A doddering old fool who shouldn't have been driving in the first place cruised into a car dealership in his cheap little Ford Fiesta, and managed to demolish two Porsches outside the showroom. Total damage: £60,000.
So what does the senile twit say afterwards? You guessed it:
It was a miracle I got out alive and I put it down to the power of prayer and God looking after me.
Why was he praying to wreak havoc on expensive German cars?
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Won't somebody please pray for the Porsches?!?!
Well, it's obvious, God hates the rich.
Watch out Benny Hinn, Josh McDowell, and Pat Robertson, God's going to sic Higgs on you.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Higgs is the God particle, after all.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
German...germany and nazis...Nazis and the jews... extermination.. nihilists ... Darwin...Evolution!
It all makes sense...God is fighting back!!
At least the BBC put the word 'miracle' in quotation marks. In the U.S., the media would embrace it and report it as a miracle, surely brought about by the Lord God Himself.
Sounds to me like God doesn't like insurance companies. Spread the word.
From the article: "The former Pentecostal minister, who lives next door to the showroom, has decided to quit driving"
At least he shows enough sense to stop driving after this incident.
I'm always a bit taken aback when a survivor of a terrible accident is described as "lucky," because he wasn't killed. Was it lucky to have been injured?
Time to start taking away the car keys of the elderly. And how many times do these addled-pated codgers have to plow into farmers' markets - mindlessly retracing familiar routes, oblivious to the human beings they are grinding into the pavement - until we get the message?
Atheists, Christians, Muslims, liberals, conservatives, gays, straights, bi/trans unite: there is a group that deserves - demands - to be discriminated against: old farts. Stop the elderly's blood harvest in our streets, parking lots, sidewalks, produce markets...
(And I am sure that we are all thinking of the same South Park episode.)
Maybe he should have had his hands on the steering wheel instead of together in prayer.
This agrees with the common interpretation of "God" as being synonymous with ignorance. The man crashed, survived, and doesn't know how. Therefore, God helped him.
God = I don't know.
I like how in one line it's the power of prayer, and in the photo caption, he's thanking his lucky stars.
Oh c'mon now,
ONE accident in 76 years of driving and you lot are all over him because he mentioned 'God.' Please!, what a lot of precious manure!
I especially like the mention at the end that everything was made right by a cuppa tea.
Has you considered that this might turn Jeremy Clarkson to atheism?
And if it will, does anyone really want him?
Yay! Belts! I wonder where his god woulda been had he not buckled up.
Bitching aside, I'm glad the old guy got out alive with noöne hurt.
There is no law against old people driving, and up till now he may not have had any reason to think he would not be able to drive. He hasn't had an accident in 76 years, after all. I know of much younger people who were not able to control their cars in similar situations. The insurance will cover the damages, and replace the damaged cars, so ultimately there is no harm done.
I wonder how this case would have bee treated here if the guy had been a militant atheistic Darwinist rather than a minister.
He shoulda said, 'all my friends have got Porches and I just made amends.'
If he thanked god for saving him, my guess is: about the same.
Why was he praying to wreak havoc on expensive German cars?
Climate Change.
No, he put the power of his car to wreck the other two! The senile retard, and a former freaking insane minister at that? Yeah, his freaking god was looking out for him alright but not the cars and the dealership! Was the dealership and cars owned by the devil? I'm willing to bet this senile geezer has been involved in several more accidents of his doing but were probably not reported in deference to his "man of the moronic sackcloth" status. The clown is too old to drive. Maybe next time when he has a fatal accident and he is lying there in a pulp and facing near death, I would like to come up to him and ask the senile where is his freaking god now? "I'm on my way to meet him"! You're not going anywhere you senile loser but to the recycling plant and be interred with this heap!
What's the difference between a Porsche and a porcupine?
Well, with porcupines, the pricks are on the outside...
(Sorry.)
Holbach, now tell us how you REALLY feel!
Why is everybody against elderly drivers? I'd rather have the road full of half-blind geezers than full of 22-year-old rig pigs with more money than brains driving their tricked-out Chevy Silverados and listening to Nickelback (Am I right, Albertans, am I right?)
