Logically Sound

Mr. DeLay, the Texas Republican who had been the House majority leader, crowed that he had been "found innocent." But many of Mr. DeLay's actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them.

-- New York Times editorial on the Justice Department's decision to drop its investigation of Tom DeLay

Who can contest such insightful logic?

"This blog is only active because Google has yet to shut it down."

"The only reason we're out of milk is because someone drank it all."

"Obama is president merely because the Electoral College voted for him."

(H/T Michael Flynn)

Logic Problem of the Day/Week/Month

Proving once again that Futurama is the best adult-oriented cartoon on TV. Family Guy has never required more than two brain cells to enjoy. Actually, the more you have, the less enjoyable it is.

This problem comes from last week's episode of Futurama, which is actually one of my favorite episodes of all time. Professor Farnsworth has invented a body swapping device that swaps two peoples minds into each other's bodies. He and Amy Wong initially use it, so that Amy can eat as much as she wants without ruining her figure, and the Professor can enjoy a youthful body.

Neither of them is satisfied with the swap, however. Farnsworth's aging body's colon and teeth don't satisfy Amy's gluttony, and Amy's body is just too weak for the Professor. They try to swap back, but as they discover, once two bodies have been swapped, those same two bodies can never be swapped with each other again. Bender, who needs accomplices to steal the crown jewels from the Robo-Hungarian Prince, talks the Professor (who is occupying Amy's body) into body-swapping with him.

Meanwhile, Leela sees Amy in Farnsworth's body complaining about her inability to enjoy food. Leela complains about expensive movie tickets, so Amy convinces Leela to swap, so Leela can get a senior discount at the theater.

Meanwhile, Bender uses Amy's body to attempt to seduce the guards of the crown jewels. When it doesn't work, and he finds himself face-to-face with the Robo-Hungarian Prince, he convinces the Prince that he's actually just a lowly bending robot. The Prince, tired of his pampered life, thinks it would be all in good fun to switch bodies with a lowly commoner robot for a day. Bender rushes him back to Planet Express to swap into his Bending body, so he can have the Prince's body, rich life, and (most importantly) hot robo-fiancée.

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Oddly Relevant

Can you guess the author of the piece and the year it was written?

There is one view very common among the liberal-minded which is exceedingly fatiguing to the clear-headed. It is symbolised in the sort of man who says, "These ruthless bigots will refuse to bury me in consecrated ground, because I have always refused to be baptised." A clear-headed person can easily conceive his point of view, in so far as he happens to think that baptism does not matter. But the clear-headed will be completely puzzled when they ask themselves why, if he thinks that baptism does not matter, he should think that burial does matter. If it is in no way imprudent for a man to keep himself from a consecrated font, how can it be inhuman for other people to keep him from a consecrated field? It is surely much nearer to mere superstition to attach importance to what is done to a dead body than to a live baby. I can understand a man thinking both superstitious, or both sacred; but I cannot see why he should grumble that other people do not give him as sanctities what he regards as superstitions. He is merely complaining of being treated as what he declares himself to be. It is as if a man were to say, "My persecutors still refuse to make me king, out of mere malice because I am a strict republican." Or it is as if he said, "These heartless brutes are so prejudiced against a teetotaler, that they won't even give him a glass of brandy." 

The fashion of divorce would not be a modern fashion if it were not full of this touching fallacy. A great deal of it might be summed up as a most illogical and fanatical appetite for getting married in churches. It is as if a man should practice polygamy out of sheer greed for wedding cake. Or it is as if he provided his household with new shoes, entirely by having them thrown after the wedding carriage when he went off with a new wife. There are other ways of procuring cake or purchasing shoes; and there are other ways of setting up a human establishment. What is unreasonable is the request which the modern man really makes of the religious institutions of his fathers. The modern man wants to buy one shoe without the other; to obtain one half of a supernatural revelation without the other. The modern man wants to eat his wedding cake and have it, too.

Give up? Highlight to read: G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce, 1920.

It is stunning how relevant the piece still is if you simply replace "divorce" with "same-sex marriage".

ComicCon 2010

Can you identify the following people?
Answers below each picture. Highlight to read.

