Friday Cephalopod: Cute widdle snuggleums!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Earlier I had claimed that cable networks had bottomed out by conspiring with the Catholic church to make an exorcism show.
I was wrong.
TLC is making a reality show with Ted Haggard.
I will refrain from saying that now they’ve hit bottom, because if I do, some cable executive somewhere will step forward to plumb depths I can’t even imagine.
David Silverman appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show this week, and brought out the stupidity in dopey ol’ Bill. He gave his usual justification: “The tides go in, the tides go out. The sun goes up, the sun comes down.” The clip below is notable for two things: it contains the multiple examples of O’Reilly dragging out this non-explanation, and it’s got Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining tides.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
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I love how O’Reilly gets that smug look on his face every time he brings up the tides. It’s adorable. You’d want to hug him for his cute and funny story…if he were two years old.
Ken Ham is not happy with the Pope. If the Pope claims that his god started the Big Bang, that is an acknowledgment that the Big Bang, which is not in the Bible, actually happened, and you know what that leads to? Madness!
Now, if the book of Genesis is an allegory, then sin is an allegory, the Fall is an allegory, the need for a Savior is an allegory, and Adam is an allegory—but if we are all descendants of an allegory, where does that leave us? It destroys the foundation of all Christian doctrine—it destroys the foundation of the gospel.
Yes! Exactly!
If Genesis is an allegory then the first marriage is just an allegory, so marriage can be anything one wants to define it as!
QED!
Yay! Ken Ham has demolished Christianity! I think I’ll go have some tea to celebrate. Maybe take a nap, or read a comic book.
Jerry Coyne has a recommendation for this poll on the best webcomic: vote for Jesus and Mo. I concur. And it seems to be sweeping the poll right now.
Hey, did it get Coynulated before it was Pharyngulated?
It’s because it is the absolute bottom floor of any descent into crepitude. That’s all I can conclude from looking at the fate of various cable television channels: they all seem to start out well with commendable goals, and pretty soon they’re all selling out to the cheapest, sleaziest advertisers and producing the worst shows they can imagine, all to pander to the lowest common denominator. Look at The Learning Channel (you won’t learn anything watching it anymore), the History Channel (yeah, if your idea of history always has Nazis in it), and the SciFi channel, which now isn’t even trying and has renamed itself the SyFy (what?) channel and hosts what I once thought was the lowest of the low, Ghosthunters.
But the Discovery Channel has out-bottomed even the SyFy channel: they have made a deal with Satan the Catholic Church and will be producing a show on exorcisms.
This is why NetFlix will conquer the home entertainment universe: all the broadcast and cable channels have become the domain of the dumb.
Unfortunately, it’s learning the hard way, and I think it’s a terminal lesson.
(via Don Strong via Ted Grosholz via Galen Leeds)
The label on the Gordon Biersch Märzen says, “A smooth, auburn-colored Bavarian lager with a mildly sweet finish. It was originally brewed in March (“März” in German) and stored in caves to be drunk during warmer weather.” Warmer weather? I have consumed it prematurely then.
I just got a request to advertise a conference, and here’s the flyer they sent to me.
O Bitter Cruelty! It’s like they’re taunting me with their weather! And notice…I’m not one of the invited speakers. I get to just stay here in the frozen Northland and watch the icicles grow on my mustache while I fight off the savage penguins and starving polar bears.
Just for that, I’m not going to mention the Southern California Humanist Conference in San Diego on 5 February. I hope they all sweat and get sunburns and that their bikinis and speedos are all just a little bit too tight.
Christopher Hitchens explains how to make a decent cup of tea. He’s got it exactly right, too. Last year we learned how to make good tea using the loose leaf and a strainer, and we’ve been tinkering with the procedure all this time, and it’s true: tea is finicky. You get huge variations in flavor with minor little changes in how you make it.
We’re currently setting up an automatic tea maker in the evening so we can just flip a switch in the morning and get a perfect pot every time. It automates what Hitchens describes: it heats the water to boiling, pours it directly on the leaf in an infusion chamber, and times it just right. It works really well.
Usually, during the day, I just heat water the old fashioned way in a tea kettle on the stove and pour the boiling water through a strainer in a cup. In fact, I think I’ll go do that right now…
