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stcynic | May 20, 2006There are some people who are so ridiculous that it would be impossible to invent them if they didn't actually exist. Larry Fafarman is one of them. A psychologist would have a field day with someone so utterly convinced of his own importance that he prefers to make a fool of himself for attention rather than risk non-existence. And just to give you all a taste of the man's madness, let me paste a bit of our exchange today. He emailed me this morning to say that his comments have not been getting through. This after knowing that I had banned him from commenting, so trying to comment would be…
grrlscientist | May 20, 2006
Your Observation Skills Get An A-
Hardly anything gets by you...
You have a great memory and eagle eyes
How Observant Are You?
This quiz is kinda fun .. what was your score? Which questions did you miss?
I missed one question; How many channels on a VHF TV dial? Since I have never owned a TV, it was easy to miss this question.
I was most surprised that I knew the answer to the paper clip question.
tags: online quiz
stcynic | May 20, 2006I'm sure you all remember Larry Fafarman, the hyper-litigious irrationality jockey who commented here for a while until I tired of his nonsense and banned him from commenting. He actually emailed me to complain about being banned and I told him if he didn't like it, start his own blog. I just got another email from him complaining that he keeps leaving comments and they don't show up on the blog. Uh, yeah, Larry. That's what banning means. He knew he was banned from commenting because he griped about it to me, but he's apparently still been leaving comments and wondering why they never show…
stcynic | May 20, 2006You have to see this ridiculous snippet from Tim Graham at the National Review's blog. It speaks volumes, and loudly:
On the occasion of the final episode of NBC's Will & Grace, Katie Couric insisted, "on a serious note," that it's one of her daughter's favorite shows, and it's so important to teach tolerance of "people who are different" at a "very early age." Anyone who expected a fair and balanced anchorwoman at CBS on the hot-button social issues, shred your illusions now.
Apparently, if you think tolerance is important, you can't be "fair and balanced". And the alternative is...what…
stcynic | May 19, 2006The more I see this uproar over the Da Vinci Code, the more I see that the religious right is frantically trying to adopt the same level of professional victimhood that many on the left have used so effectively. I saw a guy on TV tonight complaining about the movie and he accused Dan Brown, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard of "racism" and "bigotry". Toward what race, for crying out loud? These people seem to believe that if you say anything at all that bothers them, you're engaging in bigotry. That's the sort of thing they find patently absurd (and rightly so) when it's engaged in on the left, but…
grrlscientist | May 19, 2006Every week, Seed asks us a question, Ask a ScienceBlogger, and they will link to our responses in a "blog carnival" on the following Wednesday. Our responses are limited to 300 words or less.
Question: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
I am not too keen to shake anyone, but I do think a lot of problems could be solved if the public understood what the scientific method is.
Basically, scientists use the scientific method to construct a reality-based representation of the universe that is not clouded with wishful thinking. The…
stcynic | May 18, 2006Wingnut theocrat Randall Terry has converted to Catholicism, according to the Worldnutdaily, which also reports that he can't officially join the church until his first marriage is annulled. This will be a perfect example to view the absolute absurdity of Catholic annulments. They're against divorce, remember, but they'll declare that a marriage that lasted 20 years and produced children never really existed "in the eyes of God" and therefore the fact that he cheated on the wife that didn't exist with the wife that, presumably, does now exist (until he dumps her and wants that one annulled…
stcynic | May 18, 2006Via both Radley Balko and Volokh, take a look at this astonishing definition of "cultural racism" from the Seattle Public Schools:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as "other", different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2006The second installment of Ask a Science Blogger has been published. Surprisingly, this week's question seems to have generated a fair amount of discussion, even though I had thought the response was a foregone conclusion.
grrlscientist | May 17, 2006The Carnival of Job Hunting, issue 1, is now available for your reading pleasure. Please go there to cheer on the pre-homeless!
(sorry; that comment was inspired by the WaPo pre-pregnancy article that I linked to earlier).
stcynic | May 16, 2006We just posted to the Panda's Thumb a letter written by Kevin Padian responding to Dembski's faux apology for his slanderous and false accusations toward him. I think you'll all agree that Padian is quite a reasonable man who is handling Dembski and DaveScot's attacks with far more grace and civility than either one deserves.
grrlscientist | May 16, 2006Late is better than never, as they say, and so it is with this new feature, Ask a Science Blogger. This week's question was late, arriving yesterday, but here it is;
Question: Will the "human" race be around in 100 years?
