Get Your Banana out of My Twatson, Man

Breaking News! Or is it just broken? Whatever.

Twatson is finally taking on all of her naysayers, bukkake style. And you just know it's dirty because she titled it for her mother's benefit. Mom, don't read this. (trigger warning, if you have a gag reflex).

Like all of my Twatson posts, I'm not putting much thought into this because, as I've said, this shit kind of writes itself. She does inform us that no one who has spoken against her is adequate to the task:

These are people who desperately want to insult me, but have neither the wit nor the intelligence to do it properly.

As one of the intellectually gifted on the short bus, I can tell you that being the smartest one around - ever! - is no easy position. While the rest of the 'tards are staring out the windows, or just licking them, I'm lost in deep thought: if I drool in my lap when I'm sitting down, where does it go when I stand up? Twatson, no doubt, can profoundly sympathize with Deep Thoughts like that. It's worth the mention, Twatson, that we aren't desperate to insult you. Nor do we need to be particularly witty or intelligent to do so. All I've had to do for the last month is say nothing about you and just let you talk, unprompted. And the material just lands on my desk, like shit and a fan.

I'm going to put her ending here a little out of sequence because it actually is a nice introduction to something she said earlier upstream, no doubt pissing in the water laughing the whole time:

The question is this: will their silencing tactics work? I honestly don’t know. I’m a competitive person, and so all my life my response to someone telling me to stop talking has been to talk more. But for the past few months, I’ve definitely been talking less because I find it far more enjoyable to play video games than to deal with these people in any way. This is not a call for more support, as you have all been very giving with your encouragement.

She might have been talking less, but she's certainly not been optimizing that time to say smart things. Remember that little Galileo was executed by the church so Christians need to stop being stupid bit? Yeah. Talking less, but still just as stupid as before. Now, if we could either change the stupid bit in a good direction, or the less talking bit in a good direction, we'd be somewhere. Until you stop saying so many boneheaded, moronic things, just stop talking publicly. Hire someone to edit your shit. Read a book (not by Dawkins though; I hear the iPad version has actually raped three women and chewed two guys' gum for them, and is successfully pursuing legal action against Josh Timonen for impersonating a human being).

As for a call for more support. Hrm. Ok. Let's put it this way: this post is NOT a call for people to click that donate button up there. But while you're here and thinking about it, there it is so hit it, baby! I'm only documenting, honestly, really, that I have a paypal button up there you can use at your leisure. I'm not implying that my future attendance is somehow contingent on your doing so, but a little lovin' goes a long, long way. Ya dig?

Next up is the Galileo issue. Hold your ponies.

Then there’s a blog called Grey Lining written by someone named Franc Hoggle. Apparently nearly every post is now about me. Lucky me! He focuses on the really important things, like how I made a YouTube video recently in which I mistakenly said that Galileo was executed by the Church. Within minutes, I updated the video to flag the fact that I was wrong, but that doesn’t matter. Hoggle says that I must be “dumber than dog shit” and suggests I be taunted for the rest of my days. How dare anyone ever get anything wrong and then immediately correct it!

I've watched the video. I see no correction on it. I first became aware of that video the day I posted about it. The copy in my video where she says the stupid shit about Galileo is from her channel directly. A direct download. As of the date I downloaded it, which you can see in the relevant sections copied into my video, there was no correction there. Where was it? Another video? Look at my videos: the errors in them which I notice, or are pointed out are corrected right there. On screen. In red. Background. Blocking out everything else. If a follow-up video is needed to explain the error and the attending correction, that is linked in the video itself. Her video contained none of that. What a far[tfa]ce.

And this isn't like some obscure fact or something. For as much as she talks about science (well, talks about other people who talk about science) and famous people (if only dead people had twitter), fucking up something about the Father of Science *genuflects* that my 11 year old laughed at when I showed her the video is, um, worthy of a fair amount of shit being thrown one's way.

