Hate the implicit teleology…

…but love the unforeseen consequences.

Guts really do make the bilaterian. Everything follows from making a tube-shaped body plan — all the increased potential for signaling between different tissues multiplies the number of possible developmental histories, and leads to all kinds of novelties. Like a central nervous system. You wouldn’t be reading this if there’d been no gastrulation. Brains, a coelom, a circulatory system, etc. were all side-effects of a successful feeding strategy and triploblasty. You should be grateful to your guts for making you.

Although, if they hadn’t, I suppose the life of a jellyfish isn’t all that bad.

God’s convenient rules of real estate

Someone explain this Robert Jeffress quote to me. I can’t quite wrap my head around it.

‘While Christian compassion is one consideration, it’s not the only consideration in the immigration problem,’ he said.’I mean, the Bible also says that God is the one who established nations and its borders. God is not necessarily an open borders guy, as a lot of people would think that he is.

Borders change. Is every change god-ordained? Does God have a map in his head that says whether Alsace-Lorraine should be within the French or German borders?

Which borders are the official ones? Should we go back to the True Borders at the time of Jesus?

I’m also a bit concerned about what happened in the 16th century. There were a lot of nations in North America that were, I assume, established by God, and a whole lot of Europeans came in and fucked them up.

That was a major immigration problem. What did God have to say about that? We seem to have broken a lot of nations and borders, and God did diddly-squat in response.

I also have to say that that I seem to have read more of the Bible than an ordained minister. God never seemed to have cared much about respecting borders — his Chosen People were a huge wandering caravan of ex-slaves who wandered for 40 years, and finally found their land of milk and honey and just up and conquered it, slaughtering the people who already lived there.

(Maybe Jeffress is acknowledging that there is no historical evidence for any of this, and that the tribes of Canaan just made it all up.)

I am beginning to suspect that Jeffress is simply full of expedient bullshit to justify whatever the hell he wants.

Looks so cute

We’re planning to visit in early December. I just have this song in my head now.

Baby, baby, please let me hold her
I want to make her stay up all night
Sister, sister, she’s just a plaything
We want to make her stay up all night
Yeah we do

We’ll only be staying for a little while, so we gotta do what grandparents gotta do: spoil her and overstimulate her and make her stay up all night.

And the suspected mail bomber has been arrested — it’s…FLORIDA MAN

That wacky dope has done one stupid thing too many, and it’s about time he was off the streets.

His name is Cesar Sayoc, and surprisingly, he is not a dedicated liberal.

Sayoc, a registered Republican voter who lives in Aventura, Florida, will face federal criminal charges for the mailed devices, according to NBC News.

They’ve also seized his van. More clues!

Investigators were examining a white van plastered with stickers carrying Trump’s name and the presidential seal, according to MSNBC. The network said authorities were looking at “right-wing paraphernalia” found at the scene.

Clearly a very thorough false flag operation. No word on whether they’ve found check stubs from George Soros.

Kids need to learn to love

Paul Dorr is a cheap coward who has roused the righteous anger of librarians everywhere. He checked out books he personally disapproved of, and recorded himself burning them. Look, guy, you don’t like a book and want to express your disapproval? Buy a copy of your own and burn it. That’s fine. Robbing a library is not cool, and I hope you are tracked down, arrested, fined, and forced to repay the library the cost of the books. And then you should be permanently banned from the library. All libraries, if that were possible.

Dorr is one of those smug Christian fundamentalists who is greatly offended by the existence of gay/lesbian/transgender people, and wants the power to dictate who they are allowed to love, and most perniciously, wants to indoctrinate children in his bigotry. He’s a rotten little man. There is only one good thing about his actions: he has helped spread the word about good children’s books. These are books I knew nothing about, until now! Thanks for that, Mr Dorr, you asshole.

Here are some of the titles he burned.

Now this doting grandparent knows about these books, and Christmas is coming up. This Day in June and Families, Families, Families! both look roughly age appropriate for my little ones, so maybe they’ll get a book or two as presents (don’t tell them! You’ll ruin the surprise.)

I don’t care if those kids grow up gay or straight, I’m never going to tell them who they’re allowed to fall in love with. But by golly, I will work to make sure they don’t grow up full of hate!

They also need to grow up to respect libraries and librarians. What kind of savage raised Paul Dorr?

Seizing the aesthetic high ground

This is an amazing, heroic photo.

Mustafa Hassouna

Not only is it a beautiful image, but the slinger is Palestinian, and the Goliath he’s winging a rock at is Israel. That’s got to sting.

The man in the photo is Abu Amro, and he’s fighting for a just cause.

“I don’t go to protests to get pictures of me taken, but this has encouraged me to continue demonstrating,” he said.

“The flag I was carrying is the same one I always hold in all the other protests I’ve attended. My friends make fun of me, saying it is easier to throw rocks without holding a flag in the other hand, but I got used to it.

“If I get killed, I want to be wrapped in the same flag. We are demanding our right of return, and protesting for our dignity and the dignity of our future generation.”

It’s a sad truth that he does have a good chance of being killed, especially now that Israeli soldiers will be trying to make a martyr of him.

Do not ever read Steve Pinker’s Twitter feed

I made the mistake. His latest 3:

  • Stop worrying about the opioid crisis! It’ll get better! Heath Ledger and Prince will rise from the grave!

  • You should probably vote for some Democrats, even though they have problems. Maybe there are a few problems on the Republican side, but I don’t see them, because my rose-colored glasses make red parties invisible.

  • It’s only a few bombs! We don’t need to worry until at least 0.05% of the public are sending bombs through the mail to elected officials.

So, really, just don’t bother reading Pollyanna Pinker. It’ll make you angrier, and we’ve got a surplus of rage right now. Just read this and laugh.

At least he’s the favorite scientist of cockroaches everywhere.