Hit and Run

1. 2012: The Movie.

Review: Sight Unseen.

Are you fucking kidding me?

If you believe like I do that the World of Woo bullshit has to stop somewhere, some time, boycott this piece of shit. Don't see it. Don't rent it. Don't watch it on cable. I know our non-contribution to the supernatural bullshit mill will be as a fart in a wind tunnel, but it's the principle of the thing. It's one thing for Mel Gibson to regurgitate the anti-Semitic Passion Play from the Dark Ages. That wheezing, hurdy-gurdy of a religious scam is still going strong. It's quite another to revive the defunct superstition of a defunct, pre-Colombian civilization. That's just fucking stupid in light of the very provable fact that there are people here who are so brain-blasted by the everyday social bullshit that they will believe ANYTHING.

2. Applebee's has announced that they will give free food to Veterans and active Military Personnel on Veteran's Day. Consider taking the day off from work and providing shuttle service from your neighborhood VA Hospitals and Homeless Shelters. There are Veterans out there who could use a free meal, and I'm sure they are not the customers Applebee's had in mind when they made this offer.

Ass Groove Jesus

How did I miss this one from March 15 of this year? I think it looks more like Emmett Kelly's famous clown persona, Weary Willie. Would that make it an ass clown?

For other opinions try Skeptic Rant or Pharyngula. Hat tip to both.

DJD With Upper Extremity Radiculopathy

That's the fancy term for why I have not been blogging. Translation: The C4 vertebra in my neck is pressing on a nerve juncture that makes my right arm feel like a giant toothache unless I follow Homer Simpson's advice from the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper episode.

"Note to self: don't do anything!"

The Allege-ed Virgin Mary, Revisited

Like the man in They Live had to say, "I knew it had to be something like this."

http://www.blogster.com/anaibendai/now-illustratedthe

Hat Tip to Rita

Idiots at the Cato Institute?

The Cato Institute is a think-tank devoted to free-market, Libertarian ideals. It is no surprise, therefore, that they would adopt the following attitude. It always surprises me when smart people make dumb statements however, even though everyone is equally capable in that regard. Economist Chris Edwards was quoted on national television as saying, “The economy would have started recovering by now without government intervention.”

This is a stupid statement because it is demonstrably meaningless, having only emotional appeal to those who dispute the wisdom of current government policy. Don’t get me wrong. I am no fan of bank bail-outs that do not “trickle down” into real relief for those being foreclosed upon. I’m just equally annoyed at pundit inaccuracies.

The first problem with this statement can be compared to the insolvable question, “Do you get wetter running through the rain or walking?” There are too many variables to arrive at an answer. What “Economy” is Edwards talking about? The US economy? The global economy? The macro economy? The micro economy? Too many inter-connected variables. Once a change has been introduced, the chain of cause and effect without that change can only be imagined, not accurately predicted. It’s worse than trying to predict the weather patterns two months later if hurricane Bob had never existed. We do not have a parallel universe to observe and accurately chart the chain of consequences.

Problem two: the “X-factors”. Without an economic stimulus package, do things get so bad that one wild-card individual finds a stash of phosphate fertilizer and blows up the Commodities Exchange? Extreme example, to be sure, but all unpredictable consequences have to be ignored (low probabilities are discounted) when making “what-if” predictions. This idealizes the result, as at least some low-probability consequences are bound to happen, but which ones?

The third problem is slightly different, but in the same vein. Granting for the sake of argument that the statement, “The economy would have started recovering by now without government intervention” is true, it leaves the following question unanswered. From what depth of misery would we be recovering? How deep a trough would the crash-landing of the economy have dug? See the problems above for why this question is equally unpredictable.

Spending time thinking about what would have happened, or what might have happened in these circumstances is living in the past and a waste of time, except from the standpoint of propaganda, or agit-prop. One is far more productive when attempting to chart a course based on what did happen, or what Lewis Black among others likes to refer to as, “FUCKING REALITY!” Chris Edwards of the Cato institute is either an idiot for making such statements, or he thinks his audience is stupid enough to accept these statements at face value, or both.

Wednesday August 5, 2009

Remember that date. Years from now, your Grandchildren might ask, Where were you on that day in August, 2009?

Why?

(CNN) -- The American Psychological Association concluded Wednesday that there is little evidence that efforts to change a person's sexual orientation from gay or lesbian to heterosexual are effective.

... And it only took them, what? Twenty years of supporting data? I guess they had to be sure.

Hat tip to Mister Jeb's Blog

Always Trash the Competition

From Morning Edition, an NPR Newscast, August 13:

"Catholic Church leaders in Italy are chagrined that a nearly $200 million lottery takes place Thursday. Church leaders say the drawing encourages greed, false hope and an idolatrous worship of money. Although entrants have about a one in 600 million chance of winning, there's no dearth of Italian municipalities entering."

Transcript and recording here.

One can just imagine the conversation that took place.

"Your Holiness, our Priests are reporting that the take for collections is down 23%!"

"What? What is going on around here? Have the Priests all gone soft?"

"No your Holiness. People are spending their money on lottery tickets."

"Oh sure! And how much you think they'd give the Church if they won? Greedy bastards! Chasing money all the time! They know they got a snowball's chance in Hell of winning right? .... They're worshiping money at the altar of false hope. Hey... Wait a minute... Greed... False hope... Idolatrous worship... THAT'S OUR RACKET! Put some muscle on 'em boys! Declare an edict or something! I want this stopped!"