Adapting to My new Fish Bowl

It's a strange feeling when 50 strangers willingly submit themselves to view your creative offerings.  And yet, as of right now today I have added about 50 subscribers on my youtube channel.  Incidentally if anyone comes from youtube to the blog then welcome and enjoy yourself, there's plenty of fun stuff to be had.

Here's the latest offerings, I plan to make a post with some stills of the graphics and logos I have made for recent videos.  Hope everyone enjoys watching them as much as I have enjoyed making them.

Debunking ESP using computers

I decided to take my youtube video selection in a slightly different direction. Right now I am working on a few videos for a new series: Computers Show Us The Way

My intent is to use our lovable electronic devices and use them as a foil for human brains to expose the weakness of various nonsensical beliefs and practices.

Superstition, prayer and homeopathy are all planned but the order/timeline in which they are produce is still uncertain. For now, content yourself with the very first of many: ESP!

****Update, the original video got cut off during processing so here's the full 6 minute video in all its glory****

Mo' video!

Granted this does meet the excellent standards of my fiction writing but I dropped another video on Pdunn's apologetic rectum recently. It's worth checking out on youtube but views here still count so whatev. It's just funny what people will believe.

Proof of God Video Addendum

Here's your embedded goodness.



I also started the channel "Keippernicus" so if anyone wants to subscribe there's still a chance that you could be the first.

Two comments already, probably both from seeing the links over in the comments of Pharyngula.

***Update, I now have 2 subscribers as well. Huzzah! We'll see how long that lasts but I will laugh my ass off if I accidentally become a youtube personality. Everyone who gives a rats should probably watch the video here because it looks a lot better when its not embedded and you can rate all over it if you like.

Sweet.

Oh good they proved it...nyaaaaaat!

200 Posts and this one's a winner!

Thanks once again to PZ Myers for bringing me to inanity via the straight and narrow.

Check this stupid gang bang of nonsense out at: http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/thinkaboutit.php

You start on the 'think about it' screen where you are presented with 4 choices, shown here.


So we have a diagram of 4 possible choices. We'll start bottom right and choose 'I don't care'

Result:
Wow that was easy, they just gave up. Though to be fair the main page of the 'proof' section claims that it does not provide persuasion just logic. I thought this was going to be a challenge but...lets try some other options.

Both 'I don't know' and 'trust does not exist' lead to the same stupid question, posted here.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict this sort of minimalist strong arming is going to dominate the whole proof section. After all if you don't know whether or not absolute truth exists you are forced either admit that it does or go back to the main screen. No argument, no discussion, binary answers to really bad questions.

Now the final of the 4 choices is top left, sitting in for good information we are forced to admit that 'absolute truth exists.' I should amend that its a ridiculous choice but I always liked to diagram the choose your own adventure books to see where your path would inevitably lead.

Allow me to elaborate one step further as, at this point, I have not looked at any of the questions afterwards but I can predict that this whole thing is some variant of what my childhood self dubbed 'a loopy funnel.' We all know where the proof supposedly goes, the only question is how the choices we make or answers we provide will get us there.

In the two or three CYOA games that I plotted out there were certain situations you could run into from multiple paths. One such, that always stuck with me, was walking past a bubbling mud hole where you could jump in, rub some on wounds, throw in a coin or keep walking. And this same stupid mudhole was after a cave, inside the enchanted forest and along the path to the ocean.

Let's see how things progress from here, shall we. If you go with 'Absolute Truth' you come to this screen and get to begin the journey to 'prove' god exists. Heigh-ho, I can't wait.


Let's see how Step 1 enriches our lives, shall we?

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

I was going to do this point by point but that turned into WAY to many screenshots so I will just diagram it out for you in simple terms and throw a few caps in along the way.

Here's the basic gist of the 'proof' you'll have to click on the image to make any sense of it because it goes across 3 screens.

I know it looks tiny but that image is 3000 pixels long.

The basic format is actually far simpler than I envisioned. Lamentably I was ABSOLUTELY correct in my presupposition that its just a bunch of forced choices. No loops, no redundancies and absolutely no elegance to the whole thing.

Wait, that sounds about right for religious thinking.

Anyway things are pretty tame up until the last part, after step 7 you get a teaser for the penultimate and final proof.

And finally we arrive at...ah fuck it here's the ultra disappointing reveal...

Goats and gonads what a mother lovin' waste of time. That's not a proof its not even a sound idea let alone earth shattering or mind-bending.

I'll get to why it's stupid in a second (besides the obvious) but you have to love the irony of this whole test saying that the immutability of physical law proves the existence of a supernatural deity unbeholden to any such laws.


Actually, I think I am just going to make a video with Camtasia and rip this thing to shreds.

Convenant Eyes...muahahaha

A client asked me to call these guys to make sure it was compatible with their setup. I checked out their site and it was hilarious.

I mean with a picture like this...

Oh man it was funny talking to tech support about what kind of porn/images their software will filter out.

Gingi Edmonds is a sociopath.

I submit proof of her status here and now with a link to an article penned by her regarding the fate of one Dr. George Tiller. The article was written one day after said doctor was murdered during church services, just in case you haven't been paying attention.

Several things caught my eye about this craven witch's attempt to justify no moral outrage over the man's murder.

