…you get books like this: Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study.
John Woodmorappe has turned his energetic intellect to the problem of Noah’s Ark, and the results are formidable. This ground-breaking feasibility study — complete with schematics and detailed tables and charts — covers every single aspect of Ark construction and operation: spatial requirements, biomass calculations, waste management, heating and ventilation, animal control. Beyond this, Woodmorappe marshals evidence from genetics, plate tectonics, hydrology, and marine stratigraphy to demonstrate the feasibility of the Ark story. Every skeptical argument is convincingly refuted — except, of course, that one argument about how none of this ever happened because IT’S A FUCKING FAIRYTALE, you idiot!
Tell you what, Mr. Woodmorappe — why don’t you get to work on a feasibility study of King Arthur’s Round Table? I want surface area calculations, cylindrical volume estimates, and structural integrity analyses for different species of wood. Then I think you should put together a proposal for using helicopter echolocation and GPS positioning to establish a precise height measurement for Paul Bunyan. Be sure to correct for geoid deformation caused by tall Paul and his trusty friend, Babe the Blue Ox!
Posted by Violet under Godbags on February 28, 2006, 2:38 am EST
8 Comments »
Teenage girls pray for the patriarchy
Colorado is a state full of majestic mountains, glorious vistas, and raving lunatics. Godbag lunatics, to be specific.
Rep. Betty Boyd, Democrat, is on her fourth try to get emergency contraception readily available to the women of her state. Unlike certain female Democrats who have recently been excoriated on this blog, Rep. Boyd is actually working on behalf of women instead of their oppressors. What a concept!
It’s an uphill battle, seeing as how Colorado is the kind of place where godbag teenage girls attend hearings on emergency contraception in order to pray for the patriarchy (as if it needed any help) and to testify against women having actual control over their reproductive health. It’s the kind of place where a male godbag legislator can sneer, “Call me Nostradamus, but I don’t see this bill becoming law.” It’s the kind of place where similar legislation has already been defeated 3 times, partly on the advice of godbag-owned hospitals.
So, if you’re in Colorado — or even if you’re not — send Rep. Betty Boyd some love. Go to her website and find out what you can do to help.
Thanks to Jeff for the alert.
Posted by Violet under Reproductive Rights on February 27, 2006, 2:58 pm EST
20 Comments »
“Culture of life” extended to protect yeast fungi
PIERRE, S.D. (BP) – In a stunning victory for pro-life activists, the South Dakota legislature has passed a bill to protect the lives of Candida fungi by banning the treatment of yeast infections.
The bill makes it a felony for anyone to treat yeast infections, with doctors facing up to 5 years in prison if convicted. The language of the bill – named the Women’s Health and Fungal Life Protection Act — says that “yeast fungi are unquestionably alive” and “biologically unique from the host woman.”
In debate on the bill, sponsors noted that scientific findings have expanded understanding of the fungi that cause yeast infections.
“We now know that the yeast is alive from the moment it infects the woman,” said Senate sponsor Julie Bartling. “It used to be we weren’t sure, but countless fourth-grade science experiments since 1973 have proven that those little yeast thingies really are alive. You just have to drop them in some water and add a little sugar, and they start giving off gas bubbles like you would not believe.”
House sponsor Roger W. Hunt emphasized that the yeast fungi have different DNA from the host woman. “It’s not just some icky mucus in there that’s part of the woman’s hoo hah,” he said. “We now have the science to know that the yeast has its own DNA.”
Republican Governor Mike Rounds, who is pro-life, is expected to sign the bill into law.
“I’ve indicated I’m pro-life, and I do believe that we should do everything we can to save lives,” Rounds was quoted as saying in the Associated Press. “South Dakota is ready to stand up for the lives of those who can’t speak for themselves, like those little yeast guys. If this bill accomplishes that, then I am inclined to sign the bill into law.”
Posted by Violet under Genuine Fake News, Recommended on February 26, 2006, 2:11 pm EST
39 Comments »
In the coverage of South Dakota’s bold new law to reduce women to the legal standing of cuttlefish, not much attention is being paid to the fact that the main sponsor of this legislation is a female Democrat. Senator Julie Bartling is her name, and that’s her mug shot. I’ve included it so you can gaze upon her oddly cheerful visage and contemplate what it must be like to live with your head permanently implanted inside the large intestine of the patriarchy.
