399 - Monkey Tuesday

1. Chimp on a Train The Japanese are at it again. This time they've let a chimpanzee loose in the city with nothing but enough money for a train ticket and and english bulldog to help him find his way home.

2. Goodness: Its own Reward Acts of altruism in the monkey kingdom cast doubt on the theory that human morals are handed down from god-on-high.

3. Monkey Picked Tea Tea is really nothing but hot, dirty water, and it is gross. Now tea lovers can contaminate their perfectly good water with, not just twigs and leaves and dirt, but also with monkey hairs and finger prints.

4. Don't Choose Offices If you had to pass this sign everyday on your way to work, which way would you choose?

5. Monkey on a Mini-Bike I'm not even going to bother trying to describe this video. I holds up just fine on its own.

375 - with Links

1. Tame Foxes John Lithgow explains how unnatural selection, the act of selectively breeding animals for desirable qualities, can produce unexpected results. The interesting thing is how quickly these changes occur. The research has led a lot of people to question the accepted evolutionary theory of the family dog beginning with the domestication of the wolf. The molecular evidence seems pretty clear that dogs evolved from wolves rather than jackals or coyotes, but I can't find any reference to a similar study done to look for a dog/fox biological connection.

2. Gator Eats Dog Pet costume designers now have a new standard to shoot for.

3. Phit Jamming these tetris-esque game pieces together isn't that hard at the beginning, but eventually the pieces get a smaller and smaller while growing in number making it much harder to piece them together properly.

4. Prison Break An opportunistic panda sees his chance and makes a break for it.

5. Air Car A little more info on the Aircar, the compresseD air powered vehicle that I reported on in the past. I was interested to hear that it is being marketed in several countries, not just India as I had previously thought.

320 - Sunday

1. This Oughta be Good Don't forget to watch Kirk Cameron (famous for his role on Growing Pains) and Ray Comfort (famous for suggesting a genetically modified banana proves the existence of god) when they debate the scientific evidence of god with The Rational Response Squad (famous for instigating you-tubers to renounce the holy spirit.) Since none of the participants are actually scientists, I'm sure there will be a lot of incredibly well researched, scientifically valid information presented. Can sarcasm be accurately discerned from the written word without the aid of punctuation based emoticons?

2. Take My Pope...Please The George Bush anti-terrorism scare tactic has been so successful that even the Pope has started using it. After an Italian stand-up comedian, Andrea Rivera, made a few jokes pointing out what he believes to be hypocrisy in the Roman Catholic Church, the vatican issued a newspaper article in which they called Rivera "dangerous" and claim his routine is "terrorism." The thing that surprises me the most about this story is that Italy has its own stand-up comedians.

3. Toasted and Shredded The Creation Museum in Kentucky makes a lot of claims that are one hundred percent contrary to everything modern science knows about paleontology. For instance: Dinosaurs and humans frolicked together happily less than six thousand years ago; Noah's flood was real and his arc was filled with baby dinosaurs to maximize its storage space; When Adam and Eve ate an apple, dinosaurs turned carnivorous; Before that T-Rex used his razor sharp, serrated teeth for breaking open the tough husks of delicious coconuts.

4. Republican Repression Did anyone watch the republican presidential debates last week? It was more boring than the democrats the week before. All the online polls (which we know are not accurate) are claiming Ron Paul came out on top. All the mainstream news shows (which we know are not "fair and balanced") are claiming that victory for either McCain, Giuliani, or Romney. Thankfully, none of the "winners" were among the candidates that raised their hands when asked "Who here doesn't believe in evolution?" that dubious honor goes to Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo.

5. Holy Water, Holy #@&!!! It might be serious, and I hope Cardinal Francis George didn't hurt himself too badly, but even he might have to admit the comedic potential of a priest slipping and falling in a puddle of his own holy water. At least it wasn't a banana peel. Perhaps the first rule of public swimming pools should apply to church services as well: No Splashing.

300 - Sunday

1. Honk Twice for Satan A real battle of good vs. evil in happened Connecticut when a tattoo shop owner decided to combat his neighbor's "Beep for Christ" sign with a sign of his own. The Christian shop owner had this to say, "His sign is not bothering me, but I know it's bothering Jesus."

2. Saint Pope Churchgoers are proving once again that they don't really care about the rules imposed by their own faith. Promoters for the saintification of the late Pope John Paul 2 are pressuring the current pope to put a rush on the sainting process despite the fact that church ruled dictate a five year waiting period before the process can even begin.

3. Where's the Proof Again? In order for a dead person to become officially sainted, it must be proved that he or she interceded on the behalf of a living person. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre claims that the symptoms of her Parkinson's disease disappeared after she prayed to the previous pope for help. Of course, this is an old logical fallacy; correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

4. Science vs. Faith Unfortunately, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre will never be able to prove that the dead pope healed her. Even more unfortunate: no amount of medical science will likely ever change her opinion. If she was in fact cured of her disease, real scientists might be able to determine the reason, and thereby help countless others. Submitted to the required examinations might be a test of her faith though.

5. Matter Plus Energy In other news, researchers have finally disproved the scientifically accepted theory of how life on earth may have started.. Look like Jiff to me.

