Being "politically correct" basically means to not offend anyone. It is impossible to never offend anyone, it is however very possible to go out of ones way every day to try and never offend anyone. This seems to be the major goal most politically correct people shoot for. Personally I find this to be a censorship of sorts. There is virtually nothing you can say, that won't offend someone, therefore you are limited to talking about things such as the weather, or how many stars are in the sky, no real opinions, or views could ever be expressed in a politically correct society. If I were to say to you: "In general black people can run faster,jump higher,and eat more chicken than most any other race out there." It would be considered very politically in-correct. Why? Well to assert that one race(mainly African American,Hispanic,Asian) is in any way different from a Caucasian, is in some peoples' opinion racist. Personally I find it racist to even think that way. Why? Well when you think like that your automatically targeting, and separating that race based on there abilities, and ethnicity, like that is a reason to handicap them.

Political correctness would never work because I find the philosophy offensive. Thats right, I honestly find it offensive. That goes to prove it would never work; if a philosophy, or practice's whole goal is to not offend anyone, at anytime, and that same practice offends some, then the whole idea is struck down completely. Not a very strong idea if you ask me. Is the practice of not offending people(when possible) good? Yes, its great, but when you go overboard with it, it becomes an obstacle of free speech. When I say free speech I don't mean you should be able to say anything you want without any consequences at all. I believe their should be freedom of speech as long as your not imposing on the rights of others. I.e say your at the local Mc donald's drive thru, and you take forever ordering while the driver behind you starts to get more, and more angry. If freedom of speech was absolute, then that driver could walk up to your window and tell you that since you pissed him off he's going to rape your child. As long as he never actually did that, it would be completely legal to express that thought(in a politically correct society). That's why there are boundaries to this freedom. When that driver told you that, he is imposing on your personal rights. Firstly he is communicating threats, and secondly he is using words that you find offensive in the order he placed them. If he came up to your window and said "my daughter was kidnapped and raped, keep a good eye on your child." You wouldn't find that offensive. Why? Because he wasn't directing a vulgar threat towards your child. Sentence structure alone can cause an offense.

Are there absolutes? Some would say "No, I decide what is right and wrong,according to what I believe." but many would say, "Yes, there have to be absolutes,otherwise anything goes." If you were among those that don't believe in absolutes maybe you should think again. Do you believe I should be allowed to kill you without any consequences? Well you must, because if there are no absolutes then everyone decides what is right and wrong according to their own beliefs. So it would be ok for the guy in the airplane to kill the pilot and fly the plane into a building because there are no absolutes, and he is doing what he feels is right. Who are you to tell him that your absolutes are right, and his are wrong? You would be suggesting that you are a more superior being, and that would certainly be politically incorrect, because if you are superior than that would mean someone else is inferior(obviously). When you really study "political correctness" you will find that it takes either a very ignorant, or naive individual to really believe it.

What is the unforgivable sin(uh-oh, i said sin, politically incorrect) of pious, politically correct individuals? Intolerance. You must be totally tolerant of anything, and everything, which is completely asinine. It is impossible to be totally tolerant of everything, it just doesn't make sense in any way, shape, or form. How could you be tolerant of everything if there are intolerant people? Are you supposed to do away with the intolerant people? Who's to say that's ok? The founder of the philosophy? That would mean he was some sort of god to be worshiped, and that once again goes against the entire idea. It's a major flaw in the "system". Looking at political correctness is like "The Butterfly Effect" the cover looks really cool, but when you watch the movie it's completely flawed, and riveted with plot holes. That doesn't mean it didn't have some cool ideas, or scenes but as a whole it just doesn't work.

-RhyeKno

I welcome anyone to challenge these opinions maturely. No name calling please :)

There is this book “guns germs and steel” (A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years) by Jared Diamond where he discusses how large mammals became extinct in many parts of the world.

In Australia and New Guinea they were slaughtered by the pre-historic humans who arrived there about 40,000 years ago. Excavations have revealed that Australia was home to an ostrichlike 400 pound flightless bird, a great python 16 feet long, a Giant Goanna 23 feet long weighing 1,350 pounds, Palorchestid (elephant like mammal with claws), the Marsupial Lion and land dwelling crocodiles. Humans hunted them down and killed them and their prey and also depleted their numbers by taking over their natural habitats.

But modern hunters have been equally cruel. In New Zealand, the Moa became extinct only around 1300 A.D. after the arrival of the Maori hunters. The giant lemurs of Madagascar were killed by modern humans too - around 2000 years ago. And 1500 years ago there was another carnage - of the big flightless geese of Hawaii called the Moa-nalo. And let's not forget the the dodos of Mauritius who were killed as late as the mid seventeenth century by modern humans. All these creatures who had survived for millenia started to disappear after the arrival of humans.

The Americas too had been full of large mammals and 15000 years ago "the big American west looked much like Africa’s Serengiti plains." Many species became extinct about 12-17000 years ago.

But lets get to the burning question: Why were large mammals not exterminated in Africa or parts of Asia? Jared Diamond has a theory…he believes that the animals in America and Australia were easy to kill as they did not evolve alongwith humans and had therefore not developed a fear of them (in these continents humans arrived millions of years after the animals had already evolved). For example the dodos of Mauritius were so tame that people could just walk up to them and kill them. Large mammals in Australia had never seen humans before and therefore were rapidly killed by them. I am sure that this theory is true to a large extent but it doesn't explain everything.

