Owner: Hell's Handmaiden URL:http://www.hells-handmaiden.com Join Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 14:02:09 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Politics, philosophy, religion, science... and their collisions with the real world. Site statistics:Click here
Plantinga and the Xtians 2007-04-29 19:35:11 I would like to suggest that all physicists, chemists, astronomers, cosmologists, and other scientists commit themselves to some dogma within their science and henceforth apologize for it without reservation. I suggest they assume an answer. I’d like to suggest that scientists adopt the final answer and commit themselves to its defense. I suggest that the scientific community guide itself not by evidence or by argument but by adherence to a defined goal. I’d like to suggest, in fact, that everyone just start with assumptions that, surprise, lead to the ends desired, then defend said position by claiming that “we are justified in believing because, well, people believe it”, support the statement with some circular nonsense about Something being rationally believable because that Something inplanted belief in It in our heads, and maybe quote someone long dead as proof. I think things would work out quite well if we all behaved as just outlined. I’m sure you
I… I really feel bad for Laura 2007-04-29 17:07:45 The Huffington Post: Laura
Bush appeared on the Today Show this morning in a one-on-one interview with Ann Curry. Curry asked her about the situation in Iraq, to which Mrs. Bush responded, “No one suffers more than their president and I do.”
Read more:hellip
Gambling with our lives 2007-04-28 18:18:34 I don’t believe, contrary to how it may appear, that anyone has made a slam-dumk case for human caused global warming. I do think a strong case has been made, but it isn’t 100%. I’d say it is well over 50% proven though– even upwards of 85% I guestimate. No real surprise there. In the real world we rarely get the luxury of 100% certainty. What this means is that we have to gamble. So, time to take sides. Are humans responsible? Are we not to blame? Even if it is our fault can we do anything about it? For that matter, is the planet warming at all?
I’m going to skip the last question. Very few people on either side maintain that the planet is not warming at all. The fight is over the cause of that warming, over whether human activity is responsible or not. So place your bets. Calcucate the odds. Remember, the wager is your children’s and grandchildren’s lives, and perhaps your own, depending upon how fast things prgress.
Let’s say that glob Read more:Gambling
Fundies R Fun 2007-04-28 03:05:51 The site “Fundies say the Darndest Things” which collects and publishes the wit and witticisms of the deeply faithful, also awards honors to some of that wit.
This one is the “Occam’s Razor Disagrees” Award:
“I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don’t think he’s ready to date yet. What’s worse is that he’s sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!”
Fundies say the darndest things! - 10/2006
This one is received no award, but I might give it an award for Creativity:
Imagination is evil and wicked. You call it an imagination, God calls it evil. (Genesis 8:21) It doesn’t matter if you think that a little imagination is okay, it’s wicked.”
Fundies say the darndest things! - 10/2006
And of course, there is the Post of the Year:
&
Well… I do think he’s crazy 2007-04-27 18:27:43
I do think
he’s crazy. Of course, I also think those “72 virgins” people are crazy as well&hellip
; and those zombie worshippers… and…
The image comes courtesy of Minister of Rants, though I’m not sure of its original ownership. I’ll keep it up until someone complains.
Solar activity, peanuts, and pretty pictures 2007-04-27 18:00:10 The peanut gallery just can’t help but blame the Sun for global warming.
What I have found is that abnormal times of temperature correlate very well with abnormal sun conditions. This is an archive listing solar events, and here is a SpaceWeather page where you can see current events. Note the lack of activity in the first part of April? Watching these events and following coronal mass ejections for a couple years was what changed my mind about the main climate driver.
MaxedOutMama: In Case You’re Bored
I can’t deny that the Sun is a very convenient scapegoat. Its big. Its awesome. Its bright. Its obvious. It provides that “Well, no duh!” punch– “Whooda Thunkit”, as one commenter, neglecting his question mark, at MaxedOutMama put it– that is so effective when arguing with people who have not bothered to look into the damned science.
Mark Noonan followed Nigel Calder down the same path. Unfortunately, Calder is a shill and his scie Read more:Solar
America, Empire or Democracy? 2007-04-27 16:38:23 This is powerful. A couple of pieces:
History tells us that one of the most unstable political combinations is a country — like the United States today — that tries to be a domestic democracy and a foreign imperialist.
… maintaining our empire abroad required resources and commitments that would inevitably undercut, or simply skirt, what was left of our domestic democracy and that might, in the end, produce a military dictatorship or — far more likely — its civilian equivalent. The combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, an ever growing economic dependence on the military-industrial complex and the making of weaponry, and ruinous military expenses as well as a vast, bloated “defense” budget, not to speak of the creation of a whole second Defense Department (known as the Department of Homeland Security) has been destroying our republican structure of governing in favor of an imperial presidency. By republican structure, of Read more:America
, Empire
O’Leary: Prophetess of Misdirection 2007-04-27 07:58:42 O’Leary
… comedian, pinball wizard, rising ID star, big fish in Dembski’s very dirty pool, and now…
Imagine that. In nations where the public school systems are increasingly unable to find common ground among competing interest groups, these home schooling menaces want to provide religious and moral instruction to their own children.
