Carnivalia, and an open thread

Well, since it's an open thread:

...hmm, that didn't come through. Let's try the link instead:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v23/blazeomatic/more%20more%20photos/…

That's beautiful. And true!

Steve Jones won't talk to Creationists

HAY-ON-WYE, Wales, May 30 (UPI) -- One of Britain's leading biologists says he has given up trying to debate creationists because his views are misstated or he is called names...

Homophobia:
Male Plant Species Eradicates Hermaphrodite Relatives

"pollen swamping".

What a missed opportunity. They should have called it "plant bukkake".

Until All Things Have Been Accomplished

by Charles Wagner

In the distance, a white spot hits the water as the coolness of the morning air is penetrated by the godly warmth of the first rays of sun which break over the horizon. Once again a bit of heaven touches the earth for the split second when it is neither night or day, and the clearness of the sky magnifies the brilliance of this blessed event.

The one lone figure, rising and falling with the rhythmical beat of the ocean swells seemed to blend with the sky and the ocean, becoming part of a beautiful idea encompassed within the framework of the craft as a picture within a frame. Lone eyes peered out over the deep azure of the ambivalent sea, now a friend acting to draw out of him the mental anguish of a time that would be no more. He sat as in a daze, silhouetted by the gigantic ball of fire hanging just inches above the horizon, straining with all his strength to pull himself those same few inches.
The vastness of what he was witnessing served only to keep him above the trivialities of his immediate surrounding, The once important people and the incessant nonsense and anguish that dominated his existence. He was, for the first time in his lonely and miserable life, at peace with himself and the world.
Voices from the shore readily shattered his self attained peace. The short, fat man with the phony laugh and the big awkward cigar grabbed his shoulder. He heard not what he said, but vaguely perceived that it was time to shove off. His mind, after being roused violently from a state of glorious melancholy, now fought between pure hate for this round obnoxious representation of humanity, and human decency, of which he had very little left. He managed an OK.
He turned back to the sea, slightly bothered about his feelings for this man, toward whom he should have no reason to feel anger, only indifference. It was the last of the pent-up hate seeping out of this misdirected antagonism towards every other living creature which had so pervaded his actions for the past months. He tried again to put his finger on his contempt for the world. It was impossible. There seemed no end to the frustrations and aggravations of his existence. only here in the sea, isolated from humanity, did he find the least bit of love, that was lost for the most part in the depths of his soul. It was by this unexplainable delving into his being by the gentle swelling of an incomprehensible vastness that he found peace.
He had probably been sitting there on the brink of life all night. He remembered vaguely running out of his house in desperation. It was intolerable. His life was rising and falling between home and ship as the swells of the ocean, the unavoidable low points coming frequently, each one taking its toll in human patience and endurance. No one to blame, just people, insignificant embodiments of a pseudo-humanity vainly struggling to destroy that which is, in reality, an outgrowth of themselves; people whose very existence depends on the level of humanism which they can never reach. No one to blame and everyone to blame, the insoluble riddle of humanity and existence.

Continue reading HERE:
http://www.charliewagner.net/until.htm

In other nifty science news, a sealed cave is discovered to contain a several-million-year-old ecosystem.

Father de Souza gets it wrong:

...
John Paul said that when man turns against God -- as did the totalitarian atheism of Nazi Germany -- then he soon turns against his fellow man. Benedict radically extended that analysis, saying that it was precisely hatred for God that led to the attempt to annihilate God's chosen people.
.

Huh? The Nazis were atheist? I don't think so. The Nazis were atheists who hated God? That doesn't even make sense.

Hole found in Antactica
Meteor impact crater 300 miles in diameter. The article mentions it as a possible cause for the Permian extinction (Trilobite killer) 250 million years ago, but nothing is mentioned of dating methods, which would be complicated by the half-mile-thick ice cover.