Friday, February 24, 2006

One Year Later.....

Exactly one year ago, I wrote (but did not publish) the following post.....

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz and Using Reason.....

.........

Yes, reason. To start off this post, I'll direct readers to the following post by Shannon Love over at the Chicago Boyz.

An excerpt-

" The Left and Evolution
I was educated as a biologist and evolutionary theory remains an intellectual interest of mine. I spent many hours in my youth arguing with "scientific" creationists. These hours were largely spent educating the creationists on the actual theory they were criticizing, or debating the finer philosophical points of scientific methodology. I eventually gave up due to pure frustration because in the end creationists believe what they believe as a matter of faith. You can't argue somebody out of his faith.

So this post over at Powerline pointing to a biology professor who is denouncing the Powerline guys for being idiots because one of them doesn't believe in evolution grabbed my attention .

Creationists are exasperating because they never study evolutionary theory in any detail. Since they start with the unshakable presumption that the theory is wrong, they can never actually honestly analyze the theory and therefore can never understand it in any depth. They just skim over the theory looking for points that confuse them and then pronounce the misunderstood points as fatal flaws within the theory itself.

Frankly, most creationists' knowledge of evolutionary theory boils down to, "them scientist fellas what says we alls comes from monkeys!"

Of course, this is a much different view of evolutionary theory than that held by the majority of secular leftists. Their superior educations and their generally more open-minded and inquisitive natures have given them a view of evolutionary theory that might be summed up as, "them scientist fellas what says we alls comes from monkeys!"

I'm not kidding.

Your average leftist is every bit as clueless about evolutionary theory as any stereotypical bible-thumping hick with an 8th-grade education. Worse, leftists hypocritically extol evolutionary theory when it advances their political agenda, but then turn on it viciously when it does not.
"

Shannon goes on to use the example of the recent savaging of Harvard president Larry Summers by the leftist academic establishment for espousing the view that maybe,just maybe, the Blank Slate theory-that human intellect and behavior are strictly the products of learning that occurs after birth- may not be entirely correct. During Remarks at the NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce, Mr Summers stated the following-
My point was simply that the field of behavioral genetics had a revolution in the last fifteen years, and the principal thrust of that revolution was the discovery that a large number of things that people thought were due to socialization weren't, and were in fact due to more intrinsic human nature, and that set of discoveries, it seemed to me, ought to influence the way one thought about other areas where there was a perception of the importance of socialization.
The point the Shannon makes in regards to creationists views of evolution, is that just as creationists will ignore the scientific basis for evolution, the same secular intellectuals from the left side of the aisle will ignore the scientifically falsifiable information which disproves the Blank Slate theory. Of course for even proposing this theory Summers was pratically tarred and feathered.

Here is something that I have noticed in a common thread through almost any subject- be it religion, science, politics, sports, whatever. You will have people on the far edges of the fringe of each subject that WILL NOT be moved from their positions no matter how much logic and reason you present them. Just try explaining to a christian fundamentalist evolution- once you are done banging your head against the wall, you will see my point. It's the same on every sode of any other subject though. Conservatives and Liberals right now HATE and I mean HATE each other so much that rational discourse has completely fallen off the deep end, and we are constantly reduced to ad hominem debates. It's like the Rush Limbaughs and the Michael Moores are the only ones left arguing with each other. There isn't enough REASON left in the middle for people to grasp a firm position to.


Since then, Larry Summers was removed/resigned as President of Harvard.



What a difference a year makes, eh?

Thursday, February 23, 2006

"Mmmm....Whut's up Mohammed?"



Cox and Forkum, with their usual brilliance..

Seriously, a cartoon?

Is reason enough to kill someone??


Duck Season!

Wabbit Season!

Wabbit Season!

"Of course, you realize this means war."

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Free Speech +The Mohammed Cartoons= An Overdue Reality Slap

Perhaps you've been living under a very spacious rock for the last few weeks and have managed to avoid the recent controversy concerning some anti-muslim cartoons that were published.

The brief recap goes as follows: Some political cartoonists drew some cartoons that made fun of the hypocrisy of the "religion of peace".

Stuff like this-


Yes, Mohammed with a bomb as a turban. Not very complimentary whatsoever.

And, well, the Muslim nation did not approve, to put it mildly. They in fact killed people, rioted, burned flags and generally made a large stink over said cartoons.

