Skeptic Dave

Well Alright

2011-12-02T18:47:00.000-05:00

I was walking through a big-box bookstore when I noticed this calendar (below) for sale. I know it is the perfect gift for that perfect someone in your life. No need to thank me for discovering this for you.

Belief Kills

2011-11-26T20:45:00.000-05:00

In debates/discussions with the deity-inclined, I often hear that religion, at least these days, doesn't really hurt anyone. The Old Testament is really old and it doesn't carry the weight that the New Testament carries. God is loving and caring of his human creatures now.

Bullshit!

Below is a link to a story about several pastors telling their parishioners with HIV/AIDS to STOP taking their medication because they were healed. I am going to give you a moment to let that sink in. Now, just so we are clear, let me repeat that: below is a link to a story about several pastors telling their parishioners with HIV/AIDS to STOP taking their medication because they were healed. If you are fucking enraged by now, you should reread this paragraph.

My mind is blown against the wall. How are you going to tell me or anyone else that religion doesn't poison the world? The thing is that you can't. And do you want to know why? It's because in the Bible it says that if you have enough FAITH you WILL be healed. These pastors may have lied to the folks with HIV/AIDS, but how are they in the wrong, dogmatically, by pursuing the road of faith to heal these people? Now this doesn't mean I condone what these pastors did, don't get me wrong. But what I am saying is that their belief that god heals people for believing the impossible is not an out of the ordinary idea for Christians, but this is a rather mainstream belief. And after reading the article (below), maybe Christians should start rethinking this idea that religion doesn't really harm anyone. In this case, belief literally kills.

Link: http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16117269

Blue Jacket Books Part Two

2011-11-26T10:52:00.001-05:00

Look at what I got at Blue Jacket Books...

So get on over to Blue Jacket Books in Xenia Ohio. You won't regret it. They have a great selection of used classics and they offer GREAT customer service. And remember that if you cannot make it into the store, you can order books from their website. Go! Now! Check it out! Support a local bookstore!!

D

A Reward for the "Outer" of Fred Phelps

2011-11-26T10:10:00.000-05:00

I am sure all of you are familiar with the what could be described as the scum of the earth Fred Phelps who runs the what could be described as the looney toon church the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) that has a whole load of what could be described as whack-a-loon congregants. At any rate, if you are not familiar with these highly questionable people and their highly questionable practices then you can check out their fucked-up website here (I hate the fact that I am linking to their webpage, but sometimes you have to do what you've got to do).

And given that the WBC is vehemently anti-homosexual, among other things, I believe that it is very possible that Fred Phelps is a closeted homosexual. The reason I believe such a thing is possible is due to all of the other vehemently anti-homosexual, pro-god, pro-family values reverends and politicians who have been caught in the act having the "gay sex." Ted Haggard is the best example of the aforementioned. So what I and the world desperately wants this holiday season, the best gift anyone could give this year, is for a person who has been or is Fred Phelps homosexual lover to 'out' Fred Phelps.

I don't have any money to give you, and I cannot provide you with any fame; in matter of fact, I have absolutely no clout whatsoever, but you would be doing the world a favor. I know that the WBC has only been successful in indoctrinating a handful of people, but some of those people are children, and no child is born an extreme homophobe. So I leave you, the 'outer' of Fred Phelps, with this plea: Please, don't do it for us, but do it for the children.

D

Now This is Cool

2011-11-25T20:51:00.000-05:00

Below is a time-lapse video of Earth from outer space. Check out the amazing view of the Northern Lights. Sweet!!

D

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Black Friday

2011-11-25T20:44:00.000-05:00

Well, another year and another Black Friday in the books. Me, no I didn't go shopping. I have broken free from zombie consumerism (though I did not get away completely free, I did go up to Blue Jacket Books in Xenia). However, because I currently work in the wonderful world of retail, I got to be up bright and early to greet the consumer sheep hoard.

Don't get me wrong, customers are great, especially when you depend on them to spend money so that you can have money. I like it when my family has food. Full bellies is a plus in my house. However, the problem is, to me, that (I think) people don't really think about why they are shopping. They just seem to do it as if it is an innate drive like sex. And I suppose the Black Friday shopping venture is much like sex: not everyone is interested in doing it at the same time, especially if it's very early in the morning; sometimes there is ton of work, but not everyone walks away satisfied; rarely does anyone want to cuddle afterwards.

On a positive note, in spite of many of them being up since midnight, the customers were quite pleasant this year. I mean, no one got pepper sprayed in our store, unlike at a Wal-Mart store in California. Oh well, maybe next year. Until then, have a happy and safe holiday season.

D

Blue Jacket Books

2011-11-24T19:18:00.000-05:00

Alright, I don't normally do this but...if you are in the Dayton Ohio area and in particular the Xenia Ohio area, please go visit my friend Lawrence Hammar at Blue Jacket Books. It is the best used bookstore in the Dayton area. I know, I am biased (I did say he is my friend), but that shouldn't stop you from stopping in. You can check out their website (below) and you can even order books over the internets (you get free shipping with all orders over $20). Support local bookstores; shop at Blue Jacket Books. That is all.

D

Website: http://www.bluejacketbooks.com/

Address: 60 South Detroit Street
Xenia, Ohio, 45385

Phone: (937)-376-3522

Contact A Big-Box Store Headquarters!

2011-11-21T15:52:00.000-05:00

I just recently contacted the Wal-Mart headquarters about their disdain and indifference toward their workers by opening their stores at 10pm on Thanksgiving night. Of course they are not going to take advice from a sociology undergrad, but it is incumbent upon me to at least bring it to their attention (not that others have not already done so). And so here is my succinct message to Wal-Mart:

I just want to thank you for destroying your employees' family time this year by opening your stores at 10pm. I really think that is just superbly awesome of you. I guarantee that no member of the Walton family will be cutting short their time with their family on Thanksgiving to go do manual labor in one of their stores. But hey, anything for a buck, right?

Treat your employees right,
David Wean

I know, it's not much but it is something, and I encourage all two of you reading this to contact Wal-Mart or any other big-box store that is opening uber early and in doing so screwing their employees. These workers have families that they would love to spend time with, and it is a kick in the teeth for companies to expect their workers to cut their family time short just to sell a TV. So all I ask is that you do your part: contact at least one big-box store and let them know how you feel about them taking advantage of their employees. Maybe, just maybe, we can change how they do business, It's worth a shot.

D

Where are the Skeptical Posts?

2011-11-21T13:29:00.000-05:00

That's a great question that I have not received from anyone. Though I have not recently checked the skepticdave@rocketmail.com account (shameless plug for you to send me hate mail). I have, however, have set a few people straight in a couple of the comment sections of my various posts. But anyway, where are the posts pertaining to skepticism? Well, I have been a lazy bastard in that regard. I understand that you may be expecting to read more about defending evolution, debunking ghosts and the supernatural, reiterating to you that there is no such thing as the Loch Ness monster, and that there is, of course, no god (though I can't say that I know such a thing, but the evidence seems to be on my side of the fence). And you know what? I am going to be getting you more of all of that sort of material. It's just that recently I have been distracted by all of the other current events of the day that I have not been keeping up on all of the cool skeptic stuff; after all, the title of the blog is "Skeptic Dave." So I don't blame you if you are disappointed in not finding the skeptical content that you have been looking for and not getting. Not to worry, some will be on its way very soon.

D

Oh, That's How You Can Get a Tax Return

2011-11-21T13:05:00.001-05:00

So, according to Senator Bernie Sanders, (I) Vermont, you, if you are a corporation, can receive a tax return from the IRS if you make ten billion dollars. I didn't stutter. That's right. I said ten billion dollars. And to make this a little easier, let me type that out in its numeric format: If you make $10,000,000,000.00 then you can receive a tax return from the federal government.

I know, I know, I know. This story is not new. Earlier this year we were inundated with the news that many of America's top companies pay zero in taxes (e.g. GE), and some even get to make a ridiculous profit and then get a very, very large tax return. So not only are some of these companies NOT paying taxes, we are paying them to NOT pay taxes.

I find it incumbent upon me to ask...HELLO, IS ANYONE F@$K!^G HOME?!?!?

After you are done banging your head against your desk or nearest wall, watch the video below. Though after you do, it will make you want to bang your head against your desk or the nearest wall, so be careful. Try not to cause yourself too much brain damage. Also, if you live in Vermont, re-elect Bernie Sanders. He really seems to be a wonderful senator.

D

Rise Against September's Children

2011-11-20T16:18:00.000-05:00

I love Rise Against. And I wouldn't say that they are the new Rage Against the Machine (RATM), but they have filled a hole left by RATM, by bringing to the mainstream music consumer political issues that they normally may not have been aware, even in the age of the internet. Below is their touching video for their song "Make it Stop (September's Children)." In the video have highlighted many of the videos created by members of the It Gets Better Project, which lends support and encouragement to LGBT youth. The LGBT community, especially youth, are more highly susceptible to suicide and bullying than most if not all groups (I can't remember the statistics right off hand). You can check out and find out how to support the It Gets Better Project here.

D

Black Friday Retailers Pt. 1

2011-11-20T15:34:00.000-05:00

"Ms. Nyberg is drawing the line now that major chains like Target, Macy’s, Best Buy and Kohl’s say they will open for the first time at midnight on Thanksgiving, and Wal-Mart will go even further, with a 10 p.m. Thanksgiving start for deals on some merchandise."

This is what we have come to: cutting far into Thanksgiving so that one store can beat the other to the first dollar, I guess. The saddest part of this story is that the workers who spend time with their families on Thanksgiving will have their holiday cut short, more than likely. But again, for what reason? Money doesn't magically disappear from the consumer's hand if they don't spend it by a certain time, but apparently this is lost on, at least, the Best Buy CEO:

"One retail executive sounded sad about the decision to open earlier. Brian Dunn, the chief executive of Best Buy, said that the midnight opening “became an operating imperative for us” after competitors moved their openings back. “I feel terrible,” he said."

The truth is that Best Buy and no one else needs to open up the two-hours before their competitor. People will make sure they are at your store if you have the deal they want, and if Mr. Dunn actually gave a rip about his employees, he wouldn't be opening his store at midnight. And I bet that Mr. Dunn won't be torn away from his family during this holiday season so that he can go to work to load a heavy-ass TV into someone's car at midnight; if he had to, I bet he would have a different perspective on the situation. He does NOT feel terrible. That is bullshit.

Of course, Mr. Dunn and his like will always fallback on good ol' platitudes about the market and how its invisible hand will magically guide their business to do the 'right thing.' They will say, if people didn't come out and buy our cheap Chinese made crap at midnight then we wouldn't open. And that's bullshit, too. If Wal-Mart or Best Buy cared about their employees, like they claim, they wouldn't open until later in the morning, but the sad truth is that they don't care about their employees, and they are counting on you, the consumer, to not care about their employees either. So this holiday shopping season, please don't only think about the product you are buying, but think about who it is you are buying it from. The holiday season is a difficult one for everyone, but it is especially difficult for retail workers.

D

Quotes above are from this Yahoo News article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/thanksgiving-day-shop-meets-rejection-123025036.html

Twitter

2011-11-20T15:07:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am catching up with the always connected in every possible way at all possible times world (next week I will have the internet connected to my brain so I don't have to use a computer). Alright, so you can, if you so choose, follow me on the Twitter using your internet machine. My handle (screen name?) is @WeanDavid, so come on, follow me into an oblivion! It'll be fun...maybe.

D

Blogging App

2011-11-06T13:25:00.001-05:00

I just got the Blogger app for the iPod. This could be interesting.

D

Music for the Depressed

2011-11-05T20:50:00.000-04:00

Band: The Antlers

Song: Kettering

Album: Hospice

P.S. I have no fight left.

New Layout

2011-11-05T00:13:00.000-04:00

As you have probably noticed there is a new layout for the ol' blogski. So let me know how you feel about it. Do you like it? Is it easier to navigate? Is it easier to read? Do you not care? Whatever it is, let me know, or don't.

Personally, I kinda like it, but we'll see if it lasts.

D

Living in the End Times

2011-11-04T23:59:00.000-04:00

I have of late become a big fan of Slovenian philosopher Slovoj Zizek. His book First as Tragedy and then as Farce is an excellent read; in it, he tackles the idea that ethics is now a highly profitable commodity for capitalism; what is particularly interesting about this phenomenon is that ethics have, to this degree, never been profitable. However, it is a great selling point now, for instance, to say that your product or company is "green." Zizek draws very much from Marx, Hegel, and Lacan, to formulate his arguments. He draws especially heavy on Lacan.

So below you will find another video that you must watch. It is basically the TV version of parts of his new book Living in the End Times, which is also an excellent book. But don't get confused by the title. The book is not an apocalypse. Well, for capitalism it might be...

D

Matt Damon Lays the Smack Down

2011-11-04T23:44:00.000-04:00

Watch Matt Damon as he channels Will Hunting (you know, his character from Good Will Hunting) to lay the smack down on those kooky libertarians from Reason Magazine. Get 'em Will! I mean, Matt...

Jobs, Jobs...No Jobs

2011-11-02T16:45:00.000-04:00

Oh, the Republicans last year won sweeping margins in the general election. And some would argue that the huge victories obtained by the Republicans was due to the influence of the Tea Party. The Tea Party, as it has been purported to the point of nausea, is purely about small government, but yet, the Republicans put into office last election cycle seem more concerned with abortion and ensuring that "In God We Trust" is still our nation's motto. Conspicuously missing this past year is the focus on small government and jobs, jobs, jobs. Do you want to know why? Well, I don't have a definitive answer to that, but I do have a slightly cynical one: they don't want the president to be successful and, thus, get re-elected.

