The ultimate movie monster

(via Somethink Fun)

Derek the Abstinence Clown

I really wish that this was an April Fools joke. Well, it's a joke alright, but an unintentional one. You have to see to believe.


(via, and)

Great victory for the ULC!

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that I am an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. I have yet to use my ordination in order to perform any rites--such as weddings (although my colleague and good friend, the Reverend Frank Golddigger, once performed a multi-denominational funeral service for a beloved family pet pug)--but I know that if necessary, I can. That is why I'm delighted that Bucks County Court Judge C. Theodore Fritsch Jr. upheld the First Amendment and ruled in favor of freedom and equality last week.

There was good news yesterday for Jason and Jennifer O'Neill, a Philadelphia couple whose 2005 Bucks County marriage had been thrown into question because they used a minister ordained online. For many other similarly situated couples, too.

Bucks County Court Judge C. Theodore Fritsch Jr. declared the marriage valid, even though the minister - Jason O'Neill's uncle, Robert A. Norman - had been ordained in a matter of minutes by the Universal Life Church after completing a short form online.

Similar rulings have been issued in Montgomery County and Philadelphia County (where I live). There are now three counties in Pennsylvania where I can legally perform rites. There is still an issue with York County though. For those of you not familiar with York County, it's Jesusland Pennsylvania. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial over teaching Intelligent Design was in the heart of York County. And it was a York County judge who had invalidated weddings performed by ministers who had received online ordination, because said ministers "did not regularly preach in a church or have an actual congregation." That ruling is often cited by clerks in other Pennsylvania counties as justification for denying marriage certificates to couples. That is exactly what happened to Jason and Jennifer O'Neill.

"Statewide, thousands of couples will be relieved by this decision, but the threat is not completely absent unless they live in Bucks County," Kaplowitz (of Drinker, Biddle & Reath, who represented the O'Neills on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania) said.

In the last 10 years, engaged couples, particularly those from different religions like the O'Neills, have increasingly sought to personalize their weddings by having the ceremonies performed by friends ordained online or by non-denominational individuals whose presence would not offend their families' religious practices.

That trend drew the ire of some county clerks and registers of wills statewide, who called the practice an affront to the institution of marriage and sought to disqualify so-called online officiants.

Among them was Bucks County Clerk of Orphans' Court Barbara G. Reilly, who launched a public-information campaign about the York County ruling. Reilly advised Bucks County couples to reapply for marriage licenses, and 36 couples were remarried as a result.

Reilly said she had not yet studied Fritsch's ruling, but found the news "puzzling."

"If the judge is right, then the law is wrong," Reilly said. "The law is flawed and must be restructured."

"I guess this means a minister from the Church of the Wineskins, for example - that's another one I've dealt with - would have to prove his church meets at least the same criteria as the ULC," Reilly said.

If I may chime in, the "law" (I assume she's referring the York County ruling) is indeed wrong and needs to be not just restructured, but overturned. In fact, let me just state here in public that I would like a minister from the Church of the Wineskins to conduct my wake. Take that, Reilly!

The other thing that really bothered me about this was the clerks who called "the practice an affront to the institution of marriage". Does that language sound familiar? I'm not going to pretend that the York County ruling is the assault to civil liberties that prop h8 is, but it is basically the same people behind it and they're using the same rhetoric. I'm not exactly sure what the law is in Pennsylvania regarding gay marriage, but I believe that it is neither recognized by the State, nor explicitly banned in the constitution. So if you're a gay Philadelphia couple that wants to make a statement, and you're looking for an unconventional and inexperienced minister to marry you, give me a call.

(via)

2 Kings 2:23-24

My favorite bible verse!

(via)

MoralMaster 2.0 Morality Monitor

It appears that I'm not a very moral person.

Louis CK is great!

I've been a fan of Louis CK for quite a while now. But I was just reminded of him by this latest post by Phil Plait. (I highly suggest that you watch the Conan interview on Phil's post!) Anyway, the video below (I can't remember if I posted it before) is the reason that I first became a Louis CK fan. Anyone who can make me laugh so hard that I cry, just by making fun of the Catholic Church (Dave Allen, RIP), is a genius in my book.

Who's kingdom?

I was browsing through The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks today when I saw yesterday's post. Haha! It just speaks for itself.

Rock me sexy Jesus!

(via MAJeff)

Happy Easter!