After all, most of Europe’s large mammals met a tragic end too…at one time Europe was choc-o-bloc with lions, elephants, rhinoceros and Hippopotamuses. All gone now. But here humans and animals did evolve together. In Euroasia proto-humans arrived about 100,000 years ago (from Africa). While there are many theories as to why the big mammals disappeared in Europe (and elsewhere), there is no doubt that humans played a very big part. Europe was populated very rapidly and human settlements must have encroached on animal habitats. Besides, ideas such as conservation did not exist at the time and hunting and animal sport was part and parcel of society. Today the only large mammals that Europe boasts of are its bears and moose.

If animals survived in Africa, perhaps it was also because the humans there did not have the sophisticated weapons or large organised human societies that Europe had. Dense jungle remained dense jungle and enabled animals to survive…and today luckily ideas about conservation have taken root in countries like Kenya.

What about Asia then? Why did large mammals survive in Asia but not Europe despite large human settlements and populations in Asia? Surely it couldn't be because humans evolved alongwith the animals? If this was the case then Europe would have its animals too, right? Well, I shall try to answer this question by talking about India as that is the country I know most about...however, my knowledge of ancient India is not deep.

Pre-historic India did not kill off its mammals and one of the major reasons is because ancient India revered its animals and not just the cow! Not because (as Jared Diamond says) the animals were able to withstand human attack because they evolved together. Well, maybe to some extent this is true...but I think animals survived in India mainly because animals have always been an important part of Indian culture. Elephants were domesticated by the ancients, not slaughtered. True, we had hunting too as royals in India had an obsession with it, but at the same time it was not on such a large-scale that it eliminated wildlife. I am not sure why. On my post on the Ellora cave temple sculptures a Canadian blogger (Suburbanlife) made an interesting observation while referring to the carvings on the temples:

...obviously the natural world’s living beings other than mankind has equal importance in the representations of the world in your religions, as contrasted with similar carvings in holy places in Europe, where the imagery is human-centric, and nature exists to be a backdrop for human activity, and might be considered of secondary importance to mankind.

This prompted a reader to write about this subject in more detail:

Animals indeed are quite integral to much Indian imagery, particularly Hindu religious or mythological imagery. Indian literature is also replete with references to animals such as in our collection of fables with animal characters and morals for humans collected in the Panchatantra, believed to go back to 2nd or 3rd century BC. Many historic figures are often depicted complete with their favourite horses, their pets and sometimes their hunted tigers and lions. In Hindu mythology, all “Gods” have animals who carry them around - their vaahan or vehicle...

You can read more about the importance of animals in Hinduism here. And here are some photographs depicting this symbiotic relationship between animals and humans in ancient India...the first three photographs are from the Ellora Temple Caves and the last two from Mammallpuram, the cave temples in Tamil Nadu:

Today we have forgotten our great ancient Indian culture…wild animals in India are being hunted and killed and in the case of tigers, they are being exterminated. On one hand we have discarded our ancient love for animals and on the other we have not bothered to embrace the modern culture of conservation...well not seriously enough.

Let me end this post with a tribute the Bishnoi people, a community in India which loves animals and protects them with their life. The photograph below is an award winning photograph by Himanshu Vyas for the best photo-journalism and was presented this year. He had gone to village in Rajasthan where the Bishnois live when he heard about a woman who was looking after a fawn.

(Photo credits: The photo of an ancient palordchestic is from pbs.org, the cave temple photos are copyrighted to me and the last photograph of the Bishnoi lady feeding a lamb is by Himanshu Vyas)

Related Reading: Tigers in India down to a thousand??
A visit to Mammallapuram - a photo essay
The cave temples of Ellora at Aurangabad - a photo feature
A tour of the Ajanta Caves at Aurangabad - a photo feature

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"When you said “ORFan”, did you mean “ORFan” – a gene unique to one species that appear to have no relatives in other species, or “OFTen”, frequently?" *

In a previous post about a Expelled Q & A event held at Biola University, I mentioned that Paul Nelson (of the Discovery Institute), who chaired the event, had said something about "orphan genes" in our after event discussions (I now know it is 'ORFan' rather than 'orphan') . Well he brought them up again in the comments section of that post and now Ian Musgrave has written up a good post on ORFans over at Pandas Thumb in response. Take a look.

[ * My apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan ...and Musgrave.]

The scientist, Edward T. Houston, held a press conference today to explain his findings.

"Water is wetter when it is not dry out," Houston said. "But when it is cold, the humidity is low and the air is very dry. Water will dry out quickly under these conditions. Changing into snow allows the water to hibernate until warmer weather returns."

The findings also explain why no two snowflakes seem to be the same, an age-old mystery.

"The surprising thing is that snowflake patterns do repeat, but just not near each other," Houston explained. "The snowflakes need to interlock when they are together, and if two snowflakes are the same they cannot do that. So it's a group survival strategy."

Snow is also a good defense against predators, Houston claims, because the combined white color of all the snowflakes provides excellent camouflage.

Bonus Audio Feature!  Point or click here for "The Story of Yellow Snow"

Welcome, readers, to this tag-teamed edition of the Tangled Bank blog carnival.