Now, it’s standard operating procedure for feminists to acknowledge that our bitterest female opponents are themselves victims of the big P, and to extend compassion to them as the deluded tools that they are. So Julie, I’m officially extending compassion to you. And having gotten that out of the way, let me say again: fuck you, you goddamn misogynist bitch.
Posted by Violet under Reproductive Rights on February 24, 2006, 7:38 pm EST
44 Comments »
Did you know that Europe has wingnuts too? They do! In Dutch a wingnut is “een vleugelnoot” (actually I think that means something completely different, but stay with me, people). And the exciting thing is that their heads are just as far up their asses as those of American wingnuts! This comforts me in a strange way.
In a charmingly insane editorial at the Brussels Journal, Flemish vleugelnoot Paul Belien sighs over the rotten state of Europe. The trouble began with the Enlightenment, he says, when Europe began rejecting its glorious religious heritage (persecution/war/intolerance) in exchange for a deadly secularism of reason and knowledge.
Mr. Vleugelnoot envies the “conservative resources” of America, which is still rooted in that wonderful Christian tradition he misses so much (persecution/war/intolerance). “Every so often I travel to the U.S. to recharge my batteries, and I am not the only European Conservative to do so,” he says. “From time to time one needs to breathe the air of freedom before submerging again in the stifling atmosphere of Europe.”
I’m not making this up.
What’s really eating Mr. Vleugelnoodle is that he’s jealous as hell of Muslims. It totally pisses him off that most modern Europeans aren’t into that whole suicide bomber, die-for-the-virgins-in-paradise thing:
In Europe a secularized post-Christian culture is facing a Muslim one. The secularized culture is hedonist and values only its present life, because it does not believe in an afterlife. This is why it will surrender when threatened with death because life is the only thing it has to lose. This is why it will accept submission without fighting for its freedom….
Europe’s predicament, I repeat, is entirely self-inflicted. Not Islam is to blame. Secularism is.
Excuse me for a moment while I lean my head out the window and scream in the general direction of Belgium:
“NO, YOU STUPID ASSWIPE!”
See, the Brussels Journal (of which Mr. Veugelstreudel is the editor in chief) is very big into the whole clash of civilizations trip — sensible Europe versus primitive Muslim immigrants. They backed the Danish cartoons all the way as a defense of free speech in the face of intolerant Muslim extremism.
But as this editorial makes clear, European vleugelnoots are no better than American wingnuts at realizing that what makes Western civilization relatively tolerant and worth defending is the very thing they so hate: its secularism. Secularism is why we even have free speech to defend. But Mr. Vooglebooble wishes the Enlightenment had never happened. He thinks the clash of civilizations would go much better if we could turn the clock back to the 17th century and have Christian holy warriors go toe-to-toe with Muslim holy warriors.
And there we get down to it: It’s not really about values for these vleugelnoots at all. It’s not about “tolerance.” It’s about us versus them. Deep down they have absolutely no fucking problem with blowing yourself and everybody else up for God. They just want it to be for their God. They would be happy as hell if all European Christians suddenly started behaving like the most deluded, inflamed Muslim extremists. American wingnuts are exactly the same. Well, hell — at the rate we’re going, maybe they’ll get their wish.
P.S. I have a deep personal affection for both the Flemish and the Dutch, so don’t nobody get their boobledoodles in a wad. I can curse in Flemish, too, so watch out.
Posted by Violet under Wingnut Watch, Cartoons on February 24, 2006, 4:34 am EST
13 Comments »
Visitors to this blog over the past 24 hours:
I’ve been getting visitors from New Zealand lately, so I thought I’d take this picture for Cicely.
I just love this thing.
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on February 23, 2006, 10:02 pm EST
17 Comments »
From an actual article today by an actual newspaper reporter: “The Olympic women’s figure skating competition, which concludes Thursday night with the long program and the adornment of a new gold medalist, has the required elements of beauty, style, seductiveness, skill and tension.”
Seductiveness? Seductiveness is a requirement now?
And Slate’s article today on women’s figure skating is headlined, “Sexy Gypsies on Ice — Russian dynamos and American flirts fight for Olympic gold!” Yeah! Fight for that gold, you sexy gypsies and flirts! The article is by Meghan O’Rourke (Slate’s “culture editor”), who seems as interested in the women’s lip gloss as in their skating routines.
