Crazy Creationist of the Month: Runner Up

Posted by Lionel Boyd Johnson.

Welcome the first ever Crazy Creationist of the Month. This month, trailing off in second place, you guessed it, is Ray Comfort, for his two week series of blog posts, "Seven of the most important questions you will ever ask."

The premise is that everyone is going to die eventually, and there are a few questions that will define your life and give you meaning before you, too, eventually die. Let's take a look at the first one.

How do I know God exists?

First off, it's a loaded question; it assumes God exists already. However, the question of "Does God exist, and if so how will I know," is important, especially if there is an afterlife and God controls what happens to our "souls" after we die.

So how does Comfort answer?

It’s amazing how many people think that God’s existence is a matter of "faith." They think that we choose to accept that an invisible God exists, without any real evidence for His existence. We just "believe."

Correct, your decision to believe in any god is a personal choice, and can't be justified with logic or statistics. There are many logical proofs for the existence of God, and they've all been thoroughly refuted and disproved a long time ago. The same goes for any alleged disproof of God, it can't be disproved for sure. So which fallacious proof does Comfort offer?

Could you believe that a soldier’s barracks had no builder? Obviously someone put it together, because buildings don’t happen by themselves. The fact that the building exists is positive proof that there was a builder. Who could believe that a building—with its doors, windows, heating, air conditioning, carpet, electricity, etc., happened by accident, made from nothing?

Its design adds to evidence of a designer.

Ray Comfort and former star of Growing Pains Kirk Cameron went on Nightline a few years ago under the claim that they could prove that God exists without the use of faith or the Bible. Of course they didn't do it, but the argument they gave before resorting to the Bible was, "Creation is 100% scientific proof there was a creator, you can't have creation without a creator." Obviously it was all just a publicity stunt, and they clearly knew that their argument was flawed because they had been spouting it for years before that.

There are a number of fallacies in this claim, first among them being that creation proves a creator. Creation implies a creator, but that assumes creation; existence doesn't imply anything. On that same note, if everything had to be created, who created God? Comfort has already answered this by saying that God is eternal, but then why not cut out the middle-man and say all matter and energy in the universe is eternal, which evidence indicates it may be. If anything, his argument stands against existence for God, because if given the choice of the universe being eternal and the universe being created by something else that's eternal, Occam's Razor allows us to assume that the universe is eternal. But that's making assumptions as well.

The real argument Comfort is giving here is a combination of straw man fallacy and false dichotomy. The straw man is that the atheist believes that nothing created everything, a mockery of Big Bang cosmology. However, the Big Bang Theory states that there was a singularity: consider that all matter is mostly empty space within atoms, and that protons and neutrons themselves are mostly empty, then consider that matter can be converted to energy following the equation E=MC^2. Now consider compressing all matter to a plasma-like state so dense that nothing exists outside of it, not even time. This is the singularity, and it didn't explode like the word "bang" suggests, it wasn't floating around for a while until something happened to it because there was no time or existence before it. There was a rapid expansion of space-time that still continues to this day (note that the universe is expanding). This isn't idle speculation either, it's the most comprehensive explanation for all the observed phenomena in the cosmos. The false dichotomy is that Comfort implies that by attacking Big Bang cosmology, it would give credit to his argument by default. It doesn't, it's a dishonest and childish attack on what he doesn't understand and refuses to understand.

Besides, none of this goes any distance to prove the God of the Bible, which is what he's really lobbying for.

But there is more. The evidence shows that this earth upon which we live was intended for our use. We have lighting during the day so that we can see what we are doing. The sea breeze keeps the air fresh and cool, and the warmth of a massive ball of fire in the sky keeps us warm and dry. Cows give us succulent meat to eat and leather to wear. They chew grass and give us milk, and from the milk we get cream, cheese, butter, yoghurt, and ice cream. Sheep give us mouth-watering meat to eat, and wool from their back gives us warm sweaters, and supplies carpet for our comfort. Chickens lay eggs for us to scramble, and sacrificially provide finger-lickin’ meat on our plates.

Not true again, it makes more sense that life adapted to conditions on earth, the parts of it that are easy enough to adapt to, anyway. If things were different, and we lived on Venus, Comfort would just claim that Venus was designed for life. It's all a meaningless tautology.

Comfort has failed to prove that God exists. Again. Every question after this one is completely inconsequential, since they depend on the first question. That's all for the best, since they're pretty unimportant questions. What does God have that I need, What is God like, How do I approach him to get the gift [of eternal life], all the answers given assume that God exists, and that He exists exactly as the Bible describes Him. What irritates me is that Comfort is asserting as fact things he doesn't know, and can't know, and does it as a career. Don't mistake Comfort's seven questions for important, it's just a dishonest attempt to proselytize under the guise of thoughtful reflection.

Stay tuned for the winner of February's Crazy Creationist of the Month. (I'll give you a hint, he thinks Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs as beasts of burden.)

50 at 5:00

Posted by William Edwards Deming.

I was driving around the area yesterday, and it sucked. Five o'clock Friday traffic, and the rainy weather.

My first point of complaint is the weather. It had just stopped raining, and the sun was just starting to shine. With me driving west, that meant that there was a thin gloss of water on the road to perfectly reflect the sun that was already shining in my eyes. It was so bad I couldn't drive without holding my hand in front of my face, and it was physically painful even still.

