Month: July 2009

I’m converted — now I’m a birther too.

Jason Thibeault12 Comments

That’s right. Unless we start seeing some birth certificates, are we just supposed to believe on faith that Jesus was born in Bethlehem? What, just because a birth announcement was put in the Bible, like, what, two thousand years ago or something? Pfft. We want evidence!

But where is Jesus’ birth certificate? Surely the Son of God should be able to produce a birth certificate, right? If all of humanities salvation depends on whether or not this guy lived, died, and then was born again, I think we need to see some evidence. Besides, if he really was born again, there should be two birth certificates, right?

Yeah! What bothers me is that more good Christians who are rightly upset about the lack of evidence for Obama’s nationality aren’t also questioning Christ’s birth credentials — what are we supposed to just take his word for it, now that he’s in the most powerful office of the Cosmos (being King of Kings and all)? Someone get Orly Taitz on the phone for me, now.

Update: I did however find his Drivers License. Those can be faked rather easily though. And the kerning’s all wrong.

I’m converted — now I’m a birther too.
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Bin Laden cozy with US Gov’t up until 9/11?

Jason Thibeault4 Comments

Uh, holy fucking shitballs. A diarist at Daily Kos just posted the following:

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript).

In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, “all the way until that day of September 11.”

These ‘intimate relations’ included using Bin Laden for ‘operations’ in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These ‘operations’ involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict,” that is, fighting ‘enemies’ via proxies.

If this is remotely true, and considering Sibel Edmonds has been repeatedly gag-ordered by the US government, then there’s a lot of shit they’re lying about.

I am by no stretch of the imagination a 9/11 Truth lunatic, however any evidence that the Bush administration remained cozy with Bin Laden despite the National Intelligence Estimate memo that Bush famously ignored, entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.“, is evidence that could land the fucktards in some hot water, finally. While they managed to escape office the usual way instead of being frogmarched, or extradited to the Hague for war crimes, a little justice would be nice after hundreds of thousands of needless deaths-for-profit.

Justice delayed is justice denied. So hurry the fuck up and uncover these shenanigans, guys!

Bin Laden cozy with US Gov’t up until 9/11?

A new addition to our zoo

Jason Thibeault

So Jodi and I were visiting Deep Space Station K7 the other day, when this strange man by the name of Cyrano Jones approached us and offered to sell as a pet, a small, fuzzy creature he’d picked up recently. Came with a free bag of feed — some stuff called quadrotriticale or something. It’s a grain, I guess. Don’t know how it eats the stuff though, I can’t seem to find a mouth on the thing. Oh well. It’s insufferably cute.

And it trills when you pet it, too.
And it trills when you pet it, too.

It’s already annoying the cats. I wonder how long until they start to fight with one another…

A new addition to our zoo

Research 2000’s stats on Birthers

Jason Thibeault13 Comments

DailyKos released their Research 2000 survey results regarding who, exactly, makes up the intellectual backwash that honestly believes Barack Obama is a furr’ner and in office illegally.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 7/27-30. All adults. MoE 2% (No trend lines)

Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?

Yes 77%
No 11%
Not sure 12%

Okay, so now that we have a sense as to the sentiment of the nation as a whole, how do those numbers break down?

Yes No Not sure
Dem 93 4 3
Rep 42 28 30
Ind 83 8 9
Northeast 93 4 3
South 47 23 30
Midwest 90 6 4
West 87 7 6

I am shocked — SHOCKED — by these results. To think that the deep south Republicans in the so-called Bible Belt are primarily the ones flogging this tired trope. I am likewise shocked to discover that the deep south, and that Republicans, are out of touch with the mainstream. You guys might want to look into doing something about these belief systems of yours — you know, the ones that lead to the constant stereotyping of your region and political affiliation.

Update: Here’s a pretty graph of “no” respondents by location and political affiliation.

Research 2000’s stats on Birthers

I am making a resolution to disengage.

Jason Thibeault, , 10 Comments

Brother Sam makes several excellent points on why people get into debates about religion, and has a good deal of insight about what I’ve been doing wrong in engaging Zdenny as of late. So, except for where his ridiculous arguments are directly and demonstrably hateful, I will disengage. No amount of evidence, logic, or rationality will ever penetrate his religious “armor” with which he has girded his mind, so it is not profitable, nor is it fun, to discuss these things with him. It actually makes me very sad that no matter how often I’ve tried, and no matter how well I’ve argued, fully zero has altered his arguments or debating tactics. I don’t intend to convert him, just to make him reflect on his beliefs and maybe reconsider some of his thoughts about non-Christians. You know, to show the “love” that he supposedly has, and stop trying to “save” (read: infect) others with his belief system.

