I suppose most people have heard “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” sung by the drug dealer Sportin’ Life in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. The song voices doubts about certain passages in the Bible. But the title phrase is applicable to a range of assumptions well beyond that.

It is, for example, widely assumed that Earth cannot possibly be the only life-bearing planet in the universe, given how vast the universe is and how many planets there must be. In fact, of 2,326 planets so far spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, 10 are said to be about the size of Earth and orbiting their suns in what is called a “habitable zone.” Kepler-22b in particular looks promising. Temperature there seems to be around 72 degrees and it circles a star much like our sun.

I don’t really get emotionally engaged by this. It’s fascinating either way.

But if there’s anybody out there like us, they sure have been hearing from us for a bit. We’ve been transmitting radio waves their way for decades now. But they don’t seem to have called back.

That doesn’t mean they’re not there, however.

C. S. Lewis wrote a space trilogy involving Earth, Mars, and Venus. Mars, it turned out, was called Malacandra by its inhabitants, and it was a world that had never fallen from grace, in the sense that the Abrahamic religions posit that mankind did. Perelandra, as Venus would come to be known to its inhabitants, is portrayed as facing trial, the outcome of which will be whether it is fallen or not.

Well, obviously an unfallen world would be wary of making contact with a fallen one. And another fallen one like ours could prove highly problematic. Its inhabitants might actually be worse than we are and more intelligent and technologically advanced. Bad news for us.

I find the opposite theory more interesting. I am fascinated by the possibility that we are the only things like us in all the world. Maybe it takes an entire universe to come up with anything like us, inconsistent and contradictory, at odds with each other and ourselves, smart and mean, needful and grasping. Maybe we’re the sour cherry on the sundae.

Or maybe we’re just perspective figures — those little humans placed in a lower corner of a landscape painting in order to give the viewer some sense of the height of the waterfall those little people are standing in front of.

I think that theists are especially comfortable with this. After all, God, being himself a singularity, would naturally create something singular, something once in eternity. And he wouldn’t have to mull over possibilities, or try out different models. That’s one of the perks of being omniscient.

There is something else to consider: This presumption that we are not alone is grounded in false humility. If we are alone, and there is no God, then we are a fluke, pure and simple, and that offends our vanity. That we, wonderful we, should be the merest accident cannot possibly be the case. And so we piously recite our solemn credo that we are not alone.

We do, as noted above, have some evidence that there are other places like our own. There is, however, no evidence at all that anybody lives there.

Have you heard the latest neutrino jokes?

Here’s one:

Neutrino.

Knock, knock.

And here’s another:

“We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” said the bartender.

A neutrino walks into a bar.

Don’t get them? Well, in a Wall Street Journal column, physicist Michio Kaku put it this way:

Physicists fired a beam of neutrinos (exotic, ghost-like particles that can penetrate even the densest of materials) from Switzerland to Italy, over a distance of 454 miles. Much to their amazement, after analyzing 15,000 neutrinos, they found that they traveled faster than the speed of light—60 billionths of a second faster, to be precise. In a billionth of a second, a beam of light travels about one foot. So a difference of 60 feet was quite astonishing.

Cracking the light barrier violated the core of Einstein’s theory. According to relativity, as you approach the speed of light, time slows down, you get heavier, and you also get flatter (all of which have been measured in the lab). But if you go faster than light, then the impossible happens. Time goes backward. You are lighter than nothing, and you have negative width. Since this is ridiculous, you cannot go faster than light, said Einstein.

In other words, in neutrino jokes the punch line comes before the setup.

I happened to be thinking about this the other day when I looked up and noticed a flock of pigeons flying over the Italian Market. Not that pigeons have much — or anything, so far as I know — in common with neutrinos. No, what came to mind when I saw the pigeons was augury, the ancient practice of gauging the divine will by studying the flights of birds.

What a different way of regarding the world! And, before you brush the notion away on the presumption that our ancestors were all damn fools, remember that this was common practice among the Romans, those guys who built aqueducts and roads that are still in use today. People whose practical skills hold up very well against our own. Hardly damn fools.

To the extent that the flight of birds interests us nowadays, it has to do with the how and the why of it. We do not think there is any meaning to be discerned in it. Early man seems to have felt otherwise. But then, early man had a different, more direct connection with nature than we have. He seems to have drawn less of a distinction between himself and the rest of things.

We, on the other hand, have come to think of things in terms of quantities and parts. We weigh and measure things, take them apart, see how they work, and think that tells us all we need to know about them.

But is anything ever just the sum of its parts? Do the parts not work together in synergy, achieving thereby an effect none of the parts could independently?

In Julian Barnes’s Nothing to Be Frightened Of, which I reviewed, Barnes buys into a notion of materialist determinism that I think may have some bearing on this. He says that “far from having a whip to crack, I am the very tip of the whip itself, and what is cracking me is a long and inevitable plait of genetic material which cannot be shrugged or fought off.” Later he quotes a “specialist in consciousness” who said on the radio that “these words coming out of this mouth at this moment, are not emanating from a little me in here, they are emanating from the entire universe just doing its stuff.”

I wrote in my review that the upshot of this was that we were all but end-points of chains of causation reaching back to the Big Bang and that upshot of that was that no viewpoint could be considered either right or wrong. Each just is.

But thinking this over recently, I realized I should have followed the chain in the other direction, back to its source. For if we have a sense of self, it must be because a sense of self is inherent in being, going back all the way to that Big Bang. And that brings to mind this, quoted in John Blofeld’s Taoism: “From the Tao all the myriad objects derive their being, their illusory separateness being wrought by the interplay of yin and yang.”

If this be so, it is not the sense of self that is illusory, but the sense of separateness. And if that is the case, early man’s failure to draw a sharp distinction between himself and the rest of the world may not be so strange after all.

Remember that the next time you notice a flock of pigeons.

A fun and exciting feud has erupted in the world of “critical thinking.”

The skinny: “Skepchick” blogger Rebecca Watson is at war with the world’s most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, for remarks Dawkins made about sexual harassment.

Scott Locklin at Taki’s Magazine has the juicy details.

He writes

“One of the things I miss about academia is the spectacle of alleged savants fighting like a couple of sandbox toddlers. Thanks to the Internet, such crass entertainments are available whenever I miss working with geeks. Consider the recent Richard Dawkins Elevatordämmerung.

Our protagonist in this non-event: a self-declared “Skepchick.” The woman, Rebecca Watson, is also a feminist. She had given a sermon to a group of “skeptics” on their moral failures as sexists who notice she is a girl when she is at skepticism conferences. This sort of behavior apparently “sexualizes” her as a unique individual, makes her uncomfortable, and generally scares away women skeptics everywhere. This is a common sentiment among shy women who participate in nerdy sausage festivals such as the skepticism movement. It’s less common that said women also publish semi-nude photographs of themselves in pin-up calendars dedicated to the same nerdy sausage festival.

Skepchick took video umbrage with the fact that one of her atheistic colleagues awkwardly asked her back to his room for a cup of coffee after her homily on sexism. He made his pathetic offer while in an elevator with her after a 4AM bar closeout, which suggests that he is probably as socially inept as she is. Princess Skepchick expected more chivalry from a bar populated with convention-going atheist nerds. I can empathize with such sentiments, much as I can empathize with people who visit Muslim countries and miss bacon.”

And…

“Some other lady member of the skepticism movement pointed out that Skepchick was being kind of a ninny, and an Internet catfight ensued. Then Professor Dawkins weighed in on the subject. It was a fairly incoherent ejaculation posted in some blog’s comments section, the sort of thing you type into the Internet machine when confronted with a bunch of bird-brained arguments over the sinfulness of propositioning girls in elevators. The good Professor Dawkins blathered something about mutilated Muslim clitorises and suggested everyone get over it and find something better to discuss. Why should anybody care?

Apparently a lot of people care. Dozens of “skeptical movement” white knights leaped to the fair maiden’s defense, denouncing Dawkins as a no-good skunk who probably kicks puppies. Feminist harridans blasted Dawkins as an evil man-pig. Dawkins tried to fight back, but his rhetorical skills were not up to the task of arguing with fellow atheists. The New Statesman figures Dawkins is kaput unless he repents and begs forgiveness.”

And!

“The Skepchick has called for the head of Richard Dawkins. She dropped the big one, informing him that he is the most loathsome of creatures: the privileged old white man. Being something of a skeptic myself, I find it hard not to notice that young Anglosphere women are easily the most privileged people in the known universe. They’re so privileged that even pie-faced, cabbage-brained ones such Rebecca Watson may be able to ruin a world-famous author’s reputation. Dawkins helped found the shabby movement which gives her the adoration of nerdy dudes who respect her intellect but still wouldn’t mind seeing her topless. Because she has a hoo-ha and can use scary words such as “sexism,” some people accord her moral power comparable to that of Pope Urban VII. What was Dawkins’s blasphemy—that the world doesn’t revolve around some creepy attention-whoring nerd girl’s mild social discomforts? Apparently it does.”

I honestly don’t know what to make of all this. Rebecca seems like an OK gal — she once posted a link to some diatribe I had written about Pat Robertson as part of a Skepchick blog carnival many years ago. And I like Dawkins too; I’ve heard him speak at one of our local universities. He’s an entertaining curmudgeon.

But I also love the comical, sideshow element at work here. As author Jim Goad pointed out on his Facebook page recently, the whole circus is reminiscent of something JG wrote about in his book The Redneck Manifesto, namely

“The most enjoyable thing about analyzing liberalism is watching it run into conflicts of interest — what do they do about black sexism? Latin homophobia? Lesbians who beat their partners? Socialist governments who murder their citizens? Is pedophilia included as a lifestyle choice? Do you ally with the “racism” or the “domestic violence” side of the OJ Question?”

Notably too, there is an important element being overlooked in this big mess — the true victim (if there really is a “victim”) might just be the socially awkward schlub who propositioned Watson. Writes Andy Nowicki at the Alternative Right blog (emphases mine):

“Several years ago, I remember watching Chris Rock weigh in on the then-topical Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings. If Justice Thomas had resembled Denzel Washington, Rock opined, Ms. Hill would never have complained about anything. Expanding this observation into a broader context, the caustic comedian declared that “sexual harassment” is often just, as Rock put it, “when ugly guys try to get some.” When women dislike the attention, as they are more likely to do when they find the man unattractive, they are more likely to claim to have been harassed or improperly “sexualized.”

Thus, it would seem that the gravest societal victims of this malignant strain of radical feminism represented by “Skepchick” are average or below-average looking men. In addition to having been denied the physical blessings given to the handsomer of the male species, they are now commonly regarded with self-righteous rage as piggish harassers and potential rapists if they ever decide to be bold with the ladies.

Think about it: Has Skepchick ever apologized to the poor guy she insulted and impugned on her blog? Has anyone even asked her to do so? She was perfectly within her rights to reject him, but how sporting is it, really, to hold him up for sanctimonious ridicule in the aftermath of spurning his feeble advances?”

My hope is that this messy sequence of events doesn’t harm Dawkins’ career. The fact that Dawkins spoke his mind and hurt Watson’s feelings is no excuse for her to embark on a quest to destroy him. And regarding Watson’s side of the story — I do agree that propositioning a woman in the confined space of an elevator is a stupid idea. I wouldn’t do it, but that’s just me.

What say you, readers?

Blogger Amy Alkon offers her two cents here.

Hold that thought. And breath. And most especially that fart. You know good and well that you pollute the atmosphere with exhalations of any sort. Of course what comes out of your body is nothing compared to what comes out of your tailpipe. Your auto tailpipe that is. Or your heater vent or the ductwork to your dryer but it all adds up. Burning is bad, you see. It warms up all the earth just as it warms your feet and while you may not have seen an open flame for days or weeks outside of an ashtray, somewhere some villain is burning in your name. He is burning gas, oil and even COAL for cripesake! And this warms the atmosphere. Which is bad.

If you were unaware that things are warming, it’s not all your fault. There has been some rounding-off of a previously sharp message. Savage blizzards are a consequence of the warming. Yes, yes they are. Of course what we had been told previously was that snowfall would be a much rarer occurence, threatening to dry out mighty rivers used to channeling snowmelt in the springs. But now that the actual weather has been uncooperative with the projections, it is the projections, properly, that give way.

Not all the projections, mind you. The projections into the next century, these are more valid than ever. Nothing proves warming like cooling! It is the exception that proves the rule. If temperatures are flat or cooling that naturally means we are in for even more rapid and violent warming. And nature is the key. Lately our experts admit that we may not know, foundationally, whether the earth is warming or cooling; drying or moistening; becalming or enraging but what we do know is that the climate is ALWAYS changing. It has taken fifteen years to draw out this admission so do not take it lightly. But that is not the end of accounting; natural change is good, or at least morally neutral. Unnatural change is not just problematic, but EVIL. The bright line is drawn between Natural and Unnatural change as defined by a clique that profits mightily from their service. And by their reckoning nothing is more Unnatural than Fire.

Sure, Fire is a chemical process and it IS found in Nature, but not often. Trees that require Fire as a part of their life cycle will generally have a long wait absent some kids with fireworks helping out, or an errant cigarette. Far and away Fire belongs to the world of Man and He, of course, is the true and foremost enemy.

