Intellectual Poverty

When I get bored I use Stumble and see what entertainment "randomness" can provide. Today it was in the form of a Bias Test at tolerance.org. This piqued my interest as if there is one thing I loathe its people who are blind to their own biases. Here were my results for the first two comparisons (Hey I only have so much time to expose pseudo scientific disciplines like psychology and sociology):

Below is the interpretation of your IAT performance, followed by questions about what you think it means. The next page explains the task and has more information such as a summary of what most people show on this IAT.

Your Results:
Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between European American and African American.

Your data suggest little or no association between Male and Female with Career and Family.

as you might guess I found the results a little surprising given that the test is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center who essentially equates tea party activists, who are much more center than I am when it comes to economics to a hate group. Before you say well soobawls you just lied on the test to get the result you wanted, this is not a question and answer test for the most part, it is based on how fast you respond to visual queues of pictures and words (collectivists love style over substance and it is reflected in how they measure value). The test taker is goaded on to respond to the queues as quickly as possible, to the point where if you respond too slowly the test is invalidated. Perhaps I would have gotten a more accurate result being read by a phrenologist.

More attacks on Christianity disguised as rational thought

One of my Google alerts is a search based solely on the word science. It turned up this article at newscientist.com, which is an opinion piece which is ostensibly about the idea that there shouldn't be a conflict between science and religion. What it is though is a thinly veiled attacked on Christians. Why do I say that? Largely because it is the only religion specifically referenced.

Don't get me wrong. I dislike all religion. Deconstruction of illogical belief systems is always a worthwhile effort. But if that is what you are going to do, own it. The statement "Religion and science are not properly understood by some people, Christians particularly," is a bit disingenuous.

What logical basis is there for singling out one cult as having less of an understanding of science and their own religion from another?

Of the specific issues the interviewee has with religion the single biggest that should be made in my opinion is violence against perceived non-believers. But that issue is never addressed. What is addressed are sociopolitical topics that are right in the wheelhouse of American Christians such as moral judgments on homosexuality and intelligent design.

The fact that Islam and the violence perpetrated against non-Muslims is not mentioned, further supports the idea that the real reason for the article is to target a specific religion. To any rational person, this issue and its impact on the technological development of the third world FAR outweighs any other concern about the hypocrisy and negative effects of religion in the world at large.

Do Christians cultists perpetrate violence against non-believers? Without question, and let the criticisms fly where they may. But the level of Muslim cult inspired violence at this point in time is much more appropriately compared to Christianity 800 years ago, not modern day levels of Christian violence. I am far less concerned about that violence than the level of violence we see today, and reasonably so.

“Rock and roll doesn't necessarily mean a band. It doesn't mean a singer, and it doesn't mean a lyric, really. It's that question of trying to be immortal.” - Malcom Mclaren

Former Sex Pistols Manager Malcom Mclaren died today. At 10 years old in 1977 I was just young enough that my parents would not let me buy Nevermind the Bollocks when it came out. That made me want it all the more and made it just as disappointing when I finally got to listen to the whole thing because, well, lets face it, they weren't really very talented. They WERE however full of energy and, and definitely did their own thing, influencing a wave of more creative bands to follow.

Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to participate in his own destruction

Benjamin Netanyahu rightly canceled his participation in the nuclear security summit conference. More than likely he has recognized that Obama is a naive child whose imbecilic blundering on the international stage cannot be allowed to weaken Israel as it has weakened the U.S. This is on the heels of Dear Leader's kindly heads up to terrorist states that no matter what they do we will not respond with nuclear weapons.

Remnants of a once great country

When contemplating America's last days (which we are living now), nothing lifts my spirits more than remembering when a time when Americans were educated, competent and had a basic understanding of the nature of the world. This article a friend sent me reminds me of those days. I wonder how many SR-71 models are gathering dust in attics around the country as we speak?

Explanatory ENVIROphilia?

An interesting...ok not interesting, boring article at Language Log mentioned a phenomenon that had been recently coined as "Explanatory Neurophilia" to describe when "non-expert consumers of behavioral explanations assign greater standing to explanations that contain neuroscientific details, even if these details provide no additional explanatory value."

