Chuck Norris has begun to annoy me.

When confronted with news, really any news, about The Boy Scouts, I usually shrug, smile, nod, and then not care.

But CN + BSA? That's just a recipe for awesomesauce.

So Chuck Norris has been blathering on about how beset with woe the Boy Scouts are by Obama.

Over the past months, a widely circulated e-mail has reported that President Obama is not signing Eagle Scout certificates, which only 4 to 5 percent of Boy Scouts attain.

...which is horrible! I'd better check Snopes and TruthorFiction to make sure that this is real!

Wait...What's that Chuck Norris? You've done our work for us and researched yourself?!

Categorically, Internet watchdog sites like Snopes.com and TruthOrFiction.com have classified the claims as "hogwash." But I have found a steady stream of White House whitewashing when it comes to the Boy Scouts of America.

That's good old Chuckie for ya! Just like in Walker Texas Ranger, he roundhouse kicked in to find the TROOF! And with that journalism degree he has, I'm sure he's...oh wait...

Now, the quote that gave me a lot of jollies on part one (Yes. Part one of three. Sit back folks.) was this quote right here:

Since President William Howard Taft in 1910, U.S. presidents have proudly fulfilled the position of honorary president of the BSA. But neither the honor nor event was highlighted in any official White House communication. Nothing said at the March 3 White House briefing. Nothing noted anywhere on the White House official website. Obama simply accepted the honorary presidential position behind closed doors in the Oval Office with seven or so Boy Scouts present.

On the other hand, on that single day of March 3, 2009, the White House considered all the rest of the following events as newsworthy enough to post on its official website: "President Obama announces more key appointments," "President Obama and Vice President Biden announce investment in transportation infrastructure and jobs for Americans," "Message to Congress from president regarding export certification," "Remarks by the president and vice president on transportation infrastructure," "Vice President Biden to travel to Brussels to consult with NATO allies," "Highway spending from Recovery Act to create or save 150,000 jobs by end of 2010," "Remarks by President Obama on AFL-CIO executive council," "The first lady speaks to American servicewomen" and the "Remarks of the president to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the Department of Interior."
Yet, not a peep mentioned about the president's acceptance of BSA's honorary presidency.

Could it be the 160th anniversary of the Department of Interior ranked of higher importance than Obama's acceptance of the BSA's position in its 100th year of celebration?

The man says things and doesn't actually think about the words coming out of his mouth.

Which is more vital to the operations and well being of the country? The Boy Scouts or the Department of the Interior?

Okay, whatever. That's fine...and then he manages to out do himself by saying this:

I suppose it's also coincidental that Obama was unable to attend the 100th Anniversary Gala of the Boy Scouts of America in his own backyard (Washington, D.C.) on Feb. 9, 2010. Why? Because that evening he had his first national press conference! Is it just me, or would you have delayed the press conference to any other evening in February to attend this unique centennial celebration of one of the oldest and most influential boys' organizations in U.S. history? How about at least a quick shout-out at the press conference? No such luck.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...




Oh wait...he's...SERIOUS?! I mean...let's assume for a moment (only a moment mind you...my brain is already about to explode) that the Boy Scouts were of such national importance that they needed to be placed above the Department of the Interior. Would it, even then, follow that the President should be delaying this press conference just for them?

Also, I'm sure he totally could have said, "Now before I go, I wanna give a shout out to my homies in the BSA. We just dropped us a cent and now it's time to hit the dime. WURD!"

A "shout out?" REAAAALLY Chuck?

Aha, but all is not lost:

The president did, however, send a semi-congratulatory letter to the BSA on its centennial, though at the same time subtly distancing himself from being a celebratory participant: "I send greetings to all those celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. … I wish you all the best." Seems like a rather flat centennial note for the prospective honorary president of the BSA, wouldn't you say?

I'm sure the flowers and the stripper-gram got lost in the mail.

But then, can you blame Obama when, as Chuck Norris so artfully says himself:

...a series of lawsuits have been levied against the BSA because of its stand against atheists, agnostics and homosexuals.

And, perhaps, they have the right to have these sort of hilariously terrible practices. The worst thing that we as undesirable persons can do is ignore them and not pay for their atrocious fucking popcorn.

