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Oh hey, look at this thing! I completely forgot I made it!

An Overly Long Summary of the First World War (specifically the US's involvement)

Well, as I cannot access the ACS blog and I feel like posting something on the internet, let's dust off this old thing and publish this massive summary I wrote for history class.

This thing probably has several errors in it, as I cobbled it together quickly, but it should still be mostly accurate.

World War I was the most destructive conflict in European history, or at least up until that point. It was fought between nations fueled and blinded by nationalistic pride, motivated by arbitrary causes and alliances.

            World War I has a myriad of causes, and many can be traced back almost a century to the Council of Vienna. The council was made following the Napoleonic wars. Headed by figures such as Clemens von Metternich, it was meant to restore the balance of power to Europe. In doing so, the seeds of the alliances were sown.

            Revolution would grip Europe twice, first in 1830, then in 1848. Following the massive second wave of revolutions, many more alliances between the monarchs and those in power began to congeal, creating an elaborate web of allegiance that got more complex as time wore on.

            Then, in 1871, the German Confederacy, after kicking the tar out of France in a humiliating curb-stomp battle, proceeded to declare themselves an empire. This led to a slew of alliances as other nations tried to curry favor towards Germany, or wanted to keep the scales balanced. However, the rise of the Germanic Empire also led to the rise of nationalism, as now many nations had emerged with their own identities. Nationalism spread like an ideological plague, encouraging intolerance and xenophobia throughout thee continent. The Balkans, especially, with ethnic groups under the heel of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, felt this especially hard.

            The fuse was lit when a Serbian terrorist named Gavril Princip shot the Archduke Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary to death. Immediately Austria Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia to bait them into war. It worked. With war declared in the Balkans, Russia soon rushed to Serbia’s side as a result of both their ethnic heritage and the various arbitrary treaties. Now that Russia was in the war, Germany would be too, due to their alliance to Austria Hungary. And of course, Germany meant France, who challenged Germany and invaded. Germany invaded Belgium as a response to knock France out first. And with Belgium came Britain, not allied with the nation but involved because it was neutral. This shows clearly that the war was a contrived and pointless mess of nonsense.

            On the Western Front, German troops attacked Liege, besieged the city, won, and moved onward. The French stopped them at the Marne, where they were pushed back into Belgium. Here both armies, unable to advance past one another and unwilling to give up ground, set up a terrifying labyrinth of trenches that spanned the length of Belgium, curved into France, and ended at the Swiss border. The army stopped dead.

            Meanwhile in the East, the Russian advance towards Germany and Austria-Hungary was stopped dead at the Battle of Tannanburg. Named after the victory over the Teutonic Knights in the 1400s, the battle set the Germans up for a successful run in the East. After several months of scattered fighting, the efforts in the East became concentrated and specific, and Germany was soon pushing into the East, with successful battles in Poland. Their chief ally, Austria-Hungary, fared far worse. In the Battle of Galicia, Russian troops decimated the Austrians. The battle’s positive effects partially negated Tannenberg, which occurred at the same time, and kept Russia’s monarchy in the war.

            Meanwhile, the Western front was in a state of perpetual stagnation. With the emergence of the trenches, no army could divide its forces to go around the trenches, and no army could land behind the trenches via planes due to technological impairments. As a result, there was only one method of advance: run into no-man’s land. The landscape on a trench warfare battlefield had two opposing lines of trenches. These lines were networks that focused around having supply trenches and front line trenches. The trenches linked up bunkers and barracks. The region between the lines was known as no-man’s land. This region was filled with barbed wire, mines, dead trees, craters, and, after assaults, thousands of corpses. Crossing it was suicide, as artillery barrages would rain in from the sky while machine gunners would fire from enemy trenches. Trench warfare was, for the soldiers, moments of great excitement in a sea of worried boredom. When there weren’t charges or assaults, the trenches had shells and mortar fire surrounding them.

            Trench warfare brought about new innovations. Tanks were used to circumvent them, though they were nothing more than advanced cavalry meant to support infantry. Poison gas was another innovation, marking the start of biological warfare. Mustard gas agents and phosphorus bombs would coat the trenches with a foul stench that burnt the skin and lungs from its victims. It was a true living hell.

            Battles on the Western Front were all useless and went nowhere. Ypres was the site of multiple battles that were inconsequential. At Verdun, over half a million men lost their lives so that the Germans could gain less than a mile. The Somme was an even larger battle that saw 7 miles of ground gained for almost a million men. Everything was fruitless, wasteful, and endlessly cruel.

            The Eastern Front, meanwhile, was going through its own changes. Germany was winning a number of victories, but the main burden towards them was the fact that the East was using up valuable resources. Austria-Hungary, meanwhile, was doing poorly. Then, in 1916, the Russians launched one of the most dramatic battles of the war, the Brusilov Offensive. This attack was against the Austrian lines and broke through them, savaging the Austrian military in the process and pushing the armies of the Central Powers back. The attack was the last that Russia would successfully do in the war. The next year, their government imploded as revolutionaries stormed the nation, murdering the Czar Nicholas II and his family in a basement under Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains.

With Russia out of the war, there was now a release of troops and materials to the West for Germany.  The result was the Spring Offensive, which was the first major movement on the front since the March to the Sea and the Battle of the Marne.

Germany did not take into account, however, the involvement of another nation in the conflict. The United States of America was now involved due to a slew of reasons. During the earlier years of the war, the German U-Boats had been prowling the North Sea, sinking numerous ships, from passenger liners to merchants to warships. The most famous of these ships was the Lusitania. In 1915, she was sunk off the coast of Ireland, and 1198 people on the boat were killed. The Germans had torpedoed it due to a pact of arms that the British and Americans had made, but when the news of 128 dead Americans would enrage the Americans people and send the nation towards war, ending many of the ultra-isolationist factions of the population.

