Some good news out of New Orleans.

I've written about several of Louisiana's weird attempts to push creationism in the last year so I suppose it's nice that I can write something positive about the state in what will probably be my last post of the year.

Orleans Parish School Board votes to ban creationism. 

In a unanimous vote the Orleans Parish school board voted to give creationism the boot.  It even went as far as to specifically name books written to fit the atrocious Texas science and history standards.

No history textbook shall be approved which has been adjusted in accordance with the state of Texas revisionist guidelines nor shall any science textbook be approved which presents creationism or intelligent design as science or scientific theories.

I was also particularly impressed with this part of the ruling.

No teacher of any discipline of science shall teach any aspect of religious faith as science or in a science class. No teacher of any discipline of science shall teach creationism or intelligent design in classes designated as science classes.

With all of the nonsense currently going on in that state it is nice to know some people there still care about education.

Fox news has "balanced" discussion of religious demographics study

So here is something that happened on fox news recently.

They are speaking about this study.

The "Unaffiliated" Are Now the Third-Largest Religious Group in the World 

So the first thing I notice is the total lack of balance here.  They are talking about a study showing that non-religious people are the third largest group in the world and then proceed invite two devoutly religious people to discuss it, a Baptist Pastor and an Orthodox Rabbi, and not an atheist or agnostic in sight.  Surprise, surprise both of them agree that this is horrible and proceed to dump an abusive pile of nonsense about the irreligious on their viewers. 

Apparently both buy into the typical prepositional nonsense that morality requires god.  Claiming at one point that "morality is always best when it is based on god's word,"  I suppose it didn't occur to them that a Baptist and a Jew have somewhat different perceptions of what qualifies as god's word.

I also particularly loved how the baptist pastor bragged about his mufti-million dollar church and how it attracted people from "all" religious backgrounds, he then lists of several Christian denominations like "Catholics" and Episcopalians." Oh yes, pastor Jeffers, you are clearly attracting a wide variety of people there.  Of course from there he un-ironically refers to Christianity as a "relationship with god." 

At no point did they really engage with the data in the study, not the slightest analysis of it's accuracy or the methods employed in the study.  Both of them just used their time as an opportunity to proselytize.  To be honest I'm not even certain this counts as journalism at this point.  Fox took a study and then, rather than actually report about it, used it as a jumping point to give air time to a couple of hacks who wanted to promote their books and new church buildings.

Merry Christmas.

From SMBC

Where you good this year?

The end is nigh, run for your lives...or just have a party.

Every time some group or another predicts the end of the world skeptics groups have a party. 

We did it last year with that ridiculous Harold Camping fiasco. And we are doing it again tomorrow night for the Mayan Calendar thing.  End of the world party. Hosted by the Phoenix Area Skeptics which I am a member of.  The end of the world will likely be a non event but the party should be great.  The Minibosses and The Amazing Coconauts will be playing.

The only question is remaining is who is going to predict the end of the world next year so we can have another party.  Come on conspiracy nuts and crazy people, don't let us down.  Your willingness to make a fool of yourselves gives us the excuse to throw cool parties.  Don't be lazy, do your part.

Christmas Music Pt. 5

This is a song by Tim Minchin.  Not funny like most of his stuff, but good none the less.

Stupid people on Twitter.

So I've been posting on twitter more often lately since it allows me to network and it has netted me more followers. (Thanks for following me) In general I've had some good conversations, even the religious people I've debated have mostly been cordial and reasonable.  Though debate may be a strong word with a 140 character limit.  That changed this evening when I ran into the two douchyist douches who ever douched.

Thought I'd post some snippets of the conversation.  I posted the names of the jackasses so readers will know to avoid these horrible excuses for human beings. You can see the whole debacle on twitter.  I couldn't get the embed feature to work so I just copied pasted. It started when I noticed this post.

StephanienraJaniczek ‏@SMjaniczek

@cherokee_autumn any speech that attacks Christians is hate speech stop it 

 I posted back what I thought was a reasonable question.

@SMjaniczek If we criticize beliefs we think are wrong we are bigots? 

From here I ended up in two different conversations.  I first got a message from a different user that quickly devolved to this.

Gary Eaton ‏@garysteveneaton

@SkeptimusPrime I'll have more respect for you evangleatheists when u start pounding the religion that still exists in the dark ages.Islam

So I responded.

@garysteveneaton If you think we never criticize Islam you are just willfully ignorant. I also don't care if you respect me. 

