George H.W. Bush Witnesses a Same-Sex Marriage, World Net Daily Readership Is Pissed

It’s a bit of an old story and I almost didn’t bother to write about it on here because the comments are what you would expect and WND only linked to a Washington Post article about it: Bush 41 Witness at ‘Gay’ Marriage in Maine.”

In fact, I’m only writing about this in case you, dear reader, missed it. George H.W. Bush, US President #41, from 1989 to 1993, was a witness on a marriage license for a homosexual male couple who got married in Maine. Father of George W. Bush, US President #43, one of the most conservative and religious presidents in recent memory.

Well, I suppose I’m also writing about it to point out just how far we’ve come as a society where even a guy like H.W. Bush would do this. And to show just how über-conservative and out of touch World Net Daily commenters are (i.e., two of the three top-rated comments are Bible verses condemning homosexuality).

Joseph Farah of World Net Daily Does Not Understand Science, Non Sequiturs

I feel fairly confident in that title for this particular post. I’m writing it in reaction to Joseph Farah’s normal column, this particular article entitled, “‘Science’ Is Giving Itself a Bad Name.”

Ahem.

Let’s review what he’s talking about in this particular case. He’s talking about a story that I saw earlier this week, a new study suggesting that life could survive on Earth for around another 1.75 billion years, then Earth will become uninhabitable. The story was big, oh, last week (Joseph’s a little behind in his ranting, or he saved it for a day he didn’t have something else to rant about).

This is what I personally consider interesting research, and it gets to the whole question of habitability, and if we discover a planet somewhere, what criteria does it need to meet in order to consider it habitable. The number is actually not new — around 7 years ago when I was taking a seminar on habitability, we were reading papers that said around 1.5 billion years (250 million years is NOT a large uncertainty in doing these kinds of models). The modeling is based on the increasing temperature of the sun and Earth’s position in the solar system. Then, how would – how could – Earth respond, as a planet, with all its known feedback mechanisms, to that increase in solar energy.

As I said, an interesting problem, and a very complicated one. The latest research is apparently now putting it at 1.75 to 3.25 billion years (read that as “1 and 3 quarters to 3 and one quarter” as opposed to knowing a value to the three significant figures). Anyway, so that’s the news, that’s the research. After that period of time, based on what we know about various feedback mechanisms, Earth would become too hot to have any liquid (or solid) water and would bake, becoming lifeless.

Now we go to Farah’s article. He seems to be ranting about this research. Except he’s ranting about climate change and “Climategate.” And it has overtones of young-Earth creationism.

In a clear non sequitur, he’s pointing out that this research was done at the University of East Anglia (UK), which is infamous in conservative circles for “Climategate” e-mails that were read out of context by people who don’t know how science works and showed nothing except the ignorance of their readers but persuaded many in the public that scientists were faking data (sorry for the long sentence, I typed it all in one breath).

Besides that, he’s confusing climate change making life a pain in the ass for current human society with the Earth being unable to support life. Again, a non sequitur, or perhaps even a false equivalence.

Not only that, he uses this as a springboard to argue that all of modern science is flawed because, effectively arguing as Ken Ham does, effectively asking the question, “Were you there?” Don’t believe me? Here’s what he says (in part):

How did these researchers at East Anglia University determine the world has at least 1.75 billion years left?

Did they use scientific methodology? Did they consider all the possibilities, including how much longer the sun will continue to shine? Does any scientist or team of scientists have the capability of considering all the possibilities?

I think not.

Furthermore, the particular “scientist” behind this study makes some pretty amazing pronouncements that go well beyond the ability to “observe” and “experiment.”

For instance, he states categorically that life first appeared on Earth nearly 4 billion years ago. Did he see it? Did he observe it? What evidence does he have for that statement? He continues with more sweeping suppositions: “We had insects 400 million years ago, dinosaurs 300 million years ago and flowering plants 130 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans have only been around for the last 200,000 years – so you can see it takes a really long time for intelligent life to develop.”

I know, you hear this kind of thing from “scientists” all the time. But is it really science? Is there any evidence whatsoever to support these statements. If so, I would like to see it. I’ve searched and searched and can’t find any.

Where’s the observation? Where’s the testing of the hypothesis? Where’s the scientific method we’ve been using since the 17th century?

