Bullet Points for a Wednesday Morning [Snowpocalypse Edition]

daniel — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:45:21 +0000

Some things are just too long to fit on Twitter. Ironically, not this point, but still.
I love how all the commercial radio stations have this dramatic music for snowfall coverage. We’re Canadians, ladies. We’ve seen hundreds of these “winter storms”.< We're not going to fall apart when the first snowflake hits us. By the way, this is how you know commercial news people aren't really in the business of news anymore: If they're seeking to dramatize snow, then they're in the business of entertainment. Or maybe the business of stupidity. This is why I listen to CBC Radio 1.
Mark Trapgillistagenstein posted this article about fossils in some place in the US. Now, I understand there’s a legitimate debate going on in Christianity between the creationists, the don’t-know-ers, and the full-on evolutionists. But this doesn’t excuse the lack of basic scientific knowledge that seems so frighteningly rife in Christian circles. Look what one creationist says in the article: “Secular scientists stumble over the complexities of the natural world and continue to adjust the age of Earth to fit their theories.” My jaw is still on the floor from this ignorant, anti-science, anti-intellectual bit of absolute tripe. I’m hoping that the guy was trying to say something else and the whole thing just came out wrong. But still:

Scientists don’t adjust the age of the earth to fit their theories, exactly. Their theories are built on evidence of how old the earth actually is. To represent this as if every time some scientist takes a long hot shower and has a great idea he’ll malevolently adjust the age of the earth on a whim? That’s the height of disingenuity. Come on, even creationists have had to say that the earth looks really, really old (and come up with great reasons why God would make an old-looking earth to trick the heathen scientists into being a little more heathen).
It’s called the scientific method, stupid! That little process whereby we understand at least to some degree the basic structure of the universe? The process upon which all modern technology stands? Yeah, that one. Let’s not act like adjusting theories to fit evidence (and then adjusting the age of the earth to fit the theory based on the evidence) is some strange new innovation that no-one’s heard of yet.
You call trying to understand complexity “stumbling” over it? Okay! If we must play word games, then creationists stumble over the imperfections in design that a perfect Creator apparently caused. There are some stunningly stupid things about the human body that creationism just overlooks. Sure, there’s complexity that is easily solved by the addition of a Six-Day Creator into the mix, but there’s also a lot of bio-sloppiness going that makes that same Creator look just a bit daft. So which one is it? You can’t have both.

So I need snow tires. The tires on my car aren’t bad, but they aren’t amazing either. They’re just… all-seasons. I don’t even know why they call them all-seasons. Marketing. They should call them death-in-winters.
Since I bought Laura a huge-ass ring for Christmas (to celebrate 2.5ish years), I also got myself an iPod touch. Really, really cool device. I hope it paves the way for a plethora of similar mobile devices with even better features. For instance, better screens, better touch controls, better predictive typing, better multi-application switching support, etc.

Bullet Points for a Wednesday Morning [Snowpocalypse Edition] originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2009-12-09.

We Should See Other Blogs » cbc radio 1

Bullet Points for a Wednesday Morning [Snowpocalypse Edition]