Worst. Chick Tract. Ever.

I don’t know how well that claim will hold up. The Chick Publication Library has quite some shockers linking anything it can with the devil. The Usual Suspects include D&D, Evilution, Communism, and those Muslims. with their silly “moon god”.

But Jack appears to have found a new target with the Jolly Man in the Big Red Suit. Yes, Virginia, believing in Santa Claus will get you sent to hell. PZ has good screen caps and some other commentary.

The story centers around a nice young lad who when he is told Santa isn’t real goes all ninja – he flips out and kills people.

No.

Really.

He flips out. And kills people. Over Santa Claus.

Know your Bible with PZ

Yes. It seems a surprising person to be running Sunday School. But PZ Myers does it brilliantly.

Hey Christians, you know you aren’t reading your Bible when PZ Myers has to school you on it.

Mooooooooooooooooooooo

Post-halloween zombie roundup

Okay, it’s not really a roundup… but blame PZ for just adding to random zombie madness.

The rest of links come from i09 which has had some great zombie links up recently:

• Zombie Red Riding Hood (with guns!)
• Zombie Big Brother
• Pontypool – some sort of voice-activated zombie retrovirus plague… yeah wtf.. but interesting enough to pique interest

Let me axe you a question

Ooooh!

Shameless host promotion! WordPress has enabled polls!

My chances of getting someone to crash my blog* have gone up +100% (from 0%)!

Am I over using exclamation points! (That’s not the poll question)

This should have been tacked on to my previous post:

For the five people I know who are reading this.

*hint hint

Carnivale ahoy

Tomorrow is talk like a pirate day. YAARRR!

But in the meantime, two carnivals I need to post about (one features yours truly):

Tangled Bank #114 at Science Made Cool.

Carnival of Evolution #2 at Evolution Blog. Thanks very much to Jason who gave me a mention even though my submission was “unrelated to anything [Jason] actually know[s] anything about”. Don’t worry Jason, I have that effect on people.

And I had an excellent time at the Science Blogs 1,000,000th comment party. I think the comment of the hour was actually likely posted while we busy frittering away the tablescraps graciously past down by the SEED overlords on high. We almost got shuffled out by the staff for staying and chatting and boozing too long.

Both Tim and Dan were great hosts (all the best to Dan in his voyage to UK). Also met with some chaps from the Sydney Freethinkers who hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with at some later point again.

Exposing secret men’s business

Indigenous Australian rights has been very high profile in Australia recently. Most will be aware of the Federal Parliament’s official apology earlier this year, some may not be quite so familiar with a further apology made by male Indigenous Australians a few months ago.

Most of the focus was on cultural male violence – including sexual and physical abuse against women and children – that affects some Indigenous communities. But perhaps there is more to it than that…

Josh reports the news of uproar amongst community Aboriginal education bodies against a book that encourages girls to use didgeridoos (AFP).

Apparently using a didgeridoo can cause infertility, the means may be unspecified, but apparently it’s a fact.

“We know very clearly that there’s a range of consequences for a female touching a didgeridoo — infertility would be the start of it, ranging to other consequences. I won’t even let my daughter touch one.” -Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, GM Mark Rose.

I’d like to repeat Josh: “Was there a double-blinded controlled study?”

“Secret Men’s Business” is Indigenous Australia’s way of excusing culturally ingrained bigotry. This commentary piece by Sam Watson exposes part of the denial problem.

“We do not have any power anymore, no role or place or rights to be men. Our men are attacked and condemned in every newspaper and two bob media commentator in the land. Our men are fair game for every talk back – shock jock on the commercial networks. And we are even ripped apart by those self-appointed, ‘Jacky ­ Jacky’ leaders who are acting as attack dogs for their white masters.”

There is no modern role for “men” as a role in society, this is not an indigenous-specific issue. It is very much at the root of the modern male-depression epidemic. All communities, including indigenous ones, must adjust to the equal rights movement. Men no longer have a right to be head of a household, anymore than whites have rights to segregate themselves from blacks.

In order to be afforded the rights expected in a modern society, some of your previous “rights” must be relinquished. Part of this will be some traditional roles and activities that are not acceptable by modern standards, and it certainly goes beyond domestic violence issues.

