51. Louisiana's latest creationism bill moves to House floor

Comment #185978 by Edouard Pernod on May 29, 2008 at 9:40 am

Correction: I mistakenly referred to chemical evolution in my previous post as "chemical evolution theory" when it is actually the "chemical evolution hypothesis", not a theory, but it still has far more evidence to support it than the zero evidence there is to support the ID hypothesis. There is still a bit of work to be done on this front to make chemical evolution a theory, but it looks very promising as an explanation as to how organic "life" formed from organic compounds, specifically from RNA, and accurately dubbed the RNA world hypothesis. Pretty much what needs to be done to make it a theory is to demonstrate how an RNA Ribozyme could have naturally occurred in pre-biotic conditions, which would have allowed RNA to copy itself (being self-copying = life), and that ribonucleases (enzymes that break down RNA) were not prevalent, or that there was some mechanism that prevented ribonucleases from breaking down RNA before ribozymes could catalyze self-copying reactions.

It's sad that I know more about this than Jindal, who was a bio major. What a dumbass. I was a literature/audio engineering major and all I do is study biology as a hobby.

52. Louisiana's latest creationism bill moves to House floor

Comment #185938 by Edouard Pernod on May 29, 2008 at 6:59 am

Jindal [nodding]: "Sure, and let's talk about intelligent design. I'm a biology major. That's my degree. The reality is there are a lot of things that we don't understand. There's no theory in science that could explain how, contrary to the laws of entropy, you could create order out of chaos. There's no scientific theory that explains how you can create organic life out of inorganic matter. I think we owe it to our children to teach them the best possible modern scientific facts and theories. Teach them what different theories are out there for the things that aren't answerable by science, that aren't answered by science. "

Holy shit, this guy is a fool and knows nothing about biology, which is patently obvious since he doesn't have a career in his major but is instead a politician.

Firstly, the dumbass doesn't understand entropy at all. Entropy doesn't say natural complexity is impossible, and it doesn't say it's impossible to create complexity from less complex things, it says that within a CLOSED SYSTEM, things tend towards disorder. Evolution did not happen within a closed system.

Then the dumbass says "There's no scientific theory that explains how you can create organic life out of inorganic matter". He couldn't be more wrong, and doesn't even understand what he's talking about. I suspect he's lying about his biology degree, since the man knows nothing about chemistry or the theory of chemical evolution. "Inorganic matter" is solid state chemistry, the study of chemistry relating to non-carbon containing molecules. Nobody EVER has claimed "organic life came from inorganic matter". Organic matter is carbon containing matter, and it has been demonstrated in a lab by multiple scientists how carbon based compounds combined with early-earth conditions could have eventually lead to the formation of organic life. What a dumbass.

He's right though that we do owe it to our children to teach them the best possible science, and the best possible science is the theory of evolution and the theory of chemical evolution. We do not owe it to our children to teach them phony science that isn't even a "theory" by any definition of the term.

What a dumbass.

53. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185930 by Edouard Pernod on May 29, 2008 at 6:38 am

Oh, I see, you're a Libertarian, and you think taxes are the only thing that stands between people and pursuit of their dreams.
Having spent some time in those "welfare states" and having friends who live there, I have been hard pressed to find anyone who felt like they weren't free or would really have their dreams by now if it weren't for that damn meddling government.

I genuinely appreciate the freedoms that I do have here, but I also recognize that cultural attitudes hugely influence how free a given location is. I also realize that freedom is a lot more than just keeping all the money you earn. Ask my friend who happened to have an ovarian cyst rupture just before she became eligible for health care at here job. She had to file for bankruptcy. Had she been in one of those evil scary bad big brother Scandinavian welfare states that have a higher standard of living than America, her credit wouldn't have been ruined and she wouldn't have been forced to choose between health or fiscal stability. But I guess she's more free here because the government doesn't spy on her as much or tax her as much. I guess I'm more free here than other places because I can own a gun too.

