Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I don’t understand these billboards. What are the people who put these up thinking? Do they think Jesus might come tooling down I94 from Fargo in a tan Ciera and be reassured by its message? Jesus is the big guy. The Holy Ghost is the little guy, kinda funny looking, and he’s driving.
Jesus: Where is Pancakes House?
Holy Ghost: What?
Jesus: We stop at Pancakes House.
Holy Ghost: What are ya nuts? We had pancakes for breakfast. I want to go somewhere I can get a shot and a beer, and a steak, maybe. No more fuckin’ pancakes, c’mon man. C’mon man! Okay here’s an idea. We’ll stop outside of Brainerd. I know a place there we can get laid. What do ya think?
Jesus: I’m fuckin’ hungry now, you know!
Holy Ghost: Yeah, yeah. Jesus. I was just saying we could stop, get pancakes, and get laid.
[As they pass the Sauk Centre exit, they see a billboard]
[Jesus smiles]
Holy Ghost: Hey, look at that. You ever been to Sauk Centre?
Jesus: Nope.
Holy Ghost: Would it kill you to say something?
Jesus: I did.
Holy Ghost: “No.” That’s the first thing you’ve said in the last four hours. That’s a, that’s a fountain of conversation, man. That’s a geyser. I mean, whoa, daddy, stand back, man. Shit. You know I’m sittin’ here drivin’, doin’ all the drivin’, man, the whole fuckin’ way from Brainerd, drivin’, just tryin’ to chat, you know, keep our spirits up, fight the boredom of the road, and you can’t say one fuckin’ thing just in the way of conversation? Well, fuck it. I don’t have to talk either, man. See how you like it. [Pause] Just total fuckin’ silence. Two can play at that game, smart guy. We’ll just see how you like it. Total silence.
[They pass another sign]
Jesus: Unguent.
Holy Ghost: What?!
Jesus: I need Unguent!
At least, that’s the conversation I imagine as they’re on the way to the Big City as they pass these colossal non sequiturs.
These really are billboards mounted along the freeway. I don’t get the point, other than making a display of public piety, unless they really do believe Jesus cruises around on I94.
The Great Barrier Reef is dying. We’re killing it.
The corals are bleaching. When stressed, They lose their symbiotic algae, and then they starve and die. What’s stressing them? Rising ocean temperatures. What’s making the ocean temperatures rise? Fossil fuel consumption.
So this was a bit ironic.
As news of the bleaching spread around the globe, the Australian government granted more approvals for what could be Australia’s largest ever coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee basin.
This isn’t just Australia’s fault or Australia’s disaster, though. We could point to the exploitation of oil shales by Canada, or the US’s eagerness to suck in more oil pipelines and blow out more CO2, or China’s enthusiastic conversion of coal into smog. It’s a world-wide catastrophe.
We seem bound and determined to destroy ourselves, do we really need to take out every ecosystem on the planet on our way out?
You could argue that humans were more impactful than the radiation.
Boxplot has been running this comic series on the science behind the video game Fallout — basically its about the reality of radiation. You know it’s not good for you, right? It doesn’t give you superpowers, and mutations in somatic tissues are called “cancers”?
But at the same time, there are a couple of places where radiation drove people away — Fukushima and Chernobyl come to mind — and we’re currently seeing a remarkable rebound, as nature comes rushing in to flourish. There’s the temptation to wonder if maybe radiation isn’t as bad as the scientists say it is.
Rather, though, we should be making the point in the panel above and to the right. Humans are much worse for the environment than we think.
The I35 bridge will be lit appropriately tonight.
There will be a block party with dancing in the street.
I’d go, but, well…
There are reports that Prince has died.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
It’s true, he’s dead. Now I’m going to have to put Raspberry Beret on repeat on the iPod.
It’s a shame that his life was poisoned by bad religion, but man, he had so much talent that it all came shining through anyway. Watch this video to the end; there’s a bunch of nobodies making some noodling noises for a while, but then Prince steps in with a guitar solo and humbles the universe.
I’ll be at the West Metro Critical Thinking Club on Saturday morning to talk STEM. Come on down and tell me what you think — I’m aiming to set up the issue and then try to get opinions from the audience, so the more the feistier.
TOPIC: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and the Liberal Arts: How do we teach science?
There is a constant push to change education from an experience that broadens the mind to one that focuses students on a vocation. We’ve got universities hiring business people with no educational experience to make them more profitable, and people seriously questioning the value of disciplines like philosophy, psychology, sociology, or anything that others disparagingly call “soft” subjects. At the same time, there are advocates of reform who think algebra is useless, and that we waste too much time teaching mathematics that, they think, no one will ever use.
P Z will be presenting an interdisciplinary, liberal arts perspective on science education — we need all facets of human knowledge if we are to adequately comprehend our own narrower fields of interest. I’ll be interested in getting a discussion going about what attendees expect from a college education.
Everything was better in the good old days.
Unfortunately, being in the middle of a continent means I’m still stuck in the middle of a continent.
Bring back the Western Interior Seaway! We only need to rewind the clock to the Cretaceous, rather than the Permian, to give me some oceanfront property.
