Sometimes, The Good Guys Win

Conrad Black guilty of obstruction and mail fraud
3 former Hollinger International associates convicted of mail fraud
Last Updated: Friday, July 13, 2007 | 12:36 PM ET
CBC News

Former media baron Conrad Black has been found guilty of obstruction of justice and three counts of mail fraud, a Chicago courtroom was told Friday morning on the 12th day of deliberations.

Whatever-Day-This-Is Archaeology Blogging
Fun with petroglyphs edition!

First of all, this edition of Friday Archaeology Blogging will have nothing to do with ossuaries believed by some to contain the remains of a particular middle-eastern family. This is for two reasons. First of all, I haven't seen the documentary yet. Secondly, I rather skeptical of the whole Biblical Archaeology thing to begin with.

The earliest human inhabitants of Hawaii seem to have arrived on the islands about 1400 years ago, probably journeying from points south and west. This relatively recent date for the arrival of humans is probably related to the remoteness of the Hawaiian islands. The early Hawaiians lived under a very stratified caste system referred to as "kapu". In terms of material remains, they did not leave much, although some worship sites (Hawaiian word: Heiau) have survived.


Pu'ukohola Heiau - click to enlarge

What these early inhabitants did leave behind are quite of lot of petroglyphs, images carved into the volcanic rock of the islands. Subject matter includes people in canoes,



people by themselves (very often sexually explicit, as in the case the petroglyph shown below),



and some that seem to be simply geometric shapes.



Animals, including starfish, turtles, and tiger sharks, were also represented, although I couldn't find a really satisfactory image of such a petroglyph. Nor did the arrival of Captain James Cook, in 1778, put an end to the practice of carving petroglyphs, although the kapu system fell apart not long after the arrival of the Europeans. The example below quite clearly shows a fully-rigged ship, and therefore must date to after Cook's visit.



The meaning of the petroglyphs is, not surprisingly, somewhat open to interpretation. They were believed to bring good luck, as long as the stone upon which they were carved was not moved. In general, they have survived fairly well; however, there is a problem in that the petroglyphs are generally outdoors, and thus exposed to the elements. Hawaii's copious rainfall has eroded some of them almost to the point of invisibility.

Oh, Goody.

Scripture-affirming Creation Museum set to open in June
Allie Martin
OneNewsNow.com
March 1, 2007

A state-of-the-art museum dedicated to the biblical account of creation will open this spring in Ohio. The 50,000-square-foot Creation Museum, which is located in the Greater Cincinnati area, is scheduled to open its doors on Memorial Day.

Great. Because the number-one most important thing about a museum is whether or not it's "scripture affirming." Take that, British Museum!

The Creation Museum is a project of Answers in Genesis (AiG), an apologetics ministry based in Kentucky. The new attraction will feature many educational displays, including life-size dinosaur models, fossil and mineral collections, and other live exhibits designed to teach and to proclaim the authority of biblical scripture.

Now, this is very... Excuse me, somebody wishes to say something.


"God fucking dammit! I did not, repeat did not live my entire life in the Paleozoic ooze so that some dickhead could put my cousins on display with a little plaque explaining that they hung out with Abraham. Fuck! Incidentally, this picture of me comes from this site, which you should definitely go and look at. It's a fuck of a lot more interesting than a diorama of Jesus riding a stegosaurus, that's for sure. Thanks, back to you."

No, thank you Mr. Trilobite.

Dr. Ken Ham, president of AiG, says the $27-million project will be more than just entertaining. “It’s as good as anything Disneyland or Universal Studios could do, but it’s not entertainment; it's 'edutainment,'" he insists. "It's education, using these exhibits."

As interesting as the museum itself promises to be, Ham believes it will be just as interesting to watch how it is received. "I believe it’s going to make not just an impact in the Creation world and not just an impact in North America," he says, "but an impact in Christendom. I believe it’s [going to be] a significant event in Christendom when this museum is open.”

Ah, gotta love the sweet, sweet, smell of hubris. Here's an excerpt from a future history textbook:

GREAT MOMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY

• c. A.D. 33: The crucifixion of Jesus Christ
• c. A.D. 150: The earliest known manuscript of the Bible is composed.
• A.D. 313: The Edict of Milan is proclaimed. Christianity becomes a legal religion in the Roman Empire.
• A.D. 1517: Martin Luther publishes his 95 Theses On the Power of Indulgences, officially kicking off the Protestant Reformation.
• A.D. 1962-1965: The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, aka Vatican II.
• A.D. 2007: The Creation Museum opens in the Greater Cincinnati area! Hey look, it's got a picture of Noah putting the unicorns on the ark!