In the left-justified corner, all the way from the north Yorkshire coast, not far from where Darwin 'took the waters' in Ilkley, it's Peter McGrath.

And in the right-justified corner, coming to you from London, just a few miles away from Downe Bank, Darwin's inspiration for the tangled bank where "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved", it's Karen James.

Well, you glorious swine. Speaking for myself, my blogreading life was full enough without discovering some of the new delights carnivalled here. The long evening reading all these posts has been a 'mental riot' (Darwin's description of the intellectual ferment when he was incubating The Origin), for which many thanks and the RSS has a slew of new entries. A tangled bank is not a monoculture, and I think we can offer something for all here.

I would never call our dear readers much less our prolific bank-tanglers 'swine', however glorious, but I certainly do share Peter's admiration for this fortnight's entries.

I love that Miller calls the film's producers out on why they didn't interview him, Francis Collins, Francisco Ayala, or any other scientists who happen to be believers. Here's a tasty tidbit:

The movie also uses interviews with avowed atheists like Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," to argue that scientific establishment is vehemently anti-God. Never mind that 40 percent of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science profess belief in a personal God. Stein, avoiding these 50,000 people, tells viewers that "Darwinists" don't allow scientists to even think of God.

Puzzled, the editors of Scientific American asked Mark Mathis, the film's co-producer, why he and Stein didn't interview such people, like Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project), Francisco Ayala, or myself. Mathis cited me by name, saying "Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily." In other words, showing a scientist who accepts both God and evolution would have confused their story line.

Read the rest here.

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In McLeroy's own words, here are the responsibilites of the state board of education of Texas:

• Choosing TEKS (the essential knowledge and skills that students must learn in each subject matter)
• Adopting textbooks (to ensure they are covering the TEKS)
• Set passing standards for state tests (currently the TAKS but soon to be end-of-course exams)

Paraphrased by the interview: "We're in the process of revising the standards. They will be taking on the science standards soon."

Look out, people. We know what that means. Science is under a major threat in Texas. There are many who want to change the science standards to reflect "academic freedom" and "teaching the controversy", etc, but really what it aims to do is undermine evolutionary theory in any possible way.

This is NOT just a Texan problem!!! As stated in an earlier article I linked to, what happens to the Texas science standards has the ability to affect many other states. The BOE (board of education) sets the standards; if they decide to include anti-evolution (not that they would call it that, of course) standards, that means they will also decide to adopt textbooks that include information to "teach the controversy", so to speak. Since Texas buys so many textbooks, often whatever Texas adopts, the rest of the nation adopts.

McLeroy goes on to talk about what he thinks are weaknesses of evolutionary theory. His arguments are pretty standard creationist/ID material. For example, he states the following:

Gaps in the fossil record (at the same time, he also says that the fossil record is the strongest evidence, in his opinion, for evolution).

I humbly suggest to McLeory that he do a little research into the fossil record. There are many documented and researched cases of several "transitional" fossils--between species and genera; between families, orders, and classes; and between kingdoms and phyla.

Not enough time...life is so complex that a large amount of time is required to produce the changes we see through random chance and mutation.

First of all, mutation is only one mechanism of evolution. Secondly, how much time does McLeroy think it takes for certain things to evolve, and how does he come to this conclusion? Four and half billion years is a pretty long time, in my opinion.

Information...where does new information (to create an eye, for example) come from?

This seems to be a common argument against evolution--that mutations are harmful, they cannot add information, they only take away, etc. Most people using this argument also never really define what they mean by "information". In any case, this is simply false. Mutations can add information to a genome, and mutations can be beneficial.

Despite McLeroy's weak arguments against evolution that have been addressed time and time again by many others in many places, he DID say he does not wish to change the science standards. He stated in the interview that he would vote to keep them as they are.

Let's hope he means that.

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The parents of children brought up to believe in the Creationist ideology are seeking protective measures to prevent their kids from being picked on by 'nasty' Darwinist troublemakers.

"Our children come home every day with cuts and bruises and tell us that those big bully Darwin kids have been picking on them", said one worried parent, "those Darwinist's think they're better than us because they know science and stuff. We don't wanna hear abut your evolution or round worlds. We like things nice and flat, thank you very much!".

Fanatical Christian religious leaders have added their voice to the 'leave the kids alone' campaign, and are calling for stricter measures to curb so-called 'intelligence' bullying.

"We have total faith in the word of God as written in the holy bible", said Jeffery Whakko of the Evangelist Church of Blessed Morons, "these science-nuts wanna mess with our heads. But they can't get through to us grown ups so they pick on the weak and innocent little folk".

A spokesman for Darwinist's said that the Creationist's were 'stupid idiots' with 'stupid kids' and lived a life of 'stupidity' based on a 'stupid book written by a bunch of creeps who stood around and did nothing to save their savior yet wanted a piece of the action when they could make a few bucks out his legacy while dead".

Civil Rights groups are calling for free speech in the matter:

"We should be able to mock and tease Creationsits just like we do retards, spastics, Blaskcs, Muslims, Gays and clowns", said Ray Cyst of 'Speak Your Mind'.

