The huge evergrowing pulsating brain that rules at the center of the Pharyngula ultraworld

Now dance, monkey boys and girls! Dance!

I resent that. lol

You may resent it…but are you dancing?

The thread hath given, the thread hath taken away, blessed be the name of the thread.

Also: What the hell was that?

(Needs more Daft Punk and men grabbing their crotches.)

The thread is dead. Long live the thread!

Wowbagger doesn't, as a general rule, dance.

If I have enough drinks at the AGC next year (and they put on some decent music, not the same 80s claptrap that everyone else plays) then maybe I will get up and shake my skinny white-boy ass - and then you'll see why Wowbagger doesn't, as a general rule, dance...

Whoop! Fresh dancing! Needs more bacon, and more men.

You may resent it…but are you dancing?

Yes. . .

But not to the song you think I'm dancing to.

dance, monkey boys and girls! Dance!

Don't you mean "dance like a monkey ?

#7 Lynna said

Whoop! Fresh dancing! Needs more bacon, and more men.

Sorry Lynna. I can dance (I enjoy American square dnacing) but I'm already spoken for. I could get some bacon out of the freezer. There seems to be a slot in the front of the computer with a turntable - I could send some over if you like...

yay!
New subThread UPDATE. (History of The Thread)

I'll dance!

@ windy #884 of previous thread:

Did they have a lot of those in the '80s?

Yes. I was musing on that to myself just recently (ie I hadn't been back online to see your post yet) and wondering whether the Indiana Jones movie was one of the earliest in the batch.

I forgot:
15208

#10

"dnacing" What the **** is "dnacing" I blame the Rev.
[Ed. I blame the typist ...]

(To any newcomers, Ed. is my alter ego. Too clever for his own boots and always wise after the event.

[Ed. Leave it at "always wise" ...]

Thank you, Alan B. Yes, please do send bacon via the bacon slot in your computer.

Going by the opening scene in the video, I think PZ is giving us the finger (with musical accompaniment), and then commanding us to dance to the huge pulsating brain at the centre of Pharnygula ... or something like that.

What utter garbage that video was. More lesbians and bacon indeed.

Never once did I even see "a huge evergrowing puslating Brain" or anything related to "the Centre of the Ultraworld", whatever that is.

Does no one believe in Truth™ in Advertising® anymore?

Hey, I just read one of these all the way to the end!

Okay, this one. Just now. But even small accomplishments deserve a victory dance.

Well, a small one.

Yes, that's right: I said "puslating".

Was there actually crotch-grabbing? Is there a pulsating brain? I only made it through the first 2:35 or so. Shit sets my teeth on edge.

Lynna says, "Thank you, Alan B. Yes, please do send bacon via the bacon slot in your computer."

Wow! Reiki bacon!

Square dancing? What are these guys on?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoE-COZJVr8&feature=related

Sastra, I appreciated your efforts in repeatedly handing James-the-Mormon his ass. He dropped it every time, but hey, your efforts cannot be faulted.

My work filter blocks videos - what's it a video of?

But I do dance like a monkey. Especially if there is a mermaid.

#23 Wowbagger

The final of "Strictly Come Dancing" UK

(no, not really!)

Meanwhile, the Pharyngulan catchphrases, last seen hereas:
10. Oh, sniny!
9. How is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS?
8. Happy Monkey!
7. Goats On Fire!
6. I demand a camera.
5. I would never inflict oral sex on a woman.
4. Cyberpistol
3. Trophy wife
2. Bacon, lesbians and beer
1. Pharyngulate this poll.<'blockquote>
possible additions:
"naked lesbians masturbating with bibles"* and
"tentacled overlords"
"Deep Rifts" have been mentioned too.

*I think #2 on the quoted list should just be bacon... that's enough of an in-joke on its own.

You probably don't need any Chardonnay to make that happen, but it don't hurt! WoooHooo!

I haven't spotted these pharyngula catchphrases being mentioned yet as contenders for the top ten(-ish) list:

frackin' cracker
boobies

What we need are BIG words, preferably words that cannot be pronounced by the hoi polloi. This is where biology and cladistics comes in. Nobody else is going to use or misuse:

[...]
Taxonomic Nomenclature

Does anyone use that term? Taxonomy and nomenclature are rather separate endeavors...

(Except when the rank of a taxon determines the ending of its name, which happens a lot outside the PhyloCode.)

Processed pseudogenes

What does it mean to process a pseudogene???

Heteropy

"Having different eyes"? Huh?

Also, Micropachycephalosaurus hongtuyanensis. So there.

#24

Sounds a bit like a ceilidh I went to a while back - pity the band was a bit worse for the Guinness!

I object to "bacon, lesbians and beer" -- not an objection on principle, but as a component of the Pharyngula catch-phrase list. I agree that bacon can stand alone. But I don't think lesbians should stand alone. Lesbians masturbating with bacon-lubricated bibles can hold their own.

Or:
Lesbians, bacon, bibles, and masturbation
Or:
Lesbians, bibles and masturbation

Floyd Rubber (no explanation needed)

Argh, not eyes, face!!!

Oh, sniny!

Ooh, sniny. Rhymes with woo.

Trophy wife

Trophy Wife™. Trademarked right from the beginning.

What is this thread supposed to be about? I forgot months ago...

There is a pharygulan catch-phrase which may be in competition with "tentacled overlords": namely, "clenched tentacle salute".

I wasn't in the thread when it was about the science of the watchmen - because that seemed to be something I hadn't seen or read (or whatever mental digestion method might be appropriate to whatever it is).

I'm not sure there is a "supposed to be" about it though. It appears to have become a more reliably available open thread (ie than the original sporadic open threads used to be) for dumping off-topic or peripherally relevant stuff into.

I support "clenched tentacle salute" as the standard for congratulations.

MosesZD, this thread is about the science of Watchman, geology, pseudo-geology, geological puns, beer, bacon, pie, lesbians, bibles, masturbation, and mormons (to name just a few of the subjects).

The Thread is supposed to be about What It Is.

#29 David Marjanović

All taken from the index of "Evolution", by Douglas Futuyma (2006 3rd printing).

Micropachycephalosaurus hongtuyanensis
"small thick headed lizard" or something similar but the thickened skull is missing from the fossil named by Mr Dong so one of the smaller dinosaurs but with the longest generic name may not be a member of the Pachycephalosauria after all.

[glazed look]
Sorry... "Huge, pulsating, ever-growing" what now? I stopped paying attention after reading those three adjectives. Tee hee.

Oh, naughty, naughty Pharyngulette!

pity the band was a bit worse for the Guinness!

Guinness!!!!!111!!!

Thanks for the video, PZ.

Oops. What I meant to say was, "Aaaaaaaah! aaaaaaaah! aaaaaaaaaah! (whimper)."

Thank you, O Pikachu of Anthropology. That was the perfect antidote.

What is this thread supposed to be about?

<Simpsons Quote>Sounds like someone's got a case of a "supposed to's..."</Simpsons Quote>

DM, OM (quoting someone from the old thread (piss be upon it)):
"...cannot be pronounced by the hoi polloi".
Kinda ironic given how the greek oi polloi (ee polee) is mispronounced.
Also, I'm only halfway down the mormon prophesy thread and Sastra hasn't turned up yet. There must be some kind of Pharyngula catch phrase for the delicious anticipation of this.

Let's not forget SIWOTI syndrome.

Isn't that, like, the raisin date of this whole thread?

Oh, wait...

I resent that.

CHIEF: Max, I don't know what I'm going to do with you. You bungle assignment after assignment.
MAX: I resent that, Chief.
CHIEF: Do you deny it?
MAX: No, but I resent it.

I'm exhausted by working out Micropachycephalosaurus hongtuyanensis.

I'm off to bed! Glad to have seen in the new thread! Long may it live!!

Needs more fossils. And can't we find a YEC delugionist from somwehere? They are spoil sports!!

Thank you, O Pikachu of Anthropology. That was the perfect antidote.

You're welcome. But not for me. All it did was make me surf for more videos and get a major case of SIWOTI. Youtube in general tends to do that to me.

Blockquote fail. Sorry.

I have posted this video here before but, damn, I love this song. Some of the goofiest , ahem, dancing to be found. Sadly, I also move about like that. Yes, I am a spazz.

Teh Guinnessnesses.

And to stress the point even further, there was a time I would try to dance like the guy in this video. I was much younger and carried less weight then. Yes, there were times I scared people on the dance floor.

And can't we find a YEC delugionist from somwehere?

Is it just me or there haven't been many creationists popping up at Pharyngula lately?

#49 Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM

Where's the little man with the big green head on his flying saucer?

http://www.dan-dare.net/Homepage%20Images%20NoF.htm

(I was brought up on "The Eagle". Wish I still had the original comics ...)

Hey, Janine, check out this guy's dancing style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6kk_jM0vGM&feature=related

(that's my little brother on drums)

#51

Yes, there were times I scared people on the dance floor.

[Ed. Alan B still scares people on the dancefloor!]

Still going to bed 12:45 or thereabouts! Sorry I can't stay and play.

PZ posting almost-forgotten bits of early 90s British ambient dance music?

This place never ceases to surprise and delight.

(Although I agree more lesbians and bacon would most certainly be welcome.)

Dania @ 52,

Is it just me or there haven't been many creationists popping up at Pharyngula lately?

I blame it on registration.
From a random comment the other day( can't remember where) it seems we are not only losing creationists, but also the odd reply from scientists/people mentioned in PZs posts.

I'm only halfway down the mormon prophesy thread and Sastra hasn't turned up yet. There must be some kind of Pharyngula catch phrase for the delicious anticipation of this.

Sastra Lust

Still waiting to hear what it is I'm not seeing...

I'm still trying to decide if I like Devo's deconstruction of a Rolling Stones classic.

In counterpoint, here's Victor Borge's Variations on Happy Birthday to You:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajg7FlPv0HU&feature=rec-fresh+div-r-1-HM

Still waiting to hear what it is I'm not seeing...

Okay, there's a giant hand giving the viewer the finger, and that is in place of an Apollo rocket on a launch pad. Then the video launches with slow music and eerie female voice(s) accompanied by many beautiful landscapes that mostly flat and include water, sunsets and foliage -- but most of the landscapes are just off-the-normal-color-scheme enough to make you think you have been drinking or computering too long. Up-tempo music begins when the scene changes to an oddly-green rave(?) or dance club scene that features many young women. There is one arresting view of a tabletop or bartop or stage dancer, a woman seen from below. She is wearing butt-cheek revealing miniscule underwear and fuck-me boots with a ragged top. We see mostly her butt, and then her butt some more. Is that enough?

Yeah, you know, every year I go to the same conference and see the same scientist and engineers. And every year at least once some cruel bastard has a social event that involves dancing. It is not pretty. This year as I was getting on the bus to head back to the hotel, I said "So concludes another edition of 'Dancing with the Straight White Males.'" Snickering was heard from the few females on the bus.

Trivia: Do you know the Wierd Al video "White and Nerdy"? If so, do you know who the guy is going all Grand Mal in the background?

Wait for it?

Donny Osmond! I was so relieved that after so many years of being the joke he does at least get the joke. Kind of like William Shatner.

Oh, yeah, Wowbagger, the song begins as "Loving you is easy because you're beautiful .... la la la la la"

I waited for the new thread to post this, because I don't want it lost in the shuffle. For fans of Charles Stross' Laundry series (The Atrocity Archives, etc.), he's given us a lovely present over at Tor, here: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=story&id=58511. It's seasonally appropriate, too.

I blame it on registration.

Yeah. Fucking spammers.

And how much longer will we have to put up with this crappy registration system? I don't think people who sign in with Google are happy with it...

More for Wowbagger. Towards the end, there's a rooster crowing, and trance drumming.

Well, since this is an open, completely random thread: Hey, Gyeong Hwa Pak, why are you called "the Pikachu of Anthropology"? And what does that even mean?

This would have to be the day where I'm not going straight home from work, meaning that, at best, it's probably going to be another ten or so hours before I get home and can watch it.

Is the song by any identifiable musical act?

Does anyone use that term? Taxonomy and nomenclature are rather separate endeavors...

I'm a girl geek who manages an engineering database, and I've used it to be arch; our products are named primarily based on their standard classification.

Yes, weird, I know.

I don't think people who sign in with Google are happy with it...

No. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOahem.

So updated list of Pharyngulanian phrases...

10.Raisin date
9. Deep rifts
8. Naked lesbians masturbating with bibles
7. When will Cuttlefish get here?
6. Goats On Fire!
5. Oooh, sniny!
4. Frackin' cracker
3. Happy Monkey!
2. Bacon
1. Pharyngulate

I am parking the following as less-used or user-specific (I might be biased by the period I have been visiting):

Clenched tentacle salute / tentacled overlord
How is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS?
I demand a camera
I would never inflict oral sex on a woman.
Get in the feckin' sack
Cyberpistol
Trophy Wife™
Floyd Rubber

The following are used on Pharyngula but also widely elsewhere with the same meaning:

SIWOTI {syndrome}
Pearl clutching and the fainting couch
His Noodly Goodness / Ramen etc.
Python/Hitchhiker/Discworld stuff
crocoduck

Can't use two blockquotes in one post? What century is this?

Hey, Gyeong Hwa Pak, why are you called "the Pikachu of Anthropology"? And what does that even mean?

I chose that name after PZ put up registration again. *Shakes fist at PZ

Pikachu is my favorite pokemon and also one of my nicknames. Anthropology is my major and (sadly) my field of expertise. Would it be more clear if I changed it to the Pikachu who is completing an undergraduate program in Anthropology with emphasis in Southeast Asian studies and Hominid Evolution?

The Mekons!

The Elastik Band was damn cool as well.

I'll trade you a few from one of my favorite bands. Me, I must look like a dork.

haha, no. It would be funny, though.

Can we call you "Pak the Pikachu"?

Wowbagger, the video/music is by "The Orb; compactdisco"

Well, Mr. Gyeong, that proposrd mane would be commensurate with the length of the Google Author Profile Page usernames, and much more legible.

(And forgive me if Gyeong is not your surname.)

Argh. It seems I had put too many links in one post. What is the limit again?

3 or 4 links - I can't remember

a_ray

Now now, aren't you perpetuating the stereotype that nerdy men can't dance? You'd be surprise! (well sorta).

Lynna,

Pack the Pikachu? That doesn't sound humane. lol

F,

You are right to assume that Gyeong is my surname. In traditional E.A. and Burmese rendering, the first part of the name would be the surname. But!!!!!!! Gyeong isn't a typical Korean surname while Pak is! Try and guess which is right!!! Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!one!!!!!!!!!

What is the limit again?

Two to four or five or sometimes six, depending on how the SB gods are feeling right then.

@26,

So if I understand all those references, it means I spend to much time here and have for a long time, doesn't it.

Alan B, I think that is where the Mekons got their name.

As for my dancing, it once got a write up. Back in 2000, The Old Towne School Of Folk Music in Chicago had The Mekons, Richard Thompson and Patti Smith as part of their festival. Yes, I was very geeked about it. A friend of mine who wrote for the Chicago Reader was there to review the show. As part of the review, he mentioned one young woman who was doing three dance moves at the same time during a Patti Smith song. He later let me know that he was writing about me. I thought that was very sweet.

All in all, it was a great day.

One of my favorite dancer with guitar, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney.

What is the limit again?

I wonder if there is a limit on embedded youtube videos...

I wonder....

Lynna @ #76,

It's by The Orb. I've no idea what the 'Compactdisco' thing is all about. I supect the video was made by a fan (I doubt it ever had one originally) due to the 'U.F.Off' album cover featuring in the video. That album was a greatest hits compilation (of sorts - the never really had any hits), that came out nearly a decade after A Huge Pulsating Brain was released as a single.