Methinks not.

In fact, various media from around the world have already expressed avid and increasing interest in the Creation Museum, the AiG spokesman notes. However, he says, as the opening date draws closer, attacks from secularists have increased as well.

Ooh, evil secularists. They'll be legalizing Halloween next!

In talking to these secularists, Ham points out, "you realize these sort of people don’t want answers; what they want to do is publicly ridicule Christians, publicly ridicule the Bible." Whenever he is interviewed by people like that, the creation apologist says, "I’m also thinking of the people who are listening, and [I’m] trusting that God will use the answers that I give to open their hearts to the truth.”

I doubt the good Dr. Ham would like the truths that God is using his answers to open my heart to. I also doubt that that sentence was very grammatical.

Ham calls the Creation Museum a "walk through history" that will counter evolutionary natural history exhibits that turn minds against Christ and scripture. He says AiG's new, alternative "edutainment" place, opening this June, will proclaim the Bible as supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice that scripture addresses.

Use the word "edutainment" once, shame on you. Use it twice, you really are a jackass. And on that note, I'm going off to look at the Burgess Shale website some more.

The Canadians Are Coming!!

Salvage, over at Hairy Fish Nuts has done a brilliant job poking fun at one of our home-grown wingnuts. Apparently, said wingnut has just published a book revealing how Canada is basically a big seething pot of gay, threatening to overflow onto the innocent folks to the south of us. That's right, the whole same-sex marriage movement in Canada is nothing but a horrible Soviet Canuckistani plot to corrupt the United States. I believe the operative word here is "yeesh."

Well Crap On A Stick, Anyway

The world has lost one of the good ones:

Columnist Molly Ivins dies
By JOHN MORITZ
STAR-TELEGRAM AUSTIN BUREAU

AUSTIN — Molly Ivins, whose biting columns mixed liberal populism with an irreverent Texas wit, died at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at her home in Austin after an up-and-down struggle with breast cancer she had waged for seven years. She was 62.

Pretty much everything I know about Texas, particularly politics in Texas, I know because I started reading Molly Ivins.

Two For Two

Democrats seal US Senate victory

Republican George Allen has admitted defeat in the Virginia race for the US Senate, sealing Democratic mid-term victories in both houses of Congress.

I do not think that the wingnuts are going to be very happy with George Allen, and this has probably killed any chance he ever had of being POTUS.

So, um, Harper's Dark Overlord is kind of out there on his own, at this point (apart from Uncle Dick and That Woman That Peter Mackay Was Slobbering Over The Last Time She Was In Canada). Be interesting to see how our PM handles it, particularly if the opposition parties start smelling fear (well, more fear than usual from the Conservatives), which just might be a possibility if these polls are accurate. One thing is certain; he's going to have to choose whether he plays ball with the White House or with Congress and The Senate on matters relating to both our countries.

Well Done, Folks

Rumsfeld gone. Santorum gone. Allen politically crippled, probably. A solid Democratic majority in Congress. Even if the Dems don't end up holding the Senate majority, it's still a pretty good result, as long as they use their Congressional majority to put the brakes on King George in a big way. Screw bipartisanship, and bring on the subpoenas! So, well done to our friends to the south for finally, finally, hitting back against those assholes, and let the good work continue!

More gloating as events warrant...

There's doins' a-transpirin'

The usual BBTM (Better Bloggers Than Me) crew has good, if scary and depressing, stuff about the federal Tories basically creating a slushfund for the Bush Whitehouse. Check out Cathie from Canada and Creekside, and prepare to be appalled.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

Laugh-out-loud stuff, via Bartcop:

SARASOTA -- In the words of the schoolchildren who watched that day, it is a simple thing to describe memories of watching President Bush learn about the 9-11 terror attacks: happy and sad.

It was supposed to be a day of celebration -- with the nation's leader there to congratulate the classroom of second-graders for improving their reading scores -- and it was, until a man stepped forward and whispered something into the president's ear.