And then, of course, there's the whole thing about the BSA in Philly.

Norris talks of those poor souls like they're being evicted from their homes. When, in fact, since they're violating the city's nondiscrimination policy (you know, so they can be a program that receives government money, they have to follow...uh...rules.) they can't be housed (rent free) in a government building.

Boo Hoo...

You think you'd be sobbing so hard about this if it were some OTHER group that was being forced to pay like everyone else?

Of course, he makes a gay reference in this quote:

President Obama became the honorary president of the BSA in March of 2009, and the White House didn't even mention it. And ever since, any discussion or interactions with the BSA have been "don't ask, don't tell." And how could they, since the president would then have to publicly acknowledge that, as honorary president of BSA, he affirmed the Scout Oath, belief and policies, which prohibit atheists and agnostics from membership, and "avowed" homosexuals from leadership roles?

Of course! Because, as the "Honorary President of the BSA" he has actual power within the BSA. It's like being the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Gotta have someone who isn't a lifer in charge. So as Commander in Chief of the BSA, Obama should have purged the world of Atheists and Homosexuals by now! Because...you know, like it says in the Boy Scout Oath...

On my honor, I will do my best to keep myself morally straight.

On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country;

On my honor, I will do my best to obey the Scout Law…;

On my honor, I will do my best to help other people at other times.

On my honor, I will do my best to keep myself mentally awake.

On my honor, I will do my best to prevent godless heathens and gays from being in the BSA.

Oh wait, what? That last one isn't actually in there? I just made it up? Well shit! Where in the Boy Scout Oath does it say that?

Oh the first one. Because all people who are straight or believe in god are moral.

Right.

"Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right"

Yesterday, the Society of Notheists at Purdue University held a Pastafarian Preaching Day in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day. The purpose of having such a day is to illustrate how stupid it sounds when you encounter people like that of ANY religion and how we must always consider the validity of the beliefs being espoused by even the most sane and attractive crew of scurvy buccaneers you may come across.

It just so happened, as we were planning on having our preaching day, we discovered two very important facts:

1. Talk Like a Pirate Day was on a Saturday this year...which was an incredible bummer.
2. Gene Levy Brother Jed was making his annual visit to Purdue the day before.

In the effort to make the day as awesome as possible, we decided that our Pastafarian Preaching needed to occur in tandem with the visit by our equally furry-eyebrowed, twice as hilarious arch villian.

The days passed and Jen decided that this day must be documented with the latest in high tech devicery...a video camera. She managed to rent one from our school library and then discovered, to her chagrin, there were no storage media included with said camera. Unfettered and still heartened from the amazingness of the day, it was decided that, as we were to be on our way to campus that morning, we would stop and purchase an SD card to store the videos on so we could be in our appointed spots at 8:50 with plenty of time to set up.

And so we sallied forth that glorious Friday morning dressed in full pirate regalia (or in my case, a bandanna, eyepatch, and jeans), we crossed campus facing the jeers and chortles of our passing fellow students and made our way to the local campus bookstore to find out that the place didn't open until 9.

After we set down, we were able to have a brave soul run back and acquire our sorely needed storage medium. One of the hallmarks, every year, of this event, as I see it, is when we pull out the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti monster and preach from it. It is superbly well written and infinitely hilarious. Last year, when I did it, by the end, I was surrounded by people in bathing suits bowing down to me. It was absolutely glorious.

During a passing period, it was insisted that I repeat my performance this year...where it would be recorded for posterity. I pulled out my best preacher's voice and laid it on thick. A beautiful piece of work for everyone who walked past.

Afterward, I went to go get a drink of water and came back to a puzzled-looking Jen fiddling with the camera.

"Do you think it might be possible for you to do it again later? I don't think it recorded."

My heart sank. I had class all day and I was only really supposed to be around until 10:45 so I could properly prepare for the math class I teach at 11:30.

In between classes, I learned that a news van had stopped by, Brother Jed had finally showed up, and I was missing all of it. On the other hand, I taught about quadratics and completing the square, so not all was lost.

Luckily I had an hour between my last two classes and I was able to stop by, listen to Brother Jed make a fool of himself, and ride the Boilermaker Special.

