“But he was such a nice cat, always so polite & helpful…”

Thanks to John Wilkins

Emotional Shuttle launches.

I'm watching the launch of the Shuttle Endeavor, STS-126 on NASA-TV's webfeed and I can't help but remember the Challenger explosion. I can watch other launches, like those of Space X, with out a care in the world, but watching Shuttle launches always make me a bit nervous, even a little afraid and my through gets sore like I'm at a funeral an trying not to cry.

Before seeing Challenger explode, I had watched every shuttle launch and re-entry if not live then the “rerun” on public access or taped. There have been over 70 shuttle flights since Challenger but I have not watched very many. This evening's launch is the first shuttle flight I have watched since the Shuttle Coumbia disintegrated during re-entry in 2003.

Maybe watching this successful shuttle launch will help me be less anxious so I can enjoy watching the remaining launches before the Shuttle fleet is mothballed in 2010.

Song meme

Thanks to Kethrivis I am doing a song meme.

Rules:

• Start your media player and put it on random
• List the first lines of the first 32 songs it plays, even if you are embarassed to let people know you own that artist
• As people correctly guess the title and artist in the comments, cross out the songs on your list and add the info
• Using a search engine is cheating
• Looking on Last.fm or similar social music play tracker is also cheating
• If the song title is in that first line, you may skip it
• If too many by the same artist(s) keep popping up, you may skip them to increase diversity
• Pass it on!

So here is my list:

1. Come on baby, baby, take a trip with me
2. My uncle has a country place that noone knows about "Red barchetta" by Rush (tangent)
3. Every time I look at you I go blind
4. Do you remember the night the lights went out all along the promenade?
5. When my baby's on the corner and she's lookin' so fine
6. Girl, I just know I love you now
7. And from where I stand I reach my hand to capture a glow
8. All bound for Mu Mu Land
9. I've got a picture, It's there on the wall
10. What you say to drive that girl away when she's the one and only?
11. Love me forever let me know that you'll never leave me out in the cold
12. I hate to say the feeling's gone, and every day I can't keep holding on
13. This car is automatic, it's systematic, it's hydromatic "Greased Lightning by John Travolta (tangent)
14. Lady luck never smiles, so lend your love to me a while
15. Don't ask me what you know is true "Never Tear us Apart" by INXS (tangent)
16. Some equal man here is telling it to me
17. Painted old lady collecting splinters on the bench
18. Hot sun beating down, burning my feet just walking around
19. If we could see tomorrow what of your plans
20. Can I take this for granted with your eyes over me?
21. I am not the type of dog that could keep you waiting for no good reason
22. Lonely feeling deep inside, find a corner where I can hide
23. Welcome to your life, there's no turning back "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears (tangent)
24. In and out of darkness, in and out of sleep
25. You've got a great car, yeah, whats wrong with it today?
26. Live baby live, now that the day is over
27. Prejudice. Wrote a song about it, like you to hear it. Here it goes.
28. There could be countless reasons tension rules this house
29. I would tell you about the things they put me through
30. I wasn't jealous before we met, now every woman I see is a potential threat
31. And do those feet in modern times walk upon the flowers
32. Well sometimes in the evenings I start to get that feeling

Guess away!

Which Star Trek Character Are You?

Your results:
You are Spock

Spock 74% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 65% Data 59% Uhura 55% Geordi LaForge 55% Chekov 50% Jean-Luc Picard 45% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 40% Beverly Crusher 35% Will Riker 35% Worf 30% James T. Kirk (Captain) 20% Mr. Scott 20% Mr. Sulu 20% Deanna Troi 20%

You are skilled in knowledge and logic. You believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Thanks to mrz80.

Things that make me ashamed to be a Christian

OK, first a little back-story…

---

Back in July, University of Central Florida student Webster Cook was at a Catholic mass on campus with a non-Catholic friend. Cook's friend did not go up to receive the host, as Catholics would not consider that proper, but was curious about what the host looked like. Cook, instead of eating his right away, pretended to do so it and took it back to show his friend. On his way to sit down, a female usher saw this and attempted to wrestle the consecrated host from Cook. Cook and is friend then left the mass, taking the wafer with them, to escape the verbal harassment by the congregation. Almost immediately the nasty emails (Cook was on UCF student government so was easily contactable) started with people not only threatening to break into his dorm room to rescue the host but apparently death threats as well.

Susan Fani, a spokesperson for the Orlando–area Catholic diocese said the following:

We don't know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was, [h]owever, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.

We just expect the University to take this seriously, [t]o send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated.