Written by Jesus Budda

Find more Jesus Budda at www.CELEBATHON.blogspot.com and theSpoof.com

There is a correlation between enthusiasm for the theory of relativity and political views. For example, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama helped publish an article by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe to apply the relativistic concept of "curvature of space" to promote a broad legal right to abortion. Tribe and Obama argued that the Constitution should be interpreted to establish a right to federally funded abortion and that, more generally, ''Roe v. Wade'' does not go far enough. They insisted that a relativistic "curvature of space" could achieve this result by expanding application of the Constitution based on its impact on personal choice. "The ''Roe v. Wade'' opinion ignored the way in which laws regulating pregnant women may shape the entire pattern of relationships among men, women, and children. It conceptualized abortion not in terms of the intensely public question of the subordination of women to men through the exploitation of pregnancy, but in terms of the purportedly private question of how women might make intimately personal decisions about their bodies and their lives. That vision described a part of the truth, but only what might be called the Newtonian part. ... A change in the surrounding legal setting can constitute state action that most threatens the sphere of personal choice. And it is a 'curved space' perspective on how law operates that leads one to focus less on the visible lines of legal force and more on how those lines are bent and directed by the law's geometry."

Andrew Schlafly is a brilliant man. This so called 'science' was invented by a man who couldn't even pass grade school. This 'science' attempts to destroy Newton's ideas, which are already very atheistic, and replace them with ideas that are even more Anti-God.

Ben Stein also echoes my words:

Ben Stein, too, is right. Scientists are natural born killers, always attempting to identify who should survive through 'natural selection', and regularly inject medicines into white rats to watch them die just for the fun of it. It does not surprise me one bit that the Nazis invested much more into science than any other country did at its time.

To me, the only good science is the science that lets us turn uppity foreigners into a gazillion pieces of glass. All other science is anti-American and anti-Christian. If you really need to be enlightened on the Left's power in science and its distortion of reality, I direct you to the Sokal Affair, which is about a particularly rubbish article that Sokal submitted in order to 'defend the Left against a trendy segment of itself'. This man is missing the point: all 'science' we acknowledge today is leftist science, and all science is essentially what the kids call 'trendy'.

For the last two reported days, with the film showing at 402 theaters, box office receipts have been dismal indeed, according to Daily Box Office:

Monday, May 12: total gross receipts were $38,994, $97 per theater.
Tuesday, May 13: total gross receipts were $35,778, $89 per theater.

If an adult ticket costs $8 or $9, an average of about 9 to 11 people per day were viewing the film at each theater.

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by Celia Fenn

This article is written to assist those who are in the Indigo to Crystal transition, and also those who have completed their transition. Archangel Michael has once again asked me to share this information with you in the understanding that many of you are struggling to find ways of coping with the new way of life. Understand that this new way of life is very different from the old, and you cannot just go on living as you did previously. There are certain changes that must happen as you become lighter in body, mind and spirit. You are becoming light, as you assume your conscious role as a Human Angel.

The Human Angel or Crystal body is lighter than the old human body. It carries and transmits more light at higher frequencies. It transmits the new multi-dimensional frequencies to assist others to begin their transition as well. But when we say "lighter" we don't necessarily mean in weight. Many Crystal children and adults are fairly solid and stocky. This keeps them grounded and "here" in their bodies. The lightness is the ability of the physical form to hold and transmit light at high frequencies.

In this article we will discuss how lightness may be expressed on the Physical, Emotional/Mental and Spiritual Levels:

The Physical Body

At this level there are two aspects that are vitally important in maintaining the health of the physical vehicle. These are Diet and Exercise. Many of you will say that you don't feel like exercise, in fact all you want to do is sleep. But exercise can help you to break through this to a more balanced way of life.

DIET: The principle of eating in the New Energy is to eat as close to the source of light as possible. This means eating high on the food chain. Primarily plant food, since plants transmute light into glucose for human consumption via the process of photosynthesis. So eating fruit and vegetables, fresh and organic if possible, is more likely to ensure that your physical food is a good source of light.

We have also found that the Crystal body seems to need a great deal of protein. But this should be Vegetable sourced protein if possible - legumes, beans, lentils and chick peas. If you practice Food Combining (don't mix protein with carbohydrates) you will find these foods quite easy to digest.

Try to eliminate from your diet those foods which are "heavy" and "dead" in terms of their light value. These are processed and convenience foods. Also alcohol, sweets, caffeine drinks and tea and coffee.Drink lots of pure clean water and herbal teas.

You will find as you become more accustomed to your Crystal state, the need to simplify your life and your diet. You will begin to enjoy eating at this very simple and "light" level. Your body will respond by having more energy and being more grounded when intense surges of energy pass through. This is because you will now have the physical strength and resilience to deal with the high frequency energy that passes through your body.

EXERCISE: Using your physical body in exercise is also important in the Crystal state. Because the Crystal energy is so powerful on the spiritual and mental/emotional levels, the body must be kept toned and healthy.

You cannot live in your head and spend your life in front of a TV set or a computer. If you do these things, then they must be balanced by physical exercise.

If you do not exercise your body, the power of the Crystal energy moving through you will ensure that you become and remain "spaced" and out of touch with reality.

I often have to counsel people to make a conscious effort to return to their bodies and begin being present in their own lives. Some people spend years in this "twilight" state because they are not aware that all that is required is to strengthen the physical body so that it can ground the Crystal energy.

