It is a particularly vexing problem to try to determine my attitude toward a group whose goals I basically agree with, but whose tactics are so bizarre and repellent that I don't even want to have my name associated with them.
I'm referring in this case to PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I think their aims are laudable -- improving conditions for animals, from pets to farm animals to animals in research to wild animals. I find their approach hard to fathom, however, especially their deliberate use of shocking imagery, their breaking in to research facilities and releasing caged animals (most of whom probably die in the first days after release), and their treating of all animal deaths as equivalent (remember when they condemned President Obama for swatting a fly?).
They also don't understand the principle of "choose your battles." Nor, apparently, do they have any sense as to when an extreme stance will cause far more people to laugh at you than to support you. Because their latest campaign is against...
... Mario.
Yup. The little Nintendo cartoon guy. Why? Because in his latest incarnation, in Super Mario 3D Land, he's wearing a magic fur coat that allows him to jump higher.
Further, they claim that because Mario's fur coat is modeled after the fur of the Japanese raccoon dog (tanuki), that he is directly responsible for the death of tanukis raised for fur in Japan. So they decided to make their own game, in which a bloody, hairless tanuki is chasing Mario around trying to get his fur back. And on their website, they have a picture of a crazed Mario holding up a severed tanuki head.
And I'm thinking, "Really? They're going after a video game character? Don't they have anything better to do with their time and resources? Or are they just trying to lose what little credibility they have left?"
Don't get me wrong; I'm a strong advocate of treating animals with respect and kindness, and I think much of the treatment of animals in industry is reprehensible. But... a video game character? Wearing a fur suit that isn't real? It reminds me of what my dad once said to a salesman in a furniture store, when he was being shown a chair upholstered in Naugahyde: "Aren't you afraid that sooner or later, you'll run out of Naugas?"
On the other hand, the whole ridiculous incident may explain recent happenings in Oklahoma, in which a teenager shot an animal that he thought was El Chupacabra. On further analysis, it turned out that the dead animal was actually a hairless raccoon.
Maybe the whole El Chupacabra phenomenon can be laid at Mario's feet, you know? Maybe they're going on the rampage because they're trying to get their fur back, and prevent Mario from getting all those little gold coins, and jumping on the magic boxes, and so on. We probably shouldn't tell PETA this, however, or they will swarm en masse to the Southwest and begin a "Save the Chupacabra" campaign.
On the other hand, maybe it will give them something to do.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tea. Panda poo. Hot.
You may have heard about Luwak Coffee, the "most expensive brew on Earth," which is made from coffee beans that were pooped out by an Indonesian species of weasel called a luwak. Supposedly the beans ferment in the luwak's digestive tract, and this gives the coffee a "distinctive aroma." (I'll just bet it does.) To experience this... um... delicacy, you have to be willing to pay $600 a pound.
Now a Chinese tea manufacturer is trying to top this by producing the most expensive tea on Earth. Inspired by the hard-to-fathom success of Luwak Coffee, An Yanshi has created a tea for which he is charging £ 50,000 per kilo (about $36,000 a pound).
Made from panda poo.
I wish I was making this up, but if you don't believe me, here's the source.
"Pandas have a very poor digestive system and only absorb about 30 per cent of everything they eat. That means their excrement is rich in fibres and nutrients," An explained. "It has a mature, nutty taste and a very distinctive aroma while it's brewing."
(I'll just bet it does.)
So, I'm sure that given the price, it will become a delicacy. What is it with the word "delicacy," anyway? The dictionary definition is that a delicacy is something "pleasing to eat that is a rarity or luxury." My feeling is that this definition is incorrect; it should be, "something that you should only consume if it is because you stand to win a great deal of money from your buddies for swallowing it." Examples include the durian fruit of Southeast Asia (which smells so disgusting that it is a crime to cut one open in a hotel room) and hakarl (Icelandic fermented shark meat, which informed sources tell me "has a pungent ammonia smell").
So if you're thinking of going all-out in the delicacy department, you could have some hakarl, follow it up with a bowl of durian, and wash it all down with panda-crap tea. That would certainly be a "distinctive" meal! Mmm-mmm!
Myself, I wonder if this will catch on. $36,000 per pound seems a little steep to have the privilege of drinking stewed panda poop, and I'm not sure how many people out there are both (1) seriously rich, and (2) insane. But you never know; I thought the same thing about the much-cheaper Luwak Coffee when it came on the market about ten years ago, and there it is, still selling like crazy. It could be that there are even crazier people with even larger amounts of money who will be willing to buy An Yanshi's poolong tea.
