I have now completely changed my mind. With this whole Sarah Palin thing, McCain has shown that he is clearly chaotic and dangerous. He should not be in charge of a country which has so very much at stake. America has a chance to step out of the darkness, a chance to wake-up, a chance to join this wonderful world we live in. This will NOT happen with McCain in the White House. If he puts so very little thought into who he chooses as his running mate – the person who could end up being the Vice President of the country for 4 whole years- what amount of contemplation will go into, say, starting another bloody war?

It’s clear now that the McCain camp more-or-less tossed a coin when it came to choosing a Vice-Presidential running mate. McCain spoke to her once on the phone and once in person the day he offered her the job.

“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday.”

She had ALREADY been given a lengthy questionnaire which asked for information on ‘personal matters’, but she didn’t feel it appropriate to mention that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant in that questionnaire. She waited until Wednesday, the day before they offered her the job, to let them know that. She had informed them about her husband’s DUI and McCain aides say they had already found out about the ethics investigation she’s under in Alaska (you’d think the Republicans would have had enough of those for a while).

One of McCain’s advisors said, clearly using this week’s Acceptable Republican Terminology (in italics): “We made a political determination that the American people would not object to a female candidate with a 17-year-old daughter who was pregnant. We believed that parents all over America would understand that life happens (my emphasis). The team made a recommendation to the senator that these issues were not disqualifying.”

“Life happens”. Hmmmm. Now, in normal language that would read “mistakes happen”. You know, the condom breaks, she forgot to take a Pill, he didn’t pull out in time, they weren’t given adequate sex education to understand how to prevent themselves from getting pregnant, their parents either never talked to them about birth control or forbade them from using it. You know, those kinds of mistakes.

BUT… because last spring when Obama used the word ‘mistake’ when talking about sex education the Republican Machine took the quote out of context and said that he was talking about abortion. Well, of course, they can’t use the word ‘mistake’… so what do they do instead? Use a completely ridiculous sounding sentence- “America would understand that life happens” (when you’re busy making other plans) – with that good ole Manchurian Candidate-like trigger word ‘LIFE’ which wakes up this crowd of Bible-thumping zombies hiding out in the backwoods.

Speaking of Bible-thumping zombies, this is Sarah Palin at her church. it’s about 14 minutes long, if you don’t have the time to watch it all, let me just tell you that at one point she says that she thinks the War in Iraq is ‘God’s will’ and that God wants drilling for oil in Alaska’s 20 million acre wildlife refuge. Seriously.

Artwork by Derek Chatwood

Today’s date written according to the Mayan calendar

The Maya’s sacred book, the Popol Vuh, explains the creation of the Universe – with all the usual gods and goddesses, a Plumed Serpent and a Flood. According to their beliefs, Creation happened after Tepeu, the Sky God, and Gukumatz, the Plumed Serpent (or plain old Snake God, depending on which interpretation you follow) decided that they needed to be worshipped. Why is it that these all-powerful beings are always so damned insecure? Anyway, it took the Maya Creation Gods several attempts to create Human Beings who would worship them (a bit like God’s first attempt at creating Woman). First, they created animals who didn’t worship them, so they banished them to the forest. Next, they created Man out of mud, but soon they just washed away (there’s a lesson for you, Yaweh). Next, they created Man out of wood, but they were pretty rubbish at ‘worshipping’ so the Gods got angry and Flooded the place to get rid of them. Finally, Worshipful Man was made out of Maize.

The Maya used several calendars simultaneously – one was 13 days long, another was 20 days long, they had one which covered 260 days and another covering 365 days. They even had calendars covering much longer periods of Time. One of these called the ‘Long Count’, and is a continuous record of days from the ‘Zero date’ beginning of the Worshipful Man- which according to the Maya’s detailed calendars happened at Long Count 0.0.0.0.0. This date is thought to correspond to August 12th or 13th, 3114 BCE in the Gregorian calendar. According to the Maya, the current Long Count will finish on 13.0.0.0.0 or on the 21st or 23rd of December 2012 CE.

The alautun: The Maya’s longest named period of Time representing approximately 63 million years.

Some people – whacky New Agers and many people who should know better – have taken this to mean that the world will end. The fact that the end of the Mayan Long count ends on or near the Winter Solstice adds much more significance to people who seem to think there’s some kind of ‘supernatural magic’ in the revolution of the Earth around the Sun.

