Holy shit… it’s not raining. It’s warm, it’s sunny, new leaves are waving in a gentle breeze and the birds are singing. I know what this means! Do you? Sure you do!
It’s time for Tom Lehrer:
*Note to vegans, animal rights activists, Buddhists, and easily offended persons: No pigeons were harmed in the making of this post.
Digby on the McCain-worshipping MSM:
“I can’t take another four years of codpiece worship. I just can’t.”
Neither can I, luv. Neither can I.
I’m feeling whimsical today. It could have something to do with nearly squirting my Mountain Dew through my nose several times.
First up, we have the Pony Strategy, courtesy of Publius at Obsidian Wings:
The Bush/Kagan strategy is simply to keep the maximum number of troops in Iraq as long as possible in the hopes a pony will appear. To maintain political support for the Pony Strategy, they need to peddle worse-case scenarios and paint pictures of genocide and all-out civil war.
Despite how this look, it’s actually a fantastic post exploring a moral minefield, and I recommend you peruse it. Possibly even ponder it. Yes. Ponder the pony….
It reminded me unavoidably of an old Sprint commercial, wherein the punchline was “I want a ranch. With horsies.” We can now paraphrase this from Bush’s perspective: “I want Iraq. With ponies.”
Meanwhile, dday over at Digby’s Hullaballoo has one of the greatest take-downs of Cokie Roberts I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness:
She doesn’t have a clue what the hell she’s talking about, and if she’s being informed about Iraq by “Sunni, Shi’a, po-tay-to po-tah-to” McCain and his man-servant Huckleberry Graham it’d be a wonder if she could pick the country out on a map. We have an important week coming up with A Man Called Petraeus and Ryan Crocker testifying before Congress, and if this is the sober analysis we can expect out of that, we’re all doomed.
The sad part is, Cokie probably can’t pick Iraq out on a map. I’m not sure of her actual age and I’m feeling too lazy to look it up, but her mental age is certainly right there with those clueless youths the National Geographic-Roper survey, well, surveyed. At least the young have the excuse of inexperience.
I feel my IQ going down every time I hear these mainstream media morons quoted, and I don’t even watch the damn shows.
We endeth the hilarity with the most bestest Photoshop of Ben Stein ever, courtesy of John Pieret. I’m not going to reproduce it here. You’ve just gots to click.
Mark Armitage cc’d PZ on an email he sent to another fuckwit.
…
The stupid in this… it has defeated me. This man should become a circus freak: “World’s Most Incredible Delusional Dipshit.”
I thought it was a joke. Seriously. I thought PZ had to be pranking us. This man is a parody of the Creationist mentality. Can’t be for real.
He is. And he cc’s PZ on shit like this:
I’ve been busy. My book called “Jesus is like my Scanning Electron Microscope” has been published, I had an awesome hands-on microscope workshop at the lab in AZ with 15 students who learned about microscopy in the Bible and the
evidence for a young earth (complete with electron microscopes), and I have heard from another 6 schools there that want to have a workshop.
Poor home state. Poor Arizona. I’m sorry. I should have stayed. I should have been there for you, fighting the raging stupid. I couldn’t do it. I failed like Caped Chameleon failed. Can’t. Do. Armitage.
Fortunately, Pharyngula readers can, and they spanked him black and blue in the comments. With poetry, even.
I have to go lie down until my sides stop aching. Here’s some Tick to keep you entertained. Caped Chameleon’s at about 2:06:
This is like the duckshoot at a carnival – when you have a bazooka. I don’t even have to take aim to hit me some stupid:
Michael Behe, Greatest Expert Witness Evah. Just listen to the judge tell it:
Plaintiffs’ own biology expert, Professor Michael Behe testified that “it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea . . . . Requiring a student to, effectively, consent to an idea violates [her] personal integrity. Such a wrenching violation [may cause] a terrible educational outcome.”
Yet, the two Christian biology texts at issue commit this “wrenching violation.”
That’s right. Behe, in defending his own side, managed to hit it with a tactical nuke instead. One has to wonder: is the man this stupid, or is he an extremely clever scientist working as a mole?
Don’t forget to drop by John Pieret’s place for a heaping helping of snark, and a terrific illustration of what happened in this case. For more in-depth coverage, see Mike Dunford over at the Questionable Authority.
You know what, this isn’t fair. Let me down a few shots of Herradura before I reload.
That really didn’t help. Now we’ve got a mathematician taking the morons apart:
Bad from the Bad Ideas Blog sent me a link to some clips from Ben Stein’s new Magnum Opus, “Expelled”. I went and took a look. Randomly, I picked one that looked like a clip from the movie rather than a trailer – it’s the one titled “Genetic Mutation”.
