The Bish

God. The creator of the universe. The bringer of life and light. Like…god is one holy motherfucker. He’s pretty much like the king of all kings. Now…this is what I hear about the dude. I don’t know if I believe in him at all…but I just read an article…and I think I’m going to turn my life around!

The creator of the universe uses cats to show himself

P.S. God likes cats a whole bunch

They have stir fry in the chow hall @ work today. It taste so good, so so so good, that I can die right now, and I’d be happy.

I think I just like soy sauce and crushed red peppers a lot.

Take from PZ Meyer’s Blog

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

All the bold type = crazy catholics.

An organization of the Catholic leadership has now condemned my actions. This is sad news: it’s clear that at least this tier of the Catholic hierarchy is as deranged as the wackaloons flooding my mailbox.

We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech.

Hmmm. Who is the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy to decide the limits of freedom? Flagrant irreverence towards a cracker ought to be fair game, I should think…and that’s all this action was: irreverence. You cannot demand that all members of a pluralist society be reverent towards any random humdrum article that a guy in a dress declares holy.

The same Bill of Rights which protect freedom of speech also protect freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers did not envision a freedom FROM religion, rather a freedom OF religion. In other words, our nation’s constitution protects the rights of ALL religions, not one and not just a few.

Man, that is a tired old argument — usually you see that fine-grained parsing of the words of the bill of rights from right-wing sources, trying to distort the meaning. Do they really think a bunch of high-minded Enlightenment dudes dedicated to the principle of liberty were thinking, “We need a clause here that could be used to compel people to be a member of a church—we’ll just give them the freedom to choose which church they’ll be forced to join”? That’s insane. I am free of religion. I am free to make that choice, just as everyone is free to choose to be Catholic.

And my personal choice not to believe in the silliness of religion is not an infringement on the rights of any religion.

The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance.

This is the funniest statement in the whole declaration.

Freedom of speech means I do have the right to malign and make fun of any religion I want. I can’t interfere with your right to practice your religion, but that hasn’t happened — all I’ve done is laugh at you.

That last clause, though…do they seriously believe that only Catholics are allowed to criticize Catholics, and that this restriction is enshrined in the constitution? That’s a fine catch, that catch-22. So only Catholics can malign the faith, but if they do, then they can be kicked out of the faith, which means they can’t criticize it anymore. That sounds like a ripe piece of theological logic to me.

The Chancellor of the University refused to reprimand or censure the teacher, who ironically is a Biology Professor. One fails to see the relevance of the desecration of a Catholic sacrament to the science of Biology. Were Myers a Professor of Theology, there would have been at least a presumption of competency to express religious opinions in a classroom. Yet, for a scientist to ridicule and show utter contempt for the most sacred and precious article of a major world religion, is inappropriate, unprofessional, unconstitutional and disingenuous.

Ummm, I don’t discuss religion in the classroom. I teach biology. My ‘desecration’ was performed at home, on my own time. There’s nothing ironic about the fact that I’m a biologist, nor did I claim my profession gave me special qualifications to see through the foolishness of faith. Go ahead, any of you can do it — you don’t need to be a theologian to see that it is just a cracker.

A biologist has no business ‘dissing’ any religion, rather, they should be busy teaching the scientific discipline they were hired to teach. Tolerating such behavior by university officials is equally repugnant as it lends credibility to the act of religious hatred. We also pray that Professor Myers contritely repent and apologize.

Wait, what? This is another attempt to shield a ridiculous religion, by declaring that members of certain professions are not allowed to criticize — that only Catholic theologians are permitted to rebuke the absurdities in their faith.

As for the idea that I’m supposed to be teaching biology 24-7…what, I can’t have a hobby? I can tell you that when I try to tell my wife late evening on Wednesday night that I can’t take out the trash because I’m too busy teaching biology, well, that excuse won’t fly very far.

I am not contrite, I will not repent, and I’m certainly not going to apologize for tossing a cracker in the garbage. All the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy will get from me is laughter.

