Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
This clip was produced by a group of Israelis who did satirical cabaret, making fun of sacred cows. (The language is Hebrew with English subtitles.) The cow in this short video is the FBI’s attitudes toward Islamic terrorism; the Boston FBI locale and Chechen perpetrators make clear that this is about the Boston Marathon bombing. (The video was also made in 2013).
This film, in fact, couldn’t be shown on Israeli television, which by and large is so Regressive Leftist that it wouldn’t countenance this kind of satire. But it’s funny, and certainly has a grain of truth. Malgorzata found it and put the subtitles in Polish, which you can see, if you wish, by pressing the cc button.
Canadians are acting badly again, and here I’m referring to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who should know better. From the CBC, we have a story about a Holy Potato. The text is indented, and the figure captions are from the website.
A cook was cutting potatoes at a Quebec seniors’ residence when he decided to slice one lengthwise instead of across, as he usually did.
What he saw inside is being called a sign of a divine presence in the building.
“He saw it was a cross and he said, ‘It’s a sign,'” said Émilien Morin, president of the residents’ committee at Le Mieux Vivre Residence in Grande-Rivière.
“He thought it meant ‘I’m here’ — a religious sign.”
The sacred spud was discovered Aug. 22 at the Gaspé Peninsula residence by cook Alain Lévesque.
“He couldn’t believe it,” Morin said.
The potato will be on display in the dining room where all residents at the seniors’ home in Grande-Rivière, Que., can enjoy being near it. (Submitted by Gaston Lebreux)
I love the figure caption above (my emphasis). But wait—there’s more!
Morin said the residents are devout Catholics and sought a way to preserve the potato.
Jeannette Moreau, a residents’ committee member, is currently housing the potato in her apartment as it dries.
Morin says the potato-drying process could take up to a month, adding that the spud has started to darken but the sign of the cross at its centre is still highly visible.
He doesn’t want people to visit the vegetable until it’s fully dried and ready to be displayed in a custom-made display case.
Morin said the potato will be on display in the dining room where all residents can enjoy being near it.
“It makes them feel safe,” Morin said.
Alain Lévesque and Émilien Morin have been instrumental in preserving the potato. (Submitted by Gaston Lebreux)
Now here’s the bad part in an otherwise amusing article (amusing for nonbelievers, that is): the ending of the article:
Seriously, CBC? “Might be a sign from above?” “Divine?” Given that they have a naturalistic explanation, why on earth would they raise the possibility that God made these markings? Who’s in charge of this article?
I sent this to friends in Montreal, who said the only thing to be done with this spud is make Holy Poutine, which could be offered to Québécois as a kind of communion.
Here’s another Jesus potato, along with 21 other images of Jesus in food from BuzzFeed, including my favorite, a Jesus banana:
Someone call Ray Comfort: his apology for the banana video was premature!
If they gave Pulitzer Prizes for headlines, that should get one!
The story: a 53 year old father in Omaha found brownies in the back of his car, a car his kids had used earlier in the day. He ate four of them, and, sure enough, the brownies were pot brownies. The expected effect occurred: the man got stoned, but had no idea what was happening. He began getting terrible anxiety, and the cops and paramedics were called. This was the scene when they arrived:
Paramedics called to the scene who checked the man found his vital signs to be normal. But they noted that he was displaying odd behavior — crawling around on the floor, randomly using profanities and calling the family cat a “bitch.”
The man was put to bed, one of the kids confessed that the brownies belonged to one of the other kids (LOL), and no arrests were made.
But The Pot Father was not so sure, so it was then that he tried to go upstairs to his bedroom, where later (as he got even higher) he would see the demons and the flying circles and squares.
Except that as he walked across the living room somehow his walk turned into a crawl. And then somehow his crawl turned into a military crawl like he learned at Marine Corps basic training back in 1981. (“Michael was displaying odd behavior,” the police report reads. “Crawling around on the floor …”)
And then somehow he was sprawled on the stairs, and the family cat, Kipper, was standing at the top of the stairs staring down at him, unblinking. Maybe a tad judgey.