In Allah We Trust

I've never been much of a crusader for the popular atheist causes of removing the Under God from the pledge of allegiance or the In God We Trust from the currency. I've always thought (and still do) that there are more important fights out there. It's not that I'm fond of the phrase Under God, but I see children pledging an oath of allegiance to a national symbol as a proto-fascist imposition that has no place in country supposedly founded upon the principle of personal liberty. Ron Rosenbaum put it quite well.

The pledge is a kind of forced confession of orthodoxy. No, not water-boarding, but coercion nonetheless. Especially for peer-group-pressured school kids. Even if they have the right to opt out. In past school-prayer cases, the court has resisted the idea that the state should be implicated in even the social coercion or propagation of religion.

Busybody school boards and bombastic anthem peddlers at ball games should let people find their way to allegiance in their own fashion rather than making "allegiance" an implement of state power used to extract oaths.

I say dump the entire pledge!

Now, In God We Trust never really offended me before. It was one of those things that I always just took for granted but didn't fret about because it didn't really impact my life. I might roll my eyes when I caught sight of it on a bill, but I wouldn't get upset.

Words themselves don't have any intrinsic offensiveness to them. It is when those words represent something that we find deeply repulsive--such as certain human behaviors--that the words take on their offensive character. And so it is that I have begun to find In God We Trust on my currency increasingly distasteful. The blame falls squarely on the fundamentalist offensive (did you like that double entendre?) to relabel the United States as a "Christian Nation." Many of these misinformed marionettes like to defend their claim with "It even says 'In God We Trust' on the money!" Never mind the sheer ludicrousness of that argument; I've come to realize that those four words serve no useful purpose other than as a rallying point for the fundagelical zombies. And so I'm beginning to agree with those people who already do find those words offensive.

Until recently, I had no concise way of conveying to a Christian why that would or even should be offensive to me. Then yesterday I read this post by VJACK that began thus:

How do you suppose American Christians would feel about using currency on which "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is the greatest) was printed?

Wow! That says it all. Without much hesitation, that line inspired Todd Sayre to create this little photoshoped beauty.



How would Christians feel if their money looked like that? Pretty offended would be my guess. Yet from my perspective, there's no difference: both statements are equally silly and neither belongs on legal tender. And yes, I am aware that the "God" from In God We Trust need not necessarily refer to the Christian God (try telling that to a fundamentalist), but as an atheist I find all gods to be as invalid as Allah is to Christians. So the analogy is a good one.

Playboy Jesus

Catholic bishops in Belgium are all up in arms over a television ad for Plug TV that features an overweight, playboy, hippy Jesus having a fun night out on the town. Personally, I don't see what the big deal is.

Plug TV - Spot Jésus - censuré�
Uploaded by vinz-a

Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?

Friday Madness 4/20/07: The Day They Kicked God out of the Schools

It looks like this asshat has figured out the root cause behind all school shootings.

Friday Madness 4/6/07: End Of The Line

Some people go to film festivals and act like a kid in a candy store. I understand that, but I'm not a huge cinema buff. I like movies, but I rarely go to the movies (and I almost never watch TV). So when a film festival comes to my home town, I try to see some of the films. Tonight I'm going to see The Curse of William Penn, and tomorrow night it will be End of the Line.



It appears to be a standard George Romero type horror film, except that instead of brain eating zombies, we have religious fundies intent on either converting or killing you.

Could this be Armageddon? I don't know, but it sure sounds like a fun movie.

Friday Madness 3/16/07 : Gospel Music or Death!

Yesterday at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop, a 75 year old human rights activist was murdered by a "Humble" man.

Michail J. Makarenko, 75, a Hillsboro resident and former political prisoner, was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the attack at a rest stop near the southern end of the New Jersey Turnpike, a state police spokesman said.

...

Makarenko and a friend were on their way to New York to meet other friends when they pulled over about 1 a.m. to use the bathroom, said the friend, Gregory Burnside, who was Makarenko's interpreter and personal secretary.

"I went to eat, and when I finished, maybe five or ten minutes later, he wasn't in the car," Burnside said. "Then I saw someone was on the ground. I got closer, and it was him. His head had been bashed in by a rock. I just did the sign of the cross over him, recited the Lord's Prayer and told him to hang in there."

But about a half-hour later, despite the efforts of paramedics, Makarenko died, Burnside said.

Makarenko had lived in the United States since 1979, when he was exiled by the Soviet government for his repeated dissident activities, according to an article in the Russian magazine Glasnost provided by Burnside.