The exercise does not have to be frantic or regimented, it can be as light as walking or swimming for half an hour. But it must be regular and consistent.

The Emotional/Mental Bodies

As we move deeper into the New Energies, our former way of life is crumbling away. We are becoming aware that so much of what we assumed would always be there, no longer is. We are seeing the illusions that we built our former way of life upon, and we are moving into freedom.

But as we do this, we often experience much sadness and loss as we let go of things which were central to our lives. And we experience symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Equally, the chaos all around us intensifies as people who are still unawakened become more and more confused and frightened. Some Crystal people are sensitive to this unresolved fear, and may "pick it up" and be affected by its intensity.

We are being trained by Spirit to exist or "be" in a new way.

It is a way of complete trust and reliance on the guidance of Spirit and the Angelic realm. And a way of releasing the need for ego to be in control.

We have to Let Go and Let God, as the saying goes.

This is difficult for many people, but the more you resist the changes the more difficult they become. The more you allow the changes, the more they tend to flow.

As Crystal beings we need to practice habits of affirmative and conscious thinking.

This means living in an awakened and conscious way. Being conscious of what we are thinking, doing and saying at any given time. And how this affects both ourselves and those with whom we come into contact.

So many people are living in morose and depressed and fear-filled states. The Crystal being knows that these are illusions based on fear. When you are in your higher consciousness, seek to express what you truly are - love, joy, harmony and peace. Let your presence be a blessing to each person that you meet. Allow the light that is in you to transmute the fear that is in them.

But, in order to function in this way we have to develop mental and emotional habits of affirmative and trust filled thinking and feeling.

My own personal mantra is taken from a medieval mystic called Julian of Norwich, who always affirmed that "All is Well" - "all manner of things will be well". This is a statement of trust that no matter what happens, there is a higher plan that will work for the highest good. It is our role to allow that plan to unfold no matter what is is.

Remember also the lines from the Desiderata:" You are a child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."

The Spiritual Level

The challenge for Crystal people now is to live the truth of their Multi-Dimensional spirituality.

To be "light" in heart, mind and spirit.

In order to be "light" in the New Energy - you must have recognized and come to terms with both your own shadow energy and that of the human collective. And this recognition should be accompanied by a deep compassion and love.

Owning your own shadow will allow you to understand why there is so much fear in the world, and also to understand how holding your own shadow in balance can help to heal and shift that fear. Every individual that opens their heart to compassion and moves beyond fear helps to heal the greater consciousness of humanity.

And once you live beyond fear, you can live in the eternal present. And truly experience the power of the "Now" moment. You will flow and change with the greater flows. And the Crystal being is sensitive to the shifts in the energies, and trusts and allows and indeed facilitates the changes.

And, finally, the Crystal being knows that the whole purpose of our evolution is to explore who and what we are and can become. We are Light Becoming. And in order to fully experience that reality we need to become creative and playful in the way in which we live and think and are.

Exploring our creative potential will be the next big adventure in the development of the Crystal Consciousness!

So, newly birthed Human Angels, spread your wings and allow yourselves to fly!

The slide into obscurity is not surprising, since all movies decline with time. But, I had to wait for it to run its course before I could nail the final nails into the coffin of this monstrosity with certainty. Creationist / "Intelligent Design" proponents may claim that it's a victory:

Now., as to success, there's no way Expelled's going to be up there with Chain Saw #666; but that's not a realistic assessment anyway. For a realistic assessment, we must compare Expelled with other documentaries about a public issue that you would need to think about.

Expelled is currently ranked #12 of all documentaries and #5 of all political documentaries. (May 9, 2008, 1:39 pm EST)

[...]

As of Wednesday, May 7 (20 days of showings), Expelled had made $6,827,768, so I expect the makers will pull down a profit.

Overall, the film reminds me of The Passion of the Christ and Bella: Panned by legacy critics, loved by the box office, both films paid the rent just fine. Which means that the makers can make other films

But as I explained in my previous analysis of this, it is unlikely that Expelled made a profit, nor did it meet the (absurd) goals of its producers. Since the production budget has not been released, we may never know how badly they hemorrhaged money, but any reasonable look at the probable amount of money spent suggests that the answer is: "like a hemophiliac in a knife fight".

Comparing rankings of documentaries is a bit misleading as well. For the number of theaters that Expelled opened in, it should have done much better than it did. No other political documentary opened on anywhere near the number of theaters that Expelled did (with the exception of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko), but comparing it to #4, Bowling for Columbine (which did $24 million in business while opening in only a quarter of the theaters that Expelled did) shows how out of step Expelled was. The situation is even worse in the general documentary category, where Expelled sticks out like a sore (and gangrenous) thumb. Given the number of theaters it opened in and the lavish amount of money spent promoting this turd, its showing is downright dismal.

And really, comparing it to The Passion of the Christ? A film that did $370 million lifetime gross? Yeah, those two are clearly peas in a pod.