Zdenny, if you think my disengaging with you means you win, then fine, I’m willing to let you think that. But remember: if you preach hateful ideas like that atheists are incapable of love, I will re-engage you on those points alone. If you desire discourse with me, as you so obviously do, I’ve given you the very roadmap on how to troll me — just continue to act like a hate-filled little man, and I’m right there in your face, I promise.

I hope you at least watch THIS video (despite your not watching many others that I’ve posted for your edification alone), and understand what you’re doing that makes you such a difficult person to have a decent conversation with.

I am making a resolution to disengage.

Are women evolving to be sexier? Or is there selection bias going on?

Jason Thibeault, , 3 Comments

A post over at Skepacabra’s reminded me of a TED Talks I’d watched a while back with Dan Dennett, wherein he explains why it is we find things sweet, cute, sexy or funny. There’s nothing intrinsic about those objects that makes them so — but we’re wired to think so, because otherwise how the hell would we be encouraged to eat certain things, take care of our babies, mate with others, or do menial tasks?

Video and more babbling below the fold.
Continue reading “Are women evolving to be sexier? Or is there selection bias going on?” →

Are women evolving to be sexier? Or is there selection bias going on?

I have an ambitious plan for Sunday

Jason Thibeault, 6 Comments

Big plans for this Sunday, all of which revolving around one particular computer. First, we go over to Sara’s mom’s house sometime in the morning. Sam, Sara’s sister, wants to upgrade their Dell Dimension 5150, and also to reinstall Windows to get rid of some long lingering issues. My plan is, first I’ll assess the computer situation, make a quick backup of everything on their desktop’s hard drive, then get caffeinated while this is happening. I’ll also check out the RAM specifications, and make sure that the computer’s capable of installing more, and figure out exactly what kind. Sam and Jodi will likely make a trip to Staples to obtain some replacement / upgrade RAM; I may or may not come with.

Then, the plan is to repartition the 230 gig drive. I plan on setting up XP on about 80 gigs, and porting over Sam’s documents and programs (as much as I can manage anyway — with particular focus on World of Warcraft). Then, I’ll be setting up a roughly 100 gig drive for all the Documents and Settings folders for the various users on the computer. This drive will be separate from her Windows drive for a very good reason — Windows needs to be reformatted very often in general, and it would be nice for her to not have to worry too much about losing documents in the future. Also, I will be setting up a Linux on another partition.

Yeah, that’s right. Ubuntu, of course. And this is at her own request, as Jodi did a brilliant job of proselytizing and sharing the Good News about open-source software, winning us another convertee who will no longer go to Blue Screen of Death when she dies. ONE OF US, ONE OF US.

Ahem.

So yeah, Linux. Separate home partition, will also set up WINE and try to get WoW working under it. Back when I played, I had to recompile WINE with a tiny bit of hacked code, to compensate for a minor bug where you couldn’t click on monsters and have the focus follow them. By minor, I mean pretty major. Luckily this is long since rectified, as it’s been about three years since I played WoW and WINE has since had its 1.0 release and subsequent bugfixes even after that.

As I understand, this new WINE even has good enough DirectX capabilities that you no longer have to set it to OpenGL mode, as I did back when I was hooked. Which is good, because OpenGL apparently can’t do the shadow effects in WoW presently. I’m guessing those effects just haven’t been coded for yet, as the same issue exists when running WoW on a Mac. Why they didn’t just code it for OpenGL first, I don’t know. Oh wait, I DO know, it’s because Microsoft makes their toolkit for Windows the de facto standard by making it the best one, and implementing only a very very old OpenGL standard. But I’m not bitter.

So yeah. Ambitious plans. Reformat, back everything up, reinstall Windows, partition, install Linux, and get WoW working on both sides. And all I ask in return is food and caffeine. It’ll be fun!

I have an ambitious plan for Sunday

Ricky Gervais on his atheism

Jason Thibeault2 Comments

First, from his stand-up routine Animals, he discusses the “alternative” to evolution that he found one day. “Oh, by the way, if a snake comes and talks to you, he’s a lying little shit…”

Later, in an interview, he asks a killer question: “if there IS a god, why did he make me an atheist? That was his first mistake. Well, the talking snake was his first mistake, but…”

Genius.

Ricky Gervais on his atheism

“Conversion is like cultural AIDS”

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 2 Comments

I’m going to post a video, and hope certain elements that have frequented this blog as of late will see their reflection in it. That is, if they watch it at all.

I don’t think the guy who said this (at about 24:45) had any idea as to the provenance of what he said, when he said it. The statement applies to all religions, not just Christianity. It applies to Hinduism, it applies to Judaism (Hasidic or otherwise), and it applies to Islam, all in equal measure. Sadly, it doesn’t apply to any kind of faith in the scientific method, as the scientific method produces nuanced, evidence-based results, and can change on the fly if the evidence makes it, as opposed to religion which digs in its heels every time something provable contradicts it.

Video and more ranting below the fold.
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“Conversion is like cultural AIDS”