As a libertarian, I am ideologically against taxes. Moreover, as a lazy bum who’s always just gotten her dad to do it for her, I don’t actually want to do my taxes. But this weekend, guess what I’m doing. Yes, that’s right: whining about doing my taxes. Boo-urns on that.
However, on a more positive note, my recent whirlwind trip back to the Stalbert let me bring back some new books to replace the old and busted ones I’ve had since October. At the end of chapter four of Darwin’s ‘The Origin of the Species,’ he provides the final rebuttal to anyone who still has a hard-on for Intelligent Design and possibly Pastafarianism. I realize I’m preaching to the choir here, but just try and stop me.
“If during the long course of ages and under varying conditions of life, organic beings vary at all in the several parts of their organization, and I think this cannot be disputed; if there be, owing to the high geometric powers of increase of each species, at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of existence, causing an infinite diversity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them, I think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variation ever had occurred useful to each being’s own welfare, in the same way as so many variations have occurred useful to man. But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection.”
There. Take that, South Dakota. You can’t even dispute it. Chaz was the man.
Recently I read an article about a wasp that, with amazing precision, lands on the back of a cockroach and injects a chemical into its brain with its stinger. The chemical doesn’t kill the cockroach; it just turns it into a zombie. The wasp “drives” the cockroach against its will back to a burrow by manipulating its antenna. Once at the wasp’s burrow, eggs are injected and the larva eventually eat the immobilized, but alive, cockroach from the inside out.
There is also a breed of horsehair worm that, once ingested by a praying mantis, grows inside the length of the mantis and eventually secretes a chemical causing the mantis to inexplicably seek out water and drown itself. The worm, now several times the length of the mantis, swims out of the shell and lays eggs in the water.
The sheer complexity of these “relationships” is difficult to explain with evolutionary principles, but the wacky South Dakota ID proponents aren’t exactly shining the spotlight on such phenomenon either. I mean, who would purposefully design anything so unimaginably horrific?
By a revolting and completely non-intelligent coincidence, I am reading a textbook on parasitism right now that explains both those phenomena in terms of the co-evolution of the host-parasite relationship. They are both so disgusting I don’t want to go into it (also, no one wants to hear about cockroach neurotransmitters).
P.S. And I was once privileged to watch a monstrous horsehair worm exit the anus of a very unlucky grasshopper in 2004. It just about beats a 30-m platyhelminth exiting the anus of a sperm whale, but barely.
OK, I don’t feel like writing another post to point it out, but let’s all thank Mark for putting up our spiffy new header graphic.
I would also like to announce a PRIZE for our new tagline, whatever it turns out to be. Submit the greatest tagline and I will buy you one BEVERAGE of your choice from any coffee establishment within, say, a ten-block radius of my apartment building.
If you win and you live in a different province, I will pour the beverage into an envelope and mail it to you.
Good luck!
Yes, let’s not thank Premee who actually took the photo with her own camera, and e-mailed it to me to upload as a header graphic.
And, a prize! Well, then… How about…
Soda Craze
“More soda than you can sew, duh.”
No? Uh, then… well, how about…
Soda Craze
“Drink an iota of soda at the soda pagoda!”
Or, maybe I’ll just pass on the prize altogether…
No beverages for you!
Soda Craze -
Why don’t American’s call it pop?
Yes!
American’s.. apostrophe s?
I’m not so bright.
“Soda Craze: Because ‘Yoda Craze’ Was Already Taken.”
No?
“Soda Craze: On Average, Slightly Less Crazy Than the Craziest Contributor.”
Hmmm…
…that ’soda pagoda’ one is starting to look good right about now.
Kim? Kelly? Winnie? Everybody? Are you hearing this? Enter the contest, for God’s sake, we’re dying here.
Ok ok. Here’s a grammatically incorrect one.
Soda Craze: All the crazy-ies, none the calories.
Ha, take that!
Ooh, that’s the best one yet; I think we should use it. But, you know, spelled properly. Also, Winnie had better be joining us, or else*!
* Threat to be determined by another contest, probably.
Ooh! Something about ‘none of the calories’ definitely has potential… but ‘crazy-ies’ dun’t quite roll off the tongue.
It is true that Soda Craze is completely caffeine and calorie free. We’re probably the only blog out there not contributing to the obesity epidemic.
Or a play on one of the pre-existing soda slogans… you know, like “None of the taste, none of the calories,” or “Do you crave the craze?”
…I don’t know why I can’t do any work today, honest to God.
“All of the craziness, none of the calories” OR
“Same crazy taste, none of the calories”
The word “craziness” slipped my mind ok?
Throw me a bone here. English is not my first language! psssh.
“All of the craziness, none of the calories” gets my vote.
Someone had better veto this soon; and, Winnie, click on “Register” and the top and join us. Jooooiiiiiin ussssss….
I like the slogan that’s been suggested (sorry Mark), and here’s another one: “We’re the Diet Coke of Evil…”. Winnie got me thinking about it with the “throw me a bone” business.
I better be receiving my caffeinated beverage in my mail soon!
a) Not everybody voted yet, and
b) Mark seems to think we can do the veto thing.
Look, how about we give this contest another week? I can get some really strong hallucinogens at the corner across from me, and I’m sure more suggestions will be forthcoming.
Veto? Winnie got the most support.
Now send her some caffeinated beverage, a tout de suite!
OK, so are we definitely agreed on ‘All of the craziness, none of the calories’?
Also, what’s your address, Winnie?