1. It's no wonder evangelical atheists need to shout so loud

Comment #239212 by ttheobald on August 29, 2008 at 8:52 am

Hatred? There's that word again. Are these people so desperate for martyr syndrome that they have to imagine themselves hated?

For the record: I don't hate religion. Dislike, yes. Hate, no. That's a bit like saying I hate rocks. I *do* hate people who use religion to abuse and scam others, or use it as an excuse to hate other people and commit crimes in the name of their "god."

Of course, reading this article made me wonder what his PhD was in - was it "Strawman Construction?" He jumps from his misconception of current popular atheist authors directly into Karl Marx, attributing Marx's dippy attitude towards questioning directly to Dawkins et. al. How ham-handed was that?

Sorry, Barry, I don't hate you - but I do think you're a stupid fool.

T

2. Black holes 'dodge middle ground'

Comment #237369 by ttheobald on August 26, 2008 at 11:55 am

@ #14

"How can it escape further than whence it came? From where the extra energy?"

Using gravity to impart extra energy to a traveling body doesn't necessarily look like an equal trade, because you're exchanging angular momentum for linear momentum - you can set up the approach to gain more than you lose during the departure. You still lose and gain an equal amount of potential energy relative to the body being used as the accelerator, but the amount of actual kinetic energy transferred is different.

This can come in two forms, depending on your frame of reference. If you just want to use the body to impart extra energy relative to the body, you would use your own internal engine (rocket, ion, whatever) at the moment of greatest speed gain, so you'd reduce the amount of time the body can act to reclaim the kinetic energy it has imparted on you. By doing this, you maximize your "acceleration" and minimize your "deceleration."

The second form is the one relative to your question, which steals some of the angular momentum from the body's motion and adds it to your own vector. Let's say you have a globular cluster with a medium hole in the middle - it won't be perfectly in the middle, it'll be counter-rotating with the center of gravity of the cluster. Let's call that center of gravity X (which might, theoretically, exist inside the event horizon, in which case the hole would "wobble" instead of orbit).

Let's assume a perfect scenario: the middle hole orbiting at velocity Vx from left to right, you're stationed at X, and the little hole is approaching the middle hole on the ecliptic, coming almost head-on from right to left against the orbit of the middle hole at speed Z. If the middle hole is orbiting X with a velocity of Vx, then the little hole is moving relative to the middle one with a velocity of Vx plus Z.

The two holes brush past one another, close enough that the little one slingshots around the middle hole. Relative to the middle hole, the little one is still moving at Vx plus Z as it travels away (the same as when it approached). However, to you sitting at X, the little hole is now moving at 2Vx plus Z in the opposite direction as its original approach. The middle hole will lose angular momentum relative to X in the same quantity as the energy that was transferred to the little hole, making it travel a bit slower and bringing it closer to equilibrium with X. The little hole now has plenty of escape velocity, and shoots off into intergalactic never-never land.

Jupiter does the same thing to comets and asteroids in our solar system - that's why sometimes you hear about it being credited with why Earth hasn't been cleansed of life several times over since the whole thing began.

Hope this helps -

T

Edit: changed my opening paragraph to be clearer.

3. The Trolls Among Us

Comment #225153 by ttheobald on August 6, 2008 at 9:37 am

Interesting article, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to spend several days with a pathetic shitwipe that takes joy in making other people suffer. Just makes no sense to me.

T

4. Surgeon General Nominee Dismisses Homosexuality Paper

Comment #215815 by ttheobald on July 22, 2008 at 12:06 pm

At this point in time, we have no need to confirm the appointments of anyone. It has been amply demonstrated that Bush appointees are either brainless meat-heads or amoral ideologues - and we are better off with a vacant seat than to enable Bush to push his dipshit agenda for six more months.

Screw him, let him go without a Surgeon General for six months.

T

5. Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman's hat

Comment #203290 by ttheobald on July 2, 2008 at 3:14 pm

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to ritually smear dog crap on a Q'uran.

T

6. Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

Comment #196841 by ttheobald on June 20, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Silly scientists, those rocks didn't evaporate, God picked them up and took them away to confuse you!

T

7. Science teacher dissed evolution

Comment #196840 by ttheobald on June 20, 2008 at 1:27 pm

Aside from the whole issue of burning children, what I come back to is the imbecilic notion that "he's teaching parents' values."

#1 - he's not paid to teach values, he's paid to teach science. Science education is not subject to a democratic vote. Reality is reality, you don't get to "believe" about it.

#2 - back to the burning bit. Causing physical harm to the students such that it leaves scarring or marks, even temporarily, is a criminal offense. Parents who did this would potentially be arrested and might lose custody of their children over something like this - why is this fellow not in a jail cell dancing with the proverbial seven foot tall weight-lifter named "Chickles"?

