I Love This Guy...

Sometime I wish I was a conservative Christian so that I could feel the surge of power through my body when I read a story like this one. Honestly, who else could say things like this and get away with it?? Not to many people in the public eye, so whats the lesson? Establish yourself early as a crazy nutjob and you can basically say what you want, when you want. Pat Robertson, you are one of the last great heroes.

Kansas to World: "We are Smarter Than You"

This intelligent design debate just won't die, which is good for those that support the theory that life is so complex it must have had an intelligent designer behind it. As long as the debate continues, the theory itself gains validity. To smack it done as ludicrous and incredible would seem to be the obvious thing to do, but everyday there is another story of a group in power either approving the decision to teach it or striking it down as nothing more than "Creationism" with a slightly scientific backing. Recently this debate has been put to the courts to decide, and we are still stuck with a stalemate. In Dover, PA voters recently booted out 8 members of the educational board, all supporters of teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in the public school system. Thank you Dover for restoring my faith in Pennsyltucky. Feeling proud that my fellow Americans were starting to see the light I am smacked with reality as Kansas goes ahead and approves the teaching of intelligent design alongside what they (those that voted this in) call the "flawed theory of evolution". They also went ahead and re-defined the word science while they were at it. Now science is not solely "the search for natural explanations of Phenomena". These people cannot be serious. Here is a quote from Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Board of Ed democrat on the decision, it pretty much sums up what I and most likely many informed Americans are feeling:

“This is a sad day. We’re becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that..."

I raised a point a few entries ago about why we as a nations were the only ones to be making a big stink about this. If intelligent design is such a rationale and non biased theory, then why are we the only ones to push it so hard? Well I got a comment on that one (Thanks for your thought anonymous) that said that the voices of those scientists elsewhere that supported this theory were being silenced by the majority. A fair but hard claim to prove. Well it looks like the Pro-evolution side has gained some heavenly backing. Recently, the Vatican came out with a statement denouncing intelligent design. I honestly did not see this one coming, buspokesmanan from this most Holy of institutions said that people were trying to literally interpret the story of creation which should not be done. Well if the Vatican says that they don't support it, then that should really be the end of it, man if it were only so easy. One last article highlights the cross examination oMichaelal Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box" and a staunch supporter of ID who testified in the Pennsylvania court case last week. He was cross examined by Eric Rothschild, a lawyer opposing the school board in the case. Here is the link to the Slate article comparing this cross examination with a popular Monty Python sketch. Read the article to get a better feel for the comparison, look below for just the stand alone hilarity of it.


Q: Please describe the mechanism that intelligent design proposes for how complex biological structures arose.
A: Well, the word "mechanism" can be used in many ways. Â… When I was referring to intelligent design, I meant that we can perceive that in the process by which a complex biological structure arose, we can infer that intelligence was involved. Â…
Q: What is the mechanism that intelligent design proposes?
A: And I wonder, could—am I permitted to know what I replied to your question the first time?
Q: I don't think I got a reply, so I'm asking you. You've made this claim here (reading): "Intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on the proposed mechanism of how complex biological structures arose." And I want to know, what is the mechanism that intelligent design
proposes for how complex biological structures arose?
A: Again, it does not propose a mechanism in the sense of a step-by-step description of how those structures arose. But it can infer that in the mechanism, in the process by which these structures arose, an intelligent cause was involved.

I can't believe that someone would get on the stand in support of a cause and so miserably fail it. This short amount of questioning (which supposedly continues like this for several pages/minutes) is so absurd I would say that the crew of Monty Python actually came up with it and somehow got Behe to say it on the stand, like a bet or something. Sadly I think that this is really what ID has to offer, nothing but a veiled attempt to include religion in our school curricula.

A few More Pix

Halloween 2005

Just like that Halloween came and went. I never used to be a big fan of Halloween, then I dressed up a couple of years ago and had a blast. Yes, its time consuming to come up with a costume and have to wear it all night, and be either hot or cold in October depending on what the temperature outside is. It really is about getting into the spirit of things though and enjoying yourself as is the case with any holiday. This year I was Tyrone Biggums a popular character on Comedy Central's Chappelle Show. Many people knew exactly who I was, those that did not I consider living in a hole. They would ask "Who are you" to which I responded "Homeless" because after trying to explain it once I realized two things. 1) If the person did remember who I was impersonating, they did not find it funny because they only faintly remembered/cared about Tyrone or 2) They would never get it or have never seen the show which would just waste 5 minutes of my time. All the same, I have grabbed a few shots from the weekends festivities. Since I did not go downtown I missed what I can only imagine were the sluttiest and sexiest costumes, but a friend indulged us with a stunning "Emergency Slut" costume, one of the most inventive I have seen in several years, peep it.