Please, don't get me wrong. I can't stand Democrats (at least most of them). If I could I would send almost every Democrat in office to the Wizard of Oz so that they could get a spine. But unfortunately we don't have that capability, yet. I, much like everyone else, am tired of hearing bullshit promises. If you are going to run for office, at least be honest. I want to hear a candidate say, "I don't really care about you or anyone else except for myself. My ambition is to reach highest place in government that I can so that I can wield unimaginable power for my own gain." I wonder if they would get elected?

Anyway, watch this. It's from the Rachel Maddow Show. Trust me, it'll be good for you.

D

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Banks...Suck

2011-11-02T13:26:00.000-04:00

I was perusing the CNN website, and, as usual, they had a question poll. Today's question was something like, "Is the fact that banks are backing down on fees a sign of consumer power." I voted. It didn't take me long to figure out the answer, as it was obvious. Of course it isn't a sign of consumer power. But, not shockingly, 70+% of people said "yes." I then proceeded to have a "Lewis Black" moment*.

The truth is that banks don't give two shits or a fuck about you or I. They care about us in the sense that they want us around so that they can generate more revenue, but other than that there is no positive relationship between us and the banks. What will happen, and mark my words, is that banks will cut ATM fees and then they will complain about how they aren't making giant-fuck-you profits anymore. So what they will do is layoff works because the few at the top still want to make the giant-fuck-you profits, and coupled with layoffs will be the instituting of hidden fees or new fees in the other parts of your banking (e.g. loans).

The moral of the story is that the consumer, despite the popular myth, has no power in the American capitalist market. Sure, we may have our ATM fees waved, but the banks are just going to find another way to hold us hostage. Therefore, in the long-run, we have accomplished nothing. We must find, or create, a new alternative to the banking industry. Radically changing the landscape of the financial sector is the only in which we as a people will be able to have any power over our economic landscape. I don't know how to accomplish such a feat, but I do know that it has to be done.

D

*A Lewis Black moment (LBM) is what one has when they hear, read, see, etc. something so stupid that one feels like their head is going to explode. The symptoms accompanied with an LBM severe inner pressure against one's skull, a momentary lapse in being able to form complete words and sentences (sometimes one experience severe stuttering), a eyes crossing involuntarily, and a twitching of the extremities (usually the hands and fingers). The LBM usually comes to completion after screaming expletives like "FUCK."

Read This Book...

2011-08-24T13:06:00.000-04:00

I want all of you to go out and buy a copy of Post Office by Charles Burkowski. I promise that you won't regret it!

Cheers!
D

Free Documentaries

2011-03-25T20:06:00.000-04:00

Have you been wondering lately as to where on the interwebs you can watch documentaries for free (legally)? Well my friend have I got a website for you, http://freedocumentaries.org/. Check it out. They don't have everything but they have a lot. And I would suggest a movie that I just watched recently, American Blackout, which is about voter disenfranchisement during the 2000 and 2004 elections. Enjoy!

Cheers!
D

Your Anger Is A Gift

2011-03-25T19:57:00.000-04:00

True Lies

2011-03-24T20:16:00.000-04:00

Hacked Facebook, It's Not Like It's The End of The World...

2011-03-24T16:46:00.000-04:00

Hahahaha, someone in Plano, Texas just hacked my facebook account, but as far as I can tell they didn't do anything to it. I guess that is because I don't have much information on my account. They probably have my email now –BOOOOOO! but that can be dealt with. I wonder if I managed to piss someone off here at the blog? I could only hope! I should check the traffic stats on the blog and compare them to the facebook security information I was given, hmmmmmm,

Well, I should give you something new since I am here, and that is to say, something other than a menial detail from my sad pathetic life in my parent's basement. How about the end of the world! I know, I know, I have written about it here many a time, but we have been graced with a new end date for the world and by a new group of whack-a-loons! It turns out that the rapture is happening May 21st, so set your calendars and save the date. We are getting left-behind (chances are good that if you have been reading my blog and like or agree with what you have been reading then you are going to be left-behind). No worries though. It appears, according to the fine folks at Family Radio, that the world will end, literally, in October of this year (they even have the balls to say that the bible guarantees it). Someone break out the liquor, babes, and donkeys, so that the debauchary can begin!!

Cheers!

D

P.S. I did email them to see if they would be willing to take a friendly wager on whether the world was going to end or not; for some reason they have not gotten back to me. I wonder why.

Hey...

2011-02-12T22:01:00.000-05:00

Don't get too excited, I am not going on a posting streak any time soon. School is back in session and I have allloooooooooooottttttttt of papers to write; so of which I am most certain that I will be sharing here. I have seen that big things have been happening here despite my absence: I have 10 followers! Go figure, I start building a legion of loyal followers and then I get busy with the whole becoming educated thing. Fortunately enough, I have a decent backlog of material on the blog for everyone to keep busy.

At any rate, happy belated New Year; I hope you are finding it as interesting and prosperous as I am. In the meantime, check out the goodies below.

D

You can get something for nothing, sort of:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/02/can_you_get_something_for_noth.php

The Pope is down with online social networks:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/01/24/2011-01-24_pope_benedict_xvi_praises_social_networks_cautions_over_replacing_real_friends_w.html?r=news

A classic L7 song, "The Masses Are Asses"

The greatest letter I have read, to date (yes, it is a fake, but it is hilarious):

Five Fingers Shoes

2010-12-12T11:05:00.000-05:00

Have you heard of these shoes, Five Fingers Shoes?

They are friggin sweeeeeeet! The wifey bought a pair a couple of months ago and loved them; so I tried a pair on. They are the most comfortable shoe that I have ever worn. As you can see, the toes have individual compartments; at first, it does feel weird to have your toes separated, but after a couple of minutes you get used to it. The shoes are very snug and they give you the feeling of walking barefoot. I love it! The only downfall to these shoes is that they are not waterproof. Also, they are not insulated (so don't go running around in the snow, unless you want cold, wet feet!). I suspect that Vibram, the maker of Five Fingers Shoes will eventually release a pair with gortex, but who knows. I highly recommend these shoes. However, I must warn you, the current demand for these shoes is very, very high. I suggest that if you are interested in these shoes, check out the Vibram website to find a local vendor (you can order online, as well) to see if they have some in stock. Also, you should know that the Five Fingers do not come in regular shoe sizes, you will have to be measured.

D

Kill Gays, God is Cool With It

2010-12-10T17:59:00.000-05:00

If you have been following the news at all over the past year, you have probably heard about the Ugandan "Kill the Gays Bill," a piece of legislation that will criminalize homosexuality (I wrote about this legislation earlier this year). Under the proposed bill, the maximum penalty for homosexuality is the death penalty (for serial offenders). Other penalties include three-years in prison for knowing a homosexual and life imprisonment for being a homosexual.

Recently, Rachel Maddow interviewed the author of the Ugandan "Kill the Gays Bill," David Bahati.

Part One

Part Two

What I find highly disturbing is the lack of admonishment from the faithful in this country. Even more frustrating is the indoctrination of youth, those 13-25, by supports of David Bahati's warped world view. One of those groups is "The Call," run by Lou Engle who, according to the Call's website:

"Lou Engle is the visionary and co-founder of TheCall solemn assemblies, a movement of prayer, gathering two generations, but primarily targeting young people to pray and fast for justice and spiritual awakening. Since 2000, TheCall has gathered hundreds of thousands of people to pray both nationally and internationally."

The Call is a group which is hellbent on bringing the world and, especially, America back to the Lord:

"SOLEMN ASSEMBLY
In the Bible assemblies were appointed by God as the divine prescription to return to Him in times of apostasy. These gatherings were for the purpose of prayer, fasting, and repentance from individual and national sins. They were also used to call upon God for protection in times of crisis. Many times on these days the Israelites ceased from working and offered sacrifices to the Lord. There was always a promise of great blessing if the nation returned to the Lord with wholehearted devotion and the renewal of their covenant vows of love to the Lord. [Leviticus 23:36, Numbers 29:35, Deuteronomy 16:8, 2 Chronicles 7:9, 2 Chronicles 20:3-4, Joel 1:14, 2:15]"

And

"Our nation is in desperate need of the mercy of God and another great spiritual awakening, which will only come forth as the Body of Christ gathers together in prayer. When there is no hope for a nation, when there is no remedy, God has a Holy prescription. We must drop every barrier that divides us and unite in urgent, humble fasting and prayer with the promise that afterward God would pour out His Spirit (Joel 2)."

"TheCall is committed to mobilizing three generations, every ethnicity, and every denomination from across America to join in petitioning God for His undeserved mercy and to return to acts of justice that would satisfy His heart."

It appears that the members of the Call are too occupied by prayer and humble fasting to be outraged at the possibility that Uganda may make it legal to kill people for being gay. At the very least there is no mention of it on their main website (to be fair they don't mention much on their website, they are rather vague, in a strange way). Even Stonewall, one of their associate websites, doesn't make mention of the bill, which is odd since Stonewall is one of their official anti-gay websites.

Stonewall, like the Call's main site, is rather vague in the details, but I have found is nothing new:

" StoneWall Now! is a prayer movement. We are lovers of God and lovers of people. We are filled with compassion for the pain of those bound in homosexuality. We are impassioned to protect the young from the indoctrination of iniquity in the education system as well as families and society from the legislation of the same.
Therefore, we are:
1. Calling the church to REPENTANCE for our own broken marriages, moral compromise and cowardly tolerance of iniquity.
2. Praying for the salvation and RELEASE of 100,000 gays & lesbians by the love of Jesus.
3. Raising up 24/7 prayer to resist and restrain the spiritual powers behind the radical homosexual agenda.
4. We are gathering and publishing testimonies of the 100,000 ONES who are being WON!"

Aside from the antiquated and ass backward views on homosexuality the sight is quite chic. It appeals, as I am sure was the intent of the authors, to the youth. It has a very energetic, fight-the-establishment kind of feel to it. You can be a rebel for Christ by telling homosexuals that they are dirty sinners and deserving of death (that is the wage of sin, after all). Want an example? Check out the pic below:

By now you might be thinking: "Dave, so what, it's alright if they have a difference of opinion and want to express it;" normally I would agree with that general premise (it irks me that they are indoctrinating impressionable young people, but what is one to expect: if religion didn't indoctrinate the young, they would cease to be). My problem here is that Lou Engle, the founder of the Call, has come out in support of the "Kill the Gays Bill." Now we can see why the Call and Stonewall are so silent about Uganda: they want to cleanse the earth of sinners; namely, homosexuals. If they can't convert and heal the gays (which time and time again it has been shown that you can't cure someone of homosexuality, it's not a disease), then the gays should be imprisoned and/or executed. These sound like the kind of good ol' fashioned morals that the world needs to get back to: hate those who are different from you and kill them if necessary.

D

Yes We Could've

2010-12-09T17:17:00.001-05:00

I found this pic here. And yes, we ABSOLUTELY could have. At this rate, I believe that there may be a Democrat primary challenger in the 2012 election. The odd thing here is that I didn't vote for Obama; frankly, I don't find him to be liberal enough; considering that, I find it irritating that anyone believes that he is a socialist: he's not even close. In matter of fact, he is one of the more moderate Democrats that we have had in office in a long time.

A suggestion to Mr. Obama: If you are going to promise change, then you had better be prepared to have a fight; it appears that you were and are not prepared.

Oh, and some more bad news, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) failed to be repealed today. God knows that you don't want fags (I am only using this word to make a point) around while your killing little brown people. ARGGGGGGHGHHHH! This leads me to leave you with thoughts from the late, great Bill Hicks.

D

8 Followers

2010-12-09T11:13:00.001-05:00

I didn't realize, but it appears that I have eight followers of my blog. Trust me, I don't mind, spread the word. With the number of hiatuses that I take, I just assumed that I wouldn't have too many folks wondering what was going on in my noggin. To all of you who are "new," welcome! Thanks for reading and bearing the brunt of poor, but improving, punctuation. Welcome, again. And don't forget to leave comments, concerns and/or swear words. In celebration of this auspicious occasion, I present to you, 8stops7 and their song titled, appropriately enough, "Question Everything." It's a generic video, but I like the song (plus, being the sneaky person that I am, there is an eight in the band's name).

D

Moderate Muslims? Maybe.

2010-12-09T10:55:00.000-05:00

PZ Myers found this thought-provoking cartoon and posted it on his blog; I, of course, had to reproduce it here. It's not fair to say that all Muslims react or feel the same as depicted in the cartoon, but it is safe to say that there is a segment of the Muslim population that does.

D

School is out, and I am back (for awhile)

2010-12-08T18:16:00.001-05:00

So much and so little has happened over the past three-months, and some of it I will be sharing over the course of the next couple of weeks before I head back to school. Today, I present to you Keith Olberman's special comment on the most recent retreat of President Obama to the Republican party, the tax cuts. Keith articulates perfectly my frustration over the past two-years. I could not have said better, thank you Keith.

I hope all is well with all of you in internetland!

