"Expelled" from reality

Ben Stein, a former speechwriter for the only president to resign from office for being a two-bit criminal, has a new movie out, and it doesn't involve a lovable slacker badass named Beuller. The plot in a nutshell is composed of the following points: Evolution is a lie because some scientists who disagree with it have been fired from their jobs (although not necessarily for their objections); free speech should be the dominating factor in the scientific method; and, of course, morality is a sufficient measure of scientific viability.

The last point is not subtly demonstrated when Stein postulates that Adolph Hitler used Darwin's theories to justify the Holocaust, and therefore evolution doesn't exist. He doesn't seem to realize that coupling images of mass murder with evolutionary theories only serves to unfairly demonize atheists and scientists while absolutely failing to prove anything about creationism. In short, "Expelled" is a disgusting piece of propaganda that should be a case study in logical fallacy.

For instance, even if Hitler distorted Darwin's theories to mastermind the most gruesome genocide in world history, how does that prove anything about the scientific viability of Darwin? Using that reasoning, I could say that a Christian performing a violent act in the name of God proves that God doesn't exist. Are we to believe that a society striving for concrete answers to our existence should automatically discount years of scientific discovery simply because somebody has used those discoveries for evil? That's the best argument the creationists could think up to challenge evolution?

Interesting. Allow me to consider that obscene argument while I push this guy off a 10-story building. Oh dear, it appears he has fallen to his death. Well, because my action was violent and reprehensible, I guess gravity doesn't really exist. My actions were so morally repugnant that we should just assume the hand of God threw him to the ground. Isaac Newton be damned!

Stein needs to realize that morally unjustifiable actions are not a good gauge for scientific inquiry. Let me rephrase that: The connection simply doesn't exist. At all. Just because some misguided person uses a scientific theory as justification for his actions doesn't reveal anything about the viability of that theory. Is Stein so dense that he doesn't understand such a simple concept as the scientific method?

After all, lest we forget that Adolph Hitler was a Roman Catholic and often used God to justify the slaughter of Jews. He was not an atheist; he was a man of faith, as were most of his followers. Using Stein's logic I should conclude that God is a lie and atheism is absolute truth simply based on Hitler's actions. Of course, I personally don't believe I should empower Hitler to posthumously dictate my beliefs in anything. As a Jew, I'm sure Stein would agree with that sentiment; unfortunately, he's trapped in a head-in-ass situation that is common among many insane religious zealots.

Late night agonizing

After an hour of attempting to post about the world, I've decided it's absolutely hopeless and will now proceed to bore you, dear reader, with Personal Shit. I realize it hardly qualifies for "crap of grave importance," but maybe if I get it off my chest I'll be able to sleep a little better tonight.

I forgot to mention last week that I finally passed the 100-post mark on the blog, and it only took me eight months of agonizing nights, flirtations at true dedication and a ferocious Oregon winter that won't end. The milestone is a quirky mixture for my psyche: A sign of accomplishment that I've put my opinions out there and garnered a few interested readers, but also a lingering symbol of all I haven't done -- unexplored intellectual territories and constant personal reflection of my potential.

Basically, I've been struggling lately with my demons as a wordsmith. Sometimes I experience a sudden panic, starting in my stomach and ebbing slowly throughout my body, at the prospect that I'm just an average writer. Often I wonder whether I'm any good at all. I'm sure the people who perceive my offerings to be consistently interesting and witty will take my personal reservations as some kind of self-righteous self-doubt, but for me it's a nagging fear that nothing I say makes any damn sense. Or the way I say it.

It's possible that what I'm experiencing is writer's block, or lack of inspiration, or any of the other excuses many writers use to mask their lack of talent and creativity. It just terrifies me when I struggle to make a simple sentence sound good, or clever, or original. I try to say too much, and from my perspective it all gets lost in translation. Then again, a blog is traditionally a conversational forum for writers, and for me often a stream-of-consciousness experience. Maybe my thoughts would flow better if I knew my words would be in print or read by millions of people.