Later, after apparently talking things over with other Catholics, Cook returned the wafer and asked for an apology of the harassment form the Bishop. The next Sunday there were armed security guards at the mass

After Cook returned the host one would have thought the issue would die down instead of becoming national news fodder on CNN and Fox News.

But then Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, started giving his opinion on the subject:

For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage—regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance—is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion.

Then P. Z. Myers, a biology professor and out–spoken atheist also waded into the fray:

So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.

People immediately began sending Myers some extremely nasty emails as well as death threats. One woman even lost her job because her husband mistakenly used her corporate email account to send one of those death threats. Many people also started sending Myers copies of the Koran and accused him of being a coward for never having threatened to desecrate anything important to Muslims. In addition, many people sent emails to the president of the university where Myers is professor, demanding that he be fired immediately even though he posted his comment on his personal blog at ScienceBlogs, which has nothing to do whatsoever with his university. On 24 July 2008 Myers posted an image of some pages from the Koran and Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (Dawkins is famous atheist) covered by used coffee grounds and a banana peel, plus the eucharist someone sent him punched through with a nail along with the following quote:

My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt. <image> By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

---

For a more in–depth review see here, here and here.

By all accounts, this situation was not handled very well by all involved. Cook should have openly not swallowed the host, the usher should not have attacked him, the congregation should not have yelled at him and the emailed death threats were way out of line. But armed guards, WTF?!? Can you say over–reacting?

Donohue is not exactly known for his tolerance of others, and the Catholic League is often called a far–rigth fringe group, so it's not really surprising that he wanted Webster Cook expelled and later called on Catholics to flood Myer's university with demands for his metaphorical head.

Myers is usually far more level–headed than Donohue (I read Myers' blog regularly), but is unabashedly anti-religion and often refers to believers of any stipe as “religidiots” or similar insults. Howeever, I agree with him when he says this:

Wait, what? Holding a cracker hostage is now a hate crime? The murder of Matthew Shephard was a hate crime. The murder of James Byrd Jr. was a hate crime. This is a goddamned cracker. Can you possibly diminish the abuse of real human beings any further?

Now I disagree with Myers' position on religion and faith and even more so with the way he expresses it—I'd hesitate to call him intolerant or bigotted, but he is certainly extremely insensitive, but the emails he gets on this topic are just terrible. They are the antithesis of of what “Christian Love” is supposed to be. I may disagree with Myers' views but I would trust him not to misrepresent the proportions of emails has receive on this subject and show us only the crazies(!!!) in the excerpts he has been posting on his blog.

Yestderday Myers posted one response that I think was the worst of the non–death threat excepts. All because of one particular sentence.

You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers' Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11.

What?!? Punching a hole in a fucking cracker is worse than murdering six million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals? Now I rarely swear but that is exactly the first thing I thought as I read that excerpt. If anybody I knew in Real Life™ read Myers' blog, you know I'd be ashamed to tell them I went to church every Sunday morning.

Vote for me for President this November!

best blonde joke EVAR

You can find it here.

Classic Video Game Theme Songs

When I was a kid in the 1980s my parents never bought us any video game consoles. The only places I ever got to play video games was at friends' places or in arcades for 25 cents a pop (and I almost always found better things to save my quarters for). It's probably why I still don't play terribly many video games as an adult, and those that I do are long-term strategy games like Alpha Centauri or Civilization.

So when I tried this quiz of classic video game songs and I got 7 out of 10 correct, i was darn proud of myself. Then realized what that says abut the commercial success and cultural influence those games had if even I, a bookworm who rarely played video games, knew what 7 out of 10 themes were. Holy cow!

I got Donkey Kong, Rygar, Galaga, Pole Position, Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog and Legend of Zelda correct. The ones I got wrong were Metroid (I said Mega Man 2), Pro Wrestling (I said Excitebike) and Pacman (I said Centipede).

Classic Video Game Theme Song Quiz

Score: 70% (7 out of 10)

Humdrum Life?

Every now and again I find my cat, Edmund, wandering about my tiny little apartment. For 15, 20 sometimes 30 minutes he does what I call the "great circle" path over an dover again. This isn't his normal frantic scurrying between the patio doors and the bathroom window when something outside has his him all axcited. It's a slow, deliberate yet not deliberate wander that takes him along all the major thoroughfares of my bachelor apartment. Were it not for the inherent gracefulness of a cat, I would call it plodding.

It makes me think of the tigers I have seen at the Toronto Zoo. When you get to their enclosure, you can see one of them pass by you every couple of minutes as they walk along this path that has been worn into the circumference of their home. As it passes by, again and again, it sort of seems as if the tiger has just said to itself “Fuck it. I've got nothing better to do.” It seems so pathetic and devoid of hope that it makes me so sad I don't want to stick around and watch a magnificent animal I would normally be fascinated with.