Top that off with the rush hour traffic. Traffic has always been very interesting to me. Something about the interaction between people on such a large scale fascinates me, and being a topic of such interest, I become very frustrated when everything fucks up. The fact that millions of dollars was put into the highway as a system of ensuring that I can keep traveling at high speed; when I come to a complete stop on the freeway, in the fast lane, for no less time than a minute, I'm overcome with a feeling of defeat, like something (or several things) in my life has gone horribly wrong, and now here I sit, my delicate temporal planning shattered. These traffic jams aren't caused by an accident, either. It's mostly that people don't know what they're doing and can't get it together that causes them to slow down. Basically, everyone is ruining everyone and, interesting though it is (and it is interesting), I hate being a part of it.

So next time you're on the road, remember, keep the big picture in mind, and be courteous to your fellow driver.

Careful With That Jackhammer

Guest post by Kilgore Trout.

So I had a pretty epic dream last night. I was playing a video game, and the story for the game was amazing.

As part of a top-secret mission you are seated into a craft and launched into the future along with your team. The reason? A nuclear spill in the future has made it so people cannot have children. And because of a time warp caused by the spill, people in the past are dying, therefore everybody's parents are slowly dying before having children, and therefore people are getting younger until they die, à la Benjamin Button. (This getting younger thing is happening in the future where you are going, not in the present, but somehow that's bad for the present too. It all made perfect sense in the dream)

So your mission is to stop that, save the world, and save everybody from dying. You are obviously battling some enemies (but I don't really remember them). Eventually, you find a group of people who have children (they are special because nobody's been able to have children). So you have to protect these people against the enemies (All I know is they're dressed like FBI agents.) Anyway, here comes the epic part.

So what happens is somehow is you and the children people are in your craft and I guess you're supposed to be with them all the time. So at this point in the dream I'm like “I got stuff to do.” So I decide to quit the game.

The game says, “Do you want to quit or just leave the craft?” For some reason I just leave the craft. Then it says, “Fast forward 1000 years...” The craft is buried under rock or underground or in magma or something like that and the game asks you, “Do you want to dig the people out?” I don't remember what I answered but here is, as close to verbatim as I could, what the game said in the dream: “1000 years later. The world is destroyed, empty, buried in ashes. And you just a spirit of a baby, with a JACKHAMMER.”

Think about it, it makes sense. Such a good line.

I expect an offer from Microsoft games any hour.

Up Yours, Whitey

Posted by Carlos Argentino Daneri.

A civil rights group is trying to bring affirmative action to the University of California system.

Now in California, the Berkeley-based civil rights activist group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) filed a federal lawsuit in order to increase the number of African American, Latino and Native American students at the University of California.

Even though affirmative action was banned more than a decade ago, these guys want it back.

In 1996 California voters approved the Prop 209 constitutional amendment, which banned government institutions from using race as a consideration to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities who are employed by the government or attend public universities.

I knew something was wrong with affirmative action the first time I ever heard about it. Eventually, I learned the name of this fallacy: truth is in the middle. Picture yourself walking along, and you see two $5 bills on the sidewalk. You should turn them in to lost-and-found, but you'd prefer to keep them for yourself. After all, you found them and how do you know the guy at the lost-and-found won't just keep them for himself? With this minor moral dilemma in mind, would it be right to average the difference and keep only one of the $5 bills?

Similarly, if a particular racial group is underrepresented, by prejudice or any other reason, does it balance things out to favor them over any other group? It doesn't, because it doesn't work that way because there's no such thing as reverse racism.

Connerly said it is the affirmative action policies that are actually racist. By using race as a consideration at all, the progress of the civil rights movement toward a color-blind society is threatened, he said.

"Proposition 209 is in essence the same language as the 1964 civil rights act," Connerly said, referring to the 1964 federal legislation which banned Jim Crow laws.

The activist group is called "By Any Means Necessary." Think about that, they're going to do what they think is right no matter what, regardless of how unfair or unconstitutional it is. This, I think, is the worst name for any group to give themselves because it shows flat out that they want to impose themselves where the law and the people have already spoken.

The Girl in the Pink Sweater

Posted by Romeo Montague.

I was walking around school today, pretty normal. As I walked past the library, I saw this girl. Overall, she was cute, but I wouldn't find her particularly gorgeous. However, she had this lovely smile on her face, a look of complete contentness, and she had overwhelming confidence in her stride, like she was extremely satisfied with her life. I don't know why, but I instantly found her far more beautiful. There was something about the way she carried herself, with such happiness and serenity -- even though she was walking alone -- that drew my eyes to her. I never knew something like that could have such an effect on me...

Sex Scandal, Sex Schmandle

Posted by Alvah Scarret

The opinion section of any decent newspaper (or online version) is going to have articles there simply to stir the pot of ideas. Get people talking. I think this is a good thing. It can be annoying when the headlines are cheap hooks to get reactions, but papers need people to read them and people just don't read for no reason.

Moving on...

I often glance at the opinion section to see what people are writing on different issues. Particularly the ones that I didn't think were issues, or hadn't thought of in a while. Today I stumbled on a gem that had the tagline:

Not all affairs produce corruption, but the media should dig into the private acts that should be publicly disqualifying.