Pikachu is my favorite pokemon and also one of my nicknames. Anthropology is my major and (sadly) my field of expertise.

How disappointing. I was hoping it was an honorific indicating your status with the Evil Atheist Conspiracy.

Thanks for the response, folks. Apparently, six was too many for the SB gods today. They DO NOT WANT.

Ah, The Orb. Thanks for that - I'm vaguely familiar with their work. At least now I've got some idea.

SB gods? SB gods? There are no SB gods. I would think by now you would have learned there are only…SB demons.

By the way, registration is off for a little while.

F - I guess you'll just have to try fewer at a time to get it to work. Do you have any links to good songs or artwork that you want to share?

Wonderful day it was today but I'm looking for some upbeat tunes for the evening.

Is this Unix?

Sending term signal to SB daemon....

Oh no, it was on an album way before U.F.Off. The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, if I recall correctly.

There was even a video which was probably the one PZ posted. The people I lived with back in 1992 owned that too, if I recall rightly. And I may not; much of that time is obscured by a shroud of time and smoke.

I'm mildly entertained to see PZ may be a fan. I saw The Orb play live about 8 years ago in the states but they seemed a bit fed up with the US leg of their tour as their constant cavalry bugle and Monty Python samples seemed to imply.

Oh no, it was on an album way before U.F.Off. The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, if I recall correctly.

I'm prety sure you're right. What I meant was the fact the U.F.Orb cover features in the video suggests that the video was not made at the same as the track. I've no idea whether was ever an original video but I'll take your word for it.

That said, someone could simple have edited the U.F.Off album cover into the original video...

Hokay, Amicus. But it depends on what you mean by "upbeat". (Have a listen to some Soma FM channels.)

I'll split and re-post my previous entry. But first, since you are Amicus...

[Tab A]

I'll trade you a few...

I think it's high time we admitted that there's functionally no difference between these threads and the "Open Threads" of days of yore.

"Sastra Lust "

Yeah. It got so bad on that thread that Sastra actually started gloating.

[Slot B]

...from one of my favorite bands. Me, I must look like a dork.

Yeah, well, I may not be entirely unimpeachable as a source, especially regarding the video. Everything looked like that, back in them days.

I've thought about it and decided that PZ posted the video as a professional courtesy to Dr Alex Paterson.

The difference, Rey Fox, is that those were individual open threads and this is One Big Long Permanent Open Thread. The Thread that Will Not Die!!

And, OK. Since I expected something better from The Orb, I listened past the beginning. Much better. But listening to the first two minutes of that tune were not unlike being RickRolled...

Any Cyndi Lauper fans?

some upbeat tunes for the evening.

First a moderately upbeat tune:

Cannonball Adderley - One for Daddy-O

"Is that what you wanted, Alfred?"

Now for the next number dedicated to my lovely listeners at Pharyngula Internet Radio:

James Brown - Funky President

(There are some skips in the audio, but I think the video content more than makes up for this.)

It doesn't get much more upbeat than this...

Fania All-Stars w/ Celia Cruz - Kymbala

The video had too much green in it.

benwa_mandelbrot @ #100,

I never realised Alex Paterson collaborated with Robert Fripp! Goodness only knows what that must have sounded like.

The video had too much green in it.

Oh come on, everyone knows green is pretty.

(Anyone who links to the the Mark Ronson/Santogold version will get slapped.)

F, you fucking corn dog, you forgot one of the coolest songs ever. Mr Narrator, this is Bob Dylan to me.

(F knows I am not calling him names here.)

If I can't monkey dance, I don't want to be part of your monkey revolution.

Goats Monkeys on fire!

Atcherly, Janine, that was in there. But not the version you posted.

Let's go drink and pogo!

Oops. It must have been from the block of Double Nickels songs.

It was here:
trade you

For the PharynguTube Files. :)

Ahh, The Orb. I haven't heard them in a while. The song "Pomme Fritz" (below) ends with an audio sample from a Saturday Night Live commercial skit for Spud Beer™.

"You've just had a heavy session of electroshock therapy, and you're more relaxed than you've been in weeks. All those childhood traumas magically wiped away, along with most of your personality."

Aw hell, since we're spreading some Orb love (PZ started it!) today, I'll share this moment of brilliance. To put it context, this was from a mainstream UK music chart show that normally plays host to talentless lip-syncing manufactured pop bands of the kind Simon Cowell has spent his career inflicting on us.

Take that, Huskers!

Ah, The Orb. How I miss them.

"SLUGS again!... ... yes, there were the slugs; babies, mommies, and daddys, beside enormous and great fat grandaddy slugs, all eating their way toward the juicy green lettuces....."

These aren't terribly upbeat, but I really miss Astor Piazzolla:

Piazzolla - Tristezas de un doble A (part 1)

Paz & Assad - Bordel

Kronos Quartet - Four for Tango

aratina cage - thanks for that! I'd long since forgotten that track.

Last bit of Orb spam before I go to bed:

OK, this is really last my comment of the day: since when were <object> tags allowed around here?

Micropachycephalosaurus?? Do you guys just sit a chimp in front of a keyboard with Fisher-Price like buttons representing Greek roots?

I guess sometimes the chimp, he just smashes a whole lotta buttons at once, and now you got a small thick head lizard. Ain't the chimp's fault really.

Balancing Act?

Watch out. Volume is super low on the second link.

I went looking for some upbeat tunes to share, and now I got a couple stuck in my head -- Electric Car and The Mesopotamians.

H

Ms Williams covers Thompson.

For those with the acquired taste, Movement. With the extra weird bonus of a French voice-over at the beginning. Of a kinda bad video. :p

Bob and Greg and Grant better beware...

I wasn't born to be good enough for you.

Pay To Spock

Play like your mom just died.

It appears that an unlimited number of links are allowed -- as long as the links are to other Sb pages without using "http://scienceblogs.com" as a prefix.

Let's see if this works if I'm not signed in:

Feathers and filaments of non-avian dinosaurs, part I

Feathers and filaments of dinosaurs, part II

Epidexipteryx: bizarre little strap-feathered maniraptoran

The puddle that was once a sea

How to Reject a Paper: Advice from a Chain Letter

Trunks trunks trunks

South African wildlife - Wait, that's not a trunk...

How do you masturbate an elephant?

(Sorry about those last three... it just sort of made sense to chain them like that)

Success !!

+1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OKc17RDd40

Everyday the paper boy brings more.

...I could be an other Lincoln...

Wow. I outta come here for music more often.
A pensive Aphrodite

Janine- Thanks for the link to "Play like your mom just died" :)
There was an apparent mistaken identity concerning F. Ha. I guess there are a number of folks who could claim that moniker.

...and I can't get at it.

pensive Nefertiti

Madonna, Sean and me.

Top 10 Friendship Songs

Joffan @#71:

You forgot "Typo cooties".

Hm. How about some Google research ( using site:scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009 )?
(Accuracy not guaranteed.)

(Sorting by Ghit count, lowest to highest)

"Raisin date" : 7

Cuttlefish (This is tricky -- any ideas? ) :
"Where's Cuttlefish" : 5
"When will Cuttlefish get here" : 2
On the other hand...
Cuttlefish : 766 (including the actual animal)
"by: Cuttlefish" : 310

"tentacled overlord" : 10

+inflict +"oral sex" +woman : 20 (this may be too high)

sniny : 32 total
"Oooh, sniny" : 4
"Ooh, sniny" : 3
"Oh, sniny" : 1 (this thread)

"Typo cooties" : 35
cooties : 65 (some of which may not be in reference to typos)

+(Cyberpistol|"cyber pistol") : 38

+lesbians +masturbating +bibles : 41

"fainting couch" : 90

Clenched tentacle salute : 99

"Frackin' cracker" : 102

("clutch * pearls"|"clutching * pearls"): 107
("Pearl clutching"|"clutch pearls"|"clutching pearls") : 72

+PYGMIES +DWARFS : 150
+PYGMIES +DWARVES : 42

Ramen : 114

"Deep rifts" : 190

SIWOTI : 311
"SIWOTI Syndrome" : 140

"Happy Monkey!" : 183

Pharyngulate : 202

crocoduck : 226

"Floyd Rubber" : 226

"Goats On Fire" -"on Goats On Fire" : 446 ("Goats On Fire" alone has 1500 hits, but most of these are from hits on the sidebar for the comment thread with that exact name from unrealted threads -- once Google's cache for Pharyngula has cycled through these, a more accurate count may be had with just the phrase alone)

+(demand|want|give) +camera : 463 (this is way way too high; people do talk about photography here)(but the exact phrase "I want a camera" has 1 Ghit )

"Trophy Wife™" : 550

Bacon : 633 (!!)

I think that the best part is the occasional jet fly-by. It's exciting!

Awww.
Bummer.

I will absolutely never comment on an undying thread. Never! Especially one where people talk about bacon, lesbians and pulsating brains. It would be unthinkable for me to ever ...

Uh-oh! Too late. Dang! I think Nyarlathotep keeps possessing me or something. I wish Lord Cthulhu would hurry up and rise, so I can be eaten and end this perverse habit of accidentally posting on an undying thread!

Or as the Necronomicon says, "When the Shantak bird lies down with the Nightgaunt, and the Shoggoth lies down with the Great Race, on that day mighty Cthulhu shall rise. He who is first will be the last to be eaten, and he who is last shall be the first eaten. O, and blessed are the Cheesemakers!" Not sure why Abdul Alhazred thinks cheesemakers are special, unless he's trying to tell us that Lord Cthulhu is telling us the value of capitalism and free enterprise.

http://www.plognark.com/sites/default/files/images/creationistmotto.jpg

Janine @129: Thanks for that link. What a damned good way to end this day. I'll go back to that one tomorrow.

What is this thread supposed to be about? I forgot months ago...

This thread is where all the used electrons no longer need bu the internets go to spin, waiting for another chance to fly through the ether.

lttl sh*t pz thnks h cn dbnk Gd..

y r gng t b trtrd nd mrdrd wtht mrcy...

Lks lk yr wbst s ndr ttck frm sprntrl frcs…

http://dyn.pltc.cm/mmbrs/frms/thrd.cfm?ctd=2&sbctd=7&thrdd=3449994

y rlly nd t dd cmmnt mdrtn t yr blsphmy…

A submarine is a series of tubes.

Did they bargain for less freedom?

You can do it, Duffy Moon.

You know, he who shall not be named appeared on my blog. It was a surprise, considering that I only have one follower, and there is not a single thing on it to suggest my religious affiliations. Yet he said he'd shut down my "atheist blog."

You go on and on like a blood stain.

@Janine 129
Its about time someone got the true religion up in here:

"As it is written henceforth...that on the Eighth Day, the Cosmic Strumpet of MOTHER NATURE was spawned to envelop this Third Planet in FUNKACIDAL VIBRATIONS. And She birthed Apostles Ra, Hendrix, Stone & Clinton to preserve all funkiness of man unto eternity..."
(Funkadelic "Wet Epic Debauchery," liner notes, Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, 1974)

I need lunch
Feed me now
I need lunch
When's my break

Time again for yours truly to continue a mostly ignored tradition on the Thread Undying. That is, looking at certain subjects in a non-standard ways.

This time around we'll be looking at plate tectonics. More specifically, at what is possible, how many plates there are, and where the extra plate boundaries are.

Let us look first at the Eurasian plate. A single plate, one of the seven classical. Yet there is a huge glitch in this picture. A glitch exhibited most plainly in the largest body of fresh water in the world, Lake Baikal. A body of water that could be called the world's largest, smallest, only fresh water ocean. An ocean because it has a floor with black smokers and deep ocean life. Lake Baikal is a feature of a rifting system tearing the Eurasian Plate apart from east to west. A rifting system that will create a new ocean, but one most people are not aware of.

Then you have the North Atlantic Plate. A plate that incorporates granitic and basaltic rocks. A plate where the North Atlantic Seafloor somehow merges with the rock of the North American continent. At least, that's the impression I'm given.

My point is, the seven plate model is a simplistic one; a model that ignores and denies the complexity of tectonics on Earth. Earth's crust is not divided into seven great plates, but numerous smaller plates and sub plates. In addition, these plates are not unitary bodies, but lithic clumps that are as prone to breaking up as any other frangile conglomeration of material. The closest we have to solid plates are the granitic plutons that formed back in the Hadean, and around which other material collected to form the continents we know today.

Whih leads us to sea floor, which is another subject entirely.

For sea floor arises from spreading centers and rifts where volcanic eruptions of widely varying sizes and durations produce basaltic rock. Basaltic rock that is pushed away from the point of origin and over time constitutes new sea floor.

Old sea floor? That is pushed even further away, eventually to meet and be subducted beneath continental rock. Or to meet another patch of sea floor where both are forced down into the mantle.

With the apparent exception of the North Atlantic seafloor, for it is said that one plate cannot move away from another.

But what is the North Atlantic sea floor doing? Pushing North American and Europe away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? And what happens to North Atlantic sea floor when it encounters North America or Europe? It is subducted beneath the continents where it is melted and processed by the mantle.

Shouldn't there be volcanic activity because of this? How do you know there isn't? I'm not up on geologic activity in eastern North America, but I have heard of such as hot springs in the Appalachians, and the East coast of the U.S. and Canada does have earthquakes. I suspect the same holds true of western Europe.

What is happening here is this; the North Atlantic sea floor is pushed into the North American continent and forced under at the edge of the continental shelf. This subduction is a slow one, and combined with North America being pushed west by sea floor movement results in an exceptionally low level of volcanic activity. Were North America to be moving east, then volcanic activity would be greater and thus more notable. Apply this to Europe, and to South America and Africa where the South Atlantic is concerned, and you get an anomalous tectonic phenomenon where tectonic science is concerned.

What it comes down to is, tectonics doesn't entirely work as we think it does, and it is more complex that we think it is. We have far more than 7 large plates --- maybe as many as thirty, and how these plates interacted in more complicated than we think they do.

And there you have my Thinking Differently comment for this episode of the Thread Undying.

Turn off your mind.

MM:

My point is, the seven plate model is a simplistic one; a model that ignores and denies the complexity of tectonics on Earth.

Wikipedia (my emphasis):
The lithosphere is broken up into what are called tectonic plates. In the case of Earth, there are currently eight major and many minor plates (see list below).

And there you have my Thinking Differently comment for this episode of the Thread Undying.

Seems to me like Thinking Ignorantly.

What're your sources for your effusions?

It's winter in the northern hemisphere.

Honk! Wrong. Too much is not enough.

Fuck it! Here are The Dirtbombs! Good night!

Cyanotype.

"Basaltic rock that is pushed away from the point of origin and over time constitutes new sea floor."

Pulled.

Just when I thought I could, they pull me back in. If you want me, you can find me. It's a one time thing, it just happens a lot.

The NoMeansNo All Boys Choir.

Talk-Action=Nothing

The good old hockey game is the best game you can name. And the best game you can name is the good old hockey game.

I'm an atheist but...

Honey, the goat is on fire again.

Get back to work you little jerk. I've had enough of you.

I search the whole wide world to find Joey Ramone>

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

An unicorn. A Harley from hell.

The Orb? Wow. That's a blast from the past. I knew I liked you, PZ. And not just because you're so damned pleasant.

The Laura Branigan of The Catholic Church.

Dimethyl Sulfoxide

One third.

IP

I'm not tired and I'm not defeated.

When I woke up all my clothes were clean. Now I live and sleep in these old jeans.

Bilingual New Years greeting to you!