The “warming” such as it is was always a proxy for the real enemy. We can be certain of this because the newly coined “climate change” disaster is the newborn bastard of Global Warming, from yesterday, and Global Cooling from yesteryear. Who can forget the alarm of the eighties? Glaciers would soon threaten New York. Sea levels would drop, calamitously as ice thickened north and south. Agriculture of course would suffer as meadows turn to deserts and deserts to SUPER deserts. The cause? Oh, same thing as now, you mowing your lawn or eating a hotdog. Only at that time it was postulated that the nasty pall of smoke accompanying any burning would reflect sunlight back out into space before it had the chance to warm the earth’s surface. This seems much more plausible than today’s theory of an ever thickening blanket of carbon causing warming, since we have all experienced a cool, cloudy day, but the problem is the predicted doom never did materialize. Rather there was a period of sharp warming. Again the modifications necessary to keep the war effort afloat never do reach to the core fact which is that the climate is ALWAYS changing and the closer we look the more change we are able to discern.

Nope, this is not a blurp in the statistical record due to radical changes in our available data. It’s Global Warming. Or Cooling. Or of course, the ever-present Change. And yes, we know the climate changed, often quite quickly and radically before there ever was a Humvee or a Chuck-E-Cheese but by definition, these alterations were natural because of that. Since such dreadful things DO now exist, any Change is artificial, profane and of course preventable by modest prophylactic action. It is quite clear what we must do. Since the easiest thing to burn are these solids, liquids and gasses from beneath our feet, best not let any man with a shovel dig too deep. A turnip rut’s depth should be fine. What legitimate need could there be for a hole any deeper than that? This is the logic that animates the greatest policy element of the threat to all of modern American life and the improvement of life abroad: the comprehensive and criminal bans on digging, drilling, refining, transporting and BURNING our vast domestic hydrocarbon wealth.

As capricious and mad as that may be, do not think that even capitulation in The War on Fire will bring about any sort of peace. As we know, the problem is not Fire. If it were we would have to take some serious action agains the recent volcano eruptions in Hawaii that exhale the equivalent of all the world’s fires of history in a week. The problem, the enemy, the issue is YOU. Your existence is an afront to the dignity of the planet, and anyone who aspires to argue with THAT had better position themselves to do so. Do you wastefully run your WHOLE toaster for half a bagel? You are a dangerous wastrel but if you jet out to Burning Man and dance around a pseudo-pagan celebration of those twin elements of Hell, iron and fire, well, you are on the side of Right and Justice. Carry on. If you drive a truck because you occassionally truck things, this is an assault on the earth. If you drive a Prius or one of the recent phony electric cars, presumptively you are an informed and virtuous sort though any knowledgable person will know that your “carbon footprint” is not reduced by these frauds a bit.

You could buy carbon offsets, which is nothing but the ancient practice of planting trees in penance, but you will STILL not have bought back your soul because carbon, as we have seen, is not the issue and here is the final proof. If you make all the prescribed sacraments and ban carbon even from your flatulence there is a new and metaphysically unsolvable problem, thanks to your existence. It is the polutant nitrogen.

Yes, that clear, inert gas that is 80% of what you breath in, as well as what you breath out, is a deadly toxin. How so? Oh, same as carbon…. it warms up the planet unnaturally though if it becomes necessary I am sure we can find a way that it COOLS the planet. Or brightens it. Or moistens it. Or indeed, whatever we DON’T want done to it. So now of a certainty we know that The War on Fire, titanic as it is, is just a beard for The War on Man and this war won’t stop until either won or lost. A separate peace is not an option.

I probably should have published the following post on Valentine’s Day, but since VD was only three days ago, I’m guessing everyone is still filled with tender emotions and the excitement of love.

Anyway, here’s a thought experiment:

“What if Carl Sagan had written erotic fiction…”

• From THE 8-ARMED ICE-CREAM MAN OF MNEME:

“His digits were shimmering vestiges of a spiral galaxy. Every appendage was filled with delightful flavors, each guaranteed to satisfy…”

“Her clenched, webbed fist made for an excellent proxy.”

• From THE WELL-HUNG WHITE DWARF:

“I felt as though I was standing on the veranda of a vast cosmos as I unleashed my essence into her love purse.”

“I marveled at the tantalizing array of bills, beaks, scutes, pectorals…and breasts…”

• From STICKING COEFFICIENTS:

“A sharp distinction between human lovers and alien lovers is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret.”

• From PANSTELLAR PECKERWOOD:

“Her supple lips met mine. Soon, our coupling began beneath a small altocumulus cloud. I knew then that she was the perfect Moon Creature for me.”

• From FOUR-VECTOR FEATHERWOODS:

“Her ample backdoor provided all the airlock pressure we would need. Soon, sexual congress commenced.”

• From SEDUCTION IN THE SUBDUCTION ZONES:

“She fondled the large emplacement of basalt rock. When he eventually loosened her from the restrictive iguana harness, she cooed amorously…”

• From LONGITUDINAL ENGINES:

“The biblical God is usually a sloppy manufacturer. But he outdid himself with Ginny. She was a busty, big-diesel masterpiece whom I loved to read poetry to.”

• From KEPLERIAN CRANKSHAFT:

“He dipped his hardened magma plug into her rock pool. Together, they could feel the Earth’s crust buckle.”

“Some nights we were two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five. And then…out of nowhere…some force would propel us… into each others’ pinch machine…”

• From BETA-DECAY KAY:

“Kay radiated magic, poetry and…lust. I enjoyed nuzzling her Pale Blue Dot.

• From PLUTONIAN PLEASURE SQUAD:

“Her buttocks trembled in a lyrical way…this singular beauty made me pine for the satisfying hues of Sigma Orionis.”

• From CELESTIAL POLES:

“He pried open her fleshy portal with the throbbing anticipation of a Wolf-Rayet star.”

“Geologically we were in the most active body of the Uranian system. Thus, Rick’s thickening, hardening and elongating served as gripping metaphor.”

• From LOVE BUDDIES OF URANUS:

“ ‘I always prayed that somebody would stuff my chute,’ said Rick while preparing to leap from the sky cruiser. ‘And thanks to Todd, that prayer has been answered.’

• From LOVE BUFFET ON MARS:

“Our union, so full of culinary delights, made us feel like carnal gladiators, yes, but also like world-champion gurgitators.”

• From DOUBLE-CLUSTER DUVETS:

“I felt as though I were a cosmic quilt-maker…the rich tapestry of intricate, interwoven ecstasy nearly left me for dead…”

• From THE SEXUAL SAFARIS OF SEDNA:

“Reality died screaming when Todd removed the accommodator mask from the tentacled beast.”

• From FINE DINING ON DEIMOS (co-written with Ray Kroc):

“Todd was a griddle man through and through, so cooking up a thick, rich stew of carnal flavors was no challenge for him. Doing it in zero gravity, however, was the tricky part.”

Sagan Valentine by Ironic Sans

Mark Vernon recently posted three quotations on his excellent blog Philosophy & Life.

The first was from physicist Carlo Rovelli: “The notion of ‘scientifically proven’. Nearly an oxymoron. The very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt.”

The second was from another physicist, Lawrence Krauss: “Indeed, no number, no measurement, no observable in science is exact… Until we can quantify the uncertainty in our statements and our predictions, we have little idea of their power or significance.” 

The last was from Neil Gershenfeld, the director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms:

“The most common misunderstanding about science is that scientists seek and find truth. They don’t — they make and test models.”

I linked to Mark’s post, adding the comment, “Guess it isn’t settled, after all.” I was thinking, of course, about all those assertions as to the science being settled regarding what used to be called global warming, but is now referred to as climate change.

It turns out I should have read the quotes in context. Krauss, for instance, also said, “The fact that global warming estimates are uncertain, for example, has been used by many to argue against any action at the present time.” From this I infer that he is certain about “the fact of global warming.”

Rovelli also had more to say: “Are we sure that the Earth is going to keep heating up, if we do not do anything? Are we sure of the details of the current theory of evolution? Are we sure that modern medicine is always a better strategy than traditional ones? No we are not, in none of these cases. But if from this lack of certainty we jump to the conviction that we better not care about global heating, that there is no evolution and the world was created six thousand years ago, or that traditional medicine must be more effective than the modern medicine, well, we are simply stupid.”

He is apparently not sure that “the Earth is going to keep heating up,” but he seems pretty sure we should care enough about it to do something about it.

None of this would bother Gershenfeld, I imagine, because he goes on to say that “Truth is a model.” It bothers me, though, because it makes me suspect that none of these people thinks very clearly.

To begin with, they all have a very loose sense of what it means to be certain. The word derives from a French word meaning “sure, reliable, fixed, settled, determined.” So if the estimates, as Krauss puts it, are “uncertain,” it means we can’t be sure of them, because they are not reliable. And we’re talking of them now as estimates, not as facts. In other words, they are not even approximately certain.

To compare not knowing all of “the details of the current theory of evolution,” as Rovelli does, to doing something just in case the Earth really is getting steadily warmer seems disingenuous, since we’re a hell of a lot more certain about evolution (at least when confined to the origin of species) than we are as to what the temperature will be a century or more from now. As to whether you’d prefer to have your broken leg set by a physician or chanted over by a shaman, I suspect few people would have a hard time making up their minds about that. (I might add that you can think that all the details about evolution have not been worked out and not ever entertain the notion that the world was made in six days. His own words indicate that Rovelli himself does that all the time.)

It’s one thing to say that science is never “settled,” that new information can come along to challenge even our most cherished notions. It’s quite another to give the impression that it’s all more or less guesswork. Exactness and certainty are by no means the same thing. Rovelli knows that perfectly well: “Knowledge itself is probabilistic in nature, a notion emphasized by some currents of philosophical pragmatism. Better understanding of the meaning of probability, and especially realizing that we never have, nor need, ‘scientifically proven’ facts, but only a sufficiently high degree of probability, in order to take decisions and act, would improve everybody’s conceptual toolkit.” Well, yes. And it is — dare I day it? — precisely the degree of probability that is at issue when it comes to something like global warming, especially since gazillions of dollars also figure in the equation.

I am far more certain — and I’m willing to bet that Rovelli, Krauss and Gershenfeld are as well — that poverty and hunger throughout the world are real than I am of global warming claims. I also submit that there is a higher probability that we can deal with those successfully than there is of pulling off planetary climate control any time soon.

One of my daily traditions involves laying down for a late morning nap.  It is not only energizing, but also a pleasant way to “skip over” a few hours of the day which would be spent in debilitating anxiety.  Normally, upon waking up from these naps, I go about my usual business of watching Wife Swap and waiting until the sun goes down so I can go to sleep again.  Yesterday, however, I clicked over to one of my favorite television news outlets, and was immediately guilt stricken.

As it turns out, NASA had discovered an entirely new form of life.  Much to my dismay, this life was found in Mono Lake, California. Okay, NASA.  I admit it.  I am responsible for this new life form you have discovered.  I’m sorry.

Let me explain.  It all began back in the Summer of 2010.  Twitter was bigger than ever.  The economy was booming.  I was the most popular guy in high school. Life was the best. It was during this time that I had decided to go on a little vacation with the wife and kids. It had been a tough year, and frankly, I thought we deserved it.  My buddy George from work’s wife is a travel agent, so we ended up getting a really killer deal on a 3 day 4 night resort stay in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The kids were thrilled.  I was thrilled.  This would be the best vacation ever.

The first two nights were spent swimming in the Knights Inn jacuzzi, and by day three, we were ready to have some down time.  We saw in the local paper that the film Marmaduke was playing in a nearby theater, and decided to treat ourselves to some big screen thrills.

Ninety minutes later and we were all in total agony.  The kids were crying and my wife was about ready to kill me! (You know what I’m talking about, guys).  I was so distraught at the misery I had caused to my family that I immediately dropped them back at the Inn, and set off in my rental sedan to blow off some steam.

A quick stop to the Quik Stop to stock up on snacks, and I was on my way, cruising up the freeway and doing anything I could to get my mind off the tragedy which had occurred earlier. What kind of a father was I? How could I do this?  There were so many questions that I knew I could never answer.  The only thing I knew was that the Sun Chips and Diet Mountain Dew I was consuming were doing a number on my belly, and things were going south quickly.

Five hours later and I couldn’t handle it any more.  Quickly, I threw the car to the shoulder of the road and erupted from my seat.  A mile or so back I had seen signs for Lake Mono, and I figured that would be as good a place as any to have my release.  The Garden Salsa Sun Chips were on their way back up, and I reckoned a lake would be the best place to put them. Back to nature, Chips.

The water bubbled as the Sun Chips broke the surface.  A stark sizzle could be heard in the silence of the night.  I knew I had made a mistake.  But what could I do?  There was no getting them back, and frankly, that lake looked disgusting. I high tailed it back to the hotel, and never spoke a word of it to anyone.

So there you have it.  A few months later, and we are faced with an entirely new form of life in Lake Mono.  Do I regret it? Of course. Being able to play God isn’t some fun game of vomit and CGI dogs; it’s a burden.  Who knows what kind of implications I could face from the government by even sharing this information with you.  I just have to come clean, is all.  Any good man would do the same thing!  And with that, readers, I am shutting off my computer to enter the panic room.  I can’t face the world anymore.  If you could, just text me when this all dies down.  I’ll have my phone on.

If you’re anything like my mother, you’ve been reading a lot about this impending Bed Bug “pandemic.” Heck, it’s even on TV. There doesn’t seem to be any getting around it.

“We are all going to die.” — Anderson Cooper

However, all is not gloom and doom in the USA. It has been my experience that not only are Bed Bugs NBD; they’re actually a life saver!

When the Bed Bug news entered my radar, I decided that as a member of the media, I had to investigate for myself. I really wanted to “get out there” and make up my own mind, so I could then make up yours.

The first step was getting my own set of Bed Bugs. To do this, I first asked my mother. She was no help. Luckily, on my way home from work, I passed a local Econolodge that had a few nice mattresses laying around the back. Cha-ching.

Once I got the mattress back into my apartment, I replaced my current mattress, and got right to layin’. Being on that mattress was like taking a wonderful journey through time. I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what it felt like to be a god. To experience the lives of every human who has ever slept, sweat, or loved on this piece of furniture. The scent of history. And body odor.

Days passed and I began to notice the symptoms. After distinguishing the body lice from the bed bugs, I have finally come to the conclusion that Bed Bugs are a blessing, not a curse.

For one, after contracting Bed Bugs, you not only get to buy a new bed, but an entire new wardrobe. Honestly, how long have you been putting those things off? And on top of that, by going out and spending your money on refurnishing and reclothing yourself, you’re stimulating the economy. Thank you.

Another upside I found is having Bed Bugs is like having hundreds of free pets. The even better news is they are the most low maintenance pets anyone could ask for. “What kind of food do I need to buy my Bed Bugs?” Trick question my fellow animal lovers: You are their food! Bed Bugs feed on your human blood. All you need to do to take care of them is go to sleep every night, just like you already do. No litter boxes, no kibble to buy, and no poop to scoop (they poop inside your bedding, so you’ll never even notice).

“But Matt, what about all the painful bites and itching?” Those bites are like tiny kisses from your new best friends. They love you(r blood). And listen you big baby, they go away on their own! I mean, if you get rid of the bugs. But really, why would you even try? The bottom line is, they are doing you more good than harm. Even if you itch your bites to the point of scarring, you end up with grotesque scars! Babes love scars (sorry girls, but men don’t like scars. You should probably get rid of the bed bugs).

So a colony of Group A Streptococcus bacteria made landfall on the back of my throat on Thursday evening, and has now erupted into a thriving settlement, planting corn and making friends with the natives. The resulting raw patch on the back of ye olde windpipe makes talking and swallowing difficult, and when a 300-pound man has problems swallowing his food, well, it’s time for a doctor’s visit.

I was in the doctor’s office this morning, the nurse having just swabbed my throat with what felt like Poseidon’s trident, waiting for the results of my strep test to come back in. I was sitting there on the doctor’s bed/table/paper-covered cabinet (or whatever it’s really called), with a few minutes to kill, and I picked up February 2010′s issue of Popular Mechanics. The cover story was titled “Can Robots Be Trusted?“, written by Eric Sofge.

The article describes the author’s touching, emotional, love-filled introduction with some probably outrageously over-priced blinking robot that looks like the Bride of Chucky after a nuclear disaster, named Nexi. The little bugger has starred in its own YouTube video:

The author expounds on his wonder at the newest evolutions of robotic technology, about how he was captivated by that thing’s creepy eyes, and reflections on the future of robot/human interaction. He introduces and describes to the reader a few other robots, goes over robotic evolutionary theory, so on and so forth.

Then this goose laid a golden egg.

Contemplating [futuristic human/robot interactions--MM] is a little like debating the ethical pitfalls of unregulated teleportation. Until someone builds the Enterprise, why worry if Scotty is going to drunk-dial himself into your house?

I laughed and laughed and laughed, much to my immediate dismay as the Strep Colony apparently thought that the End of Days was upon it and decided to stake down everything important to the inner surface of my esophagus with rusty circus tent spikes.

This was a great thought! I had never seriously considered some of the possible ramifications of teleportation, especially as it relates to deviant behavior! When I got home, I saddled up my trusty steed Google, and immediately set out to research the current progress in the realm of teleportation ethics.

Well, first of all, I’m going to advise you not to do so yourself. I spent an hour looking at various websites, but most of what I found resembled this:

You see, what essentially would happen in teleportation is that our atoms would be ripped up, be sent from point A to point B, and then perfectly reassembled. Now, the question you have to answer is this: Is the person that comes out at point B really you, or just a replica of you? You may have the same data — same eyes, weight, memories, skills — but is that stuff just replicated from your former being, which may have been ripped to death at the teleported origin? And for us religious types, where does the soul fit into all of this?

Now, I do love to read philosophy, and the metaphysics of the movement of the soul during teleportation was somewhat interesting for about the first three minutes, but after that, major boring sh**.

I don’t care about what happens to a soul or memories in a world of functioning teleportation devices!!! I wanted to hear people’s thoughts on the effects of teleportation on the realm of practical jokes!

You remember the old cliched joke about tying a string to a dollar, hiding and waiting for some slack-jawed individual to bend over and try to pick it up, just to pull it out of his grasp at the last possible moment? With teleportation, you’re no longer going to be limited to a lame 2D gag! Heck, you won’t even need a string!

As the guy bends over, the dollar will reappear above his head, inside his undies, or half in the blouse of the large chested woman walking by! Great fun will be had by all.

Surprise parties will be soooo much more surprising! The birthday girl will enter into her home, turn on the lights, take off her shoes, walk around the room, then BAMMO! Fifty people and a cake will just appear out of nowhere, screaming “SURPRISE!” at the top of their lungs, and possibly triggering a life-ending heart attack.

There won’t be any need to spend time tediously balancing a bucket full of water on the top of a slightly opened door; now you can just beam the bucket into existence as someone walks through it!

Oh, the possibilities for the writers at National Lampoon will be endless. Imagine the scene:

A girl’s locker room, packed full of sweaty European women, half wrapped in nothing but towels, the other half completely naked, then Poof! Clark Griswold appears.  He looks around sheepishly, holds up his control pad, and says “Uhhh…  Wrong number?”

The possibilities are boundless!

And then the nurse came back into the office with a syringe full of penicillin the size of a Titan IIIC-Centaur rocket, stabbed me in the ass and shot me up, and I immediately thought up the niftiest use for teleportation yet…

I just read an interesting article at The Nation.  It was posted by Johann Hari on April 15th, and is entitled “Climategate Claptrap, II“.

I’m not the world’s biggest supporter of the green movement.  It’s fair to get that out of the way first, full disclosure and what not, because I think this is one of the least informed attacks on Climategate that I’ve seen, and trust me, that’s really saying something.

The author begins by crowing a bit, attempting to link Climategate with the fight against Big Tobacco, but it gets interesting quickly.  In no time at all, the author engages us with visions of “deniers” being destroyed on the world stage…

It is happening again. The tide of global warming denial is now rising as fast as global sea levels–and with as much credibility as Cook Little. Look at the deniers’ greatest moment, Climategate, hailed by them as “the final nail in the coffin” of “the theory of global warming.” A patient study by the British House of Commons has pored over every e-mail from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and interviewed everyone involved. Its findings? The “evidence patently fails to support” the idea of a fraud; the scientists have “no case to answer”; and all their findings “have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified” by other scientists. That’s British for “it was a crock.”

 Man, you know, sometimes I almost hate to do this to people…  Oh well.  Can’t be helped.

A “patient study by the British House of Commons”?

That one caused me to squirt chocolate milk out of my nose and earned me a funny look from the kid.

The real truth:

“Lawmakers stressed that their report which was written after only a single day of oral testimony did not cover all the issues and would not be as in-depth as the two other inquiries into the e-mail scandal that are still spending.  [emphasis mine - MM]

Willis said the lawmakers had been in a rush to publish something before Britain’s next national election, which is widely expected in just over a month’s time. 

“Clearly we would have liked to spend more time of this,” he said, before adding jokingly: “We had to get something out before we were sent packing.”

CBSNews (Which, ironically, I just made fun of here.)

The best part about the article?

It fails to mention the fact that a second panel investigating this has also declared Climategate to be 2 legit 2 quit:

“In the second of three investigations of the scandal known as “climate-gate,” a panel of academic experts said Wednesday that several prominent climate scientists did not engage in deliberate malpractice but did not use the best statistical tools available to produce their findings.”

Washington Post

However, if you keep reading, way down there, buried at the bottom of the piece, you’ll find this interesting little tidbit:

“Set up and funded by the University of East Anglia, the review panel was led by Ernest Oxburg — a geologist and former academic who is the honorary president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and is involved with the wind-energy company Falck Renewables.” [emphasis mine -- MM]

It then gives you another paragraph detailing how each of the members of this panel are associated with cooperating Universities.

It’s getting hilarious by this point.

This is nothing more than a continuation of “This debate is OVER!”…

“YOU’RE LYING ABOUT CLIMATEGATE BECAUSE WE, THE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE HIGHLY INVESTED IN THIS SCAM, SAY SO!”

Well… That doesn’t exactly cut it in the real world people.  I’m gonna need to see something that will get me to lose faith in the laws of mathematics and statistics, and it’s gonna have to be really damned convincing…  Like some form of god or advanced alien culture or something is going to have to part the clouds, single me out, and tell me that humans are causing climate change in no uncertain terms.

That’s how strongly I believe in the truth of equations.

100 years’ worth of scientific data is not a large enough sample from a population of 4 billion years to make any scientifically valid claims about anything.