D

I've Got Hate Filled For You

2010-08-18T12:00:00.001-04:00

I don't hate the Catholic church, or, rather, I don't hate Catholics: If you are cool, you're cool; if you are an asshole, well, then you are an asshole. However, I didn't think that showing disdain and disgust for an organization that aids and abets felons was an evil, hateful act. I am generally an even-tempered, mostly fair guy on this blog, but this asshole is really asking for it, and well, he's going to get it:

You are the biggest fucktard, douche bag, theologically ass backward, intellectually inept and impotent moron fuck wit on YouTube. Your boss protects child molesters, claims condoms are worse than AIDS, encourages ignorance in place of rigorous critical thinking. Oh, and did mention that the he protects child molesters? What a fucking D-Bag.

D

Horseshit!

2010-08-18T11:36:00.000-04:00

Have a laugh at the iRenew bracelet that improves energy and blah, blah, blah. My guess is that the iRenew bracelet wouldn't stand up to a double-blind test.

D

Let's Try This

2010-07-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

I, recently, was left a comment on the Shermer Vs. Lennox Debate post which gave me some advice:

"Patmos Pete said... Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."

Wow, never thought of that before. Don't worry, I am not going to go off on some atheist tirade about this obnoxious, pompous, blah, blah, blah, believer. I am sure that in real life, not internet life, he is a cool dude, but he shouldn't be leaving behind internet trash on my blog. I do not much care for those who litter. However, here is what I am going to do: I will warn Pete of the impending doom of Thor.

To Pete,

Fear Thor (he is a god, you know), and glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made thunder.

Cheers!
D

Here's A New Scam

2010-07-17T06:43:00.004-04:00

I keep getting this email, which, of course, is a total scam. The loudest ringing warning sign is that they want to give me (and anyone who gets this email) a large sum of money. Below is the email. And as usual: NEVER GIVE ANYONE ON THE INTERNET PRIVATE INFORMATION (unless you are on a secure website and opening a bank account, let's say)!

D

MICROSOFT AOL ANNIVERSARY AWARD NOTIFICATION.

Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 7:22 AM

Reply-To: microsoft-award@webmail.co.za

Microsoft Award Team
Baley House,Har Road Sutton,
Greater London SMI 4te
United Kingdom
FILE REF: TN/7855/05/07/DINS
BATCH: KP23/857/NDL5 /EU

MICROSOFT AOL ANNIVERSARY AWARD NOTIFICATION.

Dear Lucky Winner,

It is obvious that this notification will come to you as a surprise but please find time to read it carefully as we congratulate you over your success in the following official publication of results of the E-mail electronic online Sweepstakes organized by Microsoft and AOL Corporation, in conjunction with the foundation for the promotion of software products, (F.P.S.) held thisin United Kingdom London.The prestigious MicrosoftAOL has set out and successfully organized a Sweepstakes marking the 2010 Anniversary, from the Board of Microsoft AOL Corporations Award Lottery,we rolled out over 750,000.00 GBP (Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great Britain Pounds) Draws.

Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage. Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 94857390735 with serial numbers GPT/97846565392/08 and drew the lucky numbers 70-35-15-18-21-70 which subsequently won you 750,000.000 GBP (Seven fifty Thousand Great Britain Pounds).

These are your identification numbers:KVP-9078/145
CATEGORY NO.OF WINNERS WINNING PRIZES
1st. 2 ? 750,000.00 pounds each
2nd. 8 ? 450.000.00 pounds each
3rd. 13 ? 350,000.00 pounds each
4th. 27 ? 270,000.00 pounds each

You are to send down your Claims Requirements and your option of Remittance/Mode Of Collection to Dr.Frank Cole your Claims Agent.

CLAIMS REQUIREMENTS:
1. Full names:
2. Residential address:
3. Phone number:
4. Fax number:
5. Occupation:
6. Sex:
7. Age:
8. Nationality:
9. Present Country:
10.Next of kin name/address:
11.How Do you Feel As winner:

Mode Of Price Remittance/Mode Of Collection.

(1)Through A Courier Delivery Of Your Certified Winning Cheque Name And Other.
Winning Documents Safely To You.

(2) Bank Wire Transfer in your nominated bank account.

CONTACT:
********************************************************
FOREIGN TRANSFER MANAGER
DR.FRANK COLE.
MICROSOFT SECURITY DEPARTMENT (UK).
PHONE: +4470-240-787-04
PHONE: +4470-359-653-16
FAX: +44 704 579 5477

E-mail: micorsoftawards@webmail.co.za
E-mail: microsoft-awards@webmail.co.za

*******************************************************

The Microsoft Internet E-mail lottery Awards is sponsored by our CEO/Chairman, Bill Gates and a consortium of software promotion companies. The Intel Group, Toshiba, Dell Computers and other International Companies. The Microsoft internet E-mail draw is held periodically and is organized to encourage the use of the Internet and promote computer literacy worldwide.

This message will be identified as junk for your safety, this indicates that this message is from Microsoft and AOL Corporation.

NOTE: Do not tell people about your Prize Award until your money is successfully handed over to you to avoid disqualification that may arise from double claim.

You may also receive similar e-mails from people portraying to be other Organizations or Microsoft Corporation. This is solely to collect your personal information from you and lay claim over your notification letter that was sent to you, Kindly forward a copy to us and delete it from your mail box and give no further correspondence to such person or body. Microsoft shall not be held responsible for any loss of fund arising from the above mentioned.

Once again on behalf of all our staff,
CONGRATULATIONS!
Yours Sincerely,
Sindel Williams,
M.S.PRO.ZONAL COORDINATOR.

Jesus In Playboy

2010-07-08T16:14:00.002-04:00

Jesus has made an appearance on (and in) a Playboy magazine in Portugal. I don't really have much to say about the situation that hasn't already been said by either side. Though I am now a firm believer in resurrecting the WWJD but with a slight change. Instead of "What Would Jesus Do," it should be "Who Would Jesus Do." I mean really, which of the following ladies (pictures after the jump) would Jesus spread his love on? Really, I think that these lovely ladies need to feel the spirit of Christ deep inside of them.

I sometimes wonder what hell is going to be like, and then I think, "It's good thing that hell doesn't exist."

You can see the naughty pictures if you click the 'read more' tab at the bottom of this post. The pictures do contain nudity, and many will find the following pictures to be offensive. If you do not want to see what you may consider to be offensive material then do NOT click on the 'read more' link. You have been warned.

D

The Dawn Of Life

2010-06-29T20:50:00.000-04:00

...that's what this Nine Inch Nails song sparks my imagination to, anyway. It such a peaceful, beautiful piece of music. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do.

D

New Poll

2010-06-29T16:05:00.000-04:00

Do you think breastfeeding should be allowed in public? Go vote! The poll is just to your right! For the love of Darwin, VOTE!

D

Share It To The World

2010-06-29T12:01:00.000-04:00

I have just added a share button below all of my post so that now you, my loyal minions, can spread my intellectual seed across the interwebs effortlessly. Now GO!

D

Poll Results: The Devil Doesn't Exist

2010-06-28T11:42:00.000-04:00

If the truth were determined democratically then according to my most recent poll the devil doesn't exist. The readers decided the devil's non-existence in a 8-6 majority (I know, the massive number of voters is crashing the blogspot servers). Anyway, the devil doesn't exist, so everyone should eat, drink and be merry!

D

I just found this pic; I don't know who it is of, but it is funny nonetheless.

Something New In The Works

2010-06-28T11:32:00.000-04:00

I am working on the details of a new blogject™. I can't give you much yet, but here is what I can give you:

1) Yes, it is another blog, but don't worry, this blog won't be neglected.

2) The subject matter of the new blogject™ is "adult" oriented; that means you have to be 18 or older to enjoy.

3) Concerning #2: No, it's not a porn blog, per se. There will be nudity, though.

4) The new blogject™will have a lot to do with sex and gender within the realms of education, pop-culture, dyadic relationships (perhaps even group relationships), art, erotica, literature, and so on.

I will definitely let you know when the new blog is up and running, so that way you can stop on by. I will let you in on another detail of the new blog: there just might be another blogger joining me to bring you the highest quality blog content. And a possible goal of this new blogject™is for there to be many contributors. I want as many voices as possible on this new blogject™, Until next time...

D

.XXX Could Be The New Online Suffix For Adult Websites

2010-06-27T20:18:00.001-04:00

As early as 2011 "adult" websites maybe going from the .com to the .xxx top level domain name. Though, currently it is not mandatory for "adult" websites to switch over to the new .xxx. Personally I believe that all "adult" sites will be forced to move to the .xxx.

I don't know if this is a good or a bad idea. The porn industry is concerned that the .xxx will make it easier to censor "adult" content, and religious leaders are concerned that the .xxx will give the porn industry legitimacy. I have to admit, I don't quite understand the latter. The porn industry IS legitimate, widely available and quite profitable.

With all of that said...

If you want to see the semi-naughty picture then click the "read more" link.

I think I may have lost some of you here. Oh well, fuck it.

D

World Cup Today

2010-06-26T09:32:00.000-04:00

The U.S. is playing Ghana in the second round of the Fifa World Cup today. So check it out on your local ABC station. The pregame show starts at 2pm and then the game at 2:30pm. I know, some of you would rather shove a number-two pencil in your eye before you would watch soccer. Knowing the aforementioned, I present to you some of the most amazing soccer moves EVER! If the video doesn't get you amped then watch something else, or better yet, read a book. If you pick the latter, I suggest Cosmopolitan's, Guide to Getting it On, in which, you can read about a variety of sexual activities and personal accounts of those activities. And this is not a lewd book. The personal experiences coupled with the practical how-to will not only give you an enjoyable reading experience but it may even give you something new to try, maybe something you secretly have wanted to do but weren't too sure about such as: anal sex, playing with your self, sex fantasies, double penetration, threesomes (everyone wants to try that one!), prostate massage and so on. However, The Guide to Getting it On, isn't only about physical sexual contact, you can also learn about: romance, lubes, abortion, adoption, gender, sexual orientation, sex & diabetes, vulva care, premature ejaculation, explaining sex to kids, and on and on. I highly recommend The Guide to Getting it On, and you can pick up a copy from your local bookseller or anywhere like Amazon.

D

Fuji Minx: Redux

2010-06-23T20:06:00.000-04:00

As some of you may have noticed, the Fuji Minx video for "The Music Made Me Do It," was taken down from Youtube. I had a suspicion that that was going to happen. But don't fear! The video has been loaded to the video sharing site Vimeo. I will be posting the video below, again.

D

FUJI MINX - The Music Made Me Do it (Official Un-Censored Version) from FUJI MINX on Vimeo.

Guns, Germs, And Steel

2010-06-23T15:40:00.001-04:00

I don't have much to indoctrinate you with today, as it is, I am just sitting around my house and resting. With that said, I present to you Jared Diamond's, Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's a three part series, each episode is an hour long, so don't feel that you have to watch them all during one sitting. You are just going to have to come back here a couple of times to watch the remaining episodes (I really just want you to boost my traffic stats!). Diamond's series explores why societies rise and fall; his thesis is that societies' success is influenced by their access to guns, germs, and steel. Sit back and enjoy! Oh, in your time not spent reading your favorite blog, and by that I mean PZ Myers' blog, you may want to read Jared Diamond's 1987 essay, The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. The article should give you some great background/foundation for Guns, Germs, and Steel.

D

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Big Box Retailers Perpetuate Social Stereotypes...Maybe

2010-06-22T19:08:00.002-04:00

The following is a short extra-credit paper I did for an anthropology class. My goal was to see if big-box retailers' in-store advertisements perpetuated social and cultural views of who should be in our (the consumer's) peer group. This wasn't a serious study by any means. The idea was to get myself and others to use their 'sociological imaginations' so that we could (hopefully) stimulate conversation. I just wanted everyone to be more aware of their surroundings and to ask why.

D

Who Do We Expect?

     Does in-store advertising (e.g. signage and product packaging) affect our perceptions of who should be in our peer or class groups? Do they reinforce racial and gender stereotypes? These are the questions that I set out to try to answer for this extra-credit project. I know: these are really big questions with no readily available answers to them. Unfortunately, I did not have the hours to research through the relevant peer-reviewed studies (if any exist, which I’m sure they do); nor was I able to use the triangulation method of gathering data. If was to use triangulation, I would have observed, surveyed consumers, and I might have used an interview method to gain the rest of my data (this method, I feel, would have been a rich source of data). There is also another short-coming with my “study:” the sample is not random. The stores I picked were all in one particular area, located in close proximity to one-another.

     All of the short-comings of my “study” aside, I think we can still draw some very basic, surface, superficial conclusions. Though it was not my intention to make any deep, concrete, or peer-review worthy conclusions in the first-place. This project is not meant so much to be concrete or prescriptive but, rather, it is meant to stimulate conversation. So while we may not be able to draw solid conclusions here, I would like to have some fun and look at my findings through the lens of Conflict Theory; with just a touch of Feminist Theory (I know it technically falls, at least partly, within the realm of Conflict Theory). Again, my primary hope for this paper is that it stimulates thought and conversation.