As numerous boats met their fate in the North Sea, America began to be drawn into the war more and more. Eventually they were allied with Britain in all but official terms. Then, the progress into war sped up. In 1917, there came a note, intercepted by the British, that was sent from Arthur Zimmerman to the Mexicans. It was essentially an appeal to alliance, one that contained language that would prove disastrous for Germany. The note essentially said that Germany could help Mexico regain the territory lost from the 1846 Mexican American War. How Germany would be able to assist a nation in civil war to attack a great power while tied down in two fronts with various colonial attacks across the globe is a mystery, but it was likely that the note was mostly an appeal to add an ally in Mexico.

America, however, didn’t see it that way. It might as well have been a declaration of war. Then there came the sinking of four ships, all of them American passenger liners. That and the Zimmerman note ended the vast majority of isolationists. The nation plunged into war in 1917.

However, Wilson had several massive obstacles to overcome. The first was the public’s opinion. A foreign war, one that America had prided itself for staying out of, was going to involve America’s troops in full scale. As the solution, the public was fed copious amounts of propaganda that churned out of the Creel organization. Such was the zeal that Americans were whipped into that Wilson found himself idolized to a point at which any action would result in letdown.

America’s population, now high on a similar propaganda fever that gripped the European states before 1914, surged towards war. Problem was, not everyone bought the nationalist drug. Dissenters still existed all across the nation, but more importantly, the German immigrants were a major problem. These immigrants became the suspects of everything from epidemics to sabotage. The response was the passage of the Espionage Act of 1917. This act made “espionage” illegal, and with the amendments of the “Sedition” Act passed in 1918, it became a tool of the government to weed out dissenters. (Fun fact: The Espionage Act is still in effect, albeit so watered down and modified throughout the ages that it’s unrecognizable.)

The American people who didn’t need to be weeded out by these acts were the backbone of American efforts in the war. The entire nation mobilized for the effort. However, there were still a few glaring issues, such as the fact that the United States had a number of domestic issues that refused to go away, and the fact that there was a very small army. The domestic issues of the era were mostly in the factories and in feminism.

The largest obstacle to the war was the lack of a large army for the United States. People simply didn’t want to enlist en mass as was predicted. So, Wilson was forced to call a draft. The draft ended the substitute system of the Civil War and resulted in the massive army of “doughboys” that went to war in France.

With a great deal of the men gone, the home front was dramatically changed. As this was the era of progressivism, something that Wilson himself championed greatly, workers at the time could now participate in organized and legal strikes. The espionage and Sedition Acts helped to quell many of these, and the draft soon took many of the old workers, as those eligible would either work of fight. Now, the empty jobs could be filled with two groups primarily: African-Americans and women. Women began working in jobs traditionally held by men, and African Americans began to migrate north to fill the factories, as the South was still very rural.

The women of the era now had many new opportunities. However, due to the “work or fight” rule, they didn’t fill the workplace as much as they would 25 years later. Despite this, this was still the era of the first wave of feminism. The focus began shifting to suffrage again, this time to keep it in the public’s eye. Wilson approved of it, but it wouldn’t become law until 1920, mostly due to the massive amount of upheaval that took precedence from 1917 to 1920.

At last America was ready to enter the war, but their army was still being trained. Meanwhile, things were turning bad in Europe. With the victory of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front, Germany could divert their attention almost exclusively to the Western front. The result was the massive Spring Offensive of 1918. German troops busted through the lines with their new superiority. They took a great deal of land until they finally were stopped at, in a cruel repeat of the Race to the Sea, the Marne. This battle was different, however, as it involved American troops, who were now being deployed. These “doughboys” finally started the push back in the Hundred Days Offensive, which included the Battle of Argonne-Meuse.

The Hundred Days Offensive ended the Spring Offensive with a complete and utter route. The German troops were pushed back beyond the Hindenburg line, where they finally ended the war with their surrender. By this time, there was no other major ally to Germany; Austria-Hungary had been out as a major player from the start and the Ottomans were losing constantly. Thus Germany’s surrender was the definite end to the war.

That’s not to say that the war had a neat end. Unlike World War II, which ended conclusively and totally, World War I left a Europe falling apart politically, with multiple political factions duking it out. In Germany, there were riots and uproar, with cries of the “Stab-in-the-Back,” a conspiracy theory that stated that Germany lost the war due to a stab in the back deal from the German high command. The entire continent soon fell ill with Spanish flu, which spread like wildfire among the disorganized anarchy and killed many more than the war. Amid the chaos, there came the effort to conclude the war at last, the Treaty of Versailles.

The delegations of Paris were convened in the Palace of Versailles outside town. The attendees at these delegations ranged from most of the involved powers to delegate from most every other nation. However, one nation was deliberately left out of most of the planning: Germany. The defeated Central Power was kept away from the delegation table because France and England wanted to keep them as weak as possible and punish them for WWI.

The delegations were essentially headed by the “Big Four.” Each of them had

their own agenda. They were:

1.     David Lloyd George of Britain, who wanted to keep his empire as imperialistic as before

2.     Vittorio Orlando of Italy, who wanted to hold onto ghis ports on the Croatian ports and seize a piece of Austria

3.     George Clemenceau of France, who wanted to punish Germany

4.     Woodrow Wilson of America, whose goals were outlined in the 14 point

Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points were presented at the delegations to bring about the peace and stability that Europe was aiming for. They were as follows.

