Weirdness
pharyngula | May 27, 2008Are you worried about the Rapture? Of course you will be called up into heaven, but those hateful bastards among your family and friends will certainly be stuck here on earth for the tribulation. So yet another service has sprung up to help you help your stranded loved ones: You've Been Left Behind. Why do you need this service?
WHY?
We all have family and friends who have failed to receive the Good News of the Gospel.
The unsaved will be 'left behind' on earth to go through the "tribulation period" after the "Rapture". You remember how, for a short time, after (9/11/01) people were open to…
pharyngula | May 26, 2008Which should I be more worried about: this not-safe-for-work-but-flattering fantasy, or the fact that I was informed about it by Phil Plait, who must be searching the web for "PZ Myers tag team fantasy".
My wife isn't going to let me travel any more, either.
pharyngula | May 21, 2008Uh-oh. The creationist expectation of an abrupt transformation from one species to another has been demonstrated: the picture below is of a chicken egg that was cracked open to make a meal, and inside … a dead gecko. A bird giving birth to a reptile?
Actually, no, sorry. A chicken giving birth to a lizard is the kind of thing creationists imagine that evolution predicts, but which would actually surprise and disturb scientists if it happened — we'd have to rethink a lot of genetics if a solid instance were documented.
In this case, there's an alternative, if rather disgusting, explanation.…
pharyngula | May 20, 2008Perhaps my fellow Americans feel a little dismayed at the news of all those young creationist school teachers…well, a recent poll in Britain showed that people have some awfully materialist opinions about god.
Only 1% of people think of God as female, with 62% considering God to be male, the online survey conducted earlier this month of 1,050 adults in Britain found.
Weird. So god has a penis, and a Y chromosome?
Some day, they've got to ask people some other details of god's physical attributes. What shade is his skin color? What color eyes does he have? At his age, does he get regular…
pharyngula | May 20, 2008Hank Fox is starting one of those memes: this one asks us to tell the story of a scar.
Tell the story of a (non-surgical) scar you have somewhere on your body. Answer and tag three other bloggers.
Alas, I am a pampered child of the middle class, and I don't have much of a history of trauma and injury. I've got a couple of small slashes on my forehead from when I was a toddler, when I had a series of unfortunate accidents falling headfirst onto coffee tables. My knees were shredded in typical childhood accidents. I've got a massive appendectomy scar that gets admiring comments from doctors…
pharyngula | May 12, 2008And in keeping with that fine circus tradition, the Duggar Family is about to have their 18th child.
You know, they have successfully turned their freakish excesses into a profitable enterprise, but it really isn't at all sustainable — I think the superficial news market can only bear one amazing repeatedly distended vagina at a time, and if any of their children try a repeat performance it's going to be ho-hum, and profligacy in child-rearing will be just another symptom & cause of poverty, neglect, and ignorance.
pharyngula | May 9, 2008Here's a bizarre miscellany.
Well, it's just Wisconsin.
Two people have been arrested after a Juneau County Sheriff's deputy found one of them and her two children living in a home with the body of a 90-year-old woman decomposing on the bathroom toilet.
Tammy D. Lewis, 35, and Alan A. Bushey, 57, both of Necedah are each charged with two felony counts of causing mental harm to a child, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday. Lewis also faces one count of obstructing police.
The body was decaying for two months in their bathroom. How could they do that? It takes religion to be that…
pharyngula | May 8, 2008If you thought Christian rock was horrible and unlistenable, you have not yet heard the Christian demo tapes — the stuff that is so awful it never even made it to the exalted ranks of famous artists like Creed.
Nah, you really don't want to listen to those. It's a version of audio torture. Maybe KKMS can use these songs, though.
pharyngula | May 6, 2008Portland, Oregon is a beautiful city and a great place to live, but hoo boy, does it have its share of wackos. The latest: some credulous nut wants to practice acupuncture…on the city. He has semi-randomly associated regions on the map with organs (the Willamette River is a kidney?), and is sticking giant acupuncture needles in the ground to shift the flow of chi.
I hope this guy does not get funding for such stupidity.
pharyngula | May 5, 2008Aaargh, grading. I've been ripping through student papers and exams all afternoon and evening, so I'm reduced to flinging out quick impressions of stuff people have sent me lately. I'm sure you can find something in this collection to discuss.
This is a novel solution to the energy problem…oh, wait. Did I say "novel"? I meant stupid. It's a group praying at the gas pump for lower prices.
"Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices," Twyman said to a chorus of "amens".
"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life... We call on God to…
pharyngula | May 2, 2008What a bizarrely random incident: a fur seal tried to have sex with a penguin.
The 100kg seal first subdued the 15kg penguin by lying on it.
The penguin flapped its flippers and attempted to stand and escape - but to no avail.
The seal may have been frustrated in its attempts to find a partner
The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin, and thrusting its pelvis, trying to insert itself, unsuccessfully.
After 45 minutes the seal gave up, swam into the water and then completely ignored the bird it had just assaulted, the scientists report.
There are pictures. The seal was no doubt…
pharyngula | April 29, 2008Since I changed my profile photo, the ideas for radical revision of the site have come pouring in. Here's a possible new logo:
What do you think? I thought it was keen, until I read all the new speculation about why I was kicked out of a movie theater. Oh, no!
In the same freakishly weird spirit, here's a new poll for you to crash: it asks what your favorite marine animal is, and the choices are otter, squid, blowfish, and "land animals are far superior". You know what to do.
pharyngula | April 24, 2008Cancel your trip to Africa! There are sorcerors stealing…personal items.
Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Unfortunately, it's not very funny since deluded people are blaming their tiny, impotent penises on random people and beating and lynching them.
Cancer: This is not a good day to molt—there's a cephalopod with an eye on you. Hunker down beneath a rock with some ripe rotting fish and wait.
pharyngula | April 24, 2008Well, at least you might think this was my mission statement if you were an incoherent, demented kook, anyway.
(Hat tip to Bay of Fundie)
pharyngula | April 21, 2008I think this is my favorite newspaper headline yet: Priest attached to party balloons vanishes in Brazil. Now you know what to bring to the next party at your local church: a lawn chair, a bunch of balloons, and a helium tank. I am imagining a day when every priest in the world stands smiling beneath a great happy bobbing collection of many-colored balloons, and they all joyously loft themselves up, up into the sky, joyfully drifting away before the winds until they are just a tiny speck and then … gone. It will be a miracle.
This will be my new dream. It will bring a smile to my face as I…
pharyngula | April 18, 2008Apparently, it's a religious holiday called Passover, which refers to some horrible, awful series of afflictions a god visited on some unfortunate people, but passed over some others, so the survivors celebrate. It seems terribly mean-spirited to me. Anyway, here's something "fun": Passover-themed gifts. In this case, a collection of plagues for children. A bag of plagues, plague fingerpuppets, chocolate plagues — there's a frog in that one. Which made me think of…
pharyngula | April 16, 2008Well, except for the grain silos, that is, but I don't need to go in those. New York is a whole different story, though. This story about elevators is informative, because it tells you all about the construction and safety features, takes a tour of the Otis company, and even talks about the psychology of spacing oneself in a crowded elevator…but the part that will stick with you is the saga of poor Nicholas White, who was forgotten in a stuck elevator for 41 hours over one weekend — trapped in a small box for almost two days with absolutely nothing to do. I think I'd go insane.
Almost as…
pharyngula | April 9, 2008There has been a recent upsurge in email coming my way. Some of it is very complimentary, thank you very much to all who have written in to say nice things about the blog, and some of it is extremely nasty (no thank you, I'm not interested in being sent to hell right now), but others … others are just weird.
No Idea what you're up against
PZ,
You have absolutely no idea what you're up against. At this very moment, several species of aliens are surrounding this planet. Oh yeah, out millions of stars and billions of years, we're the only intelligent forms there are, and our hundred year old…