I certainly appreciate all the free speech I have here, it's in fact I think the best thing about America, and that one aspect of America is superior to most other nations, but there's a lot more to freedom than what's written in the constitution. It's of utmost importance to have those freedoms put into law, but when a company can pollute your air or water and get away with it, and you can literally die because you can't afford to see a doctor, then I wouldn't call that "freedom".

54. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185856 by Edouard Pernod on May 28, 2008 at 9:02 pm

I've been to Asbury Park. If hell were real, that would be its entry gate. Couldn't even get decent Fried Clams there. Coming from there would give one a tremendous amount of things to write about. I'm not knocking The Boss at all, I think he's a brilliant lyricist, and what he wrote was clearly a product of what he saw. I'm a fan and where he grew up made him a very wise man who never lost sight of his origins and his connections with regular people.

What I don't get is all this hypersensitivity over "knocking" a state or the country or a portion of the people who live there. Why should any of those things be immune from criticism or ridicule, especially if they are dragging us in an anti-progressive direction? Does anybody here really want Elizabeth New Jersey to smell like burning Acetone? Does anybody here really want Jersey to be flush with suburban housewives driving huge SUVs (the same can be said for many states, so don't throw a conniption fit over me singling out Jersey). Does anybody here really want public schools in Texas to preach abstinence? Does anybody here really want Texas to elect any more Tom Delays, GW Bushes or other corrupt anti-science Bible thumpers? Of course not, so nobody should get all self-righteous and take umbrage over me or anyone else poking people from those locales in the ribs when they actively consent or passively assent to such crap.

To get all uptight about dissing a place is no more intelligent than the Nationalist "patriots" who want to punish people for burning a flag. Reason is a hell of a lot more useful to everyone than Nationalism, and Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine (you know, the guys who birthed our nation and our constitution) would agree. You guys can be proud because of the lines somebody redrew on a map over what was originally Native American land, or because of a piece of paper that says we have freedoms even though it originally only gave white men those freedoms, but the fact that countries which don't have our constitution are in many ways more free than we are should give you pause. Do you think a gay couple has it easier in Dallas or in Malmo Sweden? Do you think a stem-cell researcher has an easier time getting their work supported in Louisville Kentucy or in Geneva, Switzerland? Do you think an Atheist faces more discrimination in Chattanooga, TN or in Frankfurt, Germany? Do you think a single mom who doesn't go to church is judged more harshly in Laramie, Wyoming or Marseilles, France? Do you think a black man dating a white woman has an easier time in Montgomery, Alabama or Toronto, Canada? Do you think someone who has cancer and wants to smoke pot so they can crave food in spite of the nausea brought on by chemotherapy has an easier time in the Netherlands or here? Just how free are we, exactly?

The Constitution is awesome, I particularly love the Church/State separation bit, which was a brilliant foresight, but there's a lot more to freedom and how to enable it than what was written on that piece of paper a few hundred years ago by people who were the products of a far more conservative era. Sorry America, but you're not the embodiment of pure freedom just because your constitution was progressive for its time. Progress is a cultural phenomena, and legal documents are usually the last to catch up with that progress.

55. Louisiana's latest creationism bill moves to House floor

Comment #185796 by Edouard Pernod on May 28, 2008 at 2:57 pm

I think ID should be taught in schools and exposed as the inept fraud it is by professors who know better. It's a fantastic example of how NOT to conduct research and experiments, and fits exactly the practice of "cherry picking", the practice which would lead any peer-review board not affiliated with the Discovery Institute to reject the supposed science as biased quackery.

Let's use this to our advantage. Let's write to science teachers in Louisiana opposed to this bill and point out that if the bill passes they can just use these silly ID materials as a way to teach students how to NOT do science.

56. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185771 by Edouard Pernod on May 28, 2008 at 1:27 pm

Didn't realize you were from Jersey, Falcon, you spoke as if you were taking personal offense on behalf of all of Texas, especially with you calling me an "ignorant bigot" over a joke. Usually personal attacks are dealt out because someone took personal offense.

Having lived in Bayonne, Jersey City, Montvale and Hoboken, I can say I have a pretty negative view of the North-Eastern part of the state (Texas is way more aesthetically pleasing than Eastern Jersey, probably less SUVs and pollution too!), but western Jersey is really pretty and I've been to some great farms out there.

BTW, who gives a shit where someone is from on a map? I think it's better to have pride in personal accomplishments, as opposed to some random location you were born in and had no say over. You like Jersey? Great, fucking congratulations, let's give you a trophy. I like NYC. Let's give me a trophy too.

I think it's better to focus on problems within certain locations in the US wherever they are, and dispense with all this taking offense because of the borders in which one was born or because you think it's ignorant and bigoted to make joking generalizations about a certain region of the country.

57. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185665 by Edouard Pernod on May 28, 2008 at 9:30 am

It is plainly apparent that regardless of the nice things I said about Austin and the praise I laid on Howard Hughes' legacy, you're just going to keep right on assuming I'm an ignorant bigot, all because I made a joking generalization about Texas. When I said "All" it was within the context of a joke, and as incomprehensible as that may be to you, I don't really believe what I said in the joke is "ALL" that Texas has ever done. I was intentionally exaggerating to make a point, the point being that Texas does have a record of electing theocratic legislators, does have a record of lousy race relations, does have a record of being hostile towards evolution, and does have a record of trying to shove religious ideals into public schools... but that point is obviously completely lost on you.

Perhaps your hypersensitivity to criticism of your home state is preventing you from acknowledging that I don't actually think that everyone in Texas is exactly the same. You're clearly more interested in lines on a map that tell you the location of your precious state that nobody is allowed to say bad things about, than you are interested in the difference between a joke and what I actually believe, so let's just leave it at that, cowboy.

58. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185592 by Edouard Pernod on May 28, 2008 at 6:47 am

OH noooo. Now that I messed with Texas Mr. Falcon has rightly put me in my place as the clearly ignorant bigot that I am. All that volunteer work I have done at inner-city public schools in Brooklyn was for nought, and all that work I have done for progressive organizations who preach tolerance was also for nought, as I am in fact an "ignorant bigot". Thanks for showing me the light Mr. Falcon. Apparently most people in Texas are not belligerent Christians, nor do they have racists tendencies, and most of them welcome immigrants with open arms, and Texas does not execute more people than anywhere else in America, and most of the politicians their populace elects are in fact really progressive. Who knew? I can tell you who knew. It's Mr. Bad Ass Fighting Falcon, Defender of Texas.

Note to everyone here:
No jokes about Texas are allowed, and any observations about Texas's tendencies to elect right wing theocrats, and any observations about the racist tendencies of some of Texas's population mean it is in fact YOU who are the ignorant bigot.

The best way to combat the ignorant attitudes prevalent in the South is in fact to take umbrage at all jokes about the South as Mr. Falcon has done. This should be a lesson to all you elitist arrogant Atheists: Don't Mess With Texas.

59. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185405 by Edouard Pernod on May 27, 2008 at 6:21 pm

Jack, your pictures represent the reality of most of the South. Along the highway in TN and Texas and Georgia and Arkansas and Mississippi and Alabama and Kentucky and South Carolina are planted enormous crosses for all to see, many are lit with spotlights so you can see them at night too. Yes, it's all part of free speech, and I will defend free speech regardless of who is making the speech, but that continuous barrage of Christian imagery everywhere you look and its infiltration of the public schools indicates that the South tends to be belligerent with their faith. What happens when one side monopolizes most of the speech? The other side and their ideas become marginalized. Do we want to be marginalized? Is that the way forward?