1.     The discouragement of secret alliances between countries

2.     Freedom of the seas in peace and war

3.     The reduction of trade barriers among nations

4.     General disarmament

5.     Colonial settlements

6.     The acceptance of the Bolshevik government

7.     The restoration of Belgian territories in Germany

8.     The evacuation of all French territory, including Alsace-Lorraine

9.     Territorial changes for Italy

10.  Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

11.  The restoration of the Balkan nations

12.  Free passage through the Dardanelle Straits

13.  Independence for Poland

14.  The League of Nations

Several of these points would be taken away, but the most valuable of them was reserved. The League of Nations was created, and it was accepted by most of the nations present, but getting it home was a major problem.

            Back in the United States, the Republicans were thoroughly horrified with the idea of joining a “League of Nations.” To them, this represented the end of Westphalian Sovereignty (I'll have more on this later) and would force America to do a number of international duties that America would have no say over. Hatred, bile, and vitriol rose in Congress, and soon the Republicans began to attack the treaty. Then there came the most egregious examples of political attacks of the age. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of the Republican Party published a set of 14 reservations. These reservations all had to do with keeping America isolated and don’t need to be summarized in depth, as they were virtually all done as an attempt to water down the League and as a giant middle finger to Wilson. Now there came the massive political debate. Lodge and the Republicans were on one side, and Wilson and the Democrats were on the other. Deadlock gripped the entire congress, and kept it in a perpetual state of stagnation, meaning that until one side budged, nothing would happen. All Wilson had to do was accept some of Lodge’s points, and the Treaty of Versailles would be upheld as America joined the League. But because Wilson refused, the gamble was lost; all or nothing resulted in nothing. And what a nothing it was.

            Because America failed to enter the League of Nations, the League was doomed to failure. The League of Nations had been built with the United States as one of the most important nations. The United States would provide the League with muscle and sheer power. Without it, the League was crippled. It spent two decades settling small matters and wars, al of them minor or simple affairs, with the largest being the Ruhr Crisis. But once the Axis Powers began to rise, everything went to hell.

            However, this was but the last ingredient to add to the noxious elixir of chaos and vitriol that resulted after WWI. The main problems came from the Treaty of Versailles. Because of the sacrifice of many of the 14 points, and because of France’s ability to get their nationalist crap passed during the delegations, the entire treaty would result in disaster.

            France’s punishment of Germany led to the Germans being completely unable to pay off their war debts. This led to the weak and fractured state of the Weimar Republic, whose economy couldn’t handle the stress of the debts and fell into total upheaval. And because the economy in Germany was dead, that meant that the political system would remain fractured and broken, which meant that it was easy for a political party with enough members to enter and change the face of Germany, and with it, history. Its leaders would use the League of Nations as an ideological punching bag and taunt it when it was powerless to stop them, and they would use another race, the Jews, as the scapegoats for the “Stab-in-the-Back” conspiracy theory.

            Meanwhile, the United States elected a corrupt president to replace Wilson and entered a decade of chaotic growth. America became financially involved in European economic affairs after the war, enough to end the Ruhr Crisis, but not enough to undo the damage done by the reparations laid out in Versailles. It would take the rise of a dictator and another World War to truly show how great the failure of the Treaty of Versailles truly was.

Happy New Year!

2012. Wow.

Well, it's a new year. A new time for opportunities, adventure, and happiness, or, realistically, who the f*ck knows? And with all the crazy shit that happened in 2011, what with the entire world going insane, 2012 looks to be just as fun, especially with the presidential election.

Of course, people are going to think that this is the end of the world (or at least, in almost another entire year), but who knows?

Really, there's so much that can happen in this next year, so much that will, and so much that won't.  So here's to surviving a new year.

Picaresque

Ahh, album reviews! Seems like ages since I've done one! Here we are, my review of Picaresque, by the Decemberists. And man, is it long. I spent way too much time on this.

Picaresque by the Decemberists

9.5/10

A Picaresque novel is a story of a young roguish character who gets by based on their wits. If that’s the case, then where is that theme on the album Picaresque? The album is filled with narrative-based songs, with only two exceptions, and none of them fit the title.

But that doesn’t matter. What does matter are the lyrics, compositions, melodies, and overall quality of the album. Many Decemberists fans declare it their best album. Does it hold up to this reputation? Personally, I prefer The King is Dead, but it’s still incredibly well put together.

The music on Picaresque varies widely. The opener, “The Infanta,” is bold, loud, and grand. Then the songs change their dynamics, from the muted “Eli the Barrow Boy” to the dreary “For My Own True Love.” One interesting track is “The Sporting Life,” which bears little resemblance to the rest of the album in both lyrical themes and sound; its percussion takes the lead. Perhaps the most interesting song in terms of composition is the mammoth 8 minute “Mariner’s Revenge Song,” with mandolin, violin, upright bass, and various other instruments falling in step behind accordions and guitars. It churns forward, constantly changing, enhancing the narrative it presents. The album’s conclusion is the brief “Of Angels and Angles,” which is a short arpeggio-based song with nothing but acoustic guitar and Meloy’s vocals.