But what about the seductiveness of men’s Nordic combined? Or the sizzling sexual energy just under the surface of the men’s curling competition?
And by the way, Apollo Ohno is wearing way too much blush.
Technorati Tags: Olympics, figure skating
Posted by Violet under Olympics on February 22, 2006, 6:52 pm EST
16 Comments »
Or as Noam Chomsky said more gracefully: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
Holocaust-denier David Irving is a bad historian and a bad man. He writes dreadful books and gives hateful speeches. His opinions are inane, his research is tendentious, his claims are specious. He should be ridiculed and ostracized.
He should not be thrown in jail.
Free speech is quite the issue these days, what with Muslims rioting over cartoon depictions of Mohammed. Many of the Muslims who have posted to this blog — some of whom subscribe to the same International Jewish Conspiracy theory that animates Irving — have wondered aloud why free speech covers offensive cartoons of Mohammed but not denials of the Holocaust. The answer is that it should cover both. Speech is speech, and in a free society it must be unfettered.
Read the rest of this entry »
Technorati Tags: cartoons
Posted by Violet under Politics, Cartoons on February 22, 2006, 1:37 am EST
5 Comments »
Reader Will sent me the following about the dwindling numbers of abortion providers. Look over these statistics: 87% of U.S. counties have no abortion provider, the number of abortion providers has dropped by more than a third in the past 20 years, the number of hospitals performing abortions has dropped by more than half…
An abortion provider is simply a facility where abortions are performed. The important term is abortion clinics because “abortion provider” includes hospitals. Hospitals are not much of an option for an abortion. In other words, you do not walk in and schedule an elective abortion in a hospital.
So in Virginia, in 2000, there were 46 abortion providers (counting hospitals). Now, go look in your local phone books and see how few abortion clinics exist.
Ask yourself how many abortion clinics exist in your state.
Ask yourself whether only one doctor is serving more than one of those clinics.
Ask yourself how old that doctor is and how many more years he will continue.
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Posted by Violet under Reproductive Rights on February 21, 2006, 1:35 pm EST
17 Comments »
Posted by Violet under Olympics on February 20, 2006, 12:11 pm EST
13 Comments »
From the same folks who once ruled that a woman could not have been raped because she was wearing jeans, comes a new decision that rape isn’t so bad if the girl isn’t a virgin. I use the word “girl” advisedly, since the victim in this case is a 14 year old child.
Yes, the Italian Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a pedophile rapist who forced his 14-year-old non-virginal stepdaughter to blow him. He argued that since she was already damaged goods, it wasn’t such a big deal. The all-male court agreed.
This is good, old-fashioned, conservative jurisprudence. Women’s bodies have been the property of men for millennia, and their value as chattel has long been directly tied to their perceived purity as receptacles for only one owner’s semen. I think it’s great that Italy — home of the Roman Empire and birthplace of the Renaissance — is standing firm for these traditional values. Especially now, when our cherished ideals are under siege by evil, benighted Muslims. Hail, Caesar!
Update 2/19/05: A tidbit just to put things in perspective: in Italy rape was not considered a crime against a person until 1996. What, you say? If it wasn’t a crime against a person, what the fuck was it a crime against? The answer: “public morality.” That’s right: until 1996 you could brutally rape any woman in the country, and your only crime was in violating your compatriots’ tender feelings of social propriety. Violating the woman? Pah.
Posted by Violet under Rape on February 18, 2006, 3:39 pm EST
8 Comments »
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on February 18, 2006, 11:59 am EST
12 Comments »
…and tiny little homunculi of Rush Limbaugh where their brains should be.
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Posted by Violet under Wingnut Watch on February 18, 2006, 10:37 am EST
8 Comments »
Visitors to this blog over the past 18 hours:
Who knew? Every continent is represented except Antarctica. (Alas, I’ve always wanted to visit McMurdo Station, but I guess McMurdo Station doesn’t want to visit me.)
I’m kind of amazed by this. Hello, Kenya! Nigeria! Saudi Arabia! Chile! Russia! Iran! All the people on all those “estates” in Singapore! UK! Germany! Korea! Australia! India! The Great White North! Fellow Americanos! All you other countries I didn’t name! Hello, everybody! The internets are so cool.
Update: click this button 
if you want to go look at the big map in real time.
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on February 17, 2006, 5:33 am EST
12 Comments »
