The other big holiday coming up is Valentine’s Day … so how about some appropriately silly valentines?
Warning: that one is the best one. If it makes you groan, the others will be pure torture. But they do beat out the sappy things we used to hand out in fifth grade.
OK, so I was sent this picture, and I want to make it clear: this is not me giving a lecture.
Although, I must say that if you look closely, there is a distinct resemblance to Ken Miller…could he be a closet cephalopodophile?
I have heard a rumor that tomorrow there will be some strange game called the “superbowl” going on … I don’t know who is playing, I won’t be watching, and I really don’t care who wins, so I think I’ll just root for the Toronto Maple Leafs, if that’s all right. But I did discover another fun game that could be played.
The NFL doesn’t like it when churches show the Superbowl on big screen TVs for their congregations (which is actually kind of a strange thing for churches to promote, anyway.) Maybe atheists should cruise their neighborhoods and rat out any churches that violate the rules.
Not to be nasty about it, though. I don’t care about the Superbowl, but a matchup between the forces of American Foo’bawl and American Evangelical Christianity … that would be an exceptionally interesting contest, especially since it would probably lead to open warfare in places like Texas.
(hat tip to RPM
My God Delusion index is 0.
Perhaps your score is a little higher, and you’re concerned about it. You, too, wish to achieve the perfection of a nice, uncluttered zero, with god delusions completely absent from your life. Here’s help. Watch the video below multiple times; with each viewing your GDI should drop. Stop when it hits zero.
Now…does anyone have a similar way to reduce a cholesterol index?
At last, we have the perfect symbol for America under Bush. Nothing testifies to your pride in a country that is impossible to satirized anymore than fake plastic testicles painted in camouflage colors with a yellow “support the troops” ribbon that you can hang on your gas-guzzling SUV.
I swear, if I ever saw one of these on the freeway, it would be a traffic hazard because I’d be laughing and crying too hard to maintain proper control of my vehicle.
(via Jeffrey Rowland)
I’ve got to wash my underwear.
It’s a strange, weird world out there. I get hate mail all the time, but you know me — I’m mean and cruel and I don’t hesitate to pull out the sharp, sharp knives of unkind rhetoric. Other people get hate mail, too, and here’s one that made me laugh and laugh (which is also really mean, since I’m not the recipient.)
You people are going to ruin your little daughter and make her burn in hell like the two of you. You think you are clever and so does the devil. Only God has the answer for you. God or G. Bush.
That last line is a real laugh-getter — some people have problems distinguishing god from Bush, and I’m not talking about Moses — but there’s more. What did this horrible person and his child do to deserve such damnation? Is he a militant atheist? A commie pinko Kucinich supporter? I don’t know; maybe, but it’s not apparent from the blog. The blog has a theme.
It’s about vegan parenting.
Oh, man, when George W. Bush discovers that people actually post vegetarian recipes on a blog, he is probably going to send Chuck Norris over to kick their asses and slap ’em around with a side of beef. I’m just relieved that I’ve never posted my old recipe for miso soup here, or I’d really be in trouble — I’d be posting from Gitmo in between waterboarding sessions, or dodging lightning bolts from heaven.
We’re about to witness a monstrous event here on Scienceblogs.
Omnibrain: weird neuroscience from an inveterate smart-ass.
Retrospectacle: Parrots and hair cells with Shelley passing out the cookies.
Both are young graduate students in neuroscience, and both have decided to shut down their blogs…and
restart them as one freaky hybrid. They aren’t going away, they’re anastomosing.
There is one obstacle. They don’t know what to call this brand new twisted experiment in blogging, so they’re running a contest to name the new blog (they don’t mention it, but they’re also going to need a redesigned banner), and they’re giving away prizes for the best name: a free subscription to Seed, books, and a hodge-podge of other random science stuff.
I’m no good at the blog-naming biz — look at what I came up with for this one! — but all this talk of Shelley and Frankenstein brought to mind some obvious epithets: “abhorred monster”, “hideous progeny”, etc. I think they like their proposed merger, so those won’t do. So I searched on a full text version of Frankenstein and found the only place where the brain is mentioned in the whole book:*
To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind should he impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain.
Maybe I’m just morbid, but I think “Food for the worm” is an excellent name for a blog.
Somehow, I don’t think I’ll win any prizes. You people better take over.
*By the way, the next chapter contains the account of the revivification of the monster. It’s not very dramatic — no lightning bolts, no creaking chains in an old castle, no grisly stitchery of corpses. Frankenstein just does it, leaving the method unexplained.
There might be crazy Christian ladies there!
Nah, I know there are crazy Christians there, but they’re mostly fairly cool…I haven’t seen any eruptions like this one.
A reader sent me an example of religious kitsch, but just to be on the safe side, I’m going to have to put it below the fold. There’s nothing obscene about the work in question, but I dare you to look at it and not have wildly inappropriate thoughts skitter through your brain.
I think we need a caption contest for this one.
