A cherry Sunday in Dobrzyn

July 21, 2014 • 6:49 am

I’ll try to post each day about the previous day’s activities here. Note, though, that “activities” consist largely of working and eating, with occasional walkies. That routine is now established in Dobrzyn, although a new element (the cherry harvest) began at 7 a.m. today (Monday; photos tomorrow). My book is undergoing editorial review, so I have a break, but of course it is filled with other work, including writing a science paper and reading a Ph.D. thesis.

But first, of course, it was necessary to reacquaint myself with Her Highness, as well as meet the new d*g. First, the princess asleep in the bathroom (Click pictures to enlarge). Her rear paws need cleaning, but she took care of that later.

Cyrus is absolutely infatuated with Hili; he follows her around and stares at her constantly. One would think she’d be creeped out by this behavior, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Perhaps, though, we should establish some sexual harassment rules!

After lunch, a walk was in order. Both animals went with us to the river:

Walkies!

Can you spot the cat?

Spot the cat

These trees are heavily laden with cherries, but they’re the exception this year. Nevertheless, there are well over 15 thousand kilos in the orchard. These are, of course, “sour” cherries, though they were quite pleasant to eat right off the tree.

cherries

We picked enough to make about 10 jars of jam: it takes about 1 kilo of cherries per jar:

I tried my hand, though I was not as fast as the others (they have 16 years of experience!) I also plead exhaustion. Nevertheless, I did pick 3 kilos, one by one:

9 kilos for jam:

They all had to be pitted, which is quite efficient using these inexpensive cherry-pitters. Nevertheless, it took us an hour and I was covered with cherry juice at the end:

I helped, and oy, was it messy! Cherry juice flying everywhere, and some recalcitrant cherries that wouldn’t go through the pitter (photo by Andrzej):

The jam (pitted cherries + sugar) was cooked in a large copper kettle for several hours last night. It was then left to rest, and is cooking again at this moment. It will be done later today. At the upper left you can see one of the cans of gourmet cat food that I brought Hili as a present.

A team of pickers arrived this morning, so tomorrow we’ll see how the pros do it. And. . . another cherry pie will be made today!

Readers’ wildlife photographs

July 21, 2014 • 3:21 am

Reader Stephen Barnard from Idaho sent three photos of the common nighthawk (Chordeiles minor). As he pointed out to me, they’re closely related to the nightjar (they are both in the family Caprimulgidae), but they are much easier to spot. See?

Where are its feet? As Wikipedia notes:

Nighthawks have small feet, of little use for walking, and long pointed wings. Their soft plumage is cryptically coloured to resemble bark or leaves. Some species perch facing along a branch, rather than across it as birds usually do. This helps to conceal them during the day. The female lays two patterned eggs directly onto bare ground.

They are mostly active in the late evening and early morning or at night and feed on moths and other large flying insects. The bill opens very wide and has a slightly hooked upper tip.

Nighthawks are similar in most respects to the nightjars, but have shorter bills and plumage that is less soft. Nighthawks are less strictly nocturnal than many nightjars and may be seen hunting when there is still light in the sky.

A further note on its flight:

The flight of the Common Nighthawk is erratic and jerky, as it attempts to prey on various flying insects. Its call is a short, harsh, buzzy sound. The white bands on its underwings are easily seen as it flies in the evening, at an altitude that is often well above the treetops. Also of note is nighthawks’ mating ritual. Males will gain considerable altitude, then perform a power dive; as they pull up from the dive, the wings make a sudden, low sound that is called “booming”.

To see this flight, as well as to appreciate how hard it must have been to take these photos, here’s a video of its hunting:

And to hear its calls, go here. That site doesn’t have the “booming” call, but you can hear that here.

Monday: Hili dialogue

July 20, 2014 • 11:03 pm

Haggard after a long trip (which is why I look so dreadful), I greet the Furry Navel of the World. And, yes, I brought her presents. . .

Jerry: I’ve been missing you.
Hili: Me too, I hope you have some presents for me.

In Polish:

Jerry: Tęskniłem za tobą.
Hili: Ja też, mam nadzieję, że masz jakieś prezenty dla mnie.

McLeroy replies about the crucifixion

July 20, 2014 • 10:07 pm

Okay, for a one-time bonus, I have allowed creationist and Biblical literalist Don McLeroy to answer your questions about the supposed 500 witnesses to the Crucifixion, and I’ve asked him to respond to all of the readers’ serious questions. He has begun to do so. But this is your chance to question a true believer about his beliefs (stick to the Crucifixion claim), so ask questions in the comments to the previous post. [UPDATE: readers appear to be violating this en masses, so, go ahead and respond here. McLeroy did

Be polite, but of course you can also be firm.

McLeroy has his own website, where he’s simply reposting my posts, something I don’t like. It also has the usual creationist blather.

Well, I tried to divert your questions to McLeroy to the earlier post, but it looks as if he’s monitoring both, so go ahead and leave questions or comments right below this one.

In the meantime, here’s one of his “responses” I’ve allowed on this site site:

Dr. Coyne: Thanks for the opportunity.

It is not unreasonable to accept the the scriptures as authoritative; I have some amazing company. For example from my desk top library at this moment, you could read Peter Kreeft, Norman Geisler, Frank Turek, Lee Strobel, James Hannam, Moyshe Averick, Rodney Stark, Ravi Zacarias,G. K Chesterton, Paul Johnson, Abraham Kuyper, C. S. Lewis, David Brog, and from my bookshelves many more. These are serious thinkers who have thought deeply about the Bible and for most a lot about the resurrection.

