Society Gone Bananas
bushwells | December 27, 2008Correspondent SDC, reporting in from the Land o' Hoosiers, offers an awe-inspiring account of a recent visit to the famous Creation Museum, located "just seven miles west of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport."
A teaser follows. The rest of the article (including photos), copiously dusted with SDC's dry sardonic humor, may be found here: Elitist Liberals Visit The Creation Museum.
I am not particularly unusual in wanting to be there when history is unfolding. Last month I was excited about playing a tiny, tiny role in Obama's victory over John McCain. A few weeks ago, I…
bushwells | January 14, 2008Two juicy grubs were found wiggling recently in the Chimp Refuge inbox: one on an offensive vanity license plate and the other on severing appendages for the Lord.
After reading my post on Air Guitar Hero Cranks It to 11, correspondent J.M. of California passed along this tale of hilarity.
Keith Wagner, who hails from Sacramento, California, drives a Prius that sports a vanity license plate reading GO 2 11. An upright and uptight California citizen looked askance at this plate, reading it as a permutation of "Go to Hell" and called the California DMV to complain. The DMV, in turn, asked…
jfiore | December 4, 2007A new Pat Condell video regarding the "inappropriately named teddy bear" fiasco in the Sudan. As usual, it's vintage Condell:
jfiore | December 4, 2007Pat Condell answers some critics in the atheist community regarding so-called "hard line" atheist arguments to believers in the supernatural. It's six and a half minutes well spent:
jfiore | October 13, 2007What happens when an end-of-times pastor meets a CNN bobble-head? One thing is for certain both science and rationality will be chucked out the window. John Hagee, head of a Texas mega-church had some truly crazy things to say on Glenn Beck's Friday evening show (October 12, 2007). You can get the complete transcript here. A few select outtakes can be found below the fold.
Hagee is one of that (fortunately) small number of Christians who seem both sure, and in a perverse way, delighted, that Armageddon is upon us. His proof is based solely on his interpretation of Revelations coupled with…
jfiore | August 9, 2007A 53 year old Colorado priest faces indecent exposure charges for jogging naked at a local track according to the AP. The priest, Robert Whipkey, claims that he sweats profusely while running, and as he was running in the very early morning prior to sunrise, he didn't think anyone would be around to notice.
Why does this sound like an old Monty Python skit? I can just see Terry Jones wearing nothing but the collar and shoes running away from a Bobby (Graham Chapman or John Cleese) who surprises him with a "What's all this then?"
jfiore | July 27, 2007I'm just getting sick of the whole "atheism is a religion" crap that I seem to keep running into lately. Here's a little story for your entertainment.
Once upon a time there was a land called Cardia. In Cardia, everyone played cards. Some people played blackjack, some poker, others pitch, and so forth. While many used the same 52 card deck, others opted for different decks (such as the pinochle-ists). Depending on the particular group, some would get together to play cards weekly, some daily, and some played several times per day. The rules varied, but most groups had specific "high…
jfiore | July 2, 2007An earlier installment noted the large sums of cashola being used in the construction of what can nominally be described as Multimedia Entertainment Venues for Christ (MEVCs). The Gardendale First Baptist Church in Alabama dropped $110,000 for a Yamaha digital mixing console for example, let alone all of the goodies that go along with it. Seems like a lot of money that might be better used more directly in their community. But these guys are small time.
This month's issue of Pro Audio Review features a cover article on Houston's Lakewood Church. We're talking amphitheater with all the…
jfiore | June 14, 2007Yesterday, I mentioned the Fast Food Friends program at Gardendale First Baptist Church in Alabama. Here is how they describe it on their website:
It is a creative way to show people in our community the love of Christ. You ask how does it work? The next time that you go to your local fast food resturant (sic) drive thru, tell the cashier that you would like to pay the bill for the car behind you. Simply pay their bill and leave a fast food friends card for the cashier to give to them. Next, you drive off praying that God will use that act of kindness to bless the recipient of your…
jfiore | June 13, 2007Audio is where I spend much of my time, both professionally and as a hobby. In fact, quite a few years ago I used to design public address systems and components (most notably loudspeaker systems and subwoofers). That venture didn't last too long because I discovered that many people just didn't care that much about high quality audio and weren't willing to pay for it. If only I had been born 20 years later.