Further, as a normally mild-mannered bicycle-commuting coworker of mine can attest to, the elderly are much less likely to get out and pop you one when you critique their poor road skills by smashing in their 'pissing Calvin' decal with your bicycle pump.
Holbach, that's offensive; my brother is a retard.
'Has you considered that this might turn Jeremy Clarkson to atheism?'
The English have got over the God fad, and like all his countrymen, Clarkson is an atheist already:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/art…
"I'm willing to bet this senile geezer has been involved in several more accidents of his doing but were probably not reported in deference to his "man of the moronic sackcloth" status."
Wild assumptions, no evidence: Darwinisn in a nutshell.
Children are starving to death daily, but god saved this old fart's life. Sheesh!
Does anyone remember those ads from Hamlet- The mild cigar ?
Clearly it is the work of God, and it shows he does answer prayers: he's making amends for someone's Porsche-driving friends without going to all the effort of buying a Mercedes Benz.
People who claim never to have had an accident are like people who claim they never watch TV or masturbate: it's probably happening a lot more than they're admitting to.
Sadly for us atheists, Clarkson is a complete tosser.
I mean, I like the show. And the space shuttle episode was worth my license fee several times over. But it does make me want to kick the gurning wanker's face in. Repeatedly. With a pair of steel-reinforced Doc Martens.
Though I'll admit he has good taste in jet fighters, after he bought a decommissioned Lightning jet and had it installed as a work of art on his lawn.
Oh, fuck. Another boring broken fucking record.
The same guy who writes:
also states
Perhaps you could fill me in about these younger people in "similar situations." Since the article doesnt describe the situation, and even states the driver doesnt remember anything other than reversing, it seems to me youre making some wild assumptions as well.
Dave, they're not the same person. Brownian is quoting post 27.
This minister was a lot luckier than this guy:
http://www.sacbee.com/749/story/860775.html
What bothers me is the reaction of the readers. Most of 'em are saying, "Good, he had it comin'!". Wow, I didn't realize the death penalty was in effect for stealing motorcycles. Wonder what the Big Black Book has to say about that. Nah, on second thought, I don't.
If cars were around in 33 BC perhaps Christians would now be wearing little automobiles around their necks rather than crosses. Instead of being executed by crucifixion, Jesus would have been martyred by a senile geez-fart plowing into him as he was doing one of his party tricks.
Ah crap, I meant 33 AD.
kmarissa, Posts 17 and 27 are not by the same person? I double checked before posting and just checked again, what am I missing?
You're wrong PZ, God loves Porches. He drives one himself I hear. Poor old fart is going straight to hell for this one.
He is wrong about God saving his life, it was Satan because he is tried of hell filling up with preachers.
/snark
Dave, they're not the same person.
Are you sure, kmarissa? Posts 17, 23, & 27 all appear to be written by the same person (though judging by the comments, s/he appears to be another creoclone.)
Doing my job as the quasi-official language police, Holbach, stop saying retard, you ignorant twit.
I do think there should be more frequent drivers' license renewal at older ages. Apart from the fact that young drivers are inexperienced and don't do well, bodies on average go bad when we get old, and a lot of times it's not easily noticeable when it's happening to you. An annual, or at least biannual, eye exam and reflex speed test would be prudent for continued driving, say after the age of 70 or so. My state lets you go 7 years between renewals, which is far too much time for deterioration of skills in the elderly.
Must be Jasper Carrott's father in law:
Never had an accident in his life. But he's seen thouands...
Damn thi tupid keyboard! it' got a lip!
I have to hit the S key harder than all the otherS...
While I would agree that holbach's comment was extremely arrogant, I fail to see how it has anything whatsoever to do with Darwinism.
Darn it PZ, this sounds like a fairly nice guy that finally made an error of judgement after 76 years of driving. I, for one, cannot predict how many accidents I'll cause after 76 years of driving, and I'm betting you can't predict how many you'll have either. Give the guy a break.
