Ah, Fuck It

I don't have time to be messing around with XML right now, and I couldn't get the commenting and ads working the way I wanted to quickly enough, so I'm just going back to a classic template for now.

There are things I like about the new template, though, so next time I have a week or so to spare I'll see about switching. For now, the main advantage to the classic template is that the XML is composed mostly of tags I recognize, whereas with the new template it's almost entirely custom blogger tags that I've never seen before and don't have time to spend learning.

So, yeah, back to the beginning for now.

Café Scientifique cet après-midi

The template upgrade isn't going as smoothly as I could have hoped, but it's going. TY to the Lingering Poof for all his advice.

In the mean time, however, I have an afternoon and evening of excitement planned. I will be going to my first ever Café Scientifique. Apparently they're once a month in Toronto. That's exciting. This month's topic is "Love in the time of science… Is romance just the right mix of genes and chemicals?" which could take a very Jared Diamond-like view and therefore be interesting, or could be all postmodern and dreadful. You can find the poster here(pdf). If I'm inspired, I might blog about it tomorrow, but in the mean time any Torontonians who are free this afternoon should come out. It's at the Rivoli Tavern at 334 Queen St. W in Toronto.

Something Smells Like...

As you may have noticed, there are some changes going on here. I've upgraded to the new template and chose a slightly different template, because I felt like there was too much wasted space on the left side of the page before.

Right now I'm in the process of putting back the various elements that were lost in the switch, so bear with me for a bit.

And So It Goes

When I was in middle school and highschool I had an English teacher named Mary Ann Duffy. She was an articulate, no-nonsense shit disturber. She was also the only English teacher I have met who had any brains at all.

I remember one of my first classes with her in grade 7. I was at a new school, hadn't really made friends yet and was nervous as hell, and she laughed at my joke when I answered her question "what kind of clauses are there other than a subordinate clause?" with, "an INsubordinate clause...?"

I remember laughing when we were reading Midsummernight's Dream and came to the line where Lysander says:

You have her father's love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him

(This is when Hermia's father is trying to convince her to marry Demetrius, but she and Lysander want to marry each other). And I remember Mary Ann appreciating that I laughed, and agreeing that it was funny (to the bafflement of my classmates who, I think, all thought Lysander was asking a question).

Mary Ann fertilised the writing seed Mr. Eckler had planted in me in elementary school, and she encouraged me in all the things I needed to be encouraged in. She thought it was important that we all speak our minds, and I think she saw it as a part of her job as English teacher to give us the tools we needed to speak our minds as effectively as possible. She taught us that it was possible to be diplomatic without compromising our message. She also taught us that sometimes diplomacy was not what was called for.

Some years after she had left the school, I learned that she had died of a brain tumor. I was very sad, not so much for myself, since it had been years since I'd seen her, but because the world needs as many Mary Anns as possible.

Then, just recently, I discovered Molly Ivins. When I saw her speaking in the Dildo Diaries, I realised that she was channelling Mary Ann (or maybe Mary Ann had been channelling Ivins). Mary Ann was exactly the type of person who would have had zero patience with the "dipshit stuff" that Ivins talks about in the video. Reading Ivins' columns, I heard them in Mary Ann's voice.

The more I read Ivins' work, the more I realised that, while Mary Ann was gone, and that was sad, we still had Ivins, and that made it just a little more okay. Watching this video that P.Z. Myers is promoting, I realised just how much Molly Ivins was standing in for Mary Ann in my mind.

At this point, the only thing I can think of to do is to make sure that when I grow old I'm as crusty and witty and articulate and funny as Mary Ann and Ivins were. When I grow old I will say precisely what I think, and I will never be too afraid.

I just hope they can forgive me if I can't do it with a Texas accent.

Behind What?

When Parodie pointed me towards this series of posts by Slacktivist, I don't think she had any idea of the monster she was creating. The series, which is a blow-by-blow review of the worst book ever written was so deliciously sarcastic, and the book itself seemed so compellingly trainwreck-like, that I couldn't resist the temptation. (Parodie, you should have known.) I went to my local library and checked it out. And then I read it cover to cover.