Most of us here agree that Christianity is a product of ignorance, so this parading about of symbols of ignorance is cause for concern, and the relentless attempts to saturate the public schools with fundamentalist administrators and Christian ideologies are also cause for concern.

60. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185371 by Edouard Pernod on May 27, 2008 at 4:21 pm

Mintcheerios, you make some good points about positive contributions from Texas. Howard Hughes was from Texas, and while he was an insane megalomaniac, he also left a fantastic legacy that will probably benefit all of us: The Howard Hughes Medial Institute.

I do not think (nor do I believe anyone else here really thinks) that Texas has been nothing but bad for us. But those from Texas who are bad for us have contributed more than I think any of us would like to the "let's legislate Christian morality/theology" campaign that is still quite popular in the US.

The same is true not just for Texas, but for my state of origin, Tennessee, and many other Southern states that have a majority of people who are anti-progressive and devoutly Christian, and who are behind the rest of the country in terms of promoting the teaching of accurate science in public schools. This is not me being "bigoted" as Fighting Falcon would like to misconstrue, but rather a problem in the South that needs to be rectified. Just as France has many many xenophobes who discriminate against Moroccans, so Texas and a lot of the south have many many Christians who continue to try and flood public schools with religious ideology, whether it is abstinence nonsense or refusal to teach evolution or whatever. This is not bigotry or gross-generalization, it is reality.

The Northeast of course (where I live now) has its own set of problems, but in public schools promotion of religious doctrines is strongly discouraged and can cost teachers and administrators their jobs. In my biology class in a public high school in Tennessee, the teacher refused to teach evolution because "we know man didn't come from no monkey", in his exact words. If a teacher were to do that up here, they'd be fired, or at bare minimum reprimanded and put on administrative leave. There is a cultural difference in the south that allows that kind of stuff to happen that would not be tolerated in much of the rest of the country. I think the best way to fight it is of course to aggressively promote church/state separation and for more thorough oversight of classroom tendencies of science teachers and administrators, but that isn't going to get accomplished if those from the South shrug off the sort of thing featured in this article as no big deal and no real threat to anything.

Think about the anti-science attitude the administration has held over the last 7 years and ask yourself if that has held back our country in any way. Isn't the same retardation possible given the attitudes in Texas and the rest of the south, and shouldn't we criticize that as much as possible? I don't think taking offense because I'm making fun of Texas for some serious problems there is going to help anybody. I think it's worthwhile to find out more about the situation and if it is as bad as it sounds, then it's worthwhile to make sure McElroy and his cronies know they're going to face a lot of opposition and that people don't want their theocracy, which is what it seems Fighting Falcon is taking steps towards doing.

61. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185348 by Edouard Pernod on May 27, 2008 at 3:04 pm

Fighting Falcon sez: "Xenophobia and racism is bad but so is bigoted ignorance. Go live in TX and then feel free to spout your ignorant views. "

Mr. Falcon, if you genuinely think I'm serious that we should give Texas back to Mexico, then you are a moron. I made what is called a joke. I have spent some time in Texas, in Dallas, in Houston, in Austin, and I thought most people I met seemed to have an attitude that placed a much higher value on chutzpa than on education. Texas is not alone in that attitude, plenty of America has that attitude. What I also learned is that most people that live in Texas can't take a fucking joke about Texas. The same goes for Tennessee, and I was born and raised in Tennessee.

That being said, I thought Austin was a very cool town, and seemed to be a genuine open-minded refuge from the gay-hating racist xenophobic ignorant attitudes popular in the rest of the state. While of course I am making some generalizations, based on both my experience and the experience of friends and co-workers who are from there or who have lived there at some point, it is no more of a horribly inaccurate generalization than it is to say that plastic surgery is very popular in Hollywood. I haven't conducted any peer-reviewed study on the matter, but since I was making a fucking joke about Texas, I didn't feel the need to.

