My First Ballot in PA

It would appear that Operation Chaos worked, as Hillary Rodham Clinton has beaten Barack Hussein Obama in the Democrat Party primary for President here in Pennsylvania, 55%-45%. So we’ll get to see these two candidates continue to bludgeon each other politically for a few more weeks, hooray! Hopefully this chaos lasts right up through the Democrat National Convention in August in Denver. 🙂 I thought about joining the thousands taking part in Operation Chaos, but as the registration deadline approached a month ago, I just couldn’t stomach the thought of voting for Hillary, even for such a noble cause as this. So I stayed registered with the GOP.
Meanwhile, yesterday I voted at a voting booth for the first time ever in my life (in 2002 and 2004 I voted via absentee ballots for the generals, and in 2006 I didn’t know about PA’s 30-day voter registration deadline or WI’s change in voter laws that required everyone to re-register in person), and I cast my ballot for Ron Paul as a protest against John McCain (and as practice for not voting for him in November either, haha). Voter turnout was higher than normal for a primary across the state and in PA-5 because of tight, meaningful races, and when I showed up at my precinct (Borough of State College, South Central 2) at 9am, I was Republican #24, and I saw that they were already up to Democrat #86, which wasn’t unexpected because of the Hillary vs Obamessiah contest. It was interesting watching the election returns come in online last night. That’s really a much better way of doing it in my opinion, then I don’t have to suffer through listening to the repetitive, incessant inanity of the talking heads on the cable news networks.
Speaking of the doom our country faces no matter which of these three clowns gets elected to the presidency (just kidding, calm down), check out this hilarious parody by “The Eschatologians” (about a whole range of end times doctrines, haha) of a Justin Timberlake song at a church variety show in Orlando last year (h/t: Tracy)!

The signs of spring are all around State College these days. Ever since last Thursday when we got to the upper 70s, it seems like every time I walk around I notice more and more buds, leaves and blossoms coming out. It almost seems like it’s happening by the hour (which it is). It’s just so nice to be able to walk around without a jacket anymore. Spring sure feels so good after a long winter! The time for cookouts (not barbecues, I don’t wanna irk my southern friends), picnics and tennis is definitely here! And before you know it, it’ll be time for the church softball season to get underway (in two weeks actually, I think). And it also means the looming end of the semester, which for me means I only have a week left to try to get through as much as I can on my final project for Remote Sensing. I’m so ready for this semester to be over so that I can focus exclusively on my research for the summer.
Monday was a pretty busy day. In the afternoon I took part in a weather forecasting & economics research study that Caren helped to design. Basically, we were given a certain amount of forecast information, and based on that, had to indicate the maximum amount of “experimental dollars” we would be willing to pay for certain shares. The “market price” for the various shares that were pseudo-randomly chosen determined whether or not we bought a share in that temperature range. If the actual high temperature fell in the range for which we owned shares, we earned money. If we owned shares that didn’t verify, we lost money. It was a fun little diversion for a couple hours, and I earned $21 from it. Thanks Caren!
The IM dodgeball playoffs were on Monday night, but unfortunately we were knocked out in the first round. It was a really close, intense, back-and-forth match, and I was able to knock one person out to help our team go up 4-1 before one of my throws was caught. In the end it came down to 1-on-1, with Jeff [Grabon] going up against a really good player from the other team, and that went on for probably close to two minutes, with each taking turns dodging the other’s hard throws, before one of Grabon’s tosses was caught. Sigh. At least we gave it a good run, and showed we belonged in the playoffs. Our quest for an elusive IM block will continue this summer in softball.
Also on Monday night I went with a few people from PSCG to go see Ben Stein’s controversial new movie, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” In this very well-done documentary (click here for a good review), Ben Stein goes on a personal odyssey over the span of two years to find out if scientists who are proponents of intelligent design (ID), or those who even mention it in a neutral light, really are treated fairly in academia. And the answer is a pretty resounding no, as he documents many cases of academics being fired and denied tenure for what they’ve said about ID. Many of the world’s leading Darwinist scientists were also interviewed, including Richard Dawkins (author of such books as “The God Delusion”), and by their pronouncements it was clear the disdain and contempt they hold for anyone who doesn’t toe the “party line” on Darwinism.

Some who protest the movie claim that the Darwinist scientists who were interviewed weren’t told what the documentary was about, but I’ve also read that all the interviewees were given the questions in writing beforehand. Whichever’s true, it really doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t change what they said in response to Ben Stein’s questions when he interviewed them. And what they said, quite frankly, makes them come off as condescending, arrogant, closed-minded and desperate people. Some critics also claim that Stein is equating Darwinism with Naziism. That’s blatantly not true! Stein is very careful to explain in the movie that he doesn’t think that all Darwinists will become Nazis, but documents how foundational Darwinism was to eugenics and Nazi ideology. If Darwinism is taken to its logical philosophical conclusions, eugenics is one of the ugly places where it leads. Some critics also claim that “Expelled” is trying to get creationism and/or ID taught in the schools. That’s blatantly false as well! I don’t know how *anyone* can watch this film and come away with that message. Stein is merely pointing out (repeatedly) that freedom of speech and academic inquiry is being squelched in scientific circles, in that Darwinism is never allowed to be questioned. For the brave souls who do muster the courage to question it, their jobs are in jeopardy and their reputations are smeared. That this can be allowed to happen in a supposedly free country like ours is unconscionable.
In short, “Expelled” is a fantastic movie, and I highly recommend that everyone go see it. I’m probably gonna try to go see it again on Saturday too, assuming it’s still in the theater here for a second week. I can only hope that this eye-opening movie causes more of an open dialogue about these issues in our society and in the academy, because it raises some very “inconvenient” facts (to the scientific establishment, anyway). I probably shouldn’t hold my breath though.