For the record, The Pot Father claims he was actually attempting to tell the paramedics helping him off the stairs that the cat is sometimes a bitch. As in, don’t touch her tail, guys, that cat will claw-shank you. But it maybe came out kind of weird, owing to the fact that he had just accidentally ingested an enormous amount of pot brownies. Maybe, just maybe, it came out sounding like he was “calling their cat a ‘bitch’ ” as the police report so eloquently states.
Which he wasn’t, The Pot Father swears. Although: “She can be a b…,” he tells me Thursday night.
And here’s Kipper, the bitch cat. LOL: it’s a tortie!
Photo: Matthew Hansen for the World Herald
I have a similar story! When I was in grad school, my officemate was a postdoc from India, and had never in his life tried pot. It turned out that, one Saturday, there was going to be a lab party, and another grad student had made a pan of pot brownies for it, using an entire ounce of the stuff. He put the brownies in the cold room, and we knew they were there.
When I got to my office on Saturday afternoon, my officemate was lying on the cot we kept in our office for naps, writhing around and giggling uncontrollably. I was baffled, as he was a pretty straight guy. After a bit of interrogation, I discovered that he had gone into the cold room to get some electrophoretic buffer, and came upon the pan of brownies. He was also a guy who liked his noms, so he helped himself amply to what he thought was cake.
It took him hours to come down, and, as far as I know, he never tried pot again after that!
Even if it’s missing Tim Hortons coffee, I can’t imagine a cuter “Canadian” photo. From CBC News, thanks to reader Taskin, we have a wonderful short article called “Mountie + baby beaver = most Canadian photo ever?” The photo isn’t really staged, but grew out of a real encounter. As the CBC describes,
The centre helps injured and abandoned birds and wild animals, and in May received four beaver kits whose mother had been killed near Fort Qu’Appelle.
Jason Pinder, who has volunteered his time with Salthaven for the past five years, works a day job as an RCMP corporal.
When he stopped by the centre a few days ago wearing his red serge uniform, staff couldn’t resist getting a shot with him and one of the furry critters.
The result: an iconic shot for the ages that delighted Salthaven’s Facebook followers.
Most Canadian photo ever? Many agreed.
“Just missing a double-double!” Kimberley Belhumeur said in the comments.
Photo: Megan Lawrence/Salthaven West
Well, when I posted it on Facebook some of my FB friends thought it was missing more than a double double (BTW, if you don’t know that term, read this explanation). Here’s my thread this morning (another comment just added by reader daveau: “I hope that beaver is bilingual.”) But as far as I know, beavers have only one tongue!
It’s the end of a long day for me; I’ve written much of my chidren’s book, worked on my talk for Monday, finished a blurb for a book, wrote posts here, pulled weeds, and raked rotten apples. So forgive me if all I have to offer is a kitten who’s not yet mastered the Big Kitten Litter Box:
I’m starting to weary of the endless Trump-bashing by people who delight in his every misstep, like the plagiarism of his wife in her speech. (Yes, I’ve been guilty of that., too!) But it’s becoming extreme, and the aims are not political, as they should be, but often sheer mean-spiritedness. Granted that Donald doesn’t seem to have an empathic bone in his body—every gene he has is dedicated to self-promotion—but it’s too much to make something like this, which is all over Facebook.
Really, must people be snarky about his marriages? I am just so confident that Trump will lose that I see stuff like this as overkill, and as Schadenfreude, which is never a good emotion. Trump is going to lose the election, and if any reader feels otherwise I’ll be willing to bet them some dosh, as I’ve bet Lou Jost. My money is on Hillary.
Nevertheless, I’ll put up one satirical post, which, unlike the meme above, does make a valid political point. It’s a report by CBS News that Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has received some, well, treatment. Someone built a 6-inch wall around his star, put “Keep out” signs on it, and topped it with razor wire:
Of course my question is this: Why does he have a star in the first place?