Should the media dig into the private acts of public figures (elected and appointed offices most importantly) to sniff out any possibly disqualifying ones? I get what the author is saying. He thinks that National Enquirer and other tabloid snooping and accusing, however often it is false and stupid, can reveal elements of character in potential or current public servants that are important. His example:

By rights, the Edwards story should have been entered in the “public service” category as well. If the supermarket tabloid’s reporters hadn’t gone digging where other journalists declined to even tread, we might never have learned how close the Democratic Party came to nominating a truly disgraceful character for the presidency.

Do we care that Edwards was sleeping around? So the guy is a sleaze. Does that mean he doesn't have a good record as a statesman? Does that mean he couldn't do a good job? Sure, it may not look so good but luckily for us no public office job is staying faithful. The article continues:

If Americans aren’t reading about Edwards and Rielle Hunter, they’ll just read about Tiger Woods or the Jolie-Pitts instead.

Better the former than the latter. Watching Woods unburden himself last Friday made me think: This really shouldn’t be any of my business. I’ve never had the same thought watching John Edwards confess his sins. Athletes and actors don’t work for us directly; they’re entrusted with great wealth and fame, but not great power. But the private peccadilloes of politicians tend to interfere with, and corrupt, their commission of their public duties.

I would think that NONE of this was my business. Actor or businessman or politician or athlete or astronaut. If a running politician has a secret habit of cutting up kittens in his garage, however, I might think that would be important. Or if he killed a guy. But both of these are examples of behaviors that represent a definite danger to the responsibility entrusted to a politician. Plus, they are actual crimes.

I'm not condoning this behavior by saying cheating on your spouse is OK in private. Nor am I saying it doesn't show something of the person's character. I am saying that it almost never matters to the JOB, and such invasive investigative journalism should not be encouraged. The author made a good point that mirrors my own:

Not all affairs produce corruption, and we don’t have to know every sin that our politicians commit. Bill Clinton wasn’t on the ballot in 2008, and maybe the public didn’t need a substantial investigation into his post-presidential sex life.

I'll end with that.

The White Man's Burden

Posted by Malachi Constant.

There was an article in the paper a couple days ago discussing an event about the privileges white people get just for being white.

"'Uncovering Whiteness' refers to some of the dynamics around whiteness," she said. "We don't talk about it the way we talk about other things. Back when this country was founded, people were called 'German,' or 'Spanish' or 'English.' When did we become 'white'? What does being white imply past just your skin tone?"

Nothing. At least, it should be nothing. People were called "German," "Spanish," or "English" back when there were fewer people who qualified under several ethnicities. As people from different nationalities interbred, it eventually became easier to just use skin color. For example, I have so many different countries in my background that I don't even know all of them or what fraction I am of any of them. What do I call myself with respect to race? German-English-Irish-maybeScottish-maybesomeothershit? No, I just say white, because it's easier, and I don't really care about tying myself to any country or any number of countries. All I know that I am for sure is American, and I can't even say native American. For another example, a girl I know is Hispanic, but has such dark skin that I just call her black. Some people think black is a derogatory term, but if I had used the phrase African-American, I would have been wrong, because she's not African. Another girl I know doesn't like to be called African-American, again, because she's not African; she prefers to be called black, because it's just an adjective and it's accurate. People who imply more than just skin color when they say "white" are usually exercising the same stereotypes that they are speaking against.

"The purpose of this is to get people thinking about the privileges they have in society whether it's based on race, skin tone, religion or whatever," he said. "You need to be able to recognize what advantages you have over the guy sitting next to you and know what advantages he has over you. We need to stop taking things for granted because these inequalities and injustices still exist."

That's perfectly fair. Indeed, there are statistics and 20/20 reports that indicate that there are, undeniably, inequalities between races. I'm sure you've heard of studies that indicate that a black man makes so many cents for every dollar that a white man makes in the same position, and that there is an abundance of certain races in certain job titles. I believe this is the whole point of the event that the article is mentioning, and I'm all in favor of it. But one quote in particular caught my attention...

Junior international agricultural development major Christina Ortiz noted that there weren't many "white" people planning to attend.

"If you're going to have a discussion about a certain type of people, then it's essential to have them there," she said. "They need to represent themselves. [...]"

They need to represent themselves? How is that? When I read this, I got the image in my head of the guest speaker picking white people out of the crowd and asking them to defend their race. Obviously, this is an extreme exaggeration, and I suspect that what the writer meant to say was that white people should be there as another racial group to enhance diversity in the discussion. But that brings up another point, what can one white person, or even a group of white people, have to say on behalf of the entire race?

Here's the thing, a political party, extracurricular club, or religion can be represented by a smaller fraction of that group, because those are things made of people who choose to define themselves as Democrat, Anime Club member, or Christian, to name a few examples. If one person of the group doesn't agree with the merits of the group as a whole, he/she can leave, but my skin color is a circumstance of birth, and I never had any say in the matter. So one white person could never represent the whole of white people because there is nothing common among white people except skin color.

You'd Have to Quit Smoking, Too

Posted by Randle Patrick McMurphy.

There was a pregnancy scare among a small group of friends of mine. A friend of a friend was "late" and the worries were building up. As far as I know, it looks negative, so she's off the hook this time. I'm glad that she's probably not pregnant because she's certainly not ready for a child. However, when I first heard the news, I was almost surprised at how indifferent I was. This was a life changing experience for this woman, and still is even she turns out not to be pregnant, but I can't seem to care at all.

