This Is So Cool!

This is a map of American English dialects. (h/t to [redacted]) You can even click on various areas and hear the different pronunciations of common words. It's fascinating! Though the creator has clearly never visited Northeastern Pennsylvania. We've got our own thing going on that is completely different from other areas of Pennsylvania and the Northeast in general.

It's funny for me to experiment with this because I lived in so many different places growing up that I picked up bits and pieces of various dialects and ended up with a mishmosh accent. I say "werter" instead of "water" and "wursh" instead of "wash". I got that from Indiana. I do, in all seriousness, say "y'all", which is left over from three years in Texas. I refer to the coastal region of New Jersey as "downashore" from two years in Philadelphia. (The weather reporters will literally say, "The weather downashore this weekend will be . . ." It took me three months to realize that "downashore" is not the name of a town in New Jersey.)

Anyway, have fun!

We Need Republican Scientists, Stat!

Science, like reality, has a liberal bias.

Um, really? I think someone needs a lesson in correlation and causation.

A Pew Research Center Poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest "don't know" their affiliation.

I'm not surprised. I'm also not surprised that children who live in houses that contain books learn to read earlier and do better in school. This is not because books have magical powers, this is because the sorts of parents that have the time and money to devote to serious reading also have the time and money to devote to making sure their children do well in school.

My point is, books do not cause reading. Books correlate to reading. Being a Democrat does not make one a scientist or interested in science, but the qualities that inspire one to become a scientist are qualities shared by the party that understands that tax cuts to the rich don't actually help the rest of us. Oh, and they cost something, too!

Honestly, if you're part of the magical party that thinks that a $0.29 return on a $1 investment is a good deal, you probably don't care what science has to say about things. You'll be clinging to your ideology and fuck climate change.

What's the solution? Well, the author of this piece seems to think we need one, but I don't.

For example, survey data show that the scientific community enjoys the trust of 90 percent of Americans—more than for any other institution, including the Supreme Court and the military.

I'm shocked you can get 90% of Americans to agree on anything. Hell, I'd be willing to bet that only 66% of Americans agree the sky is blue. So, hey, the overwhelming majority of Americans trust scientists as they are, Democrat, Independent and undecided. Why change what's working?

It's All Ball Bearings These Days

Now hold still while I explain god to you . . .

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Atheist Battle Strategies Against Christians

Made ya look!

(if you haven't read this post at Pharyngula, it might make more sense that way.)

It appears that the Christians have found us out, fellow atheists. They have discovered the Atheist Battle Strategies Against Christians. First they found The Atheist Agenda and now the Atheist Battle Strategies Against Christians. I don't know who keeps carelessly leaving SuperSekret Atheist Materials(tm) out where Christians can find them, but when I find that person, you will be forced to listen to Christian Rock until you beg for mercy. And then we'll make you watch Fireproof.

Anyway, since the mailing list is a little out of date, and the Christians have the Strategies anyway, I thought I'd go ahead and share them with you.

1. Boobies. We all know the merest glimpse of the female form is sinful, so full on cleavage is our best weapon. (Does not cause earthquakes.)

2. Logic. It's truly unfair how we insist upon logical responses to questions. No True Scotsman? A stroke of genius! Circular Reasoning is the atheist's cruise missile.

3. Science. This one took some doing, but setting up a system that requires reproducible, verifiable, falsifiable results is a winning strategy if I ever saw one.

4. The Internet. All that information, just a click away. Genius, guys, genius.

5. Liberal Christians. We really can't take credit for these. Contrary to rumor, the Slacktivist is not an atheist operative. He's just a really nice guy on a mission to make the world a better place.

So, feel free to guerrilla up that bitch with some logic and science on the internet, comrades.

If Knowledge is the Problem . . .

I rarely see this said outright.

"You can educate yourself right out of a relationship with God."
It would make one wonder if you had a relationship with God to begin with.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste..a soul is worse.

How? How can you educate yourself out of a true relationship with the Creator? Really? How can truth and knowledge be a bad thing?

Look, suppose you're in love with someone and the more you learn about them, the less you like them. Does that mean the knowledge was the bad thing, or the relationship was the bad thing? Would you encourage someone to remain as ignorant as possible in that situation simply to preserve their relationship?