In addition to being a hit man for hire, Tiller also offered funerary services to mothers that paid him to off their kids. While most clinics in the nation are content to just rape and scrape, Tiller took his practice leaps and bounds beyond the norm and peddled abortion packages that included photographing, footprinting, handprinting, baptism, cremation, and arrangement for autopsy.

Oh, god forbid the man actually help his patients (the mom's) by sparing them the trouble of making arrangements seperately. Not every baby that was aborted was brought in by some cracked out mom on meth laughing about gettin' her baby sucked out. Late term abortions are often carried out because they represent a threat to the mother.

So finding out your 8 month baby will kill you unless it is aborted is bad, having to make the choice to save your own life is worse and then wanting to see that it is interred according to your wishes before you have even seen it's little face is probably a fucking nightmare from which I am glad to have been spared. Gingi, you cunt, why can't you think about anything besides your own miserable preconceptions?

My second point of contention comes from this section:

Murder is murder, and it is something that we pro-lifers inherently deplore. But I can't help but note - and my history is rusty so pardon me here - I'm trying to remember, did anyone mourn Lee Harvey Oswald when Jack Ruby gunned him down?

Allow me to translate this segment into rational person thought: Group A abhors action M except when Action M is committed against practioners of Action M.

Allow me to translate this into how my brain parses such a nonsensical statement: I Gingi Edmonds, pro-life cunt, do hereby announce that my hypocrisy is not some quiet error in judgement but a bold and contradictory proof that my brain does not work correctly. After all how can you inherently deplore an act SELECTIVELY.

If I denounce racism *except against people who are themselves racist* then I am a hypocrite. The way to unravel this is simple, and Ms. Edmonds the sea witch could take a hint by applying some logic to her own views. IE racists are assholes, however being an asshole racist does not justify asshole racism towards you (the asshole racist) but nor does it preclude the fact that you are a racist asshole.

I mean, think about it. Someone just shot a Nazi guard manning the gas chamber at Aushwitz. I should feel bad about this? George Tiller the Baby Killer's acts are every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the "legal" murder of the Jews that fell into their hands.

Asinine, short-sighted, never-read-a-fucking-psychology-or-history-book drivel! You say you oppose murder, inherently, yet you can just shrug it off so easily? I daresay you ought to amend your beliefs and opinions or you SHOULD oppose the murder of a nazi warcriminal. After all murder is murder, right Gingi?

No, because your opinion trumps rationality and fairness and any sort of intellectual effort to actually grasp the complexities of the abortion debate. Sorry Gingi wingi, don't hurt your little bwain cells by actually using them.

Now nevermind the implications of groupthink or the fact that most of the nazi's who committed warcrimes were every day folk I just wanted to further elucidate the hypocrisy before we reach the crown jewel of Gingi's stupidity.

Instead of scrambling to feverishly denounce the pro-life community ("Anyone who thinks Tiller's death is in any way a positive thing is not a true pro-lifer"... huh?) we should be looking at a very serious fact: If every single pro-lifer who is currently falling all over themselves to publicly mourn the "loss" of this abortionist displayed just a fraction of that outrage over just ONE of the children Tiller murdered on a regular nine to five, Baby Killer Tiller would have been put out of business long ago and he would not be dead today.

Yes this article goes on but this part bears special mention. Tiller was not a murderer, period. He was a doctor. Doctors perform procedures and prescribe medicines for the health of their patients. What the anti-choice folk don't realize is that bronze age conceptions of life/death, right/wrong and good/evil should not be universally applied to anyone who disagrees. America is not a christian nation, we are bound by secular law and not your craven theocratic nonsense.

Now I acknowledge that their should be limits and checks on abortion (as there are with ANY other medical procedure) but forcing a woman to bear a child that will put her in personal danger is wrong. Forcing a teenage girl who got knocked up by her boyfriend because her parents wouldn't spring for birth control is WRONG. After all if a mother does not want a child what hope does that poor child have without a mother's love?

It gets worse. Much worse.

I know this is a huge loss for Tiller's family and they need our prayer and support. I'm sure they are grieving bitterly, and it is heartbreaking to think of the pain that they must be feeling. It is ultimately tragic that Tiller did not have an opportunity to properly prepare his soul to face his Maker. Unless some miracle happened, he left this life with his hands drenched with innocent blood.

So much worse. Yes let's console the family by posting screeds saying that he deserved it (Tiller's family can fucking read your article, she devil) and that having not 'prepared his soul' is now burning in the anguish of eternal hellfire. It's dumbfounding she can so brazenly condemn this man for acts of supposed barbarity and then righteously announce that god will allow him to suffer for an infinite period of time. Even if every aborted fetus came to term, lived to be 100 years old and suffered being beaten or raped every day for that span of time the misery inflicted on a single soul in hell would be infinitely worse and for an infinitely longer time.

Yes, the wrath of Gingi Edmonds is tame compared to that of her imaginary sociopathic deity.

The man chose his fate the moment he dismembered his first infant. I'm not embarrassed to say what the punishment for the crime is anymore than I'm embarrassed to admit that child killing is a crime.

And so much much worse... Let's take another look at the supposed mercy of the christian god. During Noah's year long boat ride the 'source of morality' drowned every human being, man, woman, child and unborn alike. Put your fucking god on trial if you're so against abortion.

And yes, somehow it gets EVEN worse than I could believe possible.