     I took a Saturday afternoon and went to two stores: two big-box (a general retail store and a sporting goods store) retailers. What I had found was there are many similarities between the two big-box stores.   In the big-box retail stores, most of the in-store signage was dominated by “white” people. In particular, areas of business and business casual clothing, white males (females for the female clothing) were portrayed the most. The same went for teenage casual clothing and women’s clothing. While other ethnicities were not excluded, “whites” were portrayed in in-store signage at a rate of 4:1 (roughly). Interestingly enough, once I reached the sporting apparel and sporting goods, “blacks” were represented at higher rates, around 1:1 or 2:1 (this is in comparison to “whites”). Another interesting observation, with sporting goods in particular, was that “whites” were portrayed as participating in activities such as: fishing, camping, hunting, and swimming. In all of these sporting categories, only “whites” were portrayed as participating in such activities. It is also worth noting that women were represented in sporting goods very poorly.

     The portrayal of women was also typical, in a stereotypical way. Women were mostly represented in the following areas: apparel, fashion accessories, make-up, and housewares. Again, “whites” represented most of those being portrayed on the in-store signage and product packaging. “Black” females had higher representation within the realm of high, trendy women’s fashion, but again, they were not equally represented. However, the most diversified women’s section was with make-up. This was the only place within the store where there was roughly equal representation for many ethnicities. But women were still advertised as people who wear “feminine” colors, take care of children and house, and are sexually available at all times. This is as opposed to the men, who, appear rugged, tough, and economically successful.
On a positive note, the pharmacy area and children’s toy sections were very well diversified. In these areas the ratio of represented “whites” in comparison to other ethnicities dropped to anywhere from 1:1 to 2:1. In the toy section in particular, children were portrayed as cooperating and sharing with those of a different social, ethnic, or cultural background.

     What does all of this mean? My observations have led me to this conclusion (remember, this is superficial, and at this point for fun): in-store signing represents the large ideals and stereotypes of our society. Gender, racial and class roles are still completely intact and represented inside these big-box retailers: girls are to wear pink; women are to be sexually available and take care of children and house; men are to be rugged and successful; “blacks” play basketball; and so on. While each department signage had diversity within it, “white” males were still the most represented in all categories except for make-up and women’s clothing (this is for obvious gender role reasons). Again, my observations herein are superficial, and noi concrete, viable conclusions can be drawn here.   However, this has left me wondering if in-store signing does affect the perceptions of the consumer, in particular as to who that consumer is supposed to find within their class and peer group. On the surface in-store advertising does, to a degree, tell us who we should expect along with where and how.

What Religion Should You Choose?

2010-06-21T20:57:00.000-04:00

I forget where I found the following diagram, it may have been on PZ Myers' blog or Phil Plait's. I don't remember. Anyway, I hope it helps.

D

Cathaholics

2010-06-21T17:34:00.000-04:00

For all of you recovering Cathaholics out there I present the Fuji Minx and their song, The Music Made Me Do It. And I am not even going to warn you about the topless singer either.

D

Father's Day

2010-06-20T17:24:00.000-04:00

Congrats on inseminating a female, fellas! I did it twice. And hopefully I get some action tonight! Yeah, I said it.

D

Can't Help But To Wonder

2010-06-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

I, over the past week, have been enjoying some World Cup soccer when I can. And I think it's great. I really like watching soccer, probably because I like defense oriented games (e.g. hockey). At the moment I am watching Cameroon vs. Denmark, and I can't help but to wonder why in the world are we having a soccer tournament in dirt-poor, HIV/AIDS ridden, starving Africa? Granted, the tourney is taking place in the rich country of South Africa, but how much of the proceeds of the tournament will go to AIDS research or solutions to end poverty and hunger in Africa? I confess, I don't know the answer to the preceding question. Though I think the World Cup "situation" is endemic in the world today, especially the United States. Think about it: we have food eating contests; TV shows dedicated to overeating; we spend our extra money on frivolous plastic bullshit from Wal-Mart; and the list goes on and on and on.

We all like to say how much we give a fuck about the poor, the needy, the down-trodden, the sick and the broken, but I don't think we give enough of a shit. I know I don't. At least I am admitting it. Yes, I want to do more and so should you. We are comfortable and have grown complacent; these feelings are due to, in part at least, our proximity to the problem: we don't do more because we shelter ourselves from the problem.

Perhaps I am just being self-loathing and I haven't hated myself enough this week. Or perhaps there really is a problem here. No, wait, there is a problem here. We should find a way to eliminate, or at least, stem the tide of poverty, hunger and disease, before we spend inordinate, gargantuan amounts of money on a soccer tournament or anything else that is logically and ethically secondary when there exists such epidemics in the world.

Are You Bored?

2010-06-18T22:18:00.000-04:00

Then build a Rube Goldberg machine!

Transgender Women Go Topless

2010-06-18T22:04:00.001-04:00

Earlier this month at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, a few transgender women decided to take off their tops and show off their surgically enhanced chests. Mind you, Rehoboth Beach is not a nude beach. When asked by a life-guard to put their tops back on, the transgender ladies protested but eventually submitted to the request, as not desiring an encounter with the local police. But according to the local Police Chief Keith Banks, the transgender ladies were doing nothing illegal, and get this, because they still had male genitalia. Though because of this quirky situation, Rehoboth Beach commissioner Kathy McGuiness feels that the issue needs to be discussed at the next town hall meeting.

If you are like my wife, your head probably hurts after reading this story. What sort of sense or logic is there to any of this? But there are bigger questions at hand. How do you define what a man or woman is or is not? Is this news story about sex, gender or both? Why can men (whatever the term men/man means, and are we talking about sex and/or gender here?) take of their shirts legally pretty much everywhere but women can't? If you have a surgically enhanced chest and you have a penis then why can't you bare your chest?

First, it is important for us to understand the difference between sex and gender. We often use the terms interchangeably and without thought. Sex is biological: you're male or female, you have a penis or a vulva (this is the correct term to describe the whole of the female genitalia, vagina is only a part of the vulva). Being a man or a woman is a gender. Genders have roles: men are bread-winners and strong, and women are homemakers and emotionally soft. It is important to note (before I get any hate mail) that I don't endorse these gender roles, they are merely just examples.

I think it is also important to note that many believe that there are only two sexes and only two genders. This is most definitely not the case. There is an almost unlimited number of sexes and possibly genders. However, I could argue that there really is only two genders: those who have power, privilege and access to resources, and those who don't. For the sake of brevity and clarity I will avoid getting into this debate, but if you want to know more, I suggest that you read Monique Wittig's, The Straight Mind: and other essays and Anne Fausto-Sterling's, The Five Sexes: why male and female are not enough. But back to the point. In Native American cultures, the third gender has been known and culturally accepted. In some cultures, such as the Indian (India) the Hijra are revered and asked to bestow blessing upon married couples. The bigger picture here is that gender is a cultural construction. Genders and gender roles are not universal across all cultures. The only thing universal concerning gender is that those who are "women"usually have secondary class status.

The ideal dichotomy of two sexes and two genders is the root of the problem here, at least, in my humble undergraduate opinion. It is normal and convenient for us to have boys and girls and penises and vulvas. While this sexual dichotomy wraps up sex in a nice, neat, easy to swallow package, it is not the case. At what point is a male a male? Is it when he has 100% of a penis? If so, what constitutes a complete penis? And the reverse is true as well. When do we have a complete and totally whole female? And what about the 'third sex'? Are herms, merms, or sherms, male or female or other?

If one is considered a man because they have a penis, or, rather, a man has a penis, then our trans-gender friends in Delaware have absolutely every right to bare their chest. This is what the law states in so many words. Yet, what would have happened if these trans-gender folks took off their tops and they had natural man-breasts? However, women, who have a vulva cannot bare their surgically enhanced chest, let alone a natural one. And why should it be this way? Why does owning a piece of dangling flesh between one's legs allow one to have rights that a person without a penis can't have? Or is the problem that our culture has so sexualized the breast that we just can't have them hang out? I think the answer is a bit of both of the former and the latter. And again, we as a culture have real issues with stepping outside of the sex/gender dichotomy.

Overall, I believe the problem is with cultural gender inequalities: women don't have as much power as men, and they never will until access to resources and rewards (e.g. money) is shifted away from men and into the hands of women. Another point to take note of here: you do not have to have a penis to be a man; you don't have to have a vulva to be a woman. Remember, man and woman are genders; thus, they are culturally determined. So, to clarify my statement above, I am using man and woman as our mainstream culture uses these terms. Really the issue is with those who have power and those who don't.

References:

2010 Transgender women go topless at Delaware beach. In The Dayton Daily News (http://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyle/transgender-women-go-topless-at-delaware-beach-744402.html)

1993 Fausto-Sterling, Anne. The Five Sexes: why male and female are not enough.
In The Sciences: pp. 20-24. http://frank.mtsu.edu/~phollowa/5sexes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynecomastia

What Is With All Of The Videos?

2010-06-17T18:49:00.000-04:00

Yeah, what is up with that? I don't know. I think most people are visual learners, myself included. Also, a 5-10 minute video can usually explain a complex idea more efficiently than I can. But again, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that my generation and younger have been presented everything visually. Plus there is just a ton of interesting stuff out there on the interwebs that is worth sharing. So sit back and enjoy!

D

Toadies To Release Feeler

2010-06-17T18:43:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but I am a big, big Toadies fan. If you don't know them, which you should, then you have probably heard their song, Possum Kingdom. If not Possum Kingdom then you may know Tyler or I Burn. And if none of these are ringing your bell then you need to get your arss over to YouTube and watch some videos. At any rate, The Toadies are releasing their album Feeler, which was pulled by Interscope Records 13 years ago. Interscope thought that the record wouldn't sell, so they sat on it. Well, good news, Interscope's rights to Feeler have ended and those rights go back to the band.
So sometime this summer (there isn't an exact release date yet, but the record has been recorded) Feeler will be released; at first as a digital download and then as a CD. So go get it, that is, when it comes out. You can get more info at the official Toadies website.

D

Do We Need God As a Prime Mover?

2010-06-16T19:53:00.000-04:00

If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can’t we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth?

- Ryan Hanson

The above was the atheist quote of the day today (if you have ever scrolled down to the bottom of the page, you will notice it), and I would like to reflect on it for just a moment. I personally agree with Mr. Hanson's statement except for saying that the earth has always been here. I get where he was going with that, but he, as I would have and do, should have gone with, instead of earth, let's say, the universe or the multiverse. I only say this so as to be consistant. We can show that the earth hasn't been here forever, it's only been here for about 4.5 billion years. All of this is really neither here nor there, I am just being a bit picky.

But why should god (I am speaking here of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god of Abraham, or really it could be any god, but I am emphasising the personal god here) be the start of anything? If god is than something must have created god. And this goes off into what philosophers call, infinite regress. There is no end. So why couldn't the universe or multiverse be all that there is forever and ever? It has always been and may always be. It's just a thought. Below is a video from Neil DeGrasse Tyson's PBS special, Origins, which he also has a book out with the same title. Tyson goes through the cosmic clock to give us an idea of the formation of the universe.

Big Butter Jesus

2010-06-15T21:05:00.000-04:00

Last night, the world famous Big Butter Jesus burned down. The details are sketchy, but I heard that the Lord was struck down by a bolt of lightning. Maybe the good lord didn't care for that particular graven image, and it was an ugly one at that. All that is left is the steel skeleton since the outer-surface, made of styrofoam and fiberglass, burned away. R.I.P. Big Butter Jesus.

D

Organic Food

2010-06-14T15:05:00.000-04:00

We have all been told that organic food is better for us than non-organic food: it's better for the environment; it tastes better; it's less toxic to our bodies and so on. But all of these assumptions begs the question: Are organic foods any better for us? And if you have been to a grocery store lately, you may have noticed the large price gap between organic and non-organic foods. So why should I pay more for organic foods, especially if they are no better than their non-organic counterpart? We are also coming so very close to the 7,000,000,000 population mark on this earth. Can organic only farming feed all 7 billion people? Considering that we aren't feeding all of them now, I don't think so.

In the video below Penn & Teller investigate this issue of organic food. Of course I have to say that P&T are biased, they are libertarian. Libertarians are often pro-business and pro-small-government. At the least, the video below is not meant to be prescriptive but, rather, stimulative. Go grab your popcorn and sit back and relax. Life isn't so much about having the right answers but that you ask the right questions.

D

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Revamp, etc.

2010-06-13T17:36:00.001-04:00

As you can tell, I have a new layout for the blog, so enjoy. Also, I just added a new link in the 'chosen ones' section for the Feminist Review. So check 'em out. In adding the Feminist Review as a link, I will be writing more and more about the nature and political implications of gender and sex issues.

D

Need Catheters?

2010-06-13T16:27:00.000-04:00

I know that there is a real need being addressed in this commercial, but I can't help but to laugh.

Cheers!
D

How To Destroy Angels

2010-06-13T14:41:00.000-04:00

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame has a new project, How To Destroy Angels. Check out the video for their song, The Space Between. And you can get their six song EP for free at their website.

D

This is not for you

2010-06-13T14:30:00.000-04:00

"I tried to think of something deep to say, but my well is dripping dry today."
-Live (Throwing Copper)-

Summer is upon us, and I am back to spew forth my sophomoric ideological ejaculate onto the internet masses. Though a massive following (if you want to call it a following) I do not posses; nor should I, as I am not the most consistent of bloggers. My fault. I would actually have to write something in order for someone to read it. Seeing as I haven't been writing, it's difficult to gain a following of loyal minions to hang upon my every hollow word; better for me to fade away into internet obscurity than to be consumed with web page hit-counts and the everyday worry of wondering if I actually have anything worthwhile to contribute to the opinion giving community that is the world-wide-blog. With that said...

