Why Dont You Blog?

Ok, it is generally accepted that “luck” is a very difficult concept to quantify scientifically. Everyone has their own idea what it is and some people even think it has a “cause” and can be manipulated. Gamblers have a notoriously twisted idea of what “luck” is and how it can seemingly overcome mathematical certainties. Historically, humans from every corner of the globe have even objectified it into religions and religious icons. For some reason, certain Christians have a pagan approach to luck and think praying to the invisible will influence “luck” in their favour. All very strange.

Anyway, in view of this, I have spent the last few weeks carrying out an experiment that I am, as I have always suspected, cursed with bad luck… My PC is not possessed by the devil, it doesn’t hate me, I am just very unlucky - which is why every time I need an internet connection it goes down. This is not good news, but at least it explains why every week I do the national lottery and, despite the odds, I never get a single number. Ever. Now, part of me suspects the odds against that are greater than the odds against winning the lottery, but now I know the real reason©™.

My experiment has been simple. There are, basically, two routes I can take from work to get home. Because of the hideous nature of road traffic, my journey home normally takes in excess of an hour and I travel at the majestic average speed of 29mph. Aren’t modern cars wonderful. The upside of this mind numbing tedium is that I have time to think about things, and I realised that no matter which route I take, it takes me about the same lenght of time to get home and more importantly whatever lane I choose, the other goes faster.

Any drivers out there will undoubtedly share that experience. You are stuck in snail like traffic and all around you the cars are going faster. You change lane, only to discover the other lane has started moving. It is more than a little annoying.

So, during my thinking, I decided to see what was the best thing to do. Should I pick a lane and stay in it? Should I change as much as possible and fight my way forward. I know strong advocates of both options. Add to this, which route should I take?

From this, my experiment was formed… The plan was, over the course of several weeks to drive home a different way each time. Weeks 1 - 3 I would take “Route A” and then weeks 4 - 6 would be “Route B”. Although all at about the same time of day, each week would be either staying in the left hand lane, staying in the right hand lane or changing lanes as instinct dictates. As a “control” for the first two weeks, I would make a note of a car that joined about the same time as I did but in the other lane and see if they were ahead or behind me.

Anyway, today it all ended and the results were in. The basic conclusion is that I am cursed with bad luck. Seriously.

The average journey times for both routes was about 1hr 30mins (with very little deviation), giving me an average speed of 31mph. Wonderful eh? It seems that neither route was better, and changing lanes was no faster or slower than staying put. Also, it didn’t really matter what lane I was in, the time was pretty much the same.

Weirder still came when I was doing the “single lane” part. Every single time, every day for four of the six weeks, what ever lane I was in turned out to be the slowest. Without fail, a vehicle that joined the traffic the same time as me, would make faster progress if they were in a different lane to me. In some instances the other lane was going so fast I lost the vehicle (and visibility on this stretch is quite far), while in others, they were only a few minutes ahead of me - but they were ALWAYS ahead.

Like I said, the only redeeming feature of this is at least now I know why I never get a single number on the lottery. Maybe Luck hates Atheists. Or just me…

Popularity: 19% [?]

Popularity: 19% [?]

Reinforcements sent to Iraq – Chuck Norris!
In visit to encourage troops, says surge working, morale ‘way up’

(From the reliably bonkers Worldnet daily of course.) Haven’t the Iraqi people and the US troops suffered enough?

I was browsing the Worldnet daily. (Well, looking for a cheap laugh, since you ask.) From that post about the intrinsically-comical Chuck Norris, I followed a link to a company selling conservative t-shirts.

How po-faced is this? From a gif at the top of the page.

Humor? (hyoo’mer), n. The ability to perceive, enjoy or express what is comical amusing or absurd.

So now you know what humour means.

That’s obviously there to shed some reflected comedy on the t-shirt slogans. In case you don’t realise they are supposed to be “funny.” Not surprising really, given the dearth of the evidence. Still, I’ll have to see how far this definition applies to some of the t-shirts on show.

E.g. “Old School Conservative 1980″ around Reagan’s face. Comical? Well, no. Amusing? No again. Absurd? No, again.
“Celebrate diversity” and a picture of lots of different guns. No. No. Maybe.
“Redefeat communism” with the red circle with a slanting line that you see on a no-smoking sign but with Hilary Clinton’s face in it. No. No. Yes. But not in a funny way, surely.
Che’s face in the same no smoking sign. No. No. No.
“Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms. Should be a convenience store. Not a government agency.” A bit. A bit. No.
“Better Fred than Dead” and “Fred Thompson 08. Kill the terrorists. Protect the borders. Punch the Hippies” both with a picture of that chap who used to have a bit part in Lawn Order. No. No. No. for both.
The Baby t-shirts are really depressing. Who on earth would want to parade a toddler round with these slogans on their chest?

• (Smiley face) Imagine no liberals.
• Help! Ted Kennedy drives me to daycare.
• I survived Roe v Wade

I have a question, though, after looking at so many right-wing “comedy” t-shirts that I fear I may never laugh again,. The conservative pin-ups at the bottom of the page include “Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin,” wearing a t-shirt with the word NUKE visible in large letters. I can’t see enough of it to read the “humourous” (sorry, “humorous”) slogan in full but I swear I can’t find one on the site with a comedy NUKE slogan….