Did I want him to be gunned down in church - even a hypocritical, Molech-worshiping fraud of a church like the one he was attending while shot? No. I would have much preferred him being tried and convicted in a court of law that is consistent with medical science and personhood as defined in our Constitution. We can prevent the atrocious acts of violence against abortionists by holding them accountable to their actions.

Yeah, we can protect doctors who perform abortions (side note what is with dickhole religious nuts throwing 'ist' onto words they don't like to describe people. darwinist, evolutionist, abortionist...lame) all we have to do is prosecute them for murder. Take a look at their orderly medical records to prove their guilt and lock them away or have the government execute them for us. Not safe, not freedom, not in my fucking country, bitch.

There is no doubt that Tiller deserved to be executed for his crimes. I just would have preferred a state sanctioned lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, electric chair, good old fashioned stoning, what have you.u.

What odious pit of hell coughed you forth, gingi edmonds. What vile pool of satan's smegma did you climb out of to plague this world? How in the motherfuck can you A) Justify death penalty but not Abortion, B) Consider 'good old fashioned' stoning better than being shot to death?

You are sick as fuck if you honestly think that anyone deserves to be bludgeoned to death from flying rocks.

Observe, if you dare, what a stoning looks like.

If that video doesn't sicken and scare the shit out of you I suggest you go talk to a psychologist.

I mean, I personally would not shoot an abortionist, but who am I to impose my morality on someone else? If you are against shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one, right? Hmm, suddenly pro-choice rhetoric doesn't sound so warm and fuzzy and virtuous, does it?



Thank sweet buddha that this is almost over. Gingi you ass, what fucking world do you live in where the odious spew that comes out of your mouth and your fingers actually makes sense?

People like you are why people like me despise organized religion and its practioners with such passion. You are an evil woman for suggesting that murder, stoning and hell are all justice in your eyes. And you make these claims simply for political points despite the fact that a man is dead for the crime of doing his job.

Tiller was killed by a pro-choice act. Pro-lifers need make no apologies. Both men are guilty of bloodshed and this tragedy is a sad but all-too-real testament to the biblical truth that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

Finally we reach the end. I bolded two phrases here because they stand out to me. Reading this article has made me sick to my stomach and I am tired of even processing the words because to do is causing me physical harm. I do not think that pro-lifers should apologize, they should examine. Really examine their beliefs and what they truly hold as moral and virtuous. Should it not give you pause that you want fetuses to live but are prepared to allow full grown people to die whether by vengenance, the state or some divine retribution?

I empathize and I know the idea of baby-murder turns the stomach of every rational human being but fetuses are not humans. The life of the mother should take precedent over her unborn children and a victim of rape should not have to endure the curse of raising her attacker's child.

The second bold phrase is there not as a call to examine but a call to action. Doctors, even abortion doctors, have saved more lives than every priest of every sect who ever walked this earth. Medicine, anti-biotics in particular, has allowed the human population to swell and grow like never before. Literally half of everyone on earth could not survive without our current understanding of science and the progress it has brought us.

Only claims of indignation and scorn can come to those who deny that secular knowledge is a far greater force for good than any religion cooked up on a mountain or through the smoke of some chemical hallucinogen. Science, knowledge and rational thought are the pillars upon which our civilization stands.

Will you side with those who are laying the bricks or those with the hammers, wearing crucifixes around their necks?

Microsoft is full of jerks and Live Search blows!!!

I submit the following example, a little bit close to home perhaps but I was just about furious when I did a little experiment earlier today. First, a smidgen of back story to set the tone for this curious anomaly.

My desk sports a triple screen display, 3x 19 inch Hanns-G monitors on a horizontal span. That makes my desktop area something like 3840x1024 pixels. My job necessitates keeping up a MINIMUM of one firefox window, one Remote desktop session to our server for our CRM software as well as keeping track of email, instant messages (also work related) and any programs or windows I happen to need for experimenting or testing.

For a long time I thought two screens was enough. I was wrong.

Today, a client called in with an issue that was happening through IE but not Firefox and I wanted to see if it would affect my own experience. So I slapped up IE, took a look and out of habit I decided to check on the blog. I didn't have it bookmarked or anything so I just typed 'at the risk of being too cynical' ***That's the title of the blog*** and the live search came up totally and utterly empty.

What in the black bedeviled hills of hell? The exact same phrase from Google always pops up an entry as the first result. So, in the spirit of experimentation I tried the same thing through Firefox. End result?

Google Search:


MSFT Search:


Great scraping lolbutter what am I to think of this. I know that Google and MSFT are blood rivals in the search/ads world but still. Now I was really interested so I tried a phrase that would likely turn up the blog no matter what simply due to its unique quality.

This time the phrase was "Gigacalorie Project"

Google:

MSFT:

Oh come on you freaks that's not even fair. I was so pissed that I checked every single one of the 198 search results and does my little blog appear anywhere? Hell no.

Finally I tried a phrase that is unmistakeably and permanently tied to this blog.

Keippernicus:

No screen shot because it only turns up links to A: Youtube, B: Sites where I have made comments under the name "Keippernicus"

Now mudslinging is fine and dandy but I find this a little short-sighted even for Microsoft. I get that they are interested in keeping their ad revenue stream going but hiding access to their own user's personal blogs? Really?

Guess what, MSFT. You just lost the game.

A quick word about living in the Southern USA

Friends there's no escaping the bigotry and the hatred, nor the scornful glares of those people who think their purported moral superiority transcends basic human decency.  Even a mild dose of this bullshit is enough to ratchet my mood from slightly anxious to seething cynicism.