Cheers!

D

Home

2009-12-16T10:42:00.001-05:00

Vader Humor

2009-12-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

It's time for some Darth Vader Humor. Check it out!

D

The Rapture

2009-12-14T19:49:00.000-05:00

I have been following a breaking story on PZ Myers blog about the coming Christian rapture. I know everyone is already tense about the 2012 end of the world scenario (yeah right!), but the news is that the end is going to happen on ~~September 21, 2009~~.........~~October 21, 2009~~.........on or before ~~December 14, 2009...~~

Wait, I think they have the date right this time; now it will happen on December 21, 2009. So unwrap and return all of those Christmas presents you bought or give them away early, because we aren't going to see Christmas this year. Actually, considering the track record of the fella (gal?) running this website predicting the rapture, I wouldn't. Though I will be happy to take any early Christmas gifts if you want! Any guesses on what the next date will be?

D

Jesus, Interrupted Part Two

2009-12-14T15:52:00.001-05:00

I wanted to expand a little bit on the "Jesus, Interrupted" post. I really felt like I left the reader (you) hanging a bit. I didn't come full circle as it were. I really wanted to finish the post with, what I consider, a very important point that Dr. Ehrman puts forth.

As I recall I left off with the point that you have to read each gospel writer for themselves. You can't read John for Luke or Mark for Matthew. To do so is to miss the theological point that the writer was trying to convey (e.g. In John's gospel Jesus' divinity is of extreme importance compared to Mark, for instance). From here, while it is implied, when you mash gospels together you end up making your own gospel (e.g. the nativity story or the crucifixion). Therefore, in making your own gospel you inadvertently (or, for some, on purpose) change what was described by the author.

It is true that there are many discrepancies and errors in the Bible; this is to be expected, since it was written by many different authors; with different theological views; over large expanses of time. Because there are errors, does this mean that we can say anything about the existence of god? Absolutely not. The big idea to grasp here is that the Bible is a very human book. So this leaves us with a question: Have those who believe that the Bible is inerrant misplaced their faith? In other words, do people have faith in the Bible or god?

A New Skeptic

2009-12-14T12:05:00.003-05:00

Sorry I haven't been on the interwebs lately. Mrs. Skeptic Dave and I have just added a new skeptic baby to the family. I present to you skeptic Gabriel (Gabe).

To my beautiful children Jocelyn and Gabriel (above):

"May your generation see wonders undreamt."

Love,

Daddy

P.S. The above quote is by Carl Sagan. It was taken from his book Pale Blue Dot.

Jesus, Interrupted

2009-12-05T16:25:00.001-05:00

Currently I am reading a book by Dr. Bart Ehrman New Testament Scholar and Professor at the University of North Carolina titled “Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing The Hidden Contradictions in the Bible and Why We Don’t Know About Them.”

So far it is a fascinating account of discrepancies in the Bible. Most of the inconsistencies are minor and not really noteworthy. However there are several inconstancies that are seemingly, if not completely, irreconcilable. These include the stories of Jesus’ birth, miracles, life, death, trial, and resurrection. And all of these discrepancies are learned by all who attend seminary; this is common knowledge to all pastors, priests, reverends, clergy, and so on. The question is why don’t pastors pass on this historical/critical information onto their parishioners? Are they afraid that such information will lead to the faithful losing their faith? I don’t know, but if that is the case I think that pastors are underestimating the faith of their congregations. While there are many discrepancies, Dr. Ehrman maintains, even though he is a self-professed agnostic, that one can know about such contradictions and still maintain faith in god. However one cannot believe that the Bible is inerrant, it’s not.

Often I have wondered, as have many others, why I haven’t caught many of these very obvious contradictions. Dr. Ehrman has an answer to this, vertical reading. Most people read anthologies from the top of the page to the bottom and from the first chapter to the last. So when you read the crucifixion story of Jesus in Matthew you don’t realize the differences in the story by the time you get to read it John. You end up naturally weaving the stories together; you fill in the blanks. The solution to this is what Dr. Ehrman calls horizontal reading. So instead of reading through Matthew then Mark and so on; read the resurrection story in Matthew then read the account in John keeping track of the details of both. Basically you want to read the accounts side-by-side. It is when you read horizontally that you notice the inconsistencies in the different gospel accounts.

Since it is Christmas time I thought I would talk a bit about the nativity and what the Bible says about it, or rather what Dr. Ehrman says about it. We all know the story of Jesus‘ birth and according to Dr. Ehrman we get our account of the birth of Christ from two gospels: Matthew and Luke, and these two accounts are irreconcilable; at the very least difficult to reconcile. Dr. Ehrman explains below:

“The differences between the accounts are quite striking. Virtually everything said in Matthew is missing from Luke, and all the stories of Luke are missing from Matthew. Matthew mentions dreams that came to Joseph that are absent in Luke; Luke mentions angelic visitations to Elizabeth and Mary that are absent in Matthew. Matthew has the wise men, the slaughter of the children by Herod, the flight to Egypt, the Holy Family bypassing Judea to return to Nazareth, all missing from Luke. Luke has the birth of John the Baptist, the census of Caesar, the trip to Bethlehem, the manger and the inn, the shepherds, the circumcision, the presentation in the Temple, and the return home immediately afterward, all of them missing from Matthew.” (Jesus Interrupted pg. 33)

Do these contradictions mean that the event didn’t happen? No, not necessarily. It just means, at the very least, that someone was wrong in their account of the event. I think what is important here, as does Dr. Ehrman, is that when one reads the Bible that one should read each gospel for itself. In other words, read John for John; not Luke for John. Each author had a particular theological theme that they were trying to convey. If you read Matthew to fill in or understand Mark then you are missing the point of Matthew. This idea of reading a single gospel for itself is something that Dr. Ehrman discusses in more detail in his book, and something that I hope to expand on here at a later date.

Collision

2009-12-04T18:51:00.000-05:00

I would really like to see this.

D

"Collision: Hitchens vs. Wilson" - EXCLUSIVE 13 minute preview from LEVEL4 on Vimeo.

Tiger Woods is..........

2009-12-02T12:48:00.000-05:00

HUMAN!!! NOW GET OVER IT!

D

Holiday Humor

2009-12-01T20:16:00.003-05:00

A Little Humor

2009-12-01T18:20:00.000-05:00

After the Rick Warren post I thought it might be appropriate to have a laugh. I present to you Dara O'Briain. Enjoy!

D

Rick Warren, will you find your way?

2009-12-01T18:13:00.001-05:00

I just learned of this story as I was watching the Rachel Maddow show. Apparently, the Uganda wants to pass a law which will put homosexuals to death and those who know of homosexuals in the country in prison for three years. So what is the connection to famous television pastor and bestselling author Rick Warren?

"Now Warren's on the defensive again, this time for his affiliation with Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor who has endorsed proposed legislation in Uganda that makes certain homosexual acts punishable by life in prison or even, in some cases, death. Ssempa has made appearances at Saddleback and has been embraced warmly by Warren and his wife, Kay."

To Warren's credit, he has supposedly distanced himself from Mr. Ssempa this past October. This would generally be considered a good thing, next you would expect Pastor Warren to condemn such legislation. That has not happened.

"The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations."

AND

"On Meet the Press this morning, he reiterated this neutral stance in a different context: "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides."

Wait, what? As a pastor in America you feel that it isn't your calling to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations? Even when a government, in this case the Ugandan government, wants to imprison or put people to death for being or knowing a homosexual? So what would have Pastor Rick done during the holocaust? What are pastor Rick's views of Iran murdering homosexuals or non-believers? Rick Warren's refusal (at this point at least) to condemn such inhumanity and brutality says something not only about his personal character but also his theological views.

All quotes were taken from the original story on the Newsweek website found below:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/11/29/pastor-rick-warren-responds-to-proposed-ugandan-legislation.aspx

It's That Time of Year

2009-11-27T20:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, the holiday season is upon us. Many of us are shopping and preparing for the onslaught of family and friends who we'll be seeing this holiday season. Such preparations often include sending out holiday cards to friends and family. Usually the cards are run-of-the-mill Hallmark cards that usually say something like, "May you and yours have a warm holiday season" or something to that effect. More often than not the cards are laced with religious bits of seasons greetings. They are usually short little antiquated tidbits like, "He's the reason for the season; or And a child was born." Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the holiday season per se, I don't mind getting holiday or as some insist -Christmas- cards from friends and family.

However, and you somehow knew that this was coming, is sending out holiday cards to friends and family with religious themes, oh I don't know, pushing it a bit. Maybe I am way over thinking this, and as I said, I don't mind getting Christmas cards from friends and family, but it just seems a tad bit like a free and culturally acceptable chance to proselytize to those one knows. Or it could be a chance for that person sending the card to say Merry Christmas, we are glad we know you and have you in our lives.

The point I am getting to is, would it be acceptable for me, an avowed godless heathen, to send out Happy Winter Solstice cards? Maybe it would be alright, so long as I didn't espouse any sort of atheistic agenda within the card. Now, I have never received, at least to my working knowledge, a card that was telling me that I had to accept the Lord as my savior. So what is my deal? Why did I just spend this time writing about something that I don't necessarily have a problem with (or think is a problem) when I could have been doing something else more constructive? It's because I am fascinated with how society works (duh.....social science student here) and I don't think I have heard anyone raise the question.

What do you think? By the number of responses to previous questions I have asked I don't think I will get a response. However if you have anything to add then go for it.

D

I'm sorry but.......

2009-11-18T21:15:00.001-05:00

DINOSAURS AND HUMANS NEVER COEXISTED TOGETHER. THERE IS ZERO, I REPEAT, ZERO EVIDENCE FOR SUCH A CLAIM. ANYONE WHO CLAIMS OTHERWISE IS EITHER IGNORANT OF THE FACTS, WHICH CAN BE FIXED, OR IS JUST A KOOK!

However it is possible that other such factors exist in one's decision to deny history. Usually, one's acceptance of the truth is often clouded by their professions of faith. This is unfortunate considering that the truth is the truth, and the truth of evolution is NOT incapatable with belief in God. Unfortunately there are people like Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, and others, who would have you believe such plain and utter nonsense. Please excuse me for the bold caps at the begining of this post, I was having a Lewis Black moment.
D

More 2012

2009-11-17T12:48:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting article from the NY Times about the 2012 doomsday.

D

Re-posted from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/science/17essay.html?_r=1#

Is Doomsday Coming? Perhaps, but Not in 2012

By DENNIS OVERBYE

Published: November 16, 2009

NASA said last week that the world was not ending — at least anytime soon. Last year, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually jittery. How often do you have a pair of such blue-ribbon scientific establishments assuring us that everything is fine?

On the other hand, it is kind of depressing if you were looking forward to taking a vacation from mortgage payments to finance one last blowout.
CERN’s pronouncements were intended to allay concerns that a black hole would be spit out of its new Large Hadron Collider and eat the Earth.

The announcements by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube, were in response to worries that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to a close.

The doomsday buzz reached a high point with the release of the new movie “2012,” directed by Roland Emmerich, who previously inflicted misery on the Earth from aliens and glaciers in “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

In the movie, an alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy on Dec. 21, 2012, causes the Sun to go berserk with mighty storms on its surface that pour out huge numbers of the elusive subatomic particles known as neutrinos. Somehow the neutrinos transmute into other particles and heat up the Earth’s core. The Earth’s crust loses its moorings and begins to weaken and slide around. Los Angeles falls into the ocean; Yellowstone blows up, showering the continent with black ash. Tidal waves wash over the Himalayas, where the governments of the planet have secretly built a fleet of arks in which a select 400,000 people can ride out the storm.

But this is only one version of apocalypse out there. In other variations, a planet named Nibiru crashes into us or the Earth’s magnetic field flips.

There are hundreds of books devoted to 2012, and millions of Web sites, depending on what combination of “2012” and “doomsday” you type into Google.

All of it, astronomers say, is bunk. (emphasis is mine)

“Most of what’s claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy and a level of paranoia worthy of ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ ” Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, and an expert on ancient astronomy, wrote in an article in the November issue of Sky & Telescope.

Personally, I have been in love with end-of-the-world stories since I started consuming science fiction as a disaffected child. Scaring the pants off the public has been pretty much the name of the game ever since Orson Welles broadcast “War of the Worlds,” a fake newscast about a Martian invasion of New Jersey, in 1938.

But the trend has gone too far, suggested David Morrison, an astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who made the YouTube video and is one of the agency’s point people on the issue of Mayan prophecies of doom.

“I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money,” Dr. Morrison said. “There is no ethical right to frighten children to make a buck.”

Dr. Morrison said he had been getting about 20 letters and e-mail messages a day from people as far away as India scared out of their wits. In an e-mail message, he enclosed a sample that included one from a woman wondering if she should kill herself, her daughter and her unborn baby. Another came from a person pondering whether to put her dog to sleep to avoid suffering in 2012.

All of this reminded me of the kinds of letters I received last year about the putative black hole at CERN. That too was more science fiction than science fact, but apparently there is nothing like death to bring home the abstract realms of physics and astronomy. In such situations, when the Earth or the universe is trying to shrug you and your loved ones off this mortal plane, the cosmic does become personal.

Dr. Morrison said he did not blame the movie for all this, as much as the many other purveyors of the Mayan prediction, as well as the apparent failure of some people, reflected in so many arenas of our national life, to tell reality from fiction. But then, he said, “my doctorate is in astronomy, not psychology.”