After 29 years of studying the Bible,I am now totally convinced that the Bible and Christianity are true. Are there still intellectual and rational difficulties to my faith? Yes. But, I have come to see that all people have rational problems with what they believe. Even the most dogged atheist is left with “something from nothing.” That certainly is not rational. For me, Christianity brings everything together, in thought, in science, in history, and in life. (From my testimony see: http://donmcleroy.com/ “How I became a Christian.”)

As you are amazed at me and how I could hold what to you understand are wildly unreasonable ideas, I am amazed at how you (evolutionists and atheists) can do likewise. This week,I have just posted my analysis of the weakness of Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levines’s explanation for the evolutionary origin of the ribosome. Check it out and please show me where the analysis fails or send links to more evidence.

Why Evolution is Probably False (revised)

Also, check out the blog post on Neil deGrasse Tyson and Anne Druyan’s opening episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, nd their definition of science and show me where I am wrong.

http://donmcleroy.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/an-observation-on-cosmos-a-spacetime-odyssey/

The Resurection

Peter Kreeft in his “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” (176-198)states that there are five possible theories about what happened that first Easter morning: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon. He then presents 9 refutations for the swoon theory, 7 for the conspiracy theory, 13 for the hallucination theory and 6 for the myth theory.

He then deals with 5 other general objections.

His reasoning is sound and convincing and he is just one among many others. I suggest someone who is really curious, check out his book.

Again, thank you. It is a privilege to be able to join your discussions.

Remember these roolz for this discussion:

1. Stay away from arguing with McLeroy about evolution. There’s nothing to be gained by that.

2. You’re not going to change the man’s mind about either Jesus or evolution. So ask him questions if you wish, but if you think you’ll change his mind—or even make him question his belief slightly—you’re deluded.

Why does putting up this most make me feel like I’m throwing a bone to a pack of hungry dogs? But the bone is indestructible!

The Jesus Delusion

July 20, 2014 • 12:04 pm

Don McLeroy, former head of the Texas State Board of Education and a regular member for several years during The Great Texas Textbook Wars, added his own comment (he’s moderated) to the post “Catholic biologist Ken Miller talks about God and evolution”. This is what appeared on my dashboard.

McLeroy, as many of you know, is a creationist dentist who, for a while, exercised enormous power over what Texas schoolchildren could learn about evolution. He was eventually heaved out of office, but can you imagine somebody putting this kind of trust in the gospels having any control over public education?

Feel free to ask him about those 500 witnesses. Maybe I’ll let him reply.

Beware of the cat

July 20, 2014 • 9:06 am

Here’s a funny sign put up before a party and then posted on Twi**er:

Actually, most cats fit that description: narcissistic, sybaritic, affectionate only when they get something out of it, like fusses or food. Why, then, do we love them so?

h/t: Barry

Burger King introduces a “gay pride” burger, Christians worried that believers may consume one inadvertently

July 20, 2014 • 7:22 am

But why? Do they think it will turn them gay?

What with Hobby Lobby, Chick fil A, and other right-wing and/or religious businesses flaunting their faith or even enforcing it on employees, it’s good to see a chain—a big one—come out in favor of gay rights.

It’s Burger King, which, in early July, briefly sold a “Proud Whopper” in San Francisco (sadly, in only one store). Still, that’s something:

And KENS5, a San Antonio (Texas) news station reports:

The downtown San Francisco Burger King sold Proud Whoppers last weekend, during the parade and also passed out some 50,000 rainbow Burger King crowns, that were worn by parade participants and spectators. The video, created by the Miami office of Burger King’s ad agency David, captures customers discussing whether or not the burger, itself, is different. At $4.29 it costs the same as a conventional Whopper. And, indeed, customers ultimately discover the only difference is the rainbow wrap.

All Proud Whopper sandwich sales, Machado [head of BK international brand marketing] says, will be donated to the Burger King McLamore Foundation for scholarships benefiting LGBT high school seniors graduating in spring 2015.

Here’s the company’s video, which also includes a few people beefing about the burger:

Unsurprisingly, the American right just can’t leave this alone. The Raw Story reports some pushback from the odious American Family Association:

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer voiced his concern on Friday over the idea that a new Burger King item honoring LGBT Pride events in San Francisco could be sold in other parts of the country, Right Wing Watch reported.

“If this isn’t bottled up in San Francisco, this kind of nonsense, then it’s going to be spreading across the entire fruited plain,” Fischer complained. “And you’re going to be going to your Burger King in Des Moines, Iowa and you’re going to have a rainbow color wrapper for your Whopper.”

I can’t help but think that “fruited plain” (which comes from one line of the patriotic song “America the Beautiful“) is a sly and denigrating reference to gays, which in my youth used to be called “fruits” (pejoratively, of course).

The burger chain featured the “Proud Whopper” earlier this month at one San Francisco location, bearing rainbow-colored packaging and the phrase, “We are all the same inside” on the inside of the wrapper. The company also posted a video of people ordering and reacting to the promotion.

“I cried in there,” one woman said in the video. “A burger has never made me cry before.”

Fischer scoffed at the tearful reaction, and suggested that his group would try to do an “action alert” to protest to the company.

“I gotta tell you, I think this is a marketing mistake,” he said. “I think this is a bonehead move from a marketing standpoint. Because I gotta guarantee you, when people sit down to eat a hamburger, the last thing they want to be thinking about is two guys having sex.”

Yeah, as if that’s what they’d be thinking about. And I seriously doubt that Burger King has lost any business.

h/t: Ginger

	--Malcolm England on Tuesday: Hili dialogue
	Starwolf on Tuesday: Hili dialogue
	Starwolf on Savannah, Day 3
	Mark R. on Tuesday: Hili dialogue
	Doug on Monday: Hili dialogue