An anecdote to highlight my frustration:

Yesterday at a gathering of friends my wife and I shared a conversation with a youngish grandmother, aged around 50 or so.

The event was to commemorate the recovery of a neighbor's daughter whose foot had been crushed in a car accident.  The injured girl was projected to be off her feet completely for 20 weeks and at just over 10 was able to hobble around with a brace on.

Sunshine and the cool sweat-covered drinks made the affair pleasant and calm.  Though most of those in attendance were strangers I felt like I was in the company of friends.  Now the young grandmother was interested in sharing stories of travel and adventure.

She talked about a 6 week journey across 30 states with her grandparents.  We spoke of the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas on the honey moon.  We shared with this woman the taste of noodle soup in Bangkok, the mangrove swamps of Costa Rica, our various trips to Europe and a certain midnight stroll across the dark continent.

As we shared I made an off hand remark that our honeymoon was last year.  Our two and a half year old daughter ran around on the grass making people smile and soaking up attention like a sponge, as usual.  The wheels began to turn in the head of our fellow story teller and rather than have her struggle with the implications I explained.

"We were only married last year, and Alex was born before that."

Straight, simple and perfectly mundane.

"But is she your daughter or?" The woman asked.

"As far as I know," I joked.  Her expression turned sour and she did not laugh.

From that moment the lady who had spoken with us, who had been delighted to hear about our lives turned utterly indifferent and quickly shifted her attentions to every other party guest EXCEPT for my self, my wife and our daughter.

This is why atheists get angry at christians.

18in4 is BULLSHIT!!!

You hear me? 18in4 is a scam, a total scam, an utterly vapid attempt to shill people out of their hard earned cash in exchange for false promises and a physical impossibility.

The guy that runs 18in4 is apparently having some success because the mother fucker's ads are showing up on my blag!!!

Let me break down the sheer physical impossibility of this feat:

The Task: Lose 18 lbs of body mass
The Time: 96 hours

Now a guy my size burns roughly 2500 calories per day just to maintain my weight. Over 4 days that adds up to 10,000 calories or a little UNDER 3 pounds of fat even if I ate absolutely nothing.

If you wanted to kill (legitimately) 18 pounds of fat, which is far better to do over the course of a few months instead of days, you would need to burn a NET of 63,000 calories. In 96 hours. That's a freaky ass 656.25 calories PER HOUR for the entire duration assuming no food and no sleep.

For reference during the course of the Gigacalorie project I have burned on average 710 calories per DAY as of day 73 (which incidentally is today) and this has lead to a net weight loss of about 13 pounds.

In order to burn the full 18 lbs you would literally have to be on the treadmill at jogging pace for 96 hours with no food and no sleep and i can't even imagine the collateral damage to your joints, liver, kidneys and sanity by the end of such an evil (though grandiose) plan.

Allow me to reiterate. The 18in4 DIET PLAN IS A PIECE OF SHIT SCAM AND YOU ARE A GULLIBLE ASSHOLE if you fall for it. Yes it's only about 20 bucks but for fuck's sake KEEP YOUR CASH.

But let's consider what would happen if you wanted to lose such an amount of weight in such a short amount of time. While I doubt you could hit the full 18lbs you could probably reasonably burn 3-4 with serious effort and a very limited caloric intake. We're still talking 5 hours of exercise per day or a serious bout of high altitude hiking but that's doable. You could subtract some pounds by lowering the amount of water in your system though that's not safe or really productive (water is weight but it's not something to try and live without.)

All in all the thing to remember about any sort of weight loss endeavor is this: slower pace that you can manage and maintain is always better than a crash diet followed by a rapid weight gain. Progress that lasts is REAL progress and gimmicks that strip away a few pounds in a short amount of time will always revert back to your old self (or worse) unless proper care is taken to maintain your losses.

Don't waste your money on this 18in4 bullshit, get a month of gym membership and make a real change in your life instead.

Or buy a tapeworm.

****************Update***************

I did some more digging and wasn't able to find a full break down of the plan but I was able to infer some interesting stuff.

Now I mentioned water as a way to shed some pounds (to no lasting effect) but I neglected to consider FECES as a possible source of neutral poundage as well.

Apparently this is leaning towards one of those detoxifying plans that makes you flush out your intestines and the several pounds of fecal matter contained herein.

So in essence the plan is telling you that by emptying your septic tank you now produce less shit. Brilliant.

Gotta love the Jehovah's witnesses.

So they stopped by again. This time they dropped off some literature of the awe inspiring and life-changing variety.

Buahahah. No it's all just propaganda but it includes some pretty pictures.

Check it out.



I know I know my scanner was built circa 2001 and it's impossible to square up anything thicker than an envelope. Anyway I did some flipping and found all the usual gibberish. One segment did catch my eye though.

Take a gander.





Now this is a spurious argument at any rate, any book written by the creator of the universe would stand out so far from human endeavors that there could be no possible confusion. That's pretty standard from the files of 'Blatantly Obvious' but allow me to illustrate nonetheless.

Let's say you've got a class full of kindergarten age kids. There are 50 kids total. You ask every one of the 50 kids to draw a picture of a mountain using only a pencil. Keep in mind all of these kids are aged 4 and 5 years old. Now we add a complication. The 51st painting will be done by a master artist who has done nothing but draw mountains with pencils for the last 20 years. The Artist's skill is unparalleled throughout the entire world and no one doubts this.