Um, YES. Even if The Rapture does occur, there still will be people on Earth since someone has to take care of the christians' pets that were so thoughtlessly abandoned.
But I do wonder if the human race will still exist 1000 or 10,000 or 100,000 years from now? I think that's open to debate, particularly considering our tendency towards self-destruction and especially as…
loom | May 16, 2006A few days ago I explained how an evolutionary change in our hominid ancestors could explain a spectacular surprise failure of a clinical drug trial. At last, I see that the paper is now online
stcynic | May 16, 2006I'm finding great amusement lately in the fevered and over the top reaction of many conservative Christians to the Da Vinci Code movie coming out. It's like watching the Islamic reaction to The Satanic Verses, only without the death threats (so far). Folks: it's a novel. A book of fiction. It's being made into a movie, also a work of fiction. Only idiots think it's real. And your insanely hyperbolic reaction is only driving up the grosses on the film. The most amusing reaction so far that I've seen is from Pat Buchanan in the Worldnutdaily.
Buchanan's column is titled "Whose God may we mock…
grrlscientist | May 16, 2006The Grand Rounds, volume 2, number 34 is now available. This blog carnival celebrates the best medical writing on the web and there are lots of interesting essays there to read, including a contribution from me.
As a New Yawkuh, I thought it was my duty to contribute to the new blog carnival, the Carnival of the Cockroaches. So it was at least one hundred years ago yesterday, when I sent my contribution to the Carnival of the Cockroaches, and I just learned that issue 6 has poked its little antennae-bedecked head out from under my kitchen sink.
stcynic | May 16, 2006Indian Cowboy left a comment on a thread below and I'm moving it up here so it doesn't get lost. It was in response to some of the conservative catchphrases that I and others came up with for the refrigerator magnet game. In particular, he seems to be responding to two catchphrases I pointed out, "judicial activism" and "smaller government". Unfortunately, I think he's missing my point and jumping to false conclusions about my political views. In short, he thinks I'm PZ; I beg to differ.
I'm not sure I should even bother, considering my lovely reception at PZ's blog a couple weeks ago, but…
stcynic | May 16, 2006Few have heard of tiny Patrick Henry College, but it has become quite prominent among the religious right. Despite its size, it seems to be a feeder system to a wide range of internships and jobs in DC, at the White House, on Capitol Hill and in thinktanks. Think of it as a politically connected Bob Jones University. But now it seems that they've got a bit of controversy going on within the faculty. 5 of the college's 16 professors have left, one fired and the other four quitting in protest.
The controversy began last fall after M. Todd Bates, a professor of rhetoric, delivered a lecture…
grrlscientist | May 16, 2006Take a close look around and tell me .. what's new?
Thanks to Jeff Hebert, who caught my attention by sending me a basic banner design that we reworked into the design that you see above (for those of you who are seeking computer graphics and especially for those of you who are, or soon will be, new to SB, and wish to have your own banner, Jeff's contact info is listed in my profile).
There might be a little tweaking of this new banner after I've had some time to look at it for awhile, and after I've read your comments, but this is mostly the way it will look for quite some time (although, it…
grrlscientist | May 15, 2006 Next week, I will publish my review of Pete Dunne's new book, Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion: A Comprehensive Resource for Identifying North American Birds (NYC: Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Because the good peeps at Houghton Mifflin accidentally sent an extra hardcover copy of this book to me (a $30 value), I decided to share my wealth: I will give this book to one of my readers.
How will I decide who to give this book to? I am going to have a contest, the "Nickname that Bird" contest.
Why did I choose this theme for a contest? Because throughout his book, Pete Dunne gives each…
grrlscientist | May 15, 2006The History Carnival, issue 31, is now available. This carnival has a strongly international flavor, and it is hosted by a Brit an Aussie, so it was very kind of him to include something from me, which is the first time anything I've written has appeared in this particular blog carnival.