Knitting

Each month, the first Sunday's exciting.
An event that is oh so delighting.
I spend time with my chicks
who show me new tricks,
and have always been very inviting.

The first Sunday of every month has become a special time for me. Because of medical issues, I don't have many opportunities to do much socializing. When I leave the house, it is for an appointment or to go to the store. But the first Sunday, I get to knit. It might not sound like much, but I really enjoy the Central Ohioans for Rational Inquiry Skeptical Crochet and Knitting Circle.

Thanks, ladies, for making this guy feel welcome.

Orange

Goo washes in off the sea.
No one knows what it could be.
It's oily and orange
like a rusty door hinge.
Or just like American Cheese.

Hah!

CNN reports on a strange substance that washed up on the shores of a village in Alaska.

Thanks for the link, Cuttlefish.


UPDATE:  Scientific American reports that the orange goo is crustacean egg mass. Scrambled.

My new pal

I met a new friend, name of Sandy.
She hates it when people get randy.
The problem is she's
getting down on her knees.
Which her invisible friend thinks is dandy.

Think Progress spins a tale of idiocy, where a female pundit compares necessary medical coverage to manicures and pedicures. I wonder what happened to her, that she hates the rest of her gender. That's the only reason I could think of for that level of stupid. I guess it could also be money.

Hat tip to Ed Brayton

On Aviating Suidae

"Evolution? Bah, when pigs fly!"
AiG says, with fire in eye.
"You can't add info
to ANY gene's code!
Man from monkeys? Biology's lie!"


Of course certain processes do
change a gene's codes through and through.
But that takes an act
of reason and facts.
Not Jesus, or Odin, or Q.


PZ posted about how AiG has disproven evolution, or whatever it is that AiG claimed they did.

Sense

Some people might find it odd
that there just aren't many new jobs.
But it makes perfect sense,
in dollars and cents,
as businesses love their true god.

This one might seem a bit derivative of "Perfect Sense", by Roger Waters, but he was referring specifically to churches bilking the believers. Besides, it is a universal theme.

MSNBC, again. Basically, companies have no incentive to hire more people, so we suffer as corporations rake in record setting profits. GM has doubled profits, and new hires aren't coming. But rolling back the Bush tax cuts will cause jobs to be destroyed.

Money? Get back.

The rich are just better than we.
A glimpse at the news and you'll see.
The courts are okay
with this pay-to-play.
I guess it pays to be wealthy.

MSNBC reports on a corporation forming, donating $1M to Romney's campaign, then dissolving, thereby hiding all traces of where the money came from. This is what happens when political donations are ruled to be free speech, and then that free speech coverage is extended to corporations.

New Moon

To explain the moon's odd far side
a new hypothesis has been derived.
It's new 'neath the sun:
Two moons became one.
Wreaking havoc with early Earth's tides.

LA Times has the story of the new hypothesis. I was under the impression that calculations proved that the Moon was spun of the Earth after a collision of a Mars-sized planetoid. That explained the larger iron core of the Earth and the increased regolith and smaller core of the Moon.

Vikings?

Westboro's got a new thing.
To Norway they now want to bring:
Their backwards ideas,
their hate and their fears.
Can we bring back the old school Vikings?


From this news post. Google translate, because I don't read Norwegian.

Ode to Cuttlefish

Where have I seen this before?
Skeptical limericks? For sure!
'Tis a mighty fine thought,
and I'm glad that it caught.
But now, you know THIS MEANS WAR!

I was a little upset once Cuttlefish started posting his daily limericks, but quickly realized that was childish. I'll just do them better :-)

On Circles and Space.

30 years ago, living in Hawaii,  my father woke me up at an hour I did not realize existed at that tender age. A momentous thing was about to happen, a thing which has stuck with me these long, long years. In the morning sun, half a world away, the Space Shuttle Columbia hung on the launch pad. Today, on a gloomy Ohio morning, I sit with my own children to watch the final launch of the Space Shuttle program.

Circle of life and all that, I suppose.

An Open Letter to the Atheist Community.

To Michigan Atheists, PZ Myers, Greta Christina, Hemant Mehta, Jen McReight, JT Eberhard, Adam Lee, The Chaplain, Digital Cuttlefish, Matt Dillahunty, C.L. Hanson, Sikivu Hutchinson, Phil Ferguson, Jeff Duncan, Unknown (to me) Benefactor, and to all who have donated to Camp Quest:

THANK YOU.

Thank you for, your generosity, the giving freely of yourselves for those you do not know, perhaps will never know.

My wife, Miranda and I have been discussing sending our oldest child to Camp Quest for the past 2 years, since she was 8. Each year financial difficulties have prevented us from doing so. I had the paperwork for a campership for Camp Quest Ohio nearly completed, but we found it difficult to scrape together even the $100 deposit required. Prices increase, and wages stay the same. I don't share this for pity, but to inform of where we are right now.

A link was shared with me about 3 weeks ago. This link was a contest, for a campership to Camp Quest Michigan. The topic was "What can I do to improve the image of freethinkers/atheists in the world?". I passed this on to Charlotte, and here is what she wrote:

Were you Raptured as well?

The Rapture I guess passed us by
It's not hard to figure out why:
The christianist dopes
are selling false hope
and offering pie in the sky.

Posted here on Pharyngula

Birthday Limerick

Time speeds inexorably on

You blinked? Twenty years are long gone.
But the option is worse
so I'm thankful, in verse,
to wake to each morning's new dawn.

The prologue of past is complete.
New paths open up at my feet.
The road, as is said
goes ever on up ahead
with loves to hold and friends to meet.

Existential Meanderings.