Yes, the god comment was silly, but that's no reason to harp on his age and driving skills. We're all frogs being brought to a simmer on that score, as the years pass.
You haven't lived in the warmer climes of America. You know, in Geezer paradise.
A road full of half-blind geezers is a menace. There's a reason we call Cadillacs Cataract-mobiles in the snowbird havens. I see a Caddy, I speed up to get around as quickly as i can, or find an alternate route. The person behind the wheel is gonna be hell on wheels...or parking his ass in the fast lane at 20+ mph below the speed limit.
Or how about the old dear who drives 15 miles everywhere she goes, but doesn't understand the meaning of STOP--as in for animals, pedestrians, left turns, stop sign, red lights, or TRAINS?
I knew my glovebox-full-of-speeding tickets mother was getting old when she would insist on leading me somewhere and she would drive 95 for three exits (same old Mom), then 42 for a mile. 95...42...95...42... She did this all the way from the east side of Dallas to the north side of Ft. Worth. Her best friend eschewed the pleasure of riding in Caddy comfort to ride with me in a VW Rabbit. Gee, I wonder why. Oh--the old friend was the "Ooh, shiny!" "where I look, the car goes" type of driver, when she got up in years. That was always fun!
Five years later, Mom was another of the old dears driving her Caddy 15 everywhere, even down a 55-mph highway, and too busy looking at the roadside flowers to notice the cars piled up for ten miles in her wake. Pure fear coursed through my veins when I learned she'd traded in her standard Caddy sedan for...a Lincoln Navigator. She tells me she really likes it because now she's "up high and can see everything!" Mind you, she doesn't mean the other cars, or the road. Nope, she means the store windows! And the flowers! And the nice houses!
Oh the humanity!
From the story, the old guy had to drive through the Porsche dealer's lot to get to his own driveway. He lives close enough to walk over for tea after the accident.
I wonder how fast he was going to flip his car like that. He must have stepped on the gas instead of the brake, unless something went wrong with the engine.
I'd say he was a damned good driver. Who of you out there could reverse a Ford Fiesta and get it upside down? Must be a miracle :0)
Pah! Bleedin' hwntws! Can't drive for toffee... ;)
A couple in this area were in a serious car accident a few weeks ago. The husband was fiddling with the cover of a coffee cup when he lost control of the car. Neither he nor his wife were wearing seat belts, and he was ejected from the car. He is now paralyzed. His wife was quoted in the local paper as saying that she was struggling with the question of why her god allowed this to happen to her husband but that she was relying on her faith to cope with the situation. That's right, folks: why did her god _allow_ her husband to suffer this devastating injury. Apparently Driving While Distracted (DWD) and failing to secure one's seatbelt are not adequate as an explanation and recourse to providence is necessary to account for this otherwise unexplainable event.
Zionist conspiracy
I teach my children about natural and logical consequences of action. ANd that natural and logical consequences can include death or debilitating conditions. After reading the article, and knowing not all details are in it, it seems that he did 'have it coming' from the perspective that he engaged in a dangerous, high-risk activity and paid the price. His choice was to unsafely operate an inherently dangerous piece of equipment in an inherently dangerous way without taking any precautions and one of the possible natural and logical outcomes is to die from your stupid and ill-considered acts.
Like it or not, motorcycles are extremely dangerous and acting like a total douche bag on one is one of the fastest ways I know to punch your ticket. Even if your ride safely, they are very dangerous.
I rode for over 20 years, narrowly missing scores of accidents from oblivious car drivers until one-day I met a teenager in a pick-up truck head-on on Highway 20 as I headed back from Ft. Bragg. The dumb ass cut the corner, like many drivers do, and there was no road for me.
Fortunately I was wearing my helmet, and full leathers, despite it being summer, which kept my brains inside my head, and besides a few bits of road-rash (scars) where my gloves and jacket rolled up, a mild concussion and broken leg (hurts in cold weather) from bouncing along the road and then, ultimately, hitting the cliff after being catapulted over his truck I was relatively fine and didn't even miss a day's work.
