Yeah, These are Still Things...

First on the list of This Shit's Still Happening

Did you think that measles were eliminated from the United States in 2000? Yeah, so did I. During my lunch break on Friday, I was greatly dismayed when I read a Washington Post article on the subject.

Lenny Bernstein in an article for the Washington Post summarizes the current measles outbreak:

The ongoing measles outbreak in the United States has reached a record for any year since the disease was  eliminated in this country 14 years ago, with 288 cases of the potentially deadly infection reported in 18 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The largest measles clusters are in Ohio (138 confirmed cases), California (60) and New York (26), according to the CDC. Almost all — 97 percent — have been brought into the country by travelers, mainly Americans, who contracted the infection abroad. About half of those were people who picked it up in the Philippines, where a large measles outbreak has affected more than 32,000 people, causing 41 deaths,  since January alone, said Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Read the rest.

As I said before, measles had been eliminated from this country 14 years ago. So what gives:

In the United States, the number of people who choose not to be immunized for religious, philosophical or personal reasons has begun to become a public health problem, Schuchat said. Others are unaware of, or unable to get, vaccinations before they arrive in the United States. A small number of adults can lose their immunity over time and may need to be re-vaccinated.(Ibid.)

Blöd, blöd, blöd... Vaccinate your fucking kids. There is absolutely no reason that the measles epidemic should continue in the United States. I understand that a large number of those infected are from Amish Communities, and expecting a group that eschews technology to adopt a technology would be frivolous.But there are people in the US who do participate in the modern society who don't vaccinate. And it is completely unfounded. According to this Macalester College article, the MMR vaccine is safe and effective:

The net medical effects of the MMR vaccine cannot be understated.  "The health and resource benefits due to vaccination against measles during the first 20 years of vaccine licensure," according to a 1985 study in Pediatrics, "have been enormous.  In this period [in the United States] it is estimated that vaccination against measles has prevented 52 million cases, 5,200 deaths, and 17,400 cases of mental retardation, achieving a net savings of $5.1 billion."

And oh yes, if you are actively campaign against vaccines, you can go fuck yourself. Your bullshit is injuring people if not killing them, and it needs to stop.

Creationists on the School Board

Did you find the culture wedge issues of the Bush Era exhausting? Yeah, so did  I. Oh Johnny Walker, there is not enough of you to make this tolerable (he's also the reason why I am writing this so late in the week.)

It wouldn't be America without an idiot running for School Board, thinking that they will change the curriculum to get rid of those icky things like the Theory of Evolution, Reproductive Education, and Keynesian Economics (Mercantilism forever baby.)  According to an article by Sherese Gore in the News and Advance, this time it's in Amherst County, Virginia, which boarders Lynchburg:

Two candidates seeking appointment to the Amherst County School Board are laying out an early agenda for their time on the board, including a candidate who said he is concerned with the inclusion of evolution and human-caused global warming in the schools’ science textbooks.

Oo goodie. And how, pray-tell, did this Candidate come to his agenda? 

Olivares [...] is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

His interest in serving on the school board was sparked while serving as a substitute teacher with Amherst County Public Schools. During that time, Olivares said he became concerned with science textbooks that state that global warming is caused by human activity and those that teach Darwinian evolution. As part of the school board, he said would like to review the division’s textbooks.

When I was a substitute teacher I used my time wisely to look up gay porn on my iPhone... just kidding, I didn't have an iPhone back then.

Ok, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Why doesn't he believe in Global Warming:

“As far as the current global warming, my physicist contacts tell me that there has been no global warming in the past 15 years despite Mr. Gore’s film,” he said, referencing the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was written by Al Gore.

Fantastic! Unsourced contacts, academia what out, we have a new scholar rising.  And now how are you totally not going to undercut your previous statement with something completely asinine:

In regards to humanity’s involvement with climate change: “As a physicist, I know better than that,” Olivares said. “I know the cause. It’s that big shiny thing that we see up there every day if the clouds are not covering it.”

Oh for fuck sake, which is it: is global warming real but cyclical, or is it a hoax? Hint, it can't be both, and it ends with neither. (Note: there are natural occurrence which are contributing to global warming; however releasing the amount of carbon dioxide at the current rate is having an adverse affect on our environment.)

I am also wondering if his physicist "contacts" aren't just a bunch of sock puppets he created that he talks to.

Backing up, I couldn't help but notice that he doesn't care to much for that there "Darwinian Evolution" thing in them learny books.  I for one am glad someone finally is taking a stand against Darwinian Evolution. Why should American Children be learning an outdated theory from 1859, which does not include genetics, DNA sequencing, and in utero epigenetics? Oh wait, I'm guessing he actually means Modern Evolutionary Theory:

Olivares said he also is concerned with Darwinian evolution “being taught as fact and settled science which it is not.” Single-celled organisms have not changed significantly through the millions of years “that they say evolution has taken place,” he said.

Err.. for one thing, no scientific theory is ever settled. Claiming complete knowledge is antithetical to science. And secondly, single celled organisms have varied greatly you dunderhead. I am just going to spitball it here, because I am not too concerned about this statement being overly accurate, but according to Wikipedia:

Following present classification, there are a little less than 9,300 known species of prokaryotes, which includes bacteria and archaea;^[147] but attempts to estimate the true number of bacterial diversity have ranged from 10⁷ to 10⁹ total species – and even these diverse estimates may be off by many orders of magnitude.^[148][149]

That's just diversity among Prokaryotes, which is minuscule when compared to the complexity and diversity of Eukaryotes.

While the article no where suggests that the Candidate's motives are driven by religious fervor, I will treat it as if it does. As I have written before, Creationism is an Insult to any god that would exist. If there is a god, that god apparently created the universe in a natural method, that includes evolution. To deny rational thought and the scientific method in favor of ancient mythology is insulting to this would be creator god.

Around Half of Americans Don't Understand Gayness

Did you think that most Americans finally understood what it means to be gay? Yeah, so did I.

This Gallup poll is slightly depressing.

Credits belong to Gallup. So go read the article and inform yourself.... I'll wait for you.... Done reading now? Good.

In concordance with this poll done by the Pew Research Center last year:

Credits belong to Pew. 

So these two polls show that around 37% of the public believes that gayness is a learned behavior that can be changed. My attraction to men is fixed. No one can change that about me. And thank fuck nobody has. I am proud to be gay. I am proud of my yellow eyes. I am proud of my brown hair. I am proud of the things I did not choose about myself, as I am sure a straight man with blue eyes and blond hair is proud of himself. 

It makes me sick to think of the millions of people wishing they could change, expecting that they can change, and completely incapable of changing.

And to anyone who thinks it is a choice to be gay, I know it's trite, but so you think you are choosing to be straight? You choose to think the waitress is attractive or the woman who sits next to you on the bus?

But what's really troubling to me is that some 37% of gay children will be raised in a household that believes they can change. Perhaps worse is the number of straight children who will be raised "straight" and that any sign of effeminacy must be beaten out corrected.  

Liam ‘14

A Total Eclipse of the Brain

The next lunar eclipse for North American eyes will be on April 4, 2015.

The lunar eclipse that recently happened on April 14, 2014 had been predicted by scientists for, like, ever, and Wikipedia has a schedule of the next, what, millennial of lunar eclipses that are predicted to happen.

When I was younger I used to pay attention to astronomical events far more closely than what I do toady, mostly because I was a nerd who never got laid. I would spend summer nights out on a blanket looking at the stars and tracking the motion of the planets. I knew all the dates of predicted phenomena days in advance and would hope for good weather. Always in August I would go out and watch the Perseid Meteor Shower and drink Coca Cola all night long on a green blanket that smelled slightly funny, because we kept it in the basement and only ever took it out to lie in the grass.

So, I was kind of shocked when I turned on the TV the other day and saw people talking about the lunar eclipse, because I assumed only virgins and Neil deGrasse Tyson talked about astronomy.

Here’s what some idiot-asshole at World Net Daily had to write about it (I was going to be nice and properly cite the author, but there's no byline):

Barack Obama quite recently, expressing his frustration that Republican members of Congress won’t give him what he wants, threatened arbitrary executive action, promising that he has a “pen and phone.”

But there are “flashing red warning lights” in the heavens that should command peoples’ attention right now, because the one behind those warnings, God, had “more than a pen and a phone in his hand,” according to the author of “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs.”

Pastor Mark Biltz, whose book is creating a tidal wave of interest right now with the first of four lunar eclipses expected to become visible early Tuesday, was speaking to Breaking Israel News.

“I believe that the blood moons have great historic and prophetic significance just as they did following 1948 and 1967. In the book of Joel it mentions three times about the sun and the moon going dark and in context it also mentions Divine wrath against all countries that want to divide or part the land of Israel,” he said.

“I believe the moons are like flashing red warning lights at a heavenly intersection saying to Israel as well as the nations they will be crossing heavenly red lines and if they do, they will understand as Pharaoh did on Passover night 3,500 years ago that the Creator backs up what He says.

“Like Pharaoh the leaders and pundits of today will realize when it comes to crossing the red lines of the Creator of the universe he has more than a pen and a phone in his hand.” 

Oh god I need a shower...

Ugggh. The stupid will not come off. Damn you Dove with Cucumber Extract, why won't you wash away the stupid.

See, if you can predict an astronomical event in advance, then it cannot be a warning, because that would suggest determinism. Punishing people for a pre-determined outcome is not only baffling but would be utterly sadistic. Under this theology, humanity is literally built to spill. That's fucking sick.

Secondly, there are about two lunar eclipses each year. Only one is typically visible depending where in the world you are located. But still that is a lot of eclipses. Which means there are either a lot of warnings or else it's a lot of bullshit.

Guess where my money's at.

Here's what lunar eclipses actually tell us instead of this crazy Jesus hates President Obama bullshit.

If you hold up a coin that is one inch in diameter (about the size of a quarter) it needs to be 108 inches away from your eye to exactly block out the sun. Don't try this as it will be super painful, or worse you might go blind trying it (well actually I don't give a fuck about your well being; I'm just avoiding any liability). Instead do this with the moon. It turns out that the moon and the sun are often the same size (have the same angular size, obviously.) That's why solar eclipses can be spectacular.

Due to this phenomenon, you can measure the distance of the Earth to the Moon and the diameter of the Moon during a lunar eclipse. Without doing any measuring, we know that the distance from the Earth to the Moon is 108 times the Moon's diameter.

To find the diameter of the Moon all you need is a handy-dandy stop watch. On April 4, 2015, camp out on the beach, and after your boyfriend gets done blowing you, measure the time it takes the Moon to enter the Earth's shadow. Then measure the time it takes for the Moon to emerge from the Earth's shadow.

The entrance time is 2.5 times shorter than the total time of the eclipse; therefore the diameter of the Moon is 2.5 times smaller than the Earth.

AB = CE; therefore DB = 108*DE

Aristarchus of Samos who died around 230 BCE knew the diameter of the Earth and calculate the size and distance of the Moon using this method.

It is pathetic for me to type this, but it's 2014: Lunar eclipses are not divine signs to warn a sinful people. Grow the fuck up.


UPDATE:


I decided to make a scale model of the Lunar Eclipse:

Obviously Click to Embiggen  

Here is a cropped version:

Liam '14