The best part of the article? This:

"His face just sort of turned red,'' said Tyler Radkey, who had a front-row seat that morning. "I thought, personally, he had to go to the bathroom.''

On Haircuts, The Classification Of

Via Sadly, No!, we have a link to a Kathleen Parker article on the whole Republican-candidate-calling-a-brown-person-a-"macaca" affair. While Parker's article is actually vaguely reasonable for a Townhall columnist, there was one passage which caught my attention:

According to one version, Allen was trying to say ``mohawk,'' referring to Sidarth's hairstyle, which is also the subject of much debate. Is it a mohawk, or is it a mullet?

I think we may be able to help, here:


MULLET!


MOHAWK!


MULLET!!


MOHAWK!!


MULLET!!!


MOHAWK!!!


Neither.

Sorry righties, if you're going to get your boy off the hook, you're going to have to do better than that.

UPDATE: Wow! I'm honoured!!

Nice Going, George

The worst president the United States has ever had continues his bang-up job of increasing America's standing abroad:

In South Korea, traditionally a U.S. ally, two-thirds of people under 30 said in a recent poll that if there were war between North Korea and the United States, they would side with North Korea.

Ian Robinson Hangs A Slider Right Over The Plate

There are days when blogging is difficult. Whoever the muse of blogging is, she's just not around all the time. And then, there are times when it gets served up to you on a plate. Today is one of those times.

No pride in harbouring cowards from U.S.
By IAN ROBINSON, CALGARY SUN

Ok, an unpromising beginning. This looks like another snorefest about personal responsibility, making choices and living with the results, and other things that conservatives like to bleat about but which are, in fact, anathema to them. But wait...

Aw, it must have been such a beautiful moment.

There was a conference of Vietnam-era draft dodgers and deserters in B.C. last weekend, coming together after all these years to celebrate their deep-seated courage in avoiding service in the Vietnam war by coming to Canada.

Well, that's a switch. Seems Ian is still pissed off that we took in draft dodgers 40 years ago. One wonders vaguely why, given that even the architects of the Vietnam war have admitted that it was, pretty much, a clusterfuck.

They unveiled a statue showing a Canadian welcoming two fleeing Americans with open arms.

The sculpture was originally to have found a home in a municipal setting, but the national uproar it touched off sees it now in a private gallery in Nelson.

That would be this statue:



I think the fuss would have been more muted had the statue perhaps better reflected the reality of those times.

What, you mean we didn't actually take in draft dodgers and their families? Now Ian's confusing me.

Shoulda been a chicken hiding behind a beaver.

Hey look, snark!

Yep. A beautiful moment. That is if you were born without the capacity to feel shame.

Actually, I think most people are born without the capacity to feel shame, and that it develops in early childhood. But we won't get into that, cause we're coming to the money shot here. This is where Ian writes something that is so dumb, so inane, and so just plain wrong that all one can do is sit and admire its stupiditude:

Let's get something clear here.

Vietnam was a moral war.





















I see.


















Ian Robinson's morality in action.

Fuck, Mackay, Grow A Spine!!

Better blogs than this one have already commented on this piece of appalling sycophancy, but I thought I'd get my two cents' worth in as well.

Fri, April 14, 2006
Pete makes nice with Condi Rice
By CP

WASHINGTON -- Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mac-Kay was so appreciative after his first visit yesterday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice he nearly ran out of superlatives.

I had thought that I was past being surprised at the depths to which the Conservatives would stoop, but I must confess that I was wrong. Fuck me, what a gang of whimpering little quislings they are.

"I'm delighted to be here. I've always been a fan of yours," he told Rice at a news conference.

In hindsight, I am amazed he didn't ask for her autograph.

"And much of our discussion today confirmed what I already knew about you from having followed your career.

"We're very grateful and I personally extend my thanks to you for your generous and very kind invitation to be with you."

Mackay afterwards wrote a 3,000-word LiveJournal post in leet speak about how Rice totally roxx0rs.

Rice smiled politely.

Hoping, no doubt, that Mackay would not actually wet his pants.

Anyway, perhaps I'm being a little hard on ol' Pete here. Perhaps his gushing praise of Rice is based on sincere professional respect, and the sure knowledge that the current points of contention between Canada and the U.S. can now be worked out to the benefit of all. Let's find out!

