In "Antiques dealer files a million dollar lawsuit"

I used to work as a telephone operator in London. One evening, someone phoned 999 to complain that a homeless man was sleeping on the pavement by his door. police operator: "Is he blocking your access?" caller: "I have to...step round him." police: "What do you want us to do about it?" caller: "Well, move him." police: "Can you provide him alternative accommodation? We can't." caller: "But I'm a property owner. My taxes pay for your service!" police: "You are fucking ludicrous. Just wait till I tell the lads in the canteen about this one!" I may not have remembered the whole conversation perfectly. They can be alright sometimes, the police.

In "Oldest Hominid Fossils Found"

Lumping is more fun than splitting, anyway.

In "On the importance of Turkmenistan."

monkeys know, but do not love, Turkmenbashi. I said Turkmenistan, not Turkmenbashi, but still repented of writing it. When seen through the safe, distorting lens of a Monkeyfilter poetryfest, it's hard to keep a proper perspective on the place sometimes.

I'm not surprised our resident poets have highlighted the irony of Turkmenbashi's situation - all powerful at home, up till now he has always been (Russian gas company) Gazprom's bitch in reality. Finally he has some like-minded people to do business with on equal terms! I almost find myself hoping Putin finds a way to slap him down. Is that very bad of me?

A super-condensed summary appears in the third link: Thus the gas that Ukraine is relying on to keep it out of trouble is going to start heading East instead of North, and, given past practice, that can only bode badly for the reliability of supply to such places as Italy and the United Kingdom. Anyone who lives to the west of Turkmenistan could feel chilly in coming winters if they succeed in commanding a higher price for their gas. I was going to write fairer instead of higher, but the spare cash is probably going to end up as colossal statuary or ice palaces or something...

In "Stop at Red"

In Cambridge where I used to cycle commute, there seemed to be a conspiracy between car drivers, who wanted to kill cyclists, and the cyclists, who wanted to help them. Me, I wanted a handlebar-mounted device to flick limpet mines with timer fuses at the worst drivers. I stopped at red lights, breathing murder and hatred for those who treated ones mode of transport as a signifier of status.

In "A letter to the American Left"

For my own part I'm astonished that the Left does not attack the Republicans in a very very much more aggressive and outspoken way. This administration is composed of crooks and liars (TM) and has been wholly ineffective in almost all important respects. Any Democrat who fails at any opportunity to label the Rebublicans as a bunch of sleazy incompetents is failing in their duty. It's not enough to attack? The Democrat alternative is clear enough - as the party that will respect constitutional rights and international treaties.

In "Fun with the Fred Meyer's phones"

We always hoped that everyone would speculate that the strikers were somehow responsible for what happened. This is not funny enough for how ugly that is.

In "Braaaaaaaaaains"

Cephalopods. Especially cuttlefish. Actually squid is not too bad, but the last time I had baked cuttlefish it had a half digested sardine in its stomach.

In "The Institute for Creation Research"

What I don't get is why these fundamentalists feel the need to use scientific language at all. If creationism is accepted as science it must be taught in science class as well as or instead of evolution. If it isn't, it belongs - if anywhere - in a religious studies class.

alcarilinque, you would be amazed at the contortions they get themselves into. As long as they only have to explain away one thing at a time, they can think up some story or other which is good enough to satisfy an uncritical mind. It's quite good fun to get them to reconcile all the stories into a coherent whole - with biblical justifications, of course. Just remember - the speed of light used to be a whole lot faster. Putting a much higher value for the speed of light into the relevant equation decreases radioactive half lives, so radioactive decay used to be quicker, making things look far older than they 'really' are. I didn't make that up. Moron or storytelling genius?

One creationist who is not a moron is John Morris, the ICR's president. Neither is he ignorant of science. He is a clever, amoral liar, who evidently believes that bearing false witness is justified to increase the number of young earth creationists. Consider this article of his, in which he argues that the existence of carbon 14 in the atmosphere proves that the earth is less than 30,000 years old. He actually says that new C14 is made in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays hitting nitrogen atoms, but then ends by claiming that if the earth were older than 30k years, there would be no C14 left. Actually, forgetting to cover his tracks like that is fairly moronic. If only he were that ingenuous all the time.

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