I think the reason I have no sympathy for her is that this isn't something that's completely beyond her control. What I mean is, there were a number of poor decisions to be made by her to lead to this predicament. Most importantly among them: the choice to have unsafe sex. If it turned out that she was safe and that something went wrong, then for the most part, that was beyond her control, and I think I would feel a little worse for her, but the possible consequences of unprotected sex are well known and there is no excuse for an educated adult to be in such a situation. I realize that using a condom does make sex less enjoyable, but you know what's really unenjoyable? Having a child when you're in no place in your life to raise one.

If it turns out to be a false negative, and she actually is pregnant, I'm not saying it was all her fault. The father would have a lot to answer for as well. I'm saying that it's important to take responsibility for your baser instincts and be able to control them, and be smart about it.

Dumb Brain, Dumb Body

Posted by Mack and The Boys

I'm not much for reading the health section of the paper, or the health section of anything, but in a sickday induced boredom I wandered off the usual path...

I discovered an article in The New York Times entitled 'Low I.Q. Predicts Heart Disease'. I wasn't really surprised at the conclusion hinted by the title, but I was a little surprised that it was published with such a direct headline. People usually try to protect low intelligence persons from all the bad labels often associated with them: socioeconomic status, occupation, health risks, etc.

The article made a point that had occurred to me as I read the headline:

People with lower intelligence also are known to adopt less healthful behaviors — they smoke and drink more and are more likely to have a poor diet. It may be that people with low I.Q. have a more difficult time understanding complex health messages and don’t fully understand the long-term health effects of an unhealthy lifestyle.

This seemed pretty straight forward to me, and the most likely correlation between the behaviors of those that test highly in I.Q. tests (educated, wealthy individuals usually) and the behaviors of those that don't.

The article, however, mentioned another possible theory:

It may also be that a high I.Q. is associated with better overall neurological and physiological “wiring,’’ meaning all the body systems, from brain to heart to liver to kidneys, function at a more efficient level.

For instance, some studies suggest that people with high I.Q. also have faster physical reaction times.

Intriguing, no? The idea is that those that score better not only are smarter but everything in their bodies is working better making higher intelligence possible. This also makes sense to me in thinking of those in lower socioeconomic situations scoring lower as they do no have access to healthful options in many areas of their health and may not even know enough to care.

Take a peak at the article... It's interesting.

Even if it is in the Health section.

A Shortage of Men

Posted by George Sand.

The New York Times printed an article last week, basically about the plight of single women in universities. Since about ten years ago, women have outnumbered men in colleges and universities, and the article is about the fact that women have a hard time finding a date because there are so few men.

Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said.

Always be wary when faced with figures. First of all, there are 20 percent that you would consider; that doesn't mean that no one could love the other 20 percent, so really everyone is fighting over the 30 percent that are single. Secondly, these numbers are useless because they are strictly anecdotal, and have no data to back them up. However, addressing the point she's making, there are always few people you really connect with on a romantic level, when compared against the number of people you meet that you just plain don't care about or don't even think about. You're at no more disadvantage than anyone else when you remark that there is such a small percentage of people you meet that you want to date.

Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine’s Day.

What a tragedy that would be, if a woman asked a man out on a date. I, for one, have been flattered when a girl has asked me out, even if I'm not interested. Moreover, I find it extremely weird when I hear about a girl who likes a guy, but does nothing, waiting for him to notice her, when it's clear that he simply hasn't given any thought to it, and that he would probably be very open to the idea if he were just prompted with it.

“Girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with, to lock it down,” Ms. Lynch said.

Bullshit. This assumes that a girl must be in a relationship. If you don't want to "do more than you're comfortable with," then don't. The worse that can happen to you is that you're single. Being single won't kill you. In fact, you can learn a lot about yourself.

“Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms,” she wrote. “This results in more casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ‘something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.”

If you want something more, you should consider not sleeping with someone you just met and know nothing about. When you do, it sort of sends the message that it's just for the sake of a good time.

Remember when people were complaining that there were too many men on college campuses? That men were setting the norm by population, and basically the same crap was going on? Does it seem like the situation has reversed and they're still complaining about the same thing, just in a different way? If a date is what you want, and you can't get it, maybe you should ask someone out where you would normally wait to be asked out; maybe you should be more open-minded about people you wouldn't normally consider; or maybe you should just exercise patience, and realize that not having a date isn't the end of the world, and that many people have dates and are still miserable.

With Headlines Like These

Posted by Stephen Harper
I enjoy a good sporting event like anyone else. Basketball game? Sure! Soccer match? I'm in! Winter Olympics? NO. Not only do the Winter Olympics look puny and stupid in comparison to the Summer (Real) Olympics, but everyone seems to think that when I say 'I don't care' I really mean: 'When I say No, just try harder.'
Let's start with the recent death of the Georgian Luger. It's sad when someone dies at what is intended to be a clean sporting event. It would almost be acceptable to hear about it and all the details around it every time I turn on any sort of news or talk show for a week if he had been doing something like track and field or soccer. The man was racing down an iced track on a non protective device going as fast as possible. What the hell did people think would happen eventually? Not to mention it's a lame sport. Just like Curling or Biathalon or Figure Skating or that one where the skiers go down a hill and off a jump. Who cares?
All of this would be a non-issue with me if it wasn't thrown in my face everywhere. Like when I check my e-mail and get headlines like: "Snowboarder Complains About Peers' Pants" or "Ski Champ Dad's Awkward Moment." It's even on real news channels like The New York Times.
I can respect any 'sport' people dedicate themselves to and competitions for them. That does not mean it should be an Olympic Sport because people do it.

