Day Off

Taking a day off today to investigate this thing, in the most excellent company of Dr. Watson:



I will report on any findings that arise.

In the meantime, here's what's got my bile duct working overtime this otherwise lovely Monday morning. The country continues to wrestle with an advanced case of The Stupids:

Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens (headline links to full story)

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A01

WICHITA – Propelled by a polished strategy crafted by activists on America's political right, a battle is intensifying across the nation over how students are taught about the origins of life. Policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question the science of evolution.

The proposals typically stop short of overturning evolution or introducing biblical accounts. Instead, they are calculated pleas to teach what advocates consider gaps in long-accepted Darwinian theory, with many relying on the idea of intelligent design, which posits the central role of a creator.

If these cretins manage to bludgeon this idiocy into our classrooms, I think it's the duty of the few of us remaining who have two brain cells to rub together, to embark on a work of collaborative Dada art the likes of which the world has never seen: The destruction of the entire Scientific Method, which is, after all, "reality-based" and therefore passé. Warning stickers in textbooks should be piled so thick that the covers no longer close. Gravitation is "only a theory." General Relativity: "only a theory." Disease spread by germs: "only a theory." (Actually, there's a very good case made by St. Augustine that it is in fact demonic possession; let's investigate this further.)

Science class is NOT A DEMOCRACY. (Yes. I'm yelling. Tough shit -- oh, and I'm cursing too, apparently.) Reality is not subject to a fucking vote. If 19 out of 20 people believe in their heart of hearts that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east and someone with a compass and a notebook and a set of empirical data 2000 years old concludes that the sun has NEVER ONCE risen in the west, THAT GUY WINS. Reset your fucking watches and DEAL WITH IT.

Seriously, I want to punch somebody.

Pious cheeseheads.

You want the best evidence that we're descended from booger-eating, shit-throwing, compulsive-masturbating apes? Go look in the mirror, prole. You're it.

And I was in such a good mood, too!