Care to guess how long it took me to find an insane, idiotic error?
4 seconds.
It’s the old “evolution can’t create information” scam.
Four seconds. Damn. I mean, I would’ve thought they could go four fucking seconds without lying, but no.
Received an e-mail this morning notifying me (and five others) that the Tempe screening has been canceled. Interesting thing is that the original mailing I received had a further 15 names on it. In addition, “boughtbythecross,” “homeschoolma,” and “covenant-dad” were not CCed on the e-mail I received today. Interesting.
Indeed. They’re inept enough to send out mass emails wherein the universe can see who’s on their mailing list, and then they send out less massive emails announcing to a select few that the show’s cancelled. Gee. I wonder why they didn’t email everybody?
Well, Ken McKnight called the theater today two or so hours before the
screening. Ken says:I just called the Arizona Mills Harkins theater and said that I had heard that the private screening of Expelled had been moved from 7:00 to 6:00 (I didn’t mention that I had been emailed that the showing was canceled). The person I spoke to confirmed that the movie is showing today at 6:00. Clearly the promoters are somehow screening the attendees and then sending out cancellation notices to the “undesirables.”
You know, they’d have a lot easier time of cleverly weeding out the dissenting voices if they weren’t so fucking stupid. I’m going to die of alcohol poisoning before I can give these fucktards a fair chance.
I think I’m going to go do something more challenging, like catching politicians in a lie.
My father gets the strangest ideas sometimes:
Your dad wants to know if you are going to stop shaving and using deodorant. He thinks you are turning into a radical “hippie”.
No, Dad. I’m none of the above. Let’s parse this.
See? I still shave. Becoming a flaming liberal hasn’t changed my appreciation of a smooth leg.
True, some liberals don’t shave, but neither do some conservatives. Political ideology doesn’t dictates one’s views in depiliation. And, I assure you, deodorant remains an important part of my daily routine. One cannot expound effectively when one is stinky.
Radical is more problematic, if you separate it from the “hippie” part. I know for certain I’m not a hippie, so let’s start there. According to the Free Online Dictionary, a hippie is
A person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society, especially one who advocates extreme liberalism in sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles.
I oppose and reject many of the conventional standards and customs of the radical religious right. Is it “extreme liberalism” to want the government to obey its own damned Constitution, throw out the theocons, and swing left before the entire country goes down in flames? I’d love to see universal healthcare, an end to American imperialism, an effort to clean up the environment before we’ve completely destroyed the place, and a little more intelligence in the public discourse. Is that such an extreme liberal position?
Why yes, yes, it is. Because according to the fuckwits in power, even John McCain is verging on “extreme liberalism.” According to the political quiz I just took, I fall somewhere in the center left. But by European standards, I’m actually not very extreme at all:
The fact is, even the conservative parties of Europe are to the left of the Democratic Party in the U.S. The European political center is where the American left would love to be.
You want to know why I keep talking about emigrating? There’s your answer. People start talking about thirty-five hour work weeks and oodles of vacation and social democracy and the decline of religion in Europe, and it’s hard to resist temptation. Granted, they have problems. But they also have the Mediterranean.
It’s really hard to say no to the Mediterranean.
But I’ll stay here and throw my weight to the left and hope the country shifts. She’s a grand ol’ lass, despite her current difficulties. Besides, she’s where I keep all my stuff. Including my razor.
I do, however, reserve the right to pack said razor and travel the world should such become feasible.
Fuck is one of my most favoritest words. I’ve adored it for decades. It’s been the chile in my relleno, the heavy in my emphasis, and a balm to me in my times of troubles. One of the best services to humanity I’ve ever performed is teaching my best friend its proper use and appreciation.
If only I’d had this fine teaching video available to me when I was furthering his education:
Where was this when I was in school? Oh. Right. I went to high school in a town with more churches than people…
Well, fuck.
Tip o’ the shot glass to the Wingnutterer, by way of Canadian Cynic. Muchos gracias, mi amigos!
Ah, PZ. This is why I love you so:
“After all, chopping heads off people is exactly equivalent to putting a bumper sticker on your Volvo.”
Excuse me. I need to go buy a Volvo now…
Since I was too lame to prank you myself, I’ve taken the time and effort to spelunk the blogosphere looking for April Fools shenanigans for ye. If any of you are taken in by any of these, I shall be very disappointed – or enormously impressed by the skills of the pranksters.
Just you wait for next year, my darlings. I have 364 days to plot – I’ll get ye yet!
New Humanist reports:
In an unprecedented victory for rationalism, Catholic priests in the north east of England will from today be required to read out a disclaimer prior to delivering the holy sacrament of Communion.