This struck me as being very similar to the way the collectivist left form their opinions about environmental issues, discounting any dissenting views based on common sense, and elevating any idea that contains scientific references they do not even fully understand. Oddly enough this is the very nearly the accusations that are leveled at anyone who casts a critical eye on man made global warming (now branded climate change since there is as much data to show global temperatures are no longer rising as there is to show they are).

"Deniers" are described as simply too stupid to understand the science behind "man as causal factor" warming theory, by pundits and followers who have no true understanding of the science behind their beliefs themselves. In the eco-cultists mind correlation is causation and the sound byte is proof against any counter argument. Much like a proselytizing Christian, cultists cannot allow that rational counter argument has even the possibility of existing because then their beliefs might have to be defended.

How fat, stupid and lazy are Americans?

According to businessinsider.com, it seems even the make-work jobs at the Census are a little too challenging for the average collectivist mouth-breathing American. With unemployment is sitting at 17% (including those who have stopped looking) it appears that there are no Americans remaining who can talk and hold a clipboard at the same time. Even so, 100,000 of the 162,000 jobs "created" in March are in fact jobs with the Census Bureau. In other words, welfare.

Technology and Culture

Technology can be a wonderful thing. It can improve the quality your health, increase your ability to communicate, make you more productive and give your military a huge competitive edge. But combining technology with every aspect of life is can be a mistake. Take for instance the iPad Comic-Book Reader Application. The application allows access to digital copies of comic books. In some cases very old and collectible comics that most people could not afford to purchase. There's nothing inherently wrong with that but as a former collector of new and old and rare comics I think something is lost in the process.

I can remember the excitement of hitting the comic book store every Wednesday afternoon with all the other comic book nerds. The tactile pleasure of picking up the paper bag full of new comics that had been reserved from the titles I followed and rifling through the bins of vintage back issues. Not to mention the social aspect of arguing every nuance of the latest popular titles from writing and artwork to the printing process itself. The shop proprietor often acted as arbiter in such prescient arguments as which is more seminal, Alan Moore's Watchmen or Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. The night always culminated in spreading out the comics and taking in every frame of artwork and line of text, with the best comics getting multiple passes. Personally I can't imagine reading a comic or any book for that matter in a digital format.

In summary, the old ways are the best, young people suck, and comic book reader applications are the tool of the Devil.

A little soul searching soul for Easter

Bill Self breaks down the 2010 Final Four

When you are a high exposure NCAA men's basketball coach who guides his team to a spectacular second round flame-out against a team with half your talent you of course get invited to provide your opinion on CBS about your betters and how their teams will do in rounds you could not get your own team to.  Comments of note include:

“You would have thought Syracuse and Kentucky for sure would get there, too,” Self noted. “To be honest with you, that didn’t happen because they picked a bad time not to play a good game, and their opponent picked a great time to play a great game. That’s certainly what happened to us.”

No Bill, the team played the same way they played all year long, without energy and making foolish mistakes that you would expect to see only at the beginning of the season.  Early on in the season Bill made the decision that despite having the deepest bench in the country that we would not be pressing and would focus on half court defense to go along with the slow, plodding and predictable hi-lo offense he loves that is so easily defended. 
As the season went on and it became clear that this approach was enough to win close game after close game, but not improve the team overall, rather than alter the approach or bench key players who continually made bad decisions, Self let the team stagnate and let certain players know that no matter how little effort they gave they would get playing time.  While I blame Bill, it is the players like Thomas Robinson, Tyshawn Taylor and Elijah Johnson whose development on the court suffered.

Census Deadline 2010

Today marks the deadline to return your 2010 Census form to the government.  If, like me you have not done so, you may be visited by Census "Workers" at your home to gather information on you.  Before I decided to ignore the form I pondered if there was any benefit to doing so.  Basically my rationale came down to the fact that I live in a district that is controlled by liberal collectivist politicians, and in all likelihood always will be.  So when hammered by propaganda attempting to convince me that it was my patriotic duty to complete the form because it would provide funds for my region, it occurred to me that I did not want the talking dolls who would decide how the money was spent getting any funds due to my actions.  My completion of the form would tacitly be a vote in support of stealing money from those who are more productive than I am.