Nautilus pompilious and some chordate
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Look at this: the Expellers are lying again. In this case, they’re screening people who’ve asked to attend showings, and then, instead of just telling them that they are not invited, they’re being cowardly and telling them that the screening has been cancelled. It’s so pointless — they could just state the truth, that they are only allowing friendly reviewers into the early screenings, but instead they seem compelled to make up pathetic, transparent excuses. I guess once they started lying, they can’t stop anymore.
(By the way, if you’re expecting me to annoy Ben Stein for yet another weekend, it’s not in the cards. I’m at an evo-devo conference in Eugene, Oregon, so you’re more likely to get science from me than rude movie reviews.)
When the top of your web page is a scattershot series of all-caps links to crazy town.
– Life After Death –
-WHY THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION ENRAGES US!.
WHY ALL EVOLUTIONISTS ARE CRIMINALLY INSANE
FOR GAYS: HOW TO STOP YOUR HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVITY
FOR THE GENTLEMEN: HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE A STUPID MAN
FOR THE LADIES: COMPUTER-GENERATED SLUT PHOTODIAMINES
ARE WOMEN SUPPOSED TO BE “BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT”?
———————————————————————————————-
WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE K _ _ _ HILLARY CLINTON
STRIP SEARCHES ARE ILLEGAL EVERYWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES
In case you don’t want to read the horrible little site, here’s the executive summary to each point.
Really, people send me these links, and then I have to read them. Some days the blood is oozing out of my ears at the strain.
I’m going to head out the door shortly for my drive down Minnesota back roads to Little House on the Prairie country — if I get there early, is there any place in town that’s good for coffee and wifi? I was planning to find a cheap hotel for the night, too, and leave from there to catch a plane in the morning. Locals, tip me off to any possibilities!
I try to stay away from Dinesh D’Souza’s ravings, but when you’ve got SIWOTI syndrome, the man is like a magnet of wrong. His one saving grace now is that his columns are so bad, I usually can’t get through the first paragraph without having to close the window. This one is no exception. One paragraph is all any normal person can take.
All right, people, I give up. Everyone has been sending me links to this story about a recent publication — it made the CBC, ScienceDaily, CNN, the Telegraph, and who knows what else — but I haven’t been able to get my hands on the original science article: Huffard CL, Caldwell RL, Boneka F (2008) Mating behavior of Abdopus aculeatus (d’Orbigny 1834) (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) in the wild. It’s published in Marine Biology, sensibly enough, but out here on the prairie we don’t get much call for tales of kinky tentacle sex in the sea … or, perhaps, it’s all sublimated or hidden away (one does wonder what The Dream of the Soybean Farmer’s Wife might be).
Anyway, I ask this tentatively because every time I’ve asked for papers here I get inundated, but could someone please send me a pdf? I’ll announce it here as soon as I get one.
Hooray! I’ve got a copy already! I think this is what we call instant gratification. Thanks all.
Did you know that it is assumed that if you are a Christian and a teacher, that you oppose the teaching of evolution and want to introduce creationism into the classroom?
Did you know that people purporting to represent you will be going before state legislatures and telling your representatives that creationism is the Christian perspective?
Did you know that people are collecting stories about getting slapped down for teaching nonsense in science class, and are telling politicians that it’s because they are Christian?
You know, I think Christianity is awfully foolish anyway, but I’m a goddamned atheist. You don’t care what I think. But I would think the concerted and largely successful effort in our culture to equate Christianity with the idiocy of belief in a 6000 year old world or a god who meddles in trivialities or denying the facts of a natural world would piss you off. Unless it’s true, that is, that you don’t mind having your religious beliefs associated with flaming anti-scientific lunacy.
Maybe you should try squawking a little louder. You could start by writing to David Bracklin and letting him know that stupidity isn’t supposed to be a Christian sacrament.
Unless it is, of course. I wouldn’t know. Atheist, remember? All I know is what I see, the stuff the loudest of you bray out in public, and boy, you Christians sure seem to hate good science.
The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is now available at Further Thoughts.
Sarah Silverman? How’d she get in there?
It’s my afternoon for getting lots of whiny right-wing Christianist email, I guess. This one is notable, not for its content (which is predictable, humorless, and indignant, and just like most of the complaints I get), but for the fact that it was also sent to my chancellor and every member of the biology faculty. Nice work, spammer.
My criticism of Mark Armitage’s “research” published in the ICR “journal” seems to have struck a nerve — he just sent me (and his colleagues at the ICR) an angry letter in which I think he is attempting sarcasm, he just isn’t very good at at it. Poor baby. Here it is:
