#47488: — 11/07  at  01:42 PM
Did anyone else see the pirate attack on the cruise ship? Did FSM answer the challenge issued by Yhvh, or did the evangelicals provoke his wrath?

And what does it say about FSM that he would punish an innocent cruise ship when he gets mad at fundies?

#47491: Alon Levy — 11/07  at  01:51 PM
These are no pirates. People who wear balaclavas and tote AK-47s aren't pirates, even if they loot ships; they are modern terrorists or mercenaries. If they don't wear bandanas, search for hidden treasures, speak the old Bristol dialect, have excessive amounts of gold in their clothes and earrings, or have eyepatches, hooks, and wooden legs to cover or replace lost eyes and limbs, they're not pirates. Besides, real pirates only attach merchant ships.

#47493: — 11/07  at  01:54 PM
Punish? The pirates almost got run over by the cruise ship. They must be heathen pirates. If they were the FSM's Own Pirates, He'd have silenced the engines of the ship with one of His Noodly Appendages, to allow His pirates to make away with the ship's entire stock of ramen.

On to more important things, I hope this:

These danged higher brain functions are just too messy and complicated

doesn't portend Our Host's conversion to Beheism-Dembskiism for the sake of making his lecture easier: 'That the higer brain functions are so messy and complicated shows they were specially created that way by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Thus we can conclude there are some things His Noodliness does not want man to know. Class dismissed.'

#47499: — 11/07  at  02:12 PM

These are no pirates. People who wear balaclavas and tote AK-47s aren't pirates, even if they loot ships; they are modern terrorists or mercenaries.

You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe...

-------------

Bush insists we would never toruture anyone, while vice president Cheney lobbies to make it legal for the CIA to torture people. Something just doesn't add up.

---------------

Fight over teaching evolution in Kansas heading for vote

#47505: Alon Levy — 11/07  at  02:31 PM
You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe...

Indeed, as far as I'm concerned, the only correct way to pronounce "tomato" is with the bay vowel, not with the bah vowel.

#47506: — 11/07  at  02:40 PM
speaking of different pronunciations for foods.

Yesterday, while watching a cooking show - License to Grill - the host referred to shallots - but pronounced it shalLOTS. I had never heard it that way.

Then, later, watching Iron Chef America, Alton brown referred to shallots, and pronounced it SHALlots. But, then said "or shalLOTS, depending on what side of the world you are from."

The first show was on Discovery Home Channel, and the second was on Food Network. It was kind of cool to see the same odd thing come up on two different channels on the same day.

#47507: franky — 11/07  at  03:01 PM
For those interested, the God or Not Carnival #2 is up at Eternal Revolution and the topic is "Proof". I personally have a post on the carnival: here. Take a look, the carnival is a good one.

I posted this carnival because I know PZ is hosting the Carnival of the Godless in a week or so. Not trying to spam, so apologies if you are not interested.

#47508: — 11/07  at  03:02 PM
"If they were the FSM's Own Pirates, He'd have silenced the engines of the ship with one of His Noodly Appendages, to allow His pirates to make away with the ship's entire stock of ramen."

Bah. FSM doesn't help the pirates, this is basic dogma. How else to explain global warming? If He, in all his noodliness, were to assist them at every turn the world would be a frigging snowball. The basic incompetence of these particular pirates may indicate that they weren't sufficiently pious, but is says nothing about His motives.

#47512: GrrlScientist — 11/07  at  03:21 PM
That Dick Cheney .. he seems to have gained weight recently, hasn't he? In more ways than one, too. But then, I guess that people call him "Dick" for a reason, don't they?

#47513: — 11/07  at  03:27 PM

Indeed, as far as I'm concerned, the only correct way to pronounce "tomato" is with the bay vowel, not with the bah vowel.

Hey! It was our language first! So it's toe-MAH-toe and shaLLOT - like 'clerk' is cl-ARK not klerrrk...and it's aluminium not a-LOO-min'm...and Herb not 'erb...SHED-ule not SKED-ule...

#47514: Bob Davis — 11/07  at  03:31 PM
Scientific American has published an article about life evolving off earth and arriving here on asteroids. I have all the relevant portions of the article (slightly edited for size) at my website:

(L)iving cells or their precursors arrived from space... from an extraterrestrial seed.... (L)ife existed on Mars long ago.... Life... also evolved on Europa, Jupiter's fourth-largest moon.... (A)ll life, and indeed all things, originated from the combination of tiny seeds pervading the cosmos....