If it does sell, I will find that to be a little discouraging, considering what good things could be done with $36,000. You could buy a nice car, take a grand vacation, or even just pay down your mortgage -- and instead, there the money goes, for a pound of panda poop. But to each his own, and a fool and his money are soon parted, and all that sort of stuff.
But for An Yanshi's sake, I hope some of it does sell, because five tons of panda poop is an awful lot to be stuck with.
Now a Chinese tea manufacturer is trying to top this by producing the most expensive tea on Earth. Inspired by the hard-to-fathom success of Luwak Coffee, An Yanshi has created a tea for which he is charging £ 50,000 per kilo (about $36,000 a pound).
Made from panda poo.
I wish I was making this up, but if you don't believe me, here's the source.
"Pandas have a very poor digestive system and only absorb about 30 per cent of everything they eat. That means their excrement is rich in fibres and nutrients," An explained. "It has a mature, nutty taste and a very distinctive aroma while it's brewing."
(I'll just bet it does.)
So, I'm sure that given the price, it will become a delicacy. What is it with the word "delicacy," anyway? The dictionary definition is that a delicacy is something "pleasing to eat that is a rarity or luxury." My feeling is that this definition is incorrect; it should be, "something that you should only consume if it is because you stand to win a great deal of money from your buddies for swallowing it." Examples include the durian fruit of Southeast Asia (which smells so disgusting that it is a crime to cut one open in a hotel room) and hakarl (Icelandic fermented shark meat, which informed sources tell me "has a pungent ammonia smell").
So if you're thinking of going all-out in the delicacy department, you could have some hakarl, follow it up with a bowl of durian, and wash it all down with panda-crap tea. That would certainly be a "distinctive" meal! Mmm-mmm!
Myself, I wonder if this will catch on. $36,000 per pound seems a little steep to have the privilege of drinking stewed panda poop, and I'm not sure how many people out there are both (1) seriously rich, and (2) insane. But you never know; I thought the same thing about the much-cheaper Luwak Coffee when it came on the market about ten years ago, and there it is, still selling like crazy. It could be that there are even crazier people with even larger amounts of money who will be willing to buy An Yanshi's poolong tea.
If it does sell, I will find that to be a little discouraging, considering what good things could be done with $36,000. You could buy a nice car, take a grand vacation, or even just pay down your mortgage -- and instead, there the money goes, for a pound of panda poop. But to each his own, and a fool and his money are soon parted, and all that sort of stuff.
But for An Yanshi's sake, I hope some of it does sell, because five tons of panda poop is an awful lot to be stuck with.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Hey, you, get offa my cloud
Along Cayuga Lake, near where I live, is Milliken Station Power Plant. On cool days its smokestack can be seen topped with a plume of steam. Nearby is Portland Point, a renowned Devonian fossil-collecting site.
It was the fossils that brought a ninth-grade Earth Science class there, some years ago, which I had been asked to help chaperone. The kids were all happily mucking around in the shale, looking for fossils, when one young lady -- who was known not to be overendowed with brains -- looked over at the nearby power plant smokestack, and said, wonder in her voice, "So that's where clouds come from!"
There are times when my natural compassion and my tendency to guffaw at people who say stupid things do war with each other. I think I didn't laugh at her, but it was an effort.
But lest you think that this lack of understanding about concepts like "water vapor" and "condensation" is limited to this long-ago student, allow me to introduce you to Diane Tessman. Now, Diane doesn't think, as our student did, that clouds are manufactured in Ithaca, New York and then exported all over the world. No, that would be ridiculous.
Diane Tessman believes clouds are manufactured by UFOs as camouflage.
At first, I thought her claims were a joke, intended to make fun of the whole UFO/alien coverup crowd. Sadly, it is not. She has written an article (here) in which she describes how alien spacecraft produce clouds to hide within or behind. These are not oddly-shaped clouds, Ms. Tessman says; no, they are ordinary, puffy white cumulus clouds, because hiding behind an oddly-shaped cloud would call attention to the UFO instead of hiding it.
By this point, you're probably asking yourself: if they don't look any different, how can I tell a UFO cloud from a regular cloud? Answer: you can't. You just have to watch a bunch of clouds, and wait until the camouflage slips and you see a UFO.