[snip]
“Congregants should be aware of the gaps and/or problems in the Catholic theory of transubstantiation, including, but not limited to, the Protestant notion that the bread and wine are merely symbolic, the opinions of other religions on the life of Christ, and the lack of conclusive scientific evidence available to support this theory.”
Yes, my darlings, your own dear blogger would have been taken in by that one hook, line and sinker if I hadn’t read the disclaimer and thought, “Wait an effing minute. That sounds awfully like those evolution disclaimer stickers put on textbooks a while back…”
Kudos to Paul Sims for almost pwning me!
Oh, and click the link for the stickers – I nearly peed myself.
Next up, Universe Today announces NASA’s new fundraising initiative:
In an effort to raise additional funds, NASA has announced new partnerships with corporate sponsors. It is becoming increasingly difficult for government-backed space agencies to support the vast range of missions currently exploring the solar system, so urgent measures are being taken. Planetary missions in particular, such as the Mars Exploration Rover project, have fallen on tough times. As already demonstrated by research groups in the UK, funds from private companies are essential for survival and some weird and wonderful methods to capture public interest have already been exploited.
Now it is the perfect time for the biggest marketing stunt yet: tattoo Mars with corporate logos for orbiting spacecraft and ground-based telescopes to observe…
I think it’s the Doritos logo in the accompanying photo that makes the piece plausible. After all, photos can’t be faked, right?
Alas, it can’t all be fun and games. Brian Switek over at Laelaps has a very sad announcement to make:
As many of you are aware, my academic career has been rather rough, my university not being of very much help in preparing me for a career in vertebrate paleontology. This past week, I received notice that I have been in college for so long (and that my transcript is so poor), that I would have to start all over from freshman year again. 120 credits, gone in the blink of an eye. What’s more, I’d have to pay double the regular tuition rate in cash, delivered to a shadowy figure 6 months before the start of each semester, the final indignity being having to wear a “Dunce” cap while retaking my courses.
Brian, darling, no worries. You and Mrs. Laelaps are welcome to crash at my beachfront home in Yuma, AZ until you’ve got things sorted out.
PZ Myers has been cropping up everywhere lately, it seems. Perhaps he’s mastered the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle – or he’s become some strange incarnation of Schrödinger’s cat: he’s both present and not present until he’s observed! But The Panda’s Thumb has the exclusive scoop on the true scope of his talents:
As many of you probably know, controversy has surrounded James Watson’s and Francis Crick’s 1953 seminal paper on DNA structure since its publication. Most of the sometimes heated discussions have focused on the attribution of authorship, centering on the source of the data and on the identity of the person who actually originated the DNA double-helix model.
You’ll find the revised list of authors on the second page of the Nature paper. It’s very difficult to see and indistinguishable from the original list of authors, so of course it must be true!
PZ, imitating quantum particles is no way for a biologist to behave. For shame! You must cease your uncertain, both-there-and-not-there, time-travelling ways!
I know I’ve likely missed some spectacular pranks worthy of attention. That’s what I get for having a damned day job! Please feel free to link to your pranks in the comments. My glass is raised high to all of you merry pranksters, undaunted by the challenge of pulling the wool over eyes on the one day everyone becomes a skeptic.
Salud!
I’ve never believed in astrology, but there’s one stereotype about my birth sign that applies to me:
Capricorns have fine, deliberate minds which in some cases may operate more slowly but with far deeper concentration than most.
Well, actually, there are a lot of stereotypes about my sign that apply to me: that’s how these things are designed. Sling enough vague pseudoscientific psychobabble leavened with a little flattery, and something’s bound to apply. But I digress. I do have a deliberate mind, and it does tend to operate more slowly than most. That serves well enough when it comes to spelunking a subject in-depth, but it’s murder for the short, sharp retort. Let’s not talk about the number of times I’ve started up from a deep sleep with the perfect witticism perched like a loaded flamethrower on my tongue – long after the target has left the building.
Crapola.
This being so, it’s good to pre-load oneself with a variety of short, sharp retorts suitable to a variety of common situations in which a snappy comeback is the must-have accessory of the season. For all of us with fine, deliberate minds, Capricorn or not, I bring you the first installment of the Short, Sharp Retort.
Retort to science makes people atheists: Oh, shit, we forgot to tell Ken Miller!
Alternates: Science doesn’t make people atheists, fundamentalists do.
And what’s wrong with that?
Retort to we must obey all of Christ’s teachings: So, I see your right eye has never offended you.
Alternates: Wonderful! You can start by shaking the dust from your sandals.
Which part of the Bible says you have to be an insufferable asshole?
There will be more Short, Sharp Retorts forthcoming as they occur to me. By all means, feel free to add your own.
