OK, nice reference to both Darwin and cephalopods, but doesn't it bother anyone that the viscosity of the medium would make baseball impossible to play, and that wooden bats would cause a serious buoyancy problem for the animals?
(Via Zeno, who has frightened the creationists out of his state)
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From Zeno's article re the move of the ICR to Texas:
Translation: Go where the suckers are!
From Zeno's blog: "...ICR's scientific staff is widely recognized by friends and opponents alike as unequaled in their credentials and research initiatives..."
Credentials? Doesn't he mean "credenzas"? No one's ever argued the ICR doesn't have good, top of the line office furniture.
How exciting. My hometown is under the jurisdiction of Secretary of "Education" McLeroy, and is in proximity to both Baylor University and Dallas Baptist University. Now it houses the ICR, who will continue to help crack away those last annoying remnants of academic merit in Texas.
Here's hoping the forces from both University of Texas chapters, SMU, the UNT chapters, and all other nearby schools come together to completely disarm these mobs of anti-intellectuals, before they start setting up elementary school visits and library chats to recruit some of the more impressionable minds out there.
My favorite snippet from Zeno's article:
Mentally, what is happening that allows for this train of thought?
If he's holding 4 bats, would that mean you could strike him out with just one pitch?
I'm not quite sure how they addressed the problem with throwing a ball under water, but I must assume that they are using specially designed neutral buoyancy bats.
Nah, I stopped to bother when Shermans universe have restaurants with fried food on the bottom of The Lagoon.
I'm more bothered by a right-handed and right-handed and ... and right-handed cephalopod. Now that goes against biology for crying out loud!
Actually, on the topic of Sherman's universe: I find it one of the better universes around. The author simply junks all the pieces that doesn't fit his narrative instead of clumsy ad hocs (okay, Calvin and Hobbes have cool ad hoc devices instead - I like the transmographier especially), but retains enough rules to make it somewhat recognizable as ours and our foibles.
Has anyone an example of a universe that tops this one?
Dude. You must NEVER watch an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. Your brain will freaking explode.
Torbjorn writes: I'm more bothered by a right-handed and right-handed and ... and right-handed cephalopod. Now that goes against biology for crying out loud!
Perhaps he bats lefty with the other three arms? Talk about crowding the plate, though...
Hmmm, how do we show that it's a girl shark pitching? I know! Let's have her wear a pearl necklace during a baseball game!
This bothers me way more than it should. I mean, isn't the fact that she's purple enough?
Nah! He's obviously a switch-hitter, being so flexible and all!
And (FWIW) Spongebob is full of piratey goodness!
It's the strike zone I'm wondering about...
Iris - she always wears a pearl necklace. It's how you can tell her from the other girl sharks in the strip. :)
Thumbs people, thumbs! Doesn't that bother anyone else? Fin thumbs? Nooooooo! ;^)
"nice reference to both Darwin and cephalopods, but doesn't it bother anyone that the viscosity of the medium would make baseball impossible to play, and that wooden bats would cause a serious buoyancy problem for the animals?"
Talking sharks? Talking sharks don't bother you...?
As for the pearls someone mentioned...given her usual attitude, who is going to take them away from her?
It sure bothers me. Same issue almost ruined Pirates of the Caribbean for me: I can handle curses, undead creatures, and magic compasses; but when two guys walk along the sea floor holding a wooden boat full of air over their heads, it's just too hard to suspend disbelief.
Huh, you're right, and frankly my mind recoils in horror at anything that might make baseball even slower and more interminable than it currently is.
Once wood has soaked long enough in sea water, it becomes negatively buoyant and sinks.
After all, that's how all those logs got into the Poseidonschafer shales.
If that comic bothers you, try watching an episode of Spongebob Squarepants sometime.
Daggonit, I just saw Jay Allen beat me to the Spongebob reference in comment 9. Oh well, it's so bad it deserves two mentions.
Oh, oh. Scott Hatfield has gone and done it now! He's posted a debate challenge to Vox Day over at Monkey Trials. Scott asked Vox to evaluate natural selection as an explanatory model for evolution (as opposed, perhaps, to the ID sort of approach that Vox appears to favor). That stirred up Vox a bit, who snarkily denies evolutionary theory's explanatory power (it's "smoke, mirrors") and then Vox cites my ICR piece, saying there's a "tremendous amount of irony" when an evolutionist accuses creationists of begging the question. (Looks like Vox saw Scott's link to the ICR post.) Now I'm getting traffic from Vox Day's minions! You just know they're going to leave fingerprints on the wallpaper and bootprints on the rug!
Your fault, Scott! Yours!
I think that actually made it into an episode:
*Starfish lights a fire*
Spongebob: Wait, arent we underwa--
*fire goes out*
Is no one going to comment on the difficulty of keeping a hat on while moving about underwater? What kind of skeptics are you people?
There's also one episode in which the fact that they're underwater is highlighted when all of the sea creatures mock Sandy by conspicuously breathing said water in and out while she begins to suffocate without her helmet, but basically you can get through Spongebob only if you agree to the conceit that the water usually "doesn't exist" in Bikini Bottom.
Not that I, um, have seen many episodes or anything.
In her trenchant analysis of Wagner's Ring, Anna Russell liked to point out that the first scene is in the river Rhine. In it. But that doesn't stop the Rhinemaidens from singing their little hearts out. It may, however, have some bearing on why so much of what they sing is nonsense syllables -- even in German.
Vox has GOT to be a Devil's Advocate. He's really working PZ's side of the street. Uh... right?
I'm concerned that you people are so ready to weigh in with your criticisms when you so obviously have little experience with water activities. Swinging and throwing in water are merely harder, but not impossible. As for wearing baseball caps, a ballcap worn backwards would easily stay on one's head while swimming, provided it were fat enough.
Really, the only serious obstacle to underwater baseball would be keeping your chewing tobacco dry and recognising spitballs.
This is a petty point: the fluid mechanical difficulty of underwater baseball is (i think, hope) mostly a result of the density of water, not its viscosity. Viscosity contributes, but water is not very viscous and the problem is mostly one of pushing all that extra mass aside as the ball travels.
I can't read the full-size comic strip since the website is broken. It mandates that I tell it where I came from (HTTP referrer).
Do you have to be a Brit to be surprised at fish discussing batter? Do they have no respect for their cousins beheaded and gutted, served on a plate with chips (OK, 'fries'), after being deep-fried in scorching oil to produce a golden, crispy batter?
I guess you do.
Nah, I stopped to bother when Shermans universe have restaurants with fried food on the bottom of The Lagoon.
I'm more bothered by a right-handed and right-handed and ... and right-handed cephalopod. Now that goes against biology for crying out loud!
Actually, on the topic of Sherman's universe: I find it one of the better universes around. The author simply junks all the pieces that doesn't fit his narrative instead of clumsy ad hocs (okay, Calvin and Hobbes have cool ad hoc devices instead - I like the transmographier especially), but retains enough rules to make it somewhat recognizable as ours and our foibles.
Has anyone an example of a universe that tops this one?