yes, we have no collusion

ripped from the headlines of tomorrow's soon-to-be-not-so-fake news: the name of the one country that the trump crime family™ most definitely has not been guilty of conspiring with:

ask frank

this valentine's day revisits the punisher's heartfelt advice to karen page in netflix' "daredevil", suggesting a second calling for the stone-cold vigilante — as an agony uncle.

Mr. Castle:

Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!" ... and I'll whisper "No."

Hope world survives long enough for this to reach you. For my own part, regret nothing. Have lived life, free from compromise ... and step into the shadow now.[1]

Without complaint,
-- "ЯR"

DEAR "ЯR":

Look around, ЯR. This city, it stinks! It's a sewer. It stinks and it smells like shit and I can't get the stink out of my nose! I think that this world, it needs men that are willing to make the hard call. I think you and me are the same![2]

Dear Frank:

I don't know where to start.

That ship that appeared last night -- I'm the one they're looking for.

Even if I surrender, there's no guarantee they'll keep their word.

But if there's a chance I can save Earth by turning myself in ... shouldn't I take it?

My gut tells me they can't be trusted.

The problem is ... I'm not sure the people of Earth can be either.[3]

Worst. Reunion. Ever.
"Cal L."

DEAR "CAL":

You're done, now, Cal. They're coming for you. Only way you get out of this, is if you grow wings.[4]

My Dear Punny-Wunny;

There's NO DIFFERENCE between ME and everybody ELSE! All it takes is ONE BAD DAY to reduce the SANEST MAN ALIVE to LUNACY. THAT'S how far the WORLD is from where I am. Just ONE BAD DAY. YOU had a BAD DAY once, am I RIGHT? I KNOW I am. I can TELL. You had a BAD DAY and everything CHANGED. You had a BAD DAY, and it drove YOU as CRAZY as EVERYBODY ELSE ... only YOU won't ADMIT it! You have to keep PRETENDING that life makes SENSE, that there's some POINT to all this STRUGGLING!

God, you make me want to PUKE.[5]

Keep up the GOOD WORK,
-- "Joe Cur"

DEAR "JOE":

Well, loss doesn't work the same for everybody, Joe. We don't get to pick the things that fix us. Make us whole. Make us feel purpose. My moment of clarity? It came from the strangest of places.

Is that why you think you're better than me? You know what I think of you? I think you're a half-measure. I think you're a man who can't finish the job. I think that you're a coward. You know the one thing that you just can't see? You know you're one bad day away from being ME.[6]

Deah Mistah Punisha:

Anotha night I get all dolled up, and anotha night I get the boot. Face it, this stinks. I'm a certified nutzo wanted by the law in two dozen states ... and hopelessly in love with a murderous psychopathic clown. At what point did my life go looney tunes? How did it happen? Who's to blame?

Nevah again. No more obsession. No more craziness. No more Puddin'. I finally see that slime for what he is.[7]

Tearfully, but no longah a clown,
-- "R. Lee Quinn"

DEAR "LEE":

People that can hurt you, the ones that can really hurt you, are the ones that are close enough to do it. People that get inside you and ... and ... and tear you apart, and make you feel like you're never gonna recover. Shit. I'd ... I ... I would chop my arm off right here, in this restaurant, just to feel that one more time for my wife. My old lady, she didn't just break my heart. She ... She'd rip it out, she'd tear it apart, she'd step on that shit, feed it to a dog. I mean, she was ruthless. She brought the pain. But she'll never hurt me again. You see, I'll never feel that. You sit here and you're all confused about this thing, but you have it. You have everything. So hold on to it. Use two hands and nevah let go. You got it?[8]

Dear Frank:

I tried to stop him once. I couldn't do it.

I can't kill my own father.

There is another, but I can't let her get involved now. He will destroy her.

He's come for me. He can feel when I'm near. That's why I have to go. I have to face him.

Because ... there is good in him. I've felt it. I can save him. I can turn him back to the good side. I have to try.[9]

As destiny approaches,
-- "Jed I."

DEAR "JED":

You still think this piece of shit is worth saving?!?!

That's a bad idea. You see, he'll kill again. Can't live with that, Jed. Can you?

'Cause you need to understand that pieces of shit like this ruin people's lives.[10]

Dear Mr. Castle:

I am a Douwd. An immortal being of disguises and false surroundings. I have lived in this galaxy for many thousands of years although, until today, no one has known my true identity. Once, while traveling in human form, I chanced to fall in love with an Earth woman. I put aside my powers and became her husband. Our life was happy and rich.

Our colony was attacked by a warship belonging to the Husnock, a species of hideous intelligence who knew only aggression and destruction. I could have destroyed them with a mere thought, but I did not do so. I will not kill.

But Rishon went to fight with the colonists, and died with them. I saw her broken body. I went insane.

My hatred exploded, and in an instant of grief I destroyed the Husnock. I didn't kill just one Husnock, or a hundred, or a thousand. I killed them all. All Husnock. Everywhere.

Are eleven thousand people worth fifty billion? Is the love of a woman worth the destruction of an entire species?[11]

Remorseful on Rana,
-- "Kev"

DEAR "KEV":

Yeah. And nobody got hurt who didn't deserve it.[12]

1) rorschach, the watchmen #1, "at midnight, all the agents..." (1985)
2) frank castle, daredevil, season 2#3, "new york's finest" (2016)
3) clark kent, man of steel (2013)
4) frank castle, daredevil, season 2#3, "new york's finest" (2016)
5) the joker, batman: the killing joke (1988)
6) frank castle, daredevil, season 2#3, "new york's finest" (2016)
7) harley quinn, the batman adventures: mad love (1994)
8) frank castle, daredevil, season 2#11, "380" (2016)
9) luke skywalker, star wars: return of the jedi (1983)
10) frank castle, daredevil, season 2#3, "new york's finest" (2016)
11) kevin uxbridge, star trek: the next generation, season 3#3, "the survivors" (1989)
12) frank castle, daredevil, season 2#3, "new york's finest" (2016)

mad men

when facing off against the legendary bat-man, it helps to be just a little crazy ...

"the case of the chemical syndicate", detective comics #27, may 1939

"professor hugo strange", detective comics #36, feb 1940

"the joker returns", batman #1, spring 1940

"the murders of clayface", detective comics #40, jun 1940

"wolf, the crime master", batman #2, summer 1940

"the case of the joker's crime circus!", batman #4, winter 1941

"the clock maker!", batman #6, aug-sep 1941

"the brain burglar!", detective comics #55, sep 1941

"twenty-four hours to live!", detective comics #57, nov 1941

"a bat-death for batman!", batman #221, may 1970

"night of the reaper", batman #237, dec 1971

"forecast for tonight... murder!", detective comics #420, feb 1972

"open-and-shut case!", detective comics #425, jul 1972

"deathmask!", detective comics #437, nov 1973

then again, anyone who'd face off against every adrenaline-fueled psychopath that crawled out of the woodwork might be just a little crazy too ...

"the white whale!", batman #9, feb-mar 1942

(stories by bob kane, bill finger, frank robbins, denny o'neil & archie goodwin; art by bob kane, jerry robinson, george roussos, irv novick, neal adams, dick giordano, frank robbins, don heck & jim aparo)

those were the days

every trump poll we've ever seen

making america great again

updated for today’s conservatism in the age of trump, here’s a modern version of one of my all-time favorite comic stories from psychedelic sixties underground master robert crumb, originally about a form of mental awakening.

(the original story “meatball” can be seen at “classic crumb”.)

(original story & art by robert crumb, 1967; updated by aarrgghh, 2017)

ya gotta kill some pigs

if FOX news were a liberal outfit ...

At Iowa's "Freedom Summit", Mike Huckabee declared war on the police

des moines, iowa — folksy former arkansas governor and faux news commentator and current 2016 presidential potential mike huckabee dropped a bombshell during the closeout speech of saturday's republican party "freedom summit" in iowa. outlining the principles of his radical agenda for the country, huckabee exhorted his talibangelical legions everywhere to massacre law-enforcement officials in washington and beyond.

"we need to do some pig-killing!" huckabee declared, pumping his fists in a gang-salute to a boisterous crowd, where nevada cattle rancher cliven bundy was overhead saying: "we're about ready to take the country over with force!"

however, not everyone at the summit agreed with huckabee. fellow speaker, new jersey governor, rival contender and perennial porcine punchline chris christie nervously called the plan "a solution in search of a problem."

police officers quickly voiced their displeasure with huckabee. "what police officers felt yesterday after that speech is that they were thrown under the bus," said new york police union president patrick lynch. "that they were out there doing a difficult job in the middle of the night, protecting the rights of those to stump, protecting romney's sons and dollars, and huckabee was behind microphones like this throwing them under the bus."

despite some resistance among traditional conservative ranks, huckabee remained committed to pushing the GOP down a new and militant path. "ya gotta kill some pigs," he said. "and folks, there are a lotta people ... that don't wanna kill any pigs."

torture works

of course you're not a scientist

conservative lawmakers of late have taken to adding a certain disclaimer to their climate change denialism so they can continue their paid endorsements of inaction on global warming without having to cite facts and evidence:

washington — gov. rick scott of florida, a republican who is fighting a democratic challenge from former gov. charlie crist, was asked by the miami herald if he believes climate change is significantly affecting the weather. "well, i'm not a scientist," he said.

senator mitch mcconnell of kentucky, who is locked in a tight re-election race, was asked this month by the cincinnati enquirer if he believes that climate change is a problem. "i'm not a scientist," he said.

house speaker john a. boehner, when asked by reporters if climate change will play a role in the republican agenda, came up with a now-familiar formulation. "i'm not qualified to debate the science over climate change," he said.

if you're wondering why we should listen to anyone disqualifying themselves from having an opinion, remember that this is only a one-way conversation.

and since scott and mcconnell were both reelected, it obviously works. so why should craven congresscritters have all the fun?

if only the shadow knew ...

