Our cat is a shameless coward that fears any kind of vermin, so useless as a mouse catcher. The spiders who live on and around my house are much more effective and relentless in taking out invaders.
Walking around the yard this afternoon I spotted four instances of bloody murder of pests. Good work!
Finally! First egg sac of the season, along with its attentive mom, who didn’t want to be separated from it.
I’m pretty sure the answer is some variant of “yes,” “of course,” and “what a stupid question,” but the Freethoughtblogs gang will be exploring it on Saturday afternoon, and maybe provide some nuance and depth. You can contribute, too!
To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed that Nigel Farage was planning to campaign for Trump in the US, so I didn’t care that he abruptly decided to leave my country and campaign for himself.
Nigel Farage on Monday announced that he would return to frontline British politics as leader of the Reform party and run for a seat in the election next month, scrapping his previously stated position of skipping the race in order to focus on supporting Donald Trump.
“I’ve changed my mind, it is allowed, you know!” Farage told a hastily arranged press conference. He said he will remain leader for the next five years in order to hold the expected Labour government to account.
Goodbye. Don’t care, you wanker. Fuck off already.
Understandably, though, his prospective constituents in Essex did have strong opinions about his reentry into their business.
Nigel Farage’s surprise campaign for the upcoming British general election got off to a sticky start Tuesday when someone chucked a milkshake in his face.
From this we get the only portrait of Nigel Farage I ever want to see.
Perfection.
I dread finding email in my inbox from someone with a Muslim name nowadays, because I know exactly what it’s going to about. Apparently I am notorious among Islamic fundamentalists because I said that the prophet Mohammed’s account of developmental biology is not accurate, and not at all substantial, so every once in a while someone gets it in their head to prove me wrong, that the Quran is precise, accurate, and complete. It is not, of course.
Here we go again.
Dear Professor PZ Myers,
I hope you are doing well. I am a Muslim medical student, and I recently watched your debate on embryology in Islam from 12 years ago. Unfortunately, the brothers debating you lacked in-depth knowledge of embryology[That’s a poor description to narrow it down. They were all bad, every one. Maybe this one with the appropiately named Nadir?], but I am here to offer a more informed perspective[Doubtful.]
I have written an entire book about embryology in Islam, detailing its basis and nuances. I noticed you are seeking detailed embryological descriptions in the Quran[No, I’m not. The Quran has a pitifully short description, I don’t need a whole book making excuses for it], and I believe you may have overlooked the significant details present in the verses of Surah Al-Muminun or other surah. While I understand you are an atheist and do not believe in God, I hope to provide you with some insights before it is too late[Too late…for what?].
I am willing to share passages from my book with you, completely free of charge, in the spirit of honest inquiry and the pursuit of truth. The first passages I will provide cover:
1. The formation of bones and flesh.
2. The claim that the Quran copied from the works of Galen and Aristotle.Additionally, my book includes other topics such as:
3. Embryology classification at the microscopic level and its correlation with the Quran.
4. Sex determination in the Hadiths of the Prophet and the Quran.
5. Correcting misinterpretations of verses in Chapter 86 of the Quran: Surah At-Tariq (regarding the ejaculated fluid coming from between the backbone and ribs).To start, I will send you the first two topics. All you need to do is read these to conclude that the knowledge contained in the Quran is not primitive and could not have been known by everyone at that time[I’ve read a complete translation of that section — it’s very short — and it’s primitive]. If you continue to claim otherwise, I would appreciate evidence that someone made similar statements as the Prophet did at that time[I feel no obligation to correspond further].
I apologize for not being able to share the entire book now, as it has not yet been released. However, I am happy to provide the first two passages, and if you are interested in more, please let me know and I will see what I can do.
Have a good day.
Best regards,
Are you ready for this? OK, let’s take a look at the excerpt about “bones and flesh”. The Quran claims Allah makes bones first, then clothes them with flesh. Is that what happens?
He’s doing what real journalists ought to do: when Donald Trump states an outright lie, like I never said “lock her up”
, it is the job of real journalists to look up the record and hold him to account. Fox News drones don’t, but is that what we really want to do, is hold up Fox “journalism” as the standard we need to meet?
The problem is that only small children and babies want to be spoon fed the stories they want, and get mad if they’re given the facts that they need, and we have a country full of MAGA babies who want nothing but their pablum.
I feel a bit let down. I consider Mad Max: Fury Road to be one of my favorite movies of all time, so of course I walked into Furiosa with unreasonably high expectation, so of course it was unlikely that it would meet them. It didn’t.
That’s unfair, though. It was still an enjoyable movie. It was just lacking the focus of Fury Road.
