Another week, another collection of carnivals, and important calls for submissions to more carnivals.
Send me links! The Circus of the Spineless #18 is going to be right here next week, and I only have a handful of submissions so far. Need…invertebrate…fix — gimme more.
We also have another edition of the Tangled Bank coming up at Neurotopia. Send me or host@tangledbank.net links to your more general science articles by Tuesday.
Tsk, tsk, Zeno…you’ve got a lot to learn about blackmail. First of all, you threaten to release the photos to the press and family and then ask for the money to prevent that from happening; you don’t get the pictures published everywhere first.
Secondly, the photos have to look something like me. OK, there is a dim resemblance in the one on the left, but I have an alibi—I was nowhere near New Zealand at the time. The one on the right is clearly very old from the costume, which is from my days in our band* back in the 1970s, before I married my wife. And she knows about the relationship. And it was just a fling. And I was hopped up on molluscan pheromones anyway, and didn’t know what I was doing. Besides, as you can see, that squid was something of a tramp.
Anyway, if anyone ought to be blackmailed, it’s that guy Steve O’Shea. Here’s a photo from the Tongarewa Massage Parlor in Wellington—look how relaxed that squid is!
*I have no musical talent; the band was called Evo Devo, and we specialized in highly complex music that was built up from randomly generated and contingent processes, shaped by constraints on their interactions and functions. Well, actually, we were more interested in the interconnections between the instruments than any sound that might come out—our concerts consisted of several hours of finding objects on the stage and stringing and tracing cables between them, culminating in the sound check. We were never very popular with the audiences, but the roadies loved us.
You all remember Violet, the jar-opening octopus, I’m sure—well, Violet is also quite the fierce predator. I would suggest that keeping a pet octopus is not a wise decision if you happen to be an arthropod.
My wife is going to be upset at this—we’re going to have to have a couple more kids, just so I have an excuse to take advantage of the Geologic and Paleontologic Cook Book. It’s got recipes for Ammonites in a Blanket, Cephalopod Celery, a Cheese and Bugles Coral Reer, an Edible Devonian Marine Ecosystem (I’ve always wanted to eat a whole ecosystem), Trilobite Cookies, and much more. This is wonderfully kid-oriented…too bad my kiddies are all turning into serious-minded old adults.
But wait! I’m immature enough for a whole family of kids all on my own! I also do the cooking…I think we’re having Cephalopods in a Blanket for dinner tonight.
I’ve been following that thread on Conservapedia, and I’ve seen what you scalliwags have been up to, littering the poor site with humorous edits and then coming over here and tittering about it. You do realize that Conservapedia‘s entries required the indentured labor of 58 homeschooled children who were forced to give up their educations in order to slavishly transcribe paragraphs of their textbooks into wiki articles, don’t you? What you so casually deface is the sweat-stained, blood-spotted outpourings of tiny, stunted hands and tiny, stunted brains. You should be ashamed!
Besides, it turns out there is one person who finds Conservapedia useful: that nice, reasonable conservative, Jon Swift. They’re also going to have an article in New Scientist* soon, so they must be a serious site.
*I know because the reporter called me up this afternoon, and I told her all about it. It could be juicy.
Hey, now! I just looked at the “Recent Changes” page, and it looks like someone tried to add a “PZ Myers” entry to the site. But look what they did to me:
“Silly and unsupported”? Moi?
See that guy over on the right? The well-fed fellow doing the salute?
That’s Jesus.
Not just a guy named Jesus, but the Son of God. The Messiah. The literal second coming of the Savior. King of kings, Lord of lords, yadda yadda yadda, and he swears he isn’t a False Christ.
That’s what he says, anyway. And apparently he’s got a substantial number of followers who believe him.
Thanks, Liberal Debutante, for disillusioning me further. Jebus, but people can be awfully stupid, especially when religion is involved..
We faculty at UMM are about to go off to a Campus Assembly meeting, which is always good for making one thirsty. Fortunately, there’s a Drinking Liberally scheduled for tonight, at 6:00, at Old #1—it would be a great idea if we all stopped in for a little refreshment and conversation afterwards.
This is, of course, wide open to everyone of the liberal persuasion, so townies, out-of-townies, and students are also welcome to stop by.
John McCain is going to be addressing the Discovery Institute in a panderiffic event tomorrow. DefCon Blog has a petition urging him to cancel his appearance, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that no candidate should be giving moral support to such a contemptible organization.
I have mixed feelings about it. I’m no fan of McCain, and I like watching the far Right embed themselves ever deeper into Christian lunacy—I have this hope that someday everyone will wake up and see the whole Christian/Republican edifice as purest poison. So I can’t quite bring myself to sign the petition, not that McCain would care about my opinion anyway, but you others can make your own decision.
I guess Phillip Johnson stepped down from on high to deliver a thunderbolt of a defense of Intelligent Design creationism. At least that’s the impression you get from the IDists.
Ho hum. To me, it sounds more like an old man farted.
You can get an assessment from the rational people on the side of evolution, like Shalini, John Pieret, and Joe Meert. I think Larry Moran summarized it most succinctly.
Like most IDiot arguments, this one relies on two main points: (1) evolution is wrong, (2) the bad guys are picking on us. There isn’t one single scientific argument in favor of intelligent design.
Johnson whines and whines and whines, and is disappointed that “influential scientific organizations formed a solid bloc of opposition to the consideration of whether evidence points to the possible involvement of intelligent causes in the history of life.” There’s a reason they’ve opposed ID; the proponents never get around to offering any of that evidence we’re supposed to consider, and Johnson’s latest emission is no exception. Instead, we get a lot of nonsense about how Anthony Flew converted, sorta, and how we shouldn’t be afraid to let God into our science.
The gasbag of ID is slowly deflating, and the intellectual flabbiness is becoming apparent. Rather than rejoicing, the IDists ought to be dismayed that this is the best they can do, after years of phony triumphalism.