... a little more about physics. can you spot the errors?

(story and art by howard chaykin, colors by jesus aburto)

where lamont cranston a.k.a the shadow a.k.a. author/artist howard chaykin talks about density, he clearly should be referring to mass. shrinking an object in the manner deduced by the shadow would actually increase its density, since the same number of atoms would now occupy a smaller volume. what would remain unchanged is the object's mass and gravity's effect on it. the ingots would weight exactly the same as they always have, which means the shadow and his cohorts shouldn't be able to handle them with just their fingers and pass them around like peanuts.

on the other hand, the shrinking machine has yet to be revealed. it's possible back in 1949 some fugitive evil nazi genius actually discovered how to warp space itself, which would allow him to shrink an object by shrinking the space between its atoms, instead of merely moving them closer together in normal space. voila! smaller ingots, same density. (same mass and weight, however.)

in any case, one wouldn't use a spectrometer to measure density. (but one can use a mass spectrometer to analyze an object's mass.) in order to measure density, one need only weight it on a scale and divide by its total volume.

from the shadow: midnight in moscow #1, may 2014.

aarrgghh!!!

one reason to check out this month's thor, god of thunder #23 — my handle gets a workout in this time-hopping, bashing & brawling smackdown. the other reason would be artists esad ribic's and ive svorcino's romanticist stylings:

(story by jason aaron, art by esad ribic & colors by ive svorcina)

the plague

a tale set in the far-flung year 2000 from marvel comics' tales to astonish #44, june 1963:

(story by stan lee & art by steve ditko)

*** warning: spoiler alert below ***

for some historical perspective, in 1964 guns killed 5,473 victims, a homicide rate of 2.9 per 100,000. by 2010 guns killed twice as many: 11,078 at a rate of 3.6. a decade and a half past the once-imaginary future, the "plague" is thriving. that open-carry is at least starting to look like a disease may be one prediction marvel got right.

stan "the man" lee, never one for subtlety in storytelling, seems to have pulled his punch in this twilight zone inspired tale; his unnamed "plague-carrier" not once inflicted his disease upon his apparently defenseless pursuers. while shooting unarmed police would have effectively demonstrated the terror of firearms, it's clear lee didn't want to give up any element of surprise before the final panel.

certainly the terror of firearms has been long self-evident, making demonstrations unnecessary, but perhaps the sacrifice of some drama was also unnecessary, since the reader, already inured to countless gun chases, would be unlikely to guess too soon that the gun itself was this parable's "mcguffin" and not merely the protagonist's means of escape.

it's called "natural selection" for a reason

evolutionary biologist jerry coyne @ whyevolutionistrue:

one reader wanted to know if i was going ask [dr. eugenie scott, former head of the national center for science education (NCSE) and known as "genie" to everyone] about theistic evolution — the view that evolution happened, but was somehow guided by god. they wanted to know if she considered that "real" evolution.

i responded on this site that i hardly wanted to get into a kerfuffle about the issue with genie in public. after all, i know her position on it (theistic evolution is okay), she knows mine, and i didn't want to do battle in public, particularly when she was giving a keynote talk.

but this website is a different matter.

in fact, the question of theistic evolution did come up in genie's Q&A, when one of the audience asked genie whether she considered theistic evolution "science."

the question clearly discomfited her a bit, but i knew how she would answer. she said, correctly, that there are a huge variety of positions falling under "theistic evolution," ranging from pure deism (god created the universe, and then evolution proceeded purely naturalistically) to other forms in which god intervened to a greater or lesser extent. as we know, those interventions range from subtle ones (god tweaked certain mutations making it more likely that they would be more likely to be adaptive, or more likely to create human features), to less subtle (god inserted a soul in the human lineage) to pretty drastic interventions (god let some species evolve naturally, but brought others into existence ex nihilo).

theistic evolution is in fact the most widely accepted form of evolution in america, at least for the evolution of our species. a gallup poll in 2012 showed that 46% of americans thought god created humans ex nihilo within the last 10,000 years, 32% thought that humans evolved, but with the help of god, and only 15% thought that humans evolved without any intervention by god. in other words, roughly one in seven american accepts evolution in the same way scientists do. for every american who accepts naturalistic evolution, more than two accept god-guided evolution. (i think accepting that "god guided the process" rules out pure deism.)

