humor
grrlscientist | November 20, 2006
Fox News ratings went down by 17% in October, while most cable news networks saw tremendous increases in ratings. I guess people are finally growing tired of their ridiculous bias and gossip. Basically, there is no liberal media, there only is only intelligent media and ridiculous media. Oh, and hey, Rupert, how did the OJ interview help your ratings?
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tags: politics, mainstream media, FOX news, OJ, murder, george bush
pharyngula | November 20, 2006Thinking about getting a pet? You should read Animal Reviews first, to see if it will fulfill your needs. For example, the review of the octopus suggests that I need one, right now.
Next, Octopi are what are known as Cephalopods, a science word meaning that they are constructed entirely out of squish, with no bones whatsoever. Sensational! Yet, unlike their clearly unmotivated cousins the clam and the spinach, they have managed to get themselves hold of tentacles. And not just two or three 'bitty' tentacles either, but eight great big ones sticking out of their drippy bodies, whipping out to…
pharyngula | November 18, 2006Amazing: one short comic strip that captures my philosophy perfectly.
Gosh, now I'm done. I don't need to write anything anymore.
pharyngula | November 17, 2006We've finally got the piece of evidence they've all been asking for: a cat giving birth to a dog.
It's only a matter of time until my attempts to hatch a bird out of my fish eggs succeed.
oracknows | November 17, 2006Given my love of science and advocacy of evidence-based medicine, people may have come to the erroneous conclusion that I hate all woo. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just want medical woo to be subject to the same scientific testing as conventional medicine, because I believe that there should not even be a difference between "alternative medicine" and medicine. There's just medicine that has good scientific, clinical, and epidemiological evidence to suggest it works, and that's all I care about. Heck, if someone produced good scientific evidence that there was something to…
evolvingthoughts | November 14, 2006This week's question is
What are the best pickup lines for scientists and science-savvy folk?
Asking a geek this question is like asking a McDonald's chef for the recipe. Geeks don't pull. Or maybe, that's just me. Besides, I was married for nearly 20 years and I'm well out of practice. But for my money, the pickup line a woman would get me with (apart from "Are you busy?") would be:
"Would you like to find a table and discuss species concepts?"
Actually, a very nice woman asked me just that, but to my mild dismay, she actually wanted to discuss species concepts...
pharyngula | November 14, 2006Uh, guys? You know that trip to Ken Ham's creation science "museum"? I think he got wind of our plans.
He's training guard dogs now.
mikethemadbiologist | November 14, 2006
I appreciate all of you (well, except for a couple of conservatroll assholes), but this comment by "The Teachers Union" in response to a rightwing screed left in the comments is brilliant. First, the rightwing screed:
Ha. You're full of shit. The gay baiting (Foster, Haggard, Mehlman), race baiting (Steele, Harry Belafonte Calls Black Republicans tyrants, Gov. Blackwell) and hyporcisy (e.g., Michael Moore and Al Gore not practicing what they teach) comes from the democrap side.
Special interests? How about Teachers Union, Abortion death mills and welfare frauds? Why should money that I have…
mikethemadbiologist | November 14, 2006I have a question about the movie Borat. Am I the only one who noticed that Sasha Barra Cohen's anti-Semitic character, when he speaks his 'native' tongue, is actually speaking Hebrew (with a few random smatterings of other languages thrown in)? I can't be the only one who picked up on that.
jlynch | November 13, 2006RPM writes that "they're not as stupid as we thought they were."
This seems apt:
pharyngula | November 13, 2006This fairly typical scrap of creationist email made me smirk. Please, if you're going to be sarcastic and tell me how stupid I am, don't make the first word of your diatribe grammatically incorrect.
your soo smart... I wish I was as smart as you
Oh you are soo much smarter than everyone else. That's odd being that your ancestors were monkeys. Too bad you are going to drown soon when mankind melts the polar ice caps. I guess you would have done just as well if we would have used your embryo for research and the rest of us would be much better off too. What a stupid arrogant know-it-all…
pharyngula | November 12, 2006Julia Sweeney has audio samples from her new CD online—and gosh, she seems to have the same opinions of Intelligent Design and Deepak Chopra that I do! It must be something correlated with godlessness…like brains.
(Thanks to Hank Fox)
evolvingthoughts | November 12, 2006Well by now you are all no doubt dying to see my holiday snaps. Fifty years ago I'd be that annoying relative who insisted on holding slide nights after a vacation (I had a vacation once. I remember it well). So here is the visual diary of my (working) trip to Vancouver for the PSA/HSS conference, Seattle for the rain, and Berkeley. Out of concern for those who hate these things, it's below the fold. Professor Steve Steve came along too.
First of all, we Seed Bloggers at the conference met to discuss serious mattersdrink, of course. From left, Janet Stemwedel (who I keep calling "Jane" for…
evolvingthoughts | November 12, 2006In a stress test of such quizzes, I took the test and found out I'm actually from the Great Lakes region...
What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Inland North
You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you…
jlynch | November 11, 2006Wilkins had hit a good one here: the Evolution Crackpot Index. Rumor has it that the denizens of Uncommon Descent, ISCID and suchlike score in the high thousands.
evolvingthoughts | November 11, 2006
Adapted sort of with permission from The Crackpot Index by John Baez, with contributions from the talk.origins howlers.
A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to biology.
1. A -5 point starting credit.
2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
4. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
5. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
6. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts…