Open thread

Only Dr. Charles could write a post about fun with stool cultures.  From a medical perspective, the humor is not so overwhelming that it clouds out his empathy with his patients.  But it’s still terribly funny.

The religious right would like to make it more difficult to sue under the establishment clause of the Constitution.  To wit (regarding H.R. 2679, otherwise known as the “Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005”): “Currently, if you sue the government for a constitutional violation and are successful – if the court agrees that the government has acted unconstitutionally – the judge, at his or her discretion, may order the agency that violated the constitution to pay reasonable legal fees for the other side. This is mandated in Federal law under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. HR 2679 would leave that in place, but exempt only one type of lawsuit from that rule – lawsuits based on [the separation of church and state].”  How pitiful.  Since almost all of these lawsuits find in favor of the plaintiff, making it more financially difficult on them would certainly reduce the number of lawsuits the church has to lose and pay for.  What a cheap victory: rig the game so it hurts the other player more — and unfairly — just so you can violate the U.S. Constitution.  Pathetic.  And why would Congress even consider such a thing, a move blatantly intended to favor religions by subverting the law?  Oh, that’s right: it’s a Republican Congress at the moment.

Weekend Cat Blogging #55 and Carnival of the Cats #118 both offer sumptuous buffets of feline fun.

Carnival of the Godless #43 has much to offer critical thinkers not bogged down by arbitrary faith — and even more to offer those who are.

Cadbury is trying to kill its customers by intentionally manufacturing and distributing candy tainted with salmonella.  The problem was discovered in January.  Despite this, the company continued making and selling the sweets for at least 40 days.  They distributed a minimum of 1 million toxic confections over six months and failed to notify the proper authorities until it was too late—again, six months after the fact.  Current reports indicate up to 45 people have been poisoned.  Remember, Cadbury owns Dr. Pepper/7-Up, so I’d suggest not buying any of their products from this point forward.  They demonstrated a complete disregard for the welfare of their customers via this irresponsible and intentional act, willfully hid the incident from authorities, and recklessly endangered the lives of those buying their products.  Oh, and one more piece of the puzzle: Cadbudy reported the issue to authorities only after the company learned it was under investigation by the government in response to the massive salmonella outbreak.  Shameful!

It’s like Mothra, only better: this one is real.  You have to go to see the pictures of America’s largest moth.  Stunning.  Beautiful.  You really have to see this.

The Vampire Jumping Spider has a taste for human blood.  Lucky for us it’s not able to get it directly (it doesn’t have the mouth parts necessary to pierce human skin).  So, if it can’t drink our blood directly, how does it survive?  Again lucky for us, it gets its fill of human blood by attacking another parasite that does have the ability to pierce our skin and often spreads diseases by doing so: the mosquito.  Cool, dude.  This is why I respect and protect spiders.

Birds in the News 64 (v2n15) once again offers stunning photographs while providing plenty of compelling news flying in from the avian world.

Do you have a Motorola cell phone?  Get your model number and check this list.  Why do I mention this?  Well, radiation is bad, m’kay?  Besides, while we still don’t know for certain whether or not cell phones cause damage to the brain, we absolutely know they affect it.

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