Would it be hard to distinguish the work of the Artist from the 5 year olds? Would a practiced expert be able to set his or her work apart from a bunch of semi-conscious children still working up the motor skills to properly brush their own teeth?

You betcha. Now let's consider an alternative scenario including the same bunch of kids and the Artist.

This time instead of actually drawing the mountain the task becomes this: Describe the proper way to draw a mountain so that another person will be able to draw it for themselves. Duration, depth and length are all up to the discretion of the person writing the instructions.

Again, would it be difficult to distinguish between the kids and the Artist? Of course not, it would be trivial. But how could we tell? Well without trying to sound patronizing or mean you could look at vocabulary, sentence structure, knowledge of the drawing technique itself could all be employed.

Now if you take the Artist out of the picture then things can get a little more muddled. Disagreements between just the kids would be common place. Some would no doubt be easily distinguished as better than others but there would probably be a few that stood out. Unless there was an art prodigy or some fluke there would be the possibility for debate for at least a few of the paintings or a few of the instructions.

There would be also little doubt, based on the work of other 5 year olds, that the work was written by someone about 4-5 years of age. No matter how hard you try to rationalize or play favorites there is just no way that a 5 year old could produce expert quality art.

So that's why the bible doesn't do it for me. Because it wasn't written by the Artist, if there is an Artist he or she or it sure as hell hasn't left any instructions for all us 5 year olds.

Pitiful!

Link to Original Article

This links to a story of an 'angel' that miraculously appeared at Presbyterian Hospital recently in Charlotte, NC. My wife recently forwarded me an email containing the backstory and a super bad quality image of the purported angel. Email follows:

From: WhereAngelsFly
> To: Shirley8648
> Sent: 12/6/2008 10:29:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
> Subj: Angel in ICU
>
>
> So many of you have heard me tell the story, but I
wanted to pass it
> along anyway to those who didn't hear it and for
those who wanted it
> in email.
>
> A couple of Wednesdays ago, I got an evening phone
call from the
> pediatric ICU at Presbyterian Hospital, where I work
as a child life
> specialist. Usually when they call at night, it
means something bad
> has happened. This, however, was different. My
coworker told me that
> the most amazing thing had just happened and she
just had to call to
> tell me.
>
> We had a patient who has really grown up in and out
of the hospital.
> All the staff knows her and her family. She had been
in the Pediatric
> Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for about a month, and
had been intubated -
> on life support. She was not doing well. The doctors
had approached
> mom about taking her off life support the Saturday
before. Mom was
> okay with it, and said that she'd been through so
much and if was her
> time to go she wanted to honor that. So they had
taken her off.
>
> It was Wednesday and she was still alive. Amazing.
The doctors
> approached mom about taking off her oxygen mask. Mom
was supportive,
> and began praying over her daughter. The mother of
another young
> patient who was in the bed next to her began praying
with her.
>
> The nurse practitioner went to the nurses station to
chart that she
> had taken off the oxygen mask. While doing so, she
looked up at the
> security monitor that videotapes the double doors
leading into the
> PICU. It records anyone who may be waiting outside
the doors to get in
> since it is a secure unit. She saw a man standing
there, and it looked
> a little funny to her, so she decided to walk down
the hall to open
> the double doors personally. When she opened them,
no one was standing
> there.
>
> She walked back down to the nurses station to finish
charting,
> assuming he had walked away, but saw him still
standing there on the
> monitor. So she opened the doors with a button near
the nurses station
> and leaned over to see him walk in, but no one was
standing there.
>
> She pulled over another nurse and both stood staring
at this man on
> the monitor and opening the doors to find no one
there. The nurse
> practitioner leaned in closely to look at the man on
the monitor and
> said, 'Oh my gosh. That's an angel. You can see his
wings!'
>
> They said that the sun starting shining so brightly
and the whole PICU
> was strangely filled with light. They said he was a
tall man and you
> could see wings behind him.
>
> They pulled over all the staff of the PICU and the
two praying mothers
> and everyone was staring at this man on the monitor
and opening the
> doors to find no one there. Crying, everyone pulled
out their camera
> phones to take pictures, but no one could get it to
show up on their
> camera. The mother of the girl pulled out her camera
phone and finally
> got a picture of the angel who was guarding the
doors to the PICU. He
> turned out as a man of light. I have attached the
picture from her
> phone.
>
> The girl was later discharged from the hospital to
go home.
> A Miracle.
>
> This story makes me so grateful for the way that God
reveals himself
> to us, and the how Great He is really is. We have
much to be thankful
> for this holiday. :)
>
>
> --
> Katy L. Field, CCLS
> Certified Child Life Specialist
> Presbyterian Blume Pediatric Hematology and Oncology
Clinic
> Charlotte, NC

And here's the angelic being itself:

Here's a better quality image, I haven't had much luck finding the original security footage but take a look at this pic and tell me what you think.

Now take a long hard look at the blue floor directly underneath the alleged seraphim. Doesn't look all that angelic or even personlike under scrutiny. I bet it'll take you one full second to make that observation.

See it's harder to tell in the ultra grainy cellphone pic that accompanies the email but the high quality version CLEARLY shows not an angel but Windows. That's right, sun shining through the windows.