Well it's here(unofficially), but at least I have the trailer in High Definition goodness for your viewing pleasure. Evidently the trailer leaked May 12th(monday) and it is unofficial as of now. The release date is July 25th(It's probably going to change ).The trailer looks decent, my only suggestion would be: change the name? It just doesn't really seem to suit the movie, but thats just personal taste. Watch the trailer and decide for yourself:

If that video doesn't work for you(youtube sucks) Here's a link to a non-youtube video: http://teaser-trailer.com/2008/02/x-files-2-leaked-trailer.html

Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

OK, The Selfish Gene is the title of the book that put Richard Dawkins on the map. It's mostly mentioned now because of the term "meme" that he coined in its pages, but the book was far more important than that, and Brooks is providing evidence that he either didn't read it or didn't understand it.

Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

These points are not in opposition -- the whole point of The Selfish Gene was to explain the paradox of the existence of altruism within Darwinian competition for survival -- Dawkins showed very successfully that it doesn't matter to evolution if an individual survives, it matters if the gene survives, thus the concept of the selfish gene. It's OK for evolution if a bee with great genes gives his life defending the hive, because he is helping to perpetuate the existence of the genes that his brothers also carry. The individual exhibits altruism and dies, but the gene succeeds. Thus the selfish gene.

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.

Yeah, and hypoxia and death have an impact on consciousness and also "can actually be identified and measured in the brain." What's your point, Dave?

Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism.

He mentions Buddhism twice but I have no idea why. My guess is that he knows as little about Buddhism as he does about evolution or neuroscience. I think maybe he read a page of the Dancing Wu Li Masters while investigating California latte sippers in 1987 and he thinks he now understands Buddhism.

I'm not qualified to take sides, believe me.

Don't worry, I believe you.

I have again wasted a lot of words saying what could be said in very few:

David Brooks is a fucking idiot.

The problem arises when we've lost our interest in things. Without some special point of interest we use to wander around without getting the feeling of success. Focus is pretty important for anything you want to achieve. With all too far scattered interests you're in danger of becoming a library containing short moments of nothing. Then again, if you concentrate too much, you become poison for yourself and others. Examples are: impotent top athletes, mad scientists, blind top managers - or as I may call them: failures in evolution.

Focus, but keep it real.

Wanderer:
Inmates of the Cebu Provincial Det. & Rehab. Center, Philippines ~ at YouTube
Körperzellenrock ~ at YouTube

In a recent story, a Vatican astronomer indicated that extraterrestrial life is in no way contradictory to Catholic doctrine.

You've come a long way, baby.

That's right, nothing in the Catechism precludes the existence of life elsewhere in the universe. Our faith is built around the human experience here on this planet - there's no telling what sort of other projects God may have in the works. Makes sense to me.

We Catholics are such a confusing lot. On the one hand, we cling to medieval traditions and regard every sperm as sacred. [*Warning - mature content in that last link!*] On the other, we can be quite progressive, as in the official Vatican acceptance of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. I like to tell people that I first learned about Darwin from my Catholic high school biology class, where Sister Antonella Giba spoke freely and positively about evolutionary theory. Quite unlike its mistreatment of Galileo, the Church is fully on board with Darwin.

So the Catholic enlightenment continues. Now if we could just figure out why so many of us seem to be supporting Hillary . . .

Scientists at the University of Oklahoma, have proposed that human beings evolved from arm-chairs.

"The similarities are immense", claims Dr Aras Hole, "for instance look at the limbs of a human. Surely they are related to those of a chair. We have legs. Chairs have legs. We have arms and likewise arm-chairs, by their very nature also have arms".

The study, which began in 1997 after a team discovered an ancient arm-chair burial ground in Nebraska. "That find greatly enhanced our knowledge", said Dr Hole, "it showed us that they lived in groups just like humans".

"Haven't you ever wondered about the strange likeness chairs have to people?", continued Dr. Hole, "I propose that we (humans) evolved from chairs back in the early Neolithic period. The difference being that humans became the dominant species and subsequently enslaved our arm-chair brothers, relegating them to merely household furniture items".

The full report will be available sometime later in the year.

Written by Jesus Budda

Find more Jesus Budda at www.CELEBATHON.blogspot.com and theSpoof.com

I have a friend in medical school who can attest not just to the bias in testing required to get into medical school, but also to the lack of openness to anyone who would question evolution. Forget the main goal of science in exploring new theories and hypotheses, evolution is the be all, end all, theory for explaining origins.

Here's an excerpt:

I find this not only poor science for those that are preparing to enter the medical field, but it also makes a very poor basis for assessing a person's competence in biology. Not only that, this is an incredibly stressful and tense test. I understand them testing our knowledge of evolution (as a hypothesis) on the biology section and I would not object to that. But why do they insist on using it unnecessarily in the verbal reasoning section on an exam, and always treating it as a widely accepted fact? It seems that they are using my acceptance of evolution as a measure of my competence as a doctor, and I find that to be both bad science and bad medicine. My ability to treat patients with care, compassion, and competence in no way relates to my beliefs about Darwinism.

This is one of the heart breaking things for someone who has minimum of concern to see everybody happy and joyous around herself/himself. I meet friends everywhere I go either for job reasons, entertaining ones, other activities... There are plenty of factors which could be found that do not make these people realized in this life. The vibrations they emanate do really speak immediately and talk not beauties or joy very very often. These kind of vibes are also visible thru the face of each individual, thru their attitudes and speaking which travels towards my ears and impacts in some ways my person.

