Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Photo by GERARD JULIEN / AFP) Tomorrow, July 27th, I will be deactivating (or deleting) my Facebook account. If I actually know you in real life, I'm not dead, or even sick. I'm just fed up with Facebook. I'm sick of having Big Brother "fact check" posts with a liberal bias. I'm tired of wondering how in the hell Mark Zuckerberg knows I went to Ireland in 1998 (true) but think I got married to my wife when we became "friends" on Facebook (false). If you are one of my friends on that social media platform, there is a decent chance I'll miss you. Of the thousand-plus connections I'll be severing tomorrow there are a handful of people with whom I communicate on almost a daily basis that have made this decision more difficult than it should be. Some of my favorite connections on Facebook such as Jon, George, Paul, and Remo are people I've never actually met in person, but feel like I've known them forever. Most of the people with whom I'm connected through Facebook are kindred spirits, and I will truly miss them. I would hope that some might decide to continue our connection by subscribing to my website at www.southernprose.com, where I intend to be posting new material and my opinions on a more regular basis. If we lose touch, I will feel a sense of loss and miss them. But I have a lot of work that needs to get done, and when I'm not having a great time joking around with my social media friends or discussing our common interests, I'm wasting valuable time engaged in stupid arguments with complete idiots. I don't necessarily … [Read more...]
An obligation to Al Gore
Chicken Little According to Nathan Rott at NPR, we all owe Al Gore an apology because there has been severe flooding in Arkansas, and of course that must mean catastrophic climate change is true. After all, our intrepid reporter conducted a scientific poll of nearly two dozen people in Oklahoma and Arkansas (that's twenty-four, for those of you living in Alabama, Tennessee, or Rio Linda) and all of them said they agreed the climate is changing, so that makes it unanimous, right? The general gist of the story by Mr. Rott at NPR is that Al Gore has always been right, and anyone who doubted him about the reality of the threat from CO2 to our planet should be ashamed of themselves, and owes Mr. Gore an apology. Fat chance. There's a snowball's chance in hell Mr. Gore would ever get an apology from me for my past criticisms. His ego has surely been stroked by honorary doctorates, an onstage appearance at the Oscars, and even a little slice of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Yet none of his most dire predictions have come true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXinJIvpPOo There's a problem when a "journalist" tries to reshape facts to fit a certain narrative--other facts must be omitted. In his article, Mr. Rott tried to use emotional reactions and cherrypicked anecdotes instead of facts and statistics as the foundation for his argument. Why has it recently flooded in Arkansas? Could the floods have anything to do with record late snowfall this past spring? No one can look at images of destruction from floods, earthquakes, tornados, or other natural disasters and … [Read more...]
Putrid politics
Candace Owens (Photo: Zach Gibson/Getty Images) I tend to think of myself as an American, not a Republican, Democrat, or Independent. I don't give either political party anything except my vote, and even then I never vote for the political party. I have always voted for the candidate and his or her platform, not the donkey or the elephant. That was then; this is now. The cesspool known as Washington, D. C. has become so putrid that the stench permeates all the way down here to the outskirts of Atlanta. Smells just like a septic tank. So without further ado, here are my top seven reasons why I won't be voting for any candidate in 2020 with a "D" behind their name, not even for garbage collector: Number 7: Representative Rashida Tlaib was reported as saying that thinking about the Holocaust gave her a “calming feeling.” Just think about that. Six million men, women, and children were murdered only because they were Jews. Rather than apologizing for any confusion her words might have caused, Tlaib accused her critics of being anti-Muslim and claimed her words had been taken out of context. Tlaib is also famous for shouting “We’re going to impeach the mother******!” in reference to President Trump at a public event held in her honor. Frankly, she's an embarrassment to Congress, or she would be if Democrats ever experienced any emotions resembling pride or shame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlkOLEQqo7Y Number 6: Jerry Nadler demonstrates remarkably poor table manners while accusing Attorney General William Barr of committing perjury in his … [Read more...]
Quantum memories
Michaela Chatterjee A pleasant family vacation ended abruptly with an unpleasant outcome for seventeen-year-old Michaela (Roser) Chatterjee. In the blink of an eye, a relaxing drive back home turned into a horrific car accident, followed by the chaotic scramble of a life flight via helicopter to emergency surgery. Another driver had panicked at the sight of oncoming traffic while trying to pass on a hill and smashed into the family vehicle, forcing them under the trailer of an eighteen wheeler. Three medical evacuation helicopters and five ambulances were called to the scene. Michaela’s injuries were by far the most serious. Her facial wounds looked particularly gruesome. A deep laceration extended across her forehead and ripped into her right eyelid, exposing two inches of skull and her eyeball. Her bicep was completely severed when her left arm smashed through the rear windshield. As a result, Michaela had gone into shock. The force of impact had been so great that she suffered a diffuse axonal injury to her brain, meaning her brain literally sheared and twisted inside her cranium, creating a blood clot. Fortunately for Michaela, the accident occurred only two miles from the personal residence of emergency room physician Scott Magley. He arrived at the scene and began administering first aid. Michaela flat lined on the flight to the hospital despite Dr. Magley’s best efforts to save her. Michaela was so badly injured that Dr. Magley was able to intubate her without anesthesia. Due to the severity of her brain injury, she remained … [Read more...]
A Universe from Nothing
Not long ago I was having a conversation with an atheist acquaintance on social media about the origin of the universe and my friend suggested "nobody" believes there was ever a time when literally nothing existed. Naturally, my response was something along the lines of "Oh, really?" and I posted the Amazon link to physicist Lawrence Krauss' book A Universe From Nothing, the title of which would seem to refute his claim. photo by REUTERS/Leah Millis Curiously, he asked if I'd read the book (as if I'm in the habit of recommending books I didn't write nor haven't read). I didn't bother explaining that I'd first read the book approximately six years ago and had written a review published as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner for the now-defunct Examiner.com website. I briefly entertained the idea of simply republishing the original article here at my website, but that review seemed dated, so I decided not to re-post it. Then, out of the blue, another atheist acquaintance in yet another "discussion" forum posted the link to another six-year-old review of Krauss' book by David Albert, returning it to the forefront of my mind. Which brings us here. Technically speaking, my atheist friend's argument had been correct in the sense that physicists and cosmologists have explained prior to the creation of our universe, time did not exist because it had no means to measure it, given that our measurements for time are exclusively defined by the universe. Thomas Aquinas famously suggested that our universe began with time, not in time. God created the universe literally ex … [Read more...]