The highlight for me, amazingly enough, occurred in this small span of time between classes. We had just exited the Boilermaker Special and moved back to watch Brother Jed and his fantastic pimp cane.

When suddenly, we noticed two men clad in spiffy shirt and tie ensembles.

YES. The Mormons had come to campus the same day...and they disliked this detestable man as much as we did. Finding common ground and coming to some sort of unholy temporary truce, we took on Brother Jed together!

Far be it for me to ever say anything nice about the Mormons as a whole, but the two guys we were with that day were incredibly nice, down to Earth people.

All in all, a very good Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Also, Re: Desperado
Salma Hayak causes traffic accidents. RAmen.

PS: Check out Politics and Pucks for even MORE blogging on this event!

Daily dose of wtf

There's something about a group of rabbis not allowing two people to marry each other for NOT BEING JEWISH ENOUGH that seems somewhat ironic. I may have hit Godwin's Law on this one, but it is incredibly hypocritical.

The uproar in question happened when Nico Tarosyan, a man who had moved to Israel from Russia, was deemed to be unfit to wed Olga Samosvastov who was, it seems, a "Proper Jew." *sigh*

So, what is it that they ended up doing? They said "Fuck you, we're marrying anyway!" Good for you both!

It is bad enough, I think, that marriage in Israel is solely at the discretion of the religious institutions.

But to give the power to the Ultra-Orthodox rabbis? Wow. Terrible idea.

Walking tour of the Creation Museum Part II: The Quickening

I apologize for the various and terrible quality of the pictures you are about to see. Enjoy!


This picture is likely highly indicative of the rest of the museum. Let's see what happens, shall we?


Those sharp claws on his feet are for slicing lettuce. There is a salad spinner behind the sign.


Mel Brooks decided to make a special guest appearance. He was displaying the fifteen ten commandments.


Maybe there IS hope for this museum after all! *shifty eyes*


"Om nom nom nom nom"


This lamb looks like he's scared of being raped.


"Really? Vegetables?"


Did I mention that these wax dummies look way too eerily realistic? If they spent as much time actually providing substance to their exhibits as they did trying to make eerie, lifelike dummies, they'd give the Smithsonian a run for its money.


There was not enough room to finish the sentence. It should have read, "The world's not safe anymore for people with IQs above 10 with museums like this still being funded!"



Here we see two people particularly angered by the paparazzi. Apparently they weren't willing to sign the release and their pictures were used anyway!


After killing his brother, Abel, Cain has to sneeze like a motherfucker. Abel's first invention, pepper spray, doesn't work anywhere near as well as he'd have liked.


Completely undecided as to what this was telling us not to touch, we hands-on Atheists decided to begin investigating. It turned out that nobody cared...except maybe the one guy. You'll see him.


Discovered by one of the members of the party with which I was touring the Museum, we come to the real heart of the issue. There is nothing on Earth besides the United States and, perhaps, part of Canada and Mexico. It is a stunningly accurate commentary on the educational system of many religious areas of Kentucky.


The museum was kind enough to embolden some of the more important words of this quote from one of the books of Peter. I think we could do without all the rest of the empty text. "Willingly ignorant word of god" seems to be good enough for me.



Here we have what I can only imagine is Hebrew...sort of.
It's time for a quick Hebrew lesson.

*HEBREW LESSON TIME!*

Let's begin, if you will humor me, from the right side. Hebrew is written right to left. Let us begin with the awkward blob of letter that looks like a K who has seen better days. THIS IS NOT A HEBREW LETTER. Awesome. If it is supposed to be a tsadi or an aleph, it is a tsadi or aleph made exclusively of fail.

Next, we come to the letter Resh. The only problem with this letter is that it has been flipped 180 degrees.

Thirdly, we hit the Hebrew letter Vov which is both correctly oriented and in the proper proportion. Let's move on. Nothing to see here.

Fourthly, we have what is called "Fey." Besides the fact that the letter is the mirror image of how it was supposed to be, it is fine...except for one thing:

This is Fey in it's so called "Final" form. This letter, if it is to be in the sentence AT ALL, should be switched with the letter farthest on the left...which is funny because that letter is a Fey also! It is also flipped over itself.

So, creation museum...whatever you were going for here...it didn't quite work.