They follow reasons and evidences why these friends are not realized souls or realized people:

• They talk about everything happens in their life making of small things the most gigantic ones in their attention
• They are pretty glued to certain people/groups and it is very difficult for them to hang out with others completely different from them for hobbies, languages, ideas, etc, etc.
• They make a big fuss about beliefs and believing, in the sense that they are looking for something or someone to believe in because their personal structure is too weak from within and helpless most of the times
• Their face are tense and not relaxed all the time, they seem to live in a world of eternal emergency state
• They make frequent talks about simplicity  
• The movements of their body are not fluid and soft
• They always wear the same “favourite” colors and styles with no originality
• They easily get nervous beginning to use harsh words sometimes & not mastering themselves
• They use repetitive patterns of language and communications in similar situations

What to do with these people? Find methods to address them towards self-realization?

How would be possible that:

????????????????

Now it can be told! As the Discovery Institute's Bruce Chapman indirectly promised last August, Expelled was merely the warm-up act, a teasing little bonne bouche appetizer for this summer's true must-see blockbuster:

Indenial Jones and the Kingdom of the Transparent Numbskulls!

Yes, at long last, Ben Stein returns to the screen reprising the role he first made famous in Literalists of the Noachic Ark: the ruggedly-handsome Dr. Coe "Indenial" Jones, bible-brandishing lawyer and creationist crusader extraordinaire!

From the studio’s pre-release publicity:

Peripheral Pictures’ thrilling new all-action adventure explodes into 1957 (some 19 years after the previous sequel, Indenial Jones and the Lost Moral Crusade), when “Indenial” Jones (Ben Stein) is confronted by a mysterious outbreak of disappearances among his fellow “researchers” of the Dysovary Institute in Luskin, Kansas. And when Jones's faithful sidekick, the celebrated mystic Dr. Jonathan "Moonman" Swells (played by real-life Rev. Sum Dum Loon), vanishes from a local Baraminology Conference, Indy discovers a secret clue: an ancient scroll with a spidery, tree-like drawing and the words, "I think..."

Donning his signature sweat-stained fedora, and armed only with his trademark flagellum bullwhip, Indenial Jones is soon off on a globe-girdling, thrill-a-minute escapade with all the trimmings. Rescuing femme fatale Marion Ravingmad (a delightful cameo by Androgynous Cooter, the leggy, blonde, excruciatingly-slender polemicist for the "Science Kills" political party) from a band of Peruvian cannibal palaeontologists, Jones is pursued from Buenos Aires to Borneo by blood-crazed vampire biochemists, parricidal particle physicists, and sex-starved priapic geneticists -- all minions of a vast, international network of godless materialists bent on moral laxity, unbridled licentiousness, and the abolition of Mother’s Day.

Can Indy solve the ancient riddle before he is flattened by a rolling runaway fossilized coprolite, or will he fall victim to the deadly Curse of the Golden Galapagoan Iguana? Don't miss the adventure -- it's racing toward a theater near you!

We're already booked into an early screening, and will offer a review soon. In the meantime, we recommend a visit to your friendly local Blockheaded Videos to give the original Indenial Jones trilogy a fresh outing.

We can’t wait! We haven't been so excited about a new movie since Michael Moore's Columbine High School Musical!

[This madcap contribution to our blog is by the esteemed “Dr. Swinefat Pink,” making his first appearance as a guest author.]

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Boyer's discovery is that concepts that follow the mental recipe described in the previous post are easily noticed, recalled and passed-on in human cultures, and he experimentally proves that along with other scholars, such as Justin Barrett, Charles Ramble and Stewart Guthrie. Why is this the case? They are a lot of reasons, and here are some of them:

• from an early age, human beings have to deal with a lot of information from their environment; this fact implies that they have to determine which ones of these are worthy of their attention, and then to make a selection between them: phenomena which seem to be always identical tend to be forgotten or "automatically" treated, whilst phenomena which violate a particular intuitive expectation are attention-grabbing and tend to be easily recalled;
• counterintuitive phenomena are easily noticed and recalled because they carry a strategic value; not only the fact that we have to interact with other people, but also our prey/predator past, forces us to draw our attention to phenomena which are strategic, in order to interpret them correctly and then preserve our integrity/advantage (what are the intentions of this person towards me? am I in danger? is it a possible prey that makes that bush moving? etc.);
• counterintuitive concepts and phenomena are exciting; they summon up many of our inference systems and permit many associations and projections; they seem to constitute a "synthetic" experience;
• to recall and to pass-on noticeable phenomena has been crucial for the survival of the human race: conveying the way to manage something which is noticeable, allowed members of a particular community to preserve themselves from possible dangers, and this with no need to experience it directly (e.g. what is eatable, and what is not?).

 * * *

I have summarized very briefly Boyer's account on minimally counterintuitive concepts and their cognitive advantages. I have done this in a quite free way, and hope that readers will not be too disappointed; I request them to refer directly to Boyer's very insightful Religion Explained for the complete theory. As announced in the first post, the aim of this series of articles is not to present Boyer's work in its entirety, but to consider some phenomena of everyday life on the basis of one of his discoveries in the scientific approach to religion, namely the fact that minimally counterintuitive concepts are easily noticed, recalled and passed-on. That is what I am getting ready to do now.

It's so good that we found ourselves wondering how a journalist could write such a piece. But upon scanning to the bottom, we realized that it wasn't written by a journalist. It's a guest column by Keith Montgomery, a professor of geography and geology at the University of Wisconsin Marathon County and a member of the Wausau School Board.

