What the heck is wrong with the people at Slate? I simply do not understand why any magazine would put in a science column, and have Jackie Harvey, I mean Gregg Easterbrook write it. It’s an astonishing decision, and I’m stunned into silence…so I’ll let others do the snark and abuse.
This has been a bountiful week at Chez Pharyngula, and I have received generous gifts from several readers. A full accounting lies below the fold.
More information is always good, so I have to endorse this brand new initiative from our government.
It doesn’t go quite far enough, though. Evolution has screwed mankind over by making women’s fertility cryptic—many primates express overt signals as they become receptive, such as swelling and reddening of the vulva, and we don’t get any visible signs at all. Let’s use technology to return to those halcyon days, and imbed women with LH monitors that change color: from gray on infertile days, to pink as hormone levels rise, to flashing red to announce, “She’s ovulating, boys!” I wouldn’t suggest anything as crude as mounting the device on her vulva, though: on the forehead would be fine.
The device should also have some ports to enable coupling it to fashion accessories. Wouldn’t a police siren hat plugged into the fertility monitor be attractive?
I better patent this idea, quick.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Republicans are capable of thinking long term—really long term. After a recent hearing, Rep. Don Young (Reprehensible, Alaska) enlightened us with a Deep Thought:
Before he left the hearing, Young, noting the presence of network TV crews, took a moment to reflect on his thoughts regarding climate change, citing the benefit of global warming — not caused by man — in another eon to an area that today is frozen much of the year. “We’re dealing with the most northern part of the United States of America, and a most hostile climate, and we’re pumping oil, and I’d just like to remind them if they’re asked where did the oil come from, and I would say this to Al Gore specifically: This was a jungle at one time, this was a forest at one time, this was a fern-laden area with mammoths at one time, and that’s really why we’re pumping oil,” he said.
Oh, yeah! Global warming will foster the luxuriant bogs and swamps of a new, more tropical Alaska, laying down the deep beds of carbon that will fuel the SUVs of tomorrow’s America! Carbon dioxide…it’s for our future! (“Tomorrow” is defined as “100 million years from now”, and “America” refers to the evolved, sentient descendants of whatever species makes it that long and is resident on the tectonic plate corresponding to the current state of Alaska. No promises to current voters are intended or implied.)
A Minnesotan mentioned another little problem with Young’s peculiarly hopeful idea.
Next to speak was the committee’s ranking Democrat, James Oberstar of Minnesota, who reminded Young that while global warming might have been good for fern jungles, human civilization is another story.
“That happened years ago,” Oberstar said. “The place was uninhabited by humans at that time.”
Pssht. Nattering nabob of negativism.
I think it’s very ambitious. I’d always thought the Republicans would love to roll back history to the Middle Ages, but who’d have thought they’d set their sights on returning to the Carboniferous?
He went to the Walcott Quarry for his vacation. And he waved his photos under my nose.
The dwarf planet formerly known as Xena has been renamed Eris, and it’s companion has been named Dysnomia, and Phil finds something funny: a guy who thinks renaming planets after discord and strife is a moonbat plot to mock the Bush administration. Seriously.
He’s nuts. War and chaos don’t come to anyone’s mind when they hear the name GW Bush. We all know the real devious reasons for juggling the names around.
Confirming the last possibility, we have the fact that this goon is so stupid, he thinks Kent Hovind makes a good scientific argument.
Now the physicists are putting together carnivals: it’s Philosophia Naturalis #1. Hey, aren’t these carnivals kind of like…stamp collecting?
“Archbishop of York”? What kind of silly, made-up title is that?
The Archbishop of York has said British Christians should see Muslims as allies in the struggle against secularism.
In a speech at York Minster, Dr John Sentamu said British Muslims were not offended by Christianity and preferred it to a secular state.
Or maybe he was just mistranslated? Apparently not.
It has often been Muslims, as well as leaders of other faiths, who have joined with Christians in refusing to accept the creeping secularisation that would replace ‘Christmas’ with ‘Winterval’, and remove references to faith from public noticeboards for fear of causing offence. It is both my view and my experience, that most British Muslims do not feel threatened by our Christian moral foundations but by the cynicism of secularised culture that denies its own foundations. What they object to is the attempt to build human society without God. And so given the choice between the two prefer a faith environment, even one which they do not share, to that of a secularist state.
Oh. It’s the War on Christmas already.
A few carnivals have popped up:
Also, Mendel’s Garden #6 is looking for submissions — it will be hosted at The Voltage Gate tomorrow!
