Weirdness
pharyngula | March 6, 2011I saw the Baby Jesus Butt Plug, and I just laughed. But now, someone has made a cephalopod butt plug and matching ball gag, and my laughter fades to a nervous tittering while my eyes dart about confusedly. Should I be outraged? Aroused? Amused? Disturbed? All of the above? A boundary has been transgressed!
Fortunately, I'm old and greying, and can always fall back on the ignorant old coot routine. "Eh, sonny? What's that? That's a mighty big fishing lure you're waving around there."
pharyngula | March 4, 2011I'm teaching human physiology this term, and those of you who have done it or taken it know that this kind of course is a strain to get through the huge volume of material. I think I must simply be a horrible teacher, though, because here's an
online physiology course that does a much better job than I do.
Here's Your Chance To Skip The Struggle
and Master Human Anatomy & Physiology
In 3 Days Or Less... 100% Guaranteed
Wow. And guess what…it's a $1985.00 value, available now for a limited-time only for the low, low price of only $37. And it's been shown on the Martha Stewart show!
If…
pharyngula | March 3, 2011I wonder if all the people who send me nasty emails are using this keyboard?
Comic sans on the keys, and it's yellow. I'm really curious about who would buy such a thing.
pharyngula | February 28, 2011Imagine getting your morning cup of coffee and discovering this nonsense splattered all over it.
Since gods don't exist, that's far more depressingly nihilist than anything any Gnu Atheist ever wrote — we prefer to find meaning in what is real.
(via Toni Marano)
pharyngula | February 26, 2011It's all very confusing, and I'm not quite sure how they managed all these years…all those Irish children must have been the product of some amusing and peculiar accidents. At least the quacks are profiting from the confusion — here, for instance, is a mysterious bottle of an over-the-counter "organic" menopause relief remedy.
It's the limitation that is the stumper: "Do not use if pregnant." Are there many women bumbling about in the pharmacy thinking that they need to be relieved of this problem of menopause?
And then there's this headline, "I'd lost my baby then somehow fell pregnant…
pharyngula | February 23, 2011Little Dougie (aka Ian Murphy) has hit the big time: he punked the Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, by calling him up and pretending to be über-Rethuglican puppet master David Koch…and Walker believed him and babbled like a little kid on Santa's lap. It's a self-aggrandizing embarrassment, with Walker bragging about how he was Reaganesque, that he was pitting stereotypical blue-collar workers against the unions, and how he has a baseball bat in his office that he'd use to enforce his demands with the Democrats. It's dreadful stuff, and when caught with his guard down it's very clear that…
pharyngula | February 23, 2011The Rethuglican governor of Maine, Paul LePage, has been dismissing the health risks from Bisphenol A, an additive to plastics which is known to be an estrogen mimic. His remarks take "Not even wrong" to whole new levels of crazy:
The only thing that I've heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.
Hey, I've heard that high densities of homeopaths and other quacks in your state gives off fumes that cause severe mental retardation in civil servants.…
pharyngula | February 18, 2011Have you ever actually read Leviticus? It's madness. It's full of instructions on how to slaughter a goat, what to do if someone spits on you, how to tell baldness from leprosy, and of course, lots and lots of instructions on what you must never ever do. There was something deeply wrong with the people who thought Leviticus 18 was a reasonable set of guidelines — they dwell rather obsessively on nakedness before they get to the one part that all the right-wingers quote.
Lev 18:6 No man shall draw nigh to any of his near kindred to uncover their nakedness; I am the Lord. Lev 18:7 Thou shalt…
pharyngula | February 15, 2011I have concluded that Jerry Coyne is the Imelda Marcos of evolutionary biology. I want to see a photo of the boot wing of his palatial mansion…or maybe he has a dedicated Boot Garage attached to his home, accessed by a fireman's slide and a bullet train?
