Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Alley Oop Candidate

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

What Palin actually said was "Yes, I have seen images of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them!", a statement consistent with her attempts to put 'creationists' on school boards. By definition, a 'creationist' believes God created the universe in just seven days some 6,000 years ago, a figure that is, we are told, derived by adding up the "begats" in the Old Testament. "Creationism" is consistently said to be the belief that human beings lived contemporary with dinosaurs.
The first piece of evidence that Sarah Palin thinks man and dinosaur walked the earth together has finally emerged.

I don't know "valley activist" Philip Munger," but I do know Salon's David Talbot, so I'm inclined to belief at the very least that the reporting is accurate when Talbot quotes Mr. Munger as follows:
Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board," said Munger, a music composer and teacher. "I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, 'Sarah, how can you believe in creationism --your father's a science teacher." And she said, "We don't have to agree on everything."
"I pushed her on the earth's creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she'd seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them." Sometimes you just wish God, assuming He does exist, would come down and say: "You people are crazy. The idea that a nation of humans is considering electing you to high office frightens and insults Me."
          Micahel Tomaskys's Blog, Guardian UK

Palin has long espoused creationism, a belief that Genesis is a literal history. Creationists believe that human beings lived contemporary with dinosaurs because creation took place over a period of seven days just 6,000 years ago.  The creationist believes that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. And not just in Jurassic park or Alley Oop comic strips.
Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth that had been created just 6,000 years ago --about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct.
After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.
Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.
--Pam's House Blend
The footprints that were said to be human were not. That determination was made in 1989. Claims that human tracks had been fossilized in pre-Tertiary rocks from other localities are not considered credible by ... "mainstream scientists" nor by "major creationist groups". [See: The Paluxy Dinosaur/'Man Track' Controversy, Glen J, Kuban]

Getting at the Truth by Way of Science and Astronomy

Astronomers have recently discovered the most distant object in the universe --the galaxy MACS0647-JD; it is some 13.7 billion light-years distant from us. The light that is now seen from MACS0647-JD most certainly departed that "object" some 13.7 billion years ago. What is significant is that light from this galaxy has been traveling toward Earth for "almost the whole history of space/time".

Now --let's clear up what Matt Damon said about Palin.
I need to know if she really thinks that dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. I want to know that, I really do. Because she's gonna have the nuclear codes.
--Matt Damon, Huffington Post

Matt Damon Slams Palin

It is fairly easy to dismiss the notion that the earth is but 6,000 years old. With nothing more elaborate than a sextant and the geometry known to Eratosthenes, it is possible to calculate the distance to stars much further than 6,000 light years from earth. [See: Goddard Spaceflight Center: Finding Distances to Stars]


Our solar system is located on one of the spiral arms of a galaxy known to us as the Milky Way. In 1923 Edwin Hubble, for whom the space telescope is named, proved that the spectacular Andromeda galaxy was, in fact, the nearest galaxy to Earth at some 2.51 ± 0.13 million light years distant. The Magellanic Clouds, irregular "dwarf galaxies", are closer to Earth --165,000 light years and 195,000 light years respectively.

While Andromeda is our nearest galactic neighbor it is also the most distant object that can still be seen without binoculars or an astronomical telescope. Because it is our nearest galactic neighbor, Andromeda had gotten a lot of attention over the last 100 years. That Andromeda can be seen disproves the creationist belief that the universe (the "firmament", as it is sometimes call) and the Earth within it were all created within a period of seven days about 6,000 years ago.

Light reaching us from Andromeda has been proven to have begun its journey Earthward over 2 million years ago (2.5 million light-years; 2.4×1019 km). Six thousand years is astronomically insignificant. Even 2 million years is a short journey for a universe whose age and size are linked inextricably in an Einsteinian way --the space-time continuum! When we look up into the night sky and see Andromeda, we see it as it was over two million years ago.

Andromeda Galaxy, named for the mythological princess Andromeda, is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. It is the largest galaxy in what is called the "local group" which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies. We see the Magellanic Clouds as they were some 195 thousand years ago. If the Earth were but six thousand years old, the number of stars visible to Earth could be counted on our fingers. It comes down to this: if we can look up at the sky at night and see Andromeda, "creationists" are wrong! We can SEE Andromeda.The Andromeda Galaxy is, as I recall, the most distant "object" that can be seen with the naked eye; merely seeing it disproves Palin, indeed, the entire "creationist" movement!

A reflecting telescope of the type favored by amateur astronomers will reveal even more objects at greater distances. A large earth based observatory reveals many more objects more distant yet. Images from our orbiting cameras are stunning --a vast star field in which almost every object is a galaxy and all of them are much, much more distant than Andromeda. Any one of them disproves Palin and her anti-science, pro-ignorant, pro-stupid sponsors.