In an e-mail exchange, Dr. Krupp said: “We are always uncertain about the future, and we always consume representations of it. We are always lured by the romance of the ancient past and by the exotic scale of the cosmos. When they combine, we are mesmerized.”
A NASA spokesman, Dwayne Brown, said the agency did not comment on movies, leaving that to movie critics. But when it comes to science, Mr. Brown said, “we felt it was prudent to provide a resource.”

If you want to worry, most scientists say, you should think about global climate change, rogue asteroids or nuclear war. But if speculation about ancient prophecies gets you going, here are some things Dr. Morrison and the others think you should know.

To begin with, astronomers agree, there is nothing special about the Sun and galactic center aligning in the sky. It happens every December with no physical consequences beyond the overconsumption of eggnog. And anyway, the Sun and the galactic center will not exactly coincide even in 2012.
If there were another planet out there heading our way, everybody could see it by now. As for those fierce solar storms, the next sunspot maximum will not happen until 2013, and will be on the mild side, astronomers now say.

Geological apocalypse is a better bet. There have been big earthquakes in California before and probably will be again. These quakes could destroy Los Angeles, as shown in the movie, and Yellowstone could erupt again with cataclysmic force sooner or later. We and our works are indeed fragile and temporary riders on the Earth. But in this case, “sooner or later” means hundreds of millions of years, and there would be plenty of warning.

The Mayans, who were good-enough astronomers and timekeepers to predict Venus’s position 500 years in the future, deserve better than this.

Mayan time was cyclic, and experts like Dr. Krupp and Anthony Aveni, an astronomer and anthropologist at Colgate University, say there is no evidence that the Mayans thought anything special would happen when the odometer rolled over on this Long Count in 2012. There are references in Mayan inscriptions to dates both before the beginning and the ending of the present Long Count, they say, just as your next birthday and April 15 loom beyond New Year’s Eve, on next year’s calendar.
So keep up those mortgage payments.

More Email

2009-11-17T12:40:00.001-05:00

The email from a supposed auditor from the Bank of Africa (BOA), promising me millions of dollars, has passed around my name to three other bankers and they want to help me out too! Apparently there is just millions and millions of dollars laying around in BOA. If I remember correctly, I could have around 60 million dollars. Champagne could be raining down from the sky, strippers, midgets, and balloons could be had for all, but, and I know you will hate to hear it, I think I am going to have to pass on all of the unclaimed BOA millions. And I think all of you should to!

D

Email

2009-11-15T18:57:00.003-05:00

Hooray, I got my first email today! I was very excited to see some mail in the mailbox and I just couldn't wait to read it. Who could it have been from: Michael Shermer, Jerry Coyne, Phil Plait, all commending me on advancing skeptical thought? No, it was no one that important. However, I was given an offer that I would be totally crazy to not jump at

(note the sarcasm). Apparently, a banking customer of the Bank of Africa has died. That is sad, but wait, he left almost 11 million dollars in his account. So this accountant/auditor noticed this and he thought he would email me about the situation. According to Mr. Karim (the auditor), I can have 40% of this cash money, which is a little over 4 million dollars and he will keep 60%. And at first all of the money will be deposited into my bank account, but just until Mr. Karim can make it to the States. Sounds good right, I can go to work tomorrow and tell my boss to piss off. All I have to do is give Mr. Karim my bank account information. For your entertainment, the email is below. Don't give out your personal information to anyone on the internet. If a deal sounds too good to be true, then it is, don't be fooled. And if you really aren't sure about something you find on the internet/email then sleep on it, ask others about it, and do some research. Critically think and you will be alright! Be safe out there!

D

Dear friend, I am Abdel Karim, manager auditing and accounting department Bank of Africa Ouagadougou Burkina Faso. My purpose of contacting you is for you to collaborate with me in this transaction because it is not easy for me to handle this transaction alone as the next of kin to our deceased customer who died along with his family in a plane crash July 31sth 2000 and left no one to claim his deposit with Bank of Africa here in Burkina Faso, Let me solicit for your confidence and trust in this transaction as it is legal , i have taken all necessary arrangement here before contacting you in order to ensure that this funds is successfully claim and move to you from Burkina Faso without implications, so i implore you to comply with me to enable us mutually undertake this prospects .The total amount deposited by our late customer is United state dollars ($10.5 million USD) and we shall share the funds in a mutual understanding of 40 % for you while 60% will be for me, my 60% will remain in your bank account pending on my arrival in your country and I shall invest with my own share in your country as soon as the fund is transferred into your bank account. I assure you that there is no risk involved in this transaction and also all the deceased customer information are with me to back up your claim. Now upon your request i shall send to you the bank application form which you shall fill and send to our bank. Send me your contact details immediately .contact me through my private email address, abdelkarim1234@gmail.com, Thanks ABDEL KARIM

2012

2009-11-15T18:39:00.003-05:00

No doubt that most of you have heard something about the world coming to an end on December 21, 2012. If you haven't then you may be aware of the new John Cusack movie, 2012, in which the depicts the world being destroyed by an impact of Planet X; a planet supposedly discovered by the Sumarians. While much of the 2012 nonsense has been floating about over the past year or two, it is the release of the movie 2012 that has prompted NASA to publicly debunk 2012 myths that are lurking about. So don't sell your house, quit your job, or start to whore around quite yet. But you can check out the NPR article below.

D

Re-posted from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120436493

Scared Of Planet Nibiru? NASA Would Like To Help

November 15, 2009

According to numerous sources on the Internet, in 2012 a planet called Nibiru will collide with Earth, resulting in the extinction of the human race. Or the Earth's magnetic poles will flip, causing the rotation of the planet to reverse, resulting in the extinction of the human race. Or the Earth will fall into something called a "dark rift" in the Milky Way — resulting in the extinction of the human race.
So, what's NASA doing about it?
"NASA has nothing to do with the Planet Nibiru, because it doesn't exist," NASA astrobiologist David Morrison tells NPR's Guy Raz. "What I am doing is trying to answer all these people who are really scared, and see if we can't get some facts out to counteract the mythology on the Internet."
Morrison writes a column called "Ask an Astrobiologist" on NASA's Web site. Some years ago, he started receiving questions from people genuinely worried about what may happen in 2012.
The questions aren't as funny as you might think. "I've had three from young people saying they were contemplating committing suicide," says Morrison. "I've had two from women contemplating killing their children and themselves. I had one last week from a person who said, 'I'm so scared, my only friend is my little dog. When should I put it to sleep so it won't suffer?' And I don't know how to answer those questions."
Morrison now maintains a 2012 FAQ, where he debunks the doomsday scenarios.
Magnetic poles flipping? "The Earth reverses its magnetic polarity once every 400,000 to 500,000 years. There's no reason to think it will happen now, [and] no reason to think it will cause a problem if it did," he says.
Dark rift? "The dark rift is just a place where there are dust clouds in the Milky Way. I can't imagine where someone decided to be afraid of that."
The only real proof for many 2012 believers will come on Jan. 1, 2013 — but Morrison says that won't be the end of doomsday hoaxes.
"The Planet Nibiru was predicted to hit the Earth in May of 2003," he says. "As far as I know, it didn't. And someone just pushed reset, and now it's coming in 2012. So I don't think we'll ever be rid of apocalyptic stories about Planet X and the end of the world."

Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Speak

2009-11-15T08:32:00.002-05:00

What do you think?

D

Want to Get In Touch With Me?

2009-11-15T08:05:00.003-05:00

Probably not, but I have an email set up specifically for Skeptic Dave! All questions, comments, and weirdness can be sent to:

skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU SEND ME AN EMAIL, I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO PUBLISH ANY AND ALL CONTENTS OF ANY EMAIL SENT.

God On Trial

2009-11-14T18:54:00.001-05:00

This should provoke some thought!

D

The Onion: PETA

2009-11-14T07:24:00.002-05:00

The Onion is hilarious!

Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women

The Trials of Ted Haggard

2009-11-13T18:42:00.005-05:00

I just watched the documentary, "The Trials of Ted Haggard". It is excellent. I actually don't know what to say at the moment. I think I need to let it sink in a bit before I comment too much. However I will say this, the church and the evangelical movement raped Ted Haggard. For a group of people who profess to believe what they believe and then turn their backs on someone who was in need. That was very Christ-like of them. So what do you think? Let me know! Also, when you click on the play button, an annoying pop-up web page is going to appear, just exit out of it. Sorry, but this was the only copy of this film I could find.

D

Months and Months Later, I Make No Promises

2009-11-13T18:27:00.002-05:00

Remember how I promised I was going to be more attentive to the interwebs and this blog, well...........to no surprise, I haven't been keeping up. For some reason college takes up a lot of my time, who would have thought? Anyway, I make no more promises, but I just might be posting more......but we will see. I hope this finds all of you well! And happy Friday the 13th!

D

Creationism and Public Schools

2009-07-21T14:00:00.003-04:00

Below is an essay I wrote for my English class. It is an argument essay about whether we should allow the teaching of creationism in public schools. The only problem is that it is short, only five pages. Sorry, but that is all I was allowed to write; though I could've gone on for much longer. Anyway, I thought I would share it with you. Let me know what you think!

D

Creationism In Public Schools

Ever since the dawn of man, human beings have tried to make sense of their existence. “What is the purpose of life,” and “How did life come to be,” are just a couple of questions concerning human existence. These questions have been debated by scholars, the clergy, and general laypeople for centuries. But it wasn’t until 1859 when Charles Darwin published his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, which posited that all life shares a common ancestor. Thanks to Darwin, humans had finally started to grasp how life came to be and how it flourished, namely, though the Theory of Evolution. Before Darwin, the only answer to how life came to be was creationism. But even now, after One-Hundred and Fifty-Years after Darwin’s radical new idea, there are still some today who oppose evolution and want an alternative, creationism, taught in public science classes.

Creationism is the idea that all living things, plants, animals, and bacteria, were created, by God just as they are now. Creationists got this idea by taking a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis in the Bible, which says that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Also, creationists typically have a young earth view concerning the age of the earth. They usually believe the earth to be somewhere between fourteen-thousand and six-thousand years-old (however, these numbers for the age of the earth are nowhere to be found in the Bible). Creationists vehemently deny that all life shares a common ancestor; however they generally accept that micro-evolution happens (i.e. adaptations occur). Ken Ham, the founder of the young earth creationist organization Answers In Genesis (AIG) and the Creation Museum, claims that “Evolutionists” and Creationists have the same evidence, but they have different interpretations of that evidence. It is this claim of difference of interpretations that is giving the creationist movement credibility. But does this sound like science or is creationism merely religion and should it be taught in public school science classes?

“Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution,” was penned by the evolutionary biologist and Russian Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, who criticized anti-evolution groups like Answers In Genesis (AIG) and the Institute for Creation Research (ICR); all of who want creationism taught in science classes. Dobzhansky was making the point that evolution occurs, and all of the evidence from all of the different scientific disciplines (e.g. geology, bio-chemistry, physics) adds to the theory of evolution. In other words, Evolution explains so much of what happens in nature that no other theory makes sense. The theory of evolution has multiple lines of evidence for it. It is time tested and makes positive predictions. Evolution is a working and verifiable science.

Even though evolution has more evidence for it than any other theory, besides Quantum Mechanics, there is still doubt from the general American public. AIG even states that according to surveys, most Americans are creationists; therefore, creationism should be taught in science classes along with the theory of evolution. This however, is a logic fallacy called the argument of popular sentiment (Argumentum ad populum). For instance, if ninety percent of the population believed UFOs exist it does make the preposition, UFOs exist, true. Popular opinion is not evidence. At one point, many people thought that the earth was the center of the universe (which it’s not even the center of the Milky Way) and it was flat. But both of those popular notions were shown to be false.

Shouldn’t the American educational system be teaching students all sides of the origins of life? Students have a right to know and decide for themselves. Knowledge should never be withheld from anyone. This is another argument espoused by AIG and ICR. At first the argument seems on the level and sincere. It appeals to Americans sense of fair play and self-determination. Knowledge should never be withheld from anyone, but sadly, the truth is not democratic. Parents could vote on the sex of their child, but it doesn’t change the child’s sex. But for the sake of argument imagine that creationism can be taught in public schools. Would this now mean that in order to be fair and not withhold knowledge from students, schools would have to teach alchemy in chemistry class? Would it mean that in history class, schools should teach Holocaust denialism? Both “theories” claim to have evidence for them.

To complicate the matter is the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Creationism is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Creationism is expressly religious in its intent and therefore cannot be taught in science class. This opinion has been expressed in several court cases, one of the most famous being Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), which established that creationism absolutely could not be taught. Though the Edwards case didn’t stop the creationist movement. After the Edwards ruling, a new branch of creationism evolved known as Intelligent Design (ID). However, in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case (2005) it was determined that ID had no secular purpose and was expressly religious in its intent, thus violating the First Amendment.