Sorry about signing in and out so frequently but my browsers are being glitchy.

Warning. Not as good as Atomizer. Don't get your hopes up cheese.

Defeat? One could only hope to meet.

A song for creotard politicians.

Christmas is the time for a lickle baby jesus.

I'm gone.

No other possibility.

More flammable goats.

My brain hurts.
I need a doctor.

Well, happy holidays, then.

Multilingual Dylan

Orb? Haha, saw them live back in arounr 95. I was expecting some vague wibbling but they were unbelievably intense.

You need someting a bit bouncier to dance, erm, properly....

Wow, just wow!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091223/ap_on_fe_st/eu_sweden_christmas_goat

All hail mighty King Pharyngula and his horde of bacon munching zombie heathens who watch lesbians masturbate with bibles( or whatever their particular taste in porn may be)!

Ha! Friend of mine posted this on his facebook page.

Remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas. I asked Jesus how much do you love me? Jesus replied this much and stretched his arms on the cross and died. If you believe in God, put this in your status...... What Jesus did on the cross was because he was thinking of you.... will you stand up for him and put this in... your status? Don't say Happy Holidays. Tell everyone Merry Christmas

I dunno if I have the heart to set him straight on what Dec. 25th is really about...

#154 mythusmage

Until you produce some references there is little to discuss. What I don't understand is whether you are ignorant or you misunderstand what you read or you are someone who throws a handgrenade into the market place to enjoy the flurry of excitement.

Take one point at a time and give us some evidence. Try this paragraph for a start:

But what is the North Atlantic sea floor doing? Pushing North American and Europe away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? And what happens to North Atlantic sea floor when it encounters North America or Europe? It is subducted beneath the continents where it is melted and processed by the mantle.

I can produce evidence that much of this is nonsense and it is in the public domain. What are you basing your comments on? Is it your thinking or some tom-fool article from somewhere?

Yo, I'ma let you finish, but I would like to formally enter my nomination for the coveted title of Worst and/or weirdest holiday music video of all time. Of ALL TIME!!

and so here it is, the clearly demented Jon (Yes) Anderson with a multicultural cast of dozens and a completely gratuitous cheesy spaceflight intro sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GYW9Y3pRBs

wow

My house is filled with Gods (pics and idols) who somehow become very impure if touched by a menstruating female. I feel like im playing a hugely complex video game while navigating through this mania home avoiding any accidental contact with the revered non existents.(Cant risk annoying a house full of the highly deluded, especially when they are your immediate family)
Thats life being an ex Hindu female atheist living in religious family.
Cant complain too much though, Hindus are funny to watch and they make really cool yumm food for the deities. Guess who gets to eat all the 'prasad' when the Gods dont bother to :D

that was pretty funny, madbull--thanks for enhancing The Thread

Alan B,

(And pardon me if I've mixed you up with someone else - besides Ed. that is.)

Do you have any tips about what might make me more attractive to the BNFL if I were to spam them with my CV?

...?

Should we include "disemvowelled" on the list of Pharyngula catch phrases?

'Kay... so you can't so much dance to this...

... but it's all like, a propos for me for this time of the year, performed as it was by the legendary 'n lamented Silver Hearts from, of all places, Peterborough, Ontario, more or less the land of most of my upbringing... and once introduced tongue in cheek as being 'a song about Highway 7'. And speaking as someone who once drove the roads of that country in the range of 40,000 km per year as a reporter working in the area, I can honestly tell you: it might as well be...

... and I can also say the now sadly gone Silver Hearts were a thing to behold live--it really does help to have a sousaphone, a trombone, and a theremin onstage with your standard washboard, piano, fiddles 'n guitar to make a properly spooky 'n danceable (some of there stuff was, tho' not this) cemetery polka, apparently...

... as to firemancarl's, please feel free to return my modified version to yer friend... my personal and biased opinion is it's much, much better:

My Christmas Story

Remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas... 'cos all the cool cultures had fun celebrations 'round the winter solstice, many involving proper drunken revelry 'n drinking toasts to their various crazed ancient god kings, and when we were trying to take over with our own nasty little cultish crap, just killin' folks who wouldn't sign onto our particular hokum was only so practical. There was too many of 'em, and even if we could have got 'em all done, who'd have been left to tithe?

Sure, we did some killing and mutilating, absolutely, where terror was doable, sure, but for the larger population, there were still those old traditions to content with, and sometimes, it's just more practical to coopt.

So we worked Jaysus into that celebration, stuck his birthday right next to the old celebrations in midwinter, told 'em sure, bring yer damned trees inside for it, we don't care... And if some of the booze 'n revelry is preserved, hey, whatevs, it's all good...

... anyway, there's this guy I know who, having had a tough time, feeling he couldn't get a girl even to look sideways at him, and getting a little needy, the way you sometimes do when that's the way of things, asked Jesus how much he loved him instead...

Jesus didn't answer, seein' as, if he ever even existed, he's now dead. But then my friend reads his email, and some guy he knows had sent him this tedious, predictable fantasy about Jesus stretching out his arms on the cross...

... so the guy I know calls that guy up. Asks him over. Then asks him, buddy, can you act that bit out? That bit where Jesus stretches out his arms? 'Cos that might help me believe...'

Jesus guy's all like: 'Oh, I dunno... I'm no messiah...' And my friend's all like: 'No, see, it's just that it's so hard for me to picture... Help me out, here...'

So the Jesus guy does it, stretches his arms out, kinda sheepishly...

And right when his arms are way the fuck out, my friend kicks him right in the balls.

Jesus guy's on the floor writing and swearing, saying: 'What the fuck did you do that for?'

And my bud's all: 'Well, pal, someone deserves to get it in the jewels for that kind of dumbfuck obvious emotional blackmail. I figured since you were the one to try to pass it on, you'd do quite nicely...'

'...but don't get all bitter. I mean, think of this as your free persecution for the year. Go home, tell people what a great, suffering messiah you made. You know you want to...'

... Thus endeth the lesson.

(... hey... you can tell him that's my Christmas story... And anyone who thinks religionists are tedious, blithering wankers playing a rusty, manipulative old saw and who should probably be kicked in the balls for that a whole lot more can feel free to put it on their profile page...)

(/In other news, you could probably dance to this, if you wanted to. Me, I'm dedicating it to any wankers who might still be stupid enough to send me chain email wallpaper like that. Appropriate, insofar as they're going straight onto my spam list if they start making any kind of habit of it.)

The year that that horrendous song was released, I was on a car trip from Toronto to the Florida Keys.
A new release gets played EVERY half hour by EVERY radio station in the USA.
I hate you, PZ, for making me relive the memory of being trapped in a car for over 3 days and hearing "LA LA LA LA LA" and that squeaky scream every half hour............

OT but, I really wanna see the movie about Hypatia. There was a porn star named Hypatia Lee. Go figure. Some of the porn womenz is smart, like Nina Hartley who has a BS or Masters in Nursing.

6. I demand a camera.

I demand a chimera!

#199, 201

Who's in the videos?

#191 Sili

I was never employed by BNFL. I worked with Central Electricity Generating Board, National Power (Nuclear), National Power, British Energy. Same company, just changing itself around me depending on the whim of the Government and private industry.

We generated the electricity, using the nuclear fuel provided by BNFL who then dealt with the reprocessing and storage.

I am several years out of date BUT are you sure BNFL is going to want to employ anyone?

see:

http://www.bnfl.com/

Alan B, you are right.

I have no clue. I'm just brainstorming for possible employers that might like inorganic chemists (and not be too horribly dull). Radionuclides came up, and I recalled you talking about shocking conditions in Chernobyl-like reactors.

And, yes, I was lazy and used BNFL as an umbrella-term for all those subsidiaries.

Merry Christmas and Happy Monkey to one and all. I'll be heading out to brave the trains later. I'm sure I'm going to spend a delightful Christmas with my sister's in-laws.

Re Pharyngula in-jokes:

I don't think it should go on the top ten list (if we ever do such a thing) but, for the sake of completeness*, I thought I would mention this.

*runs for cover*

*And also because now that it crossed my mind I can't help but to share it with everyone else. 'Cause I'm evil like that.

This is the most awesomest awesome ever.

You know those Beware of dog signs?

Sorry Dania and Chimpy but an antidote is needed.

OH YEAH?
Let's see how you'd do against a really slow big guy in a confining reptile suit, smart guy! (at least until you figured out how to make black powder from common objects in the alien environment)

PZ!!!!! Chimpy's makin fun of James T. Kirk!!!!

So, the lizard can lift and throw that rock, but has to struggle with Kirk while holding him? Wow...

Wow, the last time I saw the Kirk/lizard fight was probably more than 30 years ago. I remember being scared!

So when the lizard throws the boulder at Kirk, why do I feel that there may have been a bit of fudging regarding conservation of momentum (unless the lizard weighed about a ton or so)?

Chimpy, you only have yourself to blame.

holy

shit

The following are used on Pharyngula but also widely elsewhere with the same meaning

Related video

Alan B @288

[and a special greeting to Lynna's brachiopods from one of my brachiopods - Plectothyris fimbria (J. Sowerby).]
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/earthlab/specimen.dsml?sgroup=…
& search for Plectothyris]

Awww, how cute? Ahh, and ahhh again. (I'm still looking in my other open tab.)

Thank you, and may your rocks rock hard.

'Tis Himself, thank you for the jingle bell rock. I actually sent out a picture of a rock, along with execrable doggerel, for my Christlessmas Cards this year. I'll see if I can put up a blog page for it later today. For now, must dash and dance and prance.

Kristjan - I guessed that was going to be the video you linked to! What a fun song.

'Tis, I'm sorely wanting to make that picture my facebook profile page. :)

Today's haul of loot? Amongst other items:

1) A bottle of Croft's Pink Port (like a solid rose with a port flavour). Unusual but pleasant.

http://www.croftpink.com/

With some Stilton, probably my favourite cheese.
(It's the Penicillium roqueforti)

2) A bottle of Penderyn Peated Single Malt Welsh Whisky from several minor (age only) family members.

Distinctive and slightly unusual but this is a very drinkable whisky in its own right. Made using a very special single pot still that belies the youthfulness of the whisky, and makes it taste much older.

Tasting Notes : The nose has sweet, herbal and vegetal notes, but also meaty yeastiness. The palate has rye-like mintiness with hints of ginger and sweet vegetal touches again. The finish is long, warming and soothing.

The only distillery in Wales.

Now that the insanity of threatened postal strikes is over, I plan to get hold of a number of guides to local geology walks to try in a short while.

All the family except my son and his wife in Arizona.

A small amount of the white stuff which has caused the usual traffic calamities ...

Best wishes to all!

#306 Lynna "Horn Face"

There has long been an association in Europe between cuckolds and horns. A man is said to wear cuckold's horns when his wife is unfaithful and only he doesn't know - hence the horns which he can't see but everyone else can.

There appears to be a reference in "Much ado about nothing" by William Shakespeare but it may go back much further.

(Now, didn't you want to know all that ...)

A man is said to wear cuckold's horns when his wife is unfaithful and only he doesn't know - hence the horns which he can't see but everyone else can.

I don't know about the UK, but here we have an offensive term that basically translates as "tame horn" and is used to indicate a man who knows he's being cheated on by his wife but does nothing about it.

(Yes, I know you were all dying to know that...

... but, hey, +1!!)

Newtonmas and Easter on the same day! Hooraaaaay!!! No more snow, and 15 degrees. Celsius, not Fahrenheit – I wish. B-(

Yesterday evening there was strong rain, and today morning again. Growl.

Tectonic plates: the basic principle is that the SiAl rocks are floating on the SiMg (pronouced See-ma?), which is denser, like clots of bubbles on a pot of boiling jelly. The SiAl comprises the continents, more or less.

<sigh> These (Sial and Sima – and yes, magnesium is Mg, not Ma) are the terms Wegener used. "Sial" is basically the same as what is now called continental crust, mostly granite, and "Sima" is basically what is now called oceanic crust, mostly basalt.

One of Wegener's biggest errors was that he believed the sima extended underneath the sial. In fact, oceanic crust and continental crust lie next to each other except in the – narrow – subduction zones. That's among the key features that distinguish the modern theory of plate tectonics from Wegener's theory of continental drift.

Since so many have gotten the dynamics of the North Atlantic ocean floor so wrong, here's a quick and dirty review.

What happens at the Mid Atlantic Ridge? Mantle material comes welling up, most likely because of massive hotspots.

No. It rises up because the plates on each side are being pulled apart.

North and South America move westward, dragging the western half of the Atlantic seafloor with them. This opens a crack in the lithosphere (not just the crust), into which magma from the asthenosphere seeps. This forms new oceanic crust and new, uh, subcrustal lithosphere on both sides.

What is it that moves the Americas westward?

Not ridge push, but slab pull. Look these terms up.

The Pacific seafloor sinks down vertically in the subduction zones off the west coast of the Americas. The Americas are sucked in.

So strongly, in fact, that North America has started breaking apart at its westernmost edge (Alaska excepted). That's how Baja California and the San Andreas fault came to be.

It's also, on the other side, how Japan was separated from China. Look up the term pull-apart basin.

This magma rises up through the cracks that mark the rift itself, get deposited on the sides of the rift, and cool and solidify there.

So far, so good...

Over time this accumulation becomes too heavy and the material and question slumps away from the rift, pushing the ocean floor further away even further away. Given time this ocean floor material is pushed up against and under the bordering continent.

<whack> Wrong. The sinking is vertical, <whack> it's why the midocean ridges are ridges, <whack> and it's why the sea level rises in <whack> times of strong tectonic activity: the <whack> sinking is slowed when the <whack> asthenosphere under the rift is hotter. <whack>

This is how I learned it from a number of reports and documentaries on the Mid Atlantic Ridge.

<whack> So you're getting <whack> your information <whack> from the TV? <whack>

At the other end of the basaltic conveyor belt you have a different situation.

<whack> The other end is the west coast <whack> of North America, not the east one. <whack>

Where the North Atlantic ocean floor meets the North American continental shelf you have a discontinuity. You switch from basalt to granite

True.

and sedimentary rocks.

No, the sediments lie on top of both.

You go from a largely horizontal surface to a near vertical rise which at the top becomes the sloping continental shelf.

<whack> "Vertical" my ass! If you were on a <whack> continental slope, you <whack> wouldn't notice it's inclined. <whack>

(<whack> Look up "continental slope" <whack> and "continental rise". These are <whack> technical terms. <whack>)

Where the North Atlantic ocean Floor meets North America you have a sudden change in miner[a]logy and density.

Yes...

A change that in other situations would lead a geologist to consider the two masses to be geologically separate bodies.

<whack> Except that "tectonic plate" isn't <whack> defined as "geologically separate body". <whack> It's defined as "lithosphere <whack> material that moves as a unit at the moment". <whack>

That's why we talk of a "Eurasian plate" even though it consists of a large number of continents that collided throughout the last 270 million years or so: there hasn't been any movement at the Ural Mountains or the Variscan chain or the Hercynian chain or the Kunlun Shan for a long, long time. There was a separate Bohemian plate in the Devonian; there is no more.

<whack> Many plates contain both continental <whack> and oceanic crust. It's normal. <whack>

What am I getting at here? Namely that certain people are letting a reliance on the voice of authority to overrule observation and fact.

<whack> You, that is. The voice of authority <whack> is that of TV, and the observations <whack> and facts you overrule are <whack> those that you don't know. It's <whack> a textbook example of the Dunning-<whack>-Kruger effect. <whack>

Now add in the fact that the floor of the North Atlantic is disappearing. Last I heard the ocean floor, even at its oldest, is younger than the ocean.