United States Hails Decision on Canadian Softwood Lumber Imports
World Trade Organization Appellate Body says imports threaten U.S. lumber industry

The United States has hailed an April 13 report by the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body that says dumped and subsidized softwood lumber imports from Canada threaten the U.S. lumber industry with “material injury.”

Ok, so not so much on the softwood lumber dispute. What about the whole border ID thing?

U.S. says border passport a must
By BETH GORHAM

WASHINGTON (CP) - There'll be no wiggle room on new U.S. security requirements for travellers when Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay meets Thursday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, American officials say.

Hmmm. So Mackay's just going to let us take it up the ass on this one, too? Jesus Christ, man, what are we paying you for? In other Canada-US related news, there's this:

Canada's Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has a meeting scheduled with Michael Chertoff, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary for late Tuesday, but there is no word on whether they will discuss the new rules.

Is it legal to have that much incompetence in one room at the same time?

Quote O'The Day

The award goes to Escambia (Florida) County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead, upon the occasion of his ignoring the plaintive squawks about religious persecution, and shutting down a backyard creationism museum for not having bothered to fill out the proper paperwork:

"Scripture also says 'Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.' And right now, Caesar demands a building permit," County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead said.

Via Maru.

In Which We Feed Off The Hard Work Of Others, Being The Pinko Socialist Canuckistanians That We Are

First off, from WTF Is It Now?, we learn that South Dakota's abortion ban is apparently unpopular with some of the locals. Not enough of them, mind you, but some.

Next up, CathiefromCanada mentions that Bush was asked a question that, in a sane world, would be considered ridiculous.

Finally (for now), Canadian Cynic is being cynical.

*********************

Oh, what the hell. Here's a bonus track from the dark side. Shorter Paul Jackson: Bush's only mistake so far has been nominating Harriet Miers. Everything else has been a glorious success. CBC=bad.

Oh For Fuck's Sake

I suppose this was probably inevitable (originally seen on The Woodshed):

Parents, Students Outraged As School Board Bans International Program
Posted on Tuesday, March 14 2006 00:14:36 PST by Intellpuke

A U.S. school district in Pennsylvania has banned the International Baccalaureate program after officials condemned it as "un-American" and Marxist, sparking outrage among pupils who are studying the increasingly popular diploma.

Now, The Rev.'s article at The Woodshed deals with the issue far better than I possibly could, especially given the advanced level of bile I am experiencing right now. However, allow me to add merely that the level of xenophobia, incompetence, self-righteousness, religious bigotry, disregard of children's well-being, and outright, simple, cowardice displayed by the people who voted to ban the IB program is simply astounding. I mean, fuck, people, what's next? This?



This?



Ok, I'm probably over-reacting, but not by much if those assholes get their way.

Look Honey, I'm Being All Diplomatical!!!"

First, however unwittingly, President Bush, as Indian masses understand it despite the media having more or less blacked it out, has insulted the memory of Mahatma Gandhi. His protocol handlers have notified India’s foreign ministry that the American President’s deep belief in his born again faith precludes the possibility of his visiting Gandhiji’s shrine at Rajghat during the forthcoming visit. Asked by reporters on a recent trip aboard Air Force One if he would be breaking the tradition of foreign dignitaries visiting India paying their respects to the Mahatma, President Bush is believed to have mumbled something about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ viewed cremation as a pagan practice.

What a twit. (via Agitprop)

I'm Just Going To Let This One Stand On Its Own

Dick Cheney misses bird, hits fellow hunter
Last Updated Sun, 12 Feb 2006 16:01:38 EST
CBC News

U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney has shot and wounded a 78-year-old fellow hunter during a Texas quail shoot.

'Pologies for the Paucity of Posting

But things are very busy this week. I'm trying to actually get something publishable done, and a bunch of marking, etc. etc. However, I do need to say mention two quick things:

First of all, via a mention at Hairy Fish Nuts, fare-thee-well to Conservative Shambling Zombies.

And,

Fuck.

This Just In

McKenna to leave Washington, seen as Liberal leadership contender
Last Updated Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:33:07 EST
CBC News

Just two days after the Conservatives came out ahead in the federal election, Frank McKenna, Canada's ambassador to the United States, has offered his resignation.

Oi! Thump! called this one Monday night. And I think that McKenna's getting out of the Ottawa gig at the right time. The next ambassador to the U.S. is going to have to bring his kneepads with him, and leave his personal dignity at home.