If you have any workable solutions for changing Texas from the consistently right-wing immigrant bashing evolution hating execution-loving bad-president producing state that it is, let's hear it. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to rightfully criticize them and the rest of the south for the majority of them that push their ignorance on others.

62. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #185012 by Edouard Pernod on May 26, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Because I am never going to run for public office, I can say this without getting into too much trouble:

Give Texas back to Mexico. It belonged to them in the first place, and all Texas has done since we stole it was to give America (and the world) multiple shitty Presidents, and racist xenophobic rednecks who hate Mexicans but go on and on about how much they love Mexican food, and are so dumb they think people from Puerto Rico are immigrants.

My brother-in-law's girlfriend is from Dallas. She keeps telling us how she has friends who are skinheads, and they're not actually racist, they just fight for rights for white people, and all the KKK really stood for was "state's rights". Education took a back seat to willful ignorance and idiocy in Texas a long time ago. Please Mexico, please take Texas back, pretty pretty please?

63. Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear

Comment #180038 by Edouard Pernod on May 14, 2008 at 6:14 am

It is argumentatively worthless to say Einstein is on either side, unless one is intending to make a fallacious argument by association, saying that because Einstein either was religious or not, then you are right and the people you are arguing with are wrong. It's silly to invoke his opinion on the matter when there is already a stupefying amount of evidence indicating that the God of religious mythology is a fantasy. All this letter does is confirm what we already knew: Einstein was indeed an iconoclast and a man who didn't compartmentalize his mind in order to keep cherished preconceptions safe from evidence.

64. Trouble ahead for science

Comment #176925 by Edouard Pernod on May 8, 2008 at 10:52 am

I don't care what Ken Miller believes personally. Nobody's perfect. He has done more to expose ID as the total fraud it is than anyone else on the planet. He was the chief witness at the Dover trial and made Behe and the "Discovery" institute look like ignorant hacks, and he helped bring to light the Chromosomal smoking gun proving apes and humans share a common ancestor.

Most of my family are staunchly anti-evolution, but I recently referred my uncle to Ken Miller's work, and while it may not have changed his mind, it certainly has caused him to shut up about how great ID is and how evolution is wrong. Of course that was before Ben Stein's lying piece of crap movie came out, which I'm sure he has seen. Conversations over Thanksgiving dinner this year are not going to be fun...

65. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #164722 by Edouard Pernod on April 20, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Does it strike anyone else as slightly ironic that the song they used without permission encourages people to "Imagine a world without heaven" and to "Imagine no religion"?

As if expelling PZ from the Expelled screening wasn't already the pinnacle of stupidity, they have also risked losing a tremendous amount of money by insisting on stealing a song which says the world would be a better place without the ideologies these jackasses hold dear. I'm surprised these people know how to tie their own shoelaces.

66. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #164378 by Edouard Pernod on April 20, 2008 at 6:49 am

It doesn't matter what we think is the correct "strategy" in this instance. Our work has already been done for us by he boneheads who made this puny and insignificant film. It doesn't matter if they feel persecuted or not. These foolish people feel persecuted anytime anyone disagrees with them.

I hope Yoko sues them for everything they are worth, and I hope Dawkins, Schermer, PZ Meyers and The Killers sue them for misrepresentation too (that would be well within their legal rights and there is legal precedent for it). Then the sole purpose of their bungled and unethical movie will be to serve as
a warning sign to others, and that trying to shove Creationist propaganda onto the big screen is destined for failure (except of course for The Passion, which was successful but only because Mel Gibson didn't out himself as a Nazi until after the film's release).

These nutters are their own worst enemy. We shouldn't underestimate them, but they do help us out by ignoring the law and behaving like idiots.

67. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #164085 by Edouard Pernod on April 19, 2008 at 1:50 pm

It is no surprise that people who are intellectually dishonest would resort to dishonest methods in getting their dishonest movie made. The mind that rejects evidence in favor of fantasy is obviously going to have a difficult time distinguishing fact from fiction, so it is not surprising that they would think it was ok to deceive Dawkins and Schermer and PZ Meyers and lie to the Killers and use Lennon's song without permission.