genie said something like this (i didn't write down her words), "what we care about is getting the science accepted, and yes, all of these positions are compatible with science, so i have no problem considering them as science." in other words, she'd be okay if she or the NCSE could simply make religious people accept theistic evolution. for, in her view, they'd be accepting a scientific view rather than a religious one. and then they might be our allies in keeping straight creationism out of public schools.

and here i think genie is wrong — dead wrong.

theistic evolution is neither science nor scientific. while it may help some religious people oppose the teaching of strict creationism in schools (the real goal of the NCSE's accommodationism), it inculcates people with the idea that god and his supernatural acts can work hand-in-hand with physical laws to bring about a process that scientists think is purely naturalistic.

further, we have evidence against certain types of theistic evolution. there doesn't appear to be any telelogical forces driving evolution in a certain direction; there is no evidence that mutations are more likely to be useful when the environment changes, so that mutations for longer fur in mammals would occur more frequently when the climate becomes colder (this is what scientists mean when we say that "mutations are random", although "indifferent" is a better word than "random"); and we don't see violations of darwinian natural selection, that is, we don't see natural selection creating "irreducible complexity," as intelligent-design advocates maintain.

as far as we can see, then, evolution, like all things that occur in nature, is purely naturalistic; it does not require or give evidence for the intervention of a god. as laplace famously said, "we don't need that hypothesis." theistic evolution says otherwise. and that's unscientific. there is, after all, a reason that darwin called his best idea natural selection, not "divinely-aided selection."

think about it. saying that theistic evolution is scientific is equivalent to saying that yes, chemical bonds form between sodium and chloride ions, but those bonds are formed with the help of god. why not have theistic chemistry? or that the universe is expanding, but god is helping it expand. why not have theistic cosmology?

those hypotheses are unscientific because they not only posit an intervention that isn't observed, but invoke a superfluous and supernatural intervention to explain a process that can be explained adequately using pure naturalism. god is a useless "add-on" here, and that's not the way science works. science works best when we make theories that assume no more than we need to. while it's logically possible for god to be guiding particles and directing evolution, we have no evidence that this is true. theistic evolution is not required by science; it is, as we must admit, simply something tacked on to make religious people feel better about a process that, if purely naturalistic, is taken as a direct attack on their worldview.

further, theistic evolution is, to use genie's own term, a "science stopper." if you say that god is making mutations, or expanding the universe, then we need investigate no further. what we don't understand can simply be fobbed off on the will of a divine being. there's need to look for that elusive naturalistic explanation.

the tactic of considering theistic evolution as "scientific" is a purely political one. the NCSE and others (viz., the american association for the advancement of science and the national academy of sciences), feel that to get evolution accepted and taught in schools, we need religious allies. and to get those allies, we have to accept their view that evolution was guided by god, even though we don't believe it ourselves.

science makes progress only when it doesn't evoke a god. even the NCSE accepts that "methodological naturalism" — the rejection of divine hypotheses — is the way that science has progressed. so why reject god when you're doing science, but then admit on the sly that he might be in there working away subtly and, perhaps, undetectably? that is a political view, not a scientific one, and it dilutes and pollutes the scientific enterprise. it also gives the public the false idea that theistic evolution is somehow okay with scientists.

it isn't. no evolutionary biologist puts in her scientific papers a note to the effect that god might be involved in the process she's studying. anyone doing that would be laughed out of the field. so if scientists reject theistic evolution in their own work, why accept it when the public believes it? it's pure hypocrisy to do so, and a blatant attempt to coddle believers.

i'd rather stand up for the purity and naturalism of science than accept forms of science that invoke god. yes, i'll be glad to work with religious people to help expel creationism from schools — and theistic evolution is a form of creationism!. what i won't do is give my imprimatur to a form of evolution that includes the supernatural. until we have some evidence for the supernatural in science — and we certainly don't at this point — let's not grant it simply to gain allies. that is a false alliance that, in the end, creates a public misunderstanding of science.

it is ironic that the national center for science education is willing to include theistic evolution as "scientific." it is wrong, it is hypocritical, and it's a cynical political tactic unbecoming to scientists. the NCSE has done terrific work in keeping creationism out of schools. but in saying that theistic evolution is "scientific," as genie did on sunday, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. what is science profited if we help evolution get accepted more widely, but in so doing lose our own scientific soul?

this is the song of cliven bundy

cliven bundy
deadbeat on monday
rebel on tuesday
fox news hero on wednesday
racist on thursday
doubled down on friday
cast out on saturday
forgotten by sunday
and here ends the song
of cliven bundy

quote of the day

isn't it curious that despite the fact that virtually every sentient being on the planet these days is now carrying around a hand-held device that can instantly record at least a few minutes of video, we haven't seen a single second of persuasive evidence that alien beings are zipping around the atmosphere in their jazzy, souped-up, silent-as-midnight "flying saucers"?

— "john"