However, this is a Decemberists album, so the focus is on the lyrics. Every song on the album constructs a scene, narrative, or explicit message.  Every song on this album is dark. From monarchs to suicide pacts to personal failure to lost love to government conspiracies to personal struggle, there is not one cheerful song on this album. That’s not to say that every song paints a dreary picture, or that the album is overly depressing. The songs focus on much more than depression. Colin Meloy is a fan of historical narratives (“Decemberists”, wonder where he got that!), and he sets several songs in the 1800s, such as “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” and “We Both Go Down Together.” Some, like “The Bagman’s Gambit,” are set in semi-dystopic settings. “16 Military Wives” is an all-out protest song. However, “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” has the most intense story of all, with an 8-minute narrative of revenge against a conman. While the stories widely vary, and can seem jarring at times (a story of how boy commits suicide is juxtaposed with a song about a boy who falls down at a sports game), sometimes they blend beautifully(a song about a widow is juxtaposed with “16 Military Wives”).

The album is dense, dark, and hard to get into, but if one is committed enough, you won’t ever put it down.

1. The Infanta – 8/10 A loud and intense opening with middle eastern elements. It describes a royal procession, focusing around a child monarch, the titular Infanta.

2. We Both Go Down Together – 9/10 Set in the 1800s, this song follows a young couple as they form a suicide pact on the cliffs of Dover. The song has a swift tempo and violins drive the verses, which lead into soaring choruses. The song goes into expository detail: the boy was rich, the girl was poor, his parents forbade it. It ends with them leaping off the cliffs: “We fall, though our souls are flying.”

3.  Eli the Barrow Boy – 10/10 This song is depressing. Incredibly depressing. A quiet acoustic song, it only has Meloy’s voice, an accordion solo, and the guitar. The lyrics follow Eli, a young poor boy who pushes a wheelbarrow into town to sell coal. He is trying to buy a dress for his lover when she dies. Eli commits suicide, though his ghost is said to still push the barrow. The song works extremely well with its quiet atmosphere. The guitar and Meloy’s vocals are unnerving, and the vocals feature a female harmony. One of the highlights of the album.

4. The Sporting Life – 8/10 A bit jarring, really, to come to this song. It’s a percussion based song, with most of the instruments taking back seat until the chorus. It has a driving riff below the drums, giving them an extra rhythm. The lyrics describe a boy who has fallen down on the playing field of his championship game. He sees his humiliation and laments that he’s entered the “sporting life” Something tells me that Meloy has personal experience with this.

5. The Bagman’s Gambit – 10/10 This is a very interesting song. The lyrics tell the story of a young woman who kills a plainclothes cop and is tortured by the federal government. It is told from the perspective of a government agent, who remembers an affair they had. It doesn’t seem to be set in the real world, favoring a more dystopic feeling for the government, and it clearly takes place in D.C. The song has two distinct sections. The verses are quiet and acoustic, with dyads on the high E and B strings. The choruses, by contrast, are loud and full, with a wall of sound and emotion. The song climaxes with a distorted cry from Meloy, lost in a sea of distorted violins. It’s very intense and confusing. The coda is in the style of the verses and concludes the story like an epilogue.

6. For My Own True Love – 9/10 This is a dreary little depressing song. A woman lives alone in a small town. She constantly asks the postman for a letter, one from her own true love, lost at sea. This is likely a dig at the song “Please Mr. Postman,” which has very similar lines about waiting for letters from your lover; the difference is wonderfully dark. The song is composed in C minor, and has a very recognizable repeating melody. It’s slow, repetitive, and carries a great deal of emotion. Paired with the lyrics, it works beautifully.

7. 16 Military Wives – 10/10 The only non-narrative song. This song is a protest song, directing its anger at both the American invincibility: “America can, and America can’t say no” and the media response to Iraq: “And the anchor person on TV goes la-di-da-di-da.” It’s a little hard to pin a genre on it. It’s got saxes and trumpets on it, as well as organs and an upright bass. It’s fast, loud, and focused. It also fits well after “My Own True Love,” as 5 of the 16 wives lose their husbands.

8. The Engine Driver – 11/10 My hands-down favorite song on the album, and a very fun song to play on the guitar. This song is a little puzzling. The lyrics describe professions and loss, and the narrative seems to follow characters who seem frustrated at stagnation, with the whole song being tied together by the chorus: “I am a writer, a writer of fictions.” This makes the song seem to be one character, describing personalities he writes trying to rid his former lover “from my bones.” The song is composed in E minor/G major, and follows a simple progression of minor chords-major chords, reversed for the bridge, and shuffled for the chorus. This gives it a consistant and stable sound, but keeps it dynamic, despite the song lacking major changes. With the melody, lyrics, and its general catchy sound, it’s my favorite by far.

9. On the Bus Mall – 10/10 This song is very well written. The lyrics describe two teenagers from broken homes. They find each other in the streets and alleys, and build a life for themselves. It’s pretty clear that the couple are gay, as there’s the hint of male prostitution and the lack of femininity to the song. That being said, it is ambiguous, as no pronouns other than “you” are used. The song’s composition is well put together. The song’s verses trade back between two chords with electric guitar riffs in the background, and the choruses keep the same mood while building beautiful melodies. The song is set at a moderate tempo, and at 6 minutes, it’s long. However, the song does not drag. It has motion, and the narrative is engaging. Many people consider this the best on the album, and for me, it’s definitely a highlight.

10. The Mariner’s Revenge Song – 10/10 I love this song. It’s over the top, loud, engaging, and extremely interesting. At 8:45, it’s long. LONG. But every note of it builds up a narrative, conveys emotion, and makes it seem like the audio to a play. The story is the most fleshed out of the entire album. It starts with two mariners in the belly of a whale, and one relates to the other how their histories are connected. The other mariner married his widowed mother, swindled her, left the family destitute. His mother dies, telling him to take revenge. Years later, the narrator gets a job at a priory, where he learns that the man is now a captain with privateers after him. He joins a privateer to hunt him down, and when he finds him, a whale comes up and destroys their boats. Here the two men find themselves together, and the story ends with the narrator declaring his mother’s last words at the man. The song is incredibly well written. It starts with an a minor chord on the accordion, setting a dark scene. Then the song builds slowly, the instruments coming together for mood underneath Meloy’s vocals. The best examples of how the music adds to the story come from the bridge, which comes during the narrator’s voyage with the privateer, and the cacophony of screams and chaos as the whale attacks.

