I was recently reading over the Lenski dialog flap on Conservapedia. If you haven't heard about this: a scientist named Richard Lenski (which I love; "Lenski" is such a perfect, almost stereotypical, name for a scientist) published a paper about his experiments with E. coli bacteria, conducted over many years, documenting the changes in the organisms' DNA over time and changing conditions. Apparently, one strain of E. coli developed the ability to absorb citrate, an ability not found in wild strains of E. coli, so Lenski wrote a paper about how the new strain evolved. Andy Schlafly, the guy that runs Conservapedia, wrote to Lenski and asked him to produce the raw data that support the conclusions in his paper. Lenski wrote back and told him the data were in the paper, if you'd care to read it. Schlafly wrote back and said, no, I mean the raw data, not the summary in your paper. Lenski replied and said, in effect, OK, where do you want me to send the bacteria, and do you have a fridge? Oh, and you know how to sequence DNA, right?

In the accompanying talk page for the article, one of Schlafly's acolytes points out the painfully obvious:

Fair enough. I think Lenski raises a valid point that honestly hadn't occurred to me--namely, the logistics of transporting and storing biological materials. While a request for data stored in electronic form is one thing, a request for actual samples of the cultures is another. Unless facilities for the storage of such material are available, I don't think this issue can be brought to a conclusion that will be satisfactory for everyone.

Yeah, no shit. Somehow I don't think this issue will ever be brought to a conclusion that will satisfy Schlafly and his minions.

On a slightly different topic, there's been a lot of ink and bytes spent on the idea that atheism is a religion, because atheists generally accept the idea that evolution is actually a real process, that the universe was created in a Big Bang, or other such scientific claptrap thought up by egghead scientists pushing their godless agenda, and since you can't prove any of it, you're accepting it on faith, which is, wow, just like religion!

Wow. Just wow. There are so many holes in that argument that it's difficult to know where to begin, but I've come up with a fairly concise explanation of the differences between real religions, such as Christianity or Islam, and non-religions, such as atheism (or so-called "evolutionism" or "Darwinism"):

1. "Evolutionism" or "Darwinism", which are presumably based on the premise that the believer believes the earth was created or life began via some natural process and continues to evolve, are ideas that can at least be tested and falsified. If one has the brains and the time (and the intellectual honesty not to dismiss what one finds), one can analyze evolution theory or Big Bang cosmology or whatever and prove it true or false. Evolution theory is a body of knowledge and ideas based on observation of evidence in nature, such as DNA, fossils, and the like. One can examine the DNA and the fossils and whatnot, compare that physical evidence against what evolution theory says, and thus verify the veracity of the claims made by "evolutionists" - in fact, "evolutionists" encourage you to do just that. Religionists, on the other hand, are almost always unwilling to analyze their beliefs in any way, and many religionists take the suggestion that they should examine their beliefs and compare them to observed reality to be an attack on their faith (one definition of which is "belief without proof", which is telling). Religionists don't want to evaluate the truth or falsity of their beliefs, because their beliefs, when evaluated objectively, are usually completely irrational and even silly, as religionists themselves will sometimes admit.
2. Even if you decide to forego the preceding and accept the theory of evolution or the Big Bang on "faith", it's still not the basis of a system of morals, ethics, dogma, or rituals. There's nobody I know of that claims, "The universe was created in a huge explosion and continues to expand to this day, so therefore you are forbidden to do such-and-so." No atheist says, "evolution is the change in the gene pool of a population or organisms from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift, so therefore you have to give me money to save your soul." Nobody in the world says, "There is no god, therefore you are obligated to wear this hat, face due north, and bow down and meditate upon the universe in such-and-such a manner."

For the religious in the audience, I hope this clears up any confusion.

I got some LOLs from the idiots on 4chan earlier today. They can't seem to express themselves without using the word "nigger", and get really upset when they're thwarted.

click for larger version

If you didn't know, all the generators on Says-It.com have a wordfilter; whenever you type in the word "nigger", the generator script substitutes the word "racist." (Same for "n1gger" and "n!gger" and "nlgger", the most common misspellings people use to try to get around the filter.) That's all I filter, though. It would take way more time and effort than it's worth to try to filter out all common racial epithets, especially to make sure there are no false positives. It's mainly to annoy rather than seriously deter racists. That doesn't stop them from crying about it, though.

The only other thing I do is check for referer headers from known racist sites and set a cookie if someone clicks through from them; then no matter what they enter, their graphic ends up saying "Racism sucks, grow up" instead of what they type. But if they delete the cookie, they can then use the site normally (except for the word "nigger", obviously). This feature has yielded some lulz in the past.

A year ago March, Ryland posted a video of Celine Dion + Anastacia doing AC/DC.

I just read an article in Total Guitar that they've picked this as the worse cover ever.

In my idle summer hours of nothingness (except taking a couple of on-line classes today), I decided to check out the video again. To my surprise and horror I found some other covers that I wanted to share (what doesn't kill us makes us stronger). So here is Hayseed Dixie doing their version, and here's Shania Twain doing hers.

Lest you think I'm a total bunwad, here's The Real Deal.

Oh, and Ryland? I'm sorry I called you a Bastard in your original posting.

I'm currently working on 12 new designs for the Church Sign Generator. They aren't "officially" launched yet, but you can check out some of the new church sign designs now. I've got 5 done so far, I'll be putting the remaining 7 designs in place presently.