<whack> Wrong, <whack> wrong, <whack> wrong. <whack>

<whack> At the US east coast <whack> and at the west coast of Morocco through <whack> Senegal or so, the oceanic crust <whack> is Middle Jurassic in age, <whack> just like the ocean! <whack> No subduction has happened. <whack> Except off the Lesser Antilles, <whack> which lie on the Caribbean plate, which <whack> is a piece of broken-off <whack> Pacific floor that moved in <whack> between North and South America <whack> when they were drifting apart <whack> (now they're coming together again, because <whack> the Earth is round – all straight <whack> lines that aren't parallel meet sooner or later). <whack>

<whack> What ignorant source was it that <whack> made up the claim that there's any <whack> North Atlantic seafloor missing?!? <whack>

Consider what that ocean floor runs into after a few hundred billion years. A dense rock meeting a lighter rock. What happens in similar situations around the world?

<whack> Once again: the Americas are moving <whack> with the eastern Atlantic seafloor. <whack> The seafloor doesn't meet them. It <whack> doesn't move relative to them. <whack>

(Also, please refrain from writing "a few hundred billion" when you mean "170 million"...)

from what observation tells us the ocean floor is moving faster than the continent

Wrong.

For it turns out that eastern North America is moving west slower than it other wise would thanks to a spreading center, a hot spot sort of like the one that gave us Iceland and Hawaii. We call this spreading center the Nevada Basin.

The whole thing still moves west. It's just that the part west of this feature – which might one day become a pull-apart basin, though more likely it'll just fade out – is moving west even faster than the part east of it all the way to the mid-Atlantic ridge.

I've been meaning to ask you, David M., if anyone familiar with US television has said you remind them of Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory.

Hasn't happened so far, and I know neither the character nor the rest of the sitcom... comment 274 tells me it's a sitcom... can someone help me out? :-) As for how many languages I speak, see near the beginning of the previous incarnation of this thread. Or, wait, probably the one before.

How are the Eurasian and North American plates pulling the Mid Atlantic Ridge apart? I've shown you the mechanism whereby upwelling magma pushes the ridge apart, and you give me fairy tales.

See "ridge push" and "slab pull" above.

You want citations? How about any number of videos and technical reports on the MAR?

Yeah, how about them?

How about them!?!

Bring them on already! We're waiting!!!

The engine behind the Mid Atlantic Ridge and the spreading of the Atlantic Ocean has been studied and well established.

Exactly. You just slept through it.

No shit. Ever hear about the New Madrid earthquakes?

The key term here is triple junction. When continents break, it's common that three straight fractures go out from a point at angles of 120°. Usually, two of them go on to become an ocean, while the third dies. Sometimes horses are changed in midstream – the Baffin Sea is older than the North Atlantic on the other side of Greenland; Greenland first stayed with Europe, then switched sides.

The Mississippi valley (roughly) is such a third branch of which the other two formed the Gulf of Mexico (between North and South America) in the Middle and Late Jurassic and then ended up subducted in the complex geology of the region. It's almost dead, but not quite. Every few hundred years it still makes a bit of noise...

I'm getting my flight to Germany for the worldcup sponsored.

:-|

As long as you're against the Germans...

(Asportual male here.)

I'm all too fond of chocolate, but have never had anything finer than their caramels in dark chocolate, with hefty chunks of sea salt on top.

Salt in chocolate sounds crazy, but I've had that general kind of chocolat aux éclats de caramel et aux cristaux de sel de Noirmoutier or so. Bought it when it was on special offer (and limited edition) at a big, cheap supermarket in Paris. A delight. A delight, I'm telling you. :-9

Munching cookies baked by mother and sister right now. :-) :-) :-)

Loot. Arrrrr! My brother got a satire book: Alles, alles über Deutschland. Subtitle: "Half-knowledge in compact form". Sticker: "The book to the sticker". From this and the back cover ("[...] in cooperation with renowned parascientists [...]"), it seems like there actually is such a thing as a non-Bavarian German with an internationally comprehensible sense of humor. I shall find out.

(...Actually, the book doesn't tell if the author is Bavarian. Hmmm.)

I got a book with satires about Austrian politicians of the last 10 years. Can't explain any of those inside jokes. :-þ

I just got a comment held for moderation. There was not a single link in it, and no Viagra, Cialis, or Caledonian either. Was my geology rant too repetitive?

Ah, it's through now.

No loots here, except for the loot I got in World of Warcraft. (You get presents under the Winter Veil tree.) My boyfriend and I agreed, that having got the apartment unpacked and incidentally, full to bursting, we weren't going to get more loots to throw the unpacked-and-clean balance off. Instead we're having a nice Squidmas dinner and treating ourselves to massages sometime next week. :)

Not getting presents or worrying about presents is surprisingly stress-free.

I played Civ all night long last night, and gave myself (India) the continent to show me that I love me.

Was my geology rant too repetitive?

Not for me. Very lucid and clear. And in general agreement with what I have read over the years. If held, I suspect it was for length, not for whacking the pseudoscientist.

All I'm going to say is that one of my squidmas gifts has just finished destroying my christmas tree. But I can't get mad at the "gift". Too cute. :P

David, you must be tired from all that whacking. Nice geology lesson for the rest of us, though.

Wow. You got a beaver for Christmas?

... can someone help me out? :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyQz8jWAl7s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6OOPqqxsyQ

Wow. You got a beaver for Christmas?

Reading up a thread often proves interesting.

Wow. You got a beaver for Christmas?

Worse. Much worse.

In his cute furry little head, everything looks like a toy. And he has claws... and small pointy teeth....

The roomie and I are about to have xmas dinner at her mom's house. I find it a little backwards to have xmas dinner on xmas day, but I'm guessing it's a Cajun thing. Anyway it's a costume dinner. Last year it was Ten Commandments (I was Memnet), and this year it's welfare stereotypes. I tried to go for welfare queen, but it didn't work out. So now I'm the druggie thug teen boyfriend.

Hello! May I just remark that I coated my turkey with buttered BACON yesterday? I'm sure that fits with the thread...

I just got a comment held for moderation. There was not a single link in it, and no Viagra, Cialis, or Caledonian either. Was my geology rant too repetitive?

I think the problem was the gumby blockquotes you used. There were six of them, and even though they all pointed to the same URL, which was local to scienceblogs, the URL counter doesn't seem to care about that.

If you use an internal URL, it might work better -- something like this:

<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); background: transparent url(/pharyngula/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) no-repeat scroll 0% 0%; min-height: 64px; padding-left: 52px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Silly Text</blockquote>

Which should look the same, but I'll of course test it:

Silly Text

And now I'll test six of them in a row. Sorry if this gets repetitive:

Silly Text 1

test

Silly Text 2

blah

Silly Text 3

foo

Silly Text 4

does

Silly Text 5

this

Silly Text 6

work?

Success !!

+1

Explanation of crusts, ridges, plates, subduction and so forth was greatly appreciated. Thanks, David M. -- but all that whacking made me tired.

Owlmirror gets the gumby genius award.

Did no one get a beaver for Christmas?

On the Mormon Prophecy thread someone (llewelly?) posted a link to Rachel Maddow tearing gleefully into the John Birch Society. The JBS is sponsoring the 2010 CPAC meeting where all the conservative Republicans (is that redundant?) get together and make action plans.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/12/john_birch_society_sponsors_m…
They're back.

Lynna, that makes your scarf a very nice indigo, no? Mmmm. Indigo.

Mmmm. Indigo ... maybe. I'm thinking it over. Maybe indigo with a hint of lapis lazuli. Anyway, I love color and should learn more about the chemistry behind it.

Did no one get a beaver for Christmas?

Sadly, no. When I was 8 I got a coon skin hat like Fess Parker wore on the Davy Crockett tv show. Does that count?

Reading up a thread often proves interesting.

Not unlike pissing up a rope, what?

Anyone watch the new Doctor Who yet?

This Christmas was a 0.8 on the Time Cube scale. I have WAAAY too many uncles with personality disorders. Actual conversation:

"Look at this picture. It's your cousin. Isn't she hot?!"
"Yeah, she's pretty."
"A nice girl for you..."
"But she's my cousin."
"She's hot though."
"But she's my cousin."
"So what? When I was 13 I used to make out with a very fat cousin of mine all the time."

He then preceeded to tell me some of his strip club anecdotes and showed me some pictures on his cell phone of the pink panther fucking minnie mouse. This man is 48 years old.

Merry Christmas everybody.

/venting

When I was 13 I used to make out with a very fat cousin of mine all the time."

Okay, Uncle Ernie. Um. Er. Say, how 'bout them Colts? Think they'll stay undefeated?

Re: F@333

I was waiting for the axe to fall David M. to post. I was not disappointed.

If bored, perhaps a short statement on the Taconic, Alleghanian, Appalachian orogenies. Just to sow confusion and bewilderment. Happy Wotsit. :)

I did not know that about the New Madrid fault - that it is part of a triple-junction system. Cool.

boygenius @ 337

Ween. :D However did you know?

I'm generally more source than sink in the gift department 'round here. So yestereve was the standard endless wrapping session so stockings are properly stuffed...

But y'know... Gotta wrap somethin' for yourself so Daddy has something to unwrap too on the morn'... So I wrapped myself a pair of awesome Cloudveil pants I scored at MEC a few weeks ago at a clearance price. They're augmenting a very well-used pair more meant for colder/drier conditions.

I love these things. Built to take a serious beating.

F:

NOT a Ween fan, just an amateur musicologist who will listen to anything and everything at least once. Some songs just lodge themselves into your subconscious. I almost put up a disclaimer when I posted the Ween link but I figured the grown-ups on the Everlasting Thread could handle it better than the general public on the main site. (What with teh misogyny & all.) My actual musical tastes basically parallel those of Sven. Improv., baby, improv.

Gyeong Hwa Pak, the Pikachu of Anthropology @ 81

I don't know how I missed you comment here. I was looking for a response, because I just had to know.

You are right to assume that Gyeong is my surname. In traditional E.A. and Burmese rendering, the first part of the name would be the surname. But!!!!!!! Gyeong isn't a typical Korean surname while Pak is! Try and guess which is right!!! Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!one!!!!!!!!!

This succinctly yet forcefully describe my quandary. It happens occasionally when I am unsure if someone from a culture which places a surname first is presenting his name in a "westernized" manner, particularly when each part of the name seems, to my limited ability to discern, equally likely to be a surname or a personal name!

It was a challenge. But it ended simply in a guess, based only on a subtle feeling that you might place your surname first. Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!one!!!!!!!!!, indeed! :D

AJ Milne@340

Merry Squidmas to you! Cloudveil gear rocks. Too bad for me that my riding/skiing days are basically over due to a L5-S1 herniated disc. I now get to live vicariously through Warren Miller films and other awesome back-country extreme skiing/boarding videos.

I've been enjoying this of late (checked out the rest and didn't love it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf0r5CZxrIE

Just got this CD as a gift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlpgNsJsNKI

Pretty song.

OK, boygenius. Maybe something more like this would be up your alley? Improv is a big place. :)

F,

Improv. is indeed a big place. Ornette certainly knows how to fill it. Cacophony has its place in a composition, but personally I don't think it needs to be all-consuming. I had something more like this in mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1igVj3w8KE

It was a challenge. But it ended simply in a guess, based only on a subtle feeling that you might place your surname first. Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!one!!!!!!!!!, indeed! :D

Your wrong, it's Kim!

boygenius:

Improv. is indeed a big place. Ornette certainly knows how to fill it.

More post-Trane than post-Ornette, but I like it.

Why are there even grammatical contractions?! *grumbles*

Lizzie Borden* is still ahead in the count. It'll be fun to watch David get out in front.

*(of legend)

Your wrong, it's Kim!

Hokay, you have lost me now! You win!

Let me work this out.

You are right to assume that Gyeong is my surname.

So it would be sensible to assume this...

Your wrong, it's Kim!

but it is incorrect in fact? :^0

Your secret identity?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWmBxWN9jM0 @ 9:26

Well, I'm going to have to dissect the formatting on that one. I had the opportunity to preview, and I threw it all away.

Damnit, is no-one paying any attention to me? I said "buttered bacon". Did you not hear me? BUTTERED. BACON. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!

Hokay, you have lost me now! You win!

Let me work this out.

You are right to assume that Gyeong is my surname.

So it would be sensible to assume this...

Your wrong, it's Kim!

but it is incorrect in fact? :^0

Your secret identity?

It's teh interwebs! The surname to my pseudonym can be anything that I want. (One of them IS my real surname. Take a guess!)

Cath, is it bacon-flavored butter?

Just got this CD as a gift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlpgNsJsNKI

Pretty song.

A voice like Tweety, but nice music ..:-)

Cath, is it bacon-flavored butter?

On holiday the other week I walked past a Hotel, they had their menu outside on a board, one of the items was "prime rib steak wrapped in bacon". The concept appears utterly strange to a european, but nevertheless I thought of Pharyngula...:-) (but didnt take a photo)

Two days on the coast, now I'm back home and with proper computer access again. Christmas was fun and all, but fuck I'm glad to be home. Now to spend the next week relaxing...

Two days on the coast, now I'm back home and with proper computer access again

I have a rather antiquated laptop that I don't use much, but I got one of them wireless dongles for it to take it up to the gold coast with me, that was awesome ! Downing beers at Cooly Hotel and surfing the net at the same time, very 21st century !

+1

Really need to get a laptop & wireless broadband before mid-march.

Really need to get a laptop & wireless broadband before mid-march.

Are you planning on live-blogging the convention? Does that mean you're coming? :-) Hope you do !
I'll do no such thing, I be nursing my headache from the previous night while pretending to be listening to the speakers...:-)

Oh, and, ahem, I want to date a particular jewish girl, who I think sort of values her religion, and lives its traditions to a degree, any tips ? Pitfalls, caveats, do-not-ever-go-there topics? Be glad for any help from the religiously schooled horde here...:-)

I reckon this thread has so far lacked a good relationship advice sub-thread anyway :D

Really need to get a laptop & wireless broadband before mid-march.

So you are coming? Awesome. Got your ticket yet?

@Epikt:

That's good shit. I prefer a little structure to my improv.

@Cath:

Of course we all butter our bacon.

Thank you Mr T, boygenius, I feel much better now. I think I needed to chuck a little wobbly after biting my tongue so hard around this year's Xmas guests.

I am pretty damn cross that I'm expected to bite my tongue no matter where I am. Is it not correct that if I shut up at SIL's place, she should shut up at mine? Grrr. Lee Fucking Strobel. The "no proselytising" sign on my door is not evaded by covering it with wrapping paper and tinsel and giving it to someone who is not me.

Bacon, with butter on, has a purpose. If you butter the bacon liberally, it sticks to the turkey much better. And a totally bacon covered turkey is a very fine thing.

Are you planning on live-blogging the convention? Does that mean you're coming? :-) Hope you do !

Possibly, that is if I get a laptop and wireless broadband.

So you are coming? Awesome. Got your ticket yet?

Yes, I bought my ticket months ago when I thought it would sell out. No idea for how to get there or accommodation yet, but I'll figure that out in time.

I wonder what time it will finish up on the Sunday. Devin Townsend is playing in Melbourne that night so if I can I'll go from a Dawkins talk to some Devy Metal!

Well I see you there then I hope !! Planning on arriving June 27 at this point.we shall have to watch at least one game together :-)

:-|
As long as you're against the Germans...
(Asportual male here.)

pffft

and anyway, weren't we supposed to descend upon Paris to celebrate that PhD you're supposed to be getting sometime around then...?

let's try this again, without the blockquote fail :-p

Well I see you there then I hope !! Planning on arriving June 27 at this point.

we shall have to watch at least one game together :-)

:-|
As long as you're against the Germans...
(Asportual male here.)

pffft

and anyway, weren't we supposed to descend upon Paris to celebrate that PhD you're supposed to be getting sometime around then...?