It's kind of an odd camouflage, when you think about it. Picture yourself as the alien captain, on a vital mission to Earth, and there you are, sitting inside a cloud, just drifting along with the other, non-UFO-generated clouds. You can't change direction or speed, because it's not like the cloud is going to come along with you. It means that whatever your mission was intended to accomplish, you'd better hope that it was downwind of your current position, and not needing attention any time soon.
Of course, Ms. Tessman says, we also have to consider the possibility that clouds may not just be camouflage; it's possible that clouds are naturally generated by "dimensional travel."
Whatever that means.
The whole thing is kind of spooky, isn't it? How many times have we had nice picnics on beautiful summer days, and lain on blankets looking up at the peaceful white clouds sailing by? Now, you have to wonder how many of those clouds hid evil aliens, spying on us, waiting until we fall asleep so they can steal the oatmeal-raisin cookies we brought for dessert.
At this point, some of you may be questioning Ms. Tessman's credentials. If so, they're provided at the end of the article. She states that she is a former public school teacher; one can only hope that her subject wasn't physics. She participated in many projects with MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network), and after many years discovered that she had a personal reason for her interest; while under hypnosis, she discovered that as a child she had been visited by, and had "shared consciousness with," an alien being called "Tibus." Tibus has apparently provided her with such vital information as the fact that hurricanes are dangerous and it's a problem when a nuclear power plant explodes. And now that we've had Katrina and the meltdown at Fukushima, we can definitely all agree that Tibus knows what he's talking about.
But mainly, I'm glad that we now have an explanation for clouds other than Milliken Station Power Plant. Because frankly, given the demand for clouds in places like the Amazon Rain Forest, it's been hard for Milliken Station to keep up with production quotas. It's a relief to know that all we have to do is to send some UFOs down there to do "dimensional travel," and there will be clouds aplenty.
It was the fossils that brought a ninth-grade Earth Science class there, some years ago, which I had been asked to help chaperone. The kids were all happily mucking around in the shale, looking for fossils, when one young lady -- who was known not to be overendowed with brains -- looked over at the nearby power plant smokestack, and said, wonder in her voice, "So that's where clouds come from!"
There are times when my natural compassion and my tendency to guffaw at people who say stupid things do war with each other. I think I didn't laugh at her, but it was an effort.
But lest you think that this lack of understanding about concepts like "water vapor" and "condensation" is limited to this long-ago student, allow me to introduce you to Diane Tessman. Now, Diane doesn't think, as our student did, that clouds are manufactured in Ithaca, New York and then exported all over the world. No, that would be ridiculous.
Diane Tessman believes clouds are manufactured by UFOs as camouflage.
At first, I thought her claims were a joke, intended to make fun of the whole UFO/alien coverup crowd. Sadly, it is not. She has written an article (here) in which she describes how alien spacecraft produce clouds to hide within or behind. These are not oddly-shaped clouds, Ms. Tessman says; no, they are ordinary, puffy white cumulus clouds, because hiding behind an oddly-shaped cloud would call attention to the UFO instead of hiding it.
By this point, you're probably asking yourself: if they don't look any different, how can I tell a UFO cloud from a regular cloud? Answer: you can't. You just have to watch a bunch of clouds, and wait until the camouflage slips and you see a UFO.
It's kind of an odd camouflage, when you think about it. Picture yourself as the alien captain, on a vital mission to Earth, and there you are, sitting inside a cloud, just drifting along with the other, non-UFO-generated clouds. You can't change direction or speed, because it's not like the cloud is going to come along with you. It means that whatever your mission was intended to accomplish, you'd better hope that it was downwind of your current position, and not needing attention any time soon.
Of course, Ms. Tessman says, we also have to consider the possibility that clouds may not just be camouflage; it's possible that clouds are naturally generated by "dimensional travel."
Whatever that means.
The whole thing is kind of spooky, isn't it? How many times have we had nice picnics on beautiful summer days, and lain on blankets looking up at the peaceful white clouds sailing by? Now, you have to wonder how many of those clouds hid evil aliens, spying on us, waiting until we fall asleep so they can steal the oatmeal-raisin cookies we brought for dessert.