Sure, my very expensive Snell-rated, full-face helmet and leathers were toast, but I lived. The nicest thing was the insurance company even paid me more for the motorcycle (it was brand new) than I paid for it (I got a great deal) plus all my doctor bills (and they didn't even come back for my health insurance payments, so I double-dipped there, too).
Now, had the guy been operating his own bike (instead of stealing one) in a sober manner, with proper safety equipment I'd feel sorry for him. But my empathy doesn't extend to thieves who kill themselves through their greed and stupidity.
I feel for you Aquaria, but I live in Oil Country, Canada, where we reward arrogant nitwits for dropping out of high school by throwing wads of oil money at them (and occasionally maiming them) so they can buy oversized Hot Wheels™ trucks and pick fights outside the bar when they fail to score. I know this because they tend to drunkenly scream synopses of their nightly exploits at 2:00 AM while walking down my back alley, stopping only to kick the occasional side-view mirror off of some innocent resident's car.
Seriously, the idea of floating in a tranquil sea of senility sound positively luxurious sometimes.
The old may be bad drivers, but young yahoos are bad drivers as well as obnoxious pedestrians.
Y'all don't get his power of prayer 'cause you don't get the theology. Do not assume that these folks believe in a merciful, loving, dirty-hippie Jesus god. Many believe in a wrathful, cruel, angry, and down-right evil god.
So praying to destroy expensive Porsches makes perfect sense - if the dealer didn't belong to his church, The Lord(tm) was using him as a tool to punish evil-doers, which is everyone. What his prayers did was protect him from his own just punishment - since like any simple-minded totalitarian, the Lord prefers boot-licking yes-men, no matter how perverse, to decent folks who don't cowtow.
So, for Elf Eye, what you're missing is that wifey believed that hubby was quite the ass-kisser, so he should have been protected from his own stupidity; Bad Things happen to the faithless, regardless of "works", and Good Things happen to the faithful, regardless of sins. These people take that SOB Luther at his word!
:lol: He was probably trying to make a moonshiner's turn to get away from the revenuers... :)
Moses, it seems that death was a natural consequence of his actions. I'd wager that was the first motorcycle he'd ever ridden.
I just don't see a reason to celebrate it, that's all.
Here was my close call, on a bicycle. As a student at UCSC, I loved riding my bicycle in the Santa Cruz mountains. One day, coming down Felton-Empire grade, doing about 45 mph, there was a van going up, also doing about 45... He crossed the line to, ironically, pass a couple cyclists on their way UP Felton-Empire, leaving me with about 3 feet of road... At a combined speed of about 90.
Naturally, had we collided, I wouldn't have felt much... And I bet a lot of people would have said, "Well, he deserved it! He was going 45 in a 40 zone, on a bicycle! What'd he expect?".
I'd more-or-less expect to be killed if I jumped on a CBR with zero experience, but that doesn't mean it's a cause for celebration.
There's a difference between, "Well, the punk had it comin'!" and "Wow, that was dumb. This accident is no surprise."
Does the word "Condolences" mean anything any more?
He's a harmless old man, and no people were killed. Let him have his religion. It is pretty miraculous that he survived. And I mean that in a "beating great odds" sort of way and not a "praise Jesus" sort of way.
By the way, you know who I feel sorriest for? The owners of those Porsches. People do tend to get attached to those things. I still like the porcupine joke, but I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that phone call.
"Your collector's item will have to be recycled. Sorry."
Driver of Fiesta needed to thank the seat belt designer, not an invisible sky fairy. And hopefully apologize to the owners of those cars.
Exactly. Now French cars I could understand.
He should be Expelled
I must say, in any case, the Porsches deserved it. B-)
Well, it's obvious - it wasn't the man- the little Fiesta was a Transformer AutoBot and the Porches were Creationist Decepticons.
JBS
Moses,
I agree with you, "he had it coming", from behaving in an incredibly stupid manner and from abusing a powerful tool. (I've been commuting by bike year-round for nearly 40 years.)