How Long Can You Go Without?

Posted by Carlos Argentino Daneri.

I was chatting with a close friend of mine, and among the many subjects that came up, she told me that the longest she had gone without sex (neglecting preadolescence) was three weeks. She went on to say that those three weeks were like torture to her.

Obviously, this woman likes having sex, and good for her. But three weeks? That's her record? Is three weeks even long enough to get over the person you last broke up with? (I'm not saying, in that last sentence, that every sexual partner she's ever had was one with whom she was in a committed relationship, because that would be foolish to say.) It made me wonder how many people she had sex with that she didn't even like; she just wanted to have sex. Knowing her, I would wager that it isn't many, since she considers sex a way to become closer with your partner. Even so, I don't think sex should be that essential to anyone, especially if your irreligious enough to consider masturbation as an option.

She acknowledges that her strong desire to have sex has gotten her into trouble before, and I can see how it would. Call me old fashioned when I say that sex should only be with someone you love, or at least like, but if you're going crazy in three weeks without intercourse, your desperation shows that you're probably going to take the first opportunity without consideration.

Immanuel Kant wrote about utilitarian behavior towards your fellow human being. He wrote that it is wrong to use a person strictly for their utility, as you might do with an inanimate tool. The relation that I'm postulating here is that this woman might have once been in the habit of considering a sexual partner only for his body parts, and that it bears consideration to be called immoral.

Kids and Classical Music

Posted by Count Almaviva.

I went to a small, free concert put on today by the music department, and for the third week in a row, a couple had brought their two young kids. It always struck me as weird that anyone would bring their children to a classical music concert, or really any concert. Considering that the role of the audience is to sit quietly, listen, and appreciate, children aren't usually capable of that. Of course, asking these kids to sit patiently for an hour is asking too much, so they frequently moved about and pestered their parents, distracting all of us.

Why would you bring your kids to a live performance? Isn't it obvious that they're not mature enough to understand it? If you're the kind of person who thinks that baby's benefit from the "Mozart Effect," you should know that the experiment people reference when making that claim was performed on college students, and still only showed a temporary effect. When I say temporary, I mean less than a half-hour. The scientists conducting that study never made the claim that listening to classical music can make you smarter. As a personal anecdote, I know a girl who was forced to listen to classical music as treatment for ADHD. It didn't work, and today she hates classical music. Lots of people can get into classical music without listening to it as young child; I'd even go so far as to say most people who like classical music weren't strongly exposed to it as children. Conversely, many people who were brought up on classical music care nothing about it. Whatever taste in music you have is just your taste. It doesn't say anything about your intelligence or reasoning capabilities.

The point I'm trying to make is that there's no reason to bring your children to a classical music performance unless they really want to go. To give the parents some credit, a small-time free concert is probably the best kind of performance to take your kids to if you really have to, since no one has paid to be there and the object of it is to have fun listening to music. I know when I hear whining kids in an expensive concert hall, it bugs the hell out of me because they really have no place there. Another point of credit, as far as kids go, they weren't that bad, and maybe they really did want to be there.

The Evening Post

Posted by Gordon Krantz

I'm known to some as a bit of a collector of certain things. Most of them are none of your business unless I've shown you. But, considering the circumstances, I'll share a little with you.
I received a phone call one morning asking me if I would want a collection of stamps from letters sent someone had stored years before and finally rediscovered. I said sure and they were sent my way. They sat in a gallon size ziploc bag on my desk for a couple of days until this evening.
Most of the contents are the corners of envelopes with the stamps and the postal markings on them. In one larger envelope stuffed full of these stamps, there was a whole letter envelope. It caught my eye and I pulled it out.
It was stamped: Jul 13 1976 USPO, and was stilled sealed.
It had been sent nearly 35 years ago, returned, and by the looks of it this cycle happened more than once. The postage paid is $1.60 in 10 cent stamps. There are multiple 'returned to writer' stamps and dates crossed out and the word 'unclaimed' scribbled on it.
I want to open it but I don't know if I should. So here I sit, sipping tea, staring at a letter that the intended recipient never read. I wonder what it says, and why it wasn't ever read.

What If I Didn't Get What It was Asking?

Posted by Gennao Sabbat.

I got a midterm back today: I failed. Something like 30%, so I really failed. However, the average was 50%, so I didn't monumentally fail. Back before taking the test, I knew something bad would happen.

First, when he said it was open book, open notes, open anything. This is a problem because now he's entitled to make the exam questions extremely difficult, since you can look up anything. He also won't give you any constants or conversion factors, since you can look those up, too. This was especially a problem for me because I don't own a textbook for the class. I would only use it for one term if I bought one, and I like having money more, so I use the reserve copy in the library for the homework.

Second, the test was three problems. Three problems in two hours is saying a lot, and almost nobody finished early, so it really was two whole hours. The real difficulty here is that for any one of the problems, if you don't get the first part, you can't move on, because it's all sequential. That means that when I was missing one minor conversion factor, which wasn't given, and which may or may not have been in the book for all I know, the rest of the problem couldn't be done. I tried to show the work I would go through if I had this one variable, hoping the grader would notice that there was only one part I couldn't do, and reward partial credit. He didn't. He graded in such a way that if I couldn't get the first part, I may as well have left the whole thing blank and gone home early. For the record, if I had had that one conversion factor, I would've easily gotten above the class average.

I know why teachers make exams terribly difficult. If everyone does poorly, then the curve helps everyone. It's actually more fair to the students if everyone get a poor absolute grade because we're graded relatively. (That last statement is not true in all cases, but for many classes, and most of my classes.) However, the objective is that the class average be 70%, as in C average. A 50% average shows a lot of fault on the instructor, such as not explaining concepts or formulas clearly enough or making the tests too difficult or hard to understand.

The professor has stated, and I believe has demonstrated, that he really wants us to pass. He'll do what many generous teachers do and round up your grade if your final exam grade shows improvement from your midterm grade. So there's still hope for me. And clearly he'll be doing that a lot this quarter, as most of the class got an F on the midterm. I guess I just miss the days when your test was a lot of little problems, and if you couldn't understand one, you'd skip it and never look back, and it wouldn't come back to bite you too hard. Now I'm at the point where I spend an hour on one problem, most of it just sitting and thinking, and I still end up with almost nothing to show for it.

Inconsequential

Posted by Elijah Baley.

I was waiting for class to start and overhearing the two girls in the seats in front of me talking to each other. In all honesty, I sit behind them on purpose because I don't understand their thinking at all and I like to listen to them chat. Something to expand my experience. So far, I've never interjected, but someday I think it's inevitable that I will.

Today's conversation was about one of them breaking up with her sort-of boyfriend. The couple had met only two weeks earlier, as I overheard them saying two weeks earlier, so "break up" might not be as accurate as "never clicked." There were sort-of dates (but who can tell?), text messaging, hanging out at a party or gathering, but nothing serious. Things never seemed to pick up between them, and I don't think either of them understood why. The following is a transcription of today's conversation rebuilt from memory, given that I tuned in and out being distracted by staring at the ceiling...

Girl 1: So we broke up.

Girl 2: Oh, what happened?

...Tuned out; organizing class notes...

Girl 1: So I texted him saying, 'Are you mad at me?' And he never got back to me. So later I texted, 'I'm just trying to be your friend, you don't have to ignore me.' At like two o'clock in the morning he finally responded with, 'Sorry, my phone died, why would you think I was mad at you?'

'Well, you didn't seem to like meeting my friends last Friday.'

...Tuned out; staring at my fingernails; something about him halfheartedly contesting the accusation that he didn't like her friends...

Girl 1: I feel bad because he's a really nice guy, but it's just not going to work out. We're still friends and all, ya know?

Girl 2: Well that's good, at least. Why do you think he didn't like your friends blah blah blah

Now I don't know the whole story here, or even one whole side of the story, considering that it was so uninteresting to me that I couldn't stay focused for more than a sentence at a time. However, to defend whoever this man is, phones die. When my phone dies, I tend to leave it dead for a day, partly because nobody calls me, but mostly because I hate phones and I don't care if people can't reach me. If someone ignores your text message for a whole day, there could be dozens of explanations why he wouldn't even be able to read it, let alone respond to it. But it sounded like they were in some sort of argument to begin with so maybe it wasn't such a hasty conclusion to jump to.

Another thing, for any girl I've ever pursued, I've never had a great relationship with her friends, certainly not the first time I meet them. I don't know these people, and the only thing I do know about them is that they're judging me. On the rare cases where I do get along with her friends, I knew them from somewhere else, such as taking a class together.

I also find it interesting that this potential relationship ended via text message. Am I wrong to think that text messaging should be used for quick and simple ideas (ie: meet you at the restaurant at 6) or short questions (ie: what's your address)? Larger and more complicated conversations should take place in person, because emotion cannot be accurately conveyed with a short text message. If I get a text that's anything more thought provoking than "What movie do you want to watch tonight," I might ignore it, either until I see you in person or until never.

These girls always struck me as overly perky, a little bit shallow, and above all, gabby. They're annoying and somehow fascinating at the same time. But who am I to judge, I'm just an eavesdropper who can't seem to mind my own business.

Ping Pong Ball in the Shower

Posted by Theodore Donald Kerabatsos

There has been a ping pong ball in the shower rack at my house for the past couple of months. The soaps have changed, shampoos replaced, razors appearing and disappearing, but that bottom rack is always reserved for the ping pong ball.
I have no idea why it's there. I really don't want to know. When I moved back in it was not there. Then, one shower, as the shampoo foam rinsed from my face I opened my eyes to see a plastic sandwich bag, a red rubber band, and the ping pong ball inside. Wet.
Since then the bag and band have been removed. I'm guessing the woman my family pays to clean our house took them. I hope she didn't take them for herself, but to throw out. Who knows? She's a bit weird. Point is, she left the ball.
There it sits. Getting wet and dry and wet again. I paused to ponder the thing today. I even touched it. I'm wishing I hadn't. I feel like I shouldn't have.
Why a ping pong ball?
Why the shower?
Why still there?
Why?

