April, 2013 archive
To Evolve or Not To Evole 0
Coincident with another attempt by Creationists to use agents of the state to propagate their magickal beliefs, paleontologist Oliver Knevitt lists his candidates for five terms in the public discourse that he thinks should be retired because they mislead the discussion.
Here’s one.
This is undoubtedly the worst term in general use. There are many, many fundamental problems with this term, as I’ve written about before, but one the main problems is that a link implies a chain; a great chain of being, with the dumber animals at the bottom and clever man at the top.
Yet, there is a much deeper reason why I’d like this term to be dead and buried. It is entirely perjorative. It is only used by those wishing to deinigrate evolution. It automatically implies that we are involved in some sort of gigantic join-the-dots puzzle; that we spend our time desperately poring through rocks trying to find that one elusive crocoduck that will fill in our tree and finally legitimize our ill-conceived agenda.
The reality is that, if anything, it’s the other way round. We have far too many fossils and which ones are closer to the ancestral line and which are further is the tricky bit.
I particularly commend his remarks on “survival of the fittest” to your attention. The phrase was invented by Herbert Spencer and used during the Gilded Age by defenders of the gilded ones to justify economic inequality and exploitation.
It has remained a favorite of the gilded ones ever since, as it enables them to anoint themselves as “the fittest” cats, when, in actuality, they are often just the fattest cats.
Who Are You? 0
The watering hole wars intensify, as fake IDs become better.
Apparently, no bars are held.
Lies and Lying Liars 0
Maine’s Republican governor mills a big one.
As long as folks who feel free to make up any old thing because it sounds good, ignoring facts completely, can keep getting elected, we will continue to be doomed.
Complex Disorders 0
MarketWatch reports on the suffering of the wedding industrial complex.
Oh! the horror.
Until I read this, I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as “wedding insurance.”
What a racket.
Hedgehogs 0
Susan Blumner looks over the hedge and view the hogs inside:
Take Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors. Cohen’s 2012 pay was $1.4 billion. For this, he obtained a 13 percent return for investors. Sounds good, right? Except that the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index shot up 16 percent last year when factoring in dividends. SAC investors paid a 50 percent performance fee to Cohen despite the lagging numbers.
Having no shame is one of the rules for success as a hedge fund manager.
Read the rest.
Self-Policing 0
The theory that businesses will always do the right thing works out so well in Congressional hearings, does it not?
Dustbiters 0
Almost missed this because of Boston fatigue (escaping TV newsies attempts to invent colorful and creative ways to say “We have no idea what’s going on” was quite tiring): the FDIC offed some banks Friday. These are all gone:
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Chipola Community Bank, Marianna, Florida.
Heritage Bank of North Florida, Orange Park, Florida.
First Federal Bank, Lexington, Kentucky.
Speaking of Race Cards . . . 0
. . . as I was couple of posts ago, Chancey Devega has noticed a new one in the deck.
Given that race does not exist except in the minds of those who see it (“race” based on skin color was dreamed up by Europeans along about the same time as chattel slavery and colonial expansion, by a quite marvelous and no doubt unrelated coincidence) and that it was the Caucuses that put the cacca in Caucasian, this seems to be a particularly stupid attempt to gin up a kerfuffle.
Follow the link for Devega’s comments, then check out his other post on the topic.
What’s the Use? 0
The Inky reviews gun nut logic.
There’s no use passing laws against jaywalking, because some pedestrians will still jaywalk.
There’s no use passing laws against speeding, because motorists will still speed.
There’s no use making it a crime to rape or murder, because victims will still be assaulted.
As dumb as those statements sound, they sum up the view of lawmakers who say there’s no use passing tougher gun laws because criminals will break them.
Facebook Frolics 0
Folks forget that the internet is a public place.
Shooting your mouth off with stupid threats in public is seldom a good idea.
(snip)
Police obtained a screen shot and traced it to a residence in Chandler, near McQueen and Warner roads. The (14-year-old–ed.) boy was detained Tuesday night after admitting he was responsible for the Facebook postings, Sanger said.
“It still has to be taken seriously,’’ Sanger said. “He was very apologetic.’’
One-Trick Elephants 0
Bill Maxwell on the Republicans and race cards. A nugget:
In her book, The Obamas, Jodi Kantor writes that a close friend of Obama told her this: “The first black president doesn’t want to give any insight into being the first black president.”
That friend was right. Obama has tried to govern as an American. Conservatives are the ones who play the race card. In his dignified way, Obama is serving as the president of all the people.
Read the rest.
Twits on Twitter 0
The stupid, it burns!
No Speculation 0
The haters are going to hate, and that’s no speculation.
Afterthought:
Cowering in the bottom of a trailer boat in someone’s backyard was likely not an expectation.
News of the Future Shock 0
In which the Delaware River becomes the Delawhere-did-it-go River.
The Austerians 0
Things are working out nicely in Greece.
Ta Nea, a leading Greek daily, has described conditions here as similar to those of Weimar Germany. Vassiliki Georgiadou, a political science professor in Athens, likewise calls it “an atmosphere like in the 1930s in Germany against the Jews and their businesses.”
Misty Water-Colored Memories 0
I bought a book.
