PZ reports about the modesty police, the ultra-orthodox Jews who are justifiably fed up with lust and temptation, and are doing something about it! That’s right, they are stoning women who dress provocatively and lead good men to evil thoughts.

PZ’s suggestion?

Hey, I have a suggestion for all those fearful people who want to punish women for being so darn tempting. Instead of targeting women, let’s have all orthodox, fundamentalist men fitted with devices that measure penis enlargement, and that set off blinking lights and whistles mounted on the gentleman’s hats when significant arousal is detected. Then the clerics and rabbis and orthodox mobs can patrol the streets and stone anyone with a flashing hat — one way or another, the visible responses to perfectly ordinary human forms will disappear, the clerics will be able to claim victory over temptation, and they can stop abusing innocent women.

What an incurable optimist.

Of course, what really would happen if someone were to use such a device?

You have to promise not to laugh
Although my logic’s iffy;
I hooked up a plethysmograph
To show I’ve got a stiffy.

So if some woman’s leg I see
And “beep-beep!” goes my cock,
I do what scripture asks of me
And hit her with a rock.

If just a bit of ankle shows
But I still get a boner,
I’m justified, my Rabbi knows,
To go ahead and stone her

The scriptures say it’s not my fault
Some temptress shows some skin
It’s simple justice, not assault,
To stone her for her sin.

We’ll stone the sluts, on God’s behalf
Till all temptation’s gone…
But… wearing this plethysmograph?
It kinda turns me on…

PZed reports on an exciting new opportunity to boost your CV, bolster your credentials, and most importantly, hide that embarrassing crack on your wall with a shiny new Official Creationist Worldview Professional Certificate! I have no idea whether there is an actual physical certificate awarded to you, or whether it is cranked out of a Xerox copier or hand-lettered on lambskin parchment in 24-carat gold leaf by silent, solitary monks on the slopes of Holy Mount Athos.

Either way, it’s still worthless.

A Creationist Certificate, on parchment or on vellum,
Is the perfect bit of pseudo-bling to hang upon your wall.
Your friends will think it’s beautiful (unless, of course, you tell’em
What it is) because it’s done by hand, calligraphy and all.
Your brain, of course, from frontal lobe to back of cerebellum
Will now seize itself in protest ‘til your prostrate form will sprawl,
As it tries forgetting all it knows about, say, the flagellum,
And your cranial activity reduces to a crawl.

Your science is now up-to-date (that date is Antebellum)
Cos you dropped a bunch of money on a worthless bit of scrawl.

There once was a scheduled debate
Put in jeopardy, nearly too late
Now McCain says he might
Meet Obama tonight
But who knows? Now we just have to wait.

The topic is up in the air
(It appears that McCain likes it there)
And I think it may be
That the plan is to see
If the public will simply not care.

What’s the picture from Europe–say, France?
As they watch as the candidates dance
In this sad pas de deux—
Do they wish we were through?
Does our image abroad stand a chance?

Ok, so it’s not a terribly pleasant topic, but there’s plenty of fertilizer here to grow limericks. Candidates, topics, delays, crises, views from near and far… have at it!

(With one minor modification, adapted from a comment on Pharyngula.)

With a million fervent prayers combined
It won’t be long until you find
The mighty force that lies behind
The simple-seeming prayer.

The “clasp your hands and kneel” routine
Holds powers that are unforeseen
By heathens (and by that I mean
You, too!), but which are there!

So when they say “I’ll pray for you”
Remember, it’s a heady brew–
The Holy Spirit must come through,
You must already know.

And whether they are priests in collars,
Pastors, Rabbis, even scholars,
Remember–Prayer, plus five more dollars
Will buy a cup of joe.

More odds and ends.

First, a recent one, about the defacing of the atheist student organization’s sign:

A simple sign, with scarlet letter–
Surely, one could make it better!
I knew I could, and so I drew
A heart, and cross, and “God Loves You”.
“Jesus Is Coming”–there, I’m done;
That’s much improved, and so much fun!

But now, sit back and watch–I’ll bet
Those angry atheists get upset;
They’re not content to turn a cheek–
They’re uppity, they’ll want to speak!
It’s just like them, to be so rude…

And that’s why they deserved it, dude.

*****
About the attempted pharyngulation of a World Nut Daily online poll:

His minions do as they are told
But even they cannot be sold
On this, and so they’ll have to fold;
This craziness cannot be polled.

Perhaps it was a really bold
Idea from a different mold
Or else, perhaps, comedic gold;
This craziness cannot be polled.

Of course, I do not mean to scold
But polls like this are getting old
I think it’s gotten uncontrolled;
This craziness cannot be polled.

The World Nut Daily must uphold
It’s principles (what? none? that’s cold)
With tinfoil hats, and shirtsleeves rolled;
This craziness cannot be polled.

*****
A couplet entitled “I promise, I’ll pull out!”:

So President Bush, that son-of-a-pistol,
Told Iraq the same thing that Levi told Bristol.