Of course you wouldn't. If knowledge of evolution, of physics, of radiometric dating, of history, of anything, destroys your faith, the problem isn't knowledge.

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Science Is Wasted on Some People

So, some sciency guy did some study and discovered that casual sex doesn't affect one's chances of a long term relationship. Not wanting to have a long term relationship does, but casual sex does not.

But what does science matter to the deeply religious, the patriarchy, the "god didn't make your arms that long so you could touch it!" crowd? Not at all, really. They know better. How? Shut up, that's how.

How many intelligent adults over age 50 would actually believe this? This clearly doesn't pass the common-sense test.

That is the entire comment on this. No studies, no argumentation, no attempts at logic, just common sense. And red italics. Red italics do not make one right.

Well, wait, maybe it does.

I am a millionaire.

Nope. Let's try it again.

Gabriel Mephibosheth is a giant tool.

Hmmm . . . maybe it does.

In the interests of science, I invite you to test this further.

And the Nobel Prize for Fail Goes to . . .

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This guy! Somehow, I ended up on a website devoted to fundamentalist Christian polygamy (not FLDS, evangelical. I think. Anyway, I didn't see anything about Smith having many wives.) where I happened upon a screed on patriarchal gender roles being based in genetics. I don't have any great understanding of genetics, but you don't have to in order to see the fail here.

Adam was made for GOD's own pleasure.

and now I'm thinking of yhwh as some sort of ethereal pervert.

I would not pervert the scripture but I implore the reader to consider that Eve was taken out of Adam and that in the beginning, the Adam contained the genetic material for both the Adam and the Eve. Adam was certainly a different sort of creature at that time, having within his body, the material for both the male and for the female that was necessary to initiate procreation: (Y, X, X, X).

Um, men always have . . . well, let me put it this way, a) men make both X and Y sperm. So every man can produce both male and female children, but not (b) without an egg to combine with and a woman to incubate the resulting fetus. interestingly, while men cannot reproduce without women, women can theoretically reproduce without men, Parthenogenesis, though I don't know that that's ever been proven to have happened in humans.

Now GOD saw fit from the beginning to separate the flesh from the flesh to make ADAM (Y, X) and EVE (X, X). Notice then that concerning the flesh, The Man has a measure of that substance in his being that GENETICALLY is rendered FEMALE. In this respect it can be said that a Man most certaily has a "female side" or quality about him.

I think what he's saying here is that men, because the sex chromosome set contains both an X and a Y, it is half female, which means that our erudite fundy has never seen what the rest of our chromosomes look like. Look at the picture above: all the chromosomes, except for the Y, are in the shape, more or less, of an X. Therefore, men have 23 female chromosomes and one male chromosome? that seems to be what he's saying. it's ridiculous, but it's what he's saying.

This is further verified by the fact that men have nipples. Do men suckle their young?

See, men and women are 99.7% the same. (depending upon how you're measuring things.) that's going to account for a lot of similar structures, including nipples. and, men can lactate. Male lactation generally doesn't happen on its own, but yes, men can suckle their young. or breastfeed.

Eve, on the other hand, has a double measure of the FEMALE chromosome, the X.

actually, as proven above, she has 1/23 more female than men, if my female you mean X, which I think you do. So, even using crazy fundy's logic, women are only 4% more female than men.

She does not have a "male" side. She is completely unable to "get in touch with her male side" except she joins to a man. Potentially, men have a better chance of knowing what it means to be FEMALE than a woman is capable of knowing what it means to be MALE.

okay, in the sense that it's hard for me to imagine what being a man must feel like in our misogynistic, patriarchal rape culture, men are not a different species. most of being a man is like most of being women, because we're all being human. he seems to think i'd have an easier time relating to an aboriginal woman in Brazil, living as her ancestors have for thousands of years, then relating to an American male of my socioeconomic group. That's total bullshit.

Now this scientific truth is continually being swept under the rug by EVOLUTIONISTS and SECULAR HUMANISTS because it totally dispells the religion of their perverse theories and casts down all the idols and icons of their IDEOLOGY.

yes, you caught us. it's the agenda. the perverse idols of the [insert minority group here] agenda. it's not, you know, science. or reality.

