Check out the Sandwalk: Strolling with a skeptical biochemist. I’m dismayed that it’s been up for a whole week before I noticed.
I’ve already learned something important: Tim Horton is the god-equivalent in Canada. If coffee and donuts inspire similar levels of sexual obsession and freaky legislation in Canada as does religion in the USA, I don’t think I want to hear about it. Too, too kinky.
UTI is becoming just a center for hilarity lately.
Synergy! Ooblog leads me to a spectacular painting of carnotaurs mating (did they always get a flight of pterosaurs at the climax?), and then by way of The Two Percent Company, I found this enlightening poster of mammals mating (hey, how many of the first 20 have you done?)…with the unfortunate consequence of death by STD. Put two and two together, and what conclusion do we arrive at?
Dinosaurs didn’t use condoms.
Diversity is good, but these are cultures I wouldn’t mind seeing go extinct.
Amanda thinks she needs to boil her computer after watching this video promoting “purity balls”. I don’t think it’s enough. Incineration may be necessary.
You may have heard of this movie, Jesus Camp, about the indoctrination carried out in a church camp (I haven’t seen it; the clips and trailer are scary enough). Interesting news—the camp filmed in the movie has been shut down.
Here’s an annoying case of political correctness run amuck.
…the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) Gene Nomenclature Committee…is renaming a number of genes that have potentially offensive or embarrassing names.
The shortlist of 10 genes -Â including radical fringe, lunatic fringe and, bizarrely, Indian hedgehog –Â was compiled in response to physicians’ worries about “inappropriate, demeaning and pejorative” names.
The problem arose because most of the genes were initially discovered in fruitflies, and their names were then transferred to the human versions of the genes, which were discovered later…when applied to the human versions of the genes, many of these names become uncomfortable.
While no one wants to curtail the creativity of fruitfly geneticists, it will be important to ensure that, in the future, no joky names are adopted for human genes where they might cause offence. Other quirky names in the fruitfly genome include headcase and mothers against decapentaplegia (MAD).
Darn prissy physicians. They’ve got no sense of humor. Will they try to rename one-eyed pinhead next? How about half baked? The zebrafish geneticists are just as amusing, you know.
I’d like to know what the physicians are concerned about, anyway. It’s not as if they’re going to be informing patients that their illness is caused by a broken frizzled gene, nor is it going to be somehow better or easier if they rename it “Wnt Receptor X-17” or something similarly dry and empty. I hope whoever started this knows a good proctologist who can do a stick-ectomy.
And seriously, there ought to be something like the priority rules of taxonomy to prevent random gomers from running around changing names just because they don’t like them.
Really. We Minnesotans are so uncivil that we never read Lileks, we leave that to foreigners with more tolerance for twee jingo. Out here, we see that face in the Star Tribune and we say “Gah, #%$$&!” (or other such un-mild, un-Minnesotan phrases), and turn the page to the comics section…where we mutter other unholy terms of exasperation at Mallard Fillmore. (How the hell did that mindless, unfunny loon* end up in our newspaper?)
*Whether I’m referring to Lileks or the cartoon duck is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Brian Flemming points out that Ted Haggard insists the biblical word on homosexuality is simple, and that the Bible says “They must be put to death.”
I’m not really into throwing rocks at people, but maybe I’d be willing to run the fried foods onna stick concession.
Slacktivist offers a rather more realistic prediction of what to expect.
All that language — forgiveness, deliverance, confession, repentance — really means here only that Haggard needs to go back to living a lie. If he agrees to live that lie, and with clenched teeth to continue proclaiming that others must join in living that lie, then Haggard will be “accepted” back “into fellowship.”
Well, heck. We won’t be able to sell tickets to that.
You may have noticed that it was Halloween earlier this week, and I’ve got a few pictures of the cutest little squid dressed up as humans and cadging candy from people. Cephalopods are so clever!
Eh, I don’t think I really believe this, but since South Park thinks its funny to portray Richard Dawkins as a tasteless sodomite, it seems only fair to mention that the joke might have stung more if it had been applied to Ted Haggard.
A gay man and admitted male escort claims he has had an ongoing sexual relationship with a well-known Evangelical pastor from Colorado Springs.
So far, it’s nothing but innuendo and accusation, though. I have to say that even if it were true, it would not be a reason to oppose Haggard, and I’d actually be rather disappointed—it would immediately move the debate from the substance of the danger of evangelical nonsense to wailing about hypocrisy and homosexuality, exactly the kind of complaint that plays right into the hands of the sanctimonious Religious Right.
Besides, look at that face. He reminds me of that horndog, Steve Stifler.
It belongs to The Poor Man Institute, dressed up as Powerline. It’s terrifyingly detailed and accurate.