At this point, some of you may be questioning Ms. Tessman's credentials. If so, they're provided at the end of the article. She states that she is a former public school teacher; one can only hope that her subject wasn't physics. She participated in many projects with MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network), and after many years discovered that she had a personal reason for her interest; while under hypnosis, she discovered that as a child she had been visited by, and had "shared consciousness with," an alien being called "Tibus." Tibus has apparently provided her with such vital information as the fact that hurricanes are dangerous and it's a problem when a nuclear power plant explodes. And now that we've had Katrina and the meltdown at Fukushima, we can definitely all agree that Tibus knows what he's talking about.
But mainly, I'm glad that we now have an explanation for clouds other than Milliken Station Power Plant. Because frankly, given the demand for clouds in places like the Amazon Rain Forest, it's been hard for Milliken Station to keep up with production quotas. It's a relief to know that all we have to do is to send some UFOs down there to do "dimensional travel," and there will be clouds aplenty.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Out of line
The latest conspiracy theory, as if we needed another one, is that the Chinese are up to something out in the Kumtag Desert.
An article at Gizmodo (you can read the whole thing, and see photographs, here) shows a screen capture of a Google Earth view, with the arid expanses of eastern China overlaid with a strange pattern of white lines. The photograph is captioned, "What the hell, China?", presumably because asking China "What the hell?" has resulted in their immediate cooperation in the past.
The author of the article, and some of the people who posted comments afterwards, speculate that the lines might be:
In any case, I find the whole thing screamingly funny, especially the part about pentagrams and Masons, because we all know how many Satan-worshiping Chinese Masons there are. The part about the city street maps is also kind of funny, especially given the map that was posted, overlaying the Chinese line pattern with a map of Washington, DC:
The map is followed by the comment that the grid pattern "does sort of resemble the configuration of streets near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." *one eyebrow raised in a significant fashion*
To which I reply: well, not really all that much. You'd think that if the Chinese were trying to create a mock-up of the streets of DC in order to "calibrate their optical targeting systems," it would conform perfectly, not just "sort of." On the one hand, the writer seems to think that the Chinese are up to something super-technological and amazingly top secret, and in the same breath that they can't draw a straight line. C'mon, you can't have it both ways. If they were trying to target DC, it'd be kind of important to get the map correct, don't you think? It'd also be pretty easy, given that accurate street maps of major US cities have been available online for years.
Of course, the problem is the usual one; if you're allowed to rotate, shrink, or enlarge a random pattern of lines, you can always make it align to another such random pattern -- as long as you're content with a "sort of" fit. I'd bet that I could take the Chinese line pattern and make it align to the streets of Ithaca, New York, if I wanted to, and also if I had technological skills higher than that of a typical kindergartner, which I don't. It's like my previous post about ley lines; if you can manipulate the data, and you're okay with an approximate match, you can always find a pattern.
So, what are the Chinese really doing out there? Assuming, of course, that the pattern wasn't Photoshopped in by some hoaxer? The answer: I have no idea. But I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and state for the record that I'll bet it has nothing to do with alien landing sites, optical targeting systems, evil weather-control apparatus, or the Masons. On the other hand, if today an alien spacecraft adorned with Masonic symbols lands in the middle of downtown Ithaca during a freak tornado, I will consider myself as standing corrected.
An article at Gizmodo (you can read the whole thing, and see photographs, here) shows a screen capture of a Google Earth view, with the arid expanses of eastern China overlaid with a strange pattern of white lines. The photograph is captioned, "What the hell, China?", presumably because asking China "What the hell?" has resulted in their immediate cooperation in the past.
The author of the article, and some of the people who posted comments afterwards, speculate that the lines might be:
- top secret military bases;
- an evil new weather-control station along the lines of HAARP;
- landing sites for aliens;
- a mock-up of the streets in a major US city, to be used as target practice; or
- magical patterns involving pentagrams and Masonic symbols.
- Photoshopped.
In any case, I find the whole thing screamingly funny, especially the part about pentagrams and Masons, because we all know how many Satan-worshiping Chinese Masons there are. The part about the city street maps is also kind of funny, especially given the map that was posted, overlaying the Chinese line pattern with a map of Washington, DC:
The map is followed by the comment that the grid pattern "does sort of resemble the configuration of streets near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." *one eyebrow raised in a significant fashion*
To which I reply: well, not really all that much. You'd think that if the Chinese were trying to create a mock-up of the streets of DC in order to "calibrate their optical targeting systems," it would conform perfectly, not just "sort of." On the one hand, the writer seems to think that the Chinese are up to something super-technological and amazingly top secret, and in the same breath that they can't draw a straight line. C'mon, you can't have it both ways. If they were trying to target DC, it'd be kind of important to get the map correct, don't you think? It'd also be pretty easy, given that accurate street maps of major US cities have been available online for years.