Anyway, I'm tipping my glass to all you confused writers out there trying to make sense of your own ambitions and talents. Maybe we should all stop thinking and do something about it.

Blog gap

I'm still here; it's just been a very busy few days. More updates coming soon. Stay tuned!

More pope bashing (it must be a Wednesday)

The pope has been flouncing around the United States all week with a new, carefully calculated message for the Catholic masses: "Oops." Remember the whole issue of the child molestation with the Catholic priests? Yeah, well, the pope feels ashamed about that -- real ashamed!

I've been reading about this all week, and yet every time he utters another half-apology for the high crimes of pedophile priests, I can't help but look for his crossed fingers. He feels ashamed? Well, thanks for the fucking concession, your holiness, but we kind of knew all along that sexual abuse of children is shameful. What we're looking for is what you're going to do about it, and maybe an explanation of why you tried to cover it up. Anything else is just more bullshit from an old man too stubborn to admit he's in the midst of a religious public relations nightmare.

On Wednesday the pope took a short break from pretending to be sorry so he could equate child sexual abuse with violence and pornography in the media, declaring: "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?"

Huh. Interesting. I have yet to see a scientific study linking child endangerment with media images of violence and sex, yet I'm pretty sure one could find a relationship between child endangerment and fucking Catholic sexual predators. What does it mean to speak of child protection? It means keep the clutches of your corrupt, disgusting priests away from our children, and shut the hell up about everything else. We're not interesting in your opinion on anything except how you plan on saving our kids from your religion.

Sunny weather, geeks getting women and other important shit

The sun is creeping back to Eugene for another visit after a few days of rain and hail. Although it's still not as nice as Saturday's 84 degrees and multitude of barbecues, I'll settle for any amount of blue sky and rays of sunshine. On a day like this, how could I possible blog about dark topics such as the pope and Dick Cheney's face?

Plus, I think the bleak weather triggers something in my brain that generates a need to disseminate bad news. Without stormy nights and the sound of rain pelting my window, my inspiration for tragedy plummets.

So here's my offering: If you think you're the biggest geek in the universe, I'm sorry to break the news to you. You're not. This guy is!

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (AP) -- Hiding a ring in a bouquet just wasn't enough when a computer programmer decided to pop the question.

At Bernie Peng and Tammy Li's wedding, guests will receive copies of "Bejeweled."

Bernie Peng reprogrammed Tammy Li's favorite video game, "Bejeweled," so a ring and a marriage proposal would show up on the screen when she reached a certain score.

Li reached the needed score -- and said yes.

Word of the romantic feat in December filtered out after Peng, a financial software programmer, posted details on his blog. The reprogramming was a tricky task and took him a month.

"I thought it was pretty cool, in a nerdy way," Peng told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

The couple plan to marry over Labor Day weekend, and PopCap, the Seattle company that makes "Bejeweled," will fly the couple to Seattle as part of their honeymoon.

A spokesman for the company that developed the game helpfully explains why the love-struck programmer isn't getting sued for hacking the game:

"Most video game companies would frown on people manipulating their games," said Garth Chouteau, a spokesman for PopCap.

"But it won him a woman. As a bunch of geeks, we have to say, 'Bernie, hats off to you.'

Yikes.

Cardinal Ratfucker slithers into America

I find it very fitting that a president who has worked steadfastly for eight years to shatter any notion of a separation between religion and government is rolling out the red carpet for the pope. In fact, from the looks of it, the pope's upcoming stop here in America will be less like a traditional visit by a foreign figurehead and more like an orgy of dogma:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The leader of the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics has been to the White House only once in history.

That changes this week, and President Bush is pulling out all the stops: driving out to a suburban military base to meet Pope Benedict XVI's plane, bringing a giant audience to the South Lawn and hosting a fancy East Room dinner.

These are all firsts.