This is not something that I would recommend most of my readers do. I can think of only two reasons to actually read the worst book ever written. The first, which is probably the most common, is that you've had all of your critical thinking faculties surgically excised, but your ability to read is (unfortunately, in your opinion) still intact and you need something to occupy it with, lest you read something that makes you think. I expect that the majority of people who actually spent money on the worst book ever written fall into that category.

The second reason is that you, like me, are nuttily masochistic, with a healthy dose of schadenfreude towards the stupid thrown in. Because I realized that reading this book is like experiencing the real-life, literary equivalent of very well-made slapstick. Two boneheaded gits make a sincere and heartfelt effort to do something that they truly believe in, but that is in fact completely asinine, and end up botching more completely and wetly then the audience ever dreamed possible. It's something beautiful to behold. That, of course, is the charitable interpretation, based on the assumption that the authors are merely stupid. There is also the possibility that the authors are simply aware that evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, as a class, will throw their money freely at anything that seems to support their worldview, and are taking advantage of that fact to fleece them for all they're worth. I wouldn't place odds either way.

Anyway, the reason this is coming up now (I read the worst book ever written in December) is that, although I had finished reading the worst book ever written, the Slacktivist still hasn't finished reviewing it, and in the comments of the latest post, Denizen says

Guys, I hate to break it to you. This first book is widely considered to be the best written, the most realistic, and the least flawed one in the series. It just goes downhill, becoming worse and worse with each book.

So what do you think happened? I mean, with a comment like that, what else could I do?

Now, with the first book I had promised myself that I would read the whole thing, no matter how bad. I make no such commitment about this second book. If it sucks so hard that even the trainwreck appeal is lost, I reserve the right to give up.

I See Red and Green

Why is it that the people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo are the most likely to yell about being colour-blind? Take, for example, this post over at Christian Conservative. I really think that the only way for someone who lives in North America and has a reasonable amount of intelligence to say something like that is through willful ignorance. It cannot escape one's notice that all the Presidents of the USA (and, for that matter, all elected Prime Ministers of Canada) have belonged to a certain demographic. Why, having made that observation, would it not occur to one to immediately wonder what it is about that demographic that is keeping its members in office? How are people so incurious that they're happy to not wonder at all and continue to maintain that their electoral process is entirely a meritocracy?

In response to Gallaugher's final paragraph:

Why can’t we talk about a Presidential candidate who is best fit for the job, rather than whether they are black, white, red or green?

I said this in the comments:

Because there has never been a black President. As I see it there are two options:

1) There has never been a black person qualified and competent to be president who wanted the job

or

2) There is still racism in the USA and no black person can be elected President, no matter how qualified they are.

Now, given the number of black people in the USA, the only way to believe (1) is true is to believe that black people are inherently less capable of doing the job of president than white people. Since civilized and well-informed people (yourself included, of course) will obviously reject that, (2) is what's left. So we need to talk about it.

What I want to know is, are there grounds to either reject my dichotomy, or reject my conclusion about option (1)? If not then, Gallaugher, do you want to fess up to believing option (1) and its corollary?

It seems that Conservatives have decided to attach themselves to the optics of the phrase colour-blind while completely failing to get the point. While being blind to an individual's race, sex, orientation, or religious beliefs when considering them for a job, position, scholarship, etc. is generally* a good thing, being blind to these things when examining the demographics of certain positions to determine if they have actually been awarded on merit is, of course, impossible. And continuing to act blind to them when the obvious conclusion is that the positions are not being awarded entirely on merit, but also on the basis of these characteristics is despicable.

Gallaugher, I challenge you: If you reject what I've said above, explain why. If you don't, justify your insistence on colourblindness in examining the prospects for who could get elected to the role of President.

---

*There are certain positions where some of these characteristics are, in fact, relevant. For example, a Mosque would be justified in taking religion into account when choosing people for positions of religious leadership, regardless of whether there were non-Muslim applicants who actually knew more about Islam than some of the (apparently under-educated in this case) Muslim applicants. Also, there are times when some of the characteristics would have a direct bearing on competence, for example, could a man effectively lead a Take Back the Night campaign?

