A plumbing parable

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My kitchen sink has a problem. Something has broken inside the Moen faucet, so that the handle is loose and only marginally effective. I’m thinking I should run down to the hardware store and get a new faucet assembly, and get under the sink with a pipe wrench. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

Right away, I run into an obstacle. I get down to the basement to fetch my wrench, and there’s one of the local ministers sitting on the toolbox. “Have you tried the incredible power of prayer yet, son?” he asked. I said no, of course not. I’m trying to fix a broken faucet. And then he gave me one of those pitying looks and tried to convince me that not only could Jesus fix my faucet, he would give me wine on tap. So I told him to get his fat ass off my toolbox and out of my house, and he stomped off.

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You’ve got to respect tradition

In Serbia, vandals broke into Slobodan Milosevic’s tomb and drove a stake through his heart to keep him from “returning from the dead to haunt the country”. I think that’s utterly charming.

When I go, I’d figured the best plan would be to donate my body to science, or to be cremated…but now I’m thinking it would be really cool if crazed folk dug my body up, chopped it to bits, put a stake through it, and maybe paraded the head around town on a pike. I wonder if there is a funeral plan for that?

(via The Pagan Prattle)

Really, it’s just the blink of an eye on a geological scale

Whoa, I asked for poems for my birthday, I got poems. That was quite a response, and it had me regretting the fact that I didn’t demand money. I could have retired by now.

On top of that, GrrlScientist, Bora, and Archy are compiling lists of birthday greetings, so I can just pop over there and browse through everything you people have written. It brings a tear to the eye, it does, especially since this is a day demanding I do lots and lots of work and not leaving me much time for cruising through the web.

Next week, though, I’ll return the favor: there’s Lynn Margulis’s blog tour on Monday, and since it’s Spring break and I’ll actually be able to relax with some free time, I’ve got a couple of science posts to scribble up — cool stuff with weird invertebrates.

The Antarctic octopus gets farked

Fark is having an octopus photoshop contest — most of the entries make me go “eh”, but there are a few nice ones.

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Phil Plait thinks this could be a symbol of rapprochement between the brilliant analysts of the natural world at Pharyngula and those slack-jawed people who stare dully at the sky at Bad Astronomy. (I kid, astronomers probably think a little bit now and then, too.)