Carnivalia, and an open thread

Lots of big news this week. First Britney Spears filed for divorce, now Reese Witherspoon follows suit.

A new island!

This could be an opportunity for some evolutionary biologist to do field work in colonization.

His Royal Popeness says: Indeed, we could say that the work of predicting, controlling and governing nature, which science today renders more practicable than in the past, is itself a part of the Creator's plan.

A man and woman just strolled by under my office window, the man calling out, "She killed eighty-eight of them — the Crazy 88!"

To which the woman replied, equally loudly, "But not all eighty-eight of them were there!"

I felt like opening my window and yelling down, "In the sequel, Bill says that they only called themselves the Crazy 88 to sound good!"

In other words, today's events just make me fell like yelling happy thoughts into the night.

Crush a creche
This is so sad.

1. Religious wingnuts fabricate the idea of a 'war on Christmas" in order to inflame the self-righteous self-flagillating crowd.

2. Godless folk look on in amazement, pointing out that God-fearing folk make up 90% of the populace and control the government. They make fun of the idea with fake campaign posters for the alleged "war on Christmas."

3. Religious wingnuts, such as William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, view these fake campaign posters and exclaim, "see, we told you the 'war on Christmas' was real!"

Crush a creche - the poster

Sea urchin genome

"It turns out that the sea urchin is very much like us," said George Weinstock, the co- director of the HGSC. "You wouldn't think it to look at it. But it's closer to us than a fly," he said.