Happy Birthday, America

It's the Fourth of July, which in America means it's a day to celebrate the fact that a long time ago, liberty meant enough to some people that they were willing to risk their lives to write a document about it:

Image credit: I Has A Hot Dog

So, whether you're going to see a ballgame, watch a parade, see fireworks, or just stay home away from all the crazy people, have fun.

What's Up With Sarah Palin?

I've given it some thought, maybe ten whole minutes' worth. I agree with Josh Marshall:

As with her speech itself, the tell is that the decision was apparently so rushed and sudden that there was not enough time to come up with a plausible cover story or to get out the word about what it was.

It looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Either Palin is resigning ahead of some titanic scandal (which should emerge in short order if it exists) or her resignation was triggered by an even more extreme mental instability than we'd previously suspected.

Surreality Only Beginning

It's hard to imagine that Palin is any more unstable than I imagine her to be and yet still be able to run a state government. So, my guess is that she's resigning ahead of a scandal.

I'm not betting any money on it, though. The thing about unstable people is that it's hard to predict what they'll do next, even when you know what they know.

Correlation, Cause, And So Forth

Correlation between pirate populations and global warming. Image credit: Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster/Wikimedia


Television station KABC published this informative report a couple of weeks ago:

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Babies who are breastfed are more likely to do well in high school and go on to college than infants raised on a bottle.
...
The breastfed kids showed a slight increase in their high school GPA and in the probability of college attendance.

Breastfed kids show increase in GPA

Other than who performed the study, there's no other information of note in the report.

So, do you suppose this is because mother's milk is brain food, or because breast-fed children overachieve to overcome the social stigma?

I suppose it's possible that there's another explanation ...

(h/t Barbara Drescher)

Speaking Of Crazy Minnesota Republicans

As if Norm Coleman and Tim Pawlenty weren't enough, Think Progress has this about another congresscritter Minnesota has the misfortune of being represented by:

[T]hree out of the four House Republicans on the subcommittee that oversees the Census have released a statement calling her boycott plan “llogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country”:

“Boycotting the constitutionally mandated Census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country,” Reps. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Achieves, said in a statement Wednesday.

“[A] boycott opens the door for partisans to statistically adjust Census results,” the trio’s statement said. “The partisan manipulation of census data would irreparably transform the Census from being the baseline of our entire statistical system into a tool used to wield political power in Washington.”

According to Roll Call, the three Republicans “approached Bachmann privately over the past few weeks and asked her to stop the boycott,” but “decided to go public because Bachmann appeared unfazed by their request.”

Republicans On House Census Subcommittee Rebuke Bachmann’s Fearmongering As ‘Illogical’ And ‘Illegal’

Representative Bachmann's talent for absurdity has been amply demonstrated over the years. I doubt she'll surprise me with any new ones. The only thing that's surprising is that Minnesota keeps sending her back to Congress.

It's Over

Image credit: Screenshot of Minneapolis Star Tribune website by Cujo359

What a long, strange trip it's been:

Sen.-elect Al Franken and his wife, Franni, greeted their supporters and the press in front of his Elliot Park condo; coffee, cookies and brownies were in the offing at the end of this epic campaign trail. As cars honked at the sidewalk gaggle, Franken said he was "thrilled" and agreed that the phone call between him and former Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman was very gracious; both men talked about the how tough the experience had been for their families, and they agreed that it was time to bring the state together again. It was a "nice way to end this" between "two people that really fought hard," he said.

239 days, 312 votes and one new senator: Franken 'thrilled' and ready to go

Norm Coleman finally gave up after the Minnesota Supreme Court decided against him yesterday. In a comment on my previous article on this topic this morning, Dana Hunter summed things up:

I'm shocked ol' Norm gave up before he took his whine all the way up to the Supremes. I guess he just didn't feel like getting spanked by the highest court in the land, even though his Con[servative] friends were handing him a paddle and begging him to go for it.

I can hardly wait to see the wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth from the rabid right.

Comment on: At Long Last, An End Is Near

They have nothing to complain about. For the most part, the last six months have been a waste of time. Nate Silver had this called last November. The Republicans must have known this would be a waste of time, since they have enough money to hire good lawyers and statisticians, too. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they deliberately delayed Franken's entry into the Senate as long as they could.

Not that this will stop the whining. One thing conservatives will never run out of is their sense of entitlement.