*****
A disturbing post by a disturbed writer, perhaps an attempt at satire, proposed some solutions for what to do about the atheist problem:

A modest proposal, on how to dispose all
The Atheist garbage and haul it away–
Although it’s Tom Willis, I think that it still is
A decades-old tactic, the Klan used to play.

It may be that laughter is what he is after
It may be he thinks he’s a humorous guy
Or maybe some tumor deprived him of humor
He thinks it is funny…. I just want to cry.

*****
A double dactyl about a (frankly, very cool) wristwatch–instead of numbers, it showed intermediate species on the long road from single-celled organisms to everybody’s favorite vertebrate, the featherless biped:

Witchily, watchily,
P.Z.’s chronometer’s
Lovely to look at, but
What are the odds

He could get rid of the
Anthropocentrism?
Nature’s epitome?
Cephalopods!

Another batch of comments. Again, nothing organized, just collected.

First, when PZ came back from the Amazing Meeting, he decided he needed to wear a hat…

While the women all adore a
Man who’s sporting a fedora
There are men who look like idiots with something on their head

Not a porkpie, fez or turban
Whether rural wear or urban
Is the sort of thing I picture looking stylish on P-Zed

When he put on a souwester,
Why, his hair began to fester
And he had to reconsider why that’s something that he did

But if I could write a sonnet
To suggest his sort of bonnet
I am thinking, on his head should perch some stylish sort of squid.

Regarding a charming little animated short, showing the trials and tribulations of a pair of octopi and their pursuer, a Chef, as they are chased through a seaside Greek villa…

When the chips are all counted, when everything’s done,
When push, they say, comes to shove,
I’d wager against the return of the sun
Ere a cephalopod who’s in love.
When the wagering comes to affairs of the heart
(where a cuttlefish, reader, has three)
Then a cephalopod has a boost from the start
(well, at least, it appears so to me.)
Now an octopus (mutant, with only six arms)
Fights for love–for a life lived in peace;
And a cephalopod can find magical charms
When it finds it’s in love and in Greece.

I honestly don’t remember anything about this one, other than the the post spoke of “Dr. Who meets Dr. Seuss”. Maybe that’s enough…

If you see Bob, or Sue, or Alex
Tell them to avoid the Daleks
They do not like; they only hate,
And always yell “Exterminate!”
A Dalek kills
It kills for thrills
In Dalek dales and Dalek hills
And here’s some news
They hate the Whos
Whichever Doctor you may choose!
From then to now, from now to then,
Doctor Who is everywhen!

I tend not to collect my limericks–too many of them, you see. But this trio followed PZed’s admission that he was “oozing slime and fluids like a mollusc”… as if that were a bad thing… and his revelation that he is scheduled for one of the exams people generally don’t like being subjected to…

There once was a blogger named Myers
Who confessed that among his desires
Was a peek up his ass
With an brass looking-glass
And an old pair of needle-nosed pliers.

A colonoscopic exam
Is a good way to show who you am
You can lie there and take it
Or take drugs and fake it
By muttering softly “goddamn”

Just back from a trip to Galapagos
P-Zed is now oozing, non-stopagos
That won’t stop his blogging–
He just keeps on slogging–
Complaining with each little dropagos

And lastly (for volume 2), a couplet. It really could comment on so many topics, but I don’t recall which it actually did comment on.

Wherever two or more of you are gathered in His Name
The odds will rise, the exercise is one of casting blame.

Nothing new here–just a collection of old comments, mostly from Pharyngula, that I am putting here just to have them in one place. I should really track down links to the original threads, but not today.

First, posted while I was in Bulgaria, I think–PZ had an actual science thread, on variation in snake populations, as measured in their resistance to Tetrodotoxin. Different snake populations had solved the problem of how to eat poisonous salamanders by selection of different mutations. Very cool.

Mercy me! For goodness’ sakes!
Evolving proteins in some snakes
Are letting them make meals of newts
(No, not the kind in business suits,
But Gingrich is a special case,
And this is not the time nor place)
Without the nasty tummy-ache
That signals curtains for the snake–
The newts, you see, have TTX
(Tetrodotoxin) which effects
The channeling of sodium
Through nervous membranes, which for some
Makes Fugu into “Tasty Fish”
But would not be a snake’s first wish;
There are three groups of which we speak,
From Warrenton, and Willow Creek,
And Benton. Populations vary
In mutations that they carry,
Also in resistance found,
Compared to other snakes around.
Mutations in the protein chains
Have been confirmed, and this explains
The difference in immunity–
It’s quite what you’d expect to see
If such things worked by miss and hit
And not by some Creation shit.

******

Next, from a while back when PZed was getting email from concerned citizens… in particular the threat that traced back to the floral delivery company… We sometimes forget that emails leave a trail, that can be followed.