Conversation with a Deaf Man

Posted by Dr. "Stinky" Mahmoud
It was late evening, at a coffee shop, when I had an interesting interaction.
I was at the register when a customer came to the counter to order a drink. He signaled he was deaf by touching his ear and shaking his head. Usually I am sort of slow with signals but perhaps the simplicity of the gesture just clicked. Before I had time to realize the potential difficulty of his ordering a drink from the menu of many drinks with countless alterations, he signaled that he wanted his drink by pointing to a sign of a featured drink. He didn't just point, though, he also sort of palmed his chest as he pointed as if to say: "I'll have this." I nodded my understanding then ran into a problem. How do I ask him what size he wants? I will admit I was a little proud of myself when, after a brief pause, put my hands out, palms facing each other, and signaled small, slightly further apart for medium, and further for large. I think I also shrugged a bit as if to ask a question. He responded with the same gesture but in a continuous motion that went from small to large and stopped in the middle. I nodded then attempted to ask whether or not he wanted whipped cream on it. I put one hand as though I were holding a cup, and the the other in the spiral motion of applying whipped cream. He gave a shrug and shook his head. All of that took maybe 30 seconds.
This exchange stuck with me because of the simplicity and ease involved. I'm sure he is practiced at dealing with non-deaf people but still, it was smooth and easy. FAR easier than many of the speaking people I deal with. So much so that I pondered the next day over why it was so hard to do the same task with someone who spoke broken English. Would it be insulting to use hand gestures with someone who could speak? Unfortunately I didn't try when I had trouble later with a customer.
Perhaps it was just luck that we were on the same page at the same time, and that he could have been experienced in this sort of situation. Nonetheless, it reminded me that communication can be done through even such a large boundary. Think of that next time you have a misunderstanding or just plain can't understand someone.

Just Five More Minutes

Posted by Snorlax.

Suppose you wake up early, earlier than you have to or even should, awoken by anything or nothing. You know you could get up, but you know there's no reason to and there's nothing urgent you have to do in the extra time you have between when you get up and when you thought you would be getting up when you went to bed the night before. Think of the feeling you get, the cold of winter is looming, but you've been investing body heat into your bed all night, and now it's warm, inviting, and oh so comfortable. You're awake, conscious, thinking, but your eyes aren't quite open yet. You could get up, but it's at least as appealing to stay in bed, and of course while you're deciding, you're still in bed anyway.

What do you do?

I keep resting. I pretend that I'm still asleep, and use the time to relax, and I mean really relax, and think to myself. When I really can't stand to be in bed any longer, that's when I get up. It's a pretty fantastic way to start the day, in my opinion.

Freedom of Speech Sure is Great

Posted by Lionel Boyd Johnson.

The Westboro Baptist Church is coming to the Sacramento area for the next few days, making stops around Davis and Folsom. You might know them as the "God Hates Fags" people who picket at funerals of homosexuals or soldiers. They tend to be holding signs that say "Thank God for..." followed by 9/11, IEDs, dead soldiers, terrorists, whatever. As I learned recently, they also don't like Jews, Catholics, Protestants, pretty much anybody.

The focus of this trip seems to be to protest Judaism. Several Jewish groups (and many other groups) are contemplating how to stage a counter protest. To my knowledge, most groups have taken what I consider to be the wisest course of action: none. Attention seems to be exactly what these people want and it's not worth it to start a fight, especially when they're already classified as a hate group right alongside the Ku Klux Klan.

I've heard some interesting brainstorms about how to counter these pickets, and none of them have been anything but parody or satire. Some of my favorites have been to sell popcorn, or set up bleachers, or gay make-outs. Even so, here's why it's still a better idea to just stay out. (1) It's not one group against another group; it's one group against everybody. They're not out to convert people like some of the other religious fanatics, they're out to piss off as many people as they possibly can. Their website is GodHatesFags.com; there are no ideas they're sharing, just hate speech. (2) They bring their children to these. I'm not even going to go into how these people have shattered their childrens' lives before they were old enough to read, suffice it to say that they could get hurt. I've heard rumors of passer-bys throwing things and accidentally hitting the kids. Even without that, it couldn't help their development to see their parent(s) get into a screaming argument with a by-stander (any argument with people like these quickly becomes a screaming argument). (3) You don't have to. Everyone already thinks these people are crazy, and anyone who doesn't won't be convinced by you. That's why all the best ideas to counter protest have been ways to make fun of them. It's not about showing people how intolerant they are, it's about reducing their message to the crazy babble that it is.

Just the same, if you want to make a sign that says "Love thy neighbor," go for it and be sure to take pictures while you're there. However, you won't find me there not only for the reasons I stated previously, but also because I want to reduce my chances of getting hit by a stray bullet.

I Do Not Have Photographic Memory

Posted by EZ-27.

A friend and I usually work on homework together two hours a week. This week, she said, "I have a few errands to run, but it won't take long. Can I meet you at one o'clock instead of noon?"

"What kind of errands," I asked.

"Just a few errands."

I assumed they were something embarrassing or personal, so I let it go and agreed to meet at the library in an hour. An hour later, I asked, "So how did your secret errands go?"

"They're not a secret," she replied.

"Well then what are they?"

She hesitated, "Here's the thing, you have a really good memory and it sorta creeps me out, so I'm afraid if I tell you where I went, you'll remember it and bring it up in a year or something."

In her defense, this isn't unfounded paranoia. What she was describing has happened before, and not just once. The problem is that when I bring it up (in casual conversation) a year later, she has forgotten that she was the one who told me, so that it looks like I know something that I shouldn't innocently know. In the past I've been able to convince her the context of the conversation in which she told me this seemingly obscure fact, but who knows how long I can keep that up?