At Long Last, An End Is Near

Yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said there could be an end to the madness:

Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) said Sunday he has no plans for further delay in certifying the results of the state's disputed U.S. Senate election so that Republican Norm Coleman can pursue a federal court challenge.

Pawlenty told CNN that he would abide by whatever ruling the Minnesota Supreme Court makes in the contest, where Democrat Al Franken appears to have an upper hand.

Pawlenty Won't Delay If Court Rules For Franken

There seems little doubt that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of Franken. Every other court has ruled in his favor, and the facts seem to be on his side. Nate Silver (of Five Thirty-Eight) predicted in November that Franken would win the recount, and last month he noted that Pawlenty was losing popularity at least in part thanks to the battle over the Senate race. Little wonder then, that he wants to see the back of this controversy. Whatever the reason, Pawlenty's numbers are falling, and the ridiculous lengths the Republicans seem to want to go to prevent Franken from being seated aren't helping his image.

It's unclear when the court will rule on the election. Rumors had the date as being last week, and the week before. Clearly, any speculation at this point would be as pointless as picking a date at random. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable that it should occur within the next month or two.

Once that's done, Minnesota's long nightmare may finally be over.

UPDATE: Corrected the first sentence of the second paragraph. Originally, it said "There seems little doubt that the Supreme Court will rule against Franken". As commenter Eric noted, it was clear that this wasn't what I meant, but somehow I missed this. Thanks for pointing out the error, Eric.

You Don't Need Gods To Feel Small

There's a persistent myth out there among certain believers, Christians in particular, that somehow a person who doesn't believe in a god must not be able to imagine anything more important than himself. Here's an example of such "thinking", courtesy of some random fool whom I found in a Google search:

Perhaps the issue comes down to the inherent narcissism of our times that too many of us can’t imagine something or someone bigger than ourselves and the idea of confronting our moral failings has become too damaging for our inflated self image. It would be great to live in a world where self esteem was never lowered and where any act we commit, or omit, can be justified to ourselves and our fellow humans and where shame became obsolete.

For Goodness Sake: Who says Atheists have no Sense of Humor??

Here's another example, courtesy of this putz:

No. Becuase then they wouldn't be an atheist. I belive that people who are atheists are just ignorant fools who do not want to open thier mind to the fact that there is something bigger than themselves (and science) out there. Everything needs a beginning. I just belive that that beginning is God.

Can atheists hate God?

To my way of thinking, this attitude demonstrates ignorance on a scale that is breathtaking. By "ignorance", I mean an ignorance both of the world and non-believers. Let me illustrate with a picture:


Image credit: Cujo359

It's a picture of the Grand Canyon, in northern Arizona. Those little specks in the upper left hand corner (click the picture to enlarge) are people. This picture doesn't even show the full depth of the canyon, yet the people look tiny in comparison. If they had been dressed in clothing that matched the surroundings, they'd have been barely noticeable. If placed the bodies of all the people who have ever visited it in the canyon, they wouldn't come close to filling it. A back of the envelope calculation suggest that literally trillions of human beings would be required.

The largest structures human beings have ever built would be lost at the bottom of the canyon. The Boeing plant in Everett, WA is roughly a million times smaller than the canyon.

So far, we've only considered linear dimensions. Looking at the time scale of the place suggests even more reasons to feel insignificant in comparison. As the National Park Service's website notes:

Grand Canyon National Park [see Photo 1] is one of the best places in the world to gain a sense of geologic, or “deep,” time because the canyon exposes a great swath of geologic history. Rocks exposed in Grand Canyon are truly ancient, ranging from 1840 million years old (m.y.), or 1.84 billion years old (b.y.), to 270 m.y. The Grand Canyon landscape is geologically young, being carved within just the last 6 m.y. There are younger geologic deposits in Grand Canyon too, such as the Ice Age fossils found in caves, a 1000-year-old lava flow in the western canyon, and even the debris flow deposits that continue form each year.

The Grand Age of Rocks: The Numeric Ages for Rocks Exposed within Grand Canyon

Image credit: National Park Service

The Colorado River, which formed the canyon, is now cutting through rock that is nearly two billion years old. At that time, the only form of life was unicellular. There were no plants, let alone animals. The Wikipedia entry on the canyon says that it has been formed over the last 40 million years. Biologists estimate that the species homo sapiens sapiens is perhaps a quarter of a million years old. When the first human beings walked the planet, the canyon was scarcely shallower than it is today. In an ordinary human lifetime, only the most superficial changes will occur.