If I'd said something that stupid and then it got past my editing and got published, yeah, I'd expect to hear about that until my dying day. Einstein's been dead for like a thousand years or something now and we still talk about his fuckups - on very, very, VERY not common knowledge. Still. And he was the greatest psychic of like the 1400s or whenever he lived.

Say, hasn't she criticized, like, um, Ray Comfort for the banana incident? It can't be argued convincingly that a layman not knowing that grocery store produce variety bananas are engineered by humans to be that way is as commonly known a fact of reality than is the fact that Galileo was, alas, conspicuously not executed by the church. Or anyone for that matter.  Someone in this conversation is not smarter than my fifth grader.

Yet we still call him stupid for not only not knowing that, but also for: making a video, with another person, having it edited by his staff, and then publishing it to all the world. And saying a pretty stupid and easily checked fact.  The Galileo bit is even more atrocious because it is common knowledge. We actively teach this to all school children in science classes. Children:  they know more about the founding of science, its method and kicker-offer than someone who takes people's money to give lectures* to adults about science, scientists, religion and history.

Imagine the ribbing I would get were I to say something along the lines of the Steinmetz solid is two rectangular prisms intersecting at oblique angles. Or I started throwing in little asides discussing Pascal's Trapezoid. Or that bit earlier about Einstein - what would you think if someone who writes, lectures, teaches, gets paid to loosely discuss science, scientists and the relevant history said something so obviously stupid as that about Einstein?

And if I ever did say such a mentally vacant nonsense, you better believe the correction of the error would be at the top of my priority list. Two major reasons: 1.) I care deeply about what is true, and 2.) I don't relish looking like an idiot. 2 is going to happen to me a lot in life. The very best I can do about it is to make sure that those who succeed me have available to them both the mistake I made and the solution to it as a guidepost.

Here is where Twatson and I part ways at the most fundamental level. She cares about what famous people she gets to bob knobs with, or is it rub elbows? Whatever. She cares about how she can play the strong, struggling victim and bilk it for cash. I care about truth, or a close approximation thereof, and occasionally someone thinks it's worth a couple of bucks here and there. I appreciate that; it's like a conversation over coffee between them and me, but without the awkward waiting in the corner and scrutinizing everyone who walks in wondering "is that jockrabbit1985?". So, let's do coffee! =P

And then we have this little bit of poor sourcing:

Abbie Smith at ERV was, as far as I could tell, the first to actively encourage people to replace intelligent discussion and inquiry with blind hatred and bile. That’s where the name “Rebeccunt Twatson” apparently arose – see? Impressive! If you listen hard enough, you can hear the ghost of Ambrose Bierce chuckling and nodding his head in approval.

I'm not especially proud of the Twatson monicker as it didn't require any thought. I'm not ashamed of it either. But it is my creation, so if anyone's to blame/credit for it, don't start ascribing to Abbie things she didn't do.  And I know Twatson knows this because of a discussion that happened at her place. She read the post where it first was mentioned, which was here. At Justicar Labs, inc.

More on Abbie:

They probably have the ability to read and think and be compassionate, but they choose not to.

Though not by name. Well, I'm happy to know that Abbie probably has the ability to read seeing as how she maintains a blog, got into graduate school (no doubt where they taught her to read, and pee sitting down) and is plum nearly (I take it anyway) finished with her PhD. Of course there's that ending bit which refers to the series of having the ability to a.) read, b.) think and c.) be compassionate. If Abbie could read this, I bet even she would be able to connect all the logical links in this Möbius Strip of the Twatson Abecedarian Confucture.  What Twatson wrote there is a coherent thought. All the way up to isomorphism.

Abbie, please work on choosing not to read and think. And, um, once you do, try showing a little fucking compassion, you godless whore. Fuck, while you're sitting at home getting manis and pedis with Miranda and watching Oprah, there are people in the world dying of AIDS. Why don't you get off your lazy, stupid ass and do something about that? Oh, bloody hell - I forgot, crazy bitch doesn't read.