EDIT: Jen got the video of me explaining this at the creation museum. I am aware I pointed the wrong way when I mention the end of the word...It had been a long day. Spare me please. =P

Walking tour of the Creation Museum Part I

As you all know, today was the infamous visit to the Creation Museum. I'm going to try to, as best I can, give you a small sampling of the many wondrous exhibits that were to be found.

Let us begin with the main foyer.


Here we can see what I can only assume is a brief reenactment of that ever-so-famous scene from The Dark Crystal. Here we can see a young Gelfling child who is trying to hide, with little success, from two Skeksis. Or maybe not...I honestly can't tell.
Remember, people, Skeksis are armed and considered dangerous. Do not pet the Skeksis.





Following the Jim Henson memorial, we find God's ode to linguistics. I always knew he loved alliteration. This just proves it.Following the English department, we move into geology. It seems that there are two uh...*conflicting* theories on how fossil layers were formed. Of course, we know that God's Word must be correct. I mean, seriously now, look at how much more efficient God is than those silly processes. Who can argue with those numbers!? WHO, I TELL YOU?!?!

I'll continue this later.

He lives!

I swear I'm not neglecting the two people who read this. I'm just sitting around on my ass when I should be packing and moving to my new apartment!

If I can find my camera, there might be pictures!

In other news, continuing on the subject of Cops Who Do Stupid Things, I found this article on reddit today that I felt everyone might want to see.

It seems that two cops pulled a guy over for swerving, searched his car against his will for narcotics even though, it seems, the dog found nothing, and then left when they didn't find anything.

I hope something comes of this. WTF police? There are better ways to meet your quota! Just spawn camp in this South African harbor!

Time for America's Favorite Game!

You Might Be a Racist If!

You might be a racist if...

...you send out a mass e-mail referring to Henry Gates as a *ahem* "banana-eating jungle monkey."

That is all.

Torah Technical Institute? Really?

Apparently, Illinois plans to give millions of dollars to religious institutions.

What bothers me is the first one on this list...

TORAH TECHNICAL INSTITUTE.

First of all, REALLY? I love my people, but sometimes you get some idiots who have no idea how to name a school.

Second of all, there's no actual record of this place existing, it seems.

One would wonder, perhaps, why people are in such a kerfluffle over the separation of church and state violation instead of the OBVIOUS MONEY LAUNDERING SCHEME GOING ON IN THE ILLINOIS GOVERNMENT?

I am a big fan of the separation of church and state, it's true, but I'd rather see people getting money for places that occasionally do good than find out that it was a big scam on the tax payers.

Maybe Bernie Madoff should have taken a lesson from whoever wrote this bill!

Rule #1 for not going to jail: Don't piss off the cop.

Let me say, I am all for free speech. If you want to call my grandmother a whore, you are welcome to. You will just have to deal with the fact that I may want to punch you in the face. Repeatedly.

Everyone knows that actions have consequences...or they should.

If you are a professor at Harvard, you should probably have a sense that yelling at a cop will probably NOT LEAD TO SOMETHING GOOD.

Did the officer do something wrong? Well, according to state laws, yes he did. Gates was arrested for something that wasn't illegal. I'm not even going to touch on racial motivations. Perhaps it was, perhaps not. The idealist in me wants to think that it wasn't, but the cynic in me says that, in the end, it probably was.

HOWEVER, I cannot, with an honest conscience, even think about putting an ounce support behind someone who is stupid enough to yell at a cop--right or wrong.

Maybe it's just me, but the idea of pissing off someone who has more power than me, both legally and physically; has a gun; and could probably beat the shit out of me otherwise is not appealing in any way.

Don't believe in working on a Sunday? DON'T GO OUT TO DINNER.

First of all, the gall one must have to tell your server up front you aren't going to tip her because you don't believe in people working on the Sabbath?

I wish I had those cajones! Of course, I'd be using them in a safer situation...like going out to fight bears...instead of trying to get this reaction from the staff.

At least the Jews are less hypocritical about the prohibition to not work...well...sort of.

Speaking as someone who has spent a very long time studying the bible and the laws inherent therein, it simply baffles me that people who consider themselves "religious" would think it is okay to do something like this...Academically, anyway. From a practical standpoint, I've come to terms with it.

What do you think?