Troy Davis is a man in Georgia who is currently scheduled to be executed on September 23rd, for a shooting which he quite likely did not commit. No murder weapon has been found, no other physical evidence exists, and seven of the nine state witnesses have either contradicted or recanted their original testimony, many signing sworn affadavits that they were pressure or coerced by the police into their testimony. One of the two remaining witnesses has been suggested to have been the actual gunman in the case. We cannot be unjust, and expect justive for ourselves, nor can we be unmerciful, and expect others to grant us mercy in our turn. In short, we must love one another or die.

From Amnesty International:

Troy Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia; a murder he maintains he did not commit. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state’s non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.

One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester “Red” Coles – the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.

Please, help in any way that you can. Amnesty International lists a number of ways on their page on the matter. Perhaps most importantly, send the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles informing them that you oppose this breach of justice. Please help.

Are you watching the Olympics? Have you detected Commie whitewashing by NBC?

Well, actually, I’ve detected a bunch of jingoistic chauvinistic blindly patriotic pro-America-at-the-expense-of-the-rest-of-the-world garbage, with a coat of whitewash to shield NBC’s own rapacious capitalism, but I suppose my interpretation of reality is slightly different than Michelle Malkin’s.

• The United States consumes approximately 20,588,000 barrels of petroleum daily.
• The ANWR oil fields are expected to produce, at maximum, approximately 1.45 million barrels of petroleum a day, in 2028, when production is expected to peak, under this production. The minimum is projected at approximately 510,000 barrels of petroleum per day at peak.
• Under the best circumstances, ANWR drilling is projected to produce a $1.44/barrel price reduction worldwide at peak.

The highest projected peak production from ANWR would barely constitute 7% of United States oil consumption today. The debate comes down to whether we want to destroy a pristine wilderness to extract an fairly small amount of hydrocarbonaceous black carcinogenic gunk from under the ground, where it’s safely isolated, to burn it and place tons of poisonous/greenhouse gases into the world at large. In my opinion, the money could be better spent on, for example, researching sources of energy that don’t pour toxins into the atmosphere. But, that’s my view. What do you people think?

I overuse emoticons, I know.

If Ron Paul had no knowledge of the content of his newsletter, then he is inept; and if he did, then he is a racist.

Ron Paul either had or did not have knowledge of the content of his newsletter.

Therefore, he is either inept or a racist.

In neither of which cases he should have any shot at the Presidency, or any other public office, in my opinion.

I’m still in caffeine withdrawal, so, again, please forgive any grammatical errors.

Young-earth creationists have a distinct animosity towards SETI, for obvious reasons. The project is contrary to their whole understanding of biology, and it receives what probably looks to them like an obscene amount if money for an endeavor doomed to failure. This is understandable. However, when coupled with a fundamental misunderstanding of natural selection, it leads to intense hilarity. For some reason, Jonathon Safarti, author of the popular Answers in Genesis book Refuting Evolution, seems to be under the impression that there is an implicit conflict between the two ideas espoused by SETI that, on one hand, life can increase in complexity via evolution, and on the other, that complex signals are likely to have originated from an intelligence. Here’s the quote:

People detect intelligent design all the time. For example, if we find arrowheads on a desert island, we can assume they were made by someone, even if we cannot see the designer. There is an obvious difference between writing by an intelligent person, e.g. Shakespeare’s plays, and a random letter sequence like WDLMNLTDTJBKWIRZREZLMQCOP. There is also an obvious difference between Shakespeare and a repetitive sequence like ABCDABCDABCD. The latter is an example of order, which must be distinguished from Shakespeare, which is an example of specified complexity. We can also tell the difference between messages written in sand and the results of wave and wind action. The carved heads of the U.S. presidents on Mt. Rushmore are clearly different from erosional features. Again, this is specified complexity. Erosion produces either irregular shapes or highly ordered shapes like sand dunes, but not presidents’ heads or writing. Another example is the SETI program (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). This would be pointless if there were no way of determining whether a certain type of signal from outer space would be proof of an intelligent sender. The criterion is, again, a signal with a high level of specified complexity—this would prove that there was an intelligent sender, even if we had no other idea of the sender’s nature. But neither a random nor a repetitive sequence would be proof. Natural processes produce radio noise from outer space, while pulsars produce regular signals. Actually, pulsars were first mistaken for signals by people eager to believe in extraterrestrials, but this is because they mistook order for complexity. So evolutionists (as are nearly all SETI proponents) are prepared to use high specified complexity as proof of intelligence, when it suits their ideology. This shows once more how one’s biases and assumptions affect one’s interpretations of any data.

I don’t see how one can write two books concerning the scientific validity of evolution and not understand natural selection. Perhaps it was simply a moment of confusion. But regardless of why it’s been set forth, it has. The error is here: there is no natural selection process that drives signals towards complexity. They don’t reproduce in the same way that organisms do, there’s no incentive for them to develop greater complexity in order to better survive. Therefore, the overwhelming probability is that a complex signal was created by an intelligence. The same applies for sand dunes. If sand dunes in forms that resembled presidential heads could better survive the ravages of time, then they would most likely be in these forms. Sadly, they don’t, and therefore, none are known to have formed via natural processes. This is also applicable to arrowheads and cars. Seriously, guys, if you’re going to write about evolution, please understand its basic premise.

But to the subject matter posthaste: I’m, again, writing about Time Cube. I have a perverse fascination with it, largely because it’s like reading the thought processes of a lunatic. I mean, that’s pretty much what it is.

Gene Ray, Doctor of Cubicism, has followed in the footprints of James Randi, and offered the sum of $1000 to the first individual to show his theory to be incorrect. Sadly, the majority of it appears to be non-falsifiable, and therefore, no one has, thus far, claimed this prize. However, he makes one claim that is easily demonstrated to be true or false, which is that (-1)²=+1. This, being a simply formulated mathematical statement, can be concisely and conclusively proven wrong. This is what I shall proceed to do, with the enhancement of lovely graphs. I don’t know if this will qualify me for the prize, or whether or not he’ll actually pay me if it does, but in the event that I do, and he follows through, I will donate 70% of the money to charity.

This proof is predicated upon the axiom that, a function applied to both sides of a valid equation does not change the true/false evaluation of said equation. I’m not sure what the technical term for this is (assistance, anyone?) and I feel to lazy to look it up at this time, so let us call it “axiom 1″. This proof is also predicated upon that fact that (-1)(1)=-1, which shall call “axiom 2″. I doubt that even Gene Ray will dispute this.

Let y=-x. Graphed on Cartesian coordinates, this appears as the following:

fig. 1: y=-x

Taking into account axiom 1, if the same operation is applied to both sides, the graph should remain the same. If it does not, then the equation is fundamentally different. Therefore, let us multiply both sides by -1. If (-1)(-1)=+1, then the equation now reads as -y=x. This graphs as the following:

fig. 1: -y=x

You’ll notice that the two are the same. However, if we assume that (-1)(-1)=-1, as Mr. Ray suggests, then the equation should read -y=-x. In addition to the obvious inconsistency between the first equation and this (they used to be opposite signs, but now they’re the same? And this is valid how?), it graphs as the following:

fig. 3: -y=-x

This is obviously vastly different from figure 1, therefore, (-1)(-1)≠+1. Q.E.D.

Note that I don’t possess any personal animus towards Mr. Ray. I, quite honestly, feel sorry for him. The man is obviously deluded, and I believe that he needs to be shown the error of his ideas, for his own good. Being the laughing stock of the Internet is not a particularly optimal position.

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.

So yeah, it’s completely hyper-schizophrenic and insane. I really tried to follow his logic up there, but it’s painful. That outburst was only somewhat exagerated, actually. I think I’ll go lie down.

Oh, I forgot: Gene Ray has also discovered that, in three dimensions, everyhting can be given a bounding box! He seems to be claiming that this somehow proves his theory. Owwwwwwwwww.