Home schooling: A worry to materialists?
O’Leary knows damn well that the objection isn’t to parents providing religious and moral instruction to their kids. Perhaps, as the article says, this is the motivation for homeschooling, but certainly O’Leary knows that she is misdirecting. The problem is that religion and morals is only part of what the kids get taught. The rest of what they get is bad science– wretchedly bad voodoo snake oil garbage.
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and other unorthodox versions of s
Blogs for… Noonan Denies Reality! 2007-04-26 17:06:53 I know. It is hard to believe that Noonan might actually lose connection with the world around him, but I say it is true and I can prove it. He starts by showing his profound ignorance of history.
how do you wind down a war, anyways? Does anyone over there ever sit down with Nancy and try to get her to think a bit before she speaks?
Blogs
for Bush: The White House Of The Blogosphere: 218-208
I’m not sure, Mark, if anyone coaches Pelosi, but while we are on the topic I often wonder anyone ever takes you to the side and says things like “You know Mark, you shouldn’t use words like ‘asinine’ when it is all too easy to apply those word to the things you write.”
Mark, Mark, Mark&hellip
; you wind down a war the same way that most wars throughout history have been wound down. See, very few of those wars have ended in slam-dunk victories. Most end when, after the combatants beat each other silly for awhile, they decide to be reasonable and act like adults r
I want to grow up and be Juan Cole 2007-04-26 16:38:36 Informed Comment
Since the Bush administration doesn’t actually have any good news on Iraq, they are just making it up. It confirms your worst suspicions. They haven’t been counting victims of car bombings when they say that violence is down in Iraq! Bush administration spokesmen and officials are just saying that fewer bodies are found in the streets, victims of death squads. But the number of victims of car bombing has actually increased in this period.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is withholding statistics on Iraqi casualties from the United Nations.
It is official: The real parts of the Iraq War are being treated as imaginary, and the imaginary parts are being treated as though they are real.
Sweatshops in the US 2007-04-26 16:24:38 Why Are We Back In Iraq?:
For the past couple of days, the Providence Journal has covered a massive federal immigration agent raid at Michael Bianco Inc., a textile plant in New Bedford, MA that had $170 million in contracts to make clothing for the US military. The raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents netted 327 illegal immigrants, and they also arrested members of Bianco’s management and charged them with conspiring to hire illegal immigrants… So a textile plant that hires over 300 illegal immigrants, which is blatantly illegal, expressly for the purpose of enforcing working conditions on them, conditions which are also blatantly illegal, had a representative from the Department of Defense — the federal government — on premise some of the time to inspecting clothing from the plant.
BogsBlog: Clarity Amid The Muck 2007-04-25 17:39:45 The Carnival of the Liberals has finally arrived at BogsBlog, and will be here for your reading pleasure for two weeks. Not to worry, all the carnies are fully licensed and qualified liberals. Beware of pickpockets and trolls, however.
Read more:Clarity
I’d prefer we go after his boss but… 2007-04-25 17:36:55 &hellip
; I’m not complaining about this. Cheney is as good a place to start as any. Congressman Dennis Kucinich has drafted H Res 333 (PDF synopsis) outlining a case for impeaching Cheney. We’ve got to start somewhere, folks. At some point we have got to stand up or we will all fall down. We are risking the nation itself by letting these clowns stay in office.
Anything that hurts a boobie ought to banned 2007-04-25 17:24:19 Right?
In 1986, government scientists wrote a letter to the British journal Lancet and acknowledged that abortion is a cause of breast cancer. They wrote, “Induced abortion before first term pregnancy increases the risk of breast cancer.” (Lancet, 2/22/86, p. 436)
The Coalition on Abortion / Breast Cancer
Hey! The 1980s! Big Hair and parachute pants! Yeah!
The anti-abortion folk really latched onto this bit of news. “Abortion causes increased risk for breast cancer, therefore we ought to make it illegal and failing that we want to be sure to scare people with it.” It is really a kind-of odd argument when you think about it. Any medical procedure you care to name carries risks. That is the nature of the beast. Hell, choosing to take allergy medication carries risks. Read the warning label.
But the point, of course, is scaring people. Women seem to tie up a lot of self esteem in their breasts, probably because men place a lot of value in a nice pair. That make
An escort, a dog, a scrotum, a hoohah, and some etymology 2007-04-25 06:24:18 An escort
makes a very good point.
First there was the controversy over author Susan Patron’s The Higher Power of Lucky which won the Newberry, the most prestigious honor in children’s literature. Only it made the mistake of using the word “scrotum”. In referring to a dog. Who had gotten bitten by a rattlesnake.
There was nothing sexual in its context. And yet, a whole bunch of librarians and parents freaked out.
“Some parts of the body are evil and should not be acknowledged. We should be thankful for the Christian librarians who show us the righteous path.”
NY Hotties - Etymologically Correct
And…
We all know we come from Puritan roots in this country. But still it never ceases to amaze me how much people get their panties in a snit when actual biological words are used. What are we so afraid of? How far would a little actual knowledge take us?