In another account the details are a little different. Here's a quote to, shall we say, highlight the kicker.

She pulled over another nurse and both stood staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there. The nurse practitioner leaned in closely to look at the man on the monitor and said, 'Oh my gosh. That's an angel. You can see his wings!'

They said that the sun starting shining so brightly and the whole PICU was strangely filled with light. They said he was a tall man and you could see wings behind him.

They pulled over all the staff of the PICU and the two praying mothers and everyone was staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there. Crying, everyone pulled out their camera phones to take pictures, but no one could get it to show up on their camera. The mother of the girl pulled out her camera phone and finally got a picture of the angel who was guarding the doors to the PICU. He turned out as a man of light.

Emphasis in the preceding was mine but how hard is it for people to piece this sort of thing together? You people make me sad.

I'll quote Matt for the conclusion:

Matthew: Occam's razor. The sun was out ooooorr

Matthew: Jesus himself rode down on wings of happy to save you insignificant mortal shell

Me: and let a ton of other kids die because he was too busy to get to them

Ben Stein...you sad sad man...

How many times have I seen a tiny vial of eye drops and thought...'wow' in that Ben Steinish voice.

More than I care to remember. And I remember the days when Jimmy Kimmel was just a stooge hanging out on Ben Stein's barstool. It was an excellent show, no doubt, but the current contest is not so amusing.

Expelled the movie. What a disheartening venture. A while back I watched a trailer and it struck me as being really awesome because it looked like an honest-to-the-flying-spaghetti-monster truthful look at the purported debate between ID and Evolutionary Theory. *I capitalize ID only to distinguish it from id*

But no. No no no no no. Having updated the trailer one can only wonder what has happened to the man calling roll in Ferris Bueller's day off. He is now apparently an ID proponent. Shame on you, Ben Stein. Shame on you!!

Setting aside my deep seated hatred for the slithery wiles of insinuative religious bullshit just for a moment I would like to make a simple comment. Free speech is awesome, I love it to death and I can't see myself living in an America without it. Your opinion is yours to keep or share or whatever you choose to do with it and that is fine by me.

Science, on the other hand, does not look kindly on 'free' speech. Opinion does not have any effect whatsoever on the speed of light through a vacuum. It does not alter the planck constant nor diminish the grasp of universal gravitation. Science doesn't give a flying fuck what you think unless you can test your theory and make predictions based upon it.

Further setting aside the mounting rage that threatens my blood vessels into flirting with spectacular rupture I concede that evolution is not law. Darwin was not a prophet. DNA is not the new gospel. Moreover there are more holes in the fossil record then there are craters on the moon. (That may or may not be true, FYI)

Ha! You might say. I have fallen victim to my own incomplete theory and there is no other alternative than some dipshit intelligence that spun life into existence. I admit nothing to this except that given the choice between random chaotic evolutionary forces hammering out the ecosystem we see today and some mystical dogooder that actually had the nerve to DESIGN the world this way I would choose the one with better evidence, not with more appealing arguments.

Many creationists are quick to throw out 'Darwin recanted' Guess what? He probably did not and even if he did who gives a shit!? Not me.

I don't care if after publishing 'The Origin of Species' Darwin changed his tune and said that finches were extra-dimensional beings who traveled through time destroying the critters that they did not like. It wouldn't matter a bit.

The idea itself is what comes into question. The modern theory of evolution is not simple natural selection as Darwin observed. It kills me to see how much progress biology has made since 1859.

I also admit freely that Natural selection is not enough to explain the origin of life, the perseverance of weird critters and the genetic diversity that we see in modern life. Luckily in the 148 intervening years between 1859 and 2007 science has come a long way.

There are a number of key features about the theory some are more important to people than others but none are so important, for me, as the genetic similarity that we see between creatures of similar origins. Case in point: Humans look, act and seem very similar to our closest relatives: the great apes.

We do not derive from any modern animal stock but it is easy to see how we could have shared a common ancestor. Naturally things have changed for us, but they have also changed for our primate cousins. Now this raises some interesting questions.

If evolution is a reasonable theory then similar animals would have similar DNA. We can make this point reasonable because if a single species branches into two groups then each of those groups will continue to move apart from each other. Bigger genetic differences imply longer seperation, more mutations and less chance of interbreeding.

Now if all life was designed by an external intelligence why the hell would he/she/it (hereafter referred to as 'shit') design it with such similarity between similar species. If we do not share our ancestry with the great apes WHY THE FUCK DO WE SHARE SIMILAR DNA!?!?!

Is that not enough to make you scratch your head and wonder. What possible reason is there for this deception? What sort of creator would purposefully do such a thing?

Think about it. And then consider, just for kicks, that the great apes have 48 chromosomes. Humans have 46. Whew, that was cloes. Different chromosomes, different species right? ID says that there's not continuity between species and never has nor ever will be. Good thing right?

Wrong. For the explanation just click here.

Tricky eh? The trial that Dr. Miller is referring to related to a school district fighting ID in the classroom. Specifically they were ripping on the science teachers having to read a statement that evolution is 'only a theory' and not the only one out there.

Yikes.

Well they lost, a victory for reason. Here's the problem as I see it. Religious types will kindly ignore previous examples of the church smashing on controversial scientific ideas such as a heliocentric solar system, spherical earth theory and the age of the earth being a few orders of magnitude older than claimed by so called young earth creationists.