How dare a man say he understands what it means to be FEMALE!!!

dude, I am female and I'm not that pissed off about it. for the most part, men do know what it's like to be female because they are human and we are, too. now, if you want to know some of the finer details of being female in a particular culture, you'll need to talk to some females of that culture, but we're not some alien life form.

But the record remains written in the cell of every human being. A man definately has the capacity to understand a measure of this human condition, whereas the woman has no capacity in her flesh for understanding what it means to be male.

Oh, I see, the human condition is the male condition which women cannot understand. because we're not human.

This was GOD's own grande design.

grande? as in large?

Many scientists as a result have turned to CREATIONISM for answers because of these findings.

really? name them. Ken Hamm is not a scientist and neither is Ben Stein.

They are scoffed at and mocked by their peers but the record and the account found in the DNA of all animals continues to support these findings.

No, it doesn't.

But Mr. Fundy is all about the understanding, you see.

Wherefore, as MEN, we must be forgiving of WOMEN in their inability to understand us. They do NOT have a "male" side. GOD has given us men a measure of ability and some capacity to understand women, but it does not work the other way.

we're stupid like that. like dogs, only less furry.

Fortunately, both genders have a measure of "common ground".

99.7% common ground. It's a lot of common ground.

That said, a man will never understand what in means to be fully female in the flesh. He can only imagine. He cannot know. Men can appreciate beauty, flowers, butterflies, pretty things without being effiminate. That is also why men can appreciate women; but how can a woman appreciate that which makes him a man except she join with him in the flesh?

so, men can enjoy pretty things, but women can't understand . . . stuff?

That spirit has managed to corrupt and to pervert the flesh. Today, even our genetics are breaking down. In Man's knowledge of biology and zoology he has scrambled to preserve his DNA but it is a losing battle. Fortunately, GOD has shortened the days that would have led to Man's complete demise; but already we see in nature the result of this genetic breakdown not only in humans, but in all living things that have breath. The old 'carbon copies' are wearing out... The code is not replicating properly anymore... There are blanks and gaps in the genome... Mutations are also becoming increasingly common and genetic anamolies are on the increase. The corruption of our genetics began in the garden and as a result all creation is compromised.

None of that is happening. our DNA is not breaking down, nor is the DNA of anything else breaking down. it's like he watched the X-Men movie and confused it with the Bible and science. only, you know, without Hugh Jackman in tight, black pleather. totally missed the point of the movie, dude.

Love Is Hate. War is Peace. Knowledge is Ignorance.

I don't know if George Orwell spoke to any fundys prior to writing 1984, or if fundys use 1984 as some sort of manual, but they do have the whole Newspeak thing down.

God is love and says homosexuals should die.

The Prince of Peace wants us to go to war with Islam.

The knowledge being sought at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is only ignorance in the end. The scientists at the LHC are closer to discovering the Higgs boson aka "the God Particle". This is big news. Really big, cool, awesome science news. So what's the fundy response? Predictable, for one thing.

"Professing to be wise, they became fools," (Romans 1:22)

Um, okay. I'm not sure the researchers at LHC professed to be wise, but whatever. As soon as your little book contains an explanation of mass, scientists at LHC can stop looking for that explanation. Oh, wut, your book doesn't contain an explanation other than goddidit? Okay, then, carry on, LHC researchers.

I tend to agree with Shonsu. It is a bit foolish of them.

There's nothing inherently wrong with exploring the mystery of creation, but to assume we can understand it is arrogance in the extreme. Those scientists that tout the big bang theory should realize that something on that magnitude is beyond our comprehension right now. The truth is even harder to understand because God created all things and only He knows how that worked.

Assuming that these scientists actually did discover this particle, what would they do with it? Man is sinful by nature, and ten-fold in those like the majority of scientists who don't know God. I think at best, it would make man even more arrogant in his self-proclaimed intelligence. At worst, it's an invitation to play God even more than humanity already does.

Some knowledge is not meant for man. We simply cannot handle it responsibly. The Garden is the first of many examples.