11. Of Angels and Angles – 11/10 A quiet acoustic closer to the album. The lyrics seem to recall “We Both Go Down Together” – two lovers are drowning. The lyrics aren’t explicit about anything; this makes the song sound pleasant instead of haunting. The composition is based around arpeggio-esque patterns that flow up the strings as Meloy sings. It would give a haunting affect if it didn’t sound so calm and pleasant. It’s another favorite, and it’s an excellent end to the album.

Evolution Test

I was coasting the Blogosphere, as I often do, when I went into some of Pharyngula's archives. There was a post about a site I remember seeing a few years ago back when I was first getting into my bile addiction to Creationist tripe. The wonderful Missing Universe Museum!
This site is the crown jewel of creationist stupidity. It is beyond unreasonable; it lacks any modicum intelligence. It reads like something an idiot would preach back when Darwin first published Origin of Species. Now, there's a case for everything on it, and I've gone through them all and refuted them in an old essay, but I think that the best (and by that I mean stupidest) one of all is the "Evolution Test," for ages the #2 or 3 spot on FSTDT's Top 100. It's stupid and insipid beyond rational thought, so let's go through it with overly detailed answers! It's an insult to my intelligence, but that doesn't mean I don't get to answer it with undeserving intelligence.


Students, give this test to your teachers. When they fail it, ask them why they are teaching this nonsense!
Back in Freshman year, I did just that. My biology teacher, who was an evolutionary major, was left speechless because, of course it easily and handily debunked his entire college education!

Teachers, give this test to your students if you really want them to know the truth about evolution! 
Needless to say, he refused this part, citing his fear that doing such would destroy millions of innocent brain cells.
1. Which evolved first, male or female?

Both of them obviously evolved at the same time. The first organisms, the primitive archeabacteria, did not use sexual reproduction; they were asexual. The usage of gene shuffling began likely as it does now: plasmids. Sexual reproduction, when it emerged, requires both sexes to exist at the same time.

2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?

This question fully exposes the author's blatant stupidity. To assume that there is a gap of millions of years between the first female and male is such an egregious misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, the author decided that it was shitty enough to put as one of the main questions on his site as the header. Of course, the question is ludicrous because, as stated above, sexual reproduction requires two partners. There is no possible way that one gender could have evolved before the other.

3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.

Nine false assumptions? I'm no expert on this, but clearly you are. Unfortunately I'll have to skip this one, mostly because I have no clue what he wants.

4. Why hasn't any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?

Ugh. The stupid. Alright, blockhead, this is why. Whenever a new species emerges,  several pieces of its genetic code are wildly different from other organisms. These new genes may be passed down, or they may not be, and they aren't in your example. However, traits bearing similarity to extinct ones or traits found in different animals does happen. This is called convergent evolution, which is when two species fit similar niches with similar adaptations. But convergent evolution works on two different species in two different environments/niches. As a result, the convergences will never line up to anything approaching the shadow of the silhouette of the mirage of the fantasy of another species. For example, let's take my favorite sea-bound creature, the cuttlefish. Cuttlefish are on an entirely different phylum from humans, mammals, reptiles, and the like, yet they have complex eyes. This is convergent evolution: eyesight was needed for them as it was for members of the phylum Chordata, so it was developed. Now look at yourself, then at a cuttlefish. That's about as close as convergent evolution will come.

5. Which came first:

...the eye,

...the eyelid,

...the eyebrow,

...the eye sockets,

...the eye muscles,

...the eye lashes,

...the tear ducts,

...the brain's interpretation of light?

The brain's interpretation of light. Duh. Look at how you add on the complexities. Evolution starts with simpler traits that add complexity as they develop to fit their respective niches. While "start simple, end complex" is far from a perfect rule of thumb for evolution, with something as mapped out as the eye, it should be beyond obvious.

6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?

Likely, there was a large gap between the brain's interpretation of light/the eye to the rest. How separate these two are is very hard to discern, due to them being quite similar. Could you consider a collection of photoreceptive cells to be an eye, or do you mean a complex thing like what humans have? The rest of the traits came around the same time, I would imagine, in the Cambrian Explosion, with the exceptions of tear ducts, eyelashes, and eyebrows. Tear ducts evolved with land-based animals, and eyebrows/eyelashes came with mammals.

7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can't all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?

My cerebrum is screaming at me right now for letting it undergo such mental torture. Allow me to calmly explain why what you just said was so FUCKING STUPID.

A new species is created when two communities have allowed their genes to differ far enough from each other that there is now no more possibility of reproduction, or at least, fertile reproduction. That is the difference between a breed and a species, and that is the definition of species. How you show so much stupidity in that short sentence is beyond me.

8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. 

While not a new organ, I can best describe the brain in humans.

a. Australopithecus aferensis had simpler, smaller, chimplike brains.

b. Homo habilis had significantly larger brains.

c. Homo erectus had more cognitive brains due to the recession of the occipital lobe.

d. Homo neanderthals, while not our direct ancestors, still show the development of the brain.

e. Finally, we have Homo sapiens.

9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?