The new designs are significantly more advanced than the old ones; you can enter the name and denomination of the church in addition to the sign text, and for most of the designs, you'll be able to choose the fonts and colors you want to use. Enjoy. Please let me know if you have any problems.

Update: sign 6, sign 7, sign 8, and sign 9 are up and running.

Update 2: sign 10 and sign 11 are up, heading into the home stretch.

Update 3: LAUNCH!

Barack Obama has been using a new "presidential seal" logo lately:

Maybe you like it, maybe you don't. It doesn't do much for me. But the folks over at the Change & Experience Blog have pointed out that it's illegal:

§ 713. Use of likenesses of the great seal of the United States, the seals of the President and Vice President, the seal of the United States Senate, the seal of the United States House of Representatives, and the seal of the United States Congress

(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Posts on the accompanying message board thread are vehement that he should be jailed for this blatant illegality, ranging from gleeful:

In a heartbeat! I would love to see this. How can we make it happen?

...to the savagely bitter:

At this point, I don't think much is going to get him into trouble. Obama could run over a bunch of people with a bus a few times and not get arrested.

He already has.

I'm just glad that someone has called attention to thi-- wait a tick, what's this? Is that the logo of the Change & Experience blog?

Well, clearly whoever runs that blog should be jailed as well.

Sigh.

Update: apparently they noticed the cognitive dissonance and changed the logo. Here's a screenshot of the blog post, and here's a screenshot of the message board thread, both showing the original Change & Experience logo. I guess this is what Hillary Clinton supporters mean by "change" - if reality doesn't suit you, change it.

Update 2: I registered for an account on that message board, and it was finally approved by the mods. Here's what I posted, for as long as it lasts anyway.

Update 3: Well, that was quick. I checked back in that message thread a few minutes later, and got a message saying my password had expired. So I tried to log in again, and got this message:

You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

So I deleted the cookie to get rid of the login, and went back again, and got another message:

Sorry. The administrator has banned your IP address. To contact the administrator click here

DOH. Well, here's what I posted, just in case they deleted it:

@ChangeAndExperience:

Wow, amazing... I can't believe you have the stones to accuse Barack Obama of illegally using the presidential seal when you used it yourself, and then accuse Obama of dishonesty after posting this blog post/discussion thread, and then changing your blog's logo and your forum .sig graphic an hour later to cover up your own use of the seal. I also can't believe that the users of this forum haven't caught on to that cognitive dissonance. Have people been posting about it, but having their posts deleted?

Screenshots:

Blog posting at changeandexperience.com:
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4...ncescretf3.jpg

.sig image in this forum post:
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/389...ncescregl8.jpg

I suppose, just to top off the Orwellian nature of this incident, that you'll accuse me of faking the screenshots, if anybody even manages to respond to this post at all before moderators delete it. (I'll get a screenshot of this post after I hit "submit", just in case.)

This is what "change and experience" means to you - if reality is a bad experience, you just change it.

click the thumbnail for the full-size cartoon

Here's what I don't get about conservatives: they're always screaming about how much they love America and our "freedoms" and all, but they basically ignore the document that defines what this country is all about, the document that defines exactly how and why we are free.

The Constitution is not trivial. It's not just a piece of paper. It's not something that we can just discard when things get scary. The Constitution is, quite simply, the bedrock of the "freedoms" conservatives say they love but are so willing to give up, and especially willing to take away from non-white, non-Christian people.

Conservatives like to think that belief in the Christian god is the basis of our laws and government, but the fact is that our laws and government are based on the idea that human beings (not just Americans) have certain rights that are inherent (or unalienable)—that is, they can't be taken away by a government. Humans are said to be endowed with these rights by their creator, so perhaps the mistake is understandable, but it's still a mistake; the important bit isn't who or what endowed us with these rights, but the fact that we are endowed, in and of itself. That bears repeating: human beings have rights which may not be taken away by government. Our forefathers, in breaking away from a tyrannical, unrepresentative government, recognized that all people were entitled to these rights, and that all oppressive governments everywhere were violating these rights. So they put it right there in the Constitution, they set down all the rights that people have, and all the things that government may not do. If you read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, you'll notice that there's no mention of "government may do such-and-such": it's always "government may not do such-and-such."

Which brings me to the point, and explains why the cartoons above are so completely idiotic: if our system of laws and government is based on the idea that we all have rights that cannot be taken away by a government, then our government, by definition, cannot deprive a human being of his or her unalienable rights. One of those unalienable rights is the right of habeas corpus—the right of a person not to be detained unlawfully or without due process of law. Habeas corpus can be suspended in time of war—but we are not officially at war. Congress hasn't issued a declaration of war on any country. They can't issue a declaration of war on "terrorism". So therefore, habeas corpus, as the Supreme Court has recently upheld, cannot be suspended in peacetime, even for so-called "enemy combatants." That's not merely the opinion of some "activist judge." Again, it's part of the basis of our free society. We are a free society because the government can't just lock people up for no reason.

There's an even more important point to be made here. Maybe you think the rights defined in our Constitution apply to non-citizens, maybe you don't. Maybe you think they don't apply to "enemy combatants," and maybe you don't. But consider: if the government can strip an "enemy combatant," or a "terrorist," of their rights, then what's to stop them stripping your rights away? All they have to do is label you as an enemy combatant. All they have to do is declare that we're at war. Then if you do something they don't like, you're disappeared, and people who have been disappeared don't get a lawyer or a phone call.

Maybe you don't think it can happen to you. I hope you're right. But we've all seen our government do a lot of things recently that we didn't think could happen.