OMG, It's The Attack Of The Morons

If the recent car burnings in England are technically anything at all as they are being reported, they were executed by morons. According to the news reports, the first two incidents being reported, the idiots loaded a bunch of gasoline and propane containers into cars and set up a cell phone to trigger something that would set them aflame. When those failed to assplode, it appears a couple of fools probably connected to the first two failures (if not exactly the same idiots) pile into another vehicle loaded with some gas cans and ran it into the airport lobby while at the same time firing up the gasoline soaked interior of the vehicle probably with a Bic.

Since at least the first two car duds also included a bunch of nails intended as projectiles, it appears they thought these kinds of rigs would make some kind of high velocity explosion. It ain't going to happen.

Even if they got the mixture right, only few ounces of the fuel they chose would have contributed to an explosion. The rest of the fuel would have served more to dampen the forces of a very puny pop and maybe would have caused a little secondary boom when the propane bottles got around to blowing because of overpressure from overheating. Probably the propane tanks would simply have melted their safety plugs and burned. Or, burnt as they do in England.

There are very good reasons those things didn't do much more than make a bunch of idiot-news-heads get breathless. Anyone who made at least a "C" in physics in any grade higher than about 6 would understand how stupid those devices were. Just in case there is a folk or two that might read this and wish to make a boom with gas, I'm not going into details here. I don't want you to burn up no more good cars. You could hurt yourself.

What I am going to do is say that the new folks covering this stuff as well as some of the so called officials are being laughed at for their stupidity in thinking this was some kind of credible attack. All civil humanity would have been far better served had these incidents been used to illustrate that these so called terrorists are indeed as laughably ignorant as they are barbaric.

Untheists Unite

On "framing" science and it's impact on civil rights. What he said! >>

G W Bush, Increasing Terrorism

George W. Bush is inarticulate and self centered. He cannot understand the world so he obstenately holds to his ideology and is unable to compete in a world that demands flexibility and ingenuity. There is history to compare today's problems with. But his administration seems devoid of people who think of anything but their own dogma. Everyone interested in the U.S.A. competing in this world should read this>>>

Evolution

We gain our ends only with the laws of nature; we control her only by understanding her laws.

Jacob Bronowski

The New York Times dedicated their whole science section to evolution today. Read on.>>

Poor Craig, Not

Craig Schaffner is pitied for his skepticism by some who know him. Even his brother, who says said he has tried repeatedly to pull Schaffner back from the precipice of lucidity.

But Craig has probably read this, te he:

I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning.

[Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies]

Paul Potts Made My Eyes Water

Intelligent Design, Found Dead By It's Own Scientist

Professor Micheal Behe is held up by Creationists and evangelicals as one of their top scientists. In his latest and hopefully his last book, The Edge of Evolution, he admits evolution to be true. Jerry Coyne has the scoop.

The Edge of Evolution is not an advance or a refinement of the theory of intelligent design, but a retreat from its original claims--an act of desperation designed to maintain credibility in a world of scientific progress. But it is all for nothing, because Behe's new theory remains the same old mixture of dead science and thinly disguised theology. There is no evidence for his main claim of non-random mutation, and scientists have plenty of evidence against it. His arguments against the Darwinian evolution of complex organisms are flawed and misleading. And there is not a shred of evidence supporting his claim that the goal of evolution is intelligent life. In contrast to the feast of evidence that nourishes evolutionary theory, Behe gives us an empty plate. The rest, free registration required>>> Or here for no registration>>>

Don Herbert Has Died

Don Herbert was known to generations as Mr. Wizard for his television show as a science teacher. He taught us about clear reasoning and the scientific method; how stuff really works and how to acquire useful knowledge about the workings of the universe and ourselves. I have missed him for a long time already.

Michael O'Hare On Paul Krugman And Me On Yogurt

Here's O'Hare

And that's not all. Once upon a time, people made their own music in their living rooms with friends, or went out in the park to throw a ball around. The music they made required a lot of practicing and was still never really good; no-one I knew could play any ball game as well as even a middle-rank NFL player. Now, thank God, we have a few certified specialist experts making wonderful music for our iPods, and playing superb ball for us all to watch, and we can do it alone, which saves no end of taking care of other people's feelings. How could anyone want the art, or sports, of a great nation to be mostly made ineptly, by anyone and everyone, taking a lot of time that could be spent on the job? Surely it's better for all of us to leave this kind of thing to the few stars who are better than we could ever be. Kids used to have to make their own stuff with blocks, and pretend a rag doll was crying, laughing, talking, etc., but now every kid can have brightly colored, really complicated electronic toys that each do one amazing thing as soon as the batteries are put in, toys that are made by real professional designers and engineers instead of clueless six-year-olds. How are kids supposed to know when a doll should cry? With today's toys, they don't have to. In context>>

If anyone thinks they cannot be changed by what they play with and see, consider yogurt. Maybe a hundred million people in this country alone now think it tastes good.

Cool

A man said to the Universe, "Sir, I exist."
"Yes, said the Universe, but that has not created within me a sense of obligation."

[Stephen Crane]

The Kind Of People They Are

The new GOP head honcho in Arkansas, Dennis Milligan, has been drinking the Bush/Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson Kool-aid. Only it doesn't seem to be killing him as we should hope. He says America needs to be attacked by more terrorists.

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "and the naysayers will come around very quickly . . .”

Here's the interview.>>

Why is this guy not in jail as a terrorist threat?

Bush Melting Down?

Bushes friends are starting to see what most of us saw a long time ago. A dangerous nutjob.

Dallas Morning News:

The White House sees terrorists as born, not created by history, bearing the mark of Cain, not the mark of circumstance. There is a scarlet "T" written on their foreheads at birth and the only answer is to destroy them. This kind of thinking, of course, relieves the thinker of any responsibility for the presence of the insurgent-terrorist-whatever in our innocent midst....

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

Scary