The Digital Pack-Rat, volume 7

From the upcoming Cuttlefish Xmas Songbook (in my dreams):

And so this is Christmas
So back to the war--
It's time to remember
What Christmas is for
An so this is Christmas
Let's make a big fuss
Cos Christmas is only
For people like us.

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Unless you are godless
Unless you are queer.

And so this is Christmas
For people like me
For Christian believers
Good people, you see
And so Happy Christmas
It's so black and white
Don't say "Season's Greetings"
'less you're ready to fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Unless you are godless
Unless you are queer.

And so this is Christmas
So back to the war--
It's time to remember
What Christmas is for
An so this is Christmas
Let's make a big fuss
Cos Christmas is only
For people like us.

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Unless you are godless
Unless you are queer.

War is over when we win it
War is over then



And another nice Cephalopodmas-themed song, but for PZ's Molly nomination thread:

Oh by gosh, by golly
It's time to nominate for Molly
Make it easy, for poor old PZ
To put up an active post

Oh by gosh by jingle
Go nom a bunch, or just a single
Find some writing that's real exciting
The one who moved you the most

Then comes doc Myers
Crowning the one who wins
Who among us desires
To be the person he pins?

Oh by gosh by golly
It's time to nominate for Molly
C'mon, you masses, get off your asses
And nominate a name or two
So that they can... feel better... than you!

[musical interlude, as Cuttlefish runs to avoid inevitable pelting with rotten fruit]

Then comes doc Myers
Crowning the one who wins
Who among us desires
To be the person he pins?

Oh by gosh by golly
It's time to nominate for Molly
C'mon, you masses, get off your asses
And nominate a name or two
So that they can... feel better... than you!


A verse I'd rather not have written, for reasons explained here:

I dunno who Donohue thinks he is fooling
His Haggard expression is easily read
He feigns apoplectic, all red-faced and drooling
But clearly he's curious--you know, in bed.

He's sorta like Eric, a textbook example
Of passion displaced from its natural goal
He huffs and he puffs, but the data are ample--
He wonders what loving is like, on the (w)hole


The "emergence of consciousness" (note that the phrase presupposes an ontological stance different from the stuff from which it emerges, and thus begs the monism/dualism question, muddies the waters we are peering into, and makes investigation more difficult) is the new creationism. If we can somehow prove dualism true (oh, I dunno, maybe by asking extraordinarily poorly phrased questions, then demanding exhaustively specific answers to those questions, and in the absence of such answers claim that this particular bit of ignorance must prove dualism true), perhaps that leaves a little wiggle-room for god himself to "emerge" from the gaps. This was my scribbling on the matter:

At the center of this issue is a three-pound mass of tissue
That can contemplate infinity, or love, or space and time!
In addition to these features, this mass sits in social creatures
That communicate these contemplations (sometimes, yes, in rhyme).
Just how consciousness emerges from sensations, acts, and urges
Is a complicated question, yes, but hopeless? Not a bit!
But what doesn't help the matter is this silly dualist chatter--
See, it doesn't count as science if you merely make up shit.


A leftover from the end of the campaign trail, as each side strove to be more godly than the other:

Just how do these people get loose?
Their attendants can have no excuse!
So, for this year's election
I've got my protection--
Burnt offerings given to Zeus!

They've got Jesus, but I've got Apollo,
And a Pantheon ready to follow!
(could they be so delirious
To think that I'm serious?
There's nothing, it seems, they won't swallow!)

They've got Jesus Himself as their backer
To protect against any attacker--
But so weak is their Lord
They consider Him gored
By a rusty nail stuck through a cracker!


I guess I was in a bit of a mood-even more cynical than usual--when the post on NASA showed up:

Those scientist types, with their heads in the stars
With their dreams of the moon or a mission to mars--
Don't they realize what government spending is for?
Not science, or progress... but going to war!

Those scientist types, with their frets about cost,
With their dreams shot to hell if a robot is lost--
Don't they realize that people are cheap as tin foil?
We spend them by thousands while fighting for oil!


My take on the extraordinarily high level of intellectual rigor defending various people's reasons for believing in a god...

I didn't know what I believed
I thought perhaps I was deceived
By Satan, but I felt relieved
To see through the façade.

I opened up the Holy Book
At random, to a page and took
A skeptical and doubting look
But there, of course, was God!

That's all there was; I took a chance
And gave the Holy Book a glance
Then saw the Truth and took my stance
Because I'm not naïve:

You think perhaps I misconstrue?
You think my thoughts have gone askew?
They couldn't print it if not true--
And that's why I believe!