Breakfast of Champions, East Timor, Nutty Theologians

[tcpip]

Cocktail party on Friday night was a smashing success. Special kudos to casca_2u whom I met in RL for the first time, Sydney-visitor v3nu5 and, of course, imajica_lj for provision of music. Many, many martinis were drunk, "the breakfast of champions". First toast of the evening was valedictions to the very recently deceased Kurt Vonnegut Jnr. My personal favourite of his books is Mother Night; his 2004 essay "Cold Turkey" pretty much explains his left-humanist point-of-view.

East Timor has had a Presidential election. Based on the first round results, it is indeed difficult to determine who will win the overall majority, although Ramos-Horta must be the favourite. The three front runners (Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres, Jose Ramos Horta, Fernando "Lasama" de Araujo) are all good candidates; especially compared to the calibre we seem to have in Australia (Alan Jones wins support of Rudd and Howard).

Religious fundamentalists, once again, are breaking my brain. Apart from the musueum in Kentucky, where "Tyrannosaurus rex was a strict vegetarian, and lived with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden". usekh reports that Jerry Falwell claims that global warming is a lie spread by Satan!. With more Fawell goodness watch Bill Nye engage in a bit of education on the origin of species. Turkey's secular state is being challenged by a leading presidential candidate; socialists led the nation's largest protests in history.

Comments

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

That Intelligent Design/Creationist Museum in Kentucky is fucking wrong!

Nothing but propaganda to discredit Darwin and Science in general.

It's actually run and owned by an ex-Queenslander.
That is scary enough.

As for Falwell:
Is he actually still around?

Thought that he fell from Grace a long time ago.

Oh, well.

If not, he's about due. :)

Cheers for the links. :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I am sorely tempted to help build a museum of evolution as a direct counter to such stupidity.

Yep, Falwell's still around and as kooky as ever.

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

Would be up for that. :)

Have to find you a copy of the Darwin computer Role Playing Game.

Where you play as Charles Darwin, battling his way through the Bible Belt/Middle America, fighting red necks, Zealots and Extreme Fundamentalists to reach Washington DC so you can makes The Origin Of The Species recognised by law as fact.

Very fun but ultimately hard to find. :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Very funny. Of course, scientific facts don't need to be recognised as laws (which should only deal with morals, anyway). Otherwise you end up with weird things like the Indiana Pi Bill, one of the craziest moments in scientific history, imo..

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is classic.

And just one of many examples of reason over logic that they used in those days. :)

Look to the history of Longitude for other great ones. :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for that longitude hint. Good to see the Scilly Isles were keeping up with their fearsome reputation.

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

Welcome, my friend. :)