Transitional fossils are not missing by any stretch of the imagination. We have fossils of all the forms above. We have fossils of countless forms from the Cambrian explosion. Hell, you can say that any fossil is transitional because it represents the change in form in any species. The only reason that this is a question on your test is because your ignorance is willful and blinding.

10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)

Math solution? Are you insane? How would this even apply? What math could you use? Why are you so infuriating in your obvious idiocy?

Anyways, this is the watchmaker analogy, which is easy to refute. You are comparing two non-exchangeable items with different properties. Let's say that I had a bunch of rocks and a small bowl. Not one rock perfectly fits the bowl, so I conclude that therefore, a rock that can fit the bowl is designed. Liquids, however, fill the bowl perfectly every time. Therefore, I conclude liquids are designed. See how that fails? Your analogy compares something known to be made by humans with something known to have natural causes. 

11. Why aren't any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?

They are, actually. The process is so mindbendingly slow that your empty little mind obviously cannot handle it. Not only that, but humans have disrupted that a bit with all our peat mining. 

12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.

50!? 50. Wow. The reason that there aren't that many is simply because the forms that evolved with these traits died off often, or the organs gradually disappeared. I can, however, list a few.

•The classic example: the appendix. Not needed. We cannot digest cellulose.

•The gallbladder is approaching this status. It serves too many functions, most that we do not need.

•The inner ear muscles. You know that weird kid who could move his ears in elementary school? Well, it these weren't vestigial, then that would be seen as a shocking disability.

•The tailbone. Why bother? Tails have long since left human biology.

•Junk DNA. 

•The vestigial eyelid.

•Wisdom teeth! Yeah, those asshole teeth that disrupt your life have no real purpose.

13. Why hasn't anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?

Moving the goalposts. Whenever sufficient evidence comes along, you'll pick up the goalposts and move 'em with glee. This is human; everyone does it and it really proves nothing.

14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?

Underpopulated. REALLY!? Find one square meter of this planet that does not contain any life. Not even the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the icy plains of Antartica, or the dry dusts of the Atacama are not without their microbes. Unless you mean that not every inch of the planet is covered in large, complex life, this statement is bullshit, bullshit, bull-shit. And even then, how would that be possible!? You're such an idiot! Such an idiot!

15. Why hasn't evolution duplicated all species on all continents?

Alright, dammit, last one. Whenever a new species emerges, several pieces of its genetic code are wildly different from other organisms. However, traits bearing similarity to extinct ones or traits found in different animals does happen. This is called convergent evolution - wait. Why am I answering this again!? Good god, the stupid has caused me memory loss! Augh!


Well, that was fun. Brought back a bit of the stupidity nostalgia that I get whenever I see these things again, like watching the Bananaman video or the wonderful Kent Hovind lectures again. Anyways, that's enough of the stupid. I need culture. Art. Intelligence. Most of all, BRAIN BLEACH.

An Overly Long Summary of the Civil War

Last week, I was given a simple assignment: answer six questions, in paragraph form, about the civil war. Being a civil war buff, I was finally relived to cover a part of history I knew too much about. I began to write them down, but soon I grew impatient of writing in such confines, and decided to write out a massive summary. Here it is in its five-page glory.
Note that all quotes are paraphrased, as I did this all from memory without looking at any sources.
That being said, it helps to have access to Ken Burns.

In 1861, the Union had come apart. The North, with its immense power and advantages, sought to destroy the Confederates with a 90 day war. The Confederates felt that they could kill 10 Yankees for every Southern death. Both sides expected a short fight.

That summer, the Army of the Potomac, which had been built up by General Irvine McDowell, marched under his command across the Potomac and into Northern Virginia, bent on destroying the Rebs. In their wake was a massive crowd of spectators, who wanted to see the first battle in what they assumed would be a short and cheerful affair. A rebel force under Joseph E. Johnson and P. T. Beauregard came up to counter them outside the town of Manassas in Virginia. The two armies clashed, and at first it seemed that Union victory was a guarantee. But as time went on, General Thomas Jackson proved to hold enough courage to stand up against the army, “like a stone wall.” The Confederates counterattacked. Terrified, the Union forces fled. Left on the battlefield was disgruntled Manassas resident Wilmer MacLean, who decided to move to avoid the war. The battle was sobering, costing the Union thousands of casualties and shocking the nation, but it was nothing compared to the bloodshed that would follow.

In 1862, as George McClellan was hired to command the Army of the Potomac, a General Ulysses S. Grant was winning battles in spite of everyone else losing. He won several small skirmishes, then attacked Fort Donelson, surrounded it, and declared unconditional surrender. It would become his nickname. Soon, Beauregard and a (different) Johnson were waiting to attack Grant when he drew near enough. Johnson saw his chance when Grant stopped near Pittsburg Landing to regroup. The Confederates drove Grant’s forces back in Shiloh, the first truly bloody and brutal battle of the Civil War, where more men fell than in the Revolution. Grant’s forces were saved due to the Hornet’s Nest, a group of soldiers who refused to retreat, even killing Johnson himself. Grant was soon reinforced by Buell’s Army, which quickly made work of the Confederate forces. Shiloh was won.

Following the rigorous training of his army, McClellan landed on the James River peninsula and sluggishly creeped to Richmond. Joseph Johnson, soon to be replaced by Lee, came to counter him. In a brilliant move, the general at Yorktown convinced McClellan that he was horrifically outnumbered. McClellan demanded more troops, and Lee saw his chance. In the 7 Days, he lost four battles, yet won against the timid McClellan. The failure of McClellan led one of his officers to declare him motivated by “cowardice or treason.” Lincoln replaced McClellan with John Pope, who quickly lost the Battle of Manassas on the same battlefield as Bull Run. Lincoln begrudgingly replaced him with McClellan.

