I need to buy a few dozen of these shirts to prop up my self-esteem.

Probably a better question, but one that does my self-esteem no good at all, is to ask what they heck they’re for? I know they’re not actually for me — is there a place called PZ?

Minnesota has the lowest frequency of searches for “free gay porn” in all 50 states? Is it because we all already know exactly where to find it, so we don’t bother googling for it, or is it because we’re too busy snuggling up to keep warm all winter?

And why are Alabamans looking for god on the internet?

Come to think of it, I’ve never searched google for either “god” or “free gay porn”. I might be missing something.

(via Calamities of Nature)

It’s true, I couldn’t predict most of these entries, but I totally guessed the general subject of the #1 entry correctly, so that’s got to count for something.

I was told by several people that AVN was quite happy with me, which caused me some consternation. The Australian Vaccination Network? That horrible anti-science group that campaigns against giving children protection from disease? Oh, no, what have I done wrong?

But then, as it turns out, to most of the world AVN stands for Adult Video News, the big organization that reviews and markets pornography and gives awards to sexy movies. I was so relieved! That’s so much better. Anyway, They praise me fulsomely in an article which is only safe for work if you have a good ad-blocker on your browser. Otherwise, you may have to explain to your co-workers that you aren’t really “beggin’ for a peggin'”.

OK, I saw this strange video, and my first thought was that this had to have some sex and porn applications. And then I felt ashamed of myself.

Some of you may recall that I signed up to learn about DNA Activation and 12-strand DNA about two months ago. They have since been sending me email messages almost every day, steadily ramping up the weirdness with each new one.

“More weird,” you say? Weirder than manipulating invisible DNA waves to achieve immortality and use 100% of my brain, you ask? Yes.

I haven’t sent them any money. I think they’re desperately flailing about to find the hook that will open my wallet. Here’s the latest missive.

We see all the evil and disaster on mother earth and wonder or ask why does this happen???

Well, again, the story is here:
-> http://www.dna-activation-power.com/dna-activation

As you can read above, the DNA was/is manipulated by ET’s to
gain power over the planet.

But what do they want why is this time line so important?

As I mentioned in my last DNA Healing Secrets, an important
Stargate (templar complex) is going to open now.

And whatever group controls the planetary templar complex when
this star gate (some call it Amenti gates) will open in 2012 , will
have dominion over the planet and also will have access to the core
universal star gates in Mintaka, Orion. The last time Amenti opened ,
pole shift occurred due to intruder manipulation, and would have again,
if guardians, who protect the human race, had not been intervened.

So, as you can imagine, there are many things going on, which you might
not even dream of. But this is not important.

Important is your personal vibration, which you should raise in order
to stay in tune with the storyline happening around us, whether you are
aware of it or not.

You have to re-connect to your soul purpose, your Higher Self.
And one of the most effective methods are DNA activations,
which you will receive with a guide on how to re-connect to your
Higher Self and further crucial breathing exercise instructions.

What are you waiting for?

Activate your potential NOW!
-> http://www.dna-activation-power.com/dna-activation.html

In the next mail we talk about the parallel earth, and why they
have already been manipulated by ‘Dark Forces’ and already
living under the ‘One World Order’, which is under ongoing
operation here.

Love&Peace,
TOM

I prepared a Spiritual Growth Program for you, that will help
you to avoid the daily flaws of negativity and fear. Fear is our
greatest enemy. Click below:
-> http://www.spiritualhealing-now.com/spiritual-growth.html

Tom is my friend, and I certainly do want to have dominion over the planet and the star gates in Orion. He’s wearing me down. I’m now willing to pay 11 cents for this vital information.

That’s the primary lesson I’m taking from this bizarre Anthony Weiner affair: it’s personal and private, and whenever it’s made public, it simply makes all the participants look silly. It’s definitely not an intellectual process, as this reading of his steamy exchanges reveals.

I don’t endorse Weiner’s behavior at all, but still, it makes me want to see Maher’s pillow talk revealed and expressed in public. Just to be mean.

Last night at the Cheltenham Science Festival, I attended a Q&A between Robin Ince and Alan Moore; Robin had stumbled onto the easiest job in the universe, because all you have to do is tickle Moore a little bit and deep rumbly and heavily accented weirdness comes pouring out. Much of the talk was about Moore’s belief in magic — in a science festival, you say? Yes, and it actually made a lot of sense.

Moore has an affinity for a 2nd century oracular sock puppet, but he doesn’t worship it. He believes in magic, but he doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He also doesn’t like religion. I agreed with almost everything he said 100% (although he did speculate a bit about the absence of explanation for memory, which he thought was a mystery because there are no changes in the structure of the brain that last for more than a few weeks, which is total bullshit, and he wondered if the purpose of junk DNA was to store memories, which is bullshit on fire. But, OK, the rest of the talk was mostly fun.)

Moore is a writer, and his explanation was basically that the weirdness was to spark creativity; for instance, he talked about staring into a quartz crystal and seeing visions, but he was quite plain that it wasn’t supernatural, it wasn’t the crystal, it was his own mind generating and imposing ideas on what he saw. And that’s all right with me — it fits very well with how I see science functioning.

I would make a comparison with how evolution works…OK, partly because everything reminds me of evolution, but also because it’s entirely analogous. The most productive processes are those that are in a state of tension between chaos and discipline, in which randomness generates variety and spawns all kinds of wild diversity, while discipline culls the unproductive dead-ends and shapes the riot to move in a useful direction. That’s evolution: mutation and the accumulation of random variation in a population are the “magic”, entirely natural and entirely uncontrolled, while natural selection is the discipline that maintains viability. For a writer like Moore, magic is whatever fires up the imagination and triggers new thoughts, and the discipline must come from skill with language and storytelling.

Moore didn’t say this, but I’d love to ask him what he thinks of something I’ve believed for a long time: our imaginations are weak and pathetic. For the most part, the human mind prefers to travel along well-worn ruts and not strike off into new territory very often. Imagination isn’t actually an act of will, it’s not something our brains are good at, but what imagination actually is is a receptivity to novel external input, and a willingness to bumble along following a weird stimulus. We don’t generate it, we simply respond to a jostling off the track by either, most of the time, trying to get back on the track, or if you’re like Alan Moore, wandering happily off onto strange new frontiers.

So keep on trusting in the sock-puppet, or (once upon a time) taking hallucinogenic drugs, or staring at crystals, or dealing tarot cards, or using random number generators to spark novelty. It really does work well, and better than relying on narrow reason, which tends not to deviate much from what has worked before. But avoid religion: in this view, religion is a process that takes a creative tangent and turns it into a great deep hardline rut, the antithesis of what is wanted.