Friday Ark #86 provides the weekly consolidation of all the best animal news from around the web.

There apparently was a letter written by someone named Helen Brown sent to The Guardian that stated people could not be good in the ways that matter if they did not believe in god.  I find that premise entirely insulting, disgusting, ignorant, and otherwise downright repugnant.  I wasn’t the only one who thought so, and those letters are excellent responses to such stupidity and narrow-mindedness.

While I’d seen this mentioned recently in several places on the web, I refrained from actually watching the video until Wayne sent it to me today.  I wish I’d watched it sooner.  This is really funny: the evolution of dance.

The creeping ick indeed.  Morgellons disease, a new ailment to add to the medical dictionary, baffles the mind with its symptoms and related suffering, and “more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas.”  Oh, and it’s spreading.  I assure you, as the article Apostropher links to points out, “‘[This disease] really has the makings of a horror movie in every way.'”  I strongly suggest you read the first link in his post for the entire report.  This disease is bizarre.

You know, I remember when NSA stood for “No Such Agency” due to the sneaky lack of confirmation of its existence for quite a long while.  Eventually, the secret was revealed and knowledge of the NSA, despite blatant ignorance of its activities, became common.  That’s when we learned the acronym was for National Security Agency.  With continuing revelations about the unconstitutional and illegal spying the NSA now performs on American citizens, we now have a new definition: Now Spying on Americans.  Now you can get your own tee shirts (among other items).

Teaching Carnival #9 is available.  This is another new carnival I’ve recently discovered.  Unlike the Carnival of Education which I’ve included here for some time, this one appears to have a different and varied focus.  I’ve not seen any overlap yet and I’ve enjoyed this new blog conglomeration since discovering it two iterations ago, so I will probably include this one moving forward.

Evolution’s Bottom Line.  It’s scathingly excellent.  If you don’t have but need an account to access nytimes.com, just go to Bugmenot.com and find one (that is assuming you do not wish to sign up for one as I have [which never meant getting more spam or other invasions of my personal space]).