Stop by and say hello!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Stop by and say hello!
Today is our fundraising day! We just put up a handful of interviews with a few of our bloggers. Now you can see their faces and hear their voices in addition to reading their words!
Donations are welcome! We’re trying to dig our way out from some unpleasant legal debts caused by a SLAPP suit against us.
It’s been one year since we sunk our foe in a triumphant legal victory, so we happy defendants are going to have an orgy of back-patting and self-congratulation tomorrow evening at 6:30pm Central. It’s public! Come join us!
I wish we weren’t.
This state has been moderately robust in its response to COVID-19 — not great, but at least we’re mostly not in denial — but I blame our high ranking on the fact that we’re surrounded by dumbass states, like Wisconsin and both Dakotas, that don’t even do that much. We ought to just close our borders, shut down the schools and churches, and get this damn thing under control.
Our story chain marches forward, with part 2 on Death to Squirrels!
It’s a common trope — the anti-gay fanatic defending Christian values who is caught snorting coke off the backside of a gay hooker (I shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s not the last part that’s objectionable, it’s the hypocrisy in the name of hatred). Now we’ve got the crème de la crème of these kinds of incidents, at least until someone tops it, which they will.
A member of the European Parliament representing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party has resigned from his position in Brussels after he was caught leaving what reports described as a 25-man orgy on Friday.
Jozsef Szajer resigned on Sunday after he admitted to breaching Belgium’s strict lockdown rules to attend a sex party, Politico reported on Tuesday. The police found 25 naked men at the gathering, including Szajer and some diplomats, the Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure reported. The newspaper quoted a local police source as saying, “We interrupted a gang bang.”
One last pitch-perfect note:
Szajer, a right-wing politician and ally of Orban, climbed out a first-floor window and was spotted “fleeing along the gutter,” the public prosecutor’s office said.
If that’s your thing, and everyone is consenting, go ahead and leap naked into a 25-man gay orgy. It just sounds exhausting to me, but hey, seize the day. However, you’re going to get called out for this:
Orban’s Hungarian government has curtailed LGBTQ rights since he was elected prime minister in 2010. Szajer, who fronted Fidesz in the European Parliament, helped rewrite Hungary’s constitution to “protect the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman,” The Times of London reported.
At least he didn’t marry the other 24 men. That would be bad.
Don’t worry, Jozsef Szajer has apologized.
“I deeply regret violating the Covid restrictions, it was irresponsible on my part. I am ready to stand for the fine that occurs.”
That’s a good point. With all the mucus and fluids flying around, that was probably a super-spreader event.
As we’ve mentioned a few times, we’re having another casual fundraiser this month, and as part of that, we’re doing another fictional story chain. Last time, I got stuck with the chore of providing the concluding chapter of A Dark Web, which involved wrapping up a complicated storyline with gory violent murder and hybrid human-spiders. This time around, I get revenge by starting the thread with a complicated science fiction story about transhumans living on a partially terraformed Mars, and now I get to watch everyone else try to steer the story in unexpected directions (next up: Iris, followed by Abe) and William Brinkman gets to bat clean-up. We’ll have to try a different order in future story threads.
Jump below the fold and get started! Don’t worry, there are far fewer spiders in this one, so far.
None of this makes any sense. Our university administration keeps flapping their lips about caution and respect for faculty, staff, and students, while enforcing rules about social distancing and masking in the classroom, and then…oh, we have to keep the football games going! So now disease is sweeping through the football program.
The Minnesota football Gophers have canceled a second consecutive game due to an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in the program.
U of M Director of Athletics Mark Coyle, University President Joan Gabel and Gophers Medical Director Dr. Brad Nelson made the decision to scrap the Dec. 5 game with Northwestern after consulting with the Big Ten Conference.
The game will not be rescheduled, and is considered a “no contest” as per Big Ten policy.
Since Nov. 19, the football program has experienced 47 positive cases of coronavirus in players and staffers [!!!], the most recent group of 15 diagnosed just Saturday.
Remarkable. We are an educational institution, we’ve compromised on everything to keep the academic mission limping along, and yet we’re risking it all by giving the goddamned athletics department free rein, on top of paying the coaches and AD staff far more money than they do the instructors. We should have just put the whole athletics program on hiatus at the start of the year, and saved money by putting the coaches on half pay for the year (they’d still make more money than I do.)
“The health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and staff continues to be our main priority,” said Coyle.
Oh, BULLSHIT.