Also, I want to make clear that this should not be construed as my being against affirmative action. Only if all, or at least most, potential employers, decision-makers, electors, etc. were colour-blind in this way, and nepotism were non-existent, would affirmative action be unnecessary.

Snöfiskcaviar

Well, it's a bit late for my tastes, and there isn't very much of it, but the white stuff that dusted the ground last night is still there, and I can no longer comfortably hang out on the balcony in just jeans and a tank top. As winter goes, it's not much, but I'll take it.

Back Home

I'm back from doing tree, turkey, and presents with my mom's family. I hope everyone in the Northern Hemisphere reading this has had a nice winter solstice light-and-warmth focused holiday with lots of food and loved ones and funny anecdotes. I certainly did. Of the 14 of us that were gathered at my aunt's house, 4 of us were unaffected by the virus that made its way around. That's fun. Fortunately (though not for him) my sweetie seems to be the only one who's still not feeling well. Everyone was very pleased with their hot chocolate mix, and I got a lasagna pan and a casserole dish, which I've been wanting for ages, as well as some other fun and happy presents. Most excellent. Also, I made that same noggy noggy egg nog and it went over quite well.

All in all, a good winter solstice light-and-warmth focused holiday which I will, for lack of a better word, call Christmas, although there was no Christ to be found, thank NOTA.

Now, if only it were acting like winter outdoors...

Chocolatey Goodness

The idea to do this came from the Hillbilly Housewife, as did the idea to use coffee creamer, but the recipe is largely my own, based on how I make cocoa with regular milk. Being poor and hating shopping for bargains, I decided to give jars of this mix to various family for xmas.

LEAMOSI CHOCOLATE MIX
For one cup of hot chocolate you want
- 4-6 tbsp of powdered skim milk (depending on the brand, just follow the instructions for 1 cup of milk)
- 2 tsp cocoa, sifted
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp coffee whitener (it helps with the texture, possibly because it contains lecithin).

For about 7 litres of mix (enough to make approximately 60 cups of hot chocolate) you want:
- 5.5 litres powdered skim milk
- 2.5 cups cocoa, sifted
- 2.5 cups sugar
- 1.25 cups coffee whitener
(The volumes aren't entirely additive because some of the little particles of cocoa and sugar go where the air would be between the bigger particles of milk)

The instructions to give with the mix are as follows:
To make: combine 1/2 cup mix with 1 cup water. Stir well.

You can also jazz it up by adding some powdered mint candies or just stirring with a candy cane. I'm very proud of this idea and of the recipe.

Amazing

Melba toast blows me away. They've come up with a way to get people to pay for bread that by rights should be too stale to sell. Amazing.

I Am Teh Awesome

Know why? Cuz I just made noggy noggy egg nog. All by myself (but with much encouragement from Da5id, who was most helpful in licking the whipped cream bowl). And know what? It is majorly yummy. So much better than the store-bought kind. I lurve eggnog. It tends to separate if you don't chug it, but that's okay. Cuz it's yummy. Mmmmmmm, eggnog.

Dammit, I Want This Settled!