It’s simply not there.

I’m writing this post only a few hours after Farah put it live on WND, so there are very few comments. Though, I’m making it go live two days after I wrote it, because I’m currently in Yellowstone and without any internet. But, I think that this stuff stands on its own without needing WND commenters to make it even more ludicrous.

Do You Believe?

Another week, another video from David Rives. One of the only up-sides to these videos is that they do not attract a lot of comments, and those that they do, are mostly against him.

The purpose of this past week’s two-minute video, “Evolution: Are You a ‘Believer’?” is to try to put evolution on the same “belief” footing as creationism. To argue that both are simply world views and are on equal footing (false dichotomy, anyone?).

I’ve actually written about this before on my other blog, back in 2010 in a post entitled, “Do Scientists Believe?” In it, I argued – perhaps pedantically – that we should avoid using the word “believe” when it’s something based on objective data. If it’s something we’ve come to through reason, logic, and evidence, the term should be “think,” or even “conclude.”

The top-rated comment to Rives’ video this week comes from “fredw” who wrote this:

I don’t “believe” in evolution. I *accept* evolution because it explains the facts better than any competing theory. Rives is welcome to present his competing case at any time, but this “they’re both equal and we’ll never know” stuff is false equivalence – he’s trying to whitewash over the fact that most of the evidence is on the side of evolution. Of course we can determine things about the past – ask any historian or detective, or any geologist, physicist, astronomer, etc.

I notice that this is a regular series – all we hear is “famous scientist X was a believer”, or “evolution can’t answer question Y” – none of these mean evolution is wrong, or creationism is correct.

If he wants to convince me, show me the direct evidence of creationism.

Eh, false equivalence, false dichotomy … whatever. Otherwise, I completely agree, and as I mentioned, it’s reassuring that the most popular comments to David’s videos tend to be on the side of science. Especially on a site like World Net Daily.

God Saved 15 People at McDonalds, Ignored Thousands Others Currently Dying in Agony

It’s a headline you might expect from The Onion, but it’s how I feel these days after reading a headline like this one from World Net Daily: Did Divine Intervention Prevent McDonald’s Massacre? The story was originally a link to another news source and under the headline, “Did Mother’s Prayer Stop McDonald’s Massacre?”

I hate to say in a situation like this that the story itself is again, somewhat unimportant and not unusual for America: Guy walks into a place (McDonalds in this case), waves a gun, asks for valuables. And in this case, he fired at people. Except that his gun wouldn’t fire. He ran outside, fixed, it (why did he have to go outside to do that? why didn’t someone lock the doors when he left?), came back, and it wouldn’t fire again. Ran outside, fixed it (again, why did no one lock the doors?), came back in, and again it wouldn’t fire.

The shooter apparently has a mental illness. From the few psych classes I took, based on what his mother is saying, he sounds like he has paranoid schizophrenia (and he’s 24, around the age when schizotypal disorders manifest): ““He said, ‘They’re trying to kill me, Mama! I’m going to die tonight! I’m going to die tonight!’” the mother, who didn’t want to be identified, told the newspaper. … [Her son] said he was hearing voices.”

And, after he told his mother that the previous night, she prayed: “Last night, I told God to keep Jestin, and that’s what I do believe happened.”

Okay, let’s not minimize that it’s a good thing the gun didn’t work, and it’s a good thing no one was injured nor killed, and that the gunman is now in custody and hopefully being mentally evaluated.

With that out of the way, let’s look at this again from a perhaps more cynical vantage point, and let’s say the mother is 100% correct and there is an omnipotent deity who does answer prayers and answered hers. So, this god decided to answer one prayer to keep safe a guy and saved 15 would-be victims by making a gun misfire. Meanwhile, this omnipotent god – all-powerful, -knowing, -capable, -etc. – didn’t have the guy to go a hospital. Turn himself in. Or let’s go further: This creator of everything and able-to-intervener in everything is allowing untold tens of thousands of people to be slaughtered daily across the world in civil wars, dictatorships, other gun-related crimes, malnutrition, no medical care situations, etc.

It decided to save 15 people instead of thousands.

Lady, your god sucks.