So, you won't understand it anyway, and you'll probably just make a bomb with it. Which is like refusing to teach your child to read because it's not like she can understand everything ever read, and she'll probably just write bad fanfic eventually anyway. So, the next time you take antibiotics, remember that you shouldn't, because the same theories that led to antibiotics led to biological warfare and that's bad, so all such science is bad.

DOOMED! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!

They're trying to imply that there is a particle responsible for creation rather than a Creator. It's a form of replacement theology, in this case replacing God with the Higgs Boson.

That's right. We shouldn't follow any line of scientific inquiry that disagrees with the Bible, no matter how factual it is. In which case we shouldn't have listened to Galileo, because the Bible is pretty darn clear about where the sun falls in relation to the earth. Rearrange your kid's solar system projects, everybody!

When Babel tried to "make a name for itself" God conceded that little would be restrained from them (unified language, etc). So he made sure their tower project backfired. They weren't trying to reach God to find out what He wanted. They wanted to enlist God in their own endeavors. Or maybe just be Gods themselves.

If the "particle" scientists are only looking for a way to explain God away by confirming the Big Bang Theory, then they are just getting their "Babel-On" (sorry).

Christian scientists like Leeuwenhook, the father of microbiology, claerly stated that everything he discovered was just further proof of the wonder of God's creation. I'm glad he found the germs -eventually surgeons decided to wash their hands before opening their patients.

It's a matter of motive.

That's, um, interesting. You can only explore the universe around you if your motives are properly christian. Yeah. Otherwise god will Babelize you. Which kinda makes you wonder why god didn't Babelize anyone working on the atomic bomb. Or weaponized anthrax. Or gunpowder. Prince of Peace, indeed.

The important thing to remember is, if science disagrees with the Bible, than our understanding is wrong, not God.

So, bats are birds and insects have four legs? Good to know.

And for the ultimate in doublethink, narcissism and Do You Not See the Irony Here?, I leave you with:

that is what they are trying to do, is "prove" there is no God. They just do not want most to realize that these scientists went in with a preconceived notion that they are going to show/prove to us ignorant "religious" idiots that God does not exist.

Their evidence would already be tainted with their conclusions that they base on their own superstitious belief that science is the "be all, end all" of knowledge.

They approach their science with false logic. Their logic is, "that once they show this and that are true, it excludes a God is at the heart of it".

I guess what I am trying to say is that these scientists have already tainted their search with a preconceived notion. They are trying to make the evidence fit their belief in their religion, science.

The place where you see real innovation, real research, is those that approach science with an open mind to just simply finding the truth for whatever they do.

Honest searching demands honest intent.

And Jesus Said Unto Them: I Got Me an iPad, so STFU

Ray Comfort, who swears he's not running Living Waters for the money, had this to say today about science:

I am for progress in scientific education. I text, tweet, and blog. I have an iPod, and iPad, and an iPhone*. I live on the Internet, have a cool and very fast laptop, and love HD and 3D TV. Our TV program uses the latest technology and graphics, and I am always excited whenever something new comes out in the field of genuine science.

Ignoring that apparently the only "genuine" science out there is being done by Apple, does this look like the sort of list that should be compiled by a man who claims to speak for this guy:

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Maybe iPhones do not fall under the heading of "possessions"? Hypocrisy, thy name is Ray Comfort.

*Why would anyone need an iPhone and an iPod? The iPhone is an iPod with phone service.

There's a Reason You're Not Getting Laid

I would hope by now you have heard about the study that showed that children of two lesbian parents do better* than even the children of two hetero parents. There's been a lot said about the study on both sides, but what I'm interested in is complete misogynistic asshat's people's reactions to this study. They are both enraging and amusing and not entirely unexpected.

Having two moms has to help with the nurturing

OTOH, having two moms might make you way more neurotic. I call that even.

Da wimminz iz teh crazee! Ah yes, only women are capable of nurturing a child, but watch out! women are also inherently crazy, and will pass that crazy onto their children unless there is a strong (cold) male presence to prevent it!

it's hard to see how being raised by two people neither or whom likes males

could do much for the confidence of male children (although many, if not most, male children of heterosexual couples might be in more or less the same position).