Nukes are so funny, after all.
I’m sure this slogan would have me laughing hard enough to split the seams on any

100% preshrunk heavyweight cotton Style: Men’s short sleeve tee Color: White

(Oddly, no “women’s short sleeve”, etc but a monster range of sizes)

Popularity: 30% [?]

Popularity: 30% [?]

First off, Parabiodox has responded to my “Do Christians Have a Sense of Humour” post and it seems the answer is “yes, just a bad one .” When I asked “Do Christians have a sense of humour? … or was he just all cut up over the death of Jerry Fallwell…“” the response was:

No. It means I can go back to watching Teletubbies again with a clear conscience.

Can’t say fairer than that, can I?

On a more serious note, following up on the sad story of the crazy “honour” killing, there is a post on anthropology.net which examines some of the issues from an anthropological view point (Heather, Take note). For the stronger viewer, the video footage is available from that site, although I have not watched it my self and can not comment. As an aside, if you had asked me a few years ago I would have been stunned to even think of considering Anthropology (or any social science) as a science, but I am learning to change my ways.

[tags]Yazidi, Murder, Death, Kill, Religious Intolerance, Christianity, Humour, Evil, Barbaric, Parabiodox, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Insane, Cruel, Anthropology[/tags]

Popularity: 40% [?]

Popularity: 40% [?]

Phew. I can regain the will to live.

The post on atheist humour about a fake right wing blog, plus a comment by Alun about another absolutely brilliant parody site landoverbaptist.org had me wondering how many more of these other extremist blogs were fake.

I somehow ended up browsing an anti-church forum by following links from landoverbaptist. I noticed that some of the sites that people were griping about really had to be blatant spoofs.

I suddenly had a flash of Road to Damascus insight.

There are no right wing fundamentalist blogs or websites. There are no real creationist blogs. Intelligent design is just a joke that got out of hand. They are all just made by just a load of people with wierd senses of humour. This knowledge will restore your faith in the human race.

No wait! The most obvious intuitive argument against ID was the all-too-evident lack of intelligence in so many human beings - as shown ironically by the way that a completely irrational alternative to evolution was allegedly believed by huge swathes of people.

But, now science - in the shape of my empirical investigation of the existence of fundamentalist blogs - has proved that human stupidity is a false premise. Humans are rational intelligent beings after all.

D’oh, so there COULD be an intelligent design behind the universe…..

Popularity: 21% [?]

Popularity: 21% [?]

Well, the latest entry to the ThisHasToBeSatire department is a blog post on a charmingly named website called “Liberals Must Die.” While I found this site by chance on Technorati (good old tags, oddly this was the result of an Intelligent Design tag search)

The post in question (Global Warming Proven False) has a picture of a snow storm and the following text:

I think this about sums it up.

The hearing on ‘WARMING OF THE PLANET’ had to be cancelled because of an ice storm.

And yet these Global Warming idiots don’t get it!

Global warming is just a lie!

I must admit that (possibly as a result of too long spent reading the blogs of the truly insane) it took some time for me to decide this site was satirical. The main clues I (eventually) picked up on were the link to the Drudge report (above) and some of the other posts. After reading the ones which at least looked overtly legitimate, I found more (eg. the Muslim Terrerists (sic) category) which I think are solid evidence the site is purely humour. Some examples:

Some say Obama is not a terrorist, and yet he has still not denied it!!Do you know he was raised in Hawaii??? That is practically a foreign country; half way to China, the original Pearl Harbor bombers! (read original)

and

This is so kick ass. When all is said and done, GWB could go down in history has being the President who waged the most wars of all time!! I say this… ran wants nukes, well lets give them an up close demonstration.How about a 50 Mega Ton Bomb right in the capital!! As the great Jerry Falwell said “Blow them away in the name of GOD!” (read original)

I had originally thought this was some ultra-right wing madman but on second reading, and assuming the humourous intent, it actually becomes funny. The real killer is the “Top Ten Lessons from 24” - it is hilarious.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Popularity: 21% [?]

(Stolen Borrowed from somewhere onthe ARRSE wiki)

IRAQ: It’s Sunni and it’s Shi’ite.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Popularity: 11% [?]

imaginaryfriends,
originally uploaded by DiscoWeasel.

Well, some people may well be. Personally, given the comments about Atheism I have been reading today, I am not sure I care.

Is it acceptable for “theists” to complain about Godless Atheists but unacceptable for a godless atheist to mock the theist?

Personally I think not.

Take this picture any way you want

Popularity: 17% [?]

Popularity: 17% [?]

After our recent hiatus (every one has to have time off :-)) it was entertaining to return to one of BadScience.net’s classic subjects - Media Mangling of Stats.

This weeks article (at http://www.badscience.net/?p=230) is about the way news papers fight for headlines by really overdoing the actual data. The headline claims of the number of children using cocaine has “doubled” is based on an increase from 1.4% to 1.9%. Even my basic understanding of maths doesnt see that as a “doubling.”

Well worth a read.

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Popularity: 15% [?]