It has just now sunk in that I’m holding plane tickets that I’ll be using next week to fly to … San Diego.
I hope for everyone’s sakes that all is under control well before I get there … but isn’t it just like a bunch of infidels to schedule a meeting for the middle of an inferno?
Is it close to your dinnertime? Zooillogix is looking out for your health by helping you stick to your diet, with this tantalizing assortment of interesting foods. Escamoles, lutefisk, and baby mice wine don’t look too bad to me, pacha is unappetizing to look at but I could probably choke it down, and I’ll pass on balut, although I can see how it could be an acquired taste … but you’d have to hold a gun to my head to get me anywhere near casu marzu.
Street Anatomy highlights the most frequently viewed medical animation ever: an illustration of the difficult path for childbirth. It’s too bad it doesn’t show the effect on the kid in much detail — our babies all came out with the most astonishingly pointy heads from all the squishing and squeezing, but they still ended up normal. Mostly. I think.
It’s not a real proposal, but someone has come up with a provocative new genre, Squidpunk.
Fiction that unlike New Weird, Steampunk, or Slipstream, is at its core not only about squid, but about the symbolism of squid as color-changing, highly-mobile, alien-looking, intelligent ocean-goers. As a powerful ecosystem indicator, the squid is a potent symbol for environmental rejuvenation. Squidpunk is almost exclusively set at sea and must contain some reference to either cephalopods or to anything that thematically relates to squid, in terms of world iconography and tropes. Squidpunk is never escapist or whimsical. It is always serious and edgy. This combination of a hard punk aesthetic with the fluid propulsion system common to the squid has produced a unique literary hybrid beloved by Mundanes and Surrealists alike.
I’d read it. I would hope, though, that authors would realize that this definition is hopelessly restrictive and far too narrow to encompass the imaginings of the savants of the squidpunk movement. For instance, there’s no reason it must be set at sea; the landlocked prairies of cold northern states — Minnesota, for instance — can be a fertile backdrop for the more exotic variations on the theme, as can even temperate rainforests. The statement that it is always serious and edgy is also false: squidpunk erotica, with its softer focus on tactile pleasures and mind-expanding interactions with otherness is one of the most popular motifs.
And how could this critic overlook the common threads of biodiversity, evolution, and the alien within us? It’s like he never even read any squidpunk, and the whole essay reads like the guesswork of a poseur.
Do we have to wait until he’s elected to impeach him? ‘Cause right now I’d like to see Huckabee kicked off the campaign trail and sent back to repeat grades 6-12.
Oh, I believe in science. I certainly do. In fact, what I believe in is, I believe in God. I don’t think there’s a conflict between the two. But if there’s going to be a conflict, science changes with every generation and with new discoveries and God doesn’t. So I’ll stick with God if the two are in conflict.
So when he’s faced with two claims, he’ll follow the one that ignores all the evidence and sticks to its guns in the face of all reason? We’ve already had one of those clowns in office, I don’t think we need another one.
Let’s get this out of the way: I really, honestly, truly do not give a good goddamn if Dumbledore is gay. He’s a fictional character, the author is getting a little too freakily obsessive over her characters, and it doesn’t affect me one way or the other how the character swings. So Rowling says he’s gay. Eh. Move on.
It only gets interesting when a certain ID proponent who has weebled on about how delightfully Christian the Harry Potter books are hears that her imaginary character imaginarily experiences arousal over another imaginary character who is, imaginarily, of the same sex as he is. This prompts an immediate long outburst declaring that Dumbledore is NOT Gay! That would conflict with his perception that the books are Christian allegory, and as everyone knows, no true Christian could be gay, just as there are no homosexuals anywhere in Iran.
It’s more fuss over nothing. Dumbledore could have been written up as a flaming ponce who hung out in the Hogsmeade Bathhouse every weekend and did drag cabaret for fun, and you could still read Christian themes into the book, no problem. Of course, the Christian verisimilitude would have been enhanced if Dumbledore had also called the boys in to his office for regular ‘discipline’ sessions of a nature best described in off-canon fanfic, but he seems to have been free of that pedophilic poison that we find rife in ecclesiastical organizations.
Here’s an article that deserves a prize. It’s wall-to-wall praise-Jebus babble, giving the Lord of the Universe credit for getting the Colorado Rockies baseball team into the World Series—have a puke bucket handy if you actually try to read the whole thing.
“You look at some of the moves we made and didn’t make,” general manager Dan O’Dowd said in the only interview he has given on the subject, long before the Rockies’ remarkable ascension over the past few weeks. “You look at some of the games we’re winning. Those aren’t just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this.”
And that’s just one small piece of the story. The rest is trying to make a long argument that all of the improbabilities mean that the divine must have had a hand in elevating a local sports team to national recognition. It’s amazing. You would think a God would have slightly different priorities.
But then, I suspect I know the truth. The piety of the team and the fans don’t matter in the slightest. God is doing it to spite Andy.
The chemists among the readers here have probably already all heard this, but there is a bit of a flap in the American Chemical Society over Open Access publishing. It seems some within the ACS have been protesting Open Access; unsurprisingly, it seems that many of them have connections to the scientific publishing industry. I was deeply amused by the fellow who scorned open access because is it is “socialized science,” as if government support of science were bad, and as if we weren’t all dependent on the largesse of state and federal government support. Oh, if only we could return to the days when all scientists were either wealthy men of leisure who could afford to be gentlemen scholars, or they were captains of industry using the fruits of their laboratories to immediately produce commerce-generating applications!
I’ve put the full text of letters I’ve received about this below the fold. Have fun plumbing the practical sociology of science!
Ben Stein and Bill O’Reilly.
Bill made a thousand creationist hearts flutter in dismay when he opened with his introductory definition: “intelligent design, that is, a deity created life”. It was, unfortunately, the last hint of intelligence in the whole segment.
Ben Stein is an astonishingly ignorant person. He goes on and on about several themes.
Perhaps Barack Obama really wants to make sure I won’t vote for him. At least, that’s how I’m interpreting his attempts to couple environmentalism and religion.
Meeting the threat of global climate change will take hard work and faith, Obama said.
“Not a blind faith, not a faith of mere words, not a faith that ignores science, but an active searching faith,” said Obama, a member of the United Church of Christ. “It’s a faith that does not look at the hardship and pain and suffering in the world and use it all as an excuse for inaction or cynicism, but one that accepts the fact that although we are not going to solve every problem here on earth, we can make a difference.”
I don’t even know what the hell he means. Meeting the threat of global climate change will take hard work, but faith? What does faith contribute to it? And then the rest is just noise. You don’t need a searching faith, since there’s nothing to search, and no criterion for deciding when you’ve found something — just make it all up. Tossing in irrelevant nonsense about using faith in an endeavor that requires real-world solutions is just an annoyance, and makes me suspect he’s going to waste a lot of effort if he gets into office. We do not need faith-based science.
Then there’s another issue: linking himself with evangelical Christianity means he’s automatically going to be allying himself with anti-gay bigotry. He has since rejected the position, but face it — he’s going to be hauling a lot of baggage along with him on this issue.
Here’s the only stance I’d like to see from any of the candidates: they can say they’re devout, that they believe in god and all that stuff, but that it’s a personal issue that they keep in the home and in their church, and off the campaign trail, and in particular, out of their political office. Can we please get at least one candidate stating that they are running for a secular political office and all that matters is their natural, material qualifications and plans? I can’t vote for a candidate who’s running on the platform that ghosts are on his side.