The first problem was that the story was too diffuse and chaotic. Fury was a frantic chase, followed by an equally frantic race back, and it covered the events of just a few days. Furiosa covered a tightly telescoped few years in the life of an angry girl/young women, and it ambled between three locations: the Citadel, Gas Town, and the Bullet Farm, and half the time I was wondering why we’re even going to these hell holes. Oh, because they had a trade agreement. George Miller should have learned from George Lucas that that is never an interesting basis for an action movie.
Anya Taylor-Joy was OK as Furiosa, but she didn’t have that steely-eyed determination that Charlize Theron portrayed so well. This Furiosa was a victim of circumstance, and was lacking that rage burning inside her. I also missed Tom Hardy’s Mad Max — he was also a victim of circumstance, but his main role was to witness the events. There was no one like Nux, to surprise you with a spectacular redemption arc. It was a game of ping pong, with Furiosa the ball, and it wasn’t particularly compelling.
You know what I really missed? The music. Fury Road had an intense score to match its hard-driving (see what I did there?) narrative. Furiosa occasionally played memorable bits of that score, but never sustained them. It was choppier, I think to match the plot, which lacked the long scenes where the heroes were driving, driving, driving across the desert while Immortan Joe’s army was madly racing after them.
So I left the theater thinking “that was nice.” I didn’t leave it feeling that it was a good thing I was walking, because I might be a danger on the road if I were driving. Furiosa didn’t inject me with the fury that the previous movie did.
It was still good. It just lacked the adrenaline cocktail I should have been served.
There’s a huge trial going on in this state, regarding $250 million in funds unlawfully diverted from charity for needy children to the pockets of a small number of greedy grifters. It happens even in the land of Minnesota Nice.
The seven defendants — Said Shafii Farah, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff and Hayat Mohamed Nur — were charged in 2022 with wire fraud, money laundering and other charges. They have connections to a Shakopee restaurant, Empire Cuisine & Market.
The seven defendants are among 70 people charged in the broader case, all tied to U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that reimburse schools, day-care facilities and nonprofits for feeding low-income children after school and during the summer.
The seven received more than $40 million in federal reimbursements for 18 million meals distributed at 50 food sites across Minnesota — from Rochester to St. Cloud. Prosecutors allege the defendants ran a “brazen” fraud scheme that created numerous shell companies to launder money, submitted rosters of made-up children’s names and inflated meal claims.
Prosecutors also say some defendants received and gave kickbacks to other people charged in the massive scheme, leading to bribery charges. They said the six men and one woman spent the money lavishly on themselves, including the purchases of a $1 million lakefront Prior Lake property, luxury cars and gold jewelry.
That’s already blatant enough, and thoroughly contemptible. They took advantage of a federal program to feed kids to instead outright steal millions. It’s not just a little skimming, either, but outright pocketing all the money.
But that’s not why I say our crooks are unsophisticated. It’s also their plan to escape justice.
A juror in the Feeding Our Future federal trial was dismissed suddenly Monday morning after a woman showed up at her door Sunday with a bag of $120,000 in cash and offers of a second bag of cash if she votes to acquit the defendants, attorneys said in court.
The 23-year-old juror wasn’t home when the woman showed up, but the unnamed person left the juror’s father-in-law a bag of cash and told him to tell the juror that another bag of cash would be dropped off if she votes to acquit the seven defendants in the fraud case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said.
Yeah, big ol’ bag o’ cash. Nothing subtle about it. There are some real boneheads behind that scheme.
I wonder if the Coen Brothers are itching to make a movie of it? Nah, probably not — too real.
They’ve elected women to run their countries. This is not a guarantee of an improvement (just remember Margaret Thatcher), but it does improve the odds.
Iceland has elected Halla Tomasdottir to the presidency. She’s billed as an “entrepreneur” and “businessperson,” which are not reassuring criteria, but she did say this:
A climate and nature emergency demands urgent, inclusive action, conformity simply won’t unlock the leadership we need. It’s time to transform how we lead, and in a world of low trust we need to get better at co-creating solutions with those impacted. A livable world can best be secured if women, in solidarity with male allies, unite to redefine leadership norms; dismantle barriers; and move toward sustainable, people-first approaches. This demands courageous collaboration. The most important question we must now ask is, how will we choose to lead at a time like no other for humanity?
Promising.
Mexico has elected its first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum. She has a Ph.D. in energy engineering, and previously served as an environmental secretary. She promoted education (Yay!) and policing (boo.) Leftist activist and climate scientist, what’s not to like?
I’m feeling even more discouraged by our choices in the US presidential election. Why can’t we have any educated, progressive women on the ballot?
