I Didn't Mow The Bee

I have a big backyard. It is fricken huge actually. Back when I lived in Toronto I had a semi-detached house, the lot was something like 17' by 80.' The backyard was so shady, we (me and my wife) decided to replace the grass with stone. We landscaped the front, which was pretty much a grass hill, with tiered terraces. No mowing, after we did that.

So we move to the Niagara region 8 years ago. For half of what my house in Toronto cost, I wound up buying a house on a 120' by 120' lot. Lots of trees on the perimeter, and lots and lots of grass that needs cutting. One good thing is the land is completely flat.

My wife does all the gardening. This used to include doing the lawn mowing. But as the years have gone by, I've actually started feeling sorry for her when she mows the lawn.

It got to the point that I couldn't watch her mow the lawn anymore. So I decided to shut the drapes.

This still didn't work, and those evolved innate feelings of guilt and empathy started to take over, so I wound up sharing the moving duties with her over the last few years.

I'm now up to doing pretty much two thirds of it now.

And I don't feel shamed having to do it either. In fact, in the Niagara region, apparently men do most of the lawn mowing. Believe it or not.

So now that I established that I do in fact mow the lawn, I need to add one more thing. In Ontario we have a brand new idiotic law that doesn't allow us to use pesticides and herbicides on our lawns anymore.

The Creeping Charlie's are loving the new rule. So while most of my property is grass, there are many (mostly shaded) areas full of weeds. And you just can't keep up with them. My wife hates weeds, but even she knows it is futile to fight them. I hope it doesn't get this way with Islam in the West:)

Doncha love the analogy?

OK, so a couple of days ago, I'm mowing over a patch of weeds, and there is a bumble bee hanging around one that flowered, just an inch off the ground. My mower is around six inches away from this self absorbed bee. Surely the motor and the vibrations will get the bee to take a hike. But no. So I move the mower two inches from the bee, and still no. Should I just keep on mowing? Absolutely not. Even though, this bee is obviously not evolved in a way to deal with the dangers of lawn mowers and is probably suffering from Rachel Corrie disease as well, I still couldn't do it.

You see, I have a problem killing animals in general. Spiders, ants, moles, you name it. I just know that it is there only crack at life. I'm very confident there isn't a human heaven, let alone a bee heaven.

I know I'm a walking contradiction when it comes to my eating habits. I try not to think about it, and the cognitive dissonance of eating meat has made me rationalize that it is OK to eat food that was bred to be food. I didn't feel guilty at all while enjoying the chicken parmigiana I had last night. I don't feel guilty eating bacon or cheeseburgers or steaks.

When I see a live pig though, I have a sense of guilt. But they taste so damn good. And besides, if Darwin didn't want us to eat meat, he wouldn't have given us with teeth:)

Another thing is that I'm hearing that we have had a bee shortage in North America, and apparently bees have a lot of responsibility when it comes to a lot of the food we grow and eat. Maybe I saved the earth by not mowing the bee, but probably not.

But then again, if this bee's genes are passed along, it is no wonder there are fewer of them. They have to know that they need to get the hell out of the way of lawn mowers. Did I help stupid bees by not offing this one? No, this one wasn't a breeding bee. Should I go after his mother, the Queen, so that she can't produce such stupid bees anymore?

This leads into another thing. I do make exceptions to my "I can't kill any animal" rule. That one has to do with stinking cockroaches. When I lived in an old apartment in Toronto in my single days, there were cockroaches. They deserved to die. Why? Because they carry disease that could be harmful to me. With flies, I usually give them a chance to leave the house, by opening the door, and if it doesn't leave and my wife swats one, I feel no remorse.

What about humans? Could I kill a human? If someone is a physical danger to me, yes. If someone murdered a loved one, I could see myself revenging it, though it isn't likely, I would desire that person to be dead.

For humanity? I wonder how many people would answer this question truthfully: If you could go back in time and kill Adolph Hitler in the 1920's, would you, if it means that you would not be born today (and if you have kids, your kids wouldn't be born today)?

When you think of all the suffering Hitler caused, the answer should be yes. But I selfishly admit that I wouldn't, unless my life was almost over. I value and appreciate this one crack at life I have. And I've also rationalize not killing Hitler in sort of the same way I rationalized the Hiroshima bombing: Had the US not dropped the bomb, killing many innocent people in doing so, it would have been inevitable that the bomb would have been dropped shortly thereafter by Russia or the US or both. The main reason the Cold War didn't lead to Nuclear annihilation is because both sides knew the real consequences thanks to what happened to Japan. The human suffering would have been even greater.

Had Hitler not shown us once and for all that the idea of mass geographical conquest will never work again, some other leader in Europe probably would have done something similar by now. Again, with WMD technology much lower back when WW2 started, humans may be extinct by now if conquest was coupled with nuclear capabilities.

As for the Jews and the Holocaust, it is a tough one not offing Hitler when it comes to all the suffering he created. But Jews have been scapegoats for 2000 years, and another leader in anti-semitic Europe may have popped up and did something similar. Now at least Israel exists, and Jews have a place to go if anti-semitism rears its ugly head anywhere on this planet, anytime. And Israel was fast tracked because of the Holocaust, because of Hitler's game plan.

However, if I was in my 80's and could go back in time, I would definitely take an axe and chop him into pieces.

Also, when it comes to humanity, I'm no fan of Islam. It is completely at odds with Western civilization and freedom. Do I believe that anyone who supported the Fall of Capitalism & Rise of Islam conference in Chicago recently deserves to die? Tough one. Would it be better for humanity if these people didn't exist? 100% for sure. Could I kill any of them? No. But if I had a gun to my head and had to decide who should die, the pig that my next rack of ribs came from or one of these hypocritical morons who hate the West but come and live here anyway, I would definitely say, kill the ass waver.

Getting Spammed By David Mabus

Who is David Mabus? I think the best description comes from Pharyngula:

Miscreant: David Mabus

Crime: INSANITY

Sentence: Automatically Junked

Comments: Deeply deranged, disturbed individual who believes James Randi has cheated him out of a million dollars, and who vents by spamming websites and email with his angry tirades. Certifiable. Needs immediate mental health care. His real name is Dennis Markuze, and he lives in Montreal, Canada.

I've been on his spam list for quite some time, though for some reason his email's wound up in my main mail box. After reading the first his first two spews I just "marked as spam" and deleted all future emails.

I received another one recently, so I decided to engage him personally:) For your enjoyment, here is the recent exchange:

Mabus Spam Email: The termination of the James Randi Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge:



http://www.thirdeyeconcept.com/news/index.php?topic=9960.0

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=54601&page=31

"I find that the high concentration of this type of person is fairly unique to this forum. I assume it has to do with the challenge, and the fact that nearly every type of paranormal belief system is skewered here. I also post on the snopes urban legend forum, where you might expect there to be a lot of similarly deluded people, but it honestly doesn't happen much there. Perhaps the specific legends debunked don't raise as many hackles as debunking schools of thought.

I don't think there is anything that can be done about it. I think dealing with lunatics is inherent to JREFs mission. Individual posters can of course take themselves out of the discussion at any time. But I think prematurely banning people (even if you know they're going to eventually implode like this) is a bad idea, because it just gives them more ammunition to say the contest is rigged. Better to hear them out and just continue being rational until they either start making sense or implode."

Well said, LIAR! Why don't all these deluded skeptics take their own worthless advice for once...

EXPLODE!
***********************

BEAJ: Take me off your list you reality denying retard.

Thanks,

The Atheist Jew
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MABUS: as if YOU know what is reality, you bacon eating atheist jew...
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BEAJ: Imbecile, just take me off your list. You are nothing but a lunatic. Seriously, don't email me again.
************************

MABUS: FUCK YOU!
*************************

BEAJ: Just take me off your list, imbecile. And look into getting yourself institutionalized right after that.
***************************

MABUS: you think you are safe *lying* behind your computer...you are DEADLY WRONG
**************************

BEAJ: You really need attention, don't you? Get help. You are one of the most obviously insane individuals on the internet these days. I don't care if you want to deny reality, but I have no interest in being part of your idiocy.
*****************************

MABUS: Deny reality?

YOU''RE FINISHED!
***********************

BEAJ: Are you threatening me now you bi-polar imbecile?
From Pharyngula about you:

Deeply deranged, disturbed individual who believes James Randi has cheated him out of a million dollars, and who vents by spamming websites and email with his angry tirades. Certifiable. Needs immediate mental health care. His real name is Dennis Markuze, and he lives in Montreal, Canada.

Get help.
*************************

MABUS: YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!
*************************

BEAJ: There is no hell, you bipolar freak.
****************************

Got the same spam email once again that triggered the first exchange. My reply to it:

BEAJ: I told you to take me off your list, oh insane one.
*******************************

MABUS: and I told you to FUCK OFF, you bacon eating jew boy...
**************************

BEAJ: Fine. Take me off your list, you berserk twit.
*************************

MABUS: make me...
****************************


Yep, I sure have a way when it comes to attracting freaks. I'm not talking about my regular readers, of course:)...well, most of you, that is.

How Come I Like Stories About The Supernatural So Much?

I know one thing, I do not accept that any supernatural occurrence has happened anywhere in the universe, anytime. Are supernatural occurrences possible? I guess anything in possible. But anything isn't very likely.

No Gods, no ghosts, no Leprechauns, no invisible man under my bed, no streakers on Venus, etc.

But I have to ask why I so readily accept ghosts in movies, devils in movies, supernatural events in movies? Is it a form of escape into a land of wishful thinking? Or just a form of escape? Or just plain old entertainment and appreciation of creative writers?

When I was a child, I watched a lot of Twilight Zone. After watching one particular episode, I remember asking my grandmother if she would let me phone her if and when she died. In other words, there was a time that I thought the Twilight Zone was a documentary. I'm pretty sure I grew out of it when I was 8 or 9 though, but I can't remember.

For years I slept with the light on as well, scared of the unknown. I think I stopped that nonsense in my early teens. And now I like to sleep in the dark with the TV off.

Again, I went through the regular channels in becoming atheist. From assuming there was a God and supernatural occurrences, to reading existential literature in high school while at the same time realizing that science had an answer for just about everything, I gradually became agnostic, and finally atheist after rationalizing everything out. This probably didn't happen until my early 30's. And then to top it off, around 7 or 8 years ago, in my early forties, I found out that there is absolutely no contemporary evidence for the Exodus or even a historical Jesus.

Not only is there lack of evidence for the supernatural, but there is also nothing to back up the most famous biblical stories that the overwhelming majority of human beings today buy into.

The reason I'm making this post is that I recently watch Ghost Town. I found it laugh out loud funny at times, though I wish I could have been a writer on that movie (I think I could have made it a lot funnier). I've never had that thought before either. I just thought of things that would have made it more hilarious.

But back to the movie, I really got into it. It isn't the first time. The Sixth Sense for example, same thing.

But really, my favorite shows on TV are animated. Family Guy, American Dad, South Park, and supernatural or sci fi stuff happens all the time in those cartoons.

I still believe strongly that we evolved the susceptibility to buy into the supernatural as a way of defense mainly, especially when our ancestors couldn't explain lightning. So maybe there is a disconnect from my atheistic worldview when we watch these types of movies and shows, and probably when we dream too.

I wonder if I were a theist today, if I would view films like Ghost Town and The Sixth Sense the same way. Do theists think, "hey I want to be that type of ghost when I die." Or do they just enjoy the movie, and in the back of their mind, know they are watching something unrealistic, even to them?"

Just a note, for those who don't know, the star of Ghost Town, comic Ricky Gervais, is a non believer, just like me.

America Is Embarrassing In Just 40 Seconds

HT The Friendly Atheist

Number one, someone who rejects science, shouldn't have a say in anything to do with science.

Number two, this is a violation of separation of church and state. Elected officials should not be allowed to spread mythological beliefs while in a government setting.

Number three, this is why the Republican Party is in big trouble now and in the future. It is viewed as a Party that is anti-science. This broad confirms it.

Number four, maybe this is why Sarah Palin quit. She realized she only has one third the intelligence of Senator Sylvia Allen of Arizona. Maybe Allen will be the next Republican Presidential nominee. The Democrats can only hope it will be her or someone very similar.

Some comments from Friendly Atheist's site:

I wish I could dish out a bit of scorn for the residents of Arizona who voted for this woman. Unfortunately, I’m from Texas, so I don’t really have any standing to criticize. Darn it.

~David D.G.

Man, if the power of stupid could be harnessed, the Arizona legislature could easily meet the world’s energy needs for, um, the next 6,000 years..

~Colm

Well, since Earth is only 6000 years old, that means the decay rate for Uranium is far faster (maybe even light years faster!) than all those scientists would have us think. In fact, that would put the half-life of U at ~5900 years.
And since it’s decaying so fast, I can certainly see her urgency to mine some ore!

~bønez_brigade

Speaking of Palin's resignation, Hip Suburban White Guy is fairly certain The Other Palin Boot Will Drop Soon.

H/T Joe's Big Blog

Banning The Burqa?

I'm somewhat torn about the banning of the burqa movement that is happening in Europe right now.

I'm for freedom of religion. If some whackjob wants to dress like Jesus and drag a cross around in his backyard, more power to him. It would even be entertaining to see him drag the cross down a public street.

And what about banning the kippah or a priest's outfit? There is a fine line. Granted, the burqa represents an attack against women's rights and it glorifies a sub culture that basically treats women as secondary citizens. The kippah represents faith in a very angry (at times) God who also didn't really give women equal status. That being said, Jews are not a threat to Western ideals. Priests are not a threat to the West either...just the Catholic children of the West, but that is another story.

I'm no fan of Islam because of the way it spreads, and the demands Muslims make once it spreads. So lets cut the crap. This banning talk isn't really about women's rights, it is about bitch slapping Western Muslims who want to infest the modern world with their bullshit (ie Shariah Law), and their spreading of intolerant ideas (oh wait, that is what Fundy Christians do too, but Fundy Christians don't fly into buildings).

Anyway, Pat Condell chimes in on the subject, and let me just say, I have to agree with almost everything he says:


I love the idea of making Muslim men wearing burqas on 100 degree Fahrenheit days. Just keep them away from airports and subways on those days.

I also think, what bothers me most about Muslims is their hypocrisy regarding Israel.
The good majority view the Jews in Israel as people who shouldn't be there. It is OK for Muslims to go to the West, and even turn Dearborn, Michigan into a Muslim majority, but for some reason, Jews coming to a non sovereign land that is now Israel and having a Jewish majority, is a no-no and totally unacceptable.