It is interesting to me that no Calvinist has been willing to address my conclusions about their doctrine of Predestination. Michael Gallagher made some sort of half-hearted attempt, but all he really said was that Calvin was right about the doctrine, because it is supported in the Bible. Now, I am willing to concede that it may be supported in the Bible, but he didn't address the core issue, that is, is this doctrine as cruel and psychopathic as I think it is. If not, why not, and if so, how can any self-respecting person worship the deity depicted therein? Why is it that the same Calvinists who are more than willing to argue with me about homosexuality, global warming, gender roles, the need for salvation in the first place, and on and on, are always ignoring me on this one, central question? I don't understand. Twice now I've had comments about my opinion of this doctrine deleted. Now I'm not interested in being one of those people who runs around posting inflammatory things and then boasts of being deleted or banned. I am honestly and truly interested in discussing this, and the intellectual dishonesty of deleting comments one disagrees with or can't respond to frustrates me to no end. I'm not going to start screaming about Free Speech(TM) here, I understand that people's blogs are their space, and they have every right to censor what is said there. I just find it damned frustrating. I don't understand the mindset that allows someone to dismiss rational discourse as fruitless. And I suppose I could, and perhaps should, just live and let live. But I have a vested personal interest in having the questions about Calvinism posted above answered. I'm not interested in one-upping anyone, or playing gotcha, or otherwise playing rhetorical games to prove my intellectual superiority. That is not what this is about. Like I said, I have a personal interest. It is this: I have a certain belief. Now, like all people, I have a remarkable capacity for self-deception, and I have held on to this belief in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary, but, unlike certain people, the evidence to the contrary does bother me. And it may, eventually, if I don't get better at ignoring it, cause me to lose my belief. I'll tell you what I believe. I believe that, in general, people are basically good. To elucidate: By good I don't mean altruistic. I only mean not evil. A) I believe that, all else being equal, the majority of people would rather see others happy than unhappy, would rather see justice win out. And B) I furthermore believe that there is a limit to how far people will go in self-interest. An amount of suffering to others most would be unwilling to be party to, even at great profit to themselves. The fact of there being a significant minority of people who would worship such a cruel, unjust, psychopathic deity is a great threat to that belief. I would like very much for that fact to go away.

The way I see it, there are three options:
1) Calvinism and predestination are not as I have described them. There is something I am missing, or something I have unwittingly added. Those who subscribe to Calvinism simply do not hold the beliefs I have ascribed to them.

2) Calvinism is exactly as I have described, but there is some other factor I have not seen and have failed to account for, that makes the worship of the Calvinist deity okay. And one's own salvation does not fit the bill. See my belief (B).

3) Calvinism is exactly as I have described, and people really do worship a cruel and unjust deity, and they are just completely okay with that.

Now I would prefer very much for option (1) to be true, although option (2) might cut it as well, which is why I am here, practically begging a Calvinist, any Calvinist to come and talk to me. Not debate, not joust, just answer my questions. And if it turns out that option (3) is the truth, what can I say? I'll probably keep on believing in the basic goodness of people, because I just can't help it, but I'll be sad. And the amound of cognitive dissonance I have to live with will be increased.

So, to recap my questions for those who don't like to read paragraphs:
1) Is my characterization of Calvinist Predestination in this post accurate?

2) a)If no, how is it inaccurate? What would you say is a better description of your belief? I'm not talking about framing here, I mean an actual, substantive difference.

    b)If yes, how can you bring yourself to see this deity as good? What makes creating people knowing ahead of time that you have already condemned them to eternal suffering okay?

Will anyone answer my questions?

An Open Letter to People who Make Phonecalls

As someone who now answers phones for a living, I feel I cannot keep my peace on this issue. I hope all of you reading this will take it to heart:

If you refuse to tell the person who answers who you want to talk to, or what you are calling about, they will not be able to help you. It is not a failing on our part, it is the simple fact of our humanity. We cannot read minds. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Actually, I *am* Canadian.

For all my linguist buddies out there.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.
The West
The Midland
Boston
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Update: Is anyone else not seeing the red in those bars? It should be there. Oh well, I'm not gonna pick through the mile of HTML to see where it went. Whatevs, man.

OMG! OMG!!!eleven!

Oh. My. Bob.

There is actually a place called Butts County, Georgia.

Awesome.

In other butts news:

Butts Across America
Butts Brewery in the UK, and
Water goes in butts.

Butts are funny.

Google: Still Not Evil

Google is investing an undisclosed amount of money to install enough solar panels to offset about a third of their energy consumption. They say the project should pay for itself in lower electricity bills within 5-10 years.

I think that's exciting.

100

The latest Skeptics' Circle has been up for a little while now, but I figured I should announce it, so that the latest Carnival of the Godless didn't feel too lonely in the announcement. Unlike the Skeptics' Circle, however, the CotG features two of my posts. But don't worry, there's also a lot of really good stuff there.