This is of course different from observations re. people saying, "Good, he had it comin'!", because he was Bad! (M'Kay!. 'Cause stealin' is bad . . . M'Kay!.)
The punishment for incredible stupidity might be a painful embarrassing death, not just for yourself but for others. The punishment for stealing motorcycles might be a couple of years locked up.
Odd that the stealing motorcycles is illegal, while "incredible stupidity" appears to be a job qualification for leading political, military, business, church & media positions.
PZ now decides to go ape on a senile old man for saying its a miracle he didn't die. I like what you do most of the time, PZ, but this blog post just makes you look like a jerk.
I got better things to do.
Brownian, OM:
Posted by: Hugh Slaman | April 14, 2008 4:53 PM
"Wild assumptions, no evidence: Darwinisn in a nutshell."
This is a specious claim in the first place, but examine the following:
** "The next thing I knew I was hanging upside down in my car thanking my lucky stars I was still alive." (proof his seatbelt saved his life)
** "It was a miracle I got out alive and I put it down to the power of prayer and God looking after me." (attributes safety to God)
Stubbornness in the face of obvious contrary evidence: Religion & Mysticism in a nutshell
Did anyone check to see if the Porsches had Darwin fish on them?
Because if they did, you know the crashes were a miracle indeed.
Of course if they had Jesus fishes on them, well, forget about any conclusions then.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I agree that it is absurd to say it was god who saved him, but I don't really feel angry at the gentleman in particular.
Religious people just don't think of how absurd it sounds when they say something like this. He seems like a nice old man otherwise and it is a shame that he had to decide to stop driving with an incident like this one.
Odd, how some people seem so upset PZ should point this story out. I actually had to go back up and reread it. PZ points out that it seems really stupid that he should be saying it was a miracle for him to be alive.
Seems like that's true. The story here wasn't that an old guy got in an accident, it's that he believes that some unknown creator of the universe decided to either allow or cause this accident, but changed the laws of physics or etc to spare his life. That, my friends makes this buy a Kook. If you don't get that, you yourself are in need of some deep introspection.
Makes this guy...
I wonder how this case would have bee treated here if the guy had been a militant atheistic Darwinist rather than a minister.
since that's a non-existent group, why not wonder how people would have reacted if it were invisible gremlins behind the wheel?
talk about missing the fucking point.
This sort of thing always reminds me of a quote by Mr T Pratchett...
"People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there --that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous."
God drives a 1966 Karmann Ghia convertible.
With no rust at all.
He was praying whilst driving? That's worse than using a mobile phone whilst driving: you're at least talking to someone real on the phone.
There would have been more comedic value in the situation if he's been driving a Trabant.
#74, those don't exist. But you know what I have to say about that?
Expelled
That's what.
RE#70 by Dahan April 14,2008 10:23 PM:
Thanks, could not have said it better.
There does seem to be a lot of humorless prigs surfing this site, eh? Don't say this, don't say that; whine, whine, whine. No sense of irony, so sense of humor, and ultimately, no real reason to contribute to the gene pool. But quite assured of their superiority and thus right to judge everything everybody else says, does, or even thinks.
It's enough to gag a maggot.
Great reply to them, Dahan, perhaps you could direct them to: omphaloskeptic.net.
Don't think of it as two wrecked Porsches - think of it as a golden opportunity for a whirlwind.
Way to fucking go though. If you're going to have the first accident in almost 80 years of driving you might as well total $60,000 worth of cars in the process, then quit driving so your insurance company can't jack up your rate. Fantastic. I think more xtians should try this, as obviously jebus will not allow them to be hurt so long as they really believe (did you ever see that cheesy 80s movie with Tom Conti Heavenly Pursuits).
You know, my inner cynic thought the same thing. Maybe, just maybe, this old chap feels he's getting as bit long in the tooth and thinks maybe its time to hang up the licence.... He thinks to himself, that he's paid those insurance bastards for decades and never made a claim, on top of that he's mighty pissed that for the last umpteen years he's had to drive though a fucking car dealership to get to his driveway.
