It is raining pretty hard here, which is unusual.

I haven't danced in the rain lately, so I went out, ran around, jumped in puddles, and bought hot chocolate before coming back to my lab. I am happy. :)

Current Mood: happy

I woke up early today to get to school and get stuff ready, and around 4 there was a huge wind that blew down so many leaves from the tree that I thought a rainstorm had started. As quickly as it started, though, it went away. There aren't any news reports about it right now, but I've never experienced anything like it. My grandpa, who is around 80, said the same thing to me when I talked to him this morning.

2AM in the call center on a Saturday night. 10 minutes before lunch break a lady calls in wanting to get a deal on flowers for her mother. She likes it when I call her miss rather than ma'am.

What do I look like? 6 feet, 175 lbs, athletic, 23 years old, 1/4 Mexican and the rest European races.

No Miss, I don't have a girlfriend or wife. Yes, I'm sure you are sexy for your age. Quite the MILF.

Around 50, you say? No, you sound more like 35. Which set of roses did you want again?

( Coming down here?  )

Tags: redux phone sex hotline flowers mature c

One night about five years ago I parked my Nissan pickup under a large tree during a rainstorm so I wouldn't get THAT wet when I got out.

The next morning I came out to see that the tree had fallen over onto my truck and the two cars beside it. I asked the people who owned the parking lot (a rabbi, a hair stylist, and a banker) about the situation, and it turned out that since they had posted "do not park" signs they didn't have to pay for the damages to my car. There was an implicit agreement that apartment residents from across the street could park there since the complex didn't have nearly enough room for everyone's car and the businessmen didn't have the patience to hold watch over the parking lot all night, but liability was liability.

Monetarily broke and not a little upset, I accepted a ride to school from one of my roommates.

That evening, when I got a ride from someone else back to my car, I was relieved to see that after the landscapers cleared everything away there wasn't much damage. The other cars had taken enough of the weight of the tree that I had some paint damage, a broken driver's side mirror, and a cracked windshield, but nothing else. I re-parked my car far away from any trees and then went home.

That night one of my other roommates (I had three) was hosting his youth group, and I sat in so I could answer "how has God been active in your life?"

"That son of a bitch played a joke on my today," I said.

Tags: tree treefall nissan pickup short story

I found this letter proposing a "secular" argument against homosexuality (here) and could not let it go without pointing out some of the more outrageous flaws. Personally, I do support gay marriage--along with polygamy--but it is foolish to say that atheists must support any particular political stance because atheism is a statement only about the existence of a god.

( Letter... )

Tags: atheism, gay marriage, gays, homosexuality, letter, logical fallacies, logical flaws

Hey, as an atheist I want to respond, but as a camera-shy person I'm iffy about making my own video. I'll get around to it eventually.
VIDEO
Question 1: Why is there something rather than nothing?

Answer: Does there need to be a reason for there to be something? Cause and effect relationships exist all throughout nature, but you seem to be asking for a willful reason for the universe to exist. Why does there have to be a will for there to be existence?

Question 2: What evidence (if any) do you find most persuasive about Theism?
( For evidence, click... )

New video.

Question 1: If you could choose anything to say to God upon death, what would it be and why?


(I feel the need to preface my answer with the statement that, no, I do not believe extraterrestrials have visited the Earth. )

Answer: Arther C. Clarke said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I agree with him on this, therefore I doubt that there is anything that would convince me that the big voice talking to me was God rather than some illusionist or perhaps some half-drunk college kids from another world playing around with the mind of a little old human. I'd probably point out to "God" that the advanced alien explanation for the Pearly Gates scene is much more likely than the existence of the Christian God, and therefore is the one I would accept.
( More answers... )

Tags: atheism, christianity, theism, veritas48

This stuff is fucking bullshit. Maybe we should force Texas to secede and ban in other states any history textbook that is approved by the Texas board of education.

Tags: curriculum, texas board of education, u.s. history

So, the Weekly Standard has an article about how Obama is apparently trying to ramrod Muslim scripture down our throats. Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but not as much as they are.

The real article, located here, is a huge exaggeration of the latest revision of UN Resolution GE.09-15971 (E) 290909. Essentially, The Weekly Standard says that the resolution would require the United States to pass laws forbidding blasphemy against Allah or Muhammad, or else.

( Read more... )

To recap: the resolution loses us nothing while improving relations with people who hate us. Now that sounds like diplomacy to me. :) Oh, and you shouldn't believe everything you read because people lie a lot.

Tags: attacking obama, free speech, french peacekeepers, front page mag, infidels are cool, life site news, news orgs, un resolution, usa today, weekly standard

 Well, after failing utterly to land a permanent, full time job with my history degree, I've entered grad school. Not as a history major, though. I'm branching out. It took some long hours, but after about a year of studying, I completed enough science to enter grad school as a chemistry student. Right now I've got one foot in the synthetic side of organometallic chemistry and one foot in the electrochemical side of analytical. I am, as a comedian said, humping the doorway in between. 

Tags: career, grad school, new field, science

I think this question is a simple one. Fanciful, moving stories about the past is the realm of literature, not history. The most important use of history is to look for patterns in the past that we can apply to the present to predict the future. Plain and simple. All history programs should be based upon this principle.

The nominal undergraduate history program should include: history classes related to a particular topic, statistics classes, a concentration in social science (ideally psychology, sociology, and economics) which is more than just "psychology for dummies", and at least one thesis. This will get the student used to looking at history as an actual area of study, or comparative study, rather than simply making them feel sorry for the conquered. Yes, this would take some of the romance away from being a historian and *dramatic voice* let the tragic story of [insert favorite victim here] go untold. *normal voice* On the other hand, it would also guarantee that history students would have real talents that they could get jobs with. That way, they would be obviously useful to the rest of society.

Tags: college, history, job, science, undergraduate, useful