He turned to insults almost immediately with this.

@SkeptimusPrime I mean seriously, how candy assed do you have to be if Christians scare you?

So,  wrote a few tweets as a response. 

@garysteveneaton OK first off, I have spoke to you quite cordially and you have returned to me with insults.

Secondly I am not scared of Christians, some of them want to subvert the legal system and I stand up against that 

All of them have beliefs which they cannot support with evidence and I criticize that. 

I also criticize psychics and homeopaths and 9/11 truthers and a host of other people with crazy beliefs too. 

Quite frankly for someone to claim I am a bigot and then engage in insults....you can kiss my "candy" ass. 

The last one was the only one he bothered to reply too, in which he said.

@SkeptimusPrime I didn't call u one, Must have been the voices in ur head. But I agree with them. U are a bigot 

So apparently I'm a bigot because I don't agree with this guy, and he unleashes a litany of insults.  This is the first time I've spoken to him so he can't possibly know all the things he thinks he knows. At that point I realized that this guy was so far off his rocker there was no point in continuing so he got this one final tweet.

@garysteveneaton You started the name calling you fucking twit...oh looky here, there is a ban hammer right here. 

The other conversation was even more strange.  The original person I wrote to who said that it is automatically hate speech to criticize Christians replied by telling me that it was the sort of thing that civil rights people do.  I found that an odd thing to say so I responded.

@SMjaniczek I don't know any civil rights people who would say that.

She popped back

@SkeptimusPrime they are right now. Go look at Dana Loeschs tl 

I pointed out something I thought was fairly obvious.

@SMjaniczek Civil rights people say we can't criticize others beliefs? 

Since that is exactly what civil rights people are doing. 

I think you may be wrong

I thought it was a fairly easy to understand point, the civil rights movement is all about criticizing the beliefs of people they see as wrong, if you think that civil rights leaders are claiming you can never criticize beliefs you clearly do not understand the civil rights movement.   I hoped this conversation would go better than the other, but I was clearly wrong because I got this.

@SkeptimusPrime uh no im not u ignorant ass. Do a google search ur a vile bigot and as bad as an anti semite hating on jews for blood libel

So at this point I could smell crazy on this person, and was pretty much had my fill of speaking with nut job conspiracy theorists for the night, and anyone who goes to calling someone a bigot after speaking to them online for two minutes isn't worth the DNA that spawned them, so they got the ban hammer too.

@SMjaniczek Wow, name calling? Not my fault you are an idiot with poor logic skills. Ban Hammer for you.

Apparently they reported me for spam or something and got me banned from twitter for a few minutes and I had to unlock my account and promise not to spam anymore, which I didn't do in the first place, so go ahead and let them know how insane they are if you like, personally I recommend you stay away, they aren't worth the trouble.

NASA Johnson Style (Gangnam Style Parody)

Found this today and had to share. 

Bobby Jindal's statement about birth control not friendly to women's rights.

Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana who is famous for his support of creationist nonsense in the Louisiana school system says something that on the surface seems reasonable.  He suggests that birth control should be made an over the counter drug.

Bobby Jindal: Birth control should be over the counter.

I wanted to give this guy some credit, believe me I would like to be able to say he isn't a complete loss, but lets look at the reasons he gives for suggesting that birth control should be sold without a prescription.

Republican objections to mandatory birth control coverage in health insurance coverage were a major part of Democratic messaging toward women in the 2012 election cycle. Republicans wanted an exemption to the mandate for religious organizations. Jindal argues over-the-counter sales to those over 18 years of age would make this debate irrelevant.

See, Jindal doesn't care about women's health he only cares about winning elections, whether or not this is good for women or not is irrelevant as long as it shuts down a political argument.  What should be important is a science based assessment of the risk verses the benefits of changing the law.

Every form of birth control, just like any medial treatment, have possible side effects, the risks of those side effects vary depending on other life style practices and family history of certain illnesses.  The pill, for instance, caries a small risk of blood clots.  Not a major concern for most people, but for someone with a family history of heart problems, or someone who smokes a lot it is a concern.  Traditionally doctors have been the ones to determine which form of birth control is safest for a particular woman.  There are arguments to be made for changing this, but "it will help my political party win elections" is not one of them.

It is also worth noting that this is not really going to fix his parties issues with birth control, since the mandate in the affordable health care act includes other forms of birth control than the "pill" like IUD, which is considerably more expensive, but is also more effective than the pill.  Even if the laws are changed it won't end this debate.