These kind of people inhabit an alternate reality and discard the rules as soon as the rules disagree with their dogma. How ironic that these imbeciles say that Darwin's theory is immoral, all the while it is them behaving immorally in how they made their movie. Nevermind that biology is amoral (it only describes how things are, and doesn't ever touch on the issues of right and wrong). It is the evolutionists here who are behaving in a moral manner, and these lying stealing creationists would do well to take a moral lesson or two from the evolutionists.

68. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #163908 by Edouard Pernod on April 19, 2008 at 9:11 am

I also work in film as Maureen does, and there is no possible way they could have seriously thought they could get away with using "Imagine" without licensing it. You have to get clearance from lawyers for using ANYTHING you did not create or purchase for the film. Any sane copyright lawyer would have told them not to use Imagine, as it is instantly recognizable, very expensive to license, and Yoko is legendary for suing people and demanding exorbitant prices for Lennon's songs. In the Scorsese film, The Departed, in the scene when Nicholson smashes Leo's cast, the John Lennon song "well well well" was playing in the background for 20 seconds and that cost several hundred thousand dollars to license that song. Imagine is an iconic song and any use of it without permission would be begging for a lawsuit. No producer would ever allow a filmmaker to use that song without license. Not even 5 seconds of it.

The only explanation I can think of for them putting the song in is sheer ineptitude. The director and producers apparently have almost no film-making experience, at least based on their credits on IMDB.com. If they get sued over the use of Imagine (I am certain they will be), then I'd be surprised if anyone would hire the director or producer in the future, as they would be viewed as a huge financial liability.

69. Teacher Expelled Over Religion

Comment #162057 by Edouard Pernod on April 16, 2008 at 4:49 am

This is no surprise to me. In 1993 in my 10th grade Biology class at a public school called Ooltewah High School in Tennessee, my "Biology" teacher started out the class this way: He told us all to turn to chapter 8 of our text books, so we did, and saw that it was the chapter on Evolution. He then took out a roll of electrical tape, and wrapped it around that chapter in his teacher's edition of the text, and said "We won't be going over this chapter in class because we know man didn't come from no monkey". Several in the class clapped, but I did not.

His name was Jim Lovell. I'm not sure if he's still refusing to teach science to children as a science teacher, but it's probably worth looking into. I was too busy with other class work to look into Evolution on my own, and unfortunately didn't get to learn more about it until late in college, and I felt behind all the other students in class thanks to the Creationist ignoramus that taught my 10th grade "biology" class.

I hope this brave woman in Texas sues the school for wrongfully terminating her. This doesn't even really have anything to do with atheism, but has to do with the even bigger issue of teaching science that student's MUST know if they are to excel at science on a college level, and stupid Creationist cretins can't even tolerate that. It always greatly upsets me when I see taxpayer funded educational establishments aggressively defending ignorance and trying to imbue that ignorance into innocent children.

What a bunch of pricks.

70. Biologists Take Evolution Beyond Darwin Way Beyond

Comment #156296 by Edouard Pernod on April 7, 2008 at 9:16 am

The Wired article is just the latest example of those who are science hobbyists (as opposed to science professionals, excluding the few cited there) trying to synthesize a "Theory of Everything" from disparate incomplete information. From Fritjof Capra's intellectually wonderful but ultimately scientifically useless book "The Tao of Physics" to this one I'm reading now called "Mass Effect", there seems to be this recurrent tendency among those who are half-scientifically literate to impose upon nature what is essentially a "God" that functions as a unifying rule for everything.

What we have evidence for, in contrast, is all sorts of small rules that are interconnected but that do not necessarily function as subservient pieces of a larger unified rule. The only real unifying rule is "survive as long as you can without jeopardizing the survival of future generations", and even that rule can be broken by defects within a species (yes, Lemmings do run off of cliffs).