When I see Edmund walking about like that, I hope that he isn't as despondent as that tiger at the zoo.

The Incompetence of Intelligent Design

Casey Luskin, a well known supporter of Intelligent Design has a blog post up at Evolution Views & News complaining about an op-ed piece by Richard Dawkins in the L.A. Times where, according to Luskin, Dawkins misrepresents Intelligent Design.

The part that Luskin seems to take offense at is this paragraph in Dawkins's editorial:

Intelligent design “theorists” (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: “For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space.” This attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.

In addition to the disingenousness that Dawkins mentions there is also the implied dishonesty of ID supporters because the aliens gambit has been a common ploy used to “prove” that ID is not religious and thus should be taught in science classes.

Luskin tries valiantly to refute this accusation of dishonesty by throwing out a bunch of quotes from Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe and William Dembski showing that the Designer most definitely is the Christian God, all to try and prove that ID is not so dishonest as to use something as absurd as space aliens.

Luskin googled for the phrase “For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space” (taken from Dawkin's op-ed) in order to see if any ID supporters were actually using that aliens argument and he says that the only result Google returned was for that very same Dawkins op-ed. Any person who has ever used an Internet search engine knows that if you search for a phrase, especially one that specific, you're not going to get much more than the original web page from whence it came rather than any supporting information about the topic they were interested in finding more about.

Luskin would have been better off googling for “aliens intelligent design” if he really wanted to see how often aliens are given as the designer behind ID. That search gave me almost 2 million hits. In addition to a lack of googling skills Luskin also seems to lack long-term memory skills in that he couldn't remember one of his own articles where he says:

An extensive look at the actual writings and arguments of those in the ID research community reveals that intelligent design is not an appeal to the supernatural, nor is it trying to "prove" the existence of God. The consensus of ID proponents is intelligent design theory does not allow one to identify the designer as natural or supernatural, because to do so would go beyond the limits of scientific inquiry.

In that article, not only does Luskin try his hardest to disassociate ID from Creationism but he also quotes Behe twice saying that the designer might very well be space aliens.

In the end, however, Luskin's incompetence at googling properly and his inability remember what he himself has written in the past only ends up highlighting the basic dishonesty of the Intelligent Design movement. For years they've been trying to get ID into high school science curricula in the United States, but as shown in the Dover trial the textbook they were pushing was just a rebranded creationist textbook. In his rant, Luskin does nothing but show that ID is, truly, nothing but Creationism in drag.

Municipal Accupuncture

OK, there are a lot of overly credulous people out there — people who believe in pseudo-sciences like homeopathy, astrology or the kooky idea that vaccines cause autism. Occasionally we do get an incident that of the recent death by religious stupidity where an 11-year old girl died of diabetic ketoacidosis because her parents decided to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor. And that's hardly the first time something like that has happened.

Fortunately, children dying because of the pseudo-scientific or religious stupidities of their parents are few and the following is much more common. This one is just stupid enough to be silly. Or maybe silly enough to be stupid — I'm not quite sure.

In Portland, Oregon, Adam Kuby wants to do acupuncture on the city Not it's inhabitants, the literal city. Kuby feels that certain parts of the city correspond to parts of the body and that sticking giant needs in those locations will somehow restore the city's “chi” to its proper pattern of flow:

In March 2008 I was the “Artist-in-Residence” in Portland’s new South Waterfront neighborhood at the base of the aerial tram, where I brainstormed and work-shopped this idea with help from acupuncturists, acupuncture students, city planners, ecologists, artists, writers, public art professionals and the general public. Together we envisioned Portland as a metaphorical body, explored how energy flows through the city and debated which parts of the city would correspond to the different acupuncture organs and meridian systems.

What utter crackpottery! But at least he's not trying to cure his child's disease with it. (I hope.)

Meme TV

1. Bold the shows you've watched every episode of
2. Italic the shows you've seen at least one episode of
3. Post your answers

50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City

45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses
41. Band of Brothers

40. Life on Mars
39. Monty Python's Flying Circus
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted

35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood

30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf

25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK
22. The Shield
21. Angel

20. Blackadder
19. Scrubs
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who

15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld

10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24

05. Lost (season 4 only just started at home so i haven't yet got to watch it...misses being stateside for it)
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
01. The Simpsons

Original list is here, and idea from MrZ80

How wacko are you?