Not that I expect you to agree with me. Nor do I expect WND commenters to agree with me. Let’s take a sampling of the top-rated comments out of the 218 on this 13-hour-old article, shall we:

• kingdad – “Thank You Good Lord for Favors received and Prayers Answered!”
• LindaRivera – “Amen! What a Wonderful, WONDERFUL, Most PRECIOUS God! May God’s Name be praised for all eternity! “
• gardeninggal1 – “After reading the story there is nothing to say, but, Praise the Lord.”
• AnitaHaircut – “Divine intervention indeed…there have been other accounts of such incidences. God is great and merciful.”

Those are the top-rated comments, all with more than 20 up-votes and no down-votes.

Sorry, I disagree. Your god is not worth worshiping if it is willing to prevent 15 people from dying in the US at a McDonalds and not willing to prevent the nearly 21,000 deaths every year from hunger. I’ve never read Hitchens, but I’ll quote his book at this point: god Is Not Great.

Censoring Eye Roll on World Net Daily

World Net Daily censors its comments. All you have to do is go to my About page for more on that. Or some of my earlier posts where I mentioned how many comments WND had deleted in some articles.

So, when I saw a news story on WND linked to the London Guardian entitled, “Popular Science Kills Comments,” I knew that it would be rich in cognitive dissonance.

The article itself isn’t even really important, but I’ll mention it in one line if you haven’t figured it out: The website Popular Science has decided to remove the ability for readers to comment on its articles because “Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.”

Right now, the top-rated WND comment is from “ratamacue76” who wrote, “Sounds like they just can’t handle opposition to their views.”

“onooop” wrote, “Nobody wants to know what the publics real thoughts and feelings are anymore! they just want us to be subservient and indoctrinated to them!”

And, “Captain America’s Wife” wrote, “I’ve noticed recently that a few of their articles were politically motivated and skewed to the left, so it’s no surprise that they want to suppress opinions and discussion.”

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder if these people realize that everything they say applies to their own views, too.

Freedom of Religion and Speech Is for Everyone Except People With Whom We Disagree

I had just posted my, “Forced Out of Business Because of The Gays,” when I realized that I had missed a second article from WND about the same subject: “Christians Facing ‘Hunger’ After ‘Gay’-Rights Battle.”

It’s the same drivel except goes into a few more quotes, such as this nice bit: “The Bulls told the Mail they are being forced to sell their nine-bed facility because last winter they “were actually shivering and were hungry.”” Either that’s hyperbole or they were stupid and didn’t find supplementary income. Or ask someone to come in and review the place to figure out why no one was coming (see my previous post on it).

At the moment, five days after it was posted, it has 214 comments. I was initially just going to post it as an “Edited to Add” to the previous post, but then I saw this WND story by Bob Unruh: “Facebook OKs ‘Jesus F–ing Christ’” and, knowing what WND is all about, I couldn’t resist the irony. So you get a tag-team post for today.

So let’s review: The first story is about how these Poor Innocent Christians® who were just practicing Christian Love™ by telling gays they couldn’t stay at their bed and breakfast but were fined over it and told they had to provide equal access are now going to lose their business because no one wants to stay with the bigots who don’t know how to clean. (That’s me paraphrasing the article.) Meanwhile, WND is clearly bemoaning the idea that religious freedom AND freedom of expression are dying out because they’re being forced to tolerate The Gay. (Someone from the UK please enlighten me — do you actually have guarantees of freedom of expression/speech and religion?) For example, the top-rated comment is from “Springdale” who wrote, “Another of increasing examples of not only the intolerance of the homosexual movement and their fellow travelers, but of their persecution of those who adhere to Christian values.”

I don’t think I’d get any argument by stating as a matter of fact that World Net Daily portends to value freedom of speech and (Christian) religion.

Which is why Unruh’s post is deliciously ironic, and it even contains an “Editor’s Note: The following report includes explicit language and links containing statements that may offend some readers.” Here are the first five paragraphs:

Just imagine, you have a family friendly Facebook page and are happy for others to join the conversation and interact.

Then someone comes along, creates a Facebook identity using the most filthy language imaginable – such as “Jesus F—ing Christ. Slut Mary’s Bastard” – and starts posting on your page as “liking” the various items.

Suddenly, children are exposed, adults are hurt and people question your own integrity and values.

