42 but we took over shortly after
07:45 yeah
07:59 you have 13
08:01 600 subscribers and uh
08:16 what
08:27 [Music]
08:37 he’s right
08:47 but
08:47 you got a lot of them they’re in the 40
08:49 000s
09:12 [Music]
09:17 okay
09:31 is
09:46 [Music]
10:14 you are the most disengaged
10:58 you continue
11:03 okay
11:37 is
11:44 is
12:07 no
12:22 send me an email send it all over or
12:24 record by drnine.com
12:48 okay
13:28 now
13:42 okay
14:04 foreign
14:24 is
14:46 okay
14:58 foreign
15:50 oh
16:33 also
17:23 is
17:44 okay
17:57 um
18:21 [Music]
18:44 i’m professional
19:13 [Music]
19:18 oh
19:52 okay
20:23 [Music]
20:41 okay
21:28 anytime
22:23 correct
22:32 um
22:48 is
23:27 [Music]
23:34 huh
23:47 just not fine
23:57 foreign
24:14 okay
24:30 is
24:32 again
24:55 how many of you have never heard of my
24:58 voice is
25:27 foreign
26:06 is
26:26 is
26:44 legal systems
27:06 is
27:17 [Music]
27:30 they don’t believe in their marriage
27:56 [Music]
27:59 foreign
28:09 permissions
28:54 we came up here
29:22 i’m
29:32 pick up
29:53 we got married
30:42 okay
30:58 is
31:16 excuse me
31:31 what
31:51 themselves
31:53 at what they come up with
32:40 hey
32:51 foreign
33:04 uh
33:48 is
33:49 [Music]
33:58 foreign
34:06 is
34:22 [Music]
34:24 wonderful
34:42 oh
35:13 [Music]
35:22 recently
35:23 [Music]
35:47 um
35:55 [Music]
36:22 oh
36:38 and
36:51 sorry
36:55 it’s not the first time
37:33 oh
37:48 okay
38:16 i was
38:20 [Music]
38:24 my
38:44 is
39:26 okay
39:43 okay
40:03 [Music]
40:35 and you can find out the truth for
40:37 yourself
41:18 okay
41:32 you
41:43 exactly here
41:57 you want to go
42:05 uh
42:19 now
42:42 [Music]
42:44 okay