When she said, "I'm afraid you'll remember it," I was shocked. This is the first time someone has withheld information from me, not because they don't want me to know it, but because they might forget it. Then again, it might just be the first time someone has admitted it. Either way, I tried to express to her that I never had a choice in the matter and that it's not fair to judge me for it. She eventually told me what her errands were, though I have a feeling she wasn't telling the whole truth.

I'm sort of hoping it was embarrassing or personal and that the creepy memory thing was just an excuse or a cop-out.

The J on J Street

Posted by William Edwards Deming

First of all I have to admit it wasn't on J Street. It was at an intersection with J Street. Forgive me.

I was driving on the freeway, heading downtown, and had just exited when I witnessed the closest thing I have ever seen to a miracle (not true, but still, it was a unique event.) As I drove onto the street after the exit I could see the line of cars all the way up to the next light making a gentle curve to the right edge of the lane. Not a single car in about a dozen was out of place. The car stopped at the light was to the far left, the next one over a little bit, the next one a little further and so on. It was so smooth and clean looking in comparison to the mess of traffic around.

Then there was me. I was in the middle of the lane (like most of us drive) and being in that position allowed me to witness it's formation as the cars all slowed to a stop, but it also put me in the unique position of ruining the effect. Oops. I was so distracted by the smoothness of the curve that I remained stopped for long after the cars ahead of me rolled onward, thus holding up traffic. Oops again.

I was that guy. Mouth open, headphones on, staring at something while traffic is stuck behind me honking. GOD I hate that guy.

So next time you see that guy (or girl for that matter) holding up traffic with a dumbstruck look on their dumb face remember me. Well, no don't do that. You might hit me the next time you saw me if you ran into these people enough... Remember that sometimes there are weird little phenomena that make you stop and take a moment to really look... Even in the middle of rush-hour traffic.

He'll Never Learn

Posted by Carlos Argentino Daneri.

Ray Comfort has posted on his blog about the uniqueness of humans and the merits of his religion.

If I could name one feature about humanity that is unique in creation, it’s atheism. Only human beings have the ability to bow the knee or not bow the knee to the God that gave them life.

Funny, I would have said humans are unique for having religion. Other animals don't seem to organize together to worship.

[Atheists] think that a Christian is someone who believes that God exists. However, a Christian is someone who "knows" God experientially.

Christian - a person who believes in Jesus Christ.(dictionary.com) I'm sure Ray Comfort has personal experiences with what he thinks is God, but if he can't substantiate his experience with any objective evidence, then it's indistinguishable from imagination. He goes on to say that a Christian must believe in the literal account of Genesis.

To believe in the theory of evolution, [...] is to call God a liar.

This is because it contradicts Scripture.

Only if your God is Scripture is this true. If you believe that God created all life on Earth, then it is clear that He did it through evolution, and not magical creation. The accept the theory of evolution is not to say God lied, but rather that Genesis is factually incorrect.

Comfort then gives a childishly simple description of evolution, and says this:

So, when they tell you that evolution is a fact, ask why there are no species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record. Why is there no evidence anywhere (in the billions of bones of dead animals) of any species becoming another different species?

This is simply a lie. There are enough transitional fossils that have been found to sink an aircraft carrier. The reason Comfort doesn't think there are any transitional forms is because he expects a Crocoduck.

Evolution isn’t true. It never has been and it never will be, no matter how long they wait for evidence. That’s upsetting for its true believers, because it leaves only one alternative—that God created mankind as male and female and that you and I are morally responsible beings.

False dichotomy. Even if evolution were proven false beyond any doubt, creationism still wouldn't be true because it's already been disproved in every way. People who believe evolution is true don't get upset because God is the "only alternative." I can't speak for anyone else, but I get upset because people like Ray Comfort lie to as many people as will listen to him and make a lucrative career out of it.

He then gives the old "a 747 can't make itself so neither can life" argument, which was also exposed for the fallacy it is a long time ago.

The theory of evolution is a non-issue when compared to your eternal salvation.

Here comes the preachy part. Even supposing that eternal salvation can be granted by any higher power, the search for truth is definitely a worthy "issue," even if evolution is part of that truth.

If someone really wants to know if it’s true that Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for us so that we could have everlasting life--if they are genuinely open to evidence—they simply have to obey His words.

In other words, be ready, beforehand, to assume that it's true no matter what it says and no matter what contradicting evidence there is.

Ray Comfort will obviously never change his ways, or listen to or even consider any opposing view from his own, because he's already decided that his way is the absolute truth and that any evidence against it is either wrong, a lie, or Satan testing him.

You Know What They Say When You Assume

Posted by Alfred Ban Humboldt.

I was in class today, and we were studying conservation of energy formulas. We started with something pretty broad, but went on to narrow it down to a single equation. When we started doing examples, I noticed how many assumptions we were making. I found a distinct moment during one of the examples where I would have given up because we weren't given enough information. But then he said something interesting, "There is a velocity here, but among friends we can just call it zero."

He went on, "I know it should be nonzero, but since the area we're using is so big, and since we're all friends here, the velocity is so small compared to the second velocity that we're going to say it's zero."

Among friends? Among friends, why not just make up an answer? It would save us a lot of work. It didn't end (or begin) there. In the next example he said, "We're not given a value for the head loss of the system, so we'll call it zero."

No, we're not given the head loss, so we can't complete the problem. There's an old joke among physicists: you're given a problem starting with, "Assuming a horse is a perfect sphere..."