Observe (click to embiggen)

Perhaps it was an honest mistake… I’ve very politely e-mailed the peeps who do this stuff so maybe they will unblock it. If not, I shall update here.

Update: Somewhat unrelated, but I just thought I’d share the mission listed in my school district’s twitter page.

To inspire every student to think, to learn, to achieve, to care

Far as I can tell RD.net does three of the four.

Update: So the school unblocked it (yay!). The e-mail I got was that the site was categorized as “social opinion” which ordinarily wouldn’t have been blocked for the high school but apparently the network was accidentally set on the elementary school filter which does block social opinion.

So…

1. By bringing this to their attention I actually fixed a broader mistake
2. I’m wondering how corrupting an influence a social opinion website really can be on the elementary schooler mind… Given the assumption that critical thinking is generally not present in elementary school (not that it becomes rampant in high school) I shall tentatively accept that somehow RD.net and other websites of a similar vein are inappropriate in elementary school.

“If you so choose to we will now say the pledge” they went and I immediately thought “seriously?”

First of all, nationalism doesn’t really have much to do with diversity. Sure, I can buy the argument that it shows that there’s diversity within the nation, but since they never really state that was the intention you can’t expect that to be the message that comes across from saying it.

As we all know, the controversial bit of the pledge comes with the “One nation under God” part which indicates worship of a monotheistic deity. This would seemingly exclude all those who don’t worship a monotheisitic deity. Well, OMG, excluding diverse religions or irreligion would seem to actually hurt the whole diversity idea!

Admittedly, done more out of anger than reason, at the end of that sentence I was compelled to let out a blasphemous “boo” which prompted a circle of heads to turn in my direction with glares, an also-seated Wiccan kid to grab my mouth and prevent me from speaking, and a Hispanic girl in front of me to turn ’round and say “I respect your rights, but that was highly disrespectful, you’re at a diversity conference, you need to respect other people’s religion” to which I said “as an under-represented minority due to unbelief I find the Pledge highly disrespectful”.

So it came across more as an insult to Christianity than anything else and it wasn’t effective communication, etc. I admit all this but submit to you that if I were to express my discontent with their choice to exclude me it was going to be limited to sound-byte form.

Whatever. I’m making the point of my three-letter protest clear now since I didn’t have the luxury of a non-sound-byte response then. It’s the height of hypocrisy to say the pledge and claim diversity, even if you don’t make other people say it, because that line still affirms that it is one nation under a monotheistic deity. In fact, I think it’s worse to preface it with “if you wish to say the pledge” because you have acknowledged there are people that clause excludes and have chosen to say it anyway.

And for my own sake and credit, couldn’t they have paused to think for a second what I really meant by my protest rather than to have jumped to the conclusion I was intentionally trying to offend worshippers of the Abrahamic religions? I suppose stirring thought with a heat-of-the-moment sound-byte is just the best you can hope for.

The redeeming feature of the Twilight Saga is that it’s so bad that it’s a satire of itself. Thus, it actually does make it worth it to go see it and laugh at it, and what’s the most hilarious night to go watch the latest installment of the series? Opening night when all the fangirls scream every time Robert Pattinson takes his shirt off!

So here’s a list of my favourite moments from New Moon and if you can make sense of what I’ve written here then perhaps there is hope yet for stuff that I write under sleep deprivation.

The opening looks great but it’s not a New Moon, it’s a Lunar Eclipse with the words slowly appearing on the Earth’s shadow. Screaming occurs when the N appears and returns when the full title appears.

Bella rushes through the Spanish Inquisition running for some mysterious reason.

I am struck with a moment of profound perplexity. The opening words actually sound well-written. Must I abandon my belief that Stephenie Meyer is shit in light of the new evidence? No. I quickly recognize the words to be from Shakespeare. That explains why it sounded sooo good.

Bella’s in a meadow. Edward appears. Fangirls scream. Lulz ensues. Some weird dream about how she’s an old lady. Edward sparkles. They have rays of light protruding from his sparkles. Thus, Edward looks like some sort of transcendental energy porcupine. Ew ew ew ew ew.

Bella hates her birthday for no apparent reason. She also is self-loathing enough that she folds a picture of her with Edward so it only shows Edward and not herself.

We see Edward walking to her in the parking lot like some sort of male model and I put the barrel of the gun in my mouth.

Edward: I’m 109
Bella: I shouldn’t date such old men. It’s gross.

Following an attack on her by Jasper Dr. Carlisle stitches her up. She sits close. Surprisingly they don’t have as much overt God-stuff, just references to damnation and souls. Anyway, for me that was the most romantic part ’cause Carlisle is hawt.

Edward’s dad has got it goin’ on.

Bella and Edward argue about vampirizing her. She’s like “you can have my soul!” following a kissing scene and I, deciding I need to show that I have a greater ability to reference literature than Smeyer by whispering to myself in the theatre, quote Marlowe’s Faustus. “Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Suck out my soul, see where it flies!”

I’m not sure about the second part of the quote, but I think there was a bit about Faustus saying stuff about his soul when he kisses Helen. Anyway it sort of fits.