 George McClellan now held the army around Washington, keeping his troops training and preparing. Lee, seeing his chance, invaded the North with the intent to put Maryland in the Union. However, one of his clumsy aides lost the battle plans, and a Union scout discovered them lying in a field. Order 191 gave McClellan the perfect tool for fighting the Confederates, and in a stunning show of his military genius, he waited almost a day until he put them in action. When he finally did, the battle would take place along a meandering creek outside the Maryland town of Sharpsburg known as Anteitam. It was the bloodiest day in American history.

Lee attacked in three forces. The first was repelled in a cornfield. The second mowed down troops from a sunken road until artillery zeroed in on it and blew it to pieces. The final fight took place along a stone bridge, where Union troops defeated the Confederates after an entire day, only to be repulsed by evening. It was not a victory for either army, but it was demoralizing enough for Lee to retreat and for Lincoln to free the slaves.

President Lincoln had been waiting for such a battle to declare the Emancipation Proclamation in order to prevent it from being seen as an empty threat. Once declared, the proclamation freed the slaves in the Confederacy, not the border states. But what it meant took precedence over what it said. It made the fight change from Union and States’ Rights to being about the peculiar institution. This worked wonders on the war. While regiments in the North deserted and the South painted Lincoln as an anti-Christian demon, the proclamation confirmed that Europe would stay out of the war and that Black soldiers would be a likely asset.

In 1863, with the proclamation now in effect, Lincoln went about arming the Blacks. The 54^th Massachusetts was formed as the first regiment. Many other regiments soon followed, with multiple cavalry and infantry division to soon bear a great deal of the fighting. The 54^th Massachusetts would be pulverized at Fort Wagner, but their heroism in the battle was a major morale boost to the other Blacks. By the war’s end, 10% of the North’s military was African-American. For perspective, the North had fewer than 4%.

Anteitam had another effect on the war. General George McClellan was removed from command, permanently. Lincoln was furious with his lack of exploiting Anteitam. Instead, he hired the commander who had valiantly fought at the Bridge at Anteitam, Ambrose Burnside. Burnside invaded Virginia, searching for the Confederates. He soon reached the Rappahannock River and decided to sack Fredericksburg, a vital railroad link. Unfortunately, Lee soon found him and reinforced Mary’s Heights above the city. 14 hopeless charges later, the Army of the Potomac, crippled and exhausted, withdrew and Burnside was removed from command.

In his place, Lincoln found “Fightin’ Joe” Hooker, who had seen action in various battles before. Hooker came up with a predictable strategy: feign an attack and attack from the rear. Lee saw right through it. In a stunning move, Lee divided his army. Hooker’s forces ran right into one section in the hamlet of Chancellorsville. Hooker then went from being overconfident to downright stupid and refused to push back the Confederates, convinced that it was only a small force. Lee, sensing Hooker’s confusion, then divided his army again and sent Stonewall Jackson around Hooker’s left. Jackson’s men tore through the unsuspecting Union forces and tore the army apart. It left, battered and broken. The Confederate victory came at a price, however. Stonewall Jackson was shot by his own men while preparing for a night attack. He would die several weeks later, whispering, “let us rest under the shade of the trees.”

Lee, now overconfident from the two absolute victories, invaded the North again, pushing for Philadelphia. He entered Pennsylvania and was going towards Harper’s Ferry when there came a report of shoes in Gettysburg. It would be the largest battle in the Western Hemisphere. As units converged, the Confederates took the town while the Federals took a ridge behind a gate that read, “Any persons carrying firearms in this area will be prosecuted.” On the second day, the Union successfully repulsed attacks on Culp’s Hill, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain rose to national prominence for his daring bayonet charge on Little Round Top. On the third day, it all came crashing down on the Confederates when Lee ordered George Pickett’s division across a mile-wide field. Half of it was slaughtered. When asked to rally his division, Pickett bitterly told Lee “I have no division.” The next day, on July 4, Lee retreated in a steady rain. With that defeat came another, with equal importance: Vicksburg.

General Grant had won Shiloh, captured half of Tennessee, including Memphis, and seen Admiral Farragut advance up the Mississippi to take New Orleans without firing a single shot. Now, he needed the “key” to the river. The town of Vicksburg, high up on a series of bluffs, prevented any ships from passing via a volley of cannon fire. Grant wanted it taken. In a daring move, he crossed the Mississippi, hacked his way through swamps, sacked the Mississippi capital, and surrounded Vicksburg. For months he poured fire into the city, forcing the inhabitants to live like “prairie dogs.” Finally, on July 4, without word of Gettysburg, the commander of Vicksburg surrendered. Both battles ended Confederate hopes, nearly for good.

In the fall of 1863, Confederates under Braxton Bragg clung to eastern Tennessee, attacking the Unions sporadically. General William Rosecrans was ordered to stop them. In a series of brilliant flanking maneuvers, he drove Bragg all the way to the city of Chattanooga, which he quickly fortified. Bragg slipped back to Chickamauga Creek, where Rosecrans, urged by his men, attacked. The battle was a bloody, murderous fistfight that ended in disaster when Rosecrans opened a gap in his lines. The battle was salvaged by General George H. Thomas, whose actions would gain him of the “Rock of Chickamauga.” Lincoln replaced Rosecrans with him, and soon sent Grant over to end the war in Tennessee. Following Chickamauga, the Army of Tennessee held the high ground outside Chattanooga, known as Lookout Mountain. Grant ordered it taken. His men did so in spectacular fashion, then destroyed the Confederates the next day on an adjacent ridge. Chattanooga was won, and would serve as the launch pad for Sherman.