-----

oh yeah, in all the excitement I forgot to mention the loads of Mon Chéri's i got from various family members who know that the U.S. is an uncivilized country where they don't exist :-)

Rorschach,

Oh, and, ahem, I want to date a particular jewish girl, who I think sort of values her religion, and lives its traditions to a degree, any tips ? Pitfalls, caveats, do-not-ever-go-there topics?

I've been monogamous since my teens, but FWIW I suggest you be upfront about being atheistic if/when the issue comes up. Doesn't mean you can't accomodate her religious needs...

(Unless you want to be a heel.)

we shall have to watch at least one game together :-)

Quarterfinal against Rehakles and the greeks would be fun..:-)

and anyway, weren't we supposed to descend upon Paris to celebrate that PhD you're supposed to be getting sometime around then...?

Oh I'm all for that ! Nothing like a 250 Euro per night Hotel in Paris ! (Unless you want to stay in La Defense, where you can get away with 100 Euro, but might as well be in Trier or Luxemburg as far as travel to the city is concerned)

oh yeah, in all the excitement I forgot to mention the loads of Mon Chéri's i got from various family members who know that the U.S. is an uncivilized country where they don't exist :-)

In all honesty, I hate Mon Cheri....:-) Never got the whole chocolate with spirits business...
I am very pleased that Ferrero Rocher has made it to Australia, however !

No idea for how to get there or accommodation yet, but I'll figure that out in time.

I'm going to fly over; flights from Adelaide aren't that much. I haven't sorted any accommodation yet - though I do seem to remember a vague possibility of there being space on the floor of Chez Rorschach - though that's yet to be confirmed...

Yeah well, chez Rorschach does yet have to be opened, and I will be moving away from my pole position 2 minutes from the convention centre to god knows where about 3 days before the party starts, talk about bad timing....:-)
The BoS and I are working on it though, there will be somewhere to crash for everyone that's for sure, so keep tuning in for updates LOL

...Rehakles...

definitely need more coffee. That took me a couple minutes to figure out, hehe

Oh I'm all for that ! Nothing like a 250 Euro per night Hotel in Paris ! (Unless you want to stay in La Defense, where you can get away with 100 Euro, but might as well be in Trier or Luxemburg as far as travel to the city is concerned)

lol, how adorably privileged of you. Hotels are for people with real jobs. As a Starving Artist™, I would be looking at the 3 Duck Hostel, for 18 Euro ;-)

The BoS and I are working on it though, there will be somewhere to crash for everyone that's for sure, so keep tuning in for updates LOL

Well, I'm having lunch with my ex-flatmate who's over from Melbourne tomorrow; I'll hit staying with her up as an option if need be. It's really only for the purpose of what little sleep is required between the conference functions and tearing up the town with the godsless drunken hordes anyway!

It's really only for the purpose of what little sleep is required between the conference functions and tearing up the town with the godsless drunken hordes anyway!

Now that's the spirit...:-) It will all resolve in a month or two, but the BoS and I both have more mundane issues to attend to at the moment unfortunately lol...

Hotels are for people with real jobs. As a Starving Artist™, I would be looking at the 3 Duck Hostel, for 18 Euro ;-)

Yeah, but we could just all convene at David's place, right? As long as he owns a plasma...:-)

on a different subject, this FSTDT quote needs to be posted at the Intersection, because accommodationism works soooo well *rolleyes*

On an even more different subject, here are 3 songs from Austria :

I am from Austria--Reinhard Fendrich

Mir geht es wie dem Jesus--Wolfgang Ambros

Es lebe der Zentralfriedhof--Wolfgang Ambros

Pshaw. This is the only Austrian song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFHujvkacNY&feature=fvw

Once again I fell behind. Sometimes life kind of overwhelms me and I need to gafiate for awhile (get away from it all, or gafia). Now I'm back to add a bit more to the sub-topic on tectonics and rifting.

Previous comments have mention such things as the Madrid Fault and the Great Basin of Nevada. Once you know what to look for both are rather obvious geological features, but there was a time when such things were considered unpossible in the middle of a plate. Plates were inviolate things that stayed intact unless and until subducted beneath another plate. An then we discovered the East African Rift Valley. A tectonic plate was being torn apart, how rude.

Well, now that we knew such things happen, we could look for it in other locations. In North America we've found at least two; the spreading center under Nevada, and the now inactive rift valley in the in the middle of the United States we named the Madrid Fault. (The Yellowstone supervolcano is a spreading center, but much more active than the Great Basin spreading center of Nevada. So we call it a supervolcano and treat it as something different from a regular spreading center.)

The Great Basin complicates things where North America's movement is concerned. When the Great Basin is doing is making North America is larger. Magma is welling up, adding volume and area the the continent, and more specifically to the United States. Now, since our borders are based on latitude and longitude, this means that every year a few square inches of American territory becomes Canadian or Mexican territory under international law. Where the North American plate is concerned, the Great Basin is in effect pushing North America east of it eastward. This in the face of the westward motion imparted by the Mid Atlantic Ridge. As far as I know eastern North America is still moving westward, but at a lower speed than the floor of the North Atlantic. A relatively fast moving ocean floor meeting a slower moving continent that happens to be moving in the same direction as the ocean floor. The denser basalt is not going to be forced under the lighter granite?

So where is the trench where the floor of the North Atlantic and North America meet?

Except for a short stretch south of the United States the trench is buried under the talus of the continental shelf off the eastern coast of North America. It's a hidden trench, much like that between continent and ocean floor at locations where the respective plates are moving towards each other.

How to test this? Set up a line of markers on the ocean floor about a mile from the continental shelf and another line of markers on the continental shelf itself and monitor them. My prediction is that the ocean floor markers will get closer to the continental shelf markers. In addition, as time goes by the ocean floor markers will be buried beneath the continental shelf talus slope material. Obviously this would be a long term project, taking a decade or so before the movement becomes obvious. In science patience can be more important than critical thinking.

I'll be looking at the Madrid Fault and the new born Mid Atlantic Ridge later, for now I hope you all are having a good St. Stephen's Day (The Feast of Steven Good King Wenceslas went out on in the song). Also known as Returns Day in the United States.

mythusmage, weren't you going to provide citations?

Also, it would be nice if you addressed other's comments instead of repeating the same unfounded assertions over and over again.

David @314:

from what observation tells us the ocean floor is moving faster than the continent

Wrong.

You @378:

As far as I know eastern North America is still moving westward, but at a lower speed than the floor of the North Atlantic.

No citations, no evidence... How are we supposed to take you seriously?

Boxing Day, yes?

Ah, The Thread giveth: Ornette, the Dead* @ The Capitol (classic show) and Dave Holland right in a row? Oh so nice.
And, straight-lines like these?

all that whacking made me tired
Did no one get a beaver for Christmas?

IRL, I got some clothing, but my daughter got a drumset from the Rich Aunt and I'll be treating that as a gift to me as well.

*I was coincidentally present (at least in body) both of the times that Ornette Coleman sat in with the Dead. More of historical than musical interest, unfortunately.

No citations, no evidence... How are we supposed to take you seriously?

I agree. Without evidence via citations to the scientific literature, you have nothing but blather, and are essentially trolling to get a rise out of the real scientists. Another wasted post, unless our SIWOTI experts wish to give you more thorough scientific whacking.

my daughter got a drumset from the Rich Aunt

"If thy neighbor aggrieves thee, buy each of his children a drum." -Attributed to Confucius

Good King Sauerkraut, look out!
On his feets uneven,
While the snoo lay round about,
All kerchoo acheiven'.

It's a pity Walt Kelly wasn't around for the last ten or so years. He would have fun with Clinton, BushCo, et al.

His most famous cartoon.

GOAT ON FIRE!!!!

Vandals torch Swedish Yuletide straw goat for 24th time

'Tis Himself, the Walt Kelly cartoon (link @384), reminded me of Ian Frazier's article, A Reporter at Large, “Travels in Siberia-I,” from The New Yorker, August 3, 2009

I do so enjoy a trash-free expedition in the backcountry of Idaho, that to think of it being common to throw one's trash here and there ... well it's more than my poor mind can bear.

Ian Frazier told of stopping to eat lunch and having his guide clear a spot of just enough trash to lay out the luncheon, the after-lunch debris being left to add to the growing piles. There was also an overnight camp set up in a campground that Frazier described as being like "camping in the town dump."

Here in the U.S. we are actually quite good at cleaning up our own messes some of the time. I wonder if people will adopt the cavalier attitude of Frazier's Russian companions if everyone starts leaving their trash along the roadsides and in the backcountry? Bleh.

In our own country, one can drive from Idaho to Las Vegas and see very little roadside trash, until, that is, one approaches Vegas. The trash is the first indicator that you're closing in on an abomination.

Feynmaniac @385: Wow! That was some goat before it was burned. See http://epi.gavle.se/gk/t_english.aspx?id=9138

The Gävle Goat has been burned down 22 times since then. This year we celebrate his 40th birthday and the best present we could give him is to keep him alive. We have therefore impregnated him with flame retardant chemicals, which will keep him fire proof. We did try this some 10 years ago, but the chemicals were then washed off by the rain.
The new chemicals are water and snowproof - and often used in airplanes - so we are very confident that the Gävle Goat will make it this year.

Do not open this door! Do not push the button! Do NOT burn the goat!

OK, Pikachu. Allow me to re-phrase that:

Given that any display name may or may not be a pseudonym, and that your display name, if I understand correctly, is a pseudonym: Would I be correct in thinking that Gyeong would be the surname in this case? (From previous posts, it would seem so.)

I have absolutely no intention of trying to guess or find out your legal name. :p I only wanted to know if I was correct in my form of address. :D

But it has been fun!

Burn the goat
(Don't burn the goat, baby)
Burn the goat
(Don't tip the goat over)

The BoS and I are working on it though, there will be somewhere to crash for everyone that's for sure, so keep tuning in for updates LOL

If nothing else, I'll do my usual crashing at a youth hostel that has served me well for any gig I've been to in Sydney.

Dania:

Apparently, mythusmage is going to set up an empirical study, so perhaps well have a reply in 10-20 years.

Getting a grant for this study may take a very long time, so perhaps the answer will be much longer in coming.

Given that any display name may or may not be a pseudonym, and that your display name, if I understand correctly, is a pseudonym: Would I be correct in thinking that Gyeong would be the surname in this case? (From previous posts, it would seem so.)

Yes, I actually do respond to Mr. Gyeong. So you are correct.

Whaddya mean, burn the goat? Goats are there to be knocked, not burnt!

#378 + 379 + 380 + 382

Totally agree with Dania and Nerd. As I have said before, I really don't feel like wasting my time on every troll that comes here. This one spouts nonsense as has been demonstrated. He has been challenged to provide evidence. He has not. He cannot. He has failed.

PROVE ME WRONG mythusmage!

If nothing else, I'll do my usual crashing at a youth hostel that has served me well for any gig I've been to in Sydney.

I'm a long way from being a youth so me staying at a youth hostel would probably meet the dictionary definition of 'creepy'...

Mr. Fire now has competition. My brother and I do have other fans, and some of them have been sending us touching missives.

The fan letter below is memorable because, if I read it correctly, I am no longer the embodiment of Satan, but have become a reflector of the light of God:

Dear Leland & Lynna,
     To each of us comes a special gift - a way to bring light & reflect the light of God in our life.
     You so exemplify this.
     This tender & loving tribute [Backcountry Roads, Idaho book] to God's beauty has the place of honor in our waiting room at Living Hope Clinic. Thank you. Mrs. Rice

I appreciate anyone's appreciation of my work, including Mrs. Rice's. At least this fan did not come right out and say, "You do believe in God, you just refuse to admit it. Without God, you couldn't do this." (Yes, we've been told that, and more ... several times.)

The concept of "God's beauty" gives me pause, but nevertheless, here I am, yours truly,
Reflector of the Light of God

Mr. Gyeong:

Hooray! Evil laughs accepted and thoroughly enjoyed.

It has been an honor making your acquaintance. :-bd

One more thing:

So where is the trench where the floor of the North Atlantic and North America meet?

Except for a short stretch south of the United States the trench is buried under the talus of the continental shelf off the eastern coast of North America. It's a hidden trench, much like that between continent and ocean floor at locations where the respective plates are moving towards each other.

Assuming this is right and there is a subduction zone on the east coast of North America, shouldn't there be volcanoes over there (as well as more earthquakes)? Wouldn't its geology be radically different from what it is?

If mythusmage were right, wouldn't there be evidence?

The concept of "God's beauty" gives me pause, but nevertheless, here I am,Reflector of the Light of God

I would take Mrs. Rice's letter as a compliment. Having looked at Leland's photographs and having more than a nodding acquaintance with your prose, I'm sure your book is a pleasure to look through and read.

The ones who are really after people's children are the death-cultists - and they are being calculatingly dishonest rather than genuinely caring with their own wedge strategy.

Condolences to Feynmaniac and to my stomach.

If held, I suspect it was for length, not for whacking the pseudoscientist.

Nothing has ever been held for length on ScienceBlogs, and mine was just 9 laptop screens long anyway. :-)

I think the problem was the gumby blockquotes you used. There were six of them, and even though they all pointed to the same URL, which was local to scienceblogs, the URL counter doesn't seem to care about that.

"How stupid of me not to think of this myself!"
– T. H. Huxley

Your wrong, it's Kim!

Joker FTW. I wonder if Negaduck could surpass him, but, alas, I've never watched an entire episode of Darkwing Duck...

And a totally bacon covered turkey is a very fine thing.

Or so I've read.

pffft

Actually, if I'll be in Vienna, I'll likely watch part of it simply because the TV will be on (my sisters will watch).

and anyway, weren't we supposed to descend upon Paris to celebrate that PhD you're supposed to be getting sometime around then...?

Paris and/or Vienna, yes. I'll have the actual defense in one place and "a presentation of a summary" in the other.

Oh I'm all for that ! Nothing like a 250 Euro per night Hotel in Paris ! (Unless you want to stay in La Defense, where you can get away with 100 Euro, but might as well be in Trier or Luxemburg as far as travel to the city is concerned)

Hah. La Défense, the place where Mitterrand built his own arc de triomphe, is the end of Métro line 1. It's just barely outside the city proper.

Concerning prices, try to find a Formule 1, an Etap'hotel (not sure about the spelling), or simply a youth hostel (there's one very close to where the Bastille was), though of course youth hostels have other disadvantages.

Yeah, but we could just all convene at David's place, right? As long as he owns a plasma...:-)

No TV whatsoever in my room (though I understand some of the neighbors have one), and I'll have to stack you vertically – 17 m² including kitchen sink, fridge, shower, sink, cupboard, desk, and even the bathroom walls. Apart from that, you're all welcome :-)

Will it be streamed live through the tubes of teh intarwebz? In that improbable case there's hope on the TV issue, as long as the connection stays fast enough, which it doesn't always do.

On an even more different subject, here are 3 songs from Austria :

Nobody shall ever mention Austropop again, for the entire genre is of evil, as is The Sound of Music.

It's great material for parody, though. I know a great one of a famous Austropop song, I just don't know how to search for a YouTube video of it... wouldn't make sense anyway if you don't know the kitschy original, and you can't make sense of either unless you understand generic southeastern German dialects...

An then we discovered the East African Rift Valley. A tectonic plate was being torn apart, how rude.