I’m pretty sure this is the first step of many to transform America into the movie “Idiocracy”

****
Texas Fiction Science

The State Board of Education does its part to fantasize biology
BY ANDREA GRIMES

There’s nothing the evil overlords of the fictional future like more than a nice, healthy round of brainwashing. Whether it’s George Orwell’s totalitarian government of Oceania thwarting rebellious citizens in 1984, the “conditioning” of children in Brave New World, or the large-scale human reprogramming in The Matrix, mind control is all the rage for governments looking to cultivate a herd of submissive subjects. And it’s so simple, too! All that’s necessary are a few moldable minds and a strict party line.

But here’s a bit of nonfiction: The Texas State Board of Education has just those two things. Moldable minds, in the form of Texas schoolchildren, and a party line that favors teaching the “weaknesses” of biological evolutionary theory and, by implication, the strengths of the latest pseudo-scholarly variation on creationism: “intelligent design.” Last fall, in the latest episode of that eternal Texas struggle, the Texas Education Agency, which is regulated by the SBOE, fired its science director for distributing information about a pro-evolution seminar. And now, the SBOE is beginning hearings on updated science curricula that teaches the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolutionary theory.

It’s the latest in an ever-evolving effort by religious conservatives to discredit evolution after efforts to explicitly incorporate intelligent design have repeatedly failed. Lessons in Weak Evolution could be coming to a Texas public school near you by March 2009.

McLeroy vs. Biology
The first of several hearings on the science curricula updates occurred July 17 and 18, with this first meeting dedicated only to the delicate bureaucratic process of planning on how to plan those updates. According to SBOE chair and College Station dentist Dr. Don McLeroy, this year’s “battle is to bring in some of the weaknesses of evolution,” to ninth- and 10th-grade biology classrooms, retaining language requiring that teachers instruct students in the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories. But according to the Texas Freedom Network, a statewide organization that works to mitigate the influence of fundamentalism on state policy, it’s really just one singular theory that gets the critical treatment.

“The only theory they attack is evolution,” said Dan Quinn, Texas Freedom Network’s communications director. Heliocentricity, gravitational theory, and atomic structure all get the SBOE thumbs-up. Indeed, despite clearly worded endorsements of evolution’s validity as scientific fact from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Science Teachers Association of Texas, and countless other scientific groups, McLeroy and six other conservative members of the 15-member SBOE remain unconvinced.

“I don’t think the evidence supports [evolution],” said McLeroy, a self-described creationist who believes that because “science is always trying to find problems with stuff,” evolution should not be presented as absolute fact. In McLeroy’s opinion, there are three major weaknesses of evolutionary theory that schoolchildren should be made aware of. He arrived at these conclusions by “reading everything [he] could get [his] hands on” and listening to podcasts.

First weakness: the fossil record. “There are gaps,” said McLeroy, that do not include enough transitional forms of life to support evolution. Second, McLeroy says there has simply not been enough time on Earth for the minute changes required by evolution to have taken place. Thirdly, McLeroy says the incredible complexity of cells proves divine design. Information contained in the genetic code is just too mind-blowing to have come from anywhere but an intelligent creator. “Where did this information come from?” McLeroy mused. McLeroy would like to see these assertions and more taught in Texas biology classrooms.

I asked University of Texas integrative biology professor David Hillis, a member of the National Academy of

Sciences, about McLeroy’s list of “weaknesses.” In an e-mail exchange, Hillis said McLeroy was simply denying facts. “There is indeed a vast record of transitional fossils,” wrote Hillis, saying McLeroy’s fossil record claims are “completely at odds with the experts in the entire field of paleontology.”

As for McLeroy’s second assertion regarding length of time required for evolution to have taken place, Hillis wrote that the position “demonstrates an extraordinary ignorance of biology,” since rates of evolution observed in laboratory tests have been “more than sufficient” to prove natural rates of genetic change that coincide with the fossil record.

Finally, McLeroy’s cell-complexity argument does not even belong in a scientific discussion, wrote Hillis: “The argument that ‘It is too complicated, so God must have done it’ is not a scientific argument.”

And yet it appears that, all evidence to the contrary, evolution may still soon be taught in Texas as a weak theory. Since the SBOE has a near majority of anti-evolution members, the small problem of evolution actually being demonstrable scientific knowledge is only a political challenge to those who want schoolchildren taught otherwise.