Ask anyone if the earth is flat, revolves around the sun or is suspended in celestial aether and you will probably get a laugh and a resounding no. The earth is demonstrably round, the sun demonstrably the relative center of our solar system and radioactive dating methods such as potassium-argon (read more about the process here) prove that the earth itself is billions of years old.

More importantly if you look up at night, with the naked eye, you can see stars that are older than the supposed age of the earth. That is, if you can see the stars from your house. Since the figure fluctuates with new discoveries I'll just say that we presume the universe is older than 10 billion years. I've heard everywhere from 8-15 so I try to be vague.

I have no doubt that the universe is old as balls. True I don't know the exact number of years. I couldn't possibly. We may never have an estimate of the universe's age to within even a thousand years. I personally would be impressed if we could could nail it to within a million (considering the scale of the time needed to evolve a universe) Does that mean we throw out the notion of the age of the universe and demand that only She/He/IT knows?

No! That would be retarded. We don't chuck a good theory because it has loose ends. If we did science would not accomplish much of anything. Then where would we be?

Here's where things get tricky. I agree that science should challenge the status quo. If it did not challenge the status quo then it couldn't function. The very means by which science is accomplished is antithetical to human thinking.

I agree that potential ideas should not be discarded solely because they resist our current understanding. However, ID is not rejected so wholeheartedly by scientists and teachers and people with functioning brains because of moral, political or spiritual conflicts. It is so vehemently rejected because it IS NOT SCIENCE.

Oh but they have biologists and physicists to agree with them. True enough. But contrary to popular myth lone scientists rarely accomplish much of anything. It certainly appears that they have in the past see Einstein, Newton, Galileo and all the big heavy hitters of their respective eras but these men had contemporaries and a knowledge base built from the past up until their lifetime.

Strength in modern science does not derive from loners who have labratories up in dark shady places it happens in teams. You think Intel or IBM freelances chip design out to single people? They don't. You think individuals can manufacture nanoscale equipment? Well guess what, they can't.

I love science, odds are overwhelming that most people that enjoy it are alive today because of it in part or in whole. Now just because something butts heads with the status quo doesn't mean its a valid theory. Belief in anything supernatural will never be scientific BECAUSE if it is not a natural or observable process it cannot be tested, duplicated or verified independently.

Sorry ID, you lose right there. People's insistence that we give credence to nonsensical beliefs simply due to their popularity is not now and will never be anything approaching scientific.

Obviously science does not operate in a vacuum. Most of the research that's being done on planet earth is either to further or create something with tangible economic games. Never mind the benefits to society brought about by computers they sell like hotcakes in the developed world.

Once again I realize how big a piece I have bitten off and only managed to nibble around the edges. Here I will drop a nuke towards the core of the matter. ID is no better than creationism in terms of its usefulness to humanity. Granted it's a little different but it is no better at explaining the nature of the world.

ID serves no useful purpose. It is not testable. What is the criteria for what constitutes design versus happenstance? Species are not clear cut. Life is mutable. Genes are not the sole influence upon the world. People are animals and subject to the same forces, chemicals and weaknesses as any other animal. Culture-bearing creatures or not we are fucking primates!!

What more does it take people? Now I would hope no one makes a decision based solely on an emotional plea for one side or another. Therefore, non-existant readers, I intend to take a stand against this bullshit. And I shall now make this claim that my first, perhaps only, work of non-fiction will be a condemnation of Intelligent Design.

I retain the hope that Ben Stein is just using this movie to lure people in and then blind side them with an opposing message. This I hope, but we shall see.

In regards to Kirk Cameron...

I open with an excerpt from my last telegraph to Kirk. It reads:

Kirk Cameron. Stop.

That's it. Last night at a wholesomely interesting dinner at the Lynnwood Estate Lucas mentioned a certain video featuring a certain former star of growing pains and a prime example of Musa sikkimensis

I literally could not believe what I was hearing and seeing as Kirk's sidekick opened with "Behold the Atheist's nightmare!" My heart fluttered for several thousand nanoseconds before I realized this nitwit was holding a piece of fruit.

There is no shame in admitting wrongness right away Mr. Cameron and your reverend dinglehop. Atheists are not shy when it comes to eating fruit, nor vegetables nor any sort of carbohydrate whether simple or complex. If there is anything unique about an Atheist's diet it is that he or she can't seem to choke down on bullshit.

Now over the span of one full minute Ray Comfort goes onto explain how a 'well made' banana is ergonomic, convenient and delicious. Indeed its remarkable that it comes with a 'pop top' and a biodegradable wrapper.

Miracle!!!

Only its not. Before I could even finish the video I noticed a nearby response that summed up nearly everything I had planned to say. I would like to it but its not working now. More on that later.

Then I made the mistake of watching some more stuff with Ray Completelyfuckingsanefort. What idiocy. The additional material in question was from the rational response debate in which the amazing duo prove 'scientifically' that god exists without mentioning faith at all...except that he does pull out the usual nonsensical 'this coke can didn't create itself' spiel and then ties in to the ten commandments.

What got me is how he insisted all you need to understand are 'eyes that can see and a brain that works.'

Well, dear sir, my eyes need a little correction for true visual acuity by my brain is mono fucking filament and your argument, well its not a ceramic spindle so I just can't stick with it. If you don't get the reference well our book lists just differ like that.