More specifically, it has broken in two. The continent is breaking apart, and if this went on, a new ocean would form. (Most likely it won't, though. Most of the rift is in fact dead.)

(The Yellowstone supervolcano is a spreading center, but much more active than the Great Basin spreading center of Nevada. So we call it a supervolcano and treat it as something different from a regular spreading center.)

It's all part of the same pull-apart basin structure. Look up the term Basin and Range.

Magma is welling up, adding volume and area the the continent

Nope. The continent gets slightly broader (east-west), taller, and thinner; it doesn't gain any volume. The region between the Rocky Mountains and the west coast is lifted up like the top half of a growing bubble. Extension. Thinning.

Now, since our borders are based on latitude and longitude, this means that every year a few square inches of American territory becomes Canadian or Mexican territory under international law.

There isn't any north-south extension as far as I know.

Where the North American plate is concerned, the Great Basin is in effect pushing North America east of it eastward.

No, because the Great Basin is not fixed to a longitude. It moves westward, in fact.

This in the face of the westward motion imparted by the Mid Atlantic Ridge.

So you still haven't bothered to look up ridge push and slab pull.

Do you know what that makes you?

As far as I know eastern North America is still moving westward, but at a lower speed than the floor of the North Atlantic.

:-| Thank you for demonstrating that not only creationists are capable of repeating an already disproved claim as if nobody had ever contradicted it. <applause>

It's a hidden trench

It's hidden in your head.

For crying out loud, a trench without evidence for it in an area where a lot of oil exploration has been done would be a <whack> miracle!

How to test this? Set up a line of markers on the ocean floor about a mile from the continental shelf and another line of markers on the continental shelf itself and monitor them. My prediction is that the ocean floor markers will get closer to the continental shelf markers. In addition, as time goes by the ocean floor markers will be buried beneath the continental shelf talus slope material. Obviously this would be a long term project, taking a decade or so before the movement becomes obvious.

This sounds entirely reasonable, so why did I put it in Comic Sans?

Because it was done long ago, using satellites, you ignorant slut. The movements of a lot of the Earth's crust is known down to the millimeter per year.

Because it's a textbook case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in other words!

I'm a long way from being a youth so me staying at a youth hostel would probably meet the dictionary definition of 'creepy'...

That's not how it works. Being a youth merely makes staying there cheaper.

If mythusmage were right, wouldn't there be evidence?

Shh. Yes.

Apparently all that evidence is too old, or something.

and you can't make sense of either unless you understand generic southeastern German dialects...

Sorry. For those you actually need to know some specifically Viennese vocabulary.

Anyway. Let's talk about something more enjoyable. The "Brachiosaurus" is Giraffatitan, though, and Breviparopus is not an animal, it's the footprints of an animal which may or may not have been a "brachiosaurid". Also, some of the beasts are known from a single bone or a few, so the reconstruction is mostly that of Giraffatitan scaled to another size... still, it's awesome.

Look up the term Basin and Range.

Even better, the book, by John McPhee.
(Just gave my father another McPhee masterpiece for xmas.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq0EWNuR1H8

Yes, I actually do respond to Mr. Gyeong. So you are correct.

Which honorific should I use to get my comment accepted on your blog? ;)

(or maybe you didn't want to discuss geographical info given your recent experience with Mabus?...)

Today I wrote a refutation of William Lane Craig's argument from existence. i.e. why is there something rather than nothing. Feedback would be appreciated.

I propose the next iteration of this thread be titled: The Kraken at the Bottom of Pharyngula Deep.

It has been an honor making your acquaintance. :-bd

And thank you for playing guess my name!

Joker FTW. I wonder if Negaduck could surpass him, but, alas, I've never watched an entire episode of Darkwing Duck...

Everyone always side with the Joker these day.

Which honorific should I use to get my comment accepted on your blog? ;)

None really. Originally, I put up moderation because I didn't want a horde of Khmer/Thai nationalist putting up propaganda. Just mabus happens to be the only one that commented. Just push the comment link (it's in Korean though. I'll change it to German in a bit lol.)

Just push the comment link (it's in Korean though. I'll change it to German in a bit lol.)

Jawohl, sehr gut.

I'll have to stack you vertically

don't give him ideas, please.

also, eventually you'll need to inform us a wee bit more precisely where/when we're supposed to show up on your doorstep. :-p

I'm a long way from being a youth so me staying at a youth hostel would probably meet the dictionary definition of 'creepy'...

This is hostel, JA???

Kel, OM #407

I would have left a comment on your blog but there's never a visible verification with that software (it's been a glitch on my computer for some months).

The "there just gots ta be a creator" special pleading is a favorite among the more philosophical types. Aquinas loved it and it's been a mainstay for theologians over the centuries. You explain various objections to the argument well.

How does "everything was created except for one thing" differ from "everything was created except for a thousand things" or whatever number you can posit including infinity? It amazes me that supposedly intelligent, educated philosophers like Lane Craig keep trotting out this argument. It was answered about 750 years ago shortly after Aquinas first mentioned it. I suppose if they can't come up with new arguments for the existence of gawd then they've got to recycle old, already discredited arguments in hopes that the listener is either ignorant or not paying attention.

Happy Belated Bacchanalia to all.

I would have made inane comments earlier, but fuck if Scienceblogs/Typepad/? and its ear-fuckingly irritating system didn't fuck me over again and again.

Anyway, my present was the Nintendo Wii. Mrs. Fire's present, however, was all the playing time associated that machine...

*sets off nuclear bomb to distract her...fails...*

Mr. Fire now has competition.

I will always be your first, and you never forget your first.

*adds finishing touches to entire wall of Lynna-related paraphernalia in dingy, creepy basement*

'Tis @399

I would take Mrs. Rice's letter as a compliment. Having looked at Leland's photographs and having more than a nodding acquaintance with your prose, I'm sure your book is a pleasure to look through and read.

Oh, yes, I agree with you. And I do take Mrs. Rice's letter as a compliment. It is strange to get so many compliments that connect Leland and I to God -- goes with the territory, I guess ... literally.

I sold a book to a nurse at the office of my general-practice doctor (now there's a miracle, finding a G.P. who's good at the job, but also well-connected to the necessary specialists); and this nurse takes the book and begins to run her hands over the photographs, read bits of prose, etc. as she turns the pages. Presently, she says, "God's work!" giving him authorial and photographic credit. It's a compliment all right, but it's still weird.

Mr. Fire @414

*adds finishing touches to entire wall of Lynna-related paraphernalia in dingy, creepy basement*

All right! Now that's what I call true fandom. However, you'll never get the vibrating lingerie. I've hired a bodyguard. [Has bodyguard check her six.]

In the text at the link SEF gave @ 400, there's also this comment:

The archbishop faces a difficult new year because of a continuing revolt over the ordination of women as bishops, with potentially hundreds of clergy converting to Roman Catholicism in protest over the issue, and the prolonged disintegration of the Anglican communion over gay and lesbian clergy. Added to this already combustible mix is a papal visit, the first from Benedict XVI. It will be their most public encounter since the papal decree allowing Anglicans to defect to Rome en masse.

So, the Anglicans have lost not just the little heathen children, but they are also losing the reactionary, misogynist, and homophobic men to the Catholics. I don't know but what it might be a good thing to have all those hetero-male-entitlement freaks in one place where it's easier to keep an eye on them.

I do happily note that you cannot make religion palatable by adding women and gays to the clergy. Less off-putting, perhaps, but still an institution loaded with harmful precepts.

And where was the Anglican clergy when 70,000 women in the UK were being shipped off to get their genitals mutilated; or, now, in an improvement in efficiency, being mutilated by "cutters" who are brought in from Somalia and other countries that find it imperative to slice and dice their women's nether regions? It might help in terms of recruiting teenagers if the church did something dramatically useful, like campaigning for women to retain their genitals intact.

Sven @404: I have that book. It's one of the few that I occasionally reread. I'm sure that geologists quibble with some of McPhee's explanations, but I still find his prose thrilling because he has that rare ability to stretch my thought process far back in time. Vivid and memorable. Hope your relatives enjoy the trip.

Kel @407: William Lane Craig annoys me, therefore I exist.

Kel, the parts of your refutation that I liked best gave specific examples, like this:

Take mountains for example. Now while one could argue that the forces of plate tectonics are greater than the mountains themselves, but the cause is not personal by any means.
Stars would be another example. The collapse of hydrogen clouds is external to the star itself, but the process that allows for the formation of stars is by no means greater than the star itself. And again, it's by no means personal. Only 300 years ago, Newton's laws posited the motion of the stars and planets, but the creation of planets and stars was the work of an almighty creator.

In the second example, the formation of stars, you gave us a twofer. We got the non-personal process, but we also got the example of this process being viewed as the work of an almighty creator as recently as 300 years ago. That in itself should make Craig leery of pronouncements about personal creators for the universe.

In the case of this sentence, "The only personal structures made by personal beings are humans", I get what you are trying to say (and it's clearer in the context of the paragraph), but it still stops me. I read it three times, and it still prompts me to come up with exceptions. Maybe a rewrite is in order there?

The discussion of an "intelligent mind" being a physical manifestation, and not an abstraction was well done. I liked that.

Also well done was the presentation of Victor Stenger's argument that nothing is more unstable than something.

"Promiscuous theology" -- :-) But should it be "incestuous theology"?

Ryanair tells me: "You can stay at a Hotel in Paris for €14 per night. BOOK NOW!"

also, eventually you'll need to inform us a wee bit more precisely where/when we're supposed to show up on your doorstep. :-p

Not so impatient! :-) A thesis defense can't be planned half a year in advance!

Today I wrote a refutation of William Lane Craig's argument from existence. i.e. why is there something rather than nothing. Feedback would be appreciated.

From there...

The argument goes as follows:

Anything that exists has an explanation of its existence: either its own nature or an external cause.

That "external cause" needs a very wide interpretation if it's supposed to hold. I'm thinking of quantum fluctuations here, the random, unpredictable, and uncaused appearance of particle-antiparticle pairs (or of particles outside this dichotomy, like photons) – "caused" only by the fact that it's not forbidden by the laws of physics.

This appearance causes a disappearance, which comes (on average) the sooner the heavier the appeared pair is. Funny thing is, the total energy of the universe (mass + potential energy) appears to be 0...

Why do so many philosophers appear to believe they don't need to know anything was discovered in physics in the last 100 years!?!

Did I miss something or has no one mentioned this yet?

Venomous prehistoric raptor discovery

Pretty cool.

Kel @407:

Pardon my philosphy-related ignorance, but does Lane Craig's position amount to the Cosmological Argument, dressed-up with rectally-sourced assertions?

Dania, the close-up view of the teeth was really impressive. Saber-tooth-like, and with a venom delivery system. Deadly.

The archbishop faces a difficult new year because of a continuing revolt over the ordination of women as bishops,

Anglicans in the UK, wikianswers:

So, how many of these 25 million actually attend church? Well, during four weeks in October 2000, the church counted it's congregation and found that an average of 1.7 million attended services throughout the week but only 1.4 million attended on Sunday. Like all churches in the western world Anglican congregations are falling but according to C of E statistics cathedral attendances in general and all attendances over Christmas and Easter are continuing to rise.

Religions can always have battles over the smallest things.

A lot of xian denominations ordain women. In fact several sects were founded by women, the Xian Scientists by Mary E. and the Seventh Day Adventists by some prophetess.

The amount of difference it actually made was around zero. My natal protestants sects started ordaining women sometime in the mid-20th century. A few kooks screamed and formed their own tiny splinter sect. No one else noticed or cared.

Looks like the UK Anglicans have more serious problems than that. Half the population checks the Anglican box. Only 1-2 million bother to go to church. The women as clergy issue looks like they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic.

Proofs 75... and 404. And 666 of course.

Sven, thanks for that beautiful rendition of Over the Rainbow! It made me smile for different reasons than Gyeong Hwa Pak's Killer Kitty laugh. :3

Anyway, my present was the Nintendo Wii. -Mr. Fire

Sweet. I finally got to try one out a month ago and was very impressed. While playing the tennis game I could see why the wrist straps were necessary. I came awfully close to bowling the Wiimote right into my TV, too. *goes back to playing Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the Nintendo DS*

Oh ya, love the new nick, Lynna (Reflector of the Light of God).

The 13,000-year old tree that survives by cloning itself title from the blog

Not Exactly Rocket Science

Someone found a tree that is older than twice the age of the universe.

These aren't single trees but clones that keep sprouting from stumps and root suckers.

This one is a Palmer Oak in California left over from before the end of the ice age.

There are a few such old living things known. One is a creosote bush in California that is 12,000 years old, a holly bush in Tasmania that is thought to be 43,000 years old and the only and last member of its species, and a spruce tree in Scandinavia that is 8,000 years old. No doubt if we looked harder we would find more examples.

I'm sure the fundies have some explanation for why trees and bushes can be much older than the age of the universe. Something incredibly dumb.

Did I miss something or has no one mentioned this yet?

It's almost certainly all wrong, what with the tooth having slipped way out of their sockets and having their hollow roots crushed. Start here (and don't forget to read the comments).

Teeth even.

David @427 and 429: Ah, David M., always the first to throw cold water into the face of those who haven't shown enough skepticism where skepticism is needed. Thanks for the link. Dino teeth -- definitely not my field of expertise.

One is a creosote bush in California that is 12,000 years old

King Clone. I have seen it. I have also found it on Google Earth; not so easy.

A thesis defense can't be planned half a year in advance!

Technically it's supposed to be, but I don't know if that ever happens...

Start here (and don't forget to read the comments).

Ah, thanks. Reading it now...

Lynna [#59], waiting for Sastra, OM:

Sastricipation.

I think it was strange gods before me who coined the term "Sastrology" for Sastra's highly anticipated teachings.

David says, "A thesis defense can't be planned half a year in advance!"

My thesis defense was kind of a rush job--mainly because my thesis itself was written in a hurry. I think I managed to convince my adviser that I needed to finish grad school before I went postal.

It was December 1987 (yup, that long ago!). I was at home with my folks for Xmas and saw a news story on the upcoming New Hampshire Primaries. Looking at the candidates fielded against George H. W. Bush (aka Mistake#1), I thought, "Ohhh! That doesn't look good!" I resolved to write my thesis, defend and be out of the country before the primaries. To graduate in May, you had to defend by late April. That gave me 4 months to write up (and validate) my results. By early April, I had a draft that wasn't too embarrassing to send out to my committee, and now I had to find a date for the defense. Big problem. The only date we could find where everyone could make it was 4:00 PM on the last Saturday in April. So that is when we had the defense.

The defense was kind of uneventful, aside from when I got to gently smack down the prof who was my nemesis in the department--well, that and the fact that I was wearing two black shoes that didn't match. But, hey, I'm a physicist. Nobody else noticed. And then I was a PhD, which is a whole helluva lot better than being a grad student.

So, David. Hang in. Write hard, and remember, the only person I know who won a Nobel for his doctoral dissertation was Louis Debroglie--well, and maybe Bob Schreiffer.

Oh, and Lynna @415:

However, you'll never get the vibrating lingerie. I've hired a bodyguard.

Too late. I've been wearing them for a month. Feels great. Surprised you didn't realize I'd replaced your bodyguard with a blow-up doll this whole time.

Yours in Psycho-stalkerdom,

Mr. Fire

I just spent all my christmas money on anthro-related books. XD

相愛太鼓

So I go and google the words "Atlantic Ocean Age" and get this.. Through that page, and a few intermediaries (forgot to take notes), I find this page on divergent plate boundaries.