Then you learn Facebook has approved the group’s name and refuses to remove its page.

That’s apparently what’s happening to the group called The Center for Marriage Policy, which believes the failure of traditional marriages in the United States “is the primary driver of America’s self-compounding intergenerational socioeconomic and governance problems.”

The horror! Oh, wait — weren’t you guys just posting an article where you were trumpeting an idea that freedom of speech was being squelched? And here you’re clearly angry that someone is exercising their freedom of speech? It just so happens that it’s against your religion, mocking it.

The comments are what you’d expect so are not worth going into. I just wanted to do this post because I think it displays, yet again, the hypocracy of screeching about how your “freedoms” are being trampled on because you’re having a harder time legally being a bigot, while at the same time you’re yelling about people using those very freedoms in such a way that offends you and you want those freedoms taken away from them. It’s a two-way street, suckers.

A Basic Astronomy Education and Public Outreach Press Release Brings Out the World Net Daily Loonies

Pun intended in the title considering the story is from the London Guardian that WND titles, “‘Rotating Moon’ Filmed by NASA.”

This is basically a movie made with Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs of the lunar surface. The movie was made by people specifically tasked to create education and public outreach (“EPO”) materials to help get the public educated about and interested in NASA science. It’s a tiny part of many large science budgets of NASA missions, but it’s a required part usually.

The post has generated 24 comments on WND in the roughly 1 day that it’s been up, and they do range over a large number of “issues.” Fully 8 comments (that’s 33%) are complaining about the 30-second ad to watch a 29-second video on London Guardian‘s website. Another 6 (that’s 25%) are debating whether we actually landed on the moon with astronauts during the Apollo missions. And another 6 (another 25%) are arguing about geo vs heliocentrism (Earth- or Sun-centered solar system).

I weep for the state of education in the United States.

Catholic Infighting Is Fun!

This story is brought to you by the letters JHC and proud Christian Love™.

Art Moore penned Thursday’s WND article, “Pope: ‘I Have Never Been a Right-Winger’.” Anyone who’s been following the news knows what this is about. For those who don’t, or who are reading this many moons after the fact, Pope Francis made headlines last week by effectively stating that people need to stop worrying about things like abortion and The Gay and focus on the bigger message of Jesus’ love and helping the poor and various other things. Well, in fact, here’s the quote people’ve been bandying about:

“Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person. … The catechism, the Catholic Church’s book of official doctrine, condemns homosexual acts, but says gays and lesbians ‘must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.'”

This of course follows on his comments two months ago when he said, “Who am I to judge?” with respect to homosexuals. I posted about WND’s take on that li’l zinger on July 29.

These latest remarks are being hailed by many as more steps towards the Catholic church adopting a more mainstream view with respect to social issues. But, as with last time, the conservatives are re-interpreting his remarks to somehow spin them back to be anti-gay.

For example, WND points out in their article the following: “Some U.S. bishops, however, have publicly lamented that Francis, the first Jesuit to become pope, has not made strong pronouncements about abortion and homosexuality.” Remember, Christians are all about love, right?

Meanwhile, National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen is desperately trying to save face, saying, “he’s doing no more than rephrasing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which denounces homosexual acts but says homosexual persons are to be treated with “respect, compassion and sensitivity.”” WND also points out that people think it may just be some mistranslations. ‘Cause, you know, they get interns to translate what the leader of a religion says that claims more than 1 billion people.

WND’s commenters are among those either lamenting or trying to reinterpret what he said. Well, mostly lamenting. And doing it a lot, with over 750 comments as I write this.

Top-rated is “Jean Spearing” whose first paragraph states: “I cried when I read the pope’s words last night, not because I agree or disagree with any specific thing he said, but because I understand the cultural implications for those Catholics trying to speak out against abortion and gay marriage will be great. I am one of those Catholics, who will speak up in social situations, at work, or with friends or in spending time to comment on blogs in defense of the unborn and traditional marriage. I fully expect to have the Pope’s words thrown in my face now every time I try to defend Catholic teaching. His words will be a weapon against my emphasis on the doctrinal teachings. That I guess is a price I will have to pay to defend the unborn and to resist the evil gay agenda.”

Remember, this post is brought to you by Christian Love™. You gotta keep remembering that ’cause it’s not obvious.

