Poor Little Butthurt Bill, Again

PZ’s absolutely fucking brilliant agit-prop saga has come to an anti-climactic conclusion. Flames were hurled, trolls were legion, death threats and unsubtle substitutes for them were made, and in the end, Jesus a flavorless cracker was nailed and tossed in the garbage where it belongs. Of course, there is still room for a little more drama, and everyone’s favorite gibbering right-wing Catholic gasbag has stepped up to the plate to provide it. Yes folks, the sovereign of snivel, the monarch of moan and, well, the guy who thinks Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity but apparently really love buttsecks, i.e. Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, has deigned to speak on the matter. He’s got PZ’s number too, because he’s filing a formal complaint in the hopes of getting PZ banhammered IRL:

“A formal complaint against Myers has already been made. What he did—in both word and deed—constitutes a bias incident, as defined by the University of Minnesota. The policy says that ‘Expressions of disrespectful bias, hate, harassment or hostility against an individual, group or their property because of the individual or group’s actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion…can be forms of discrimination. Expressions vary, and can be in the form of language, words, signs, symbols, threats, or actions that could potentially cause alarm, anger, fear, or resentment in others…even when presented as a joke.’

Of course, if the bias Butthurt Bill has in mind is being expressed against a barbarous relic of medieval superstition, anti-Semitism, and the general idea that mundane objects can reasonably claim a sacrosanct status on the basis of unfounded religious claims, then Butthurt Bill just might be onto something. Of course that isn’t the case, and Butthurt Bill is endeavoring to get PZ fired under the delusion that the Catholic faithful can still lynch anyone who dares insult or even critique their belief system. Of course, the logic is completely contrived, as PZ even went out of his way to show that his denial of the concept of “sacredness” extends far beyond Catholicism and into his own non-theistic persuasion. And furthermore, he did it on his own time and not that of the university. Butthurt Bill is full of nothing but bluster, but I must admit, I find it awfully entertaining to watch this loud-mouthed drama-whore beat his chest. Something tells me he’s just stupid enough to think someone is actually intimidated.

UPDATE: Apparently, Daniel Davies has decided to retaliate on behalf of the Catholic church by…telling children that rainbows prove the existence of God. Hmmmm, I’m strangely not inspired to burn a Sunday School in retaliation. On the other hand, I farted loudly while I was reading the post, which made it exponentially funnier.

UPDATE II: Yet more butthurt for the bellowing asswipe.

UPDATE III: And for even more lulz, watch Chris over at Mixing Memory figuratively piss all over himself. I especially love the irony of calling PZ and “adolescent ass” while at least half the rant is a transparent temper tantrum over the fact that PZ is more popular than he is.

In Need of Immediate Notice

“I love the WWE and when Vince McMahon called me and said he wanted to join the fight and help families suffering with autism I was really excited,” said actress and best-selling author Jenny McCarthy. “Who better to have on your side in a fight than WWE?”

–Fox Business

Dear Jenny,

Critically your’s,

– Tyler DiPietro

(For those unfamiliar with the subject matter, here is a little background on Generation Rescue’s agenda and activities. Needless to say, their motives are not as noble or innocuous as it would immediately appear.)

Of Formal Interest, Episode 1: Curried Functions

Here is an interesting fact about OCaml: every function defined in the language takes exactly one argument. This does not contradict the fact that you can, for instance, define the simple function add by writing it as a function taking two arguments x and y, for this simple reason:


# let add x y = x + y ;;
val add : int -> int -> int = fun
# add 5 ;;
- : int -> int = fun


The add 5 bit isn’t an error, it’s a perfectly legal statement that add 5 is a function taking an integer as an argument and returning an integer as its image. It does not violate the original function definition by virtue of the fact that in OCaml, multi-argument functions are formalized and implemented as curried functions. Function currying in abstract mathematics is a process of taking a function of multiple arguments, say , and transforming it into a chain of one argument functions, . Most importantly in OCaml, this feature can be used to define new functions with the definitions of already bound functions. For instance, taking the last statement above and giving it a name produces a function that can be applied independently:


# let add x y = x + y ;;
val add : int -> int -> int = fun
# let eff = add 5 ;;
val eff : int -> int = fun
# eff 6 ;;
- : int = 11


Perhaps most interesting, OCaml doesn’t only implement currying at one level of abstraction. Those who are familiar with Category Theory will be familiar with the term “functor”, which is a concept OCaml uses for parametrized modules (modules are self-contained compilation units of an overall program, and functors in OCaml are “parametrized modules” is the same sense that functions are “parametrized expressions”). Understanding functor currying requires a higher level discussion of OCaml syntax than what would be reasonable here, but I shall give it it’s own post in the future.

[I've made over 9000 corrections to this post already and it lasts a meager three paragraphs, I'm definitely rusty when it comes to the technical crap. I hope you're not laughing too hard. -Ed]

LOL WUT???

As a token few satirists have pointed out before me, even if you don’t particularly care for America or her culture, there is one overriding and compelling reason to refrain from expatriation. Namely, there is no place on earth that can produce such astounding levels of stomach rupturing hilarity as ol’ Uncle Sam does on a virtually continuous basis. The latest example of such would be the most recent IRL case of DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS; in other words, another Republican gay-basher caught doing the butt-romp with a male lover:

Alabama Attorney General Troy King, a conservative Republican Christian who has called homosexuality the ‘downfall of society,’ has been caught with his pants down—literally—in a gay sex scandal. King was reportedly nabbed having sex with a male assistant by his wife, Paige King, in the couple’s own bed.