'Tis a simple schematic, but it suffices to inform us all that we all got it wrong. The East North Atlantic and West North Atlantic plates are not being pulled by anything with upwelling magma filling the expanding gape, they are being pushed apart by the upwelling magma. My thinking that it was all the work of the accumulated ridge material slumping under its own weight is also wrong, though the mass of the ridge might still contribute.

In effect, the upwelling is forcing the rift apart, then carrying the ocean floor along east or west, depending on the direction the upwelling is diverted. Instead of pulling from the distal edge, the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is on a sort of conveyor.

Now from the evidence the Atlantic as an ocean is some 150 million years old. That appears to be the age of the oldest ocean floor, found off the coast of North America and Western Europe. The rest is at least 10s of millions of years younger.

That's the age of the ocean floor. It is possible, as with the Red Sea and Lake Baikal, that the nascent Atlantic Rift formed ocean floor pretty much from the start. However, it's far more likely that the Atlantic Ocean began as a rift valley, much like the East Afican Rift Valley, and longer ago than 150 million years ago.

Now this is what I've read, but it appears that Pangea was in the process of breaking up even as it formed. By the early Triassic the supercontinent was showing cracks and one of this may well have been the start of the Atlantic Rift Valley.

A low spot between the future continents of North America and Eurasia with a string of lakes much like that now found in East Africa. As time passed the valley widened, the continental crust overlaying it thinned, then in time was torn asunder to be replaced by oceanic crust. This may have been as recently as 150 million years ago, meaning that we still have the original ocean floor, but I'm thinking the oldest North Atlantic Ocean floor is long vanished beneath the bordering continents.

What justifies this thinking? Inertia. It takes work to get an object to move. You've got an upwelling; new, malleable, thin ocean crust; and old, stiff, thick continental crust. The result is the new weaker crust, being denser, sliding under the older stronger lighter crust. Subducting in other words.

So if the Atlantic Ocean floor is no longer subducting under North America and Western Europe, when did this happen, and why? And how do you know it doesn't? Can you admit to gaps in your knowledge, without qualifiers?

That's it for this comment, another to follow on the subject of oceanic versus continental plates.

The God Delusion can change minds.

(via http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/12/26/muslim-turned-atheist-explains-th… )

It amazes me that supposedly intelligent, educated philosophers like Lane Craig keep trotting out this argument.

My guess is that the arguments keep the faithful faithful.

That in itself should make Craig leery of pronouncements about personal creators for the universe.

That's my main problem with such pronouncements. It's nothing more than a worshipping of gaps. One could announce that planets / stars need a creator or that life needs a creator or that complex structures need a creator, but all it does is argue from ignorance. It's as bad as an a priori proof that there could philosophically only be seven planets.

"Promiscuous theology" -- :-) But should it be "incestuous theology"?

No, that is promiscuous teleology. Read here, or pick up a copy of Supersense where the author discusses it. Pick up Supersense anyway, it is a fantastic read!

Pardon my philosphy-related ignorance, but does Lane Craig's position amount to the Cosmological Argument, dressed-up with rectally-sourced assertions?

He also pulls out the Cosmological Argument, and comes to the same conclusion. But I'm with you, it seems to be arguing the same thing, just dressed up as two separate "lines of evidence" for his Bayesian model.

Why do so many philosophers appear to believe they don't need to know anything was discovered in physics in the last 100 years!?!

I find it funny that he's arguing this while debating a physicist. Funny thing is that it seems that WLC is revered among some circles because of his "knowledge" of physics.

Call me strange (an accurate observation after all), but I just don't see how continental and oceanic crust as ever being part of the same tectonic plate. Not all plate boundaries are as obvious as we like to think.

My problem with a combined continental crust/oceanic crust plate lies in the differences between the two. The differences in chemistry, minerology, and structure. The differences between largely basaltic material and largely granitic material. You have a profound discontinuity between the two. It's like expecting a functioning blending of chicken muscle and cow muscle. Too many differences between the two.

What does this mean? It means that the Earth has more crustal plates then we now think, divided into two broad groups.

The largest, in number and area, are the oceanic plates; with the the floor of the Pacific Ocean have the largest in number and area of those. It is the oceanic plates that move the continental plates for the most part, with mantle currents taking up the slack.

Viewing tectonic plates this way we can see that such structures as California west of the San Andreas Fault are mini continental plates, being carried along by a Western Pacific plate as it moves north. Again, it's a matter of discontinuities arguing against thinking of the two structures as parts of a larger structures.

In short, such things as the North American and Pacific Plates as simplifications and so invalid.

The seven or eight major plates, and all the minor plates, are simply where the plate boundaries are obvious, and that's it. Most plate boundaries are obscure and require close study to discern. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The lesson here? Things are rarely as simple as we'd like to think, especially when the number of elements and their interactions becomes large.

Write hard,

Hardly. :-) Most or all of it will consist of published papers, so most of the writing is already done.

and remember, the only person I know who won a Nobel for his doctoral dissertation was Louis Debroglie--well, and maybe Bob Schreiffer.

There's no danger of me winning one at all. There is none for biology – the closest one is the one for Physiology Or Medicine, which is really far from my field... :-)

相愛太鼓

Who loves very what? Also, the link doesn't work.

[...] I find this page on divergent plate boundaries.

'Tis a simple schematic, but it suffices to inform us all that we all got it wrong.

That's the level you can find in coffee-table books for elementary-school children. What makes you stupid enough to assert that the geologists themselves don't know why it's oversimplified???

You are egnorant, correct spelling.

The East North Atlantic and West North Atlantic plates

There is no such thing. There's a North American and a Eurasian one.

are not being pulled by anything with upwelling magma filling the expanding gape, they are being pushed apart by the upwelling magma.

Show me that the northern Atlantic is a case of ridge push and not one of slab pull, instead of just asserting it.

If it's ridge push, why are there all those pull-apart basins on both sides of the Pacific? Huh? Huh?

Now from the evidence the Atlantic as an ocean is some 150 million years old. That appears to be the age of the oldest ocean floor, found off the coast of North America and Western Europe. The rest is at least 10s of millions of years younger.

That's mostly correct, except that it's Africa, not Europe, that North America broke away from first. The Atlantic Ocean started as part of a rift between the northern and the southern continents, between North America + Europe + Asia on the northwest side and South America + Africa + all those fragments around the Mediterranean (like the Adriatic plate and Pannonia) on the southeast one. North America and Europe, and South America and Africa, stayed together for longer.

Also, it's not 150, but 170 or so.

It is possible, as with the Red Sea and Lake Baikal, that the nascent Atlantic Rift formed ocean floor pretty much from the start.

The Red Sea once was an ordinary rift.

Are you sure there's oceanic crust under Lake Baikal?

A low spot between the future continents of North America and Eurasia with a string of lakes much like that now found in East Africa. As time passed the valley widened, the continental crust overlaying it thinned, then in time was torn asunder to be replaced by oceanic crust.

Correct.

This may have been as recently as 150 million years ago, meaning that we still have the original ocean floor,

See above.

but I'm thinking the oldest North Atlantic Ocean floor is long vanished beneath the bordering continents.

Demonstrably wrong.

So if the Atlantic Ocean floor is no longer subducting under North America and Western Europe, when did this happen, and why? And how do you know it doesn't? Can you admit to gaps in your knowledge, without qualifiers?

You're foolishly arguing against the existence of a couple of facts you didn't know exist. For instance, North America and its half of the Atlantic seafloor don't currently move against each other (remember those satellite measurements?), so that's how we know there's no such subduction currently, apart from the fact that there's no andesitic volcanism and no pull-apart basin and so on and so forth along the coasts of the Atlantic. Next, the geology of the eastern margin of the North American continent is very well known, from drilling and seismology – knowledge of that area down to the base of the crust is important for oil companies and stuff –, so we know there's no trace of current or former subduction there. There just isn't. Instead, the continental and the oceanic crust lie next to each other, and the continental crust extends far deeper down than the oceanic one.

Furthermore, the western margin of the Americas has been a subduction zone for much longer than the Atlantic is old. Probably ever since the Rheic Ocean closed in the... Devonian, I think. In other words, the slab pull was already there before the heat trapped under Pangea became sufficient to break it in the middle.

Call me strange (an accurate observation after all), but I just don't see how continental and oceanic crust as ever being part of the same tectonic plate.

I don't call you strange. I call you egnorant. Unfortunately, egnorance is such a common condition that I'm pretty familiar with it.

It's like expecting a functioning blending of chicken muscle and cow muscle.

It fucking isn't. It's like a chicken muscle and a cow muscle lying on the same slab of subcrustal lithosphere and moving together.

You do know that, as I mentioned before, the plates consist not only of crust but also of uppermost mantle? The crust-mantle boundary has a definition that has turned out to be counterintuitive. The entire lithosphere consists of plates, not just the crust.

(This is again something Wegener didn't know about.)

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Did I understand that right? You announce in all seriousness that you refuse to ever learn about any facts that have already been discovered and that contradict your pitiful level of understanding of plate tectonics?

Another poll for PZ to crash

...I find this page on divergent plate boundaries.

'Tis a simple schematic, but it suffices to inform us all that we all got it wrong.

Of course you had to choose the most simplistic animation you could find. Of course you had to ignore this much more detailed summary of the forces that affect the movement of plates from the link I gave you before, as well as David's excellent comments. Of course.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

In other words, you're proudly announcing that you're no better than creationists.

"Random mutations cannot produce new information. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

"The Grand Canyon is the result of Noah's Flood. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

... Seriously?

Rev BDC,

Here's another take on Bohemian Rhapsody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE6emvdmg-M

this much more detailed summary of the forces that affect the movement of plates

That one surpassed my knowledge. :-)

Kel says, " One could announce that planets / stars need a creator or that life needs a creator or that complex structures need a creator, but all it does is argue from ignorance. "

I say that the creator needs a creator, but by definition, the creator is the uncaused cause. As Douglas Adams says "'Oh dear,' says God and vanishes in a puff of logic. You gotta kind of be careful trying to figure out the completely unknown with only logic and intuition as your guides. Or you can just say, "Sod it. I'll work on some thing I know exists and will make peoples' lives better." But hey, that's just me.

Who loves very what? Also, the link doesn't work.

this was the link

OT-
Councilman under fire for atheism. He declined to mention God in swearing-in ceremony.

Atheist Holiday Display Vandalized in LA.

Now I need to find some good news.

Given PZ's titular embed, I thought I might take it back to where some argue the trance movement began. I cannot believe that this amazing track is coming up to its eighteenth birthday.

I say that the creator needs a creator, but by definition, the creator is the uncaused cause. As Douglas Adams says "'Oh dear,' says God and vanishes in a puff of logic. You gotta kind of be careful trying to figure out the completely unknown with only logic and intuition as your guides.

Of course you might come across a TAG proponent, who only thinks a triangle has three sides because God is there to define a triangle as having three sides (Just got to watch that God doesn't make seven-sided triangles) - then God is impervious to logic because if she is illogical he can just change logic to make her own existence logical ;)

Janine @ 448,

this can not stand !

Gabriella Cilmi--Sweet about me

Go Dandy !

And all this embedding is breaking my interwebz !

Of course you might come across a TAG proponent, who only thinks a triangle has three sides because God is there to define a triangle as having three sides (Just got to watch that God doesn't make seven-sided triangles)

I think the Blake Stacey version of that is : "Can god make a triangle whose angle sum is not 180 degrees ?"

I've seen a triangle that doesn't add up to 180 degrees, it had 3 right angles. Jut make a triangle on a curved surface and it won't add up to 180.

Yeah, I've heard that before...Probably was Blake too..:-)

Anyway, the non-curved-surface ones then !

Kel, how dare you trivialise Alien Geometries! :|

Anyone got tips for nature travel or other activities around Orange County? And please don't say "saddlebacking".

Yeah, I've heard that before...Probably was Blake too..:-)

I heard it from Lawrence Krauss.

Anyway, the non-curved-surface ones then !

Which is why I go for a non-three sided triangle, otherwise it adds too many qualifiers and gets way too mathematical to people, lets face it, who wouldn't know 2+2=4 unless they found it in religious apologetics.

OT, off on a quick trip to visit my parents. Be back in a few days.

Orange County, California?
What the hell are you doing there?

I lived in Costa Mesa for 2 years (postdoc) and as far as I can tell they keep all the nature in OC locked up in Camp Pendleton.
There's always Adventureland...

David

That's the level you can find in coffee-table books for elementary-school children.

I don't think you understand how this statement demonstrates the profound differences between elementary education in the US and Europe.
1. European children make use of books.
2. European children make use of coffee-tables.

Intellectually and in regard to habiliments, American children are MUCH different.

windy - try some of the activities listed here

http://www.orangecountywild.com/

Surplus to requirements

(No, I'm not talking about YEC - I would have started with "Share and Enjoy" ...)

I am clearing my papers (prior, no doubt, to collecting even more). I have a reprint of:

Table Mountain Serpentinite
Extrusion in California Coast Ranges
by William R Dickinson, Stanfrod Uni, Stanford Ca.
Geological Society of America Bulletin
v. 77, p451-472, 9 figs., 4 plates, May 1966

(The only reason for offering it is that it has a large, full-colour geological map of the Table Mountain Area of Ca at a scale of 2.5 inches to the mile, about 20 inches high and larger lengthwise. Apart from being folded the map is imaculate.)

I realise it is dated but if it's of any real use to anyone, let me know or I will throw it away.

Australians are waking up to the misuse of taxpayer funds for religious events like Catholic World Youth Day, but not for secular events:

SUDDENLY, religion is making inroads again into Australian politics and our secular society. Not only have we now got a devout believer as Prime Minister but the Opposition Leader is even more devout.

The election of Christian hard-liners to positions of power and influence in NSW doesn't stop at Macquarie Street. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione is a devout Baptist who worships at the influential Hillsong Church. He is responsible for the first official police Bible, bound in police blue with an official NSW Police crest on the cover. On Scipione's watch, all new NSW police graduates from the Goulburn Academy are routinely offered one of these special Bibles.
While Scipione is doing good work in trying to curtail alcohol-based violence, he has made no secret of the fact he brings his Christian faith into his policing work. Out at Hillsong that means treating homosexuality as a disease to be cured rather than an identity to be lived. But is it a fair whack that taxpayers are funding police Bibles?

Alan B., I'd like to have the Table Mountain map, but what will it cost you to mail it?

David Marjanovic, #443

The schematic is as detailed as it needs to be to to explain the mechanism involved. Upwelling mantle material rises, hits the crust, and splits into two horizontal streams. Crust is carried along on the streams with magma fills in the gap so created. The plate doesn't need to be pulled to be moved, the convection cell does the job just nicely.

Now let us get it right here, the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is not being pushed or pulled. The floor of the Atlantic Ocean is --- at least in part --- being carried along on a current of mantle material that rises at the Mid Atlantic Ridge then splits into two horizontal sheets moving east or west. No ridge push, and no slab pull. Neither are necessary.

Where the oldest Atlantic Ocean floor is concerned, how do you know it still exists? You do remember inertia. It takes effort to get something to move. Inertia means things are not going to move unless you work at making them move. It is my thinking that when the the first oceanic crust formed under the nascent Atlantic it was subsequently forced under the continental crust east and west of it by the mantle current. And I think it possible that this subduction continues to this day.

Now your contention (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that the bordering continents are pulling at the Atlantic Ocean floor. Now you have continental rock abutting oceanic rock, with apparently a strong enough connection for the continental crust to pull the oceanic crust as it moves. Is the connection that strong. Can such a connection be strong enough. For that matter, is there such a connection at all?