Because of the religious intent behind groups like AIG and ICR, the real underlying problem seems to be where evolution puts man. Evolution makes man an animal, which ironically enough, the creationist Carl Linnaeus was the first to classify man as a member of the great apes. According to the Bible, which AIG and ICR adhere to, man is special; evolution threatens this idea. Science has seen such battles before in cases of Copernicus and Galileo. They took away mans special status of being the center of the universe. But does knowing such facts make humanity less special? The late Stephen Jay Gould Ph.D, Harvard Zoologist, and science popularizer argued in his essay, “Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA)” that science and religion answers two separate questions. Religion answers questions of meaning while science answers questions dealing with the natural world. Science can inform religion, but it is not designed to answer the existential questions. Even Pope John Paul II wrote in his edict “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth” (1996) that evolution, in the neo-darwinian sense, is not just an hypothesis. Pope John Paul agreed with Gould’s NOMA. Creationism is more concerned with man’s place in the universe as opposed to how man came to be. There is no evidence for any of the tenets of creationism: a worldwide flood, a young earth, dinosaurs coexisting with humans, or a literal six day creation of the earth and cosmos. Therefore, creationism is solely a religious movement intended to spread religion and misinformed ideas about the origin of species, and thus doesn’t fit within a public school science class.

In a recent survey, half of all Americans responding when asked if the the earth orbits the sun or the sun the earth, got the question wrong. The fact that half of those respondents got that question wrong says a lot about the science education in the United States. This survey shows why it is important for the United States to take its science education seriously. Doing so requires that the most up-to-date factual content is taught to students. There is no time to be wasted with misinformation. There are no cures for HIV, cancer, and the hundreds of other diseases that kill men, women, and children each year. The theory of evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology and to dismiss it simply because it endangers one’s position on man’s purpose in the cosmos could be a grave mistake.

WTF?

2009-07-14T15:31:00.002-04:00

Brian Kilmeade is a news person on the morning show "Fox and Friends". He is an idiot. Whether he is being tongue and cheek below is up for debate, but I remember when Don Imus called some ladies nappy-haired-hoes, and he got destroyed for it. I don't agree with what Imus said, by any means, but how does it compare to what Mr. Kilmeade says below?

Does he realize that there was a very famous dictator in Germany around the late 30s to the mid 40s that had that very same thought? The only difference is that Hitler was speaking of the Aryans being a superior race. Also, Mr. Kilmeade doesn't seem to know that eugenics is psuedo-scientific, and has been shown to be wrong wrong wrong wrong. Brian, you are a moron.

God

2009-07-14T15:12:00.002-04:00

I had completely forgotten about this song until I heard it yesterday in my religion class. Now, I am hooked on it. Check out the video below and the lyrics too.

D

Artist - Tori Amos

Song - God

Tori Amos--God

Ooo hoo, ooo hoo
God, sometimes you just don't come through
God, sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God sometimes you just don't come through

You make pretty daisies pretty daisies
I gotta find find find what you're doing about things here
A few witches burning gets a little toasty
(Hey what do you know what do you know)
I gotta find find find find where you always go when the wind blows

God sometimes you just don't come through
God sometimes you just don't come through, babe
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God sometimes you just don't come through

Well tell me you're crazy, maybe then I'll understand
(Come down and tell me the truth)
You got your nine iron in the backseat just in case
I heard you've gone south, well babe, you love your new four wheel
(Hey what do you know what do you know?)
I gotta find where you always go when the wind blows

will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall
will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky

God sometimes you just don't come through
God sometimes you just don't come through, babe
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God sometimes you just don't come through

History of the Devil

2009-07-11T08:56:00.004-04:00

Right now in the summer quarter, I am taking a humanities class titled "People and Religion". It's a facinating class where we learn about certain religions and what is involved in them (e.g. rituals, celebrations, and so on). We have studied the Lakota Souix religion, Scientology, Jehovas Witnesses, Mormonism, and Islam. Currently, I am working on a group project for class. We are doing our project on the history/evolution/purpose of the devil. It is so interesting that I thought I would share a documentary that I found here on the intertoobs with you about the devil. It's informative and only about an hour long, so if you have the time then take a watch.

D

Long Time

2009-07-11T08:44:00.002-04:00

Sorry, I know it's been a long while since I've posted anything. That will be changing soon (I hope). I am taking accelerated summer classes at college, so that has taken up a large amount of my time. Also, having a family to attend to tends to consume time as well. But I am going to try and keep up with the blog again because there is a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff to report. Please stick with me and enjoy the ride!

D

P.S. Skeptic Dave may get a new look. I am toying around with some new templates and whatnot. Stay tuned!

Song

2009-05-11T20:47:00.001-04:00

Band: Herbaliser

Song: Sensual Woman

Comments

2009-05-10T10:57:00.003-04:00

Sorry comment moderation is on now. There are some abusing the commenting feature so I must moderate until it is safe. I am publishing all comments, even those that are against what I am saying here. But the comments must be on topic and not a right-wing/ left-wing/center-wing propaganda. ON TOPIC ONLY!

D

Oprah = The Lose

2009-05-09T10:44:00.002-04:00

Read the following article from Slate. Now you will know why Oprah = The Lose!

D

Re-posted from: http://www.slate.com/id/2217798/

Say It Ain't So, O. Why is Oprah Winfrey promoting vaccine skeptic Jenny McCarthy?

By Arthur AllenPosted Wednesday, May 6, 2009, at 11:47 AM ET

Chastising a celebrity is an exercise in futility. You feel like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck, scrabbling wildly in the air without drawing blood. Pointless as this may be, though, I will try to talk some sense into Oprah Winfrey, who has decided to go into business with vaccine skeptic Jenny McCarthy.

There is abundant evidence that vaccines don't cause autism. More than a dozen studies, as well as trend data from California and other states, show that neither the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal nor the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. In March, a federal court dismissed both of these theories in a most definitive way after hearing weeks of testimony and gathering thousands of pages of evidence.

Jenny McCarthy begs to differ. McCarthy dropped out of nursing school in 1993 to become a Playboy bunny and later starred in an MTV show that focused on her bodily functions. She believes that vaccines made her 7-year-old son autistic—and that she "recovered" him with alternative therapies, as she details in her parenting books. McCarthy has appeared regularly on Larry King Live and Oprah to blast the medical establishment, and last year she led a march on Washington to demand that children get fewer vaccines.

On Wednesday it was announced that Oprah signed McCarthy to a deal, starting with a blog on the Oprah Web site. Though neither woman's people will confirm details of the deal, it will presumably lead to a talk show, as it did for Rachael Ray and Dr. Phil, two other Oprah protégés. Perhaps not every episode of a McCarthy show will address vaccines and autism, but some surely will.

Celebrities take on all kinds of causes. They campaign for presidents, and they rally to save the women of Darfur and the hungry masses of Bangladesh and Africa. Some of these appearances may do some good, while others are merely benign grandstanding. But wealthy, toothsome, vivacious, and sexy Jenny McCarthy's impassioned campaign is actually harmful. Why? Because she is spreading dangerous misinformation—and that could bring some once-controlled diseases back into play.

Her boyfriend, actor Jim Carrey, is even more clueless. At the rally last year, I asked Carrey to give an example of a childhood vaccine we could dispense with. Tetanus, he said. That answer did not reflect a strong—or any, really—grasp of infectious diseases. Children who get tetanus—fortunately, it has been extremely rare in the United States since tetanus vaccination began in the 1920s—suffer horrendous pain, arch their backs, and go into terrible spasms before dying. It's a very natural disease, to be sure, because the germ causing tetanus lives in dirt. It's a germ that will be with us forever, and the only way to prevent it is through vaccination.

For some reason, Oprah and the rest of the entertainment world treat McCarthy as if she were Mother Theresa kissing lepers or Nelson Mandela denouncing apartheid. She's been proven wrong about vaccines, yet she persists in claiming that they are so dangerous that it's better to get vaccine-preventable diseases than get the shots. Oprah's spokesman told me that Jenny's views were more "nuanced" than I presented them. Yet here she is a month ago, in an exchange with Time:

I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their fucking fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's shit. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.

McCarthy's popularity has created a lot of anger and disbelief in that tiny sliver of society that believes in evidence-based medicine. One person who's feeling particularly frustrated is David T. Tayloe, president of the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians. (Remember them? A pediatrician is a person with a medical degree who takes care of children. Some of them are said to trust science more than celebrities when it comes to health care.)

"I think show business crosses the line when they give contracts to people like Jenny McCarthy," Tayloe says. "If you give her a bully pulpit, McCarthy is going to make people hesitate to vaccinate their children. She has no medical or scientific credentials. It disturbs us that she's given all these opportunities to make her pitch about vaccines on Oprah or Larry King or U.S. News or whatever. We have to scramble to get equal time—and who wants to see a gray-haired pediatrician talking about a serious topic like childhood vaccines when she's out there blasting the academy and blasting the federal government?"

Still, others involved in the effort to refute the vaccine/autism myth aren't as worried about McCarthy. "Jenny McCarthy doesn't bother me that much because I don't think most people take her as a serious commenter on medicine," said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine inventor and author of Autism's False Prophets. "I'd be more concerned if it was someone like Meryl Streep, someone seen as person of gravity and good sense."

What's a little sad about this episode is the fact that once upon a time, big stars like Humphrey Bogart, Louis Armstrong, and Elvis Presley stood up for vaccination campaigns to protect the lives of children. (Actress Amanda Peet recently stepped up to counter McCarthy's message, saying that people should get their advice on autism and vaccines from doctors, not actresses. But Peet seems to lack McCarthy's entrepreneurial verve and hasn't drawn the same level of attention.)

In those days, parents and children clamored for vaccination. Especially children in places like the South Side of Chicago or rural Mississippi (where Oprah was born in 1954), who suffered higher rates of polio in the late 1950s because their parents couldn't afford the new vaccine.

Over the past year, new outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other vaccine-preventable diseases have occurred in communities with parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids.

Oprah, think of the children.

Cartoon Time

2009-05-07T19:59:00.000-04:00

Evolution Lesson 2

2009-05-07T17:35:00.003-04:00

More from the University of Berkeley on the evidences of evolution.

Re-posted from: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

Artificial selection

Artificial selection provides a model that helps us understand natural selection.
People have been artificially selecting domesticated plants and animals for thousands of years. These activities have amounted to large, long-term, practical experiments that clearly demonstrate that species can change dramatically through selective breeding.

Broccoli and brussels sprouts bear little superficial resemblance to their wild mustard relatives (right).

If domesticated dogs were discovered today they would be classified as hundreds of different species and considered quite distinct from wolves. Although it is probable that various breeds of dogs were independently domesticated from distinct wild dog lineages, there are no wolf relatives anywhere in the world that look much like dachshunds or collies (below).

These observations demonstrate that selection has profound effects on populations and has the ability to modify forms and behaviors of living things to the point that they look and act very unlike their ancestors. Artificial selection provides a model that helps us understand natural selection. It is a small step to envision natural conditions acting selectively on populations and causing natural changes.

Ecology

The environment affects the evolution of living things.
As predicted by evolutionary theory, populations evolve in response to their surroundings. In any ecosystem there are finite opportunities to make a living. Organisms either have the genetic tools to take advantage of those opportunities or they do not.

House sparrows arrived in North America from Europe in the nineteenth century. Since then, genetic variation within the population, and selection in various habitats, have allowed them to inhabit most of the continent. House sparrows in the north are larger and darker colored than those in the south. Darker colors absorb sunlight better than light colors and larger size allows less surface area per unit volume, thus reducing heat loss — both advantages in a cold climate. This is an example of natural selection acting upon a population, producing micro-evolution on a continental scale.

Experiments

Experiments also show that populations can evolve.
John Endler of the University of California has conducted experiments with the guppies of Trinidad that clearly show selection at work. The scenario: Female guppies prefer colorful males for mating purposes. Predatory fish also "prefer" colorful males, but for a less complimentary purpose — a source of food that is easy to spot. Some portions of the streams where guppies live have fewer predators than others and in these locations the males are more colorful (top frame). Not surprisingly, males in locations where there are more predators tend to be less colorful (bottom frame).

When Dr. Endler transferred predatory fish to the regions with brightly colored male guppies, selection acted rapidly to produce a population of duller males. This demonstrates that persistent variation within a population provides the raw material for rapid evolution when environmental conditions change.

Nested hierarchies

Common ancestry is conspicuous.
Evolution predicts that living things will be related to one another in what scientists refer to as nested hierarchies — rather like nested boxes. Groups of related organisms share suites of similar characteristics and the number of shared traits increases with relatedness. This is indeed what we observe in the living world and in the fossil record and these relationships can be illustrated as shown below.

In this phylogeny, snakes and lizards share a large number of traits as they are more closely related to one another than to the other animals represented. The same can be said of crocodiles and birds, whales and camels, and humans and chimpanzees. However, at a more inclusive level, snakes, lizards, birds, crocodiles, whales, camels, chimpanzees and humans all share some common traits.

Humans and chimpanzees are united by many shared inherited traits (such as 98.7% of their DNA). But at a more inclusive level of life's hierarchy, we share a smaller set of inherited traits in common with all primates. More inclusive still, we share traits in common with other mammals, other vertebrates, other animals. At the most inclusive level, we sit alongside sponges, petunias, diatoms and bacteria in a very large "box" entitled: living organisms.

Will I Be Single Now?

2009-05-06T18:38:00.003-04:00

Sorry ladies, even after watching the following video, my wife won't divorce me. Maybe it's because she is secretly serving Satan just like me and all other atheists. The lesson here is not new; Pat Robertson is an ignorant fool. This is not because he believes in god. It's because of what he says.

D

Video seen originally on P.Z. Myers' website and now posted here for your enjoyment.