Bush has never before given a visiting leader the honor of picking him up at the airport. In fact, no president has done so at Andrews Air Force Base, the typical landing spot for modern leaders.

A crowd of up to 12,000 is due at the White House on Wednesday morning for the pope's official, pomp-filled arrival ceremony. It will feature the U.S. and Holy See anthems, a 21-gun salute, and the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. Both men will make remarks before their Oval Office meeting and a send-off for his popemobile down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Personally, if the man responsible for covering up rampant sexual abuse in the Catholic Church paid a visit to my house, I certainly wouldn't give him a 21-gun salute. I'd give him 2 seconds to leave and 1 finger for his trouble. I'd tell this "holy man" that a free society has no interest in his rabid and vocal opposition to such radical and inhuman ideas as practicing birth control, or his opinion that homosexuality is "an intrinsic moral evil."

Seriously. Millions of homosexuals in America, and we're giving full military honors to the guy who says they're all going to burn in hell. To recap: Gays are immoral, but we still need to investigate (secretly) whether touching small children is wrong. Praise the lord!

But don't worry, Bush has a perfectly reasonable explanation for the fawning welcoming committee (warning: the following quote may cause spontaneous head explosion):

"One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith," Bush told the EWTN Global Catholic Network in an interview aired Friday. He added that he wanted to honor Benedict's conviction that "there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies."

Wait, did he just say the path to freedom involves rejecting the philosophy that different societies should be able to set their own moral standards? Of course he did.

You know, as long as we're on the topic of hope, I really hope somebody takes the pope's fascist moral compass and shoves it right up his pope ass. Wouldn't that be ironic?

Look for the Sadr City Olympics in 2012

Can somebody please explain to me why we are allowing an oppressive regime like fucking China to host the Olympics, which last time I checked are supposed to symbolize the brotherhood and commonality of all nations through the ancient tradition of peaceful competition?

Simply consider the Olympic Games Web site: "The Games have always brought people together in peace to respect universal moral principles. The upcoming Games will feature athletes from all over the world and help promote the Olympic spirit." Peace and universal moral principles? Does that include beating Tibetan monks in the street? Does that include ruling your society through fear and Big Brother surveillance?

As if it weren't enough to hold the games in a nation known for its violent control of its own people and the people of other, peaceful nations, Olympic officials are now threatening to crack down on free speech during the event. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, announced that China would expel any athlete who violates the Olympic charter by contributing to "political, religious or racial propaganda."

The problem is that China considers any speech that isn't careful scrutinized and vetted by the ruling party to be "propaganda." This ideology especially applies to Tibet. In other words, while flying a Tibetan flag would be considered a simple act of patriotism in any other nation hosting the games, in China it suddenly becomes an act of propaganda.

This is why it's a bad idea to hold the Olympics in a nation that has absolute contempt for freedom of speech. And the Olympic Committee isn't exactly adding any clarity to the subject:

The IOC did not specify whether a Chinese athlete or a foreign competitor of Tibetan origin flying the Tibetan flag would be regarded as patriotic or propagandist. A spokeswoman said that there had been no discussion internally or with the Chinese authorities about use of the Tibetan national flag. Asked whether athletes would be allowed to hang the flag in their rooms, she said: “The village is an Olympic venue so it falls under the same rules and regulations of any venue which would mean that anything in there would be judged on whether it was a provocative propaganda initiative.”

The fact that the IOC has still not qualified the exact interpretation of “propaganda” means that some athletes remain confused about what they can say during the 16-day event without being sent home or stripped of a medal.

Unfurling Free Tibet banners or wearing Save Darfur T-shirts at Olympic venues are acts likely to be regarded as a breach of the charter, which was introduced after the American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave the Black Power salute on the podium at the 1968 Games in Mexico City. But there are still many grey areas and concerns among human rights campaigners that athletes’ right to free speech will be curtailed to avoid embarrassing their Chinese hosts.

What a joke. Here's hoping the Olympics are an epic failure and a complete embarrassment for the Chinese government.