Of course, the problem is the usual one; if you're allowed to rotate, shrink, or enlarge a random pattern of lines, you can always make it align to another such random pattern -- as long as you're content with a "sort of" fit. I'd bet that I could take the Chinese line pattern and make it align to the streets of Ithaca, New York, if I wanted to, and also if I had technological skills higher than that of a typical kindergartner, which I don't. It's like my previous post about ley lines; if you can manipulate the data, and you're okay with an approximate match, you can always find a pattern.
So, what are the Chinese really doing out there? Assuming, of course, that the pattern wasn't Photoshopped in by some hoaxer? The answer: I have no idea. But I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and state for the record that I'll bet it has nothing to do with alien landing sites, optical targeting systems, evil weather-control apparatus, or the Masons. On the other hand, if today an alien spacecraft adorned with Masonic symbols lands in the middle of downtown Ithaca during a freak tornado, I will consider myself as standing corrected.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Herman Cain and the voice of god
Why is politics the only field in which you can admit to hearing voices and people don't immediately assume you've lost your mind?
Thus far, we've had Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann who've told cheering crowds that god wanted them to pursue the presidency. The latest presumptive Joan of Arc is Herman Cain, who told a meeting of Young Republicans in Atlanta yesterday that god had told him personally to run for president, and in fact had compared him to Moses.
"That's when I prayed and prayed and prayed," Cain told the assembled crowd. "I'm a man of faith — I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I've ever done before in my life. And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. 'You've got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'"
And instead of backing away slowly, keeping their eyes on Cain the entire time, which is what I would have done, the Young Republicans ate it up. Apparently the comment got a wild round of applause.
Myself, I think that whether or not you believe in god, you should always be suspicious of people who claim that god is speaking to them. For one thing, I'm hard pressed to see how you'd figure out if it was really god, or if you were just having a psychotic break. For another, don't you find it a little curious that god has given his personal stamp of approval to Perry, Bachmann, and Cain? Is god having a hard time making up his mind? Or does he just like tight races?
And, of course, you have the broader problem that the cheering Christians who are thrilled to find out that god is involved in the 2012 presidential election are the same ones who are shocked and horrified to hear that many Muslim terrorists do what they do because they claim that "Allah told them to." Ridiculous, they say. There is no Allah, you people are loons. On the other hand, when Oral Roberts said in 1987 that god had told him that if he didn't raise eight million dollars in three months, god would "call him home," the money poured in.
He raised nine million dollars in three months. And didn't die. Hallelujah!
I find the whole thing baffling and not a little troubling. Being an atheist, I would, of course. But even if you're religious, isn't it a little worrisome? I would think that the long, nasty history of people doing horrible things while claiming that god had directed their actions would scare even the most devout. Then, how do you know which, if any, of the three current candidates are telling the truth, so you know which one god wants you to vote for? In the end, most people probably will do their own version of asking what god wants them to do, and cast their votes for the one whose politics most closely align with their own -- resulting in the rather amusing conjecture that god has an opinion on whether we should dismantle the Department of Education, Department of Commerce, and one other department that will come to me in a minute.
So, anyway, that's the news from the American political scene, which once again is providing ample fodder for eye-rolling. But I think I'll wrap this up, because I think god is telling me that the coffee is ready.
Thus far, we've had Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann who've told cheering crowds that god wanted them to pursue the presidency. The latest presumptive Joan of Arc is Herman Cain, who told a meeting of Young Republicans in Atlanta yesterday that god had told him personally to run for president, and in fact had compared him to Moses.
"That's when I prayed and prayed and prayed," Cain told the assembled crowd. "I'm a man of faith — I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I've ever done before in my life. And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. 'You've got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'"
And instead of backing away slowly, keeping their eyes on Cain the entire time, which is what I would have done, the Young Republicans ate it up. Apparently the comment got a wild round of applause.
Myself, I think that whether or not you believe in god, you should always be suspicious of people who claim that god is speaking to them. For one thing, I'm hard pressed to see how you'd figure out if it was really god, or if you were just having a psychotic break. For another, don't you find it a little curious that god has given his personal stamp of approval to Perry, Bachmann, and Cain? Is god having a hard time making up his mind? Or does he just like tight races?
