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Ice Hockey

Well, today the Ducklings won the Stanley Cup. As a southern Californian and loyal Kings fan, I am in mourning. The posers won the cup. This is almost as bad as watching soccer (the worlds most boring sport). How can the Kings management allow this to happen? Let me cry alone.

My World View

I love these tests, because I can manipulate them whatever way I want. But they are fun nevertheless. I was honest with my answers here, and I'm a typical American apparently.

Favorite Quotes from Discussion

I'm just going to add some of my favorite quotes that I've seen on discussion pages, especially in the Evolution vs. Creationism area, but I'll include Hockey or anything else that's amusing.

1. "...one could argue that evolution is not "undirected", in that it is directed by processes like natural selection. It's just not willfully directed." -Silence
2. "Also, what is it with creationists and grammar? Do you think God is bitter over being represented by bad spellers?" -Random Replicator
3. "A POV pusher will always interpret any disagreement to constitute proof the editors in question are members of a cabal."-Addhoc
4. 'This fictitious cabal will obviously possess views directly opposed to the accusing editor, who will be remarkably willing to overlook contrary evidence."-Addhoc
5. 'In this manner nearly every good faith editor will be accused of being a member of entirely contradictory cabals."-Addhoc
6. 'Similarly, good faith editors are frequently accused of being sock puppets, trolls or vandals, very often by user accounts that fulfill these definitions. "-Addhoc
7. Intelligent design is not an evangelic Christian thing or a generally Christian thing or even a generically theistic thing...Intelligent design is an emerging scientific research program. Design theorists attempt to demonstrate its merits fair and square in the scientific world--without appealing to religious authority--William A. Dembski, 2004
8. Any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient...The conceptual soundness of a scientific theory cannot be maintained apart from Christ.--William A Dembski, 1999
9. From Jerry A. Coyne ( Brockman, John (editor) (2006). Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement. Vantage Books. ISBN 9780307277220. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)): Well, which is it? Is intelligent design merely a sophisticated form of biblical creationism, as most biologists claim, or is it science--an alternative to Darwinism that deserves discussion in the science classroom? ...you won't find the answers in the writings of the leading advocates of ID. The ambiguity is deliberate for ID is a theory that must appeal to two distinct constituencies. To the secular public, ID proponents present their theory as pure science. This, after all, is their justification for a slick public-relations campaign promoting the teaching of ID in public schools. But as is clear from the infamous "Wedge Document" of the Discovery Institute, a right-wing think tank in Seattle, and the center for ID propaganda, intelligent design is part of a cunning effort to dethrone materialism from society and science and replace it with theism. ID is simply biblical creationism updated and disguised to sneak evangelical Christianity past the First Amendment and open the classroom door to Jesus. The advocates of ID will admit this, but only to their second constituency, the sympathetic audience of evangelical Christians on whose support they rely.
10. And for the fact that "evolutionist" is considered a pejorative term, because it really is defined as a "belief" in evolution as much as there is a belief in G_d. I don't believe in Evolution, and I don't accept Evolution because of faith, opinion, conviction--I accept Evolution as a fact, because it has been subjected to rigorous scientific analysis, because of the substantial proof, and because a lot of people smarter than I have studied and accepted it. Evolution is not a doctrine, it is not a dogma, and it does not require faith to accept. Therefore, I am a scientist by trade, by education and by lifestyle. Evolutionist means nothing to me, and is not a word that any scientist would use to describe their understanding of that particular field of science. Orangemarlin 14:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
11. We seem to have built a system that accommodates people whose net contribution is negative, while alienating some of our best volunteers...It happens more and more that some loudmouth jackass causes enough trouble that it seems easier to accommodate him. This is short-sighted, and is why the fraction of jerks here is growing. What should we do instead? Keep people who help the project, lose people who do not, and protect each other from harassment. We could do that if we only had to deal with opposition by trolls and vandals. We cannot do it against the opposition of established members of the community."- Tom Harrison
12. I am now officially an Evilutionist. Can't wait to sacrifice some virgins at the altar of Darwin. OrangeMarlin 16:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
13. Intelligent design is intended as a wedge to get materialism out of science and society. But in fact it is a wedge that, if used, will break apart Christian faith even more effectively. Genuine science, on the other hand, does indeed require that we rethink our beliefs, but its effects on faith are far less destructive than those of young-earth creationism and intelligent design. As Pascal famously said, "A little science distances one from God, but a lot brings one back." -- Dr. James F. McGrath, Assistant Professor of Religion, Butler University.

RIP JzG

...it's the whole culture. People seem to delight in process and bending over backwards to give self-evident idiots the benefit of the doubt, to the detriment of people who actually want to improve the encyclopaedia. A couple of tabloid stories is not what I call multiple independent sources, I think that human-interest stories in the press are just about 100% worthless as primary sources for an article and not much use for filler either. I don't have a problem with Jeff, because his focus is pop culture and I know we have a problem with sourcing pop culture articles within policy, and we need people who understand and love pop culture to help us fix that, but all these articles on the cause du jour of less-than-serious newspapers simply do not belong in an encyclopaedia; they have no evident lasting impact or significance. Yet the fact of their being covered in a couple of papers during the slow news season is deemed to be "multiple sources", ignoring of course the fact that all papers have space to fill and shamelessly fill it with whatever tittle-tattle happens to be doing the rounds. Like the erectile dysfunction crap in Rudy Giuliani. Does anybody who is even remotely serious about politics actually give a shit about that? It is pointless nonsense publicised by his detractors in order to belittle him; it's no more significant than someone being bald or short-sighted, undeniably common in men of his age, not in any way a distinguishing feature (hey, you look like Rudy Giuliani, but I'd like to be sure, so if you wouldn't mind...)

In short there are too many idiots and too few people prepared to tell them to fuck off. And yes, that is precisely what we should tell them, because anything less encourages endless debates and Wikilawyering. Want to tell the world that Lance Armstrong takes drugs? Fuck off. At least until he has stopped successfully suing the newspapers for saying it. Want to tell the world about the evil world Jewish conspiracy? Fuck off, forever, and never even think about coming back. Want to tell the world how the scientists are all wrong? Fuck off - until it's in Nature, anyway. Want to out someone as a paedophile? Not here. Want to explain how 9/11 is a conspiracy and no plane crashed into the Pentagon? Web space is cheap, get some of your own.

The real problem, though, which underlies all of this, is that...these people are making me angry and that makes me depressed. I know how people feel when their neighbourhood is vandalised or overrun with beer-swilling louts. The louts may think they own the place, but in the end they don't, and the people who are prepared to put the time, money and effort into building the neighbourhood should get more consideration than those who view it only as a venue for their own selfish pleasure. Misplaced Pages will be a better place when Jonathan Barber grows up, to name but one persistent offender.Guy 19:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)