Grand Admiral Thrawn (with ysalimir)

Professor Alistor "Mad-Eye" Moody

The White Queen, Mad Hatter, and Red Queen

Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama.

Maurice LaMarche, voice of The Brain from Pinky and the Brain; Kif Kroker, Morbo, Calculon, Lrrr, Hedonismbot, and other additional voices from Futurama. Phil LaMarr, voice of Hermes Conrad. John DiMaggio, voice of Bender, Elzar, and others. Billy West, voice of Philip J. Fry, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Zoidberg, Zap Brannigan, and others.

John DiMaggio. Billy West. Katey Sagal, voice of Leela. Lauren Tom, voice of Amy Wong and Inez Wong. David X. Cohen, co-creator of Futurama.

Scott Rosenbaum, writer/executive producer for "V". Charles Mesure, Kyle Hobbes on "V". Joel Gretsch, Father Jack Landry on "V". Logan Huffman, Tyler Evans on "V". Elizabeth Mitchell, Erica Evans on "V". 

Morena Baccarin, Anna on "V", Inara on "Firefly", and Adria in "Stargate". Scott Wolf, Chad Decker on "V". Laura Vandervoort, Lisa on "V". Morris Chestnut, Ryan Nichols on "V". Steve Pearlman, executive producer on "V".

Kari Byron, Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman.

Tory Belleci, Kari Byron, Adam Savage. (Not pictures: Grant Imahara.)

A Pair of Deuces, Revisited. Part II: Marriage

Part of the ongoing conversation.

Devin says: "Same-sex marriage is not asking for special recognition to gay relationships. It is simply asking for them to be seen as equal. At this junction, we have a separate but equal idea of marriage in this country. This has been the case throughout history whenever social issues have come to the forefront. When interracial marriage was introduced, it was seen as the bane of people's existence."

This seems to be a favorite line of reasoning of the proponents of gay "marriage", that of comparing it to racial inequality. Frankly, I just don't see the comparison.

Under the proposition that "all men are created equal" (and remember that is the gender-neutral definition of the word man, since context does not require it to refer to males-only)—a proposition unique to Christendom, I might add—racist actions are contrary to truth. Treating people as unequal contradicts this idea known through reason.

But the debate over gay "marriage" isn't about whom, it's about what. It's not about equality of persons, it's about equality of relationships. I have never heard it proposed that "all relationships are created equal," and to do so would be absurd. No one would (or could) argue that the relationship I have with my cat is equal to the one I have with my son, which in turn is not equal to the one I have with my wife, or the one I have with God. Each one of these relationships is different, unique, and inherently unequal.

So in order to justify gay "marriage" as an equality battle, one first has to demonstrate, contrary to common sense and empirical evidence, that homosexual relationships are equal or equivalent to heterosexual ones. Lest we forget how they differ, there is this. In order for a homosexual relationship to be equal, they would have to be capable of producing, at least in principle, something of equal value to a human life.

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A Pair of Deuces, Revisited. Part I: Abortion

I put on my robe and John C. Wright hat.


Devin has responded to my arguments that marriage does not apply to homosexual relationships. She has done so in more words than I used to make the original post. Her comment warrants a more detailed reply than what will fit in a combox, so I will dedicate two posts to it. This, the first post, deals with the first part of her reply, about the seemingly-unrelated topic of abortion. It is actually somewhat appropriate considering there is a direct and strong link between homosexual "marriage" and abortion, which I will talk about later.

Devin linked to a video from NARAL where several women spoke of alleged misinformation given to them at an unnamed "Virginia Crisis Pregnancy Center". I watched the video, and my first response was the word most commonly written in red ink on my history papers by Miss Smyth, my high school history teacher: "evidence". I.e., the lack thereof. Unlike the video I linked, which shows the statements of a nurse in a Planned Parenthood clinic giving false information to a patient, the NARAL video consists only of a series of women stating things which allegedly they were told at an unnamed crisis pregnancy center, like neighbors gossiping over the fence. No context is given for these statements. We are not told who made them, if they were in printed materials, if they were spoken, what the context was, if they represent the view of one recently-hired nurse or the director of the center. We are not told the affiliation of the center, if it was run by a major national pro-life organization or out of someone's garage. All those details are left to the viewers imagination to encourage us, I guess, to assume the worst.