Love This Song

2009-05-06T05:37:00.002-04:00

Band: Death Cab For Cutie

Song: Transatlanticism

Evolution Lesson 1

2009-05-05T17:54:00.009-04:00

Berkeley has an awesome site to explain all the evidence for the Theory of Evolution called Understanding Evolution. It is a great resource for information on this massive subject. They do a wonderful job in explaining the relevant information in an easy to understand format. I am so impressed with their effort that I will be posting their material here on Skeptic Dave. We should all be thankful to hard working researchers, scientists, and educators who took the time to gather all of this info.

D

Re-posted from: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

Fossil evidence

Nicholas Steno's anatomical drawing of an extant shark (left) and a fossil shark tooth (right). Steno made the leap and declared that the fossil teeth indeed came from the mouths of once-living sharks.

The fossil record provides snapshots of the past that, when assembled, illustrate a panorama of evolutionary change over the past four billion years. The picture may be smudged in places and may have bits missing, but fossil evidence clearly shows that life is old and has changed over time.

Early fossil discoveries

In the 17th century, Nicholas Steno shook the world of science, noting the similarity between shark teeth and the rocks commonly known as "tongue stones." This was our first understanding that fossils were a record of past life.

Two centuries later, Mary Ann Mantell picked up a tooth, which her husband Gideon thought to be of a large iguana, but it turned out to be the tooth of a dinosaur, Iguanodon. This discovery sent the powerful message that many fossils represented forms of life that are no longer with us today.

Additional clues from fossils
Today we may take fossils for granted, but we continue to learn from them. Each new fossil contains additional clues that increase our understanding of life's history and help us to answer questions about their evolutionary story. Examples include:

Indication of interactions
This ammonite fossil (see right) shows punctures that some scientists have interpreted as the bite mark of a mosasaur, a type of predatory marine reptile that lived at the same time as the ammonite. Damage to the ammonite has been correlated to the shapes and capabilities of mosasaur teeth and jaws. Others have argued that the holes were created by limpets that attached to the ammonite. Researchers examine ammonite fossils, as well as mosasaur fossils and the behaviors of limpets, in order to explore these hypotheses.

Clues at the cellular level
Fossils can tell us about growth patterns in ancient animals. The picture at right is a cross-section through a sub-adult thigh bone of the duckbill dinosaur Maiasaura. The white spaces show that there were lots of blood vessels running through the bone, which indicates that it was a fast-growing bone. The black wavy horizontal line in mid-picture is a growth line, reflecting a seasonal pause in the animal's growth.

Transitional forms

Fossils or organisms that show the intermediate states between an ancestral form and that of its descendants are referred to as transitional forms. There are numerous examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, providing an abundance of evidence for change over time.

Pakicetus (below left), is described as an early ancestor to modern whales. Although pakicetids were land mammals, it is clear that they are related to whales and dolphins based on a number of specializations of the ear, relating to hearing. The skull shown here displays nostrils at the front of the skull.

A skull of the gray whale that roams the seas today (below right) has its nostrils placed at the top of its skull. It would appear from these two specimens that the position of the nostril has changed over time and thus we would expect to see intermediate forms.

Note that the nostril placement in Aetiocetus is intermediate between the ancestral form Pakicetus and the modern gray whale — an excellent example of a transitional form in the fossil record!

Our understanding of the evolution of horse feet, so often depicted in textbooks, is derived from a scattered sampling of horse fossils within the multi-branched horse evolutionary tree. These fossil organisms represent branches on the tree and not a direct line of descent leading to modern horses.

But, the standard diagram does clearly show transitional stages whereby the four-toed foot of Hyracotherium, otherwise known as Eohippus, became the single-toed foot of Equus. Fossils show that the transitional forms predicted by evolution did indeed exist.

As you can see to the left, each branch tip on the tree of horse evolution indicates a different genus, though the feet of only a few genera are illustrated to show the reduction of toes through time.

Homologies

Evolutionary theory predicts that related organisms will share similarities that are derived from common ancestors. Similar characteristics due to relatedness are known as homologies. Homologies can be revealed by comparing the anatomies of different living things, looking at cellular similarities and differences, studying embryological development, and studying vestigial structures within individual organisms.

In the following photos of plants, the leaves are quite different from the "normal" leaves we envision.

Each leaf has a very different shape and function, yet all are homologous structures, derived from a common ancestral form. The pitcher plant and Venus' flytrap use leaves to trap and digest insects. The bright red leaves of the poinsettia look like flower petals. The cactus leaves are modified into small spines which reduce water loss and can protect the cactus from herbivory.

Another example of homology is the forelimb of tetrapods (vertebrates with legs).

Frogs, birds, rabbits and lizards all have different forelimbs, reflecting their different lifestyles. But those different forelimbs all share the same set of bones - the humerus, the radius, and the ulna. These are the same bones seen in fossils of the extinct transitional animal, Eusthenopteron, which demonstrates their common ancestry.

Homologies: anatomy

Individual organisms contain, within their bodies, abundant evidence of their histories. The existence of these features is best explained by evolution.

Several animals, including pigs, cattle, deer, and dogs have reduced, nonfunctional digits, referred to as dewclaws. The foot of the pig has lost digit 1 completely, digits 2 and 5 have been greatly reduced, and only digits 3 and 4 support the body. Evolution best explains such vestigial features. They are the remnants of ancestors with a larger number of functional digits.

People (and apes) have chests that are broader than they are deep, with the shoulder blades flat in back. This is because we, like apes, are descended from an ancestor who was able to suspend itself using the upper limbs. On the other hand, monkeys and other quadrupeds have a different form of locomotion. Quadrupeds have narrow, deep chests with shoulder blades on the sides.

Hoatzin chicks have claws on their wings, as do some chickens and ostriches. This reflects the fact that bird ancestors had clawed hands.

Homologies: comparative anatomy

Organisms that are closely related to one another share many anatomical similarities. Sometimes the similarities are conspicuous, as between crocodiles and alligators, but in other cases considerable study is needed for a full appreciation of relationships.

Modification of the tetrapod skeleton
Whales and hummingbirds have tetrapod skeletons inherited from a common ancestor. Their bodies have been modified and parts have been lost through natural selection, resulting in adaptation to their respective lifestyles over millions of years. On the surface, these animals look very different, but the relationship between them is easy to demonstrate. Except for those bones that have been lost over time, nearly every bone in each corresponds to an equivalent bone in the other.

Homologies: developmental biology

Studying the embryological development of living things provides clues to the evolution of present-day organisms. During some stages of development, organisms exhibit ancestral features in whole or incomplete form.

Snakes have legged ancestors.
Some species of living snakes have hind limb-buds as early embryos but rapidly lose the buds and develop into legless adults. The study of developmental stages of snakes, combined with fossil evidence of snakes with hind limbs, supports the hypothesis that snakes evolved from a limbed ancestor.



Above left, the Cretaceous snake Pachyrhachis problematicus clearly had small hindlimbs. The drawing at right shows a reconstruction of the pelvis and hindlimb of Pachyrhachis.

Baleen whales have toothed ancestors.
Toothed whales have full sets of teeth throughout their lives. Baleen whales, however, only possess teeth in the early fetal stage and lose them before birth. The possession of teeth in fetal baleen whales provides evidence of common ancestry with toothed whales and other mammals. In addition, fossil evidence indicates that the late Oligocene whale Aetiocetus (below), from Oregon, which is considered to be the earliest example of baleen whales, also bore a full set of teeth.

Again, these observations make most sense in an evolutionary framework where snakes have legged ancestors and whales have toothed ancestors.

Homologies: cellular/molecular evidence

All living things are fundamentally alike. At the cellular and molecular level living things are remarkably similar to each other. These fundamental similarities are most easily explained by evolutionary theory: life shares a common ancestor.

The cellular level
All organisms are made of cells, which consist of membranes filled with water containing genetic material, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, salts and other substances. The cells of most living things use sugar for fuel while producing proteins as building blocks and messengers. Notice the similarity between the typical animal and plant cells pictured below — only three structures are unique to one or the other.

The molecular level
Different species share genetic homologies as well as anatomical ones. Roundworms, for example, share 25% of their genes with humans. These genes are slightly different in each species, but their striking similarites nevertheless reveal their common ancestry. In fact, the DNA code itself is a homology that links all life on Earth to a common ancestor. DNA and RNA possess a simple four-base code that provides the recipe for all living things. In some cases, if we were to transfer genetic material from the cell of one living thing to the cell of another, the recipient would follow the new instructions as if they were its own.

These characteristics of life demonstrate the fundamental sameness of all living things on Earth and serve as the basis of today's efforts at genetic engineering.

Distribution in time and space

Understanding the history of life on Earth requires a grasp of the depth of time and breadth of space. We must keep in mind that the time involved is vast compared to a human lifetime and the space necessary for this to occur includes all the water and land surfaces of the world. Establishing chronologies, both relative and absolute, and geographic change over time are essential for viewing the motion picture that is the history of life on Earth.

Chronology

The age of the Earth and its inhabitants has been determined through two complementary lines of evidence: relative dating and numerical (or radiometric) dating.

Relative dating places fossils in a temporal sequence by noting their positions in layers of rocks, known as strata. As shown in the diagram, fossils found in lower strata were typically deposited first and are deemed to be older (this principle is known as superposition). Sometimes this method doesn't work, either because the layers weren't deposited horizontally to begin with, or because they have been overturned.
If that's the case, we can use one of three other methods to date fossil-bearing layers relative to one another: faunal succession, crosscutting relationships, and inclusions.
By studying and comparing strata from all over the world we can learn which came first and which came next, but we need further evidence to ascertain the specific, or numerical, ages of fossils.

Numerical dating relies on the decay of radioactive elements, such as uranium, potassium, rubidium and carbon. Very old rocks must be dated using volcanic material. By dating volcanic ash layers both above and below a fossil-bearing layer, as shown in the diagram, you can determine "older than X, but younger than Y" dates for the fossils. Sedimentary rocks less than 50,000 years old can be dated as well, using their radioactive carbon content. Geologists have assembled a geological time scale on the basis of numerical dating of rocks from around the world.

Geography

The distribution of living things on the globe provides information about the past histories of both living things and the surface of the Earth. This evidence is consistent not just with the evolution of life, but also with the movement of continental plates around the world-otherwise known as plate tectonics.

Marsupial mammals are found in the Americas as well as Australia and New Guinea, shown in brown on the map at right. They are not found swimming across the Pacific Ocean, nor have they been discovered wandering the Asian mainland. There appear to be no routes of migration between the two populations. How could marsupials have gotten from their place of origin to locations half a world away?

Fossils of marsupials have been found in the Antarctic as well as in South America and Australia. During the past few decades scientists have demonstrated that what is now called South America was part of a large land mass called Gondwana, which included Australia and Antarctica. Click on the map below for a short animation that shows how Gondwana split apart 160 to 90 million years ago. Marsupials didn't need a migration route from one part of the world to another; they rode the continents to their present positions.

Evidence by example

Although the history of life is always in the past, there are many ways we can look at present-day organisms, as well as recent history, to better understand what has occurred through deep time. Artificial selection in agriculture or laboratories provides a model for natural selection. Looking at interactions of organisms in ecosystems helps us to understand how populations adapt over time. Experiments demonstrate selection and adaptive advantage. And we can see nested hierarchies in taxonomies based on common descent.

Creationist Science Fair Cartoon

2009-05-02T13:10:00.002-04:00

I found this on the Richard Dawkins forums. I had to post this because it's sooooo funny. It's funny because it's true.

D

Ray Comfort on the Swine Flu

2009-05-02T07:17:00.003-04:00

The following is a post from P.Z. Myers blog. It's so good that I had to re-post it here for all of you.

Enjoy,
D

Re-posted from: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/a_little_study_in_contrasts.php

Ray Comfort has made a post on the swine flu. You know already what kind of idiotic tripe he's going to trot out.

"The spread of the so-called 'swine flu' demonstrates yet again how useless and sometimes deadly a mutation can be. Furthermore, as the infection spreads around the world, the search for an antidote is desperately sought, but the very fact that the virus is seen as something to be opposed actually supports the Biblical view of this world. It is always good and right to oppose sickness, but in evolutionary terms, why don't humans simply resign themselves to it and allow the strong to survive? The evolutionary point of view would say the virus has a 'right' to live, so 'good luck' to it!"

How wrong can he be? It's hard to imagine screwing it up more. In the evolutionary point of view, we are the children of ancestors who fought off disease and lived to procreate; those who surrender to a viruses imaginary right to live, if such imaginary beings ever existed, didn't make much of a contribution to the current gene pool.

Well, you might wonder, what will the Ray Comforts of the world do to fight the virus?

"The great hope for this fallen, diseased, weatherworn world, is the return of Christ, who has promised to bring restoration, everlasting health and peace to all people."

If waiting for Jesus is his only answer, he can join his fantasy evilutionists in the graveyard. But he's lying here, because we know what will happen if Comfort feels the stirrings of the flu — he'll scurry to his nearest doctor to take advantage of the work of scientists who don't think the only hope is to cry out to Jebus.

Here's the contrast: Nick Anthis describes the molecular mechanism of the flu's resistance to some of the drugs in our arsenal. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't cite the Bible even once, nor does he beg for mercy from a merciful deity. He does cite the scientific literature, though, and explains the natural, material processes — those mutations — that have contributed to the potency of this strain.

Who contributes more to the health and happiness of the people of this world, scientists or bible-thumpin' idjits?