Speaking of time scales, here's another interesting picture. It's roughly where our solar system is in the Milky Way galaxy. The galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years across. If the earliest humans had boarded a spaceship that could travel at the speed of light to circumnavigate the galaxy, they'd still be out there somewhere. The nearest galaxy to our own, Andromeda would take roughly ten times longer to reach. Our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. To call our planet a fly speck in the universe is to overstate its relative size by many, many orders of magnitude.

If you're a believer, the next time you feel tempted to assume that non-believers must see no reason to feel humble, try learning something about the universe you live in. The truth is that the universe is vast in any terms human beings can imagine. We exist on one tiny speck of rock in one little corner of it. Unless we can figure out how to live in other solar systems, we will probably be gone in a blink of an eye on its time scale. The universe cares nothing about us as individuals or as a species.

Non-believers live with this knowledge. We don't assume there is some deity taking care of us. We know that, in the end, all we humans can count on is that our survival rests on chance, and our ability to understand and adapt to the universe we live in. We also know, as geology teaches us, that even that may not be enough.

PZ Myers On Science And Religion

The other day, NP asked a question at her blog Coffee Stained Writer:

If you had a DeLorean, what book (or books) would you snatch away before it made it to bookshelves? Why?

Should I Seek Publication? Should You?

My answer was Rocks of Ages, a largely nonsensical attempt by paleontologist Stephen J. Gould to explain how religion and science were not incompatible. In that book, he espoused the idea that science and religion were Non-overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA. The basic idea of NOMA was that science and religion aren't in conflict, because they try to find answers to different problems. As with all attempts to explain away the conflict between religion and science, it was a muddled mess. Considering the quality of Gould's mind, his book should serve as an example of how absurd his proposition was.

Yesterday, biologist P.Z. Myers did a great job of explaining why Gould and others are wrong. As John Pieret wrote about Myers' essay:

PZ Myers has a good post up on the accommodationist/incompatibilist flap that is, despite the unnecessary slap at "feeble accommodationist claptrap," a reasonable attempt at clarifying matters that I can agree with in large part.

PZ Explains

Others, such as Richard Dawkins, have tried to cover this ground with varying degrees of success. I think PZ's essay is well worth a read, because it's both succinct and thorough. Rather than try to quote it, I'll just suggest you go read it for yourself.

Oh Guardian Council, You've Done It Again

An image from a protest in Iran that occurred on June 22. Apparently, some among Iran's clerics think that there hasn't been enough bloodshed yet. Image credit: .faramaz.

It looks as though Iran's Guardian Council hired Mr. Magoo to look into the charges of election rigging in their country:

Iran's top electoral authority, the Guardian Council, said Friday that it has found no significant violations after 10 days of investigating the disputed June 12 presidential election. All three defeated candidates have protested the results, charging electoral fraud.

The Council's spokesman, Abbas-ali Kadkhodaie, told the Iranian news agency (IRNA), that it was one of the cleanest elections the country has ever had and he said there was no fraud in the election.

Iran's Guardian Council Endorses Results of Disputed Election

For all I know, the Council's spokesman is correct about this being the cleanest election ever, but it makes the worst Chicago elections look spotless in comparison. Over at Five Thirty-Eight, Nate Silver did some analysis a few days ago, and came to some rather startling conclusions:

For all the complex series of statistics that have been run on Iran's election, it's the simplest that might prove to be the regime's downfall. More people "voted" than were eligible to vote -- in a lot of places. The interior ministry admits to 50 such instances out of the 300+ jurisdictions in which Iran tallied results. That is widespread, prime facie and admitted-to evidence of fraud, and I don't see how the Guardian Council expects people to buy the argument that whatever caused the tub to overflow in those 50 cities was not also tainting the results throughout the rest of the country. The Chatham House report we linked to earlier today found that there were more "votes" than voters in two entire provinces.

Worst. Damage Control. Ever.

Considering how shameless our own politicians can be, this should surprise no one, but it gets worse. Apparently, at least some mullahs think this is a great excuse to start killing protestors:

Elsewhere, at the Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University, hardline cleric Ahmed Khatami urged Iran's judiciary to "punish key rioters ruthlessly and savagely."

Rioters, he insisted, should be considered "moharem," or people who wage war against God. Such individuals, he said, should be punished by death, according to Islamic law.

Iran's Guardian Council Endorses Results of Disputed Election

While this may simply be the opinion of a fringe element, given what's going on in Iran, it's a troubling demand.