The video morning musume vs. lizard (Google Video) is hilarious but weird… 🙂
Morning Musume vs. Lizard
Citroën Happy Days
Citroën’s new commercial Happy Days is pretty damn funny… 🙂
Boeing 777 Breaks Nonstop Record
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Boeing Blog report that “On Nov. 9-10, 2005, Boeing’s new 777-200LR flew from Hong Kong to London, setting a new world record for the longest commercial jetliner flight.” The flight took 22 hours and 43 minutes and traversed 11,664 nautical miles, smashing the “previous record of 9,200 nautical miles set by a 747-400 in 1989, as well as the 10,823 nautical mile flight by a 777-200ER in 1997.” Pretty cool…
The Sarah Connor Chronicles?!
Variety.com reports that besides the release of a fourth Terminator being in the works, a TV series tentatively titled The Sarah Connor Chronicles is in development. The series will supposedly “take place in the fictional time frame between the second and third Terminator features” when Sarah Connor’s character went on the run.
Because the Terminator franchise involves time travel and alternate futures, [writer Josh] Friedman believe he’ll be able to take a few plot liberties in the series – emphasis on “few.”
“The last thing I want to do is take a title and exploit it,” Friedman said. “The show needs to stand on its own while still being respectful of the franchise.”
Too late.
The Gospel Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster
New York Magazine and galleycat report that Robert Henderson, the founder of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, received an $80,000 advance for his upcoming book The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The tome, which will “codify Pastafarianism,” is set to come out on Valentine’s Day.
“My hope is that readers won’t know if I’m trying to make a point about pseudoscience or if I’m a complete nut,” says Henderson. “I’ll be really disappointed if it doesn’t spawn a cult.”
This news makes me very happy.
Dick Of The Day
As a follow-up to one of the items in my post below, televangelist Pat Robertson now asserts:
I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city.
What a dick.
Atmospheric Optics
Atmospheric Optics presents an amazing array of atmospheric phenomena:
Light playing on water drops, dust or ice crystals in the atmosphere produces a host of visual spectacles – rainbows, halos, glories, coronas and many more. Some can be seen almost every day or so, some are once in a lifetime sights. Find out where to see them and how they form. Then seek and enjoy them outdoors.
Cardboard Box Added To Toy Hall Of Fame
I thought it was a joke when I read that “the cardboard box was enshrined Friday in the National Toy Hall of Fame along with Jack-in-the-Box and Candy Land,” but apparently it is true.
“I think every adult has had that disillusioning experience of picking what they think is a wonderful toy for a child, and then finding the kid playing with the box,” said Christopher Bensch, chief curator of the Strong Museum. “It’s that empty box full of possibilities that the kids can sense and the adults don’t always see.”
I guess I can see that, and the first thing that came to mind is the Simpsons episode Rosebud where Maggie’s attachment to Mr. Burn’s bear Bobo is momentarily transferred to a box on Homer’s head. Still, a cardboard box?
Cardboard Box Added To Toy Hall Of Fame
I thought it was a joke when I read that “the cardboard box was enshrined Friday in the National Toy Hall of Fame along with Jack-in-the-Box and Candy Land,” but apparently it is true.
“I think every adult has had that disillusioning experience of picking what they think is a wonderful toy for a child, and then finding the kid playing with the box,” said Christopher Bensch, chief curator of the Strong Museum. “It’s that empty box full of possibilities that the kids can sense and the adults don’t always see.”
I guess I can see that, and the first thing that came to mind is the Simpsons episode Rosebud where Maggie’s attachment to Mr. Burn’s bear Bobo is momentarily transferred to a box on Homer’s head. Still, a cardboard box?
Kansas, Where “Ignorant” is the New “Educated”
In its article Kansas, Where “Ignorant” is the New “Educated”, SciAm Observations pulls no punches in its criticism of the recent Kansas State Board Of Education decision to “approve new public school science standards that cast doubt on the theory of evolution:”
Somewhere right now in Kansas, there is a little child who may grow up to be a brilliant scientist. She may make fantastic contributions to science, and future generations may remember her as one of the brightest intellectual lights of her time. But if so, it will be despite the public education that she received in Kansas, because today six dimwits on the state’s Board of Education voted to lower the standards for how science is taught.
…
It wasn’t enough for them to undermine the teaching of biology by falsifying a scientific controversy over evolution. No, the Board of Education went as far as to redefine what science is: it’s no longer just a search for natural explanations for natural phenomena. Now it’s a search for… well, that’s a bit hard to say. Any sort of explanation, apparently. Pixies, ghosts, telekinesis, auras, ancient astronauts, excesses of choleric humor, they all seem to be fair game in the interest of “academic freedom.” Oh, and God, of course. The Board might not say that because it could get them into trouble with the Supreme Court, but can anyone say with a straight face that getting God into the science classes isn’t the goal of the people who pushed for these changes?
In related news, in Dover, Pennsylvania,
Voters came down hard Tuesday on school board members who backed a statement on intelligent design being read in biology class, ousting eight Republicans and replacing them with Democrats who want the concept stripped from the science curriculum.
Good riddance.
Finally, in another related interesting development,
The Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin’s theory of evolution were “perfectly compatible” if the Bible were read correctly.
His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.
“The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim,” he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that “the universe didn’t make itself and had a creator.”
This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm – science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to “understand things better”.
Although I’d greatly prefer to see religion and science treated as basically mutually exclusive entities, this announcement demonstrates that even The Vatican has enough of the way in which Fundamentalists are thinly veiling creationism behind the cloak of their pseudo-science “Intelligent Design.”