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid Disorder:	Moderate
Schizoid Disorder:	Moderate
Schizotypal Disorder:	Moderate
Antisocial Disorder:	Low
Borderline Disorder:	Low
Histrionic Disorder:	Moderate
Narcissistic Disorder:	Moderate
Avoidant Disorder:	Very High
Dependent Disorder:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:	Moderate
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- -- Personality Disorders --

What Circle of Hell do you belong in?

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

How Well Do You Know Your Lord of the Rings?

How Well Do You Know Your Lord of the Rings?

Congratulations! You know both your Tolkien and your Peter Jackson. May I call you a fellow Lord of the Rings geek?
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Uhhh...

What's wrong, George. Is something puzzling you? :-)

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Books that make you dumb?

Ever read a book (required or otherwise) and upon finishing it thought to yourself, "Wow. That was terrible. I totally feel dumber after reading that."? I know I have. Well, like any good scientist, I decided to see how well my personal experience matches reality. How might one do this?

Well, some guy went and figured out how. Seemingly having nothing better to do, he went and downloaded the the ten most frequently listed favourite books form all American colleges & universities he could find on FaceBook and the average SAT scores of those schools then plotted the average SAT each book, here.

While correlation does not equal causation, the results are still amusing. He also did the same thing for music.

Beware the Big Google Brother!

But why would I be fighting them in the first place?

20

Walking the cat?

From Edmund

When my friend Jennifer called earlier this afternoon and asked if I wanted to go to the mall, I jumped at the chance because I had been practicing from my MCSE certs since about 7:00am — my poor eyes were going buggy!

At the mall, we stopping at the pet store since Jenn had just gotten a hamster for their kids a couple of weeks ago. I finally got a new collar for Edmund, my cat. Edmund has long since grow out of the collar he came with as a kitten, a little over 2 years ago, and the only time I tried to get hi a new one, it was too small. That actually surprised me, because is not a big cat.

Anyways, Jenn found this nice–sized leash which snaps open with about a pound less force than what Edmund weighs. That way, if (when) he escapes again, if the collar gets caught on something his struggling with snap it open and he won't choke himself. And that's a good thing.

I also got a H–type harness for Edmund and a leash so that I can take him for a walk now and again. First I took him out out into the apartment hall, but he seemed sorta nervous and maybe even a little scared out there. He crouched down, crawled around on his belly and wouldn't leave the door. As soon as I opened it he ran straight back into my apartment. I thought maybe he'd prefer to go outside, so I bundled up and took Edmund out on to my patio. Once a gain he crouched down and crawled along on his tummy. He didn't stay right next to the patio doors, but neither did he want to go off the concrete pad that is my patio — about half a metre away. I even picked him up a couple of times and carried him down to the road, but both times he ran right back to the patio.

I did some web–surfing, and apparently rather than taking him outside right away, I should have gotten Edmund used to the harness somewhat more slowly. First let him wear just the harness for an hour or so every day for a few days, giving him a treat each time I put it on him. Then attach the leash and follow him around inside with it slack. Then a few days of just sitting out on the patio until he finally gets the urge to go exploring.

I'd never expect a cat to behave like a dog (heaven forfend!), but I had thought that Edmund would have been ecstatic at the thought of going Outside. After all, if he's not sleeping in my lap, on the back of my chair propped against my shoulders or laying beside me on the bed, he's sitting at the patio doors wondering what this invisible substance is that prevents his escape.

Curved Monitor from AlienWare

Curved monitor? Me want! *drool*

Socialism rocks, dude! :-)

What political ideology do you have? Your Result: Democratic Socialist   You are the standard European socialist who believes that the government should spend large amounts of money on social welfare programs. You also believe that these social welfare programs are mandated by the people who vote in your ideal democratic government
Libertarian
Anarchist
Communist
Fascist
Authoritarian Capitalist
What political ideology do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Hey! I gots good grammer!

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

Are You Gooder at Grammar?
Make a Quiz

So Minnesotans talk normally, eh?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central   "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.
The West
The Midland
Boston
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Were I an American…

I may not be an American, but it's still fun taking these who-do-you-match quizzes—probably due to the whole “mouse beside the elephant” syndrome we Canadians have WRT the USA. I've never heard of Kucinich or Gravel, but I'm not surprised that Obama is the the number three match for me. Nor am I surprised at the sharp difference between how I matched to the Democrats (all above 67%) and the Republicans (all below 37%).

89% Dennis Kucinich
88% Mike Gravel
72% Barack Obama
71% Chris Dodd
70% John Edwards
68% Bill Richardson
67% Joe Biden
67% Hillary Clinton
37% Rudy Giuliani
35% Ron Paul
27% John McCain
23% Mike Huckabee
19% Mitt Romney
12% Fred Thompson
9% Tom Tancredo

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz