www.jeffthefish.com

The actor who played Commissioner Gordon in the two Tim Burton Batman films, as well as the two Joel Schumacher Batman “films”, has died.

The Circus gang is back indeed. :(

I sure didn’t know that! But thankfully we have people like Ray Comfort to come along and describe me as a “professing atheist”.  Even though I’ve professed many, many times that I am, in fact, not an atheist.  I guess Ray knows best!  I mean, he has a TV show, I don’t.  He even goes on to imply that there is no evidence that could satisfy me of God’s existence, because I am being unreasonable.  In spite of the fact that I have, on several occasions, given examples of evidence that would satisfy me of God’s existence. On Ray’s actual blog.  Oh well.

“It makes me so mad that someone as retarded as he is has lived so long without accidentally setting himself on fire.”
-My friend Kambrie

A few spiders have recently been described that lack certain features of modern spiders.  They have only partial tagmosis, which just gives me a joygasm; they seem to lack venom, though they do have fangs; they have spigots for producing silk, but lack spinnerets; and one even still has a primitive “tail”!

I was interviewed briefly for an article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press about the effects the coal ash spill might have on the sturgeon.  I think I might have been the first person on the internet to make the connection.

Many of you remember the predictions I made last year about 2008.  You probably thought that many of them would be either right or wrong . You were wrong! I nailed six out of six predictions!  Let’s review!

1.  Hanging out was more extreme than ever. How can you be stupid enough to deny this, right? 2008 was the year of “one star” and “two star” jokes, schwa, etc. If that’s not extreme, ducks have fourteen inch penises.
2. People who used Ctrl+V really were as cool as possible.  We clearly could not have gotten cooler!  To prove it, I will now press Ctrl+V and show you how cool I am:

   http://www.amazon.com/First-Evil-Fear-Street-Cheerleaders/dp/0671751174/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230913150&sr=1-15

   See what I’m talking about?

3. Christmas sea lions actually became regular sea lions.  I know, you were skeptical.  But tell me, when did you see any Christmas sea lions?  Thought so.
4. Skateboards became sentient.  But you don’t have to take my word for it:  It happened!
5. Sunglasses were not the new cool. This is the one prediction I totally flubbed on.  On the other hand, when I said “sunglasses” I was talking about remakes of classic movies.
6. It was possible that the dinosaurs would return. It so happens that they didn’t, but you can’t deny that it was so possible.

Welp, now it’s time to start working on predictions for 2009!

Hey Guys,

I just got an email from the Director of Research at the Tennessee Aquarium in response to my question about the coal ash spill. The Aquarium releases the sturgeon upstream from where the spill happened, and in a different tributary. This sounds like good news, and it probably is, but they know that many of the sturgeon migrate downstream.  But really, it’s too soon to know anything for sure.

Just thought I’d let you know.

Love,

Jason

According to YouTube user globetrekker2:

true scientists are Christians, all others are a poor excuse for a human. [Source]

K thx!

Did you know that I have a priori commitment to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist, and no evidence anyone presents will ever change my mind?  Neither did I!  But a helpful fundamentalist told me that today, so it has to be true!

Here is what Atheist Central commenter Ephemeral Mortal said in response to my suspicions that he himself had an a priori commitment to creationism:

“Absolutely true, and I make no secret of the fact that have an a priori commitment to the Bible and the belief that God exists and therefore by extension creationism. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “…he who comes to God must believe that He is…” - that means believe that He is before anything else is considered.

But so do you, only you’ll never admit that. You (I mean people who hold to your kind of beliefs) always love to give the impression that you completely objectively examine all the evidence which forces you inevitably to the conclusion that there is no God. You’ve got an a priori commitment to there being no God and all your examination of the evidence is coloured by that commitment. It’s clear to see by the fact that there’s no evidence that will convice you - only that which will fit into your ‘no God’ framework.”

Oh!  Well!  I guess I done learned something new about myself!

Well, this really makes me sad. Five hundred million gallons of coal ash were spilled into the Tennessee River system when a containing wall failed.  I mean, epic failed. According to this Scientific American article, coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste. And there’s five hundred million gallons of it!  That’s 500,000,000 gallons!

But I have a more specific reason for being sad about this.  As soon as I heard about this, I remembered reading that the Tennessee Aquarium  does conservation work on the lake sturgeon Ascipenser fulvescens. Apparently, all the sturgeon in the Tennessee River system today have the Aquarium to thank! I have a tender place in my heart for large freshwater fish.

The spill happened in Kingston, and the Tennessee Aquarium is in Chattanooga.  I looked these cities up on Google maps and found that the Aquarium is about 100 miles downriver from the spill.  But the site where they release the fish is near Knoxville, even closer to the spill, though I’m not sure if it’s upstream or downstream.

Either way, this will cause an assload of environmental damage to an already delicate system.  Fucking fuck.

P.S.  I emailed the Tennessee Aquarium to ask if they knew what kind of impact this might have on the sturgeon, but I got an out of office reply indicating that I might not get a response until after January 5.  When I do, I’ll follow up.

One of Ken Ham’s favorite tactics is to in one breath deny some claim and use that denial to prove the claim.  I know, it doesn’t make sense.  For instance, he might say something like, “Of course we don’t belive that Darwinism caused the Holocaust.  That is absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who thinks we believe that is simply mistaken, or deliberately misrepresenting our position.  What we really believe is that Darwinism caused the Holocuast.”

Yesterday Ken Ham posted a classic example of this kind of stupidity on his blog: in response to Telegraph article about the relatedness of all living human beings. Ken quotes this part of the article:

To get to the universal ancestors (when everyone was the forefather of everybody alive today, or of nobody) we need go back only 5,000 years. Had you entered any village on Earth, the first person you met would, if he or she had heirs, trace their descent straight to you and your partner.

I’m not exactly sure how accurate that can be, since the Australian Aborigines were genetically isolated from everyone else for at least 40,000 years. Perhaps the research doesn’t include the Aborigines, because clearly any common ancestor to all living humans would have had to have lived before the Aborigines were isolated on the continent of Australia.

But that aside, Ken Ham is thrilled about this news!  Here’s what he has to say:

This research certainly doesn’t prove the Bible’s history is true—but it certainly fits with biblical history, thus confirming once again the trustworthy historicity of God’s Word.

Wait, what!??? This research doesn’t prove the Bible’s history, but it definitely proves the Bible’s history! A reasonable person would have said something like, “This research doesn’t prove that the Bible’s history is true, but it does seem to fit with biblical history.” That’s really all you can say about it, if you can even say that much.  In no way does this research confirm “the trustworthy historicity of God’s word”, as even Ken Ham agrees!

Ugh, what a dishonest man.