…and this is a 
Carnivalia and an open thread
Category: Carnivals • Open Thread
Posted on: March 29, 2008 2:16 PM, by PZ Myers
The next Tangled Bank will be at Further Thoughts on 2 April — it's time to send those links in to me or host@tangledbank.net.
Meanwhile, get inspired to write some Tangled Bank-worthy posts by reading these fine carnivals.
I'm off at this conference, so my time is a little tight right now. But I will mention that I had a nice panel discussion yesterday with Aaron Barlow and Barbara Fister, organized by the great minds at Free Exchange.
Comments
Those silly Expelled! goons keep taking pratfalls.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 29, 2008 2:43 PM
Cthulhu and Christ
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 29, 2008 2:50 PM
There's another installment in the ongoing display of Egnorance, and this time it involves your interview on Expelled.
It's a lot of content-free whinging, most of which consists of quotations as they appeared in Expelled, so it's barely worth working up a response.
Posted by: Nullifidian | March 29, 2008 2:58 PM
Restroom symbols
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 29, 2008 2:59 PM
Anti-itch remedy
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 29, 2008 3:04 PM
The Power of Books
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 29, 2008 3:07 PM
Dawkins and the D-word.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 29, 2008 3:14 PM
What to wear to your next Expelled! screening
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 29, 2008 3:14 PM
Priest Off! Order today!
http://www.canicula.com/wp/?p=467
:-)
Posted by: Ian Robinson | March 29, 2008 3:24 PM
Reginald, you magnificent bastard! That is perhaps the second most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
WANT!
Posted by: Dan | March 29, 2008 3:27 PM
I dedicated a track to Cuttlefish on last week's show, in thanks for the lovely poem regarding the PZ-expelled fracas... Believe it or not, I had a song titled "Eohippus."
Read the commentary (and download the show if you want!) here: http://startlingmoniker.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/liveblogging-commentary-for-itde-32208/
Posted by: DaveX | March 29, 2008 3:29 PM
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 29, 2008 3:40 PM
I dedicated a track to Cuttlefish on last week's show, in thanks for the lovely poem regarding the PZ-expelled fracas... Believe it or not, I had a song titled "Eohippus."
One of my favourite contemporary composers, Charles Wuorinen, wrote a chamber piece titled Archaeopteryx.
Posted by: Nullifidian | March 29, 2008 3:42 PM
News of the weird (& religious):
http://www.whiotv.com/news/15733670/detail.html
Posted by: khan | March 29, 2008 3:43 PM
I just discovered this program about imagining what evolution will produce in millions of years in the future, "The Future is Wild". Here is a clip which includes squid. It is at 1:50.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye-S77hxE20
Posted by: bernarda | March 29, 2008 3:48 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tqK5zQlCDQ
Posted by: Grievous Angel | March 29, 2008 3:52 PM
Interesting to see what happens. Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"?
Posted by: raven | March 29, 2008 4:01 PM
Wilderness
THERE is a wolf in me ...
fangs pointed for tearing gashes ...
a red tongue for raw meat ...
and the hot lapping of blood--
I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me ...
a silver-gray fox ...
I sniff and guess ...
I pick things out of the wind and air ...
I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ...
I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me ...
a snout and a belly ...
a machinery for eating and grunting ...
a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun--I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me ...
I know I came from saltblue water-gates ...
I scurried with shoals of herring ...
I blew waterspouts with porpoises ...
before land was ...
before the water went down ...
before Noah ...
before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me ...
clambering-clawed ...
dog-faced ...
yawping a galoot's hunger ...
hairy under the armpits ...
here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ...
here are the blond and blue-eyed women ...
here they hide curled asleep waiting ...
ready to snarl and kill ...
ready to sing and give milk ...
waiting--I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ...
and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ...
and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes--And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart--and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where--For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
Carl Sandburg
Posted by: Grievous Angel | March 29, 2008 4:03 PM
Thanks for linking!
Posted by: John | March 29, 2008 6:19 PM
The Economist is carrying an article about the science of religion and a wide ranging inquiry into the biological bases of religious belief. Does anyone here know anything about the proposed 3 year study highlighted in the article?
Explaining Religion - Where Angels No Longer Fear to Tread
Posted by: MTran | March 30, 2008 5:07 AM
Anyone here ever heard of Budd Dwyer? Seems we have a precedent for how the current Republican regime should atone for all the scandals of the last 8 years. it would certainly keep them out of jail, if only there was someone in office with the cojones to prosecute these SOBs for their high crimes and misdemeanors.
Posted by: AlanWCan | March 30, 2008 6:16 AM
You know how PZ frequently posts some of the wackier emails he gets? As an adult, if someone was sending me these, I could always add them to my spam filter, and that'd be it.
But what if you're 13, and your friends are sending them to you?
I have a great example of this right now. I cut and pasted it into Word, just to get an idea of how long it is, and unlike a small number of PZ's other posters, I will not post an 80,000 word item here without permission. This isn't quite 80,000 words, but it IS 37 pages. I'm not kidding.
(I draw the line somewhere...)
Any advice on how to get my daughter to approach this? She did ask for my help. And if anyone asks, I'll include one of the dorkier parts of the email (a story about a minister with a rusty birdcage). I'm a guest here, and including the entire email would be like rebuilding a motorcycle in PZ's dining room; I doubt I'll ever do something like that, but I'd at least ASK first.
My inclination is to tell this other girl to knock it off, but she's very into religion, so I doubt she'll stop. To make matters worse, they're pretty close.
So, all you Dear Abbies out there, any advice?
Thanks.
Posted by: MikeM | March 30, 2008 8:03 PM
Tell the other girl in the most polite and frank manner that she is clogging your daughter's e-mail inbox, and could she please send future installments psychically instead?
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | March 30, 2008 8:59 PM
@ MikeM (#21): I don't have any good advice, but if they're fairly close friends, I'd suggest that your daughter should just tell her that she really doesn't have time to read through such long letters. "I think you've got some interesting ideas, but why don't we talk more about X." Where X can be whatever topic they actually share an interest in that your daughter wouldn't mind talking about. I imagine the friend will pick up on the hint that your daughter doesn't want to hear psycho-rants, but perhaps it'll be a gentle hint that their relationship can weather.
Posted by: Physicalist | March 30, 2008 10:21 PM
Hey - what happened to the thread on SCM's latest?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | April 1, 2008 5:41 AM