One of the pro sound magazines I receive is Pro Audio Review. Lots of material on new equipment, studio redesigns, and stuff like that. They have a column entitled "Worship Audio" which…
jfiore | June 5, 2007The 2005 Energy Policy Act is known by some as being written by the energy lobby and by others as containing things down right goofy. One provision creates what are known as energy transmission corridors. Supposedly, the idea is to lower energy costs and increase security (is there anything that's done by the government these days that doesn't have the word security thrown in?) Here is a map of the draft Mid-Atlantic corridor. You will note that most of New York State is within the corridor with the exception of the southwestern portion and a chunk of the Adirondack Mountains.
Now I'm all…
bushwells | May 1, 2007When I encounter horrific articles like Hope for sex-boosting slimming pill , I would just as soon take a pencil and shove it in my ear because that would be more gratifying than giving such journalistic shattery any kind of serious consideration. But what the hey, this is the Chimp Refuge, where we toss scat with giddy abandon, so I'll hold off on the pencil in ear and substitute a cathartic round of fisking.
At first glance, I thought I should be pissed off at the misogynistic overtones in this article. I mean, look at the byline:
Scientists are developing a pill which could boost women…
bushwells | January 11, 2007Let's see, the Biz shot its right foot with the Vioxx debacle, then its left foot with Zyprexa (and others, but that's a recent one), so now it must look for another site for further damage of its tattered n' shattered image. Hmmm, how about lobbing off a couple of fingers? The FDA's approval of Slentrol, Pfizer's new chemical entity (NCE) for treatment of obese dogs ought to do the trick. Zing! There go the fingers.
As a minion of the dark overlords, I have to say that the announcement made me cringe for a number of reasons, the primary one being that this further solidifies the…
bushwells | December 14, 2006Peter Doherty (no, not that Babyshambles creature, but the Nobel Laureate) laments the use of pop music to teach science in the Australian school system. That and other mushy encroachments in the Queensland science curriculum, as reported in Pop songs are weird science would make it appear that like the US, science education in Oz is going to hell in a relativistic handbasket. Or is it? Is the use of song in science that egregious?
According to many primary and secondary school science educators, it's challenging to grasp the imagination of young students. If they haven't been "…
bushwells | September 3, 2006The latest Science Blogs hot topic on Dario Ringach's decision to cease his research struck a Bushwellian nerve or two thousand. Here's an excerpt from Predators Unleashed (see Investors.com, 8/24/2006).
A group named Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty has reportedly posted on its Web site the home telephone numbers, addresses and the children's schools of those who work for or do business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract animal-research firm.
Last March, in the midst of a bunch of other tumultuous life events, I received a disconcerting e-mail from Dark Overlords Pharmaceuticals, Inc…
bushwells | July 21, 2006So the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a press release, and the media bleats "FDA Scientists Blast Agency Priorities." In the interest of brevity, the qualifier that these blasts emanated from 20% of those surveyed was omitted. Presumably, the other 80% were cowed into submission by their hyperpolitically charged overlords or were just too busy and overworked to be bothered. Of the 20%, various responses indicated various misgivings as noted in the survey summary on the UCS web site.
Job dissatistisfaction at the FDA? Undue influence by outside interests? Poor morale?…
jfiore | July 19, 2006HR 810. The president's only veto after six years in office. The failure of the House to override the veto with a 2/3rds majority due primarily to the muddy-headed thinking and religious dogma-addled brains of conservative Republican lap-dogs. One can only hope that rational people will remember this come November and vote accordingly. How anyone can place the importance of a blastocyst, a hollow ball of perhaps several dozen cells about 1/200th of an inch across, above the needs of millions of suffering humans, particularly when said blastocyst will most likely be discarded as medical waste…