Lezzeez hate teh menz! Look, that's just ridiculous. There are any number of people I like and don't want to fuck, including my niece, my niceboss and my dog. You can't conflate sexual desire with fond feelings, other wise I'm going to assume that you really want to lay one on your grandma.

Lesbians, as a rule, don't "not like" males. They just don't like f@cking them. Not the same!

Thank you. and the reply:

Actually it is, if you are male, or it might as well be.

well, if you view women as nothing more than walking vaginas, cruelly not fulfilling your constant desire to stick your dick somewhere, sure, I bet there are lots of lesbians in your world. like 90% of the female population. here's a clue, buddy: even if I all want is a quick fuck, I don't want it from someone who hates women. lesbians are not your problem.

to even ask this question

is intensely cruel, anti-father and anti-male.

it is like asking: Do we NEED mothers? Guess WHAT! Kids are better off without MOMS!

but what do you care about being decent to men? you're a feminist.

To even ask what happens to real people existing in the real world is intensely cruel? well then, i suppose even thinking of doing studies on healthy people is intensely cruel to the disabled. asshat.

since, to a woman, everything about a man affects her desire for a man

by DEFINITION a lesbian hates men.

no, by definition, everything about a woman affects a lesbian's desires for other women. duh. i guess it sucks to have your oh-so-important penis rendered irrelevant.

if what this is supposed to imply is true

men are actively bad for a child.
Down with fathers!

yeesh. calm down, asshat, we're not bringing out the firing squads yet.

it is reports like this

that make me believe I need to side with the right and to fight the left.

any political persuasion that wants to eradicate one half of the human race is by definition evil.

dude, i'm a lefty and i like to fuck men. oh, yes, i do. *pauses for x-rated reverie* look, i'm sorry reality has a liberal bias, but "lesbians do a good job raising children" is not the same as "death to the penised ones!"

you want to diminish the vital role of men in childrens' lives. I do not know how I can make this clearer.

this sort of anti-male propaganda can no longer stand, not if you expect to hold any morally superior position. Children need biologically MALE fathers in their lives. Otherwise this is tantamount to CHILD ABUSE.

Do not tell me otherwise. To try to legitimize perversions such as this only makes the situation more untenable.

I particularly feel bad about the male children and how brainwashed they will be with so many witches around them. I speak from firsthand experience having grown up in a similar situation and being emotionally scarred for life as a result.

I see the same with some kids today and I wince when I see it.

therapy: you needs it

As a man with a functioning penis and potent sperm

I can honestly say that I don't feel threatened by the study indicating that the children of lesbian mothers are more well behaved than the children of straight couples.

I know there are a lot of women who want my penis and my sperm.

And I know in the future women will want my son's penis and sperm, assuming they are as good as his dad's.

What I do find threatening is the actions of conservatives to try to limit the freedoms and rights of homosexuals.

If lesbians want to raise children, then why should we do anything other than help them out?

I want this man to have his user name tattooed onto his forehead so i can run the other way if i see him.

men may not be eliminated in a physical sense

but the question is, if women can have kids and raise them without men, are they willing to deal with men who aren't either so totally compliant or so abnormally attractive that most men will be, socially, in effect, non existent.

again, the lesbians aren't your problem. if every woman who meets you tries to stab you with a fork, the problem is you.

How does the overwhelming percentage of people in prison that come from families with no father figure in the home affect this obviously biased theory?

On the small scale study in my family my two kids (boy and girl twins by the way) are far and away more mentally healthy than my lesbian sisters daughter. So I say in my experience straight couples have a two to one advantage.

correlation =/= causation fail. a) two families does not a trend make. b) a single parent home is not the same as a two parent home, no matter who the parents are. c) "i hate gays and i think my gay sister's kid is fucked up" is not actually a scientific study.

*It's been suggested that (a) these were planned pregnancies, (b) there were no unplanned siblings, and (c) any lesbian getting artificially inseminated 25 years ago would have been educated, well off and quite strong, all of which, when combined with the fact that other studies show that homosexuals aren't any worse parents than heterosexuals, would explain the results. I tend to agree with this interpretation.