I predict this cartoon will be appearing all over the place here today.
I quite like Bob O’Hara’s equivalent portrait of Nature Network, too.
It’s a stunning reenactment of home life…with lolcats. I don’t know that I like this invasion of my privacy.
Uh-oh. People have often sent me strange photos like this; apparently, cephalopod porn can get you arrested in the UK.
The charge involving the sea creature states the image was of someone “performing an act of intercourse with a dead animal, namely an octopus/squid, which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character”.
Yeah, it is kind of disgusting to see poor cephalopods tormented with the weird, creepy anatomy of vertebrates. It’s also offensive to see that the Swansea police can’t tell the difference between squid and octopus.
But why should we have laws that regulate on the basis of feelings of disgust? As long as no one is harmed, this is the kind of act that ought to be regarded as inappropriate anywhere but in the privacy of one’s home. They have some ridiculous charge that the pictures showed situations which could lead to “serious injury to a person’s breasts” or genitals, except that it also says the cephalopods were dead. It sounds like a silly law to enforce some people’s squeamishness, not to protect the public.
I’d also recommend looking up the work of Hokusai, Teraoka, or Saeki (but not if you live in England! That could land you in jail). Erotic art with cephalopods has a long history.
The story also says, though, that the guy had “indecent photos of children”, which is something that can cause harm, if true. It’s fair to go after that, but it’s another situation where one man’s indecency is another man’s family photos of kids playing in the bathtub. I’d have to know more details about the photos before condemning anyone.
OK, how many takes did it take to get that exactly right?
I’ve long held a gripe about science-fiction aliens: they’re always far too unimaginative. I know it’s because SF is rarely about real aliens but is always about ourselves (and is also usually but keeping the budget manageable, in the case of SF movies), but still…the model is always our species, and they can’t even broaden their horizons enough to look at the diversity within the phylum Chordata, let alone examine some of the weirdness in other phyla. And, of course, any alien life form isn’t even going to be at all related to us, so it should be even stranger. Avatar was just the worst example of this trend — and Cameron did not have the budget excuse — but Star Trek and Star Wars were also pretty feeble in biological creativity department.
Examples that buck the trend are rare. District 9 at least modeled their aliens after cockroaches. Babylon 5 had most of their primary interacting alien races boringly humanoid, but had a few oddballs lurking mostly offscreen.
At least here’s one artist who does biologically informed aliens. Here’s one example, check out his gallery.
Have you heard about this strange new web service, Chatroulette? It makes webcam connections between random pairs of people with the idea that it’ll spark interesting conversations. I like the idea, but I haven’t tried it yet myself because a) I’ve heard that mainly what you get is pathetic exhibitionist men who aim the camera at their crotch, or b) people who want to chat about sex and flick past anyone who isn’t pretty enough (I think I’d be subject to rather rapid dismissals), and c) I DON’T HAVE TIME TO CHAT RIGHT NOW. MUST WRITE.
However, here’s an interesting use of the service: this fellow would flash the video, The Symphony of Science at people with a request to give a thumbs up for science. Look, it worked! This video is totally safe for work.
Earlier reports about ChatRoulette had given me some misgivings about humanity, or at least the male half of it. This video makes me feel a little better about it.
Because I am weirded out by this new fad of vajazzling, or the gluing of shiny little rhinestones to women’s crotches. I think the problem is that I’m a biologist, so I find skin quite pleasant as it is; this must be something to appeal to geologists, who think it can’t be sexy unless it is mineralized.
Jill mentions that it only seems to be an adornment for women, which does seem a little bit unfair. Or maybe it’s a good thing — I grew up in the 1970s, and really, disco balls have no appeal at all for me.
There. Now your morning is wrecked with a horrifying mental image, too.
Some of you may recall the Bigfoot footage I posted a while back — now the full, unedited, complete version without the blurry effects is available. Note that the language here may be NSFW, unless you’re working as a longshoreman.
Hard to believe, but this medieval nonsense is still going on. Poland has more than 100 professional exorcists, and they recently met in a conference.
Congress participants argued that demonology lessons should be treated more seriously in seminaries and that ordinary people, too, would benefit from knowing more about exorcisms. During the congress, the priests discussed the main causes of possession by demons such as occult, esoteric beliefs like magic, eastern meditation and homeopathy.
Oooh, demonology lessons. Those should be good. Don’t forget to take them seriously when some geezer tells you that your wicked thoughts about Scarlett Johansson are the work of the minor demon Booglebegonzapootie.
I do appreciate that they’re updating the list of demons to include the ones drawn to homeopathy. I wonder if you get rid of them with a fully succussed 100C dilution of holy water?
You all know that if you masturbate, you will become feeble, blind, and incontinent, right? Well, at least according to folk wisdom shouted at you by grandmas and grandpas (who, I will assure you, masturbated: it’s a nearly universal practice.) As it turns out, a compendium of Islamic thought on masturbation agrees on all points, and adds a few other consequences of the practice I bet you never thought of.
Atta (Rahmatullahi alaihi) says: “Some people will be resurrected in such a condition that their hands will be pregnant, I think they are those who masturbate.” (Tafsir Mazhari, vol 12, pg 94)
I am trying to visualize that, and failing. Fortunately.
Have no fear, though, there is a remedy! Under Islam, you are not allowed to masturbate, but you are encouraged to have sex with your slave girls!