No subduction? Is that the interpretation of data because there is no subduction, or because researchers don't expect subduction because of the surrounding circumstances? Is no subduction seen because the situation is unlike known subduction situations. Are we dealing with a biased interpretation because researchers are unfamiliar with the specific conditions surround the boundary between the floor of the Atlantic Ocean and its bordering continents. Are we dealing with a unique situation we don't yet recognize as unique because we have not yet learned to see it?

Now let me address your simile fail. I was not comparing chicken muscle and cow muscle directly with oceanic and continental crust. I was pointing out, Mr. Order of the Molley winner, that the two muscle types are different things, much as the two types of crust are. That while the two tissues are broadly alike, there are differences in structure and in details that can be identified upon examination. My point is, as with reptilian and mammalian muscle, there are too many differences between oceanic and continental crust for the two to be found in the same structure. You say the schematic I pointed you too is a gross simplification of the true situation. It is my contention that the current picture of plate tectonics is a gross simplification of the true situation.

You've shown me the current thinking on the matter. I see problems with it. As a description of what goes on it doesn't satisfy me. You have become fixated on one explanation and refuse to entertain any alternative. Even when a possible alternative is presented to you. You have forgotten that science is about uncertainty and let the misguided assurance of experts sway your thinking.

Even worse, you have let your emotions overcome your good sense. I don't pretend to know everything, I only present scenarios and possibilites. I present my understanding based on what I know, guided by the fact that people often miss the obvious and let their biases, preconceptions, and previous learning influence how they judge matters. I'm a contrarian and I do not accept what anyone says just on their say so. You convince me with evidence, not assertions, and you'll get a lot further when you show me you have considered what I've been saying honestly. That you have not done, and you show no indication you're even capable of it. No, you make statements based on what you think is supported by fact, giving no consideration to the possibility you might be wrong.

Finally a question for you and Dania (comment 445). What gave you the idea I was thinking like a creationist? What gave you the idea I was using creationist argumentation? I present a scenario, an hypothesis supported by what evidence I've been able together, and then state that I'm standing by what I've just said unless and until provided evidence that speaks against it. Have I or have I not admitted to being wrong when shown that I am wrong?

I'm now off to look at those pages you directed me to. For the moment I shall ask of you that you refrain from letting your emotions overrule your good sense.

Okay, I've had a look at the page in question and I noticed one thing. According to the author slab pull occurs only where subduction occurs. No subduction, no slab pull. Since the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, according to David Marjanovic, is not, indeed can not, be subducting beneath North America, how is slab pull occurring in this situation?

I contend that lacking subduction there can be no slab pull. In other words, the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is moved east or west solely by the heat generated movement of upper mantle material carrying oceanic plate material along with it. That being the case, it means that subduction is possible at the far edge of the plates, which would make slab pull possible. But a subduction and slab pull at a rate that doesn't leave the evidence left by faster subduction events.

Besides, the lesson in question addresses a generic convergent boundary between two oceanic plates, not the boundary as it exists around the basin of the Atlantic Ocean. The two are not equivalent.

So if Dania is correct, and the basins in the floor of the Atlantic are caused by pulling, how? No subduction, no slab pull, no basins. Yet we have basins. How do we get those subduction dependent features without subduction?

(I've bookmarked the parent site and will be doing further research on the subject.)

Follow Up

Then again, maybe not. Turns out that Open University requires the payment of fees for full use of resources. You can access some material as a guest, but not everything. A pity.

I see problems with it. As a description of what goes on it doesn't satisfy me.

Are those evolution-denialist-like catchphrases I see?

You have become fixated on one explanation and refuse to entertain any alternative.

And evolution-denialist-like projection?

You have forgotten that science is about uncertainty and let the misguided assurance of experts sway your thinking.

And evolution-denialist-level hypocrisy from the guy who said "That's my story and I'm sticking to it"?

I'm a contrarian and I do not accept what anyone says

Is there any difference between that and being a denialist?

...

Do Not Taunt the Octopus

Hm.

Gotta use max-width to scale images down.

...Except that max-width doesn't work with background images. Lovely.

+1

I don't think you understand how this statement demonstrates the profound differences between elementary education in the US and Europe.

I thought about that, but: such books are in no way part of any school curriculum, they're just commercially produced books; and there isn't even a German equivalent for the term "coffee-table book".

The schematic is as detailed as it needs to be to to explain the mechanism involved.

How could you tell?

You can't, and it's not detailed enough.

Follow Dania's link already.

Upwelling mantle material rises, hits the crust, and splits into two horizontal streams.

See, that happens rarely, if ever. Vertical rising exactly below a rift is not the normal situation. Apparently there's one rise below Africa and another below the eastern Pacific.

As Dania's link says, it is common for a plate to move in the opposite direction from the asthenosphere under it.

Plus, the simplistic scheme ignores the fact that it's not the entire mantle, but just the asthenosphere, that moves here; the uppermost mantle layer is solid and forms part of the lithosphere together with the crust. The entire lithosphere, not just the crust, forms the plates.

No ridge push, and no slab pull. Neither are necessary.

Neither of them can at all be avoided, because gravity itself cannot be avoided.

Read the page Dania linked to, you ridiculously porphyritic granitoid.

Where the oldest Atlantic Ocean floor is concerned, how do you know it still exists?

Two independent lines of evidence:

1) There is no sign of past or present subduction at either margin of the Atlantic, except for the trench off the Lesser Antilles. Geologists know what subduction looks like, and they're not blind.

2) Paleomagnetics shows that North America and Africa drifted apart exactly at the time from which the oldest known Atlantic seafloor dates. What an unusual, unexpected coincidence. Don't you think so?

Is the connection that strong. Can such a connection be strong enough. For that matter, is there such a connection at all?

Yes, yes, and yes, respectively. Show me otherwise.

Show me especially where the alleged zone of weakness between the continental and the oceanic crust continues into the subcrustal lithosphere. Come on, we're waiting.

No subduction? Is that the interpretation of data because there is no subduction, or because researchers don't expect subduction because of the surrounding circumstances? Is no subduction seen because the situation is unlike known subduction situations. Are we dealing with a biased interpretation because researchers are unfamiliar with the specific conditions surround the boundary between the floor of the Atlantic Ocean and its bordering continents. Are we dealing with a unique situation we don't yet recognize as unique because we have not yet learned to see it?

You wouldn't know subduction if it bit you into your ignorant ass.

My point is, as with reptilian and mammalian muscle, there are too many differences between oceanic and continental crust for the two to be found in the same structure.

I understood that full well. What you're not understanding is that:

1) "plate" is defined as "lithosphere material that moves as a unit right now", no fucking matter how coherent it is or of how many plates it once consisted.
2) The difference between "lithosphere" and "crust".

You say the schematic I pointed you too is a gross simplification of the true situation. It is my contention that the current picture of plate tectonics is a gross simplification of the true situation.

So... you use an oversimplification of an oversimplification as your source of information and present it to us as correct?

Did someone shit into your brain?

You've shown me the current thinking on the matter. I see problems with it.

Because you don't understand half of the current thinking on the matter, you're not able to recognize any problems in it as such, even if you do happen to see them.

As a description of what goes on it doesn't satisfy me. You have become fixated on one explanation and refuse to entertain any alternative. Even when a possible alternative is presented to you. You have forgotten that science is about uncertainty and let the misguided assurance of experts sway your thinking.

Dunning-Kruger effect.

You present a hypothesis that is manifestly wrong, but refuse to entertain the possibility that your knowledge might possibly be insufficient. Instead, you have fallen in love with your hypothesis and defend it desperately and futilely.

How do you know the experts are misguided?

You don't – you simply assert it.

Even worse, you have let your emotions overcome your good sense.

See, that's a creationist argument. If I don't address your ignorance, you'd say I couldn't refute your arguments, so they must be true. When I do, you are shocked – shocked! – that a scientist hasn't undergone the full kolinahr as part of his training, and conclude that I must be wrong, because otherwise I wouldn't defend anything, would I. Ooh, how rare it is for a scientist to have SIWOTI syndrome... in fact, the only scientist I know who lacks it started his career as an actor and now spends way too much of his time being offended because most of his colleagues treat his pet hypothesis with SIWOTI syndrome.

Have you no shame?

I present my understanding based on what I know

...which is, visibly, not much.

I'm a contrarian and I do not accept what anyone says just on their say so.

Then follow the link already.

You convince me with evidence, not assertions, and you'll get a lot further when you show me you have considered what I've been saying honestly.

That's exactly what I'm doing.

I'm not being polite; but I consider the egnorant nonsense you've been spewing perfectly honestly.

No, you make statements based on what you think is supported by fact, giving no consideration to the possibility you might be wrong.

Imagine a mirror.

What gave you the idea I was thinking like a creationist? What gave you the idea I was using creationist argumentation?

Your own words perhaps?

Yes, your own words. You exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect. You're making arguments from ignorance and defend them instead of doing something against your ignorance. You're making arguments without even knowing that they were disproven decades ago – without even trying to find out whether they have been disproved. You're willfully ignorant. And to top it off, now you're making the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" argument about tone.

One logical fallacy after another, coupled with egnorance.

In short, the creationist way of argumentation.

I present a scenario, an hypothesis supported by what evidence I've been able together, and then state that I'm standing by what I've just said unless and until provided evidence that speaks against it. Have I or have I not admitted to being wrong when shown that I am wrong?

You have not.

You have not even fucking tried to find out whether you're wrong.

You have not even followed Dania's link.

You're so embarrassing, I'm getting a stomach ache.

I'm now off to look at those pages you directed me to.

Ah, now. After you write all this cretinist-style stuff. After you make a pitiful moron of yourself.

How stupid.

...And TVTropes frowns on embedded images.

Sigh.

What gave you the idea I was thinking like a creationist?

Well, this was typical creationist behavior. If the North Atlantic sea floor was currently moving faster than North America, this would support your hypothesis. But it isn't, and David contradicted your claim. What did you do? You asserted it again without evidence to back it up.

You said you were sticking to your story when the facts don't support it. You think that oceanic and continental crust are too different to be part of the same tectonic plate... Just like creationists, you think you know more about a subject than people who have dedicated their lives to its study.

You say this...

I present a scenario, an hypothesis supported by what evidence I've been able together, and then state that I'm standing by what I've just said unless and until provided evidence that speaks against it.

... which leaves me wondering if you've been reading David's posts.

Yes, I think you're acting like a creationist.

Since the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, according to David Marjanovic, is not, indeed can not, be subducting beneath North America, how is slab pull occurring in this situation?

*headdesk*

Go reread David's comments. You haven't understood them.

there isn't even a German equivalent for the term "coffee-table book".

Sure there is. Can't you just stick a bunch of German words together to make one (or, if you prefer, make sure that at least one of the roots is Latin)?

Howzabout..."Kaffeetisch Buch"
or if you aren't into the whole whole brevity thing, "Einwachgeologischgeschichtsbuchfurkinderdiekafeetrinken" (Insert your own diacritical marks and pardon my schitty German).

Do we have to register this with some sort of governing body, or is its publication validating enough?

Anyway, I have nothing better to interject than this, but I have been reading with interest. I was never into geology until two summers ago when I read some of McPhee's work. I think I'll go back and read it again.

And when rereading them, pay special attention to this:

What is it that moves the Americas westward?

Not ridge push, but slab pull. Look these terms up.

The Pacific seafloor sinks down vertically in the subduction zones off the west coast of the Americas. The Americas are sucked in.

So strongly, in fact, that North America has started breaking apart at its westernmost edge (Alaska excepted). That's how Baja California and the San Andreas fault came to be.

and this:

Furthermore, the western margin of the Americas has been a subduction zone for much longer than the Atlantic is old. Probably ever since the Rheic Ocean closed in the... Devonian, I think. In other words, the slab pull was already there before the heat trapped under Pangea became sufficient to break it in the middle.

#471 Lynna

Postage. Don't know. I'll find out.

According to the author slab pull occurs only where subduction occurs. No subduction, no slab pull. Since the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, according to David Marjanovic, is not, indeed can not, be subducting beneath North America, how is slab pull occurring in this situation?

Of course there's subduction – at the western margin of the North American plate! The Pacific Ocean is being subducted beneath North America (California excepted), and this vacuum pulls the entire North American plate westwards. The eastern margin of that plate is the mid-Atlantic ridge.

That being the case, it means that subduction is possible at the far edge of the plates, which would make slab pull possible. But a subduction and slab pull at a rate that doesn't leave the evidence left by faster subduction events.

Namely what?

Besides, the lesson in question addresses a generic convergent boundary between two oceanic plates, not the boundary as it exists around the basin of the Atlantic Ocean. The two are not equivalent.

Indeed not – there are no plate boundaries at either sides of the Atlantic, except for the convergent boundary with the Caribbean plate (and the thing to the east of the Scotia Plate, which carries the islands between South America and Antarctica – sorry, I had forgotten to mention those).

Howzabout..."Kaffeetisch Buch"

Kaffeetischbuch would be fine, except it has no obvious meaning – because it's not an established term, all the connotations of the English one are missing.

"Einwachgeologischgeschichtsbuchfurkinderdiekafeetrinken"

That's not a word, that's half a sentence. :-) Geologieeinschlafgeschichtenbuch für Kinder, die Kaffee trinken is the version with the longest single word I can contrive, and it doesn't sound quite natural. :-)

Where do the Germans put their heavy, large-format, often-lavishly-and-colorfully-illustrated books?
Where do they put their freakin coffee?

I see shelleytherepublican are desperate for traffic, so they have put up a poll: They're asking "Who's your dream ticket for 2012?" Even tho Limbaugh/Palin has two of the options to add up, it's still not beating Beck/Palin.
I'm still hoping Billy Bob Neck can get on the ticket.

Geologieeinschlafgeschichtenbuch für Kinder, die Kaffee trinken

Deutsch hat zu viele lange Worte.

"Who's your dream ticket for 2012?"

Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen doing Clash covers.

Or maybe just the Pogues.

We are talking about a concert here, right?...oh. Oh no.

SEF @400;

Might that be the CoE's last desperate attempt to stop their pedos going catholic?

Sorry. I now have read down to 416. More catching up...

Folks, let's do each other a big favor. Each YouTube video that's imbedded takes several seconds to load. That causes the whole thread to slow down loading. If you just give links, then the thread loading is a lot faster. So please stop imbedding videos. Especially videos that everyone will look at once (or maybe not at all) but will be slowing down loading for days to come.

What 'Tis said. An occasional video imbed for effect is OK, but too much is too much.

One thing to keep in mind: if the burden gets too large, I'll have to go in and remove the object tag from the list of permissible html. Then all those videos go poof, and some of you will just have blank comments left.

Since the image link @#475 is being redirected:

Do Not Taunt the Octopus

Sven, you'll have to speak up a bit.

I mean, don't get me wrong, terse is fine...

...but if you're trying to say something coherent, it has to be there, yanno?

Speaking of page load times...

Am I the only one using Noscript+Flashblock?

Just curious.

I mean, it must be pretty tedious for those who can't opt to not view the flash stuff.

The huge evergrowing pulsating brain that rules at the center of the Pharyngula ultraworld

More like this

300 million dead

Dance Your Ph.D. - 2013 Winners Announced!

Are we going to keep pretending women who want to do science and math aren't treated differently?

Women Swarm Nation's Technical Campuses

Friday Cephalopod: I succumb to peer pressure and will mention Octopolis

Friday Cephalopod: we all float down here

Friday Cephalopod: Reflecting my current mood

Friday Cephalopod: Sinking blue

Friday Cephalopod: Undead Squid Penis

The top 5 things we'd miss if we didn't have a Moon

Botanical Wednesday: Death Valley looking deathly

Role Models in Science & Engineering Achievement: Rakesh Agrawal