I'm thinking given the same situation, my low speed Fiesta, worth maybe a few hundred quid, could become a magnet to some tauntingly bright, shiny Porsches worth more than the crappy pensioners' house this chap probably has been handed by the council. Betcha I wouldn't "remember" what happened either.
But thats just my inner cynic. She can be a right evil bitch.
Alan & Bride O': Yeah, it's a win-win, isn't it?
Reminds me of the time a little old lady was backing out of an angle-parking space across the road from my mum's house, and somehow managed to jump the kerb, smash through a stunted but tough (semi-bonsai) willow tree about four inches in trunk diameter on the nature strip, and knock over the brick front fence. After I switched off the ignition and helped her out, she swore she was only going a couple of kmh, and barely touched the accelerator. Sure you did, I thought.
About 20 year later it happened again; different driver, natch, but down went the other willow and the other end of the fence. And the letterbox this time. Maybe your inner cynic would care to speculate how my mum gets on with the neighbours. Feel free.
I'm in the group who thinks this is probably a nice enough old bloke who should be given the benefit of the doubt when he claims to have had a clean driving record for a long time. Good for him. At 93, he's had a confused moment in his car and caused an accident, but as someone else said at least he realises it's time to hang up the car keys. Many much younger people have done much worse than this.
I get sick of all the anti-elderly remarks that I see on the internet. Maybe it's because I'm not so young myself these days, though it's probably more to do with having lost my mother earlier this year and having a grief-stricken (but by no means doddering or senile) father to worry about. Nastiness about elderly people just doesn't go down well with me.
It's silly to think the guy's survival was anything to do with God, of course - why would an omnipotent being let him get into that situation in the first place? But equally silly things are said all the time.
Heh. This little event happened just down the road from where I live. Quite surprised to see it being blogged on Pharyngula! Yay Penarth!
I guess he will lose his "rating 1" then.
From the pictures shown I suppose what happened must have been something like this . No harm done whatsoever...
Perhaps he shouldn't have been driving in the first place, although I'm not sure what evidence you have to make that statement (aside from one accident). My annoyance is with you describing this chap as a "doddering fool" and "senile twit". All we know for certain about him is he made one ridiculous statement immediately following a probably traumatic event (how many of the rest of us have never done such a thing?). Reading the post (and most of the comments), it feels more like ugly and cheap elderly-bashing, than an informed commentary about religious delusion.
Some of this does seem mean-spirited. I mean, the guy even offered to pick up a broom to help clean up after the accident (although I'm a bit surprised he wasn't more focused on how fortunate it was that no one else had been hurt).
Incidentally, unlike Darwin, Porsche had a real and tangible connection to Hitler.
#11: He should be thanking all those engineers at Ford who took the time to study hard in school and then came up with a proper seatbelt. It's not a miracle that he survived. Nor a stroke of luck. What saved his life is properly applied technological knowledge.
Same think when a sick or injured person say "it's a miracle I'm still alive!" I find that insulting to the paramedic and/or nurses/doctors who most likely worked their collective butts off to apply what they learned in school. How many, hard, years of university to become a medical doctor?
I agree that "doddering old fool" is inappropriate. He is at least not fool enough to realize that he should not be driving. My wife works with seniors, and there are quite a few who are a true menace on the road, have had multiple accidents and refuse to stop driving. They are the "doddering old fools". But to be fair, part of the problem is that there is essentially no public transportation here in American suburbs, so they are, for all practical purposes, forced to drive.
God is a terrible co-pilot.
Flashback to the Blitz?
#83-
I get sick of all the anti-elderly remarks that I see on the internet.
I second that, and add that perhaps "ageism", rather than "weightism", is the last acceptable prejudice in our society. Acceptable to some people, at least.
Off the top of my head I can think of two individuals over 90 years of age, who can (intellectually) kick most people's cerebral cortices around the block a few times:
- Frank W. Lewis (writes cryptic crosswords for The Nation)
- Daniel Schorr (journalist and Nixon Enemy)
#93, actually, there are more acceptable prejudices than that. I have blond hair and do not tan well at all, and people still think it's cute to laugh at how hard (impossible, really) it is for me to get a tan.