Among his crimes were running an avant-garde art gallery and engaging in union organizing. He served a total of 11 years in prison. His longest term, eight years, was for anti-Soviet agitation, Burnside said. While in prison, he continued his activism, working for prisoners' rights, the article said.

Since coming to the United States, Makarenko had been a writer and lecturer, Burnside said. He testified before Congress about slavery in the Soviet Union and at the time of his death was gathering material for his autobiography, he said.

"He was an important dissident," Burnside said. "He fought for human rights and resisted communism every way he could."

What kind of a monster would kill an old man: a Russian dissident and human rights activist? One of Putin's Polonium hitmen? Not quite.

Authorities said Brian K. White, 26, of Humble, Tex., approached Makarenko to sell him a Christian music CD. When Makarenko declined, witnesses said, White struck Makarenko on the head with a landscaping rock. White climbed into his 1984 Chevy Camaro and fled northbound on the turnpike.

I can't help but think that there must be more to the story than just retaliation for not buying his Christian music. But in this mad world ...

Prayer works, not!

A new study at Arizona State University shows that prayer works.

David Hodge, an assistant professor of social work in the College of Human Services at the West campus, has conducted an exhaustive meta-analysis on the effects of intercessory prayer among people with psychological or medical problems.

In other words, does God – or some other type of transcendent entity – answer prayer for healing?

According to Hodge's study, “A Systematic Review of the Empirical Literature on Intercessory Prayer,” the answer is yes.

That's funny, I thought that the Benson study last year settled that issue. I wonder what new information Dr. Hodge has found.

“There have been a number of studies on intercessory prayer, or prayer offered for the benefit of another person,” says Hodge, a leading expert on spirituality and religion. “Some have found positive results for prayer. Others have found no effect. Conducting a meta-analysis takes into account the entire body of empirical research on intercessory prayer. Using this procedure, we find that prayer offered on behalf of another yields positive results.”

meta-analysis? What's that? And which studies is he talking about? Since I'm not about to spend my own money to buy a paper which I have good reason to believe is total dreck, I decided to see what Victor Stenger had to say about intercessory prayer in his book GOD: The Failed Hypothesis (which I just got in the mail today)

I discussed several specific examples in Has Science Found God? and will not repeat these here.

Oh well, that figures. I'm batting 0 for 2. But he did discuss some studies that came out since his last book. One of these was the Columbia "Miracle" Study.

One of the authors, Daniel P Wirth, is a lawyer without a medical degree. However, he does have a degree in parapsychology and has authored several articles in parapsychology journals claiming documented evidence for faith healing. In an unrelated matter, Wirth has since been imprisoned after being convicted of fraud, which included the use of names of dead people for financial gain.

The lead author of the paper was originally identified as Rogerio Lobo, then head of the Columbia University department of obstetrics and gynecology. However, shortly after publication, Columbia University announced Lobo was not even aware of the study until being informed by Cha six to twelve months after the study was completed. Lobo has since withdrawn his name from the study and any connection between Cha and Columbia has been severed. The paper, however, has not been formally withdrawn--a black mark on a great university.

Do you suppose that might be one of the studies Hodge meta-analyzed? It hasn't been formally withdrawn, so my guess is yes. But let's hear more about meta-analysis.

“Some people feel (Herbert) Benson and associates' study from last year, which is the most recent and showed no positive effects for intercessory prayer, is the final word,” says Hodge, referring to a 2006 article by Benson, of the Harvard Medical School, that measured the therapeutic effect of intercessory prayer in cardiac bypass patients. “But this research suggests otherwise. This study enables us to look at the big picture. When the effects of prayer are averaged across all 17 studies, controlling for differences in sample sizes, a net positive effect for the prayer group is produced.

“This is the most thorough and all-inclusive study of its kind on this controversial subject that I am aware of. It suggests that more research on the topic may be warranted, and that praying for people with psychological or medical problems may help them recover.”

Wow, his study is absolutely worthless! Let me explain why. The earlier studies he looked at had one of two possible results: either prayer had no effect, or it did. Now according to Stenger, many of those studies were suspect. The most recent Benson study which showed no effect, for example, was a follow-up to an earlier (heavily criticized) study he did which actually showed a slight effect. In last year's study, Benson took extra care to make sure that the study was very rigorous. So what Hodge did was to take all these studies (those with 0 effect, and those with >0 effect) and averaged them together to get ... surprise, surprise ... >0 effect. And then he has the audacity to claim that it's "scientific" because he used weighted averages. That's simply plain dishonest.

Just in case you're not completely with me, allow me to make an analogy. I'm going to take Hodge's own quotes and substitute a few words of my own.

