Things I almost didn't get to this weekend:

This was a good week for "WTF" stuff that probably should have made it into real blog-posts, but damn....I'm just going to quick capsule review them instead.

Bananaman & Robin are Defacing Darwin

I'm referring to Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, naturally, who have become something like the dynamic duo of the evolution denialist set. Comfort will forever be Bananaman to me, because of his assertion that bananas had to be intelligently designed because of how great a fit they were for humans to carry and eat.

Yeah--



(Because humans selectively bred it into something useful which pretty much proves that selection, whether natural or artificial, shapes species, if you don't feel like clicking--in other words, epic example fail.)

Anyway, they are going to give out free copies of Darwin's The Origin of Species, except with a b.s. fifty page intro. And of course, it's about bashing Darwin because of....religion, not science, since Cameron is an actor and Comfort is a minister, and between them they seem to know bugger-all about science. And of course they use the Darwin leads to Hitler nonsense, notwithstanding that bigotry, genocide, and the fallacies of racialist thinking really don't have anything to do with natural selection. Those ideas actually predate Darwin. And fanatics, like the Nazis, will make use of anything, even coming up with a psuedoscientific justification for what they do.

It's all very weak and predictable, coming from them. What do I consider a fine antidote to their nonsense? Why, Richard Dawkins' recently-released The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, naturally. I'm only about a third of the way through, but Dawkins is a great teacher through his books and explains even somewhat difficult concepts very well and also provides many wonderful examples of how actually right the science behind the theory of evolution is, and how creationists and IDiots have it very wrong. I'm enjoying it a lot and think others should look it up.


Muslims have a Nice Day, only somewhat marred by Christians Without Irony



About 3,000 Muslims gathered at the west lawn of the Capitol for a day of prayer. It was about religion, but also representing that Muslims are a community here in the US and we really could get used to that. I'm already used to that, myself. Freedom of religion and all that.

A number of people, however, don't seem to be ready to get used to it:

Across the street from the service, Christian protesters gathered with banners, crosses and anti-Islamic messages. One group, which stood next to a 10-foot-tall wooden cross and two giant wooden tablets depicting the Ten Commandments, was led by the Rev. Flip Benham of Concord, N.C.

"I would suggest you convert to Christ!" Benham shouted over a megaphone. Islam "forces its dogma down your throat." A few Christian protesters gathered at the rear of the Muslim crowd, holding Bibles and praying.

(Emphasis mine, but the irony is so totally out there--did I even have to Bold-text it?)

Okay, I'll bite, Rev. Benham. You've got me, religions so very much shouldn't do that.


Flag Wars--Chuck Norris vs. Veterans of Foreign Wars (sort of)

Chuck Norris is a super-patriot. Sure, he wouldn't mind being the president of Texas if it ever seceded, but he really believes in America. Except when it makes him sad. And America is making him a little sad right now, so the flag is not his BFF.

The answer, Norris explains, is to take down that regular old American flag, which is no longer bold enough for these troubled times. Instead, “post the 13-star Betsy Ross flag, Navy Jack or Gadsden flag (’Don’t Tread on Me’) or any representation that tells the story of Old Glory and makes a stand for our Founders’ vision of America.”

Oh, what’s that? You don’t have a Gadsden flag just lying around in your living room? Well in that case, Chuck has a suggestion: “If you insist on posting a modern USA flag, too, then get one that is tea-stained to show your solidarity with our Founders.” That’s right, folks. Chuck Norris is asking you to dip your flag in warm liquid.

Isn’t that flag desecration – an act many conservatives have long rallied against?

And they still do--like right here.

The young man was given three choices: get turned over to the police, go one-on-one in a fight with a seasoned war veteran, or be duct-taped to a flagpole for six hours with a sign around his neck identifying his alleged crime: flag burning.

It was the third option that would still have the small town buzzing a week after a 21-year-old was hunted down and forced to endure a public humiliation with its roots dating to the Middle Ages. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1938 were incensed enough to tie up the man last Sunday after they accused him of setting the flag in front of their building on fire.

Post Commander Nick Normile, a Vietnam War veteran, said the man came into the post's bar Sept. 18 on Poplar Avenue and was eventually turned away for not having a proper ID.

Apparently angered, the young man, who Normile did not want to name, cut the rope of the American flag flying overhead and used a cigarette lighter to set it on fire, Normile and others said.

The man sat pilloried as the village had its fall youth soccer picnic with a long parade of children passing in front of him.

"He'll never disrespect the flag again, I can tell you that," Normile said.

Would Chuck Norris feel their pillorying wrath? Would their fury even get to the "bag with a live rat over the head" stage?

I just don't know.

And, because this planet is made for you and me,

Senator Inhofe Knows "God's in His Heaven, and All's Right with the World."



"God is still up there." Yeah, that's where the science is.

The idea of "global cooling" in the '70's never quite had the same emphasis as today's scientific warnings about global warming. The science is there. Misrepresenting the facts is, in and of itself a huge bummer. Politicizing science is, well.....

I'm uncomfortable saying this, but here goes: Stalinist. If he and other climate change denialists want to go on about a controversy here on the science, well, they might as well be like the kind of doofuses in the Soviet Union who based their policies on Lysenko because Stalin liked his theories (with resultant agrarian failures, because science actually doesn't depend upon political correctness.) But also implying that global warming couldn't possibly exist because God wouldn't allow it (when "He" seems to have allowed Hiroshimas and Chernobyls and all kinds of other epic disasters, in addition to those "Acts of God" like the earthquakes and tsunamis) really bothers me. An appeal to partisan politics on an issue like this is one level of wrong--and appeal to God is like a whole other, and distinctly lower lever of wrong. It makes what should be a rational decision based upon evidence into a test of faith. In other words, if you can't win with facts, dazzle with bullshit. Nice going, 'Hofe.