Creedocide: Religion-powered Rat Poison

Creedocide - watch more funny videos

more optimism

Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey has famously stated, “The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today …whether they realize it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries.”

Whether that's a reasonable opinion or not, what I find more interesting is the people would would oppose longevity research because, if successful, we would stop being human. A Bush appointee -- surprise, surprise, even goes so far as to say that "the finitude of human life is a blessing for every human individual."

Personally, I think that longevity is like money in that it's impossible to have too much of it because it's just so easy to get rid of.

If the negative Nellies had been around when humans first started using fire, I'm sure they would have objected because having to huddle in the dark is either God's will or an essential human attribute.

Optimism

Please click on the picture to get a better perspective of just how big the ISS is, even if a big part consists of the solar panels. I find that contemplating this gives me a much better opinion of humans than reading all of the hateful and ignorant drivel being spewed by fundamentalists. In 3,000 years they haven't made any progress. They are all still as ignorant as they were back then and are killing each other, and us, for all the same reasons. By way of contrast, it took just under 100 years for science to move us from the first powered flight to the ISS. it's obvious that one way of viewing the world works, and the other doesn't.

Out of the mouths of babes

Ann Coulter gets pwned

Margaret and Helen is a pretty amusing blog. Actually, it can be pretty hilarious. Right now Helen is reviewing Ann Coulter's latest screed to save Margaret the agony of having to read it herself.

I think she has Coulter down to a tee. Here are a couple of examples.

It occurs to me that reading a Coulter book is like drinking the water in Mexico - eventually you find yourself wondering if the shit will ever stop.

...

And with that, dear Margaret, I need to take a nap. This book is boring the hell out of me, but I only have one chapter left. I can’t wait to move on to something more enjoyable than Ann Coulter - like irritable bowel syndrome. I mean it really.

Religious logic: putting the 'moron' into 'oxymoron.'

Science does not, and cannot, provide absolute answers.

Science does not claim to have an answer to everything.

Therefore, abandon the scientific enterprise and just make up shit as you go along.

DNA testing as subversion

I think it would be delightfully subversive to mandate paternity testing for all births in Canada. For obvious reasons, it's the kind of legislation requires advance notice -- at least 9 months.

If this were done, there are three things I'd be particularly curious about.

1. What sorts of arguments would the religious fundamentalists/conservatives raise to oppose the DNA testing requirement?

2. How quickly would people realize that most existing sexual mores have become moot given that the guesswork has been taken out of paternity?

3. For the first time since the evolution of our species, males could be absolutely certain about he paternity of "their" children. I wonder if guys would learn to relax a little? Or would we be even more tightly wound because the primary rationale for treating women as chattels will have been lost?