There have been a number of intelligence reports on WMD's in Iraq ... Some have found evidence for WMD's. Others have found none.

This study enables us to look at the big picture. When the estimates of WMD's are averaged across all 17 intelligence reports, controlling for differences in sample sizes, a net positive effect for the presence of WMD's is produced.

This is the most thorough and all-inclusive study of its kind on this controversial subject that I am aware of. (I didn't have to change a single word of that sentence)

The best part of the ASU study is that even after averaging together all the different studies, Hodge still had to use his own standards to get a positive result.

Is it effective enough to meet the standards of the American Psychological Association's Division 12 for empirically validated interventions? No.

Averaging results from rigorous studies with those of not-so-rigorous and maybe even fraudulent studies then using your own standards does not good science make.

The Evolution of a Legal Case

On Tuesday night's FSGP meeting, I saw Stephen G. Harvey--an attorney with Pepper Hamilton LLP--speak. He was one of the lawyers in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial (on the good guys' side). This was the local Pennsylvania trial where Intelligent Design in the schools was challenged and defeated. The trial also marked the beginning of the end for Ricky Santorum.

I found the talk interesting. I already knew most of the story since I had been following the trial, but I did learn a few new details. Quick recap:

1. Dover area school board tries to get ID creationism into its schools.
2. Teachers refuse to teach the tripe; administrators come in to read pro-ID statement to students.
3. Several families (including the Kitzmillers) sue school district for establishment violation.
4. Pro bono lawyers backed by the ACLU and NCSE come to town and kick ass.
5. Textbook and rationale proven to be recycled biblical creationism.
6. School board members and textbook suppliers caught lying on the stand.
7. Intelligent Design proven to be sectarian religion and hence unconstitutional.
8. Judge Jones writes scathing decision against ID and the board.
9. Creationist school board members swept out of office come election day.
10. And they all lived happily ever after, The End!

So what new tidbits did I learn? For one, I learned that everything (except the name) about ID was recycled creationism. For example, Mr. Harvey showed a slide which compared a page from the ID textbook Of Pandas And People next to the same page from an earlier draft of the book. Every word was exactly the same except that everywhere that the draft said "Creationism," the official textbook said "Intelligent Design." (I actually knew that part) I always knew that ID was just repackaged creationism, but I (naively) thought that at least Michael Behe's argument of Irreducible Complexity of the bacterial flagellum was original. Boy was I wrong! It turns out that that exact same argument had been used by Creation Science.

I also learned some new details about the "perjury" ("" used because perjury is technically a legal term and no charges have yet been brought) of School Board Christocrat William Buckingham. This was good!

In the year prior to the whole bruhaha, Mr. Buckingham had made numerous pro-creationist an overtly Christian statements at several school board meetings. Since the plaintiffs could win the case by simply showing that pushing religious views was the motivation behind introducing ID, Billy had to deny all such statements at the trial, under oath, which he did. Of course, the next logical question would be why he never denied making such statements when it was being reported all over the local news. Mr. Harvey asked Billy questions to the effect of (paraphrased)

"Are you saying that you were completely unaware of the statements that were being attributed to you on the front page of the newspaper that you get delivered to your doorstep every morning?" To which the pious Mr. Buckingham replied (more or less) " I had no idea!"

After nailing him down good wth several questions to that effect, Steve Harvey then brought out the old television news clip. He showed the clip to us at his talk. I had heard about it, but that was the first time I'd seen it. You can watch the whole clip here. But I have decided to only embed the "proof of perjury" remix edited by Janiebelle. Enjoy!



After showing him the clip, Harvey asked Buckingham to explain himself. He said that since the whole creationism controversy that was in the news was dominating his thoughts at the time, he let it slip in front of the cameras. Stephen Harvey was not expecting to nail his prey so early. He admitted to us that these statements slipped right past him because he was already thinking about the next question. He did realize that something big had just happened. He knew Billy had dropped a bomb when the court stenographer's jaw dropped to the floor.

GOTCHA!!!!

David Mamet on Real Time

Last Friday on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill interviewed writer/director David Mamet. Mamet has made some really awesome movies. He also wrote an excellent op-ed piece for the L.A. Times (no longer available online) where he compared politics to poker. He argued that the Democrats were weak because they never raised the pot (which is the only way to win at poker).

However, it also seems that he's a hardcore Jew and he's written a book lambasting moderate Jews for not getting with the program. Bill Maher asked him about this and here was his reply.