It gets pretty old.
I don't know where or when, but one of these days, I'm gonna lose it. It ain't gonna be pretty.
PZ, you may go out to the woodshed and slap yourself on your wrist. The PC Police have decreed you ageist and rude. Don't you feel bad? Don't you wish the humorless, prissy little shits would have read:
http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/68831?
I sure do. Perhaps it would have spared us their whiney crap. Then again, perhaps not. As previous comments show, they seem to like nothing better than whining and crying about how someone, somewhere, may be offended by something they (the PC Police) did not approve of.
Cousins to Demented Fuckwit Believers one and all, no doubt.
I find the almighty's objection to German engineering hard to explain... I thought it was a settled fact that God Hates Jags.
"I was driving along fine, 'til Jesus made me crash. Bastard."
@93 You complain that you don't like what some commenters here are saying...which is that they don't like what PZ said. I've only skimmed through the comments, so I must have missed the ones that are demanding that PZ take the post down and threatening to report him to the authorities if he doesn't.
Exactly when is it wrong to express an objection to another person's statement? I need to know so as to avoid offending your anti-PC sensibilities.
Janet: you mean 95?
Telling these people to shut up is probably a bad idea, but then, we get a lot of people here objecting to what PZ says on obviously facetious grounds, such as that he doesn't engage with the thoughts of those he criticises.
I must say, in any case, the Porsches deserved it. B-)
Huh, didn't think that one would get any responses.
Fair enough question, janet #98. Nowhere did I insinuate that the pathetic little nit-pickers would "report" PZ and demand that he "remove the post." Reread it.
As to your question, look up the post I reference. Reread it. Then you'll get it: this is PZ's blog, not yours, not mine, and certainly not the whiney-assed, cry-baby, tittie-boys that snivel and weep when PZ rants.
Rants means just what it says: PZ is carrying on about something that pisses him off. If you agree, so be it. If you don't, so be it. He's just mouthing off like all sane people need to do in order to keep from cleansing the gene pool. But if you don't like the way he said it, then DON'T READ THE FUCKING SITE!
I read his writing BECAUSE I like the way he writes. It helps to know that there is someone out there whose breath is also taken away by the rampant stupidity taking over our country. It is therapeutic to read someone else's rant and realize that, yes Virginia, there ARE demented fuckwits out there and they need to be laughed at, sneered at, and called the stupid shit demented fuckwits they are, old, young, white, black, male, female, whatever.
We need to make people as ashamed of publically admitting to being believers as they are of being masturbaters. We can't make them any more intelligent, but at least we can get them to SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Seeing the main protagonists in this incident - the doddery old man, the ancient old Fiesta and the two flash Porsches - am surprised that nobody brought up the old old joke:
The old guy in his ancient battered little Ford Fiesta breaks down and pulls to the side of the road. Fairly soon a yuppy in his new Porshe 911 sees him by the side of the road and offers to help. The old man doesn't want to leave his car. So the dude offers to tow it. The old guy is a bit nervous, he doesn't like going fast. But the guy reassures him "don't worry, I'll stick to 50. And if you want me to slow down then just flash your lights, if you want me to stop then just honk the horn".
So slightly nervously in the case of the old man, they set off. At first the Porsche owner tootles along at 50 as promised. Then he is overtaken by another Porshe owner doing 70. The yuppy does not like this and catches up. The other driver doesn't like this and speeds to 90. The first driver retaliates and accelerates to 90 too. Pretty soon they are neck and neck roaring down the highway at 150 miles per hour.
They flash past an unmarked police car. The cop radios in to base: "You'll never guess what I saw, two brand new Porsches racing side by side at 150 miles per hour..." The dispatch interrupts "that's no surprise, we see that sort of thing all the time". "That wasn't the strange thing" says the cop "right on their tail was an old geezer in a battered old Ford Fiesta. He's flashing his lights, he's tooting his horn, but they still won't let him past!"