And, of course, you have the broader problem that the cheering Christians who are thrilled to find out that god is involved in the 2012 presidential election are the same ones who are shocked and horrified to hear that many Muslim terrorists do what they do because they claim that "Allah told them to." Ridiculous, they say. There is no Allah, you people are loons. On the other hand, when Oral Roberts said in 1987 that god had told him that if he didn't raise eight million dollars in three months, god would "call him home," the money poured in.
He raised nine million dollars in three months. And didn't die. Hallelujah!
I find the whole thing baffling and not a little troubling. Being an atheist, I would, of course. But even if you're religious, isn't it a little worrisome? I would think that the long, nasty history of people doing horrible things while claiming that god had directed their actions would scare even the most devout. Then, how do you know which, if any, of the three current candidates are telling the truth, so you know which one god wants you to vote for? In the end, most people probably will do their own version of asking what god wants them to do, and cast their votes for the one whose politics most closely align with their own -- resulting in the rather amusing conjecture that god has an opinion on whether we should dismantle the Department of Education, Department of Commerce, and one other department that will come to me in a minute.
So, anyway, that's the news from the American political scene, which once again is providing ample fodder for eye-rolling. But I think I'll wrap this up, because I think god is telling me that the coffee is ready.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Allahu akbar! Or maybe not.
Once again, the fervently religious of our world have shown themselves capable of following the Red Queen's dictum of holding several contradictory thoughts in their heads at once. In this case, it's Egyptian Muslims, who have sentenced a man to three years in jail at hard labor for "criticizing Islam." (See the news story if you're interested in reading more about this travesty.)
The radical Muslim element in Egypt has been quick to speak out against the sentence. It was too lenient, they say -- the man should have been executed.
It's a little perplexing how these folks, and their spiritual brethren the Fundamentalist Christians, can't see the contradiction implicit in their stance. On the one hand, they are continuously chanting, singing, and shouting from the rooftops about how God is Great and All-Powerful and Omnipotent and Omniscient and Omnipresent and Omni-Various-Other-Stuff, and on the other hand they are so terrified that a brief passage written by a guy on Facebook will destroy Allah's kingdom on earth that they are ready to hang him from the nearest flagpole.
The same was true of the witch-hunters in the 17th century, who seemed to believe that the unshakable, self-evident, rock-solid truth of god's word was under serious threat from illiterate, eccentric little old ladies.
Come on, people. You can't have it both ways. Either god is powerful, or he's not. If he's powerful, you have no reason to persecute people for bad-mouthing him; presumably god is capable of handling his own battles, and doesn't need patriarchal, humorless, puritanical bastards like the Shari'a courts to deal with his enemies. If he's not so powerful -- if, in fact, his revealed truth could be demolished by a couple of paragraphs of mild criticism -- then I have to wonder why you think he's worthy of worship. Either way, both can't be true simultaneously.
Oh, wait, perhaps there's a third option? Maybe all of this stuff was made up by power-hungry patriarchs to keep the power structure intact, the money flowing in, and the women in line, and in actuality there is no god! Gotta wonder.
In any case, you also have to wonder why so few people are willing to stand up and say this. Lots of folks are willing to address the human rights aspects (torturing and executing people isn't nice) but very few people are willing to deal with the larger issue, which is that these people are morally bankrupt. A religion, or a system of ethics (so to speak), which is based upon coercion (mental or physical), is simply an excuse for the powerful to remain powerful. It isn't true, it isn't worthy of respect, and it isn't a reflection of the divine. It is simply an embodiment of all that is bad about human nature -- the desire to dominate solely because we're in a position where we can.
It's the same with a lot of the issues between the Christians and politicians these days, isn't it? You hear that heterosexual marriage is "under attack" by people who are in favor of legalizing gay marriage. The ranting you hear from the pulpits seems to claim that if gay marriage is legalized, then all of these straight people will suddenly run right out and tie the knot with someone of the same sex, and will open the door for heaven knows what. In a year or two you'd probably have people marrying various marine invertebrates. You know, if you think that sexual preference is really that fluid, you have to question why your god would have made it that way. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that if your worldview is based upon fear, then any amount of rationality won't get in the way of your adopting moronic stances to shore up your beliefs.
Of course, some people believe that there's god's evil twin, Satan or Lucifer or whatever, who is actively trying to corrupt people by using others to spread wrong belief. Even if you think that's true, however, isn't it still supposedly the case that god is stronger than Satan, and correct beliefs are inherently more attractive and virtuous than incorrect ones? If so, then once again, what the hell are you so worried about?
