humor
tsmith | June 23, 2006Rebecca over at Memoirs of a Skepchick makes an excellent argument against the new HPV vaccine:
Before the invention of the fire extinguisher in 1816, people used sensible fire safety precautions. They did not leave oily rags piled in buckets next to the ashtray. They did not set their farts on fire. And they always kept their curtains far away from heating devices.
After the invention of the fire extinguisher, all hell broke loose. It didn't take long for games such as "Tie a Lit Sparkler to the Cat" and "Flaming Monopoly" to explode -- literally and metaphorically -- in popularity all over…
oracknows | June 23, 2006Holocaust deniers sometimes refer to the Holocaust as the "Holohoax," as if the whole thing were one huge hoax perpetrated on the world by Jews. Indeed, if you have the stomach to dive into the deepest, darkest, most disgusting parts of the Internet, where Holocaust deniers freely spew their lies, you will even find explicit assertions that the Holocaust is nothing but a hoax that the Jews used to justify the formation of the State of Israel and to collect reparation money. Indeed, do a Google search for the term "Holohoax" and you will find well over 43,000 entries. That the Holocaust was a…
scientificactivist | June 23, 2006Last week's Fantastical Fridays was a big hit, so we'll keep the momentum going with more chemistry this week. Instead of anthropomorphic molecules, though, this one is all about chemicals with downright ridiculous names.
If you still have any doubts after last week that chemists can have a great sense of humor, hopefully Paul May, a chemistry lecturer at the University of Bristol, and convince you once and for all. May runs a popular website that describes various Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names. In a collection that can only be described as extremely thorough, he covers the entire…
clock | June 23, 2006There is a tradition in the blogosphere of posting something light on Fridays.
Some people do the Friday Random Ten, but I do not have an iPod, and keep my computer on Mute, so I do not listen to music or can generated a random ten.
Most people post pictures of variousanimals, mostly cats, but I do not like doing what everyone else is doing. And once I've posted pictures of my cats (and I did, a couple of times, though never on a Friday), what's the point of doing it again?
Some people got away from cats and pets and post pictures of cooler animals, like ants, or, well, ants. birds. Or…
oracknows | June 21, 2006Via The Onion (of course), Dr. Mike Ruddy proclaims:
'm a doctor, and I'm damn good at it. Why? Because I learned to be a doctor the old-fashioned way: gumption, elbow grease, and trial and error. I'm not one of these blowhards in a white coat who'll wear your ears out with 10 hours of mumbo-jumbo technical jargon about "diagnosis" this and "prognosis" that, just because he loves the sound of his own voice. No sir. I just get the job done.
Those fancy-pants college-boy doctors are always making a big deal about their "credentials." But I'm no show-off phony with a lot of framed pieces of…
evolvingthoughts | June 20, 2006... while I adjust my professional career. Please check back in a little while for more ranting.
grrlscientist | June 20, 2006I want to share this amusing video with all of you, particularly with one very special reader, Joe [surname elided to protect him from his stupidity], who was so moved by this piece that I wrote that he has been emailing repeatedly to let me know that I am a poorly-educated liar. In fact, Joe was so inspired by my writing that he ignored my request to stop filling my email box with his offensive, narrow-minded tripe by responding with this erudite and truly revealing message;
You are presumptuous. Stop trying to enlighten the world with your parroting of evolutionary dogma. I am not going to…
oracknows | June 20, 2006Australian skeptic Peter Bowditch was challenged by a homeopath to take some homeopathic 200C belladonna tablets. Ever the intrepid skeptic and critical thinker, Peter has now answered the challenge in front of 100 people and reported his experience, beginning with a description of what he should have experienced:
A Modern Herbal by Mrs Maud Grieve, where it says that I should have been experiencing ""Strange indescribable feelings with giddiness, yawning, staggering or falling on attempting to walk; dryness of mouth and throat, sense as of suffocation, swallowing difficult, voice husky; face…
oracknows | June 18, 2006There's only one thing to say about this little video clip: Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom.....
Hat tip to my sister for e-mailing me this!
Hmmm, maybe I'll get serious again tomorrow and try to answer the latest Ask a Scienceblogger question or perhaps cover some other of my usual topics. Some alties have used that very question plus my pseudoanonymity to question whether I am actually who I say I am. It might take more than the 300 words our Seed overlords prefer us to limit ourselves to, which is why it might have to wait until Tuesday.
oracknows | June 16, 2006I knew he wasn't nearly as clean-cut as his televisioin persona implied, but who knew Bob Saget was such a badass.
(Warning for if you're at work: Much gratuituous use of the F-word is contained.)
What I want to know is how they got George Lucas in the video.
pharyngula | June 16, 2006
Do I have any readers in R'lyeh who can ship me a few gallons?
(via Blue Glow)
pharyngula | June 16, 2006I'm sorry, BigDumbChimp, but you've been beaten to this discovery: God Hates Shrimp. It's old news. It's also wrong in its emphasis. I read Leviticus…
Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.
…and what I see is that God hates cephalopods, the bastard.
scientificactivist | June 16, 2006Lurking beneath the surface here at ScienceBlogs is a force that compels people to do extremely gimmicky things on Fridays. Since I know that I'm no better than anyone else, I've decided to join in on the fun. Therefore, I introduce to you Fantastical Fridays at The Scientific Activist. From now on, every Friday I'll take a break from the more serious scientific activism to explore the stranger, more outlandish, and in general more lighthearted aspects of science.
Today's installment of Fantastical Fridays brings you a fascinating discovery reported in 2003: the creation of tiny people,…
oracknows | June 15, 2006I don't know if it's possible to be to the right of Ann Coulter, but Spacemonkey over at IMAO gives it a try.
I'm not sure that he succeeds. After all, he says, "We let God's will or survival of the fittest, if you swing that way, be the appeals process."
I don't think that Coulter would never concede even in the least that anything even remotely connected with evolution could be true--at least not in public.
evolvingthoughts | June 15, 2006The new challenge is this:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
Answer, as anyone who knows me, is that I do my work on the blog, and then tidy it up and publish it later. Except when I'm being "funny" (for some values of "funny", including none). Oh, and I also do this as a way of Avoiding Work. I work best when there's a deadline the next day. Give me six months to write a talk or a paper, and I'll spend six months blogging and do the work the night…
pharyngula | June 15, 2006Browsing the funny pages this week, I see some hope that cephalopods will eventually displace talking cats from their preeminent spot in the comic pantheon.
I think this one has to be for Chris…
grrlscientist | June 15, 2006
Amazona auropalliataImage: by BirdZoo
As a parrot breeder, companion and researcher, I can unequivocally say that I have been keeping a secret, a powerful secret that, once revealed, will change the way that humans view themselves and their place in the world, especially in relation to parrots. This morning, a reader, Sara, pointed out to me in an email that this secret has been revealed at long last.
As described at McSweeney's in this recently published open letter to The Amazon Parrot I Have Been Supporting For Over 15 Years Who Still Tries To Bite Me For No Apparent Reason, parrots are…