Possible fates dispassionately reviewed

Now that the LHC is online, The Editors have catalogued three ways it will destroy the world, using the Airwolf scale of awesomeness crossed by a goofiness scale. It looks like being sucked into a black hole is one of the more pedestrian scenarios.

I am relieved that they didn’t consider the possibility that TeV collisions might be the last trump that summons the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Some things may be even too goofy for the Poor Man Institute.

I’ve always wondered what he looked like

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The regal figure to the right is Terrill Dalton. He had a vision that revealed that he, personally, was the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ’s dad. Who knew the Holy Ghost would look a bit like the Pillsbury Doughboy?

Anyway, the Holy Ghost has come down a bit in the world. He’s now living in a collection of campers and vans on a 5 acre lot in Montana, leading a breakaway Mormon sect that was too crazy for Utah.

Members of the Church of the Firstborn and General Assembly of Heaven had fled to Idaho from Utah last year after their large home in a Salt Lake City suburb was raided by federal officials investigating claims of child sexual abuse and assassination threats against President Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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He also has a webpage with an anorexic Jesus and a mushroom cloud background; he’s been busy rewriting the Bible, which is good — a hobby might distract him from the molesting children and assassinating people gigs.

Do not have sex with the cephalopods!

Uh-oh. People have often sent me strange photos like this; apparently, cephalopod porn can get you arrested in the UK.

The charge involving the sea creature states the image was of someone “performing an act of intercourse with a dead animal, namely an octopus/squid, which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character”.

Yeah, it is kind of disgusting to see poor cephalopods tormented with the weird, creepy anatomy of vertebrates. It’s also offensive to see that the Swansea police can’t tell the difference between squid and octopus.

But why should we have laws that regulate on the basis of feelings of disgust? As long as no one is harmed, this is the kind of act that ought to be regarded as inappropriate anywhere but in the privacy of one’s home. They have some ridiculous charge that the pictures showed situations which could lead to “serious injury to a person’s breasts” or genitals, except that it also says the cephalopods were dead. It sounds like a silly law to enforce some people’s squeamishness, not to protect the public.

I’d also recommend looking up the work of Hokusai, Teraoka, or Saeki (but not if you live in England! That could land you in jail). Erotic art with cephalopods has a long history.

The story also says, though, that the guy had “indecent photos of children”, which is something that can cause harm, if true. It’s fair to go after that, but it’s another situation where one man’s indecency is another man’s family photos of kids playing in the bathtub. I’d have to know more details about the photos before condemning anyone.