So once more, we have the devoutly religious of the world adopting a stance which is so patently ridiculous that if it were fiction, no one would believe it was plausible; and most of the world's political leaders doing nothing but tsk-tsking in their direction for "not being nice." It would be wonderful if one, just one, of them would stand up and say, "You know what, Egyptian leaders? We are no longer in the Middle Ages. We stopped burning witches three hundred years ago. That's because doing that sort of thing was based upon stupid, backward superstition. Grow up, you idiotic bastards, and join the 21st century. If criticism is really such a threat to your beliefs, it probably means that your beliefs are simply wrong."
But no one will, of course.
The radical Muslim element in Egypt has been quick to speak out against the sentence. It was too lenient, they say -- the man should have been executed.
It's a little perplexing how these folks, and their spiritual brethren the Fundamentalist Christians, can't see the contradiction implicit in their stance. On the one hand, they are continuously chanting, singing, and shouting from the rooftops about how God is Great and All-Powerful and Omnipotent and Omniscient and Omnipresent and Omni-Various-Other-Stuff, and on the other hand they are so terrified that a brief passage written by a guy on Facebook will destroy Allah's kingdom on earth that they are ready to hang him from the nearest flagpole.
The same was true of the witch-hunters in the 17th century, who seemed to believe that the unshakable, self-evident, rock-solid truth of god's word was under serious threat from illiterate, eccentric little old ladies.
Come on, people. You can't have it both ways. Either god is powerful, or he's not. If he's powerful, you have no reason to persecute people for bad-mouthing him; presumably god is capable of handling his own battles, and doesn't need patriarchal, humorless, puritanical bastards like the Shari'a courts to deal with his enemies. If he's not so powerful -- if, in fact, his revealed truth could be demolished by a couple of paragraphs of mild criticism -- then I have to wonder why you think he's worthy of worship. Either way, both can't be true simultaneously.
Oh, wait, perhaps there's a third option? Maybe all of this stuff was made up by power-hungry patriarchs to keep the power structure intact, the money flowing in, and the women in line, and in actuality there is no god! Gotta wonder.
In any case, you also have to wonder why so few people are willing to stand up and say this. Lots of folks are willing to address the human rights aspects (torturing and executing people isn't nice) but very few people are willing to deal with the larger issue, which is that these people are morally bankrupt. A religion, or a system of ethics (so to speak), which is based upon coercion (mental or physical), is simply an excuse for the powerful to remain powerful. It isn't true, it isn't worthy of respect, and it isn't a reflection of the divine. It is simply an embodiment of all that is bad about human nature -- the desire to dominate solely because we're in a position where we can.
It's the same with a lot of the issues between the Christians and politicians these days, isn't it? You hear that heterosexual marriage is "under attack" by people who are in favor of legalizing gay marriage. The ranting you hear from the pulpits seems to claim that if gay marriage is legalized, then all of these straight people will suddenly run right out and tie the knot with someone of the same sex, and will open the door for heaven knows what. In a year or two you'd probably have people marrying various marine invertebrates. You know, if you think that sexual preference is really that fluid, you have to question why your god would have made it that way. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that if your worldview is based upon fear, then any amount of rationality won't get in the way of your adopting moronic stances to shore up your beliefs.
Of course, some people believe that there's god's evil twin, Satan or Lucifer or whatever, who is actively trying to corrupt people by using others to spread wrong belief. Even if you think that's true, however, isn't it still supposedly the case that god is stronger than Satan, and correct beliefs are inherently more attractive and virtuous than incorrect ones? If so, then once again, what the hell are you so worried about?
So once more, we have the devoutly religious of the world adopting a stance which is so patently ridiculous that if it were fiction, no one would believe it was plausible; and most of the world's political leaders doing nothing but tsk-tsking in their direction for "not being nice." It would be wonderful if one, just one, of them would stand up and say, "You know what, Egyptian leaders? We are no longer in the Middle Ages. We stopped burning witches three hundred years ago. That's because doing that sort of thing was based upon stupid, backward superstition. Grow up, you idiotic bastards, and join the 21st century. If criticism is really such a threat to your beliefs, it probably means that your beliefs are simply wrong."
But no one will, of course.
Friday, November 11, 2011
The dial goes all the way to eleven
Well, it's finally 11/11. Happy Veterans' Day to all of you who have served your country, which I think is a much better way to mark the day than to succumb to all of the numerological hoopla that is happening regarding the confluence of ones in today's date.