Forward Into the Past

McLeroy says he and his board allies can persuade the swing votes necessary to give the board a good chance of advancing a weak-evolution curricula. Indeed, the persuasion skills of the conservative seven have already been demonstrated earlier this year, when Texas’ English standards were revised. In May, the SBOE rejected the recommendations of an $85,000, two-year study conducted by English teachers and curriculum experts in favor of a group of standards favored by McLeroy and his fellow conservatives. It was submitted just prior to adoption, without time for board or public review, yet passed with a contentious 9-6 vote.

The board’s dominance by anti-evolution sentiment, coupled with conservative Republican rule at the Capitol, has had a direct effect on agency policy. Last November, TEA Director of Science Chris Comer was forced to resign after she forwarded an e-mail to academic groups containing information about an anti-creationism seminar. The e-mail, which contained a one-line “FYI” from Comer and a forwarded event listing, was considered an inappropriate endorsement of evolution by TEA officials. They insist Comer’s effective termination was simply a personnel matter involving an employee unwilling to follow agency policy and that evolution has nothing to do with it.

Earlier this month, Comer filed a federal lawsuit against the TEA and its official policy of “neutrality” on the subject of creationism. Comer alleges that the agency policy is a violation of the First Amendment. Because creationism is a religious belief, her pleadings state, “The [TEA's] ‘neutrality’ policy has the purpose or effect of endorsing religion.” In the lawsuit, Comer asks to be reinstated to her position as the TEA science director.

It’s worth noting that part of the TEA and SBOE’s duty statement includes a goal to “prepare today’s schoolchildren for a successful future.” If the weak-evolution curricula passes, Texas schoolchildren will be able to achieve that success in one of two ways: fly out of state for biology class and be back in time for lunch or set their sights on excelling at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.

Texas Freedom Network’s Dan Quinn believes weak-evolution curricula will set back the education of Texas schoolchildren. He says Texas will have a hard time getting its high school graduates admitted to top universities, or attracting science-oriented businesses, if it develops an anti-science reputation.

“Are we going to give our kids a 19th century education in the 21st century?” Quinn asked. If the SBOE has its way, the answer is likely to be yes.

****

If you have children and live in texas I suggest you move, or buy a Jet, as the article suggest, to fly your kid out of the moronic reach of morons durring his/her lunch break.

So we just hired some new humans at work. To “get to know them” we had to write down 1 unique/random thing about ourselves, and they have to guess which it is. And by guess I mean hover around your desk asking you question after question until you just finally tell them which one was yours.

“I cry everynight before I go to bed, though these are tears of happiness”

The above was my unique thing about myself. So far…I haven’t been confronted for guessing.

EDIT**
I was in the smoke pit discussing other options for the unique question with several co-workers…I really wish I had a time machine, because in retrospect, I wished I would have written down

“I’m a registered sex offender”

Pretty funny; saw this at work, though the link is blocked as “MATURE AND PERSONAL BLOGS”…I’ll read it when I get home. For those of you who know me, this is pretty “LOL” to see on the digg front page.

Ok, so the Dark Knight is playing thursday 12:01am+. We all know this, if you dont, you’ve lost all rights to be my friend.

Anyways…THERE’S STILL AVAILABLE TICKETS. I was going to see it at a later date, but I have changed my mind.

So kartel…whos comming with me? My friend Josh from work shall be comming, we need more party members. I think you have to be level 18+.

Call me.

the days of blood…the days of being gangsta as hell…



i’m the badass one, my brothers are the other badasses.

well fuck…I tried to embed a video like 100x, the link I got from ted.com prolly doesn’t work.

YOU WATCH THIS RIGHT NOW!

Save the mushroom, save the world

Woke up, showered, pooped, ate, danced and then I drove to work. I removed myself from my car and feel nothing in left ass pocket. Left ass pocket is the designated phone pocket. My phone was not center driver seat in the crotch position, nor was it on the passenger seat/table. O well, no phone, don’t need it at work anyways.

About 2 mins ago my wallet rang in my right ass pocket, designated human money pocket,…and I found my phone…though my wallet is gone now.

Fuck.