Evolution may give the impression of a group following some larger rule, but that is an illusion. That perceived group rule is only defined by what was selected within individuals, and it is only mutation/environmental pressures that determine what is selected and it is only physically selected at a genetic level.

Everything else that is not physically selected for but is nonetheless selected by a group of individuals is explained fairly well by Dawkins' idea of memes, honeybee colonies included. Just because there is no observed gene directing different bee function doesn't mean there must be some big magic unifying collective Star-Trek Borg rule controlling their behavior.

71. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #126093 by Edouard Pernod on February 12, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Wow, Shmuley sure is an incoherent rambler. He makes a lot of arguments that, on the surface, appear entirely valid. Of course that is only if one is ignorant of the subject he is speaking of. If one is educated on the subject Shmuley is speaking of, then he appears to be quite a baffoon. But he is a preacher, and that's what preachers do. They prey on the ignorant, asserting authority on subjects where they have none. What a fraud.

Hitchens does exaggerate in his book when he said "Many" rabbinical courts endorsed the notion that one could not help a non-Jew on the Sabbath. That is flat out false, though Hitchens was just repeating the fabrication of someone else, not aware himself that it WAS a fabrication. He should do the right thing and distance himself from Shahak's account. He's got an airtight enough argument against all religion, including Judaism, without having to cite some questionable source such as Shahak.

72. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111336 by Edouard Pernod on January 14, 2008 at 11:47 am

George is clearly a fighter with a strong will, and that bodes well for a successful operation and recovery.

My grandfather, who is close to George's age, has type 1 diabetes, a pacemaker, has aortic fibrillation which requires medication, osteoporosis, neuropathy in his left leg, and survived a horrendous car accident in which he lost his wife, and most of the bones on the right side of his body were broken. He spent nearly two years in the hospital and nearly succumbed to MRSA. In spite of those enormous hurdles to overcome, today he can walk short distances on his own, and is mentally 100% there, and is almost fully recovered from the accident.

Clearly a strong will combined with skilled doctors can achieve some pretty amazing things! I hope George's operation goes well, and am grateful for his generous support of this very important cause.

73. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81206 by Edouard Pernod on October 24, 2007 at 12:11 pm

Bah. Even if religion were not responsible for a single human death, it would still be utterly indefensible. The whole "Religion/Atheism kills the most people" argument is beside the point.

Hitchens' main point ends the argument before it even begins. If we had the current evidence based explanations of the cosmos around several thousand years ago, there would have never been any need for religion. Religion was the best explanation anybody could come up with at the time, and now through much hard work and progress, we have a much better explanation. Unlike religious arguments (which are chiefly made-up circular reasoning), ours are based on evidence and physically demonstrable, and so in reality the argument has already been won, it's just going to take the deluded a long time to concede that they lost.

74. 'Einstein - His Life and Universe'

Comment #44187 by Edouard Pernod on May 23, 2007 at 3:02 pm

I've always found it tiresome how people on both the belief and non-belief sides of the fence are always clamoring to find something quotable by Einstein which supports their views. What he says doesn't lend itself well to co-opting by either party. That's what makes Einstein great. He was a rugged individualist that couldn't be fit into any one box. His ideas about "God" seem rather vague and not supported by any evidence beyond Einstein's own personal impressions, but that's fine with me. His opinions about God are far less interesting or consequential than his opinions which completely rewrote the way we see ourselves, the world, the Universe, Newton and lots of other assumptions. THAT is where the usefulness of his words lie, not in some aside remark about what he thinks about God or Religion. I see no sane reason to use Einstein's words to promote a particular religious or anti-religious view, since that was not his area of expertise and he spent little time talking about it, except in vague cursory terms that had more to do with personal impressions than any profound inquiry.

