This little sketch might be too tempting for me…there are a lot of creationist articles that I would slap this on.
(via Kobra)
The UK still wins, though. We’ve got school boards that seriously consider including the fantasy that the earth is 6000 years old into the curriculum, but in the UK, you’ve just got clever people with ropes and boards stomping out patterns in the barley fields. The media seems to take the “crop circle experts” a little too seriously, but at least you’ve got pretty exercises in aerial photography to show for it.
Nice jellyfish!
Oh, look what came in the mail for me today!
Kat Payne made this for me (thank you very much!), and I know, I’ll be the envy of everyone in town as I stroll down the street with this stylish new look. Unfortunately, I think I’ll have to wait until winter to wear it regularly — it’s very, very warm — but then…fear me!
Wow. Creationists can surprise you with a rare flash of imagination — like this argument that because you don’t drool, god exists.
Ok, I have an Evolution Challenge for you. Make your mouth produce a bunch of spit, let it dribble down your face and time how long it is before you simply have to wipe it off. Go ahead; try it! I promise you it won’t be very long. It’s extremely uncomfortable to have it sit there.
Think about the babies in your life. Have you ever thought about the fact that they stop drooling after the first couple years of life? Have you ever imagined what life would be like if we didn’t stop? Some, sadly, know what this is like. Children with cerebral palsy that don’t stop drooling or those that begin drooling due to loss of facial muscle control know the horrors of this. Have you had to endure watching people stare at your parent or child as they experience this humiliating social embarrassment? Have you tried to alleviate the irritating sores that develop from skin being constantly wet? Have you tried to keep them in presentable clothing when saliva keeps staining their clothes?
What evolutionary advantage is there to developing the oral neuromuscular control at age 18-24 months? What if drooling, the default condition at birth, was the way our lives always are? How would you like to date, make love, run a business meeting, ride horses, grocery shop and take care of kids while drooling? How cool would you feel driving your fancy car down the road with sunglasses and drool? How would your wedding go with everyone trying to be discrete with their designer drool cloths or bibs?
The human body is designed to give us dignity. These specific designs and abilities point to a Creator who cares about even whether we are embarrassed or not. There’s no evolutionary advantage to not drooling. It’s the gift of dignity.
Gosh. Here’s a phenomenon that the author himself notes is a consequence of loss of facial muscle control, that is uncomfortable, that is a social deficit, and that can lead to irritating sores (he also missed one, probably the most important one in an evolutionary context: it’s wasteful and makes one more prone to dehydration), and then he says, “There’s no evolutionary advantage to not drooling”? It’s always nice when the creationists noisily refute themselves for me.
By the way, this silly claim comes from a source that is notable for its history of weird arguments, Bibleland Studios. They have a museum that features a dead cat, and they publish the legendary Jim Pinkoski, who argues that having two eyes refutes evolution, and also wrote the popularly obscure catch-phrase, “If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS??“. It’s nice to see they still haven’t lost their touch.
I took the test, and it said,
You are a heady mix of the most evil Popes – Paul III, Benedict IX, Urban II and “Hitler’s Pope” Pius XII.
Oops. I knew I shouldn’t have admitted that vanilla was my favorite ice cream flavor in that last question.
It’s called the Reincarnation Bank. You put a bunch of money in now, and then when you die and are reincarnated, your new incarnation comes to bank and gets the money back so you can start your new life with the advantage of a wad of moolah. I presume you must have to do something like memorize a secret account number before you die, and remember it again once you’re reborn.
Their web page has a link to make deposits, but strangely enough, there isn’t a link to make withdrawals. I have to marvel at the con — only very, very stupid people are going to fall for it.
That said, though, I’m planning to reincarnate as a squid, so I’m wondering…can I deposit a couple of buckets of fish heads and guts, and how am I going to get that back in my nonverbal, illiterate and innumerate form?
They are prepared to use Twitter to alert the public to zombie incursions. I just knew Twitter would be useful for something, someday.
I’m sure this happens all the time.
A 2cm long fish apparently found it’s way into the penis of a 14-year-old boy from India in a bizarre medical case.
The patient was admitted to hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling urine and acute urinary retention spanning a 24-hour period. According to the boy, the fish slipped into his penis while he was cleaning his aquarium at home.
This is precisely why, when I’m cleaning the bank of tanks in my lab, I make sure to keep my pants on.
(via Rev. BigDumbChimp, who always finds stories like this.)
Warren Ellis set his readers to a task: to draw an old pulp comic book character, the Octopus. The Octopus had a stunning description.
One of the more outré of the pulp characters-and given the genre, that’s quite saying something, believe me-the Octopus was actually the villain of the piece in his single issue, The Octopus v1 #4, 1939, written by…well, it’s not exactly clear. It might be Norvel Page, or it might be Ejler and Edith Jacobsen. A rather over-the-top mad scientist, the Octopus worked from a big city hospital and plotted world conquest. His appearance might explain his desire to dominate the world; he’s sea-green, with four “suction-cupped weaving tentacles” set above “hideously malformed” legs. He wears a small mask, and behind it can be seen two enormous, luminous, purple eyes. He was the leader of the Purple Eyes, a cult bent on world domination and mass destruction. The Octopus’ chosen method was an “ultra-violet ray” which devolved men and women and turned them into deformed, life-hating monsters hungry for human flesh and glowing with “ultraviolet purple.” Against the Octopus was set Jeffrey Fairchild, a young millionaire philanthropist (he eventually stopped the Octopus, of course). He had three identities. The first was Jeffrey Fairchild, hospital administrator. The second was was kindly Dr. Skull, the old man who made a practice of helping the poor in the slums. (His good works didn’t help him when everyone thought that he was the Octopus, however) In his other identity he was the “Skull Killer,” who fought crime and left a skull-imprint, ala the Spider, on his enemies. Fairchild was assisted by Carol Endicott, Dr. Skull’s nurse.
There were a lot of submissions, but so far I like this one best:
I thought about cheating and just sending in a photo of myself, but darn it, my eyes aren’t purple.