Maybe if We The People learned to say “scrotum” and “vagina” aloud we wouldn’t have priests abusing little boys
Anarchy… sweet, sweet anarchy 2007-04-24 18:14:13 I love the way that Somalia is used as the poster child for anarchy by those in support of anarchy.
Read more:hellip
CO2: Here I go again. 2007-05-02 08:58:09 Several posts lately have concerned global warming. Notably, and just from the last month:
Could you poison the well more thoroughly?
Blogs for Hand Waving
A Climate Re-Cap
Solar activity, peanuts, and pretty pictures
Gambling with our lives
There are many more, though, if you dig through the archives.
Several of these posts generated some controversy and so… fuel for the fire:
The most impressive record documenting the human role in atmospheric CO2 concentrations was recently published in the AR4 SPM showing the comparably minor variations of CO2 during the Holocene (as measured in various ice cores) followed by the abrupt increase of greenhouse gases (GHGs) since the start of industrialisation in the 19th century (figure).
RealClimate » Beck to the future
The author of this piece, Georg Hoffmann, continues to describe the “long and painful lessons for scientists to come to this level of understanding of the natural carbon cycle and its anthropogenic contributions&rd
Blogs for Not Being Swayed By Facts 2007-05-02 08:05:54 Why you’d post this at B4B I’m not sure?
Blogs
for Bush: The White House Of The Blogosphere: Study: Partisans Not Swayed By Facts
Perhaps there is some attempt at reverse psychology? “See we realize that there could be some bias and that confession is kinda like saying we guard against it!”
Or maybe I’m reading too much into it and it is just a stab a the Dems… a shot fired glibly, the trigger man too in denial to realize the potential damage to himself.
This is Not My Country… but I am not happy about that. 2007-05-01 07:22:58
Welcome to the May 1, 2007 edition of this is not my country. I am happy to have another issue up. This is a small edition, not because there were no submissions but because too many of the submissions were simply not relevant. Come on folks, the Carnival is not here so that you can promote just anything. Try to make it relevant.
Kicking off the Carnival is Jason Kirk with What Would Nate Dogg Pledge Allegiance To posted at Brick Cheney. Now, arriving at the site I saw a huge banner with an unflattering picture of Hillary and the words “Whatever she said, I’m that.” I thought, “Oh geez&hellip
; childish, right-wing, trash!” I thought this, mind you, even though Hillary annoys me to no end. But don’t let that banner fool you. This post is good. I wish I’d written it.
Madeleine Begun Kane offers a poem Truth On The Lam posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.
Abdulla Yasir discusses a case of discrimination– Emirates-lac Read more:Country
Yet another new Carnival 2007-04-30 16:15:59 And it looks like a fine one. Check out the Carnival
of Commentary: The First Edition
Perspective on Iraq 2007-05-05 18:45:38 An argument about Iraq
that I’ve heard more that few times now runs something like this:
“When Saddam was in power he killed thousands and thousands of people. We stopped that killing. Yes, we’ve lost several thousand people in doing so, but overall we’ve saved people and stopped a maniac. What Americans need is some perspective on the issue.”
Something about this argument really haunts me. I think that something is that this argument, this position, presents itself as offering perspective. It presents itself, or it is presented as being a calm, sober, realistic view of things while in fact it is a ridiculously simplified, distorted sound-bite version of the truth. Ironically, the last time I heard– overheard– this argument the person making the argument chastised ‘americans’ for ‘listening to the media’ instead of really paying attention.
I’ve attacked the argument. Let’s think about it now.
First, and I t Read more:Perspective
A Broken Harmony 2007-05-04 15:38:42 This…
Republican presidential hopefuls diverged sharply on abortion, stem cells and immigration in their first nationally televised debate Thursday night, with the three leading candidates all forced to defend current or past positions that are anathema to many in the party’s conservative base.
GOP Field United On War, Divided On Social Issues - washingtonpost.com
… is good news. I say so not with some perverse glee, rejoicing in the break in the Republican phalanx and hoping that this bodes well for the Democrats. No, I say this because the party line is democratic poison. Party lines in general are democratic poison. Hell, political parties, while perhaps unavoidable, are themselves a kind of poison. Why?
Parties and party lines reduce both of these to a very sad, very low, lowest common denominator.
The idea behind representative democracies like that of the United States is that the citizens elect individuals who reflect our convictions, trusting that these in Read more:Broken
, Harmony
Iraq Generals to President: 2007-05-03 21:49:23 You’ve Failed Us
Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and Marine Corps by their failure to pass a necessary funding language. This time, the President
of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego. More than ever apparent, only the Army and the Marine Corps are at war - alone, without their President’s support.
–Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA, Ret.
Read more:Generals
, Iraq
Maybe things are going Bush’s way in Iraq 2007-05-07 21:40:04 I mean, Iraq
i politicians are starting to act like him. That’s got to be a good sign, right? From PissedonPolitics:
“America needs to be informed. We will pay the price for the Iraqi politicians’ vacation. Yes, the Iraq politicians have decided to take a two-month vacation in July and August.”
Read more:Maybe
, things
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