I had kind of hoped to do something a little more substantive for my hundredth post but, well, there you have it.

PZ Myers Is A Frikkin Genius

He has come up with the top ten reasons religion is like pornography.
While I'm making you click through to see the original top ten, in the comments several people have added other reasons religion is like pornography. I'm listing some of the most apt below:

11. Both are most heinous when inflicted on children.*
14. "Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!"

#13 (the soundtracks to both are crap.), however, is pure bullshit. The Anglican and Catholic churches have done some great things, musically.


What I really like about this post, though, is the last paragraph:

Basically, I'm saying we ought to regard religion like we do other human foibles: regulate it, curb it's excesses, shame those who overindulge, and for jebus' sake, stop treating it like some exalted, privileged, glorious endeavor. Any idiot can be religious, after all, and many are.

I really wish people would stop telling each other that believing in something for which there is no evidence makes you a good (or at least better) person.

---

*I am in no way trying to say that inflicting religion on children is anywhere near as bad as inflicting pornography on children, only that religion, like pornography, is at its worst when children are involved.

Homeschooling

This post started out as a comment on Meg's post about homeschooling, but it got long enough that I decided to make it its own post. Here it is.

This is something I think about a lot. I certainly see where Meg's coming from with a lot of the problems with schools. Things like age-segregation, rote learning, being forced to learn at the pace of, and in the style of, what suits the majority are very real problems, not to mention the social difficulties like bullying, clique mentalities, and unenlightened self-interest that kids either learn or are victims of or both. I can't speak to Meg's religious objections, but I agree that there are plenty of objections to be made without bringing religion into the picture. I'm just not yet convinced that homeschooling is the best solution. Not that I'm questioning anyone's decision, I'm just trying to work it out for myself. I mean, yes, there are huge problems with the school systems, but are we doing better to remove our children from this system, rather than try to fix the system? What of the majority of children whose parents simply don't have the resources to homeschool? Or to be activists to fix the schools? Should those who do have those resources focus them entirely inward? Do we have a responsibility to those other children to try to make the public school system something that really makes it possible for all children to succeed, or does our responsibility end with our own children?

I believe it is more socially responsible to devote our energies to fighting for educational reform that would allow for more mixing of ages, smaller class-sizes (which would in turn allow for more individual attention and more personalized lesson plans), more time outside of the classroom, better facilities, etc. Not to mention a paradigm shift in career and work expectations that would make it easier for parents to have successful careers, or even just make ends meet, and still be very involved in their children's educations. But if I had children, would I be willing to sacrifice their education and happiness on the altar of social responsibility?

It's not an easy question.

The Evil of Calvinism: Predestination

I'm not going to pretend that the doctrine of predestination is the only evil thing about Calvinism, but I'm willing to entertain the notion that it is the most evil.

Let's look at it honestly, shall we?

God: Omnipotent, omniscient. Knows before the beginning of the world everything that will happen up to the very end. Creates a system whereby people will be sinful, and may or may not be saved, depending on His divine whim. Knows who will be saved and who will not, and that the vast majority of humanity will be tormented for eternity. Creates people anyway! Offers salvation to a select few (the elect) and lets the rest burn for the heinous crime of being exactly as they were created.

Can we please talk about this? This is NOT loving. This is NOT grace. This is evil, plain and simple. This is a sick, psychopathic God that we are describing here. One who ENJOYS watching its creation suffer. The Calvinist god had every choice in the world and could have set up a different system, whereby people would not have to suffer for all eternity, BUT HE DIDN'T.

I have a question for the Calvinists out there:
Even if you can't help but believe that the Calvinist god exists, how can you bring yourself to worship him? How does this not make you sick? I mean even if you could show me absolute proof that such a deity existed, I could NEVER worship it. How can you live with yourselves, knowing that you've dedicated your hearts and souls to the above-described pure, unadulterated evil?

This shit is FUCKED UP.