What I can’t understand is why people think the Maya had more of an ability to see into the future than any one else. The Unarians thought aliens would invade Earth in 2001. Didn’t happen. The Concerned Christians cult believed an earthquake would wipe Denver off the map in 1998. Didn’t happen. The Third Reich was supposed to have lasted 1,000 years. Didn’t happen…

Or why not believe the Lord’s Witnesses who believe the world will end on the 21st of March this year? Some guy named Harold Camping has written a book which clearly states that the Bible predicts the end of the world to be in 2011. Why not believe him? Why not believe that the end of the world will happen sometime between the first of March and the first of April THIS YEAR, when the world’s population reaches 6.66 billion??!

When it’s pointed out to believers in Mayan prophecy that they sound ‘whacky’ they will often say, ‘It won’t be the end of the whole world, just a monumental change!’ I’d say that there have have been all kinds of monumental changes recently – the discovery of penecillin was pretty world changing. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was pretty monumental. The Moon landings were one small step off our planet for the very first time. I’d say that changed things pretty significantly. Hell, even Live Aid changed the way we think about the less fortunate in the world!

Between the end of the Mayan civilization and now there have been HUNDREDS of massively monumental changes- wars, disasters, famines which have wiped out millions upon millions of people… still the world goes on and those events purely become our history. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why would the Mayan calendar have any more significance than this graphic from the Long Now Foundation?

Do you think in just under 8,000 years from now some people will find this and predict the “end of the world” in the year 12,000 CE because of the “mysteries of the Long Now chart”? Think scholars will talk about how the Long Now believed the beginning of Our Time was 8,000 BCE and that the world would end after 20,000 years? Why wouldn’t they? It states that pretty clearly, doesn’t it?

I’m afraid that anyone who believes there is any deep significance in Mayan Prophecy is quite clearly incapable of finding joy and wonder in the real world and instead insists on creating stories which are based on fear, negativity, insecurity and self-loathing. Seriously, you can’t predict the end of the world *and* love Yourself, Humanity and the Universe, can you?

Sad really.

(Note: I must thank Adrian Pegg for inspiring the title of this post. :)

**EDIT** 31.08.08
Here is my husband talking about this whilst filming his new documentary on Time.

**Update** 1 May 2009
I am closing comments on this post now. I am 4 weeks away from having my baby and I really can’t be bothered deleting any more of the idiocy that people are posting in the comments. I’ve no time for dumb people right now. Sorry. Find somewhere else to spread your silly thoughts. Thanks!

Now some other ignorant shit tries to use a jar of peanut butter to disprove evolution.

But here is where it starts to get strange and makes me think that maybe, just maybe these fuckwits are on to something…

Guess who loved fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches… Go on… Yep. The King, Elvis Presley. Yes. It’s true.

Who else was ‘The King’? Jesus, of course. The King of Israel. The coincidences get stranger…

• Jesus said “Love thy neighbor.” Elvis said “Don’t be cruel.”
• Jesus was part of the Trinity. Elvis’ first band was a trio.
• Jesus walked on water. Elvis surfed (Blue Hawaii, 1965).
• Jesus was resurrected. Elvis had the famous 1968 “Comeback” TV special.
• Jesus said “If a man thirst, let him come to me, and drink.” (John 7:37). Elvis said “Drinks on me” (Jail House Rock, 1957).
• Jesus is a Capricorn (Dec 25). Elvis is a Capricorn (Jan8).
• “Jesus’ countenance…like lightning…raiment snow white.” (Matthew 28:3) Elvis wore snow white jumpsuits with lightning bolts.

So basically, Elvis was Jesus cos of all them things they had in common, like, AND cos he was tryin to tell us that evolution was all a buncha hockum cos uh them thar peanut butter n banana sandwiches… n stuff.

It’s so clear to me now. Evolution is wrong. Eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

There’s more Jesus & Elvis comparisons in this book…

But. But. But.

He was resurrected! It says so in that book! I mean… This will just confuse things enormously.

In surveys conducted in 2005, people in the United States and 32 European countries were asked whether to respond ”true,” ”false” or ”not sure” to this statement: ”Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.” The same question was posed to Japanese adults in 2001.

The United States had the second-highest percentage of adults who said the statement was false and the second-lowest percentage who said the statement was true, researchers reported in the current issue of Science.

Only adults in Turkey expressed more doubts on evolution. In Iceland, 85 percent agreed with the statement.”

Thanks to the ever lovely Bob Z…

Why then would this God tell different people different things?

He tells the Jews they are His chosen people. He gives the Christians His son to die for their sins. He tells the Muslims to establish His kingdom on Earth. He says ‘Thou shalt not kill’ to Moses, but then has Mohammed proclaim, ‘The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer…’

An omnipotent and omniscient being who created the Universe exists out of Space and Time (and, of course, SpaceTime). 1000BC, 30AD, 2006CE, ‘last week’ have no meaning to Him. The creator of the Universe exists at all Times and throughout all Space. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and the End.