I just read, for example, that the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities is closing the Pyramids today, ostensibly because of a need for "maintenance following a busy period during Muslim holidays." The real reason, as confirmed by Atef Abu Zahab, the director of the Department of Pharaonic Archeology and a member of the Council, was that they wanted to avoid any "strange rituals that were going to be held within the walls of the pyramid on November 11, 2011."
Apparently, the internet has been full of people making plans to hold ceremonial dances, meditation sessions, and ritual casting of magic spells in a variety of so-called sacred places, such as the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Glastonbury Tor, and so on. Egypt, being a country not known for its quick acceptance of alternative belief systems, basically said, "Not on our watch, buddy." But if you happens to live near a site that has any woo-woo significance, you might want to keep an eye out today -- especially as the clock approaches 11:11 AM.
I've never understood why people go for numerology. Whenever there's any unusual confluence of numbers in (for example) a date, there are news articles that babble about how amazing it is, and how long it's been since a similar arrangement has happened, and so on, conveniently neglecting the fact that my last birthday (10/26/2011) is also a completely unique number string -- that particular set of numbers will never occur in that order in a date again! To which most people, understandably, respond, *yawn*.
But when there's some kind of apparent pattern, it makes everyone think that there's some sort of significance. Of course, this conveniently ignores that the calendar is a human construct, and quite arbitrary in many ways. For example, November 2, 2011 was a palindromic date (11/02/2011) - but only if you live in the US. Other countries, which put the day first and the month second, already had their Palindrome Day on February 11. Does the universe take that sort of thing into account when it schedules its Cosmic Convergences? As far as 11/11/11 at 11:11 AM, we have to ask: what time zone? Will the amazing events that are supposed to be in the offing going to be operating on Eastern Standard Time? I hope so, because if it's Greenwich Mean Time, 11:11 already passed, and as far as I can tell nothing interesting happened.
So, anyway, my general thought is that playing these kind of number games is a little silly, even if unsurprising. Human brains are wired to detect patterns; and the result is that sometimes we will attribute meaning to patterns that are actually meaningless coincidences. Harmless, actually, unless you were planning on visiting the Pyramids today.
I just read, for example, that the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities is closing the Pyramids today, ostensibly because of a need for "maintenance following a busy period during Muslim holidays." The real reason, as confirmed by Atef Abu Zahab, the director of the Department of Pharaonic Archeology and a member of the Council, was that they wanted to avoid any "strange rituals that were going to be held within the walls of the pyramid on November 11, 2011."
Apparently, the internet has been full of people making plans to hold ceremonial dances, meditation sessions, and ritual casting of magic spells in a variety of so-called sacred places, such as the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Glastonbury Tor, and so on. Egypt, being a country not known for its quick acceptance of alternative belief systems, basically said, "Not on our watch, buddy." But if you happens to live near a site that has any woo-woo significance, you might want to keep an eye out today -- especially as the clock approaches 11:11 AM.
I've never understood why people go for numerology. Whenever there's any unusual confluence of numbers in (for example) a date, there are news articles that babble about how amazing it is, and how long it's been since a similar arrangement has happened, and so on, conveniently neglecting the fact that my last birthday (10/26/2011) is also a completely unique number string -- that particular set of numbers will never occur in that order in a date again! To which most people, understandably, respond, *yawn*.
But when there's some kind of apparent pattern, it makes everyone think that there's some sort of significance. Of course, this conveniently ignores that the calendar is a human construct, and quite arbitrary in many ways. For example, November 2, 2011 was a palindromic date (11/02/2011) - but only if you live in the US. Other countries, which put the day first and the month second, already had their Palindrome Day on February 11. Does the universe take that sort of thing into account when it schedules its Cosmic Convergences? As far as 11/11/11 at 11:11 AM, we have to ask: what time zone? Will the amazing events that are supposed to be in the offing going to be operating on Eastern Standard Time? I hope so, because if it's Greenwich Mean Time, 11:11 already passed, and as far as I can tell nothing interesting happened.
So, anyway, my general thought is that playing these kind of number games is a little silly, even if unsurprising. Human brains are wired to detect patterns; and the result is that sometimes we will attribute meaning to patterns that are actually meaningless coincidences. Harmless, actually, unless you were planning on visiting the Pyramids today.
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