For these reasons alone, I could dismiss the entire video as uninformative and unhelpful, but I will address the allegations point by point.

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Blizzard Story Writing Cheat Sheet

Circle one option from each selection:

(Warcraft III/StarCraft) is a game about a (Elf Ranger/Human Ghost) named (Sylvanas Windrunner/Sarah Kerrigan). She was instrumental in defending her home of (Quel'Thalas/Tarsonis) against an invading swarm of mindless monsters called the (Scourge/Zerg), who covered the land in (blight/creep). While valiantly fighting against impossible odds to stop the relentless onslaught, she was betrayed by (Arthas Menethil/Arcturus Mengsk) and turned into the (Banshee Queen/Queen of Blades), a mindless servant of the (Scourge/Zerg).

In the expansion pack, (Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne/StarCraft: Broodwar), (Arthas/the Overmind), the evil force controlling (Sylvanas/Kerrigan), is (weakened/killed) allowing her to regain her free will and take control of the (Forsaken/Zerg).

A Pair of Deuces

It is always interesting and enlightening when your opponent tips his hand or reveals his next play. Even if it shows something you had already guessed, there is a satisfaction that comes from knowing that your guess is right.

For instance, when Planned Parenthood is caught repeatedly lying to and deceiving women, they have tipped their hand. It becomes clear that what we guessed—that they do not care about the wellbeing of women and are only in it for the money—is true. Similarly, yesterday's decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, and the arguments surrounding it, tip the hand and show their motivations.

In this case, what tips the hand is not just what is said, but also what is not said: I still have not heard from any gay "marriage" advocate why a government ought to grant special recognition to gay relationships. Instead, the argument seems to be, "well, heterosexuals get marriage licenses, so we should to." This is an argument with the maturity of a two year old.

Lest we forget, remember that gays are not banned from getting married. Any two men could go to Vegas and profess their undying love for eternity—or at least the next seven to 15 years—in front of their friends, family, or loved ones. This isn't merely about marriage as a social institution. This is about marriage as a government-sanctioned relationship. And that's the case that I've never heard made.

To me, gay "marriage" seems kind of like a male tampon. What's the point? If the point of marriage is to encourage through law the just and proper use of the sexual facilities so that children grow up with their parents and women are not abandoned by deadbeat dads, why do those whose sexual acts cannot result in children need these same legal encouragements? But I suppose our society has drifted away from that notion of marriage. Marriage is just something you do to make you feel good. And feeling good is so important that now, apparently, we have a fundamental unenumerated right to a marriage license.

The usual arguments for why government ought to recognize gay "marriage" tend to invoke things such as hospital visitation rights or power of attorney. These arguments fall flat once you realize that all 50 states already grant hospital visitation rights with a simple legal document. And power of attorney can be granted to anyone, not just a spouse, again with a legal document. In fact, the state of California already grants gay couples all the same benefits as married heterosexual couples. They already have everything except the title.

Which is what tips the hand. Gay "marriage" isn't about equality, it's about approval.

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A handy comparison

Might as well just slit my wrists.

Science Fiction author, historian, and statistician Michael Flynn linked a website that will tell you who you write like. I decided to test it out.

For the test, I used the first scene from Father Max, because it is some of my latest work and I figure it is the most representative sample.

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Sucks to be me.

And there goes my aspirations of ever being a writer, going down in flames before ever getting off the ground.

Ok, let's try the first scene of Jack Flint: Space Pirate. It is rubbish and desperately needs revision, but, come on, it's hard to get worse than Dan Brown.

I write like
Robert Louis Stevenson

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I'll take that. Probably because of all the pirate slang.

Hm. We need a tie-breaker. How about the first scene from my unfinished Star Trek fanfic?

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

But he's not just any talentless hack. He's a best-selling millionaire talentless hack, proving once again that it's better to be rich than to be good.

Well, it's pretty definitive. I might as well just slit my wrists. No point in ever writing another