The word of God is the ‘Word of God’. The Creator of the Universe is perfect and cannot make mistakes. Clearly then what information he possess is correct at the first moment he reveals it to His Creation. He can’t ‘change His mind’.

The Torah, the Bible and the Koran are clearly all imperfect. One book says ‘An eye for an eye’, another says, ‘Turn the other cheek’. One book says that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, was crucified and ascended to Heaven, another says that he was a prophet, *wasn’t* killed, yet ascended to Heaven alive. One book says that Christ is the end of the law for everyone who believes, then 600 years later someone else comes along who’s actually ‘the final prophet’. One book says that anyone who believes in the Koran, the Torah and Jesus, and ‘work righteousness’, shall have their reward with the Lord, later on the same book says ‘slay them (the infidels) wherever you catch them.’

Now either God has made mistakes which, if I believed in Him, I’d think was pretty damned unacceptable and I’d be seeking some kind of investigation into His suitability as Ultimate Power Over The Universe and might even urge for an impeachment process to begin immediately OR, as is actually the case, all of those books were written by *humans* who, as is obvious to all, are capable of extreme error (look at Hitler, Milosevic, Saddam and Paul McCartney’s post-Wings career for some examples of this).

At what point are people of all religions going to understand that they can’t use their belief in the infallibility of *their* god as a justification for behaving badly against other human beings? At what point are they going to take responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming some made-up deity? At what point are religious people going to wake up and realise that they are wasting their one and only life on a fantasy world? At what point are they going to accept that they are wrong?

I’m fed up with them all.

In the past day I have read people who have said that Global Warming isn’t happening, it’s just that the Sun is getting hotter because we only have a few more centuries left until it dies. Someone who tried to say that electrons orbiting an atom [sic] look exactly like stars orbiting the centre of a galaxy, so God must have created it. And someone, an American, an English speaker who said, “What you stupied fuck!!! The linement of the earth to the sun… Gobal warning moves the earth… Moving the Eqarer… Moving up to American’s and droping to the point of Afirica… Idoit… Look it up…”

I don’t know what that means either.

I also had someone get in touch asking to read all of my posts about Dumbgirl. It made me miss arguing with the idiots.

I’ve got a press release from the Royal Society which isn’t supposed to go out for another two and a half hours. So, do I think of myself as a professional member of the media or a blogger? In other words, do I not tell anyone about the contents until 3pm or do I ‘blog’ it now? Wait! I almost forgot. I’m a professional blogger. It’s my duty to ignore tradmedia rules.

Still, I won’t publish it all, just the highlights.

“The Royal Society and 66 other national science academies today (21 June 2006) endorsed a statement urging parents and teachers to provide children with the facts about the origins and evolution of life on Earth.

The statement was drafted by members of the Inter Academy Panel on International Issues (IAP)…”.

The statement starts:

“We, the undersigned Academies of Sciences, have learned that in various parts of the world, within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data, and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied, or confused with theories not testable by science. We urge decision makers, teachers, and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature. Knowledge of the natural world in which they live empowers people to meet human needs and protect the planet.”

There are 67 signatories to the statement:

Albanian Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Argentina
Australian Academy of Science
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Bangladesh Academy of Sciences
The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium
Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada
Academia Chilena de Ciencias
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Academia Sinica, China, Taiwan
Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences
Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences
Cuban Academy of Sciences
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt
Académie des Sciences, France
Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities
The Academy of Athens, Greece
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Indian National Science Academy
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Royal Irish Academy
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
Science Council of Japan
Kenya National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic
Latvian Academy of Sciences
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences
Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Academia Mexicana de Ciencias
Mongolian Academy of Sciences
Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Nigerian Academy of Sciences
Pakistan Academy of Sciences
Palestine Academy for Science and Technology
Academia Nacional de Ciencias del Peru
National Academy of Science and Technology, The Philippines
Polish Academy of Sciences
Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Singapore National Academy of Sciences
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Academy of Science of South Africa
Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain
National Academy of Sciences, Sri Lanka
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Council of the Swiss Scientific Academies
Academy of Sciences, Republic of Tajikistan
The Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Turkish Academy of Sciences
The Uganda National Academy of Sciences
The Royal Society, UK
US National Academy of Sciences
Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences
Academia de Ciencias Físicas, Matemáticas y Naturales de Venezuela
Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences
African Academy of Sciences

That’s a lot of people who think Creationists are idiots.

After 3 PM I will publish the whole press release.