Why don't people get it? Really I can't believe sometimes how people fall for the same old swindlers and bullshit reassurances so blissfully. I remember 7 years ago or more sitting in a big room at NCSU with a cadre of wide-eyed students laughing about how a modern building would never occur in nature.

I laughed because the speaker, in the course of the metaphor revealed that his knowledge of electricity is less than sterling. Granted I am no expert but I do know that you need more than one wire and a switch to make the lights come on (the current needs to come from somewhere, he just sort of left that detail out)

Similar strains of arrogance and presumption haunt my everyday life. The more I think about it the more I realize how often the nutcases are 'informing' the level-headed types. It's like hearing a chiropractor lecture a brain surgeon on treating something severe.

Anyway this is fine and dandy, the church in all its form and grace, has been making a mockery of reason and intelligence since long long ago. Do I fear for Atheism as a cause or choice in life? No. Do I despair that people will stub out rational thinking in the world? No I do not.

This is why. Geeks, nerds and whatever archetypal thinking people reign in the land of tomorrow will be more and more necessary to maintain and expand our infrastructure until the end of time. I've never met a christian coder, i'm sure they do exist but by and large whatever faith, color or background if you give a nerd the chance for some booty I guarantee they'll take it 1100011 times out of 1100100. Think about it.

Society does not depend on religion anymore. The morals and values flung from 'the mountain' are supposedly essential to an orderly society but have no place in a technical one. Life is different. The closet light is on and guess what, world, no monsters! Huzzah!

No sexy mermaids or forest nymphs either, drat!

Now as a young lad and quite literally a child of science fiction I always harbored a healthy respect for the prevalent notions of mid twencen science fiction. Notably that people would, in more or less current form, take to the stars with great ships of war and exploration and that society was being ordered into ever neater tiers of understanding. Great sentiment but that notion doesn't even carry past the atmosphere.

What now seems obvious is that as a technical society we will be forced at some point to deal with all the debris in the fishing net. By net I mean technology and by debris I mean nut jobs and con-people without scruples or sense enough to do something useful in the world. After all as the world becomes ever more tame and quantified it becomes less threatening.

Long has it crossed the gray matter that we really don't think beyond the tip of the iceberg unless we really have to. I am speaking of humans in general now. True most people know that meat comes from animals which have to be grown, slaughtered and processed *butchered if you're up for it* and then packaged so that we can eat them safely. Logically people know that this happens to pigs, chickens and cows but seeing the 'early stages' still makes people queasy.

It is very easy for things to seem possible or rational without understanding their origin or root cause. At Computer Stupidities the constant vexing almost unbelievable stories are the ones where people file, drill, bolt or chop up some component 'to make it fit.' Granted people are becoming more PC literate *I say nothing for the Macs and their goddamn tyrannical hardware!!!* but it took time for that shift to occur. Absorbing the new norms and functions associated with personal computers took some time. I imagine if early auto mechanics were taking notes they had some HUMDINGERS about people's abuse to their cars.

Strange as it may seem as our technology takes away the rigors of physical life (replacing one tedium with another as capitalism sees fit) we do not aspire to better understand our world we just soak up the goodies it has to offer. Sure people produce and construct but most of us just regurgitate and filter feed to get along. There's a really good quote from Firefly where Mal says something like "most people are the middleman and they don't take kindly to being cut out of a deal" It's truer and truer everyday.

Being a lamb is much cozier than being a lion. Lions get to travel more.

I don't lay blame heavily since I crossed the line back and forth around the same time as ol' Kirky did. Granted we started and ended on opposite sides but I like to think my transition was a little purer. Kirk relates a story of hanging out in his sports car, at age 17, and wondering if his transient popularity isn't a little fleeting and lame. It was fear, you see, that lead him down a sad path. Reason is a far greater compass.

Granted there are tripwires and land mines all along the way between any two wildly different belief systems but if your faith is smote to ruin or your logic spins out of control one day you are always free to try again. It took years of consideration, hours and days of studying, thinking, introspection and inspiration to settle it for me finally.

Thomas Paine rightly said "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly." People often say I seem angry or defensive about my beliefs and I am quick to agree *with a caveat or two*

I was raised in a more or less religion neutral environment. Say what you will or will not about those you disagree with but I gave faith every chance and benefit of the doubt that I could muster. I felt my brain bend and stretch under the weight of self-contradiction and ideas that I couldn't quite get behind but couldn't oppose outright either. The words and ideas just weren't there yet. Most of my high school swimming periods, and these were EPIC were spent in such contemplations. From Junior year in HS to freshman year at NCSU I struggled and raked at what really deserves to be listened to.

When I made up my mind it wasn't some awesome cacophony of ethereal music and epiphany. It was just the cold breeze of the men's locker room and the slap of my wet feet on the little tiles. The exact day or month I cannot tell you because I was there for weeks before I realized it.

So what caused me great effort and heartache to achieve is dismissed in mere seconds as cocky or shallow does not offend me it enrages me. How dare some pissant former child actor with convert zeal dripping out of his smug shaved head say "I used to think just like you did" No you didn't, Kirk.

If you had you would have realized what a twisted nest of recursive bullshit arguments upholds your faith. You probably think that I, as a neutral type meandered to faith and recoiled after a careful exploration am wrong for opposing reasons. Well guess what, dick you're wrong about that too.

Also Ray Comfort is a fucking idiot riding on your coat tails to glory.