Put Down the Science Before Someone Gets Their Quarks Poked Out

The desire to "prove" that events in the Bible were actual, historical events has always seemed at odds to me with, what's that other thing, oh right: faith. Why run around digging up Mary's shekels and superhydroatomatizing or whatever the Shroud of Turin when you know it had to happen that way because God said so? God's word isn't good enough for you people? You believe Glenn Beck without proof, but God, him you've got to check up on? Can't you leave all this "proving" business to those geeks who ruined the curve for you in high school?

This is brought up by the (from Fox News via Wonkette, so take it as you will) finding of some wood chunks on some mountain in Turkey that they think was Noah's Ark. They determined that these wood chunks are 4,800 years old. How did they determine this? Divine revelation? ISBN codes? No, they used carbon dating. This is funny, because when other scientists use carbon dating to suggest that there are many things on earth more than 6,000 years old, that is taken to be The Devil at work. But if it proves that Noah's Ark existed, then it's totally incontrovertible fact.

It must be awesome to be an "evangelical explorer," though.

Things I Did Not Know.

We (by "we" is meant: Wal-Mart) are importing potatoes from India.

Don't they kind of need those potatoes themselves? Don't we have an entire state dedicated to potatoes? We must end our dependence on foreign potatoes!

Blackwater

Watching 60 Minutes (explanation as to why I'm watching a show whose target demographic is 30 years older than I am: I'm at my parent's house) and they are doing a piece on Blackwater airplane crash in Afghanistan. Several Blackwater employees ("contractors," "mercenaries") were killed--and apparently, at least one of them was alive for quite some time after the crash, but no efforts were made to rescue them. Outraged families sued, as is the American Way. Blackwater claimed it had no responsibility, because the crash happened in Afghanistan. Apparently, under Islamic law, employers are not responsible for what happens to their employees.

Take a moment to ponder the fantastic-tude of an American company, paid some ungodly amount of money because we've outsourced our wars to private companies (which has proven to be so much cheaper, no?), hiding under Islamic law to escape from taking responsibility for their employees. The mind boggles.