After being caught having sex with his male aide by his wife, Alabama Attorney General Troy King was reportedly banished from his home in Montgomery by his infuriated spouse, according to PerezHilton.com. Although reports about the scandal are sketchy and the events have yet to be confirmed by official sources, some media outlets are reporting that King is preparing to resign over the affair.

SURPRISE BUTTSECKS!!!

To add to the already searing lulz of the situation, this raging douchenozzle was named chairman of John McCain’s Alabama “Leadership Team.” Needless to say, the press release announcing this has since been scrubbed from McCain’s website.

Message from Voice@MyHead.com: “Troy King has been pwnt….by CHIGGY!”

[Hat Tip: SLC in the comments]

Shorter Dr. Dr. Leroy

Olivia Judson: “Let’s not call what we’re doing ‘Darwinism’.”

It is disingenuous of Olivia Judson to argue that “Darwinism” is a misleading label for evolutionary biology. In fact, her admission that natural selection is important gives the game away and is directly contradicted by these authors who agree with her. And…oh, just fuck it. Here’s some softcore pr0n.

Just because I want to destroy your irony meters…

Click here to read this hilarious exchange between David Heddle and John Kwok on a typical “science” blog. It’s funny until Kwok starts throwing ill-advised libels about. I wonder if Abbie “Potty Mouth” Smith will do him a big favor and flush this down the memory hole (in the words of Jerry Pournelle) “Real Soon Now”.

– DaveTard

I suppose that after several years of using memory holes to cover up the depredations and embarrassments that occur so frequently at UD, it becomes a reflexive behavior.

And for fuck’s sake people, “potty mouth” isn’t an insult to anyone born after 1950. Ditch the fainting couch.

Cherry Picking, Strawmen, and Logan Gage

The propaganda clearinghouse of the Discoverup Institute almost never fails to provide me with blagging material when I want it. Here is Logan Gage quoting WaPo editorialist Michael Gerson’s commentary on the recently released results of the Pew Religion Survey, particularly the observation that nine-percent of atheists report being skeptical of evolution:

Well, there probably aren’t any atheist creationists, although, if Richard Dawkins can be an “Atheist for Jesus,” anything is possible. Yes, these folks may be severely confused (”deluded,” if you prefer).

However, perhaps many of these atheists, while not being creationists, are simply skeptical of the Darwinian mechanism. (Gerson seems to miss that lack of belief in Darwinism is not the same as creationism—at least if words are to have any meaning.) Clearly they have to believe in some sort of naturalistic evolution. But that doesn’t mean they think there is good evidence for Darwin’s particular theory of natural selection.

There are two big problems here (yes, I am also amazed that Logan managed to make it this far with only two fuck ups). Number one, no one cares about “Darwin’s particular theory of natural selection.” Although Darwin’s work was influential, groundbreaking and far reaching 150 years ago, biology and evolution in particular have moved far beyond him. The fellowship of the Discoverup Institute never has been able to break from the treatment of Darwin as the ultimate, inviolable authority on evolutionary science, presumably due to their theological frame of mind. A lot of people think that is simply dishonest, cynical meme-propagation and rhetoric on their part, but I’m generally of the suspicion that they’re just too fucking stupid to recognize the difference.

Secondly, if Logan is even slightly inclined to believe that these respondents’ opinion of evolution springs from an informed evaluation of the merits of the natural selection, I will gladly inform him that, according to the same survey, about twice as many atheists claim to believe in God. In addition, slightly more (12%) claim to believe in heaven and pray at least once a week (10%). So no, these folks don’t have to “believe in some sort of naturalistic evolution.” They can be, and likely are, the same sort of uninformed, ignorant boobs that compose the DI’s target audience.

Message f/ Voice@MyHead.com

The prison is dying.
Chiggy will own you all.

TL:DR

I would really like to know where people like Soderberg get the idea that the U.S. President has the power to “order” private citizens to do anything, let alone to break the law, as even she admits happened here. I’m asking this literally: how did this warped and distinctly un-American mentality get implanted into our public discourse — that the President can give “orders” to private citizens that must be complied with? Soderberg views the President as a monarch — someone who can issue “orders” that must be obeyed, even when, as she acknowledges, the “orders” are illegal.

– Glenn Greenwald

One of the reasons I have a hard time following Glenn Greenwald is that he has a habit of devoting looooong pieces to topics that require two or three paragraphs, tops. But I do find it interesting that Glenn, along with what is in my estimation a sizable majority of the liberal blogosphere, treats the status of being “American” as an immutable value. The idea of an all powerful, imperial executive is hardly “un-American” in today’s political culture. In our current power-worshiping, hero-lionizing milieu, it’s as American as a gas-guzzling hummer that you don’t need. In all honesty we should simply admit that the republic, to the extent that it ever truly existed post-Spanish American war, is dead and buried. All that’s left is for America as it currently is, i.e. the USEmpire, to burn away in all it’s self-destructive, violent glory.

Should be interesting.

I call it, “Improvised Erotica”

Our masterpiece. I gotta talk Janie into filing a joint patent application for this.