Meanwhile, “BigBoa” wrote, “He says he can’t understand why the church is so obsessed with things like abortion and homsexuality. Obviously, the false prophet has arrived.” “Guy_in_Kingston” agreed with “sounds like a Marxist to me.”

“oceanlover998” also agreed: “As a traditional Catholic, it is gravely upsetting to witness yet another post-Conciliar Pope debase and betray the teachings of Jesus, the Apostles, and the Holy Spirit. Faithful Catholics should pray for this Pope – for both his repentance and that he is not allowed to inflict further damage to the hearts, minds and souls of the Faithful. Holy Mother of Fatima, hasten the Reign of the Immaculate Heart”

That’s really the jist of the comments.

Pigs from Space! (Or, Life, Anyway)

When I saw this story making the news, I figured that it wouldn’t be long before WND did a post on it. Bob Unruh obliged, and five days ago he published an article entitled, “Study Says Life Did Come from Outer Space.” Ahem.

The study has gotten a lot of press. And as with all such studies, it was bound to get blown out of proportion. In this case, some researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab did a study simulating comet impacts into sterile material with NO organic material similar to what Earth’s crust may have been like around 4 billion years ago. After the impact, they found that amino acids had formed. As in, during such an impact, you can get complex molecules forming and these amino acids are the basic building block of proteins necessary for all terrestrial life.

The quotes from the press release and scientists include that the researchers “have confirmed that life really could have come from out of this world.” And, “These results confirm our earlier predictions of impact synthesis of prebiotic material, where the impact itself can yield life-building compounds. Our work provides a realistic additional synthetic production pathway for the components of proteins in our solar system, expanding the inventory of locations where life could potentially originate.”

Notice that those are different from the definitive “Did” in the WND headline. and, in true WND “equal time” fashion, it’s just the first few paragraphs dedicated to the actual study. Much of the rest is from Ray Comfort and his new film that I talked about in this earlier post. Also quotes by Eric Hovind, a young, handsome youth who picked up his father’s (Kent Hovind) ministry after his father was indicted and in federal prison on tax evasion charges (he didn’t work in the US, he worked in God’s country where there are no federal taxes!).

Also in true WND fashion, we have commenters talking about “God laughing” (“pnordman”), intelligent causes, quoting from the Bible, and of course gross misunderstandings of science. For the latter point, “bailintheboat” has the second-highest-rated comment of 124 right now with 10 up-votes and 0 down-votes. They wrote:

If they had fired projectiles at 7.1 kilometers per second into anything living it would be dead. Great experiment.
How long do amino acids survive in molten rock? Oops, I forget.
Are the amino acids destroyed as fast as they are produced?

So, this person didn’t understand what they did (projectiles at inorganic matter) and didn’t read the article or paper (amino acids found after everything settled down). Typical.

Evilution Versus Creationism … Err, We Mean Just Anti-Evolution!

What amazes me throughout the evolution versus creationism “debate” in the US is the two-sided mouth of anti-evolution proponents. Out the one side, they try to make it clear they’re not arguing for religion, they just want “strengths and weaknesses” or “alternative” ideas with regards to evolution. That’s the more public face. Out the other side of their mouth is when they clearly, blatantly, and without any way of misinterpreting argue for creationism to be taught either alongside or in evolution’s stead.

This is heating up yet again in hot Texas with yet another debate over textbooks. This time, it’s the board needing to approve textbooks that meet their science standards as opposed to a few years ago when it was needing to actually create those science standards. What has been obvious by those watching is that those who are against evolution this time are making almost no attempt to hide the fact that they’re coming from a creationism “alternative,” citing the Bible and various other religious reasons for why evolution should not be taught.

Oh, and this was discussed on the WND article posted from the Dallas News under the title, “Evolution Debate Heats Up Over Texas Textbooks.”

And, the WND comment section currently has 127 comments, filled with Bible verses and other religious arguments. For example, “Reason2012” started off by saying, “Evolutionism is anti-God and anti-science.” As usual, the up-voted comments are pro-god, down-voted ones are pro-evolution. I don’t think it’s important to go through them but rather just point out yet again how people against evolution are motivated ONLY by religion. If someone has an example of someone who was not motivated by religion, please post, because I have never seen one.