Edward leaves her but it unfortunately is not as hilarious as in the book.

Later however, we are redeemed with an arcing shot of Kirsten Stewart with the most cliché depressed expression ever. So cliché that it’s comical and I really wish I had a picture but I don’t.

Bella goes on a statutory motorcycle ride because she finds that the pedophiles and the motorcycles are dangerous enough that she can hear Edward’s voice in her head and see his face. She then becomes friends with Jacob so he can fix some motorcycles so she can try to kill herself so she can see and hear Edward.

When that doesn’t work out because Jacob realizes that she bleeds when she crashes… well I just forget what happens after that.

There’s some hilarious scene where Bella makes a guy who’s interested in her go see an action film instead of a romance. We hear bits from the action film which actually satirizes action films quite well.

“I’ll blow your frickin’ head off!”
“No, I’ll blow your frickin’ head off!”
Gunshots are heard as the camera shows Mike and Jacob trying to get Bella to hold their hands.

Jacob’s actually kind of attractive. Until we find out he’s a furry wolf and then it just feels… bestial.

He and Bella walk along the beach and he says “it’s not a lifestyle choice, Bella! I was born this way and I can’t change it!” and I lol’d.

There’s some action with CGIwolf vs vampire and CGIwolf vs CGIwolf. At one point one of the vampires trying to kill Bella is being chased around by the CGIwolves and Bella had randomly decided at that time to go jump off a cliff. I dunno about the book but the film definitely makes it seem like a suicide attempt.

And in one cathartic moment I cheer as she crashes below the waves, the moment I’d been waiting for. All those years up until that point between when I’d first heard of Twilight and seeing her die came to a palpitating point and vanished…

And, well, she nearly succeeds but Jacob saves her.

It’s then that she finds out that Edward believes she’s dead and they have to go to Italy to stop Edward from trying to kill himself (oh aha it’s a Romeo and Juliet parallel!) and there’s fun shots of Alice driving a yellow sports car.

Then she has to run through the Spanish Inquisition to keep Edward from stepping out into the sunlight and thus being killed by the Volturi (evil vampires who don’t like it when you reveal the existence of vampires to humans) so she does but then the Volturi makes them go talk to them anyway and they’re like wtf?

We meet Dakota Fanning as Jane who Edward seems to know somewhat well. Dakota Fanning takes pleasure in inflicting pain upon Edward at some point. The whole Lolitaness of her stature and the fact that she’s enjoying the pain bit leads me to believe Dakota Fanning is Edward the Pedobear’s ex-lover.

And they’re like, if you were gonna make her immortal we’d not eat her. So Alice gets a vision just in time of Edward and Bella frolicking and it’s the most cheesy thing you ever have and ever will see and even the fangirls were laughing at it because it was so cheesy. Not that it was intended to be cheesy, it was supposed to be serious and to show that Bella would get vampirized, but it was just cheesy and slow mo and frolicky.

As they leave there’s a group of tourists being led back to where they came from by one of the Volturi members. Screams are heard as they are eaten.

That’s disturbing, it really is. Herding humans into that and it’s like something I read in The Road about keeping humans in a basement and using them for food that was seriously disturbing and I didn’t think Smeyer was capable of something that gutsy and disturbing but apparently that bullshit. I was like WTF? I didn’t know she was actually capable of something dark and not producing transcendental energy porcupines.

Anyway, Jacob and Edward almost fight and Bella tells him not to make her choose because if she chooses between necrophilia and beastiality necrophilia is kinkier.

Then Edward asks her to marry him.

THE END!

Me: Let’s leave before we get lynched.

Oh, and another funny thing… There would be screams lasting for several seconds when Rob Pattinson or that werewolf guy came on screen but then there was actually a greater number of people laughing at the fangirls so the laughing persisted for five times longer than the screaming.

So are you going to put your faith in the scientific revolution? Tell that to a dying cancer patient! Science isn’t going to get you eternal anything.

So it’s not exactly standing up and preaching, but it is sort of clear that she’s trying to convince her audience (public school students) that they need to worry about how they’re getting eternal life and science is useless because of that.

Of course, I disagree with her argument. Epistemology does not get chucked out the window as soon as you’re uncomfortable with what it says because that would be beside the point of having an epistemology (unless you’re of the truth-is-whatever-makes-me-feel-comfortable-with-death-ists). I’m more concerned with how I live the life I know that I have than with another life which can be verified about as convincingly as Invisible Pink Unicorns.

But here’s the thing… for the most part this teacher does not talk about her personal dislike of science, but this is not an isolated incident. It’s happened once or twice before. Do I…

1. Let it drop
2. Just speak out in class the next time
3. Start recording and call the ACLU (I list this in jest… sort of)
4. Do something else?

Oh, and why the bloody hell do people like to bandy about the word “faith” to people who happen to like science and reason? The most faith involved in science is that this isn’t all some giant hallucination that we’re all sharing, or that we’re hallucinating that people are sharing the same reality. It’s a small amount of faith, yes, but I think of it more as agnostic disbelief. I can’t prove that I’m hallucinating and I can’t prove that I’m not… but if this is a hallucination, it sure is an elaborate one and no harm is done in carrying on with 99.9% certainty.