Some excerpts from Montgomery's column (emphasis supplied by us):

Five states recently have considered legislation to protect the "academic freedom" of public educators who wish to question the scientific evidence for biological evolution: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Missouri.

The cry of "academic freedom" is the latest mutation of creationism, distilled in the legal laboratories of the Discovery Institute in Seattle from the dregs of earlier, failed legislative efforts to permit "balanced treatment" of evolution alongside other, religious points of view. This message is also promoted in Ben Stein's movie "Expelled", which is currently playing at Crossroads Cinema in Wausau. Likely the timing of the movie's release and the various states' initiatives is not coincidental.

The first indication of this new tactic surfaced in a comment by the Discovery Institute prior to the 2005 Dover creationism trial: "(T)he outcome of this lawsuit could be that the court will try to tell scientists what is legitimate scientific inquiry and what is not ... a flagrant assault on free speech."

Good stuff! Here's a bit more:

Thus, the Discovery Institute (and Ben Stein) would define the boundaries of science by notions of free speech, rather than by the methods of inquiry established in this field of knowledge over 400 years of work and testing in the natural world.

The fact is, teachers have always had a right to question any theory, and the best teachers do just that with great knowledge and skill. In history, a good teacher might question an established idea concerning a historical event; in English, teachers present alternative interpretations of texts.

But there are limits to this, which have nothing to do with freedom. The boundaries of what can be legitimately taught in a given class are set by relevance and competency in the discipline.

If we copy any more we'll be violating the copyright laws. We urge you to read the entire column. It's worth it.

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The agenda was as follows.

1 Do we need religion?

2 Young and lost, teenagers face problems without jesus.

3 Caring for our immortal soul.

I initially said no to take part in this, since its obviously tilted towards trying to justify religion, not have a real and open dialog around the topic.

A friend of mine that freed himself from religious superstition a few years ago used weeks to nag me into it, he said it was important that someone confronted this priest. (apparently ha was a lunatic even by biblical standards). Eventually i caved and accepted the invite.

(i guess the priest was planning to use me to underscore his his point of view or something)

The problem for him was, i am not that easy to subjugate, the priest i reckon was used to people quivering at his feet while he puked fire and brimstone.

Such speeches simply has no influence on me, i find them childish, ridiculous and preposterous. Often i laugh out loud when confronted with such stupidity, its simply just to stupid to take seriously.

The priest was totally perplexed when i didn't i fold under his thunderous comedy act! I also had the audacity to argue against him. I totally ridiculed that man, simply by putting his outlandish claims into perspective.

Then suddenly after about 15 minutes of ridiculing this hateful sad individual, during a session when i exchanged the name of jesus in a quote ha had just made, suddenly things got interesting.

He said: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God"

I repeated this sentence while exchanging god with Zeus "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the son of Zeus, Zeus dwelleth in him, and he in Zeus.

People in the audience broke out in spontaneous laughter, the priest was starting to act really strange at this point.

First he got up, pointed at me, and screamed a lot of biblical garbage (SATAN! SON OF SATAN! ladidadidda etc). It was totally absurd i laughed out loud and turned to the audience and pretended to pull an imaginary rope through my ears while making a stupid face.

The audience exploded in laughter, and then it happened the priest punched me! Smack! fist right in the face! Luckily I have been in fights countless times before and i automatically pulled out and avoided the full force of the blow.

With a big smile i said to the priest, is that your only argument? he swung again and again making big holes in the air.

During this ridiculous charade of air punches i talked to him: Hey calm down! or i will defend myself! What happened to turning the other cheek? The meek shall inherit and all that? Why don't you do as you preach?

As i was dodging around on the podium many people in the audience where bursting with laughter, the priest finally managed to land a blow that hurt, and i reacted instinctively.

I struck him with a hard right, full force blow. It broke his nose and left him out cold.

The silence was absolute in the room, i blurted out towards the audience "is this a guy you want to take advice from? just because he claims ha can interpret a book supposedly authored by god? isnt this absurd to you? why do you believe in this utter crap?"

The majority of the people across the room bobbed their heads up and down in almost perfect unison.

I said lets go home and not waste any more time on this stupid antiquated superstition!

They all left, apart from a click of die hard religious loonies that started shouting abuse at me, strangely enough they where more interested in yelling at me than to help the priest? none of them helped him?

I sat down and made sure he was breathing and put him into a steady side position before calling an ambulance. (the loonies screaming in the background).

I was thinking about calling the police but i figured he had already suffered enough, loosing his flock and all credibility in a single afternoon. He was still unconscious when the ambulance picked him up, i felt really sorry for the guy.

What a sad confused little man he was.

Even as the ambulance pulled away the loonies where still haggling in the background, i hadn't talked to them yet. i turned towards them and made a sudden move and stomped my foot so it made a loud bang. they all flinched pulled back and shut up, i burst out laughing i turned and walked away laughing.

Fucking morons, it really takes a special kind of idiot to be religious.

The Clergy Letter Project aims at getting as many clergy to undersign a nationwide petition in favour of teaching science in class, notably evolution.

A quote:

We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris.

If any American clergy read this: go there! (as of May 13, 11.219 clergy have signed the petition)