BM: I'm curious how somebody who is such a freethinker wants to herd people into the collectivism that is religion?

DM: Oh my goodness gracious! Here's the thing, Bill. Bob Dylan said "You gotta serve somebody." ...

I don't know about the "collectivism that is religion." I disagree with you; I get a lot of good out of religion, and so does my family, and so do a lot of people I know who happen to be religious. (applause)

Curiously, this is—and the Republicans discovered this—a religious country. And it's always been a religious country. It was founded by people who wanted to worship the way that they felt was correct. And they didn't like people putting them into a herd. Thomas Jefferson talked about "freedom from religion." America was, right or wrong, founded by people who wanted "freedom for religion." It's always been a religious country.

What I'm talking about in my book is for my particular people, who've been undergoing a tough time for the last 2000 years, I'm saying "Get hip to the fact. Get in or get out!"

"Feel free to be Jewish if you're a Jew; feel free not to be Jewish if you're a Jew. But if you have some of the following problems, these may be the seven danger signals of you're missing a great experience—you're missing your tribe. And that larger polity that you think you might belong—the American public at large—it may exist, but if you're a Jew, it don't exist for you!"

That's what I'm saying in the book. (applause)

Okay. Let's break this down.

Oh my goodness gracious! Here's the thing, Bill. Bob Dylan said "You gotta serve somebody." ...

And Lesley Gore said "You don't own me!" I don't think Dylan was right. But I know if I had to serve sombody, it sure as hell wouldn't be an imaginary sky-daddy.

I don't know about the "collectivism that is religion." I disagree with you; I get a lot of good out of religion, and so does my family, and so do a lot of people I know who happen to be religious. (applause)

And I know people who get a lot of good from their regular visits to the nail salon. So what! He didn't address the collectivism issue at all.

Curiously, this is—and the Republicans discovered this—a religious country. And it's always been a religious country. It was founded by people who wanted to worship the way that they felt was correct. And they didn't like people putting them into a herd. Thomas Jefferson talked about "freedom from religion." America was, right or wrong, founded by people who wanted "freedom for religion." It's always been a religious country.

Sigh! Maybe he should read Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers. Yes, there were founding fathers who wanted "freedom for religion," but guess what? They were siding against Jefferson, and Jefferson's side won.

What I'm talking about in my book is for my particular people, who've been undergoing a tough time for the last 2000 years, I'm saying "Get hip to the fact. Get in or get out!"

"Feel free to be Jewish if you're a Jew; feel free not to be Jewish if you're a Jew. But if you have some of the following problems, these may be the seven danger signals of you're missing a great experience—you're missing your tribe. And that larger polity that you think you might belong—the American public at large—it may exist, but if you're a Jew, it don't exist for you!"

"You're either with us, or you're for the terrorists!" -- George W. Bush
Get in or out? You're missing your tribe? You don't belong to the American public at large? What kind of absolute, divisionist credo is that? It seems to me that he just vindicated Maher's "collectivism" assertion.


PS---The real star of that episode was Ayaan Hirsi Ali; just watch.

What to believe

What do you believe and why do you believe it? There are many things we believe with varying degrees of certainty. A purely rational being will rank his beliefs based on the amount of knowledge he has.

But we are not purely rational beings. Our confidence in each of our beliefs does not necessarily follow from the evidence. This can be a good thing, though. A fixed belief system makes for a much more efficient and streamlined operating system--just not quite as flexible as the purely rational being.

If this is starting to sound like the religion vs. science debate, it is. The conventional wisdom (in the "science crowd") is that scientists base their beliefs on the evidence, while religious beliefs are based on blind faith. Furthermore, a scientist's degree of certainty in her belief is proportional to the amount of supporting evidence, while a devout person has near perfect certainty about highly dubious claims. (I always get a kick upon hearing creationists call "Darwinism" a religion) Of course, reality is full of shades of gray.

For one, there's the phenomenon known as compartmentalization. This is where someone can hold perfectly rational beliefs about one subject while believing completely unsubstantiated woo in another. And then there is the matter of "efficient operating system" that I mentioned earlier. If we only believed what we could personally confirm, our lives would be simple and narrow.

When the AP wire announces that archeologists have discovered 3K year old tombs in Egypt, I believe them just as surely as if I were there to see it. But I'm not; I've never even been to Africa. Blind faith? No. It's a little something called trust.