Recently MACS0647-JD was discovered. It may be the farthest known galaxy from Earth at some 13.7 billion light-years distant! Scientists believe that this is the very inception of our universe. That we can see it proves that the light seen has --at last --arrived at the end of its voyage begun some 13.7 billion years ago. Ergo: the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. That is considerably older than a mere 6,000 years. There is no "room" in Palin's young (and tiny) universe for time/distance so vast, so ancient, so awe-inspiring.


6 comments:

tiago said...

Len;
After reading of Palin’s remarks, I’m still undecided of what to do about her. On the one hand, I believe her mouth will sink her stupid ass and if her remarks are attacked, people will close ranks with her, because she is cute, has naturally curly hair, and the under dog being picked on. And on the other, a person can’t just ignore her stupidity. (So many still excuse George’s stupidity.)
You say;
… “thus: the creationist believes that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. And not just in Jurassic park or Alley Oop comic strips.”
Palin just may believe the Flintstones to be a documentary.
What I read was not that she had seen human foot prints in dinosaur foot prints, but that 'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch', Palin-tology and the threat to science teaching by George Smith, Dick Destiny on 26 September 2008, in the UK Register. Perhaps the Register is a tabloid and needs such lurid headlines, but it got my attention and the article isn’t to bad either.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/palin_science_creationism/

You seem to be able to give me good information and I’m hoping you can on this one. It is an article in Dawn, A Pakistani newspaper. The headline reads; ‘US cites laws, UN Charter to justify Fata raids by Anwar Iqbal’.
Two paragraphs have me thinking I’m pretty ignorant.
“WASHINGTON, Sept 29: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says that international laws allow the United States to take unilateral actions inside Pakistan.”
and …
“At the Senate panel hearing, Mr Gates agreed with Democratic Senator Jim Webb who had told him that the United Nations Charter — under which the US operates in Afghanistan — gave the US the right of self-defence where a foreign government was either unable or unwilling to take care of international terrorist activity inside its borders.”
What ‘international law’ allows the United States to enter another country and kill it’s citizens, or people that take refuge there for that matter?
And, I thought the UN Charter allowed a country to attack another in case of imminent attack, only. And, what I understand, of the operations in Afghanistan are by NATO, with the US having separate command and territorial responsibilities and not really under NATO.
I can’t really believe Gates in the first place. He carries water for this administration and one their requirements is to be a prolific liar. Second, how can I trust thIS ex-CIA agent, (if he has actually left that Agency)?
And Jim Webb???? - yech

Anonymous said...

"The first piece of evidence that Sarah Palin thinks man and dinosaur walked the earth together has finally emerged" - LH

Sadly, that stuff is the least offensive, or dangerous tenants concerning many of the aspects of that belief system. There are several u-tube clips of the goings on at Palin's church, it is all scary stuff, and as with other evangelical units, political power is constantly obsessed over. I have no problem with people wanting to believe this hooey (I think it is unfortunate, but under our constitution, it is one's right) As I was saying, it is there choice...but when it comes into conflict with the principles of our constitutional system of governance, that is where the problems start.

I sure miss the old days when people with these extreme belief systems were delegated to reside well in the background, certainly where they belong, if in fact they insist on injecting their religious dogmas into other citizen's space. It is of course not a good sign that this "Christianist" tribe has such main stream dominance now. I do believe some of it is a fad, or certainly represents an artificial or inflated front, but on the other hand there is no denying a proliferation in numbers and power these last few decades has occured.

At the end of the day these people represent just another version of the religious and political extremism that seems to have ratcheted up on a global scale these past 50 years mol., and the one thing they all have in common: IGNORANCE. Just as other historical patterns of regressive religious impacts have shown, once engaged, much human suffering will be produced until the "cycle" runs it's course.

benmerc

hANOVER fIST said...

At the risk of being ballsack-tasered to death by her Gestapo if these scumbags steal yet another election, I'm going on the record here that Sarah "Flintstones" Palin is BUG NUTS.

Unknown said...

Never one to blame 'society' for individual screw ups, I will venture this: in a SANE society, Sarah Palin would be considered CERTIFIABLY PSYCHOTIC!

And that, I believe, is a precisely what she is, or --as you put it so aptly: BUG NUTS

Then again, most of the folk in the GOP are BUG NUTS. That the party is largely psychotic (certifiably) is probably what attracts them to it. Nutty fuckers find comfort in numbers.

Anonymous said...

Drawings of dinosaurs have been found in caves of early man ...archeologists have been wrong about the timeline of dinosaurs and "cavemen" for years.
Palin may just know what she's talking about.

Unknown said...

Anonymous said...

Drawings of dinosaurs have been found in caves of early man ...archeologists have been wrong about the timeline of dinosaurs and "cavemen" for years.
Palin may just know what she's talking about.


LOL LOL LOL LOL

That is the STUPIDEST, the most IGNORANT thing I have yet seen any PAID SHILL post on this blog. I would have deleted this crock o crap but needed a good laugh.

The paid shills are out in force of late. But at a NICKEL a post, they are OVER PAID!