What’s on your desktop?

Female Science Professor is polling her readers on what’s on their computer desktop. It’s not a weird question pulled out of thin air: she noted that male professors may be more comfortable showing pictures of their families than females, who have to be more sensitive to the stereotypes.

It’s not a scientific poll in any sense of the word, but just out of curiousity, let’s see what emerges.

My answer was “Other.” My desktop image right now is of a hypothetical cephalopod-like alien swimming in a methane sea beneath an orange-red sky. What would fit her hypothesis, though, is that my desk has a keyboard drawer that I don’t use (my office computer is my laptop), and that’s filled to overflowing with…pictures of my family.

Tangled Bank problems?

Ummm, anyone know anything about this week’s host for the Tangled Bank? It’s supposed to be at http://metaanalyses.blogspot.com/, but that site immediately bumps me into a redirect to something else.

I also haven’t heard back from the host—if anyone knows him (or if you are him), drop me a line and let me know what’s up. If there’s a problem, I’ll recruit someone to fill in the gap on short notice.

Brace yourself, Sixth Congressional District!

Look who’s coming to campaign for Michele Bachmann: the home school kids of Patrick Henry College and Generation Joshua.

Abram Olmstead- Upperclassman, Patrick Henry College
Meredith Schultz- Student, Patrick Henry College
Adrienne Cumbus- Upperclassman, Patrick Henry College
Ioanna Lily Cornett- Student, Patrick Henry College
Nathan Martin- Student, Patrick Henry College

We’ve also got a team of young evangelicals on their way to help out Mark Kennedy. Doesn’t it just make your heart do a little happy pit-a-pat dance?

There is a Kansas connection here: one of their leaders is Ned Ryun, son of the odious Kansas politician. I notice that one of the “resources” the site touts is Answers in Genesis—basically, we’ve got a gang of pathetic creationist conservatives being exported by Kansans to the state of Minnesota to work to make our state as screwed up as theirs. Thanks, Kansas!

Chuck Norris Facts

Remember those silly Chuck Norris Facts? Ever wonder what Chuck Norris thinks of them (well, actually, I didn’t…so don’t feel bad if you didn’t care)? It’s sad to see that we had to find out, since all we learn is that Norris is as dumb as a brick.

Chuck Norris actually responds to the jokes—in an article on World Nut Daily, of all places. Here’s one example.

Alleged Chuck Norris Fact: “There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.”
It’s funny. It’s cute. But here’s what I really think about the theory of evolution: It’s not real. It is not the way we got here. In fact, the life you see on this planet is really just a list of creatures God has allowed to live.
We are not creations of random chance. We are not accidents. There is a God, a Creator, who made you and me. We were made in His image, which separates us from all other creatures.

By the way, without him, I don’t have any power. But with Him, the Bible tells me, I really can do all things – and so can you.

Well. I guess that’ll teach me…I learned otherwise by reading the work of scholars and scientists, when I should have been paying more attention to men whose reputation is built on their ability to kick people in the face. Since Chuck Norris disagrees with all those “facts” that consist of hyperbolic exaggerations of his machismo, I think we need to start accumulating a new list of more accurate Chuck Norris Facts. Here, I’ll start.

  • Chuck Norris’s skull is so dense, the tidal effects from his cranium kill you before his head-butt hits you.

  • Chuck Norris sneers at neurologists—it takes a team of geologists to appreciate the pace of his thoughts.

  • When Chuck Norris furrows his brow, he’s not thinking—he’s knuckling his third fist.

Does anyone else find it ironic that a spokesman for a religion of love is a muscleman who beats people up in movies? What next…will Rambo speak out for Jesus?

A little pessimism about Extraterrestrial Intelligence

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Warren sent me link from The Indigestible, wondering if I was interested in these kinds of speculative questions about the existence of alien life. Why, yes I am…and even wrote something along the same lines a few years ago, coming to the same conclusions: I think intelligent extraterrestrials are unlikely.

My reasons are below the fold. Of course, I will retract my opinion immediately when Klaatu lands.

[Read more…]

Action! Cue the cartoon squid!

Here’s an interesting collection of scans from a defunct comic book called Action. It’s rather grisly—most of the action seems to involve people being bloodily devoured by marine organisms—so don’t look if you’d rather not see people getting pulped in a shark’s jaws. This comic book was apparently shut down because of the outcry over the violence, but I see another reason:

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Badly drawn squid, completely false information about their eating habits, and poor grammar (“liquidises”? Don’t they know that the plural of squid is squid?)—clearly, the book’s audience turned away from it in contempt for their lack of accuracy.

(In case you’re wondering, and don’t want to look…I’m sorry to say that yes, it pecks a hole in poor Pat’s stomach and dissolves away his internal organs. And then it gets in a fight with a Great White Shark!)

(And before anyone sends me more links to that video of an octopus vs. a shark, I’ve seen it, and I know the octopus wins. In this comic, though, the shark is the title character, so I think he wins.)