Trust is nature's shortcut for helping us evaluate information. We would never get anything done if we relied on personally evaluating everything. That's why we put our trust in others. Now this is not the same as the Appeal to Authority fallacy. The AtA fallacy is about ignoring the veracity of the claim itself in favor of the character of the claimant. Trust is just a shortcut. One should always be willing to re-evaluate beliefs based on trust. These beliefs can be perfectly rational.

That's because trust must be earned!

And as surely as it's earned, it can be lost. Young children tend to trust all authority figures blindly. But as they learn to think for themselves, their trust starts growing a price tag. Back to religion vs. science, when I was younger and attended Catholic school, I trusted the priests and brothers who taught me religion. But as I went learning how much of what they taught me was lies, my trust in them began to erode. Today, claims made by religious authorities carry about as much weight with me as a random phrase generator.




This brings me to the story of Marcus Ross Ph.D.

KINGSTON, R.I. — There is nothing much unusual about the 197-page dissertation Marcus R. Ross submitted in December to complete his doctoral degree in geosciences here at the University of Rhode Island.

His subject was the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago. The work is “impeccable,” said David E. Fastovsky, a paleontologist and professor of geosciences at the university who was Dr. Ross’s dissertation adviser. “He was working within a strictly scientific framework, a conventional scientific framework.”

But Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a “young earth creationist” — he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old.

This story has been discussed at length here and here. Never mind for the moment his kooky beliefs about the age of the Earth. Let's talk about the inherent dishonesty in what he did.

In this situation we have an example of someone who carefully hid his true belief from the thesis committee, or at least went out of his way to give them an excuse to avoid facing up to the main problem. This is deceptive and antithetical to how science is supposed to operate (see Some People Defend Lying for Jesus). It opens a whole other can of worms. While most of us would agree that openly advocating a young Earth in your thesis would be grounds for failure, we couldn't fail someone who effectively lied about his "scientific" opinion. We put our faith in honesty and scientific integrity whenever possible. It's the default assumption.

But here's the rub. Although there wasn't anything in his thesis about a 10,000 year old Earth it wasn't the case that his examining committee was completely ignorant of Ross' true views on paleontology. In fact, they were aware of the history. They knew Ross was a Young Earth Creationist when they admitted him to graduate school and they had no reason to suspect that he had changed his mind.

The bottom line is that faculty of Rhode Island University gave a Ph.D. degree in geology to someone they knew to be a "scientist" who believed that the Earth is only 10,000 years old. Furthermore, they gave a Ph.D. to someone who they knew was deliberately misrepresenting his "scientific" views in his thesis. They had every reason to suspect that this misrepresentation was for the sole purpose of getting the Ph.D. since Ross knew that by being honest about his rejection of a old Earth, he would not graduate. This is a double whammy since not only was Ross ignorant of the basic principles in his field but also ignorant of the principles of scientific integrity.

His entire education is nothing but a lie as far as I'm concerned. And URI should be deeply ashamed for letting this happen. This is a major violation of trust! When I hear a Ph.D. geologist or paleontologist speak, I have certain expectations relating to that degree of their's. This is a sham! It wouldn't be much different if I went and became a minister.



Oh yeah, that's right. By the way, from now on you will address me as the reverend science pundit. I may not be a scientist (we all know that to be a pundit, no special credentials are needed--hence the moniker.), but I can perform rites.

And if I ever when I go back to school, it won't be at URI. I just don't think I can trust them.

He hath decided the Superbowl

Tony Dungy really made today's post easy. After pondering yesterday over who Jesus would favor in the Superbowl, I now have my answer: Jesus likes the Colts. The Colt's head coach said so much.

In the awards ceremony in Dolphin Stadium, CBS announcer Jim Nantz asked Dungy to comment on the significance of being the first African American head coach to lead a team to a Super Bowl victory. "I’m proud to be representing African American coaches," Dungy said. "... It means an awful lot to our country."

But Dungy continued: “More than anything – and I’ve said it before -- [Chicago coach] Lovie Smith and I [are] not only the first two African-Americans, but Christian coaches, showing that you can win doing it the Lord’s way,” Dungy told Nantz while holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy given to each year’s NFL champion.

“And we’re more proud of that.”

I guess he missed Mr. Deity's press conference. The important point is that you can win doing it the Lord's way. What a relief! But wait a minute, isn't Lovie Smith a Christian too? Why did Jesus slight him? And besides, Nantz asked him about being the first African American coach to win. What's with the Jesus, then? Does he think he's the first Christian coach to win the Superbowl?

I swear that the Jesus juice must kill at least half the brain. Amen!