A few of the tweets from people who read “NASA launches rocket into the moon” and react foolishly…

Dear Nasa, you are the spawns of Satan who wants to blast the Moon JUST FOR SOME DAMN WATER!! WHAT THE HELL??!!!

From @TimelessEssence

This person describes themself as:

Gorgeous, Intelligent, Silly, Random, Proclaimed Buddhist, Dreamer, Writer, Activist, Loves to laugh, Future Archaelogist, Nerdy, and the FUTURE!

OH SHI-!

They might fuck up the tides if NASA fucks the moon up. I’m not trying to see that blow up. NASA always plotting something.

From @JesseLetson

Okay. Nasa blows a hole in the moon today, to see if there is water on it. If we REALLY went there in 69, this wouldnt even be an issue.

From @Alisonsscrescendo

Before we lose faith in humanity, from @Submanic

Call me a nerd, but I kinda like finding more information about our universe. #NASA

And just for the record, I think the moon’s still up. You can check to see if it’s still there before smearing your idiocy across the Internet and making fools of humanity.

Also, this is not the first time America has crashed something into the moon. It happened in the 1960’s when we were still working on getting there and before figuring out how to land. See here.

Gender breakdown: 33% female / 67% male
Relationship status: 57% single / 43% taken
Political breakdown: 97% democrats / 3% republicans
Geographic distribution: 12 countries, 24 states
Most common zodiac sign: Aries (20 friends)
Favorite music: Pink Floyd (16 friends)
Favorite TV show: House (17 friends)
Favorite movie: Fight Club (12 friends)
Favorite book: The God Delusion (21 friends)
Favorite activity: Reading (23 friends)

Now, my Facebook friends are pretty much entirely comprised of skeptical people because they come seeking me because I’m mildly Internet-”famous”. Of course, these are mostly skeptics who like me (there are some who don’t) so it’s biased in that way, but humor me for a little bit.

I’m unsurprised but highly amused by the most common activity, book, and TV show. I’m mildly surprised by the political distribution although I’d have suspected it. However, since this app does not take into account the Libertarians I must be friends with, I’m going to go ahead and assume I generally only piss off the socially conservative of the fiscally conservative population.

But I suspected all along that you shifty Aries were more disposed towards skepticism of astrology!

What’s really bothering me, though, is the gender ratio. From what I’ve heard, TAM 7 (or was it 6? I’ve forgotten already) also had a similar ratio. Most skeptics were saying that was only because women aren’t as inclined towards going to conferences and that outside of the conference the ratio was more balanced, but I didn’t meet all these people at TAM.

Seeing that I’m a blogger, however, perhaps it is true that the number of skeptics in general has a balanced gender ratio but women are less interested in skeptical activism.

But, of course, this is just my Facebook and I’m but one person. I can only speculate a little.

Now, this isn’t very scientific, but I’m just a little bit curious. I’d like anybody reading this with a Facebook to use this app and post your stats in the comments.

In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t blog very often any more. At least, not as much as I used to.

Most of this I attribute to the fact that school keeps me increasingly busy nowadays so I don’t keep up with stuff as much, anymore. Part of it I attribute to my Twitter account. Instead of posting articles I find and my commentary here, I usually just put it up on my Twitter and sum up my likes  or dislikes in less than 140 characters. And, there’s also the matter of Teen Skepchick, which I know I can cross-post stuff from there onto here, but I try to keep content rather separate, so when I do have something to write about it usually goes there.

But sometimes I wonder if it’s just because I’m sick of repeating myself. How many times can you refute the same tired old creationist question of “if humans came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys”?

Yesterday, I realized that I have been posting slightly more regularly on Teen Skepchick than on this blog, and I kind of feel like the reason I’m doing that is it seems a more important project to me. So what if I stopped posting here altogether? Well, I dunno.

Apparently, I’ve also just changed my blog name from Splendid Elles to Plain and Simple Elles on a whim. The “plain and simple” bit is a reference from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which I’ve been watching a lot of, but I won’t go into a description of the particular scene because it’s not that important. I think it’s because I, Elles, am many things, not just “splendid”, and I want people to think about me as a complex whole that is Elles, and not just “The Splendid One”. I may change the name back, we’ll see.

Advice is welcome, but I promise you that when I do have time, and when I do see misinformation in the media, in creationist propaganda, or anywhere from an Internet chatroom to a lunchtime discussion, I’ll be here to call “them” out on it.

Given…

1. I can conceive in my mind of the tastiest batch of cookie dough.
2. Existence is tastier than non-existence.

Therefore, the Tastiest Batch of Cookie Dough must exist.

I think I’ve said that on Twitter in one form or another before, but I was just going over my notes and noticed it… along with some rant about Star Trek. I think that means I need to pay more attention in class?

Fist-fucking?

Image and caption courtesy of my dear friend Ryan.

Why does feminism have such terrible symbols associated with it? Really, it just reminds me of fistfucking.