75. Kirk Cameron Proves That God Exists

Comment #40175 by Edouard Pernod on May 13, 2007 at 2:23 pm

Here is the real outcome. I can easily envision Kelly and Brian to go on doing more of these debates. However, I cannot easily envision Cameron or Comfort going on to do any more of these debates. How could they possibly continue to put themselves out to be humiliated in public like that? They'd do god a favour by staying in their church and keeping their BS to themselves. If they keep it up Atheists will only increase their ranks. If two people from Jersey who are not professional writers or speakers who merely passionate about their Atheism were able to deflate Cameron and Comfort's "proof" with little effort, imagine what someone like Hitchens, Dawkins or Harris would do to them.

76. Kirk Cameron Proves That God Exists

Comment #39967 by Edouard Pernod on May 12, 2007 at 12:06 pm

Yes, RRS could have done better, but for being just some passionate kids with no science background, they grasped enough to dispatch Cameron and Comfort conclusively. I know plenty of 11 year olds that could have found problems with the infantile gibberish Cameron and Comfort were managing to squeeze out of their severely depleted synapses. Cameron and Comfort were extremely arrogant charlatans to boot, claiming scientific authority when they had none, acting as if they had experimental evidence to prove their point when they had none, and acting as if they had an ability to comprehend philosophy when they showed no ability whatsoever. The best was when RRS brought up the 1st (they misspoke and called it 3rd) Law of Thermodynamics, proving that god could not "create" anything, since matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Comfort and Cameron literally sat on their roosts speechless and squirming for like 30 seconds, looking as if their feeble simian brains had just ruptured. While this would have been mean of Kelly and Brian to say, when Cameron said there was no intermediary species ever discovered, they should have pointed out that Cameron himself must be a primate-human intermediate, given his primitive intellectual capacity.

Kelly is a seriously eye-catching babe though (and she made some excellent points). I wonder how Cameron and Comfort handled the tempting thoughts that must have been in their mind after seeing her in that dress...

77. Lou Dobbs w/ Hitchens on Al Sharpton's Bigoted Remark

Comment #39467 by Edouard Pernod on May 10, 2007 at 7:19 pm

Romney is on record saying his favourite book is "Battlefield Earth". Sharpton is on record saying that someone having a "personal experience" with god is good enough evidence that god exists. I think someone needs to spank these two mental infants, and Hitchens is just the man to do it.

78. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #34563 by Edouard Pernod on April 24, 2007 at 1:52 pm

I also have met Hitchens. He seemed quite pleasant in person, though honestly he seemd to be a bit of a souse. He also seems to take the contrarian approach first and then finds ways to support it, as he did with the Iraq nonsense. I saw him speak at a panel with Katrina VanDenHeuvel on the Iraq war pretty early on into it, and while he did make a compelling case, it had a lot more to do with, how, in principal, removing Saddam would be a good idea, if it were done right, with 500,000 troops, a massive humanitarian effort and a well-organized exit strategy.

Obviously he was dead wrong, partly because he's dead right when it comes to religious fundamentalism. It seems that, of all people, Hitchens would have realized that handing the country over to Islamic radicals like Al-Sadr would be no better than Saddam running the country. While Saddam was obviously a vile murdering pig, his country was not an outright theocracy in which any fundamentalist of any persuasion could run around heavily armed executing rival Muslims with no consequences. One of the ONLY good things Saddam did was he successfully kept fundamentalist Shiites in check, and was also a necessary buffer to Iran, although Saddam's methods were obviously reprehensible and in violation of international Law. Sadly now Iraq is a anarchic breeding ground for radical Islam, and a rallying point for Jihadists, in a way it never was before the invasion.

All that being said, however, I'm glad Hitchens is on our side when it comes to religion. He is a masterful and compelling orator, and I'm glad he's adding his eloquent and firm voice to the Atheist movement. I'll have to get the book shortly.