I imagine someone cowers in an office, after hours,
At the 1-800-Flowers building, somewhere in New York.
Overwhelmed by the unending flow of emails folks are sending,
With no chance at all, intending for to stop it with a cork.
Once you start to dance or revel, if the fiddler is the Devil
Then there’s no more straight and level–you are gambling with your soul;
If you bend to your desires and you threaten P. Z. Myers,
It’s your choice to burn in fires, and we’ll see you in the hole!

******

The cracker kerfuffle resulted in (I shan’t say “inspired”) entirely too many posts, and entirely too many comments:

If PZ is demonized, villainized, hated,
Beyond even Hitler, the worst of the worst,
Imagine how horrible God is, who fated
His son to be crucified (He did it first).
If Jesus, who knew that He would not outlive them,
(Because He was dying, but also was God)
Could say of His torturers “Father, forgive them”,
It seems Richard Riley’s reaction is odd.
In two thousand years, how those words are distorted–
A message of love and forgiveness? Oh, well….
A nail through a cracker is what was reported;
Now Myers is Hitler… and so, burns in Hell.

******

More than just the cracker Kerfuffle, there were posts on works of art that somehow also offended the HRC. Jesus with an erection, or a crucified frog…

Why are there so many threads about Catholics
And who’s on the other side?
Catholics have rosaries, and Catholics have Mary,
And crackers with Jesus inside–
So they’ve been told, and some choose to believe it
Like some sort of devious plan
Someday we’ll find it–the Jesus connection
The subhuman atheists and man…

Who said that Jesus lives inside of each biscuit–
Who’d say a thing that bizarre?
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
And look what it’s done so far–
What’s so religious it makes us litigious?
And what do we think we should ban?
Someday we’ll find it–the Jesus connection–
The inhuman atheists and man….

…All of them under its spell
We know it’s deplorably tragic…

Have you been half asleep? And have you heard voices?
And what do they tell you to do?
Is this religious? Or is it psychotic?
And how do you tell ‘twixt the two?
I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it
I’m sorry the whole thing began…
Someday we’ll find it–the Jesus connection–
Those atheist bastards and man…

*****

Enough for one post. More later.

PZ notes that Time magazine reports poll results showing that 55% of Americans believe that they have personally been helped by a guardian angel. Yup, that they have experienced an interventionist magical spirit at work. I present the following as a public service, reminding people that just because you don’t personally know how you survived an event, that does not mean an angel helped you. Honest.

That time when the limb fell, and just missed your head—
What was it that caused you to duck?
A split second later, you might have been dead;
It had to be more than mere luck!

An Angel, perhaps watching out from above?
Or some shimmering, heavenly light?
The manifestation of God’s perfect love?
An Angel, you say? Well, not quite.

The reticular system, at work in your brain,
Can react without consciously thinking—
Avoiding the accident, saving you pain,
Reflexively, almost like blinking.

This primitive pathway has helped us survive—
Evolution at work once again!
No, it wasn’t an Angel that kept you alive,
But your primitive animal brain!

That time, late at night, you were hit by a car
And were comatose over three days?
Was an Angel the one who looked down from a star
And guided you out of the haze?

Well, no. There’s the lady who called nine one one,
And the ambulance, quick to the call;
Blood donors—seven, before you were done,
And the doctors and nurses and all.

It wasn’t an angel, but dozens of people
In whom you should place your reliance;
There’s nothing for you in a church with a steeple
But rather, in medical science.

*
*
*

Of course there are Angels, all over the place;
There’s nothing that’s plainer than this:
Every time you feel raindrops go splash on your face,
Some Angel is taking a piss.

Say what? It’s not Angels, but clouds in the sky?
That’s nonsense, as any can tell!
I tell you it’s Angels that piss from on high—
You cynics can all go to Hell.

With a moment of deep contemplation
And a wee bit of tasty libation
(Cos Limerick Friday
Must not be a dry day)
The topic is… summer vacation!

The Limerick Friday is back!
All summer, it’s been out of whack–
It was resting… on tour…
Having surgery… (sure,
It spent most of its time in the sack!)

But now, summer vacation is over
No more rolling in fields green with clover;
Tell us, what did you do?
Sail the seas, green or blue?
Or stay home on the couch, there, with Rover?

I, myself, had the best summer yet–
Thanks to some of you (I’ll not forget!)
If you think that your summer
Makes mine seem a bummer–
No question, I’m taking that bet!

A summer in Greece and Bulgaria
I had dreamed, but now I was there (yeah!)
Six weeks–that was all,
But I had such a ball…
Can you beat it? C’mon…hey, I dare ya!

(special thanks to Cath at VWXYNot?)

A brief little message to anyone reading
To all of you, near and farrrrrrrr
Today be Talk Like A Pirate Day,
So wherever ye be, there ye “Arrrrrrrr!”

(for those of ye in the Garrrrrden state, get yer java today not from Starrrrbucks, with their measly 0.5 pirate ratio–one syllable out of two– but from Ahrre’s coffee roastery, with a full 1.0 pirate ratio! Besides, it’s better! Oh, and ye can order online…)