Someone call her at home and read this to her over the phone. Her number, I'm certain, can be found on any truck-stop bathroom wall (right BELOW mine).

Here Twatson is regaling us of her hard struggle to get an education (by having a job, parents who helped her out and apparently a school handy that she could attend), but not in science. Don't let the B.S(c). fool you though. Gather round while she sings you a Wehrner von Braun:  she had no interest in science and,

mostly everything I know about science I learn from reading on my own as opposed to formal education. I’ve never pretended to be a scientist or have any formal training as one.

Well, I don't know what books you've been reading, but they are clearly not science books. So, on that front the best I can offer you would be along the lines of high school level chemistry, physics, and mathematics texts. There is a rumor that Richard Dawkins has a new science book out that's reported to be educational, but it does have that nasty side effect of occasionally raping people, or chewing their gum for them, as their gender dictates and filing meritorious lawsuits against people.. Another thing I could offer you: stick to your field. You claim you have a degree in something - talk about that. For instance, if you're asked about ways to communicate atheism, discuss how to optimize blogs with the social(ized) media so that science/math types who write science/math blogs can get higher returns in search engines. Perhaps work with scientists/mathematicians on ways they can write that convey the large ideas but without the fine detail work in a way people who aren't scientists or mathematicians can understand it.

Perhaps ways to organize groups, and recruit. Perhaps write on why you selected a man to take over from you instead of any of the apparently capable women on offer. Perhaps write about why it's important that selection processes be blind and truly promote the best and the brightest. Oh, but then you'd be talking yourself out of a job there, huh?

She also goes on a reverse-engineering the past campaign about her tenure at JREF, which is fully documented here, by the people in charge. Her story is unlike everyone else's story. I wonder if it's nigh possible Twatson might smudge the truth a smidge here and there?

I'll close with what is a bald-faced lie (on her part):

Some friends have encouraged me to write about it in the hopes of exposing this idiocy and protecting myself in case someone does actually try something. I’ve put it off, because diving into that pool of bitter bile isn’t good for my mental well-being. When I write about something – particularly something depressing – I like to have a call to action, or a lesson of some sort.

I've seen your calls to action.  Childcare for women at atheist meetings. Check. Your contribution to the cause: 0.  You own a company (not a charity one notes despite your promises otherwise) which has a website, with like over 9,000 followers! (Take that, Stef McGraw) You claim to know how to organize groups. So, what did you do for that? You complained that it didn't exist and that someone, somewhere should do something about it. Someone did.

Where were you? Lushing it up in the local bar boycotting him for his gall to say aloud that you lack a little something called perspective. That being spoken to isn't abuse. That being invited out or in isn't tantamount to sexual abuse. But you make sure to always relate those things anyway. Oh, and about that call to arms (the only one you've spearheaded), I saw how that went. So, like you and three other alcoholics were boozing it up while the adults were inside hearing an enthralling talk with one of the smartest people alive today.  You go, girl - work it out! *snap*

Lesson: if Twatson has a call to arms, someone else will have to do all of the work, and raise all of the money to take care of it. But she can point out what you're doing wrong with it along the way (and then wash her hands of it by saying she's only heard you were doing so if it falls through it's your fault not hers). A corollary lesson is if she ever sounds the alarm, run to watch the outcome. The best vantage point being, of course, hers since one needn't move a muscle to watch brighter people who have capacity, desire and drive solve problems - Rebecca Twatson: a call to arms inaction.

Also, I've heard a rumor that she hates me. With her vagina even. But not even an honorable mention for her nom de c'unt? What a bitch.

All of that is to say, in a word, I beLIEve everything she wrote there. Lock, cock and fish in a barrel.

*she calls them lectures at any rate.

- The Justicar
I make my criticism with extreme intelligence and knowledge of the topic[.]