What the shitting cock arse is this?
Ralph Nader lending his name to a release from the openly theocratic, anti-evolutionist, Intelligent Design-backing Discovery Institute, calling for Jeb Bush to save Terri Schiavo?
The same Discovery Institute that likes to link Charles Darwin to the rise of Nazism? And perpetrates intellectual and scientific fraud on a daily basis?
The press release has also circulated without any reference to the Discovery Institute. This Wesley Smith character, Nader's long-time collaborator, is, however, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an organisation with absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever. Nader would have to be a complete fool not to know about Smith's affiliation, or not to realise the DI would use him to boost its image. Perhaps he doesn't care.
Nader has an In the Public Interest column on the same topic, which doesn't mention any tactical alliance with the DI crowd, but does seem to take the same position as the DI piece, in very understated language. It is also, for lack of a better term, pretty lame. Nader wants Schiavo kept alive (or as much so as anyone whose brain has been atrophying can be said to be), but really doesn't offer any kind of argument or analysis beyond 'why not?' But it confirms that the DI piece (fairly) accurately reflects his public views on the matter...
Ralph Nader is a man willing to get into bed with some of the worst elements of the American Right, elements completely opposed to everything remotely classifiable as progressive or even rational. There is just no excuse for this.
(Via Pharyngula, whose proprietor has done sterling work exposing the scientific dishonesty of the Discovery Institute and its Intelligent Design movement.)
I said 'make-out' instead of 'make-up'. I told my students that, if they knew in advance that they'd need to miss a quiz or exam for medical or family reasons, they should contact me beforehand so we could arrange a make-out. On the very first day of the new term.
Yeah, they'll be giggling at me for a good long while.
At least I kept my pants on. Always look on the bright side.
Happy Easter, everybody! Let us all take a moment on this most hallowed day to recall our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who returned from the dead so that children all over the world could have the fun of crucifying him all over again. Careful with those nails, kiddies!
For a change of pace, have your children nail Christ to something more exotic this year. Perhaps a Volkswagen, or a Marshmallow Peep. Use your imagination.
If you find yourself feeling that, perhaps, those folk protesting against the removal of Terry Schiavo's feeding tube might possibly actually be decent human beings acting out of a legitimate moral concern, you ought to stop. Among other things, some of these protestors have been telling reporters about just how much they'd like to kill Schiavo's husband, Michael, and the judge who ruled in his favour.
Miles to the south, demonstrators outside the hospice in Pinellas Park were accusing Greer of "judicial murder." A woman paced in front of the cameras carrying a sign that said "Stop feeding Michael."...
Next to Fayette, workers loudly pounded a metal post into the ground to brace more fencing to keep demonstrators off the streets. "That's what I'd like to do to Judge Greer," Helen Gentry, 62, said as metal clanged against metal.
In the press release cited here, Tom Delay is flat-out lying about Schiavo's condition. Large portions of her brain simply aren't there any longer, having been replaced by fluid. Terry Schiavo, as a human being, is dead. What remains is an empty husk. Claiming otherwise is deeply amoral, and deserves to be condemned as such.
Do the rightist so-called "pro-life" agitators have any real regard for human life whatsoever?
As they say in the blogosphere, "Heh. Indeed."
Back in the Old Country, it seems the House is trying to write discrimination against homosexuals into the state constitution. Way to lump yourselves, in the eyes of the whole wide world, in with the fucks in the Bible Belt, guys. Apparently the bill was called HJR 1, so if you wanted to find out who voted for this and give them a big piece of your mind, there should be a list up on some kind of Iowa state legislative website or something, somewhere. Isn't that how these Internets work? So far all I can find is this, which doesn't really tell one that sort of thing...