Do remember the piss christ? It was a small statue of Jesus on the cross that was submerged in urine. This is what it looked like.



Do you remember all of the Christian rioting after this was displayed? Yeah, me neither. In fact, I remember people defending this ridiculous display as worthy of artistic merit. Listen people, I don't care what you submerge in urine, just because you do doesn't make it art. Either way, I don't remember the christian Jihad over the display.

On 9/11, the Muslim fanatics took a swing at western freedoms. They demanded complete and total capitulation.

Since then they have been revealing the world in which they propose we live.

A world where making fun of religion is grounds for imprisonment at best, death at worst.

A world where women are second class citizens provided they stay covered up and out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Many very good people have fought against this ideaological tyranny, and paid the ultimate price so that we would be able to "piss on other religions.".

Those who defended the piss christ should be doing the same over the Mohammed cartoons.

I wonder sometimes how many of those realize this fact.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

For All The Lovers Out There

On this day when you folks are all snuggling up to each other full of chocolates and roses, the rest of us in the bachelor/bachelorette world think are drinking heavily and hoping you all would just stay at home and keep your sappy-ass snuggling away from our Jagers.

As a courtesy gift, I point you towards the animated explanation of love. Real love, not this candy/diamond ring fantasy world that you are living today.....don't thank me, I'm a giver...

Ah L'Amour By Don Hertzfeldt.

Yep....

Monday, February 13, 2006

Monday Night @ The Mercy Lounge

Boys 'n Girls-live@ The Mercy Lounge, and they did rock just fine. That's my buddy Jim O'Shea on the left with the geetar.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Super Bowl Prediction

Well, I totally blew it on my football predictions for the NFC and AFC title games. I thought that Denver was for real and Jake the Snake would finally shrug off his Peyton Manning-like tendencies to blow big games. I also thought that Seattle would not have enough weapons to match Carolina and Steve Smith.

Wrong, and wrong.

So now we have the Pittsburgh Steelers -a team that in these playoffs have beaten the Bengals, the Colts and the Bronco's on the road- facing the Seattle Seahawks, who had two playoff games at home against two beat down teams in Washington and Carolina. I still don't think the Seahawks have been tested yet, but their offensive line is definitely for real. Yes, Shaun Alexander is an excellent running back, but I could probably run for a thousand yards in a season behind that offensive line. It sure is fun to be a running back when the people who are supposed to tackle you are all laying down on the ground.

I think Seattle is about to find out why the AFC is as dominant as it has been over the last few years. Pittsburgh is a team that exemplifies what teams need to be able to do to win the AFC championship. On offense you need to run the ball effectively (Willie Parker, Jerome Bettis-check), have a passing game with a deep threat and a third and long threat (Antwaan Randal El and Hines Ward-check), and a quarterback who has some playoff experience in big games (Ben Roethilsberger, who lost to the Patriots in last years AFC championship game-check). On defense you need to just wreak havoc with the opponents offense and take them out of their game (James Farrior, Troy Palomalu-check), ask Peyton and Jake about those two-they sure remember them.

As far as Seattle goes, they haven't had to play a complete game yet. To beat the Redskins they had to stop a banged up Clinton Portis and slow down the sloth-like Mark Brunell, and then let their offensive line pummel Washingtons defense. Against Carolina they had to stop Steve Smith, and, well, Steve Smith. Carolina's defense was out of gas by the second quarter, and the Seattle O-Line pretty much had thei way with them. Again, Alexander is an incredible back, but I could put just about any NFL starting running back behind that O-Line and they too would look pretty damn good.

I think that the Seahawks are short at least two important offensive weapons -no deep threat, and an unproven playoff quarterback- and defensively haven't played a team with the offensive depth that the Steelers have.

It probably won't be a blow out, and Bill Cowher will have his chances to completely screw it up, but I believe that Jerome "Homecoming" Bettis and the Pittsburgh Stellers are going to deliver the Lombardi trophy to Pennsylvania this year.

Final Score: Steelers 34, Seattle 13.

Things To Do In Nashville On The Saturday Before The Super Bowl

A spectacular saturday night. The Nashville Predators win 6-0, Hartnell gets the hat trick, Vokoun gets the shutout, and we Preds fans get free tacos!