Watson also uses the No-True-Scotsman fallacy which I think appears to pervade many activists attempting to address this issue. A we-are-not-the-problem attitude will not be successful in dealing with this issue.

Tangled Bank #113: A Labor Day Carol

It’s Alive!! has been featured on Tangled Bank #113.

Thanks to Dana Hunter of En Tequila Es Verdad and He Who Shall Not Be Named for accepting my nomination.

Even though all the glory should be going to A Free Man.

One Horned Jesus

The overlord of the godless interwebs has returned from his pilgrimage to the isle of beasts…

It’s definitely nice to have Pharyngula back on tap. Some of the intermission posts by PZ’s students have been interested. I would definitely like to see Danio writing things (possibly on his own site) on a more regular basis.

The break from PZ did allow me to appreciate some of scienceblogs other writers though – which was definitely a good thing.

For those of you under a rock PZ is the heavyweight of science blogging, capable of crashing polls and servers like no other man. Capable of stirring up controversies that can shake wikipedia and bring the Catholic League to its knees.

Today we have him to thank for this simply wonderful story:

An art gallery in the UK is causing outrage amongst local Christians. The current display includes a plaster figure of Jesus – with a stiffy (pics thx to the sun)

Other culture icons like Mickey Mouse are included in the display. I think this is probably a little more distressing for kiddies than old JC. I mean JC was a thirty year old guy, presumeably he at least suffered from the occasional morning glory. Mickey is purely a children’s entertainment icon, like Ken, he isn’t even meant to have junk down there, let alone working plumbing.

Taking theories

Hat tip to PZ.

People wonder why we make fun of New Zealand (Okay its American craetards trying to shlock their crap on NZ).

Focus on the Family goes out of its way to show that they really don’t give a shit about any sense of honest scientific discussion:

Science takes a theory and tries to establish it as the truth.

THAT IS NOT WHAT SCIENCE DOES.

This is the religious frame of thinking.

Science does not try to establish anything as one “truth”. Science may be about facts, but its moreso about the evidence.

If your evidence does not back up your facts, you need to think about some new facts

Creationists instead decide to ignore any evidence that doesn’t back up their predetermined results, and just keep hammering out their message of ignorance is bliss.

It does irritate you mightily that media will publish absolute trite like this from a creatard as if they are some sort of authority on what science actually is.

Mere parasite, perhaps … but growing

Today in an interview process I was asked what I thought had been an area of personal growth for me.

I was always raised to be open minded, but I think only open minded in the way Bianca from Big Brother (hey, have an open mind about TV too…) is “open minded”. I was raised to be aware that other people had opinions and ways, but MY ways were the correct ways. Sports were stupid. Cars were silly. Being smart mattered. Not knowing something made you worthless. Yes. I was an elite geek (elite enough to still reject the term “nerd”, vulgar and American…). Bruised, but proud in my achievements in the rugby-is-sacred culture of an all boys Catholic bording school in regional Queensland.

I’ve definitely moved away from that position. I recognise the value of sports for both kids and adults. It’s entertainment, skill building and fitness. I understand that actions make you a jerk, no matter how smart you are. I even eat vegetables I didn’t eat before. And probably even best of all in the self development column, I can comfortably point out when I disagree with someone.

Many of my science stories used to come from PZ Myers‘ Pharyngula – hence the tentacle reference in this entries title. I’m still a big fan, and a daily reader. But I think I need to develop some indie blogger cred, Indie Pete style. We parasites need to stand up against the strongarm oppression of the betentacled overlords, or shameless traffic whores, or whatever.

I’m going to try and expand my repertoire to some other science blogs. Like scibling Carl Zimmer’s The Loom, or Nature’s The Great Beyond, and nice gems, like Science Made Cool.

SMC is home of Zygote Games, an American company combating the rise of Latin pokemon wikipedia entries by “creating games which are fun and challenging, but which are also based on real science”. I’ve recently bought Munchkin. But if this nice little kids game – Parasites Unleashed! – had been available, I would have probably bought it instead. It looks like a great activity for school kids, and could easily be adapted to a drinking game. University students need learning too!