As those of you who follow such things undoubtedly know, the BBC, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to make a new series of Doctor Who, under the supervision of Russell 'Queer as Folk' Davies, featuring Christopher Eccleston. This is exciting, as no-one involved appears to be American, and Russell Davies is a talented man. Canada's CBC will be airing the new series starting in April, and there's a very good chance that I'll actually be able to pick that up, close as I am to the border. Ordinary, non-special Americans, on the other hand, may not be so lucky. No-one in America has picked the new series up, so Internet thievery may be the only way to get it in, for example, Iowa. Speaking of which...
As you may or may not know, early this week a rough cut of the first episode, 'Rose', was leaked onto the Internets by forces unknown, apparently operating out of Canada. I watched it. Of course I watched it. How could I not?
So, you may be asking, how was it?
On the whole, I quite liked it. It's aimed at a younger audience, but I can certainly see elderly folk like me enjoying it as a guilty pleasure (which the original was as well, most of the time). In case you go looking for this pirated version, you ought to keep in mind that it is apparently not at all the final edit. That being understood, I think this rough cut shows at least as much promise as the earliest episodes of Buffy. There is much about it to like.
One of these things is Christopher Eccleston. I was skeptical about him before I watched 'Rose', but he's just wonderful. He's so much fun to watch. He's some kind of weirdo. A bit rough, even. Odd. Manic, projecting a sense that he really enjoys all the gallivanting and planet-saving and such, the explosions, the running about. A smartass. But he'd still rather negotiate than fight. He's funny and awkward. It's cute. He seems to have just regenerated (although, if you've never heard of regeneration, you won't find your enjoyment of the episode impaired in the least), and there are hints already of new back-story to explore, something about a war in which the Doctor fought and failed. Also, Christopher Eccleston is strangely attractive. I would bang him. There are no other Doctors I can say that about.
The new companion, Rose, is actually not awful. I didn't hate her. I thought that I would. She's played by some kind of pop star, after all. Spunky teenaged girl, et cetera. But no, somehow she works.
The new TARDIS interior looks great. It's very different, sort of industrial and occasionally organic, mostly in bronze and green. One flaw I will find in 'Rose' is that we don't get to see more of the console room, more systematically. One nice, solid, steady establishing shot, maybe ten seconds, would've added to the experience, I think.
Rose's boyfriend is just embarassingly bad, in both idea and execution, and some of the special effects still look a bit dodgy. The latter may (or may not) be fixed by the broadcast, the former, alas, appears irreparable. The incidental music was a bit grating, too.
The pacing's very different indeed. It moves extremely quickly. Perhaps too quickly, but if that's what it takes to hook the kiddies these days, then so be it. This first episode at least is very light on plot and exposition, but it's meant to be: the audience sees it all as Rose sees it, and she has nothing like the big picture. It's a very thin episode, but it sets everything up, which is what one would really hope for.
And there's continuity with the old series, for those (like me) who care! It's no more inaccurate than the old series' continuity with itself. The Doctor is still a Time Lord. He has a sonic screwdriver. There are old enemies floating around the universe. There will be Daleks later, and other old villains appear in 'Rose'. Continuity will, I suspect, be handled very gently, sort of as Easter eggs to those of us who obsess over such things, but without being in any way essential to the stories. (As opposed to, say, Paul McGann's outing, which was just littered with things impenetrable to the uninitiated.)
Although 'Rose' is by no means perfect, it is fun. Good solid fast-paced escapism, funny and wonderful, even silly, but it does feel as if it's leading one into a world of infinite possibilities. And the Doctor still doesn't carry a gun.
It looks promising.
Right now I'm working on something called string topology. The first question everyone asks about string topology is whether it has anything to do with string theory. The answer, as far as I can tell, is no. The whole 'string' thing is a rather confusing piece of math terminology, one of several. Lie super-algebras, for example, do not fight crime. And quantum groups have nothing to do with dirty hippies beating off to The Tao of Physics. Mathematicians seem to use these terms in ways no other human beings do. As far as I can tell, their mathematical meanings are as follows...
I hope this helps.