Carnivalia, and an open thread

When you have nothing much to say, there's only one place to go: Moby Dick

" "AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE" Job.

The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?- Because one did survive the wreck.

It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. FINIS"

Have you found your "vital center"?

Read the book.
http://www.americanliterature.com/MD/MDINDEX.HTML

Moonbat Chopra is at it again--he couldn't stop with part five. After learning in part five that the proof of god can be found in yellow flowers, part six imparts this knowlege from Chopra:

We are in God as a fish is in water.

More at Liberal Values.

Of course there's plenty more to comment on than I did if anyone really wants to devote the time to refuting such obvious nonsense.

Some wingnuts are now trying to start an anti-contraception campaign. The most hilarious thing they say is that contraceptives increase the number of abortions because they promote a sexually liberal culture.

Witness: Mom called caged kids monkeys

Counting down the hours until some Creationist wingnut uses this as evidence that evolution leads to moral decay.

Fred Phelps barred from funeral on reservation

Another skirmish in the war on Christmas

PORTLAND, Maine - A beer distributor says Maine is being a Scrooge by barring it from selling a beer with a label depicting Santa Claus enjoying a pint of brew.
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In a complaint filed in federal court, Shelton Brothers accuses the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement of censorship for denying applications for labels for Santa's Butt Winter Porter and two other beers it wants to sell in Maine.
...

Detective uses science to find clues