#50855: — 11/27  at  05:10 PM
Ribbit!

#50856: — 11/27  at  05:25 PM
On reflection that was rather too brief a comment.
(a) I think frogs are adorable.
(b) I don't believe that site really generates any. Whereas my neighbour's cellar does show signs of being a spontaneous frog generation site.

#50857: — 11/27  at  05:37 PM
frog legs are excellent! "Animals - eat 'em, so you don't have to beat 'em!"

PZ has been notably silent about H5N1 bird flu. Why?

#50858: — 11/27  at  05:39 PM
Everbuddy will enjoy this post about Galapagos Tortoises by Hedwig:

http://girlscientist.blogspot.com/2005/11/galapagos-tortoises-visit-nyc.html

#50862: — 11/27  at  06:40 PM
Viva la rana!

#50867: GrrlScientist — 11/27  at  07:51 PM
Aw, Jamie! You are very sweet to notice my little story and mention it here. Thanks!

#50868: the amazing kim — 11/27  at  08:01 PM
The frog generator is good, but not as good as Cats in Sinks.

#50871: — 11/27  at  08:18 PM
These are all good, but personally I prefer the Postmodern Generator. Amaze your lit-crit friends! Confuse and irritate the rest of us!

http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

#50874: — 11/27  at  08:38 PM
Always fun to poke lit-crit in the eye, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Critical thinking can and should be taught from numerous angles. And all that talk about English profs creating an economic sector in the University so they have a job, hey, welcome to the service industry era. Not a bad thing - beats turnin' wrenches and such. No harm done, really, and a few of us undergrads might snatch a grasp on some social issues in the process . . .

Trackback: Your Sunday evening time waster Tracked on: Neural Gourmet (207.44.240.10) at 2005 11 27 17:15:31
Via Pharyngula, we have the Random Frog Generator for your amphibious button clicking fun.

#50875: — 11/27  at  08:51 PM
Hey! I went to the home-page of the allaboutfrogs page and then on to the ASCII art page; and there on the page, uncredited (but just under joan g stark and then again lower down plus a slight modification of it under that), was my text frog from the early 1980s. I checked it character for character against the printout of the members of my file from back in the days when we were inventing the smiley/emoticon and the rest of you didn't have an internet at all.

#50884: John Emerson — 11/27  at  10:01 PM
How are the frogs doing IRL? What is the cause of their decline, and is there any sign of recovery anywhere? The dropoff around here in the last 40 years is appalling.

#50891: — 11/27  at  11:22 PM
This article was a little confusing for me but I kind of like the idea that vertebrates could be considered primative organisms. Kinds of sets the whole special creation agenda on it's head.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051124221029.htm

If I have it right, the authors think introns are primitive characteristics that have been shed by advanced creatures like flies but are retained in "living fossils" like Platynereis dumerilii and Homo sapiens. I don't know enough about how geneticists have traditionally thought about the role of introns in the genetic code to know if the claim of overthrowing "commonly-held beliefs" is accurate.

#50902: — 11/28  at  03:58 AM

What is the cause of their decline

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4332348.stm

#50924: Keith Douglas — 11/28  at  08:49 AM
So, anyone seen Kermit?

#50960: — 11/28  at  11:46 AM
PZ,

I am having problems contacting you by e-mail. In any case, you might be interested in this:

http://idintheuk.blogspot.com/2005/11/creationists-cannot-teach-biology.html

#50996: — 11/28  at  02:54 PM
The random frog generator is fun, but doesn't have a patch on the Frog calendars by Firefly books. I keep the old ones hanging up just for the pics.

#51013: Geoffrey Brent — 11/28  at  05:51 PM
Apologies if this has been mentioned already:

Zygote Games sell a card game called Bone Wars: The Game of Ruthless Palaeontology.

They're currently offering a special deal on orders to Kansas:

Why give a discount to Kansas? Why not Wyoming or Vermont? Simple: the Kansas Board of Education has attempted to give equal space in the state public school biology curriculum to the doctrine of "Intelligent Design," claiming that it is a "scientific theory" about the origin and development of life. It isn't, of course, and when real scientists complained that "Intelligent Design" fits none of the criteria for an actual scientific theory, the Board responded by redefining "science" so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations for phenomena.

So we're doing our part for science. BONE WARS is all about how scientific theories get developed and tested (along with being about lying, stealing, and conniving). Maybe our game can do what the schools in Kansas won't.

I have no affiliation with them (haven't even seen the game, though I'd love to), but I thought good deeds deserved to be recognised.

#51110: — 11/29  at  10:47 AM
Males can drive species decline - Too much aggressive sex can kill off lady lizards.

#51122: — 11/29  at  11:31 AM
In The Onion:
Why Does Everybody Hate Me?

By Satan
...
Everybody treats me like some kind of lowlife just because I'm the symbolic embodiment of all the evil in the universe.
...