T

8. Pastors Challenge Law, Endorse Candidates From Pulpit

Comment #196823 by ttheobald on June 20, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Hmmm...obviously the fellow is not a lawyer. He doesn't seem to realize that the tax code in question has no impact whatsoever on his 1st Amendment rights. It is a fair exchange practice: freedom from taxation in exchange for political neutrality. Sacrifice neutrality, sacrifice tax exemption. Oh well, preachers are preachers for a reason - they aren't good at reasoning.

I can't wait to see the IRS come down on him like a ton of bricks. That would indeed be natural selection in its fittest moment.

T

9. Hints of 'time before Big Bang'

Comment #189529 by ttheobald on June 6, 2008 at 12:22 pm

Whitepearl - I believe you're referring to the 11th-dimension "brane" (as in membrane) portion of string theory. The "branes", which are on universe scales, could collide/pass through one another, and the "friction" of such passage on their contact would generate the energy state that would appear to us as a "big bang."

Hope this helps -

T

10. Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile

Comment #176963 by ttheobald on May 8, 2008 at 11:55 am

This reminds me a ton of "The Six Cutest Animals That Can Still Destroy You" - Platypus got second mention ).

http://www.cracked.com/article_15853_6-cutest-animals-that-can-still-destroy-you.html

Enjoy!

T

11. Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?

Comment #176360 by ttheobald on May 7, 2008 at 7:52 am

Okay, let's pause a moment on the whole pedophilia thing and take a step back.

Do you all seriously believe this is confined to just boys, and do you seriously believe that this is confined to just the Catholic church? Granted, this organization is certainly the oldest, and as such habits such as these are going to be more firmly entrenched.

But this is about power, child-sex is just the most grotesque abuse of it. I'm quite certain that for centuries, the Church looked the other way while its priests would commit these crimes. After all, they view themselves as shepherds - and in addition to fleecing their flock, on occasion a lamb must be taken.

When a group of people vests power in an individual, they open the door for an abuse of trust - and in the case of priests/preachers, that power is one of the most absolute they can imagine. The preacher is, quite literally, the mouthpiece of their god. That this should attract sleazebags or corrupt otherwise well-meaning individuals should come as no surprise. The nexus of the public issue does find itself in Catholicism, of course, and it's likely more common there - the sexual repression of the priesthood has to find an outlet somewhere, and combining that with their congregation's granted power and the sense of entitlement as the shepherd results in a "perfect storm" of abuse.

What's the solution here? There isn't one in our lifetimes. Unless the Church actually *does* something instead of simply "expressing shame" at the events, the only solution to this is to put an end to the church. The only way to do that is with continued ridicule, and reminding Catholics that although Benedict was ashamed, he never actually did a damn thing to fix the problem. Since we're never going to get a law passed to boot them (although a law to tax them might help), I really see continued ridicule the only option.

T

12. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #176060 by ttheobald on May 6, 2008 at 1:13 pm

Hmm...

I was going to post a response to al-rawandi's misconception of my second post to this thread (in which he jumped the gun and attributed the quote of a previous poster and immediately launched into an attack of socialism and a triumphant victory march of capitalism), but then I read further.

Sorry, al-rawandi, but having read your posts to follow that, the constant straw-man drek combined with your obvious fundamentalist "free market" bent makes any attempt at rationality with you just pointless. It would be akin, as the saying goes, to "playing chess with pigeons."

Perhaps when you've studied a little more history and broken your faith a bit it'll be worth discussing economics with you, but watching your debating practices here - your tactics are just too juvenile. I see plenty of assertions, but no facts. It's as if you are vomiting up boilerplate from some free-market think-tank.

This saddens me.

T

13. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172908 by ttheobald on April 30, 2008 at 6:54 am

"Imagine no CAPITALISM."

When I do, I see a world where there is no incentive to excel whatsoever.

Capitalism is a very useful and effective system - but it cannot exist in its pure form. It must be regulated.

To suggest that it by itself is somehow bad is no better than those who reject socialism out of hand. The two don't work by themselves.

T

14. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172300 by ttheobald on April 29, 2008 at 12:56 pm

"Well, yes and no. According to Dawkins, Stalin was an atheist who did evil things, but there is no direct "logical pathway" from atheism to bad deeds, as there is with religious faith. I have to say I don't entirely understand Dawkins's thinking here -- how, after all, could the executions of religious figures not follow logically from the promotion of atheism?"

I tried to post just now, but seems it timed out.

The difference here is one of causality. That's the loop you're having a hard time with.

Stalin was an atheist, yes. However, that was not the cause of him being an evil bastard. He was the top of his society, and he would have no competitors - be they political, religious, whatever, anyone who could pose a threat to his maintaining his place in the seat of power was dealt with. "No man, no problem."

On the other hand, the fellow who straps dynamite to his belly and blows himself up with forty or fifty other people is doing so because he was promised 72 virgins in the afterlife - his religion coerced him into doing this. Same goes for the pope, who condemns millions in Africa to die of HIV because his religious dogma dictates that condoms and other birth control are bad.

That's the difference, right there - Stalin did what he does because he simply wanted power, not because of his religion or lack thereof.

T