Weirdness
pharyngula | June 10, 2009Now, for the low, low price of $12.79, you can reserve a spot in heaven for yourself. This is a real business selling tickets, certificates and ID cards that claims to give you a direct line to an afterlife in paradise, with a money-back guarantee. You might think it's just a gag…but it's the same thing as Catholic indulgences, so it's a gag with a little bite.
Oh, and if you don't like the prospect of eternity in heaven, you can also reserve a spot in hell. That one probably has a stronger seal of theological approval.
pharyngula | June 9, 2009I am now a cover model for CDs.
Look for me soon to be gyrating in a rock video, then comes the feature role in soft-core porn, then the drugs and parties, then the stint in rehab, and finally the special documentary on VH1. Oh, heck, I'm going all the way: I'm taking over for Ozzie once he retires.
This is all predicated on the album being a hit, of course. But how can it not? Not only do I grace the cover art, but it has songs like "The Ecstasy of Mallard" and "Going Gay for House".
pharyngula | June 9, 2009Now you can all do it: an archbishop of the Open Episcopal Church is selling consecrated crackers by mail, payable with paypal. The guy sounds like a bit of a kook; he's doing this because he believes people will sincerely appreciate receiving a scrap of Jesus' holy meat in the mail, and will use them to carry out informal masses whenever they feel like it.
Unfortunately for the desired effect of desecration, he has been excommunicated from the Anglican church, and the Catholics say his consecrations aren't real, so the only people who might be offended by any cracker abuse are these fringey…
pharyngula | June 8, 2009Christians merely get Jesus on pita bread or Madonna's on plate glass windows — we get squid-shaped lightning, which is obviously much more impressive.
Alas, no magic squid in the sky for us, though — these are entirely natural phenomena.
"Sprites are a true space weather phenomenon," he adds. "They develop in mid-air around 80 km altitude, growing in both directions, first down, then up. This happens when a fierce lightning bolt draws lots of charge from a cloud near Earth's surface. Electric fields [shoot] to the top of Earth's atmosphere--and the result is a sprite. The entire process…
pharyngula | June 7, 2009Jen has taken me, Richard Dawkins and Hemant Mehta and used The Sims to put our simulacra together into a house. I'd say it's some kind of pilot for a new sitcom on Fox, except I've seen enough Sims to know it will not end well. One of us will catch on fire, someone else will drown in the pool, and the last will die an agonizing death when he can't find a path to the bathroom.
I do want that shirt in real life, though.
pharyngula | June 5, 2009This little sketch might be too tempting for me…there are a lot of creationist articles that I would slap this on.
(via Kobra)
pharyngula | June 2, 2009The UK still wins, though. We've got school boards that seriously consider including the fantasy that the earth is 6000 years old into the curriculum, but in the UK, you've just got clever people with ropes and boards stomping out patterns in the barley fields. The media seems to take the "crop circle experts" a little too seriously, but at least you've got pretty exercises in aerial photography to show for it.
Nice jellyfish!
pharyngula | June 1, 2009Oh, look what came in the mail for me today!
Kat Payne made this for me (thank you very much!), and I know, I'll be the envy of everyone in town as I stroll down the street with this stylish new look. Unfortunately, I think I'll have to wait until winter to wear it regularly — it's very, very warm — but then…fear me!
pharyngula | May 30, 2009Wow. Creationists can surprise you with a rare flash of imagination — like this argument that because you don't drool, god exists.
Ok, I have an Evolution Challenge for you. Make your mouth produce a bunch of spit, let it dribble down your face and time how long it is before you simply have to wipe it off. Go ahead; try it! I promise you it won't be very long. It's extremely uncomfortable to have it sit there.
Think about the babies in your life. Have you ever thought about the fact that they stop drooling after the first couple years of life? Have you ever imagined what life would be like…
pharyngula | May 27, 2009I took the test, and it said,
You are a heady mix of the most evil Popes - Paul III, Benedict IX, Urban II and "Hitler's Pope" Pius XII.
Oops. I knew I shouldn't have admitted that vanilla was my favorite ice cream flavor in that last question.
pharyngula | May 25, 2009It's called the Reincarnation Bank. You put a bunch of money in now, and then when you die and are reincarnated, your new incarnation comes to bank and gets the money back so you can start your new life with the advantage of a wad of moolah. I presume you must have to do something like memorize a secret account number before you die, and remember it again once you're reborn.
Their web page has a link to make deposits, but strangely enough, there isn't a link to make withdrawals. I have to marvel at the con — only very, very stupid people are going to fall for it.
That said, though, I'm…
pharyngula | May 21, 2009They are prepared to use Twitter to alert the public to zombie incursions. I just knew Twitter would be useful for something, someday.
pharyngula | May 18, 2009I'm sure this happens all the time.
A 2cm long fish apparently found it's way into the penis of a 14-year-old boy from India in a bizarre medical case.
The patient was admitted to hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling urine and acute urinary retention spanning a 24-hour period. According to the boy, the fish slipped into his penis while he was cleaning his aquarium at home.
This is precisely why, when I'm cleaning the bank of tanks in my lab, I make sure to keep my pants on.
(via Rev. BigDumbChimp, who always finds stories like this.)
pharyngula | May 16, 2009Warren Ellis set his readers to a task: to draw an old pulp comic book character, the Octopus. The Octopus had a stunning description.
One of the more outré of the pulp characters-and given the genre, that's quite saying something, believe me-the Octopus was actually the villain of the piece in his single issue, The Octopus v1 #4, 1939, written by...well, it's not exactly clear. It might be Norvel Page, or it might be Ejler and Edith Jacobsen. A rather over-the-top mad scientist, the Octopus worked from a big city hospital and plotted world conquest. His appearance might explain his desire…
pharyngula | May 7, 2009
I want this.
It's perfect for those Minnesota winters. I'd wear it every day. Heck, I'd even wear it every night.
Unfortunately, it looks like a one-off original creation. I guess I'm out of luck.
pharyngula | May 5, 2009The advertising copy is right: Bali does sound like an exotic wedding destination. But wouldn't you know it, there is a hitch:
All couples who marry in Indonesia must declare a religion. Agnosticism and Atheism are not recognized. The Civil Registry Office can record marriages of persons of Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian-Protestant and Christian-Catholic faiths. Marriage partners must have the same religion; otherwise one partner must make a written declaration of a change of religion.
The Trophy Wife will not be thrilled to learn that our marriage would not have been valid in Indonesia.…
pharyngula | April 30, 2009My heart skipped a beat, I pressed a knuckle to my mouth, my eyelashes fluttered wildly as I tried to hold back my tears as I read this cutting review:
Mr Geoffrey Deene of Fashion Wire Daily, I still think you'd look sodding STUPID if you wore this anywhere:
NOOOOOOoooooooOOOOoooo!!! But I already ordered it for my Spring wardrobe! Whatever shall I dooooooo?
pharyngula | April 22, 2009Over on an MSN site, there is an image of Ötzi the iceman with a very strange caption.
The iceman is believed to be the 'missing link' between apes and humans that roamed the mountains, encased in ice.
How many ways is that wrong? The "missing link" remark, applied to a human being let alone anything else, is bad enough…but I'm having a hard time picturing the ecology of beings encased in ice and roaming mountains.
Attempts to get MSN to correct the ignorance are going unheeded, apparently.