I confess to some disgraceful philistinery, in contrast. I tend to buy one pair of cheap tennis shoes and wear them into the ground, at which time I throw them out and buy another cheap pair. Some day I might have to acquire some style, I suppose.
pharyngula | February 13, 2011My wife will be relieved when I tell her I don't think I'll make chocolate covered squid for her. It's not that I'd be unwilling to try such a concoction, but 1) I have doubts that that combination of flavors is particularly copacetic, 2) she isn't a big fan of seafood in the first place, and a gift should be to her taste, not mine, and 3) where the heck would I get squid on short notice in Morris, Minnesota?
pharyngula | February 8, 2011I am very excited about this new technological development. The pope has blessed an iPhone app to help you figure out what to say in confession. I'm not at all interested in throwing away a whole $1.99 on it, but what's interesting is the potential. Next: an app for priests to guide them in the appropriate penance to deliver. Then we add a little bluetooth/wireless capability to the apps, and confession becomes a matter of walking up to a priest and bumping your cell phones together — instant exchange! Next step: an app that reads your penance — say you're supposed to say 25 Hail Marys —…
pharyngula | February 8, 2011While I can agree with much of their philosophy, the phallocentric attitude of this new religion of dudeism is unacceptable, so I can't really endorse them.
Although I do hear that their prayer rugs really tie the room together.
pharyngula | February 7, 2011For a moment there, I was worried. Here I was, putting the readership to work writing a best seller based on the magic power of pope guts, and then Charles Stross, a real writer, writes up his own treatment based on the same premise. Fortunately, he has also announced he will not write it.
But man, while the principled writers with standards are going to turn up their nose at this, you know every contemptible hack who scribbles up potboilers for sale in airport bookstores is pouncing on the idea right now. Write faster, people! We have to be more contemptible and more hackish if I'm going to…
pharyngula | February 5, 2011I am descended from Vikings, and I try to bring that wild-eyed berserkergang ferocity to blogging. But have you ever seen Swedes cook?
YEEEEAAAAAH! That's the way to do it. You should have seen me this morning, when I was preparing the vegetable soup that will be simmering all day for our dinner here (yeah, it's a vegetarian soup. What can I say? I'm only half Scandinavian. The blood has been thinned with that of those domesticated English and Irish and Scots). I was flinging the big knives around viciously, and I'll tell you, their own mothers wouldn't recognize the bodies of those tubers…
pharyngula | February 5, 2011The other day, this comic was posted on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Would you believe those crazy conservatives at the National Organization for Marriage — those blinkered bozos who think letting gays marry will destroy the fabric of society — posted it on their forums?
It's rather strange — the comic shows a bunch of kids who are aghast at the weird old fashioned way babies used to be made. The humor in it is that you have to realize that they aren't at all horrified by their technology, but find the old ways incomprehensible. It's actually mocking the rigid antiques, but NOM just…
pharyngula | February 4, 2011So, you know, I had this idea for a novel. I started it, but I've since discovered that jewel-like prose and engaging story-telling is a little bit hard, and when I couldn't finish the whole thing over lunch, I've sort of given up. But then I had another brilliant idea! I'll put up the first significant piece of the story, the really really important part, and let you people finish the rest for me. Just post the subsequent chapters in the comments, and I'll splice them together and publish them and make a million dollars, and even more when I sell the movie rights. I'll be sure to include…
pharyngula | February 4, 2011What an odd news item: there is a rule that the Pope can't be an organ donor. My first thought was ick — he's rather decrepit, and if I ever require an organ transplant, I'd rather the source were a young, stupid motorcyclist who doesn't wear a helmet. The Catholics have other reasons, though.
Vatican officials say that after a pope dies, his body belongs to the entire Church and must be buried intact.
That's rather morbid and weird. Why bother? It's not going to be intact for long, and it's actually going to belong to the worms and bacteria.
But it's this part that blew my mind.
Furthermore…
pharyngula | February 2, 2011I'm white. I'm a nerd. I live in Minnesota. I have no rhythm at all — dancing for me is more of a syncopated chaos. But now, for a mere $40, I can get a little yellow robot that can dance.
Maybe the robot would be willing to give me lessons?
pharyngula | January 25, 2011What a strange world we live in that I could make an offhand quote on my blog and someone turns around and makes it into a demotivational poster.
Now, though, instead of emailing it to me, people ought to toss that kind of thing into a new community construction project, the Pharynguwiki. It has my blessing, go forth and fill it with strangeness and attitude.