The Purple Koolaid Playtime Show!

...So Why Do Tornadoes Happen In The Bible Belt?

Putting The "Mental" In "Fundamentalists" Dept::

Maybe it's time to demand that schools teach a required course in formal logic.

I hadn't really intended to continue addressing the topic of religious wingnuttery, at least not for the time being. I really have other topics I want to discuss. ...Really, I do. ...But sheesh. These people must consult the list of logical fallacies as a basis for nearly all of their argumentation. (Note I'm being a bit understated here). Here's a classic example of a Post Hoc fallacy (Not that this was any big surprise if you remembered a similar reaction from Jerry Falwell shortly after the 9/11 disaster).

Excerpt:

"Southern Decadence" was set for New Orleans soon. It was to be a yearly hoopla celebrating practicing homosexuality as a legitimate, giddy lifestyle.

Thousands upon thousands were going to crawl all over New Orleans "to celebrate their sexuality," according to Methodist lay preacher Gary Hopkins of Ekklesia.co.uk ([email protected]).

In other words, Sodom and Gomorrah were to be reenacted in broad daylight — and into the night haunts as well. It would be one high ol’ time of it in the southern scape.

[...]

Then came along Katrina.

If such a causality shall be drawn then perhaps the National Weather Service ought to be sending weather advisories to Massachusetts and Las Vegas...

Captain Obvious says: Port cities are older and tend to be more densely populated. Certain port cities became havens for immigrants, thus increasing diversity. The bigger and more diverse the population, the greater the likelihood there will be for a gay community. Being on water, port cities are also more likely to be viewed as a recreational spots. ...and hurricanes form in oceans. ...Duh.

Of course, "Repent America" totally overlooks the fact that the people who are suffering most are the poor, mostly heterosexual folks who didn't have the means to escape. Also the fact that New Orleans wasn't the only town to suffer devastation from Hurricane Katrina. ...And how do they account for all those deadly killer tornadoes that seem to occur so frequently in the Bible Belt?

Help the Victims of Hurricane Katrina

This news is just too big not to say anything about. This site lists a number of organizations where you can send a charitable donation:
Network For Good

ID Cartoon Followup

From a single link on Pharyngula, links to the ID cartoon made it to such diverse venues as Milk and Cookies, Rantings of a Sandmonkey, Screenhead, The Llama Butchers, Shanmonster, Free Republic Friday Silliness, DorkingOut.com,gaming forums, a Ukranian(?) blog, "goth" chatrooms and even the petfinders.com message board . At one point the blog was receiving at least three views per minute, which led me to have to upgrade my account to accommodate the increase in traffic bandwidth.

For a newbie blogger I imagine that's rather impressive. If you enjoyed the cartoon I more than welcome folks who want to download it* and host a mirror page on their own space, as long as the panels are in their original order and you don't chop off the credit at the end. (*That is, actually downloading the files to your own computer and then uploading them on your own site. If you just hotlink them, I still have to pay for the bandwidth used.)

What's even more impressive is that (at this time of writing), despite the potential for controversy I hardly received any negative comments at all ...Well, almost. I did receive some irate emails from a New Jersey sect threatening a jihad. According to them, the Head Guy's real name is "Gosh", he's the president of an extradimensional IT/gaming megacorporation and Creation was a result of a team of corporate engineers. They said that if I don't give them equal time they'll hack into my PC and corrupt my hard drive. (Little do they know I don't own a PC. >;-P)

I do intend to have more cartoons (about different topics) up eventually, but my work schedule is such that I can't always have them on a frequent enough basis as I'd like. But thanks for all the kind words, folks!

(**Those following the ID debate might also enjoy this essay on Sedition.com: Intelligent Design Proves Penn and Teller are God which includes a bonus prehistoric-critters cartoon done by yours truly).

A Song To Sing At The Gas Pump

A timely tune and Flash video (and quite possibly an earworm contender):

I Can't Afford My Gasoline

Excerpt:

I've got a friend who bought a hummer, (hum v yeah)
One of those gigantic trucks, (he don't give a... darn)
But he can't drive since he maxed out his credit cards, (tough for him)
Because his mileage really sucks. (six whole miles)

He can't afford his gasoline.
The prices have become obscene.
Too bad he had to buy that gas guzzling machine.
He can't afford his gasoline.

On a related note (no pun intended), the alarmists are starting to sound a clarion call regarding the supply of global oil.

I haven't researched all sides of the issue, so I am merely posting these links without taking an "official" stand. Is global oil really in danger of running out soon, or is this simply an alarmist meme along the same lines as the Ebola scare a few years ago? Alarmism -- whether it has a sound basis or not -- makes for good press, after all.

Regardless of the global supply, however, rising oil prices certainly don't bode well for our standard of living in the long run.

No Surprises, Chapter 2

Well, dangitalltoheck, I missed another opportunity to sound prophetic. ;-) I'd been wondering when "they" were going to set Venezuela in their sites:

Venezuela Slams Pat Robertson Over Remarks Calling For Assassination Of Chavez

Quoth Bush's apparently overenthused buddy: "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Coincidence, or pattern? You be the judge...

Top 19 Oil-Producing Countries

Emotional, not factual, ads win skeptical consumers, study shows

Ironically...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=29174

Excerpt:

Emotional ads are characterized as providing an emotional experience that is relevant to the use of the brand; informational ads predominantly provide clear brand data. All four of the emotional ads rated lower in providing viewers product information than the four informational ads. Surprisingly, said the researchers, consumers who considered themselves highly skeptical of all ads were persuaded less by informational ads than they were by emotional ads like the wine commercial. Also, they found that non-skeptics were more responsive to informational advertising.

Ideas!!! (The Good, The Bad and the Novel)

New section here. I'll be adding many more as I find them.

The good ideas:

An Old High School Is Recycled Into Apartment Housing
How To Brew Your Own Biodiesel

Now for the *bad* ones:
Lions and Elephants Roaming the Great Plains?

When I first saw it on the newsfeed I assumed it was a hoax to make the scientific community look bad, but I Googled the name and he's for real. It's kind of unclear whether he's talking about creating a giant game park with fenced boundaries (which already exist on private lands, mostly for hunting), or actually allowing the critters run free. ...Bad, bad idea since it involves people and property issues, most of whom aren't exactly thrilled about seeing North America's more recent large fauna (wolves, grizzlies, pumas, etc.) reintroduced, either.

I'm guessing this man probably had to drive through Texas, Kansas, or any of the other Great Plains states and is suffering from delusions brought on by extreme lack of mental stimulation. :) It's a tempting thought if you've ever had to do those stretches of highway. :)

Hillary Clinton For President

...No. No. This, of course doesn't reflect my opinion about Hillary as a person or her political record to date. But I don't think a liberal female candidate -- especially one whose power was helped along by riding [a scandalous] hubby's coattails -- stands a chance of winning in a time of war. The zeitgeist just isn't right for it, and you can bet this will bring out all the mudslingers in full force. Wartime tends to bring gut-level emotions to the fore, which will naturally give "authoritative/masculine" contenders an advantage.

If Hillary Clinton ends up winning the Dem nomination, I'll start to wonder if there's a scenario a la "The Candidate" afoot: "You Lose".

Sita Sings The Blues

While we're on the subject of irreverent treatment of religion(s) ;-) , here are some nifty little Flash Movies which combine the Hindu stories about Rama's wife Sita with the jazzy 1920's-era blues songs of Annette Hanshaw and lavish art deco style of that era.

They were created by cartoonist Nina Paley, better known for her comic strips "Nina's Adventures", "Fluff" and "The Hots", and inspired after a painful divorce.

"These songs -- Mean to me, Am I blue, Daddy won't you please come home, Moanin' low -- tell the same story I found in the Ramayana," writes Paley. "They're the blues; they're Sita's story, and mine. It seemed a natural fit."

These mini-movies have been receiving international attention and acclaim, including in India -- although according to one article, a website which hosted the animations received a death threat from one right-wing extremist Hindu group.

Some things, it seems, will never change...

(P.S. Paley also created Fetch and "Pandorama", an earlier direct-paint-on-stock-footage film set to music by the Revillos. Isn't that the theme song for Vonage now?)

This Might Explain A Few Things

It's been a very busy week for me, but I managed to bang this one out. ;-). It's another speculation on "Intelligent Design" and was based on a newsgroup posting I wrote back in the year 2000. I wonder if they'll put it in the school science textbooks?

About Me?

I've been writing in this blog for about a month, so I suppose it's only proper that I introduce myself. My name is Heather and I'm a 25-year-old Georgia State grad student working on my masters in communications. I have long blonde hair, love strawberry Pop-tarts; warm, sensual massages and...

Did I get your attention? I hope so. ...Because actually, my name is Jim and I'm a 48-year-old high school teacher living in Buffalo, New York. I teach a social studies class and just recently decided to fall into step with the rest of the crowd, doing this "blogging" thing...

Well, not really. My name is Caroline and I'm a former copy editor for the Phoenix Gazette. Now I'm a stay-at-home mom still trying to make it as a writer, doing character profile research for my first novel.

...Which isn't quite the truth. My name is Terrence and I'm a social worker. I'm also an African-American of same-sex persuasion. My experiences on the periphery of life have led me to question what makes the rest of the world tick.

Actually, I am none of the above, although this entry might give away a little bit about me nonetheless. And possibly a little bit about yourself. Consider for a moment to visualize the different personas above, and ask yourself if they affect your perception of the words and ideas expressed in this blog. ...No? ...Yes? And if so, why? I'm leading up to something, of course -- more on this topic later...