I just got back from visiting my great-grandfather's grave at the Masonic Cemetery in Springfield. He died in 1989 and, although I was named after him (him - Richard Wilson, me - Richard Wilson Stage), that was the first time I had been there. I have good memories of him. There was a picture, taken when I was 8 or so, of the two of us, me in pajamas, both of us grinning like idiots.

Apart from the memories of childhood, good and otherwise, I started thinking. I remember him, but I can't say I really knew him. Grampa Wilson was born in 1899. He would have been 18 when the US joined WW 1. Did he serve? How did he get through the Great Depression? Who was he?

Then I followed that question to it's logical conclusion.

Who am I?

I am a husband to the most wonderful woman I have met. I am father to two amazing kids. But is that who I am? Do those moments in my life (marriage, births) define me? People have said that who we are is the sum of our experiences, but what if the math doesn't add up? What if I forgot to carry the one? Perhaps I should subtract π. Maybe I should subtract π a couple times.

I know almost everyone has had an existential quandary at some point in their lives, and mine isn't really any different. But if we are all indeed the sum of our experiences, how can we be sure the math adds up?

I fucking hate Tim Tebow

If you do not know who Tim Tebow is, get out from under your rock and turn on ESPN. He is the Heisman winning QB from Florida, who, if he wins the SEC championship game, will play in yet another national championship game. Huzzah for him.

Why do I fucking hate Tim Tebow?

He was recently on a missionary trip to the Philippines. That trip is bad enough in and of itself. People went for medical and dental care, yet had to sit through a religious spiel before getting treated. I consider that cruel and unusual punishment, but those people need the treatment, so any is good. But that wasn't enough for Mr. Tebow.

Deciding that he wanted to get more "hands on", he assisted doctors with circumcisions.

Think about that.

Tim Tebow, majoring in "family, youth and community sciences" (Whatever the hell that is. Science? Really?) took up a needle and thread (okay, sutures are subtly different) and sewed up freshly mutilated penises. I know that medical standards in the Philippines are more lax than here, but really?

The important point to me is the genital mutilation. If anyone tries to tell you that circumcision (male genital mutilation) is for any reason other than religious, you can feel free to safely ignore anything else they have to say.

If anyone tells you that circumcision (male genital mutilation) is different or better than the slicing off of the labia or clitoris of little girls, feel free to punch them in their throat, because it is the same thing. It is mutilating the genitals of a young child, an innocent who knows nothing but the pain.

Fuck you, Tim Tebow. I fucking hate you.




References

I'll just leave this here...

Well a Scotsman clad in kilt left a bar one evening fair
And one could tell by how he walked that he'd drunk more than his share
He fumbled round until he could no longer keep his feet
Then he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
He stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street

About that time two young and lovely girls just happend by
And one says to the other with a twinkle in her eye
See young sleeping Scotsman so strong and handsome built
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt

They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as could be
Lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see
And there behold, for them to view, beneath his Scottish skirt
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth

They marveled for a moment, then one said we must be gone
Let's leave a present for our friend, before we move along
As a gift they left a blue silk ribbon, tied into a bow
Around the bonnie star, the Scots kilt did lift and show
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
Around the bonnie star, the Scots kilt did lift and show

Now the Scotsman woke to nature's call and stumbled towards a tree
Behind a bush, he lift his kilt and gawks at what he sees
And in a startled voice he says to what's before his eyes.
O lad I don't know where you been but I see you won first prize
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
O lad I don't know where you been but I see you won first prize

Don't fuck with P&T

Posted here.

Donohue can't learn to say when.
His head's up his ass yet again!
He thinks they're a prize,
but he picked the wrong guys -
Teller and his partner Penn

Old Bill's gonna learn the hard way
his religion's becoming passe.
But he'll still be a pawn
when he finds his god gone.
He'll be on his knees everyday

Yeah, I'm on Twitter...

I'm following #obamacare
They can't tell here from there
they think that it's wise
to spread all their lies
and pull "facts" out of thin air

Best pro-government health care post. EVAR.

From Ozone on Fark:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

A Visit From PZ

There was a Professor from Morris
who gathered the cast and the chorus.
And we all headed down
to visit the clowns
and the bibleists that all abhor us.

As day broke, sunny and grand,
the heathens from all o'er the land
north, east, west and south
all by different routes,
for reason we'd take a firm stand.

To Kentucky we all did flock.
Racing so we'd beat the clock
so if we were inclined
we might head up the line
so we could be the first to mock.

With ticket and button in hand
we followed through with our plan:
for ourselves to see
the insanity
of Ken Ham's folly first hand.

As soon as we walked in the door:
Behold! A large pterasaur!
Graceful and free -
or not. It could be
it evolved to stay off the floor.

The next thing we saw was bizarre -
a grazing and growling brontosaur!
Then we saw what they did
with the raptors and kids.
The Flintstones can't be too far!

The Grand Canyon was, so they say,
carved by the flood in mere days.
If you ignored all the facts,
or hit your head with an axe
or replaced your brain with mayonnaise.

They said if we came we'd believe,
but not after Adam and Eve!
We laughed, not from spite -
we could tell from first sight
that this place was built to deceive

Next was Noah and his Ark.
The departure from fact was stark!
While the rain quickly poured
God put the dinos on board
but didn't have room for the shark.

Heaven forbid if you doubt them
cause no one's more honest than Ken Ham!
He said “You can trust us!”
“We're just lying for jebus!”
and the creo-zombies echo “Amen!”

If there was one part of that twaddle
that kept me from coming unraveled
was the sight of PZ
gloriously
on the dino that was wearing a saddle.

While there we laughed and we learned.
We left wondering how facts could be spurned.
The day went as we thought.
The science was naught.
So we vowed we would never return.

Here is the moral of my tale:
stay away from this shrine to fail!
But if visit you must,
to hide your disgust
go filled up with whiskey and ale.

Edited to fix the spacing.