For this excellent victory, Grant was summoned to Washington to gain the rank of Lieutenant General. He now had control of the entire US Military, and he quickly set a plan in motion. Sherman would sack Atlanta. Sheridan would burn down the Shenandoah. And Meade and Grant would carve out a crescent of blood in Virginia. The plans were set in action.  Sheridan tore through the Shenandoah, burning crops, looting towns, and destroying Jubal Earle’s cavalry. Sherman cut a path of destruction through Northern Georgia, but stalled outside Atlanta. Grant, meanwhile, was overseeing the most vicious campaign of the war.

Operation Overland was a nonstop battle between Grant and Lee along a thirty-mile crescent. Grant employed the same tactic: move by the left flank. So did Lee: bunker down and reinforce. The two armies first clashed in the vicious Battle of the Wilderness. Fought on the Chancellorsville battlefield, it was the most horrifying battle of the war. The “Wilderness” was a thicket of trees laden with skeletons of Chancellorsville. The fighting was hand-to-hand, and companies got lost and fired on their own men. At nightfall, the entire landscape caught fire, scorching men alive while both armies listened to their screams. General Grant, horrified with the battle, broke down and wept in his tent while the flames soared through the woods.

However, there was not stopping the army. Grant pushed on, despite the losses and horrors. He moved onto the next battlefield; a region known as Spotsylvania, where the two armies crippled each other. Then came the cavalry attack on Yellow Tavern, where JEB Stuart was killed. Next came the most one-sided fight, Cold Harbor, where Lee’s troops dug into an embankment and mowed down Grant’s troops, killing 7,000 in 15 minutes. It was the only mistake Grant ever admitted to. At last, Grant outwitted Lee. He feigned an assault towards Richmond, but then attacked Petersburg. Lee got there too, and the two bunkered down for a Trench Warfare siege.

It was now 1864, and Lincoln was facing a dilemma. Sherman was stuck outside Atlanta, and Grant was stuck outside Petersburg. The general populace, appalled by the Overland Campaign, was sick of war. And a man who held a grudge against Lincoln now sought election. George McClellan, the old general, ran against Lincoln in 1864. Lincoln had been attacked in the political arena for the entire war, weeding out Copperheads and being savaged by the press. Now, with his armies stalled, he feared that he would be badly beaten.

Yet fortune would soon change. McClellan’s message of peace was so uninspired, dull, and incoherent that even his beloved army voted for Lincoln. Sherman, who had been stuck outside Atlanta, finally defeated John Bell Hood and took the city. And Sheridan’s reign of terror in the Shenandoah was going exactly according to plan. McClellan, not Lincoln, was badly beaten in the election.

Sherman’s army now was let loose in Georgia. He ransacked Atlanta, burned it to the ground, and then set out for Savannah and the sea, pillaging as he went. Along the way, his men ran into several POW camps. Enraged at what they saw, Sherman’s men turned the pillaging up to 11. The army cut a swath of destruction ten miles wide. Hood, furious that he had been defeated at Atlanta, sought to distract Sherman. He invaded Tennessee, attacking supply columns, but failed to distract Sherman. “Let him go to Ohio if he wants,” Sherman mocked. “I’ll serve him rations when he gets there.” The Rock of Chickamauga, George Thomas, refused to let Hood get farther than Nashville. At Franklin, his Army of the Cumberland thoroughly savaged Hood’s army, tearing it apart after Hood made a series of disorganized charges. Hood resigned in disgrace, and the once-proud Army of the Tennessee was reduced to a mob.

Sherman’s army reached the sea, and the general presented Lincoln the city of Savannah as a Christmas present. They then rolled into South Carolina, declaring that “This is where secession began, and here it shall end!” They hacked through swamps, ransacked towns, burned Columbia, twisted rail lines, and taunted the Confederate civilians. Eventually the march reached North Carolina, where Sherman finally ended his march.

Meanwhile, Grant had finally won at Petersburg. Lee had made a desperate night attack on an earthwork. It was repelled and a counterattack broke the lines. Lee sent a letter to Richmond to evacuate the government. Chaos soon followed. The once-proud Confederate capital was looted and burned by ex-slaves, civilians, and finally, the Union troops. With the city taken, Grant now resolved to end Lee, once and for all.

Lee fled up the Appomattox Creek, with Grant right behind him. Finally, he reached Appomattox Court House, a tiny hamlet where disgruntled Manassas resident Wilmer MacLean now lived. Grant declared that Lee surrender, and met Lee in MacLean’s house. The Army of Northern Virginia was defeated.

The war was over. Jefferson Davis was captured in Mississippi. Robert E. Lee’s house was turned into Arlington National Cemetery. Joseph Johnston surrendered to Sherman. And Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Following the war, the brotherhood sentiments that Lincoln had tried so hard to put in place were replaced by Johnson’s disastrous Reconstruction Plan. With slavery abolished, an exodus of Blacks from the South ensured that the landscape would stay forever changed. Bile and hate would rise to new levels in the South. Nathan Bedford Forrest would found the Ku Klux Klan, which would terrify the South until Grant, now president, would send in troops to quell the violence.

However, the Civil War ensured that the United States would continue to exist. It ensured that the nation would live up to what was written in the Constitution, though it would be long after the war that it finally was realized. Most importantly, the war defined the United States as one single united nation.

“Before the war, people would typically say that the ‘United States are…’ But then after the war, and still today, people will say ‘The United States is…’ And that’s what the war did. It made us an is.”

-Shelby Foote