R.I.P. George Carlin

George Carlin died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 71. Carlin was one of the most eloquent spokesmen for free speech and skepicism by speaking plainly and truthfully about the nonsense of believing in things for which there is no evidence. When arrested for using "vulgarities" in Milwaukee during his 7 words bit, he was asked about if he considered the children in the audience and if he would have used more restraint if he had known there were kids there. Most of the milquetoast entertainers of today would have folded into a genuflect apologia in an attempt to assuage the PC nannies. Carlin was unfazed and basically said it was the kids that needed to hear these words the most before they had built silly prejudices. He was right. Later, a broadcast of his comedy show precipitated a complaint to the FCC that eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. The case unfortunately ended in a 5-4 decision in favor of the FCC being able to regulate "profane" speech on the radio (which apparently doesn't cover Michael Savage or Mark Levin).

He also directed a considerable amount of ridicule toward the major icons of Christianity. He could mount a full frontal assault on the 10 commandments, the Catholic church and evangelicalism in front of an audience that surely contained a large number of at least nominal Christians and get uproarious laughs. I have to believe that after some of these people stopped laughing and let the reason sink in, they had a "road to Pesci" moment and realized that the religious dogma they had been fed were nothing more than fairy tales.

So in rememberance of George, I will be weaving Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits into my language today. And if anyone is offended well they can just fuck off.

Book burning

No, it's not what you think. It seems there may be a portion of the Jews in Israel that aren't exactly interested in converting like the Hageeites would like. And they're burning New Testaments to make their point. No doubt many of the evangelicals that read this story will recoil in horror as they conveniently forget how they accused the Harry Potter books of promoting witchcraft and yes, burned them.

Beyond the obvious irony, it's a fascinating look into how religion is really just an extension of our tendency towards tribalism. Even among those that claim to be Jewish, the divisions among the traditional Jews and the Messianic Jews are so deep that it is not only driving some individuals to burn the New Testament, but to also attempt to have the government restrict the distribution of the text altogether. The State of Israel is assaulted from almost all sides by Islamic countries who don't believe their country is legitimate. And yet Israel is still beset by the same lunacy that drives Muslim hatred. Their eyes are so colored by their fealty to the tribe that they cannot see themselves in the eyes of their enemy.

Some funny

It's about a year old but still quick funny. The first time I saw Red State, I couldn't tell if it was a parody or not. That's the amazing thing about creationists. The loopy ones are almost indistinguishable from a joke.

Creepy Christian fetishism

Newsweek has a report on the "Holy Land Experience", a bible based theme park in Orlando, Florida. To say this is weird really doesn't quite do it justice. One of the main attractions of the park is a recreation of the crucifixion tale complete with fake blood and an actor playing Jesus nailed to a cross. So amid all the standard trappings of your typical theme park, the $4.00 sodas, cotton candy, and a variety of frozen confections, you get ritual torture and scape goat fetishism.

I honestly have to wonder about the mental stability of a person who would actually go to a place like this for fun. The crucifixion story is not only barbaric in the physical, it's a horrible moral tale. The idea of transferring the wrongs of one person to something else is a common theme in primitive superstitious storytelling. And yet the people watching this somehow find comfort in a god that demands one person be tortured and killed before he grants forgiveness too everyone else.

Creep, creepy, creepy. The intermingling of Jewish and Christian themes also looks an awful lot like the Christian Dominionist style of evangelicalism. I'm sure pastor Hagee would approve.

The WaPo sees through the charade

There's a nice editorial on the Washington Post editorial page echoing my previous post about the red herring of "Academic Freedom" bills. This is a clever tactic in a political sense. It exploits one of the most admirable values of our nation's conscience: our devotion to free and unfettered speech. The problem is this has nothing whatsoever to do with speech. Teachers have a contractual obligation to teach the curriculum as adopted by the governing school district. This is why the creationist tactic has been to target school boards and cajole them into adding ID into it. But that tactic simply won't work. It's creationism promotion in public schools which is a clear violation of the establishment clause. So they have decided on a new tactic. After all, if you can't play by the rules, why not just change them!

This new attempt at inserting GAWD into public schools could do far more damage than even a few school boards adopting "Of Pandas and People". If these pass, teachers would be endlessly bringing their own agendas into public school classrooms. And if they teach some nonsense, they would simply be able to wrap themselves in the flag of "speech". Curricula are adopted for a reason. Without some standard base, education cannot build upon itself. Science teachers would be contradicting each other from year to year and the learning progression would be a muddled mess. Sure science changes. But not in primary and secondary school classrooms. It changes in research and private labs and universities. Then once the science is established, it trickles down to the grade school level.

But ID proponents want to bypass all that and go straight to "teaching the controversy" to 12 year olds. These bills would not just affect the teaching of Biology, but ALL the sciences. It's insidious and needs to be exposed for what it really is.

Dippy Ben Stein wants Darwinism to explain "where gravity came from"

No, I'm not kidding. Here's the clip. If this is the "weakness" of Darwinism, then it's also a weakness in a score of other scientific disciplines. Yet I don't see him tackling chemistry, geology, or even physics. Quite simply, none of these disciplines are even concerned with that question at all. Stein apparently wants every biology class to turn into philosophy 101. He doesn't even understand how science functions. Muddled thinking from a B-list actor. I wonder how he would feel if math classes began asking the question, where did pi come from?

This is NOT a free speech issue unless we define free speech as teaching nonsense. The interviewer of course doesn't challenge him on any of this lunacy. So sad.

The silliness of UFO reports

In an attempt to defuse UFO conspiracy theorists, the UK has declassified a large cache of documents concerning various investigations it has conducted over the years. The result? Precisely what you would expect. Many of these sightings had simple, albeit earthly, explanations. Of course this is not enough for news organization like CNN which reports on the matter complete with cut scenes from popular sci-fi movies and an interview with a UFO investigator atop a background of spooky music. Indeed there are some reports that are unexplained. But instead of the the more likely explanations, we get UFO investigator-man declaring that "the truth lies somewhere in these documents". All in all, UFO reports are innocuous. The mystery surrounding most of these generate all sorts of stories, that usually morph into exaggerations and sometimes flights of fancy. But this report is typical of the way media usually covers these stories. Debunkers are rarely interviewed because the news agency doesn't want to be the spoiled sports for the great majority that pine away for the most fantastic story they can imagine.

For my part, I think it far more likely that a discovery of interstellar life will first be simple and probably unicellular and not a super intelligent race of technologically superior little green men.

That's just wild speculation though ;)