285 - Sunday

1. What the Pope?!? Pope Benedict XVI wants you to straighten up and follow the rules. If you do not, you will be punished. Hell is not merely a state of mind, as the last pope suggested, but a real, physical place where you will be punished for eternity if you do not do everything the new pope tells you to do. Purgatory, on the other hand is, for the time being anyway, just a theory.

2. Huff and Puff and Fatwa Your House In Fear of muslim reprisals caused Stile Common Junior School's head teacher, Gill Goodswen, to rewrite the script of the school play, The Three Little Pigs to star puppies instead of pigs. Muslims are forbidden to eat pork, you see.

3. Baby Jesus with a Beard Desperately afraid of having an unhealthy baby, Amanda Mclean grasps at the unrealistic idea that an ultrasound scan, which could be interpreted as containing an image of Jesus, is evidence that her baby is blessed. Of course, I wish her the best with her baby, but that picture looks more like a creepy frenchman with a beret or a wild eyed pirate with a giant hole in his head to me... which brings us to our next story.

4. Humans Share More Than 99.9% DNA with Pirates As a member of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Ryan Killian believes that humans evolved from pirates. He wanted to express this belief by wearing an eye patch to school. In theory, freedom of expression extends into the halls of all public schools across the nation. In reality, school officials can easily invoke the slippery, "disruption of class" clause whenever they feel like it.

5. Micro to Macro Computer aided models explain the scientific theory of how populations split between diverse environments observed over many generations evolve first into subspecies and eventually into completely separate species. Youtube commenters debate the reality of the human soul based on bible verses.

244 - with Links!

1. 1,001,304 Scoville Units The Bhut Jolokia or ghost chili pepper just came along and knocked the Dorset Naga off the top of the hot ass pepper charts.

2. Fish Face Then the Koreans come along and make a creepy goldfish with the face of a human being.

3. Random Mutation Leads to World's Fastest Duckling If a duck born with four legs breeds, would that trait them be passed on to its offspring? Hello, geneticists?

4. Mataphor for Homeland Security Apparently, the batmobile lost a wheel.

Who Wants to Be a Fourth Grader Which of these orbits the Earth? A. The Moon B. The Sun C. Mars D. Venus

210 - with Links!

1. Cave Man Style Although evolutionary biologists have discounted the idea that modern humans decended from Neanderthals, recent discoveries in Romania suggest that there might have been some interbreeding between them and us.

2. The Frog Brothers First it's Real Genius Two and now there are reports of a possible sequel to the 80's "classic" The Lost Boys. I'll believe it when I see it.

3. Nintendo This dude needs to post step by step instuction on how he crammed an entire NES video game console into one single game controller.

4. Amazing I really liked the democratic nature of the original James Randi Million Dollar Challenge, which allowed any crackpot to put his claims of paranormal abilities to the test. The new challenge puts a little bit more pressure on the claimants which should free the JREF from the hassle of dealing with a lot of mentally ill applicants so they can focus more on the real charlatans.

5. Totally Ripped You Though We Wouldn't Notice is a nice collection of major retailers and professional designers that have stolen their advertising and product ideas from independent designers and artists.

198 - Evolution

1. I Dream of Single Celled Organisms The Family Guy's take on evolution vs. creationism.

2. Inmate Dino Kent Hovind and his wife, Jo, were found guilty of 58 counts, including failure to pay $845,000 taxes. Dr. Dino's plea for release until sentencing was denied by the assistant U.S. attorney, who called him a "danger to the community."

3. Spore Will Wright, the creator of some of the most inovative video games is still hard at work on his newest creation, Spore, a game which uses the principles of biology to show gameplayers evolution in action.

4. Console Evolution Speaking of video games...

5. Lactose Tolerance 2,700 to 6,800 years in the future, the company that makes lactaid might be in real trouble. By then, the reviews for Tuscan Whole Milk will be numbered in the billions

196 - with Links!

1. UFO Chicago Dozens of people, including airline employees and pilots, report seeing a large saucer shaped UFO hovering over Chicago's O'Hare Airport. It seems suspicious to me that, in this day and age, none of them had a cellphone with a camera feature.

2. The Top Ten Lamest Superheroes Actual heroes from the world of comic books including Vibe, the Spanish American, breakdancing, former gang leader who can create earthquakes with his awesome dance moves.

3. Don't Let Go The rules are simple: Hold the button! Whatever you do don't, stop holding the button.

4. Creationism: The Game You can guess by the name of the store, Living Waters, that this "Intelligent Design vs. Darwinism" board game is probably skewed toward the creationist player. What would the faithful do if the scientific player actually won the game?

5. The Slave Leia Appreciation Society An incredible flickr pool with nothing but pictures of nerd-girls wearing Princess Leia metal bikini outfits.

158 - Pseudoscience

1. Chi Power! National Geographic gives George Dillman the chance to explain about his Chi Energy and then shows how it only works on those gullible enough to believe it is real. A tiny little woman does the same thing.

2. Fighting Pseudoscience The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is doing everything it can to get people thinking rationally about unreasonable and faith-based beliefs.

3. Recycling Is Garbage A ten year old article explaining why popular ideas about recycling aren't necessarily true. I think some of the ideas in it have been refuted successfully over the years, but there is a lot to think about.

4. Psychic Drawing I don't know if this is a comedy sketch, or a "real" psychic.

5. Dr. Dino Going Down Creation "Scientist," Kent Hovind, a renowned dumbass finally sentenced for his unlawful business practices and labeled a "danger to the community."