Shocking, indeed. More here.

#47516: — 11/07  at  03:44 PM
Ian - I've heard that we yanks actually preserved the old English accent more than the Brits, on account of putting an ocean between us and Europe. Hence, you guys have the romanized vowels. Like AH for your short A sound.

#47519: — 11/07  at  04:06 PM
On a completely different topic, an anti-evolution argument that I see crop up from time to time goes like this: scientific ideas progress from hypothesis to theory to law, much the same way as a bill goes through Parliament or Congress (or whatever you have in your part of the world). Evolution hasn't made it past the theory stage therefore it's dodgy. Now I KNOW this is crap; what I want to know is where this hypothesis-theory-law stuff comes from.

#47522: — 11/07  at  04:29 PM
Noble Leader says:

I've been a bit overwhelmed today, what with trying to get caught up before
I leave town this weekend and trying to distill down a summary of how the
primary motor cortex and basal ganglia work together into a one hour
lecture that I have to give shortly.

Dude: all you need to do is take a look at the presentation in Bear Neuroscience, figure out what you need to add to that, and you should be fine. How involved do you need to be here? I find that once you can inspire understanding of the "inihibition of inhibition" part of this, you're golden. Or, maybe I'm missing something.

#47523: Alon Levy — 11/07  at  04:32 PM
Ian - I've heard that we yanks actually preserved the old English accent more than the Brits, on account of putting an ocean between us and Europe. Hence, you guys have the romanized vowels. Like AH for your short A sound.

It's true - General American is a backwater accent. There are some recent American innovations, though, such as merging balm with bomb, cot with caught, merry with marry and Mary, do with due, wail with whale, worry with whirry, and ladder with latter. But the general grammar and words used are older in American than in British - e.g. fall is older than autumn.

Now I KNOW this is crap; what I want to know is where this hypothesis-theory-law stuff comes from.

It comes from a time when there wasn't much distinction between theory and law in science. Today Newton's laws would be called a theory of gravity, but at the time the word theory was used in roughly the same contexts creationists insist it is used.

#47525: PZ Myers — 11/07  at  04:40 PM
Now you tell me, Jonathan.

Actually, "inhibition of inhibition" was kind of the punchline of the lecture.

#47541: — 11/07  at  06:03 PM
these are no pirates

exactly. haven't you heard? Pirates are people who share copies of cds.

#47542: mbains — 11/07  at  06:08 PM
Okay.

The 310th thing that I've learned about on this site may be the one that fixes me.

Inhibition of inhibition!

Brilliant!

(I wonder if I should think about this a little more first... )

#47547: — 11/07  at  06:43 PM
Here it is! Undeniable physical evidence - nay, PROOF - that God hates France.
http://frenchriotlol.ytmnd.com/
LOL!

Just kidding. I've never been to France, never met a Frenchman, don't know enough about them to determine for myself if the stereotype is true. But hey, it's so easy to bash them...

#47549: — 11/07  at  07:00 PM
but if he's laughing at the French riots, doesn't that actually prove that he hates China or something? After all, Pat Robertson says he punishes people far away from the ones he's mad at, and who would know better than him?

#47555: — 11/07  at  07:37 PM
AHA! Undeniable physical evidence - nay, PROOF - that God hates China!

#47556: — 11/07  at  07:40 PM
Reminds me of when I learned that alcohol is a diuretic because it inhibits ADH, or anti-diuretic hormone.

#47577: — 11/07  at  10:08 PM
Nice of PZ to hold an open thread on the day that I am far too lazy to look for the Viking sex cruise post

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42323

#47618: — 11/08  at  02:50 AM
Argh! They just had someone from the discovery institute on Radio 4. Come on BBC, I expect better of you than that.

#47623: — 11/08  at  03:39 AM

Yesterday, while watching a cooking show - License to Grill - the host referred to shallots - but pronounced it shalLOTS. I had never heard it that way.

Then, later, watching Iron Chef America, Alton brown referred to shallots, and pronounced it SHALlots. But, then said "or shalLOTS, depending on what side of the world you are from."

Or you could just pronounce it SHA-LO as it should be done, but now I open myself up to the anti-french bashing.

Only 10 cars burned in my city last night, things are calming down... not! It isn't just you guys in the US that have right wing idiots in government - for eg look up Nicolas Sarkozy.