Oh, what's a little immigration fraud among friends?

https://twitter.com/Imamofpeace/status/1173793652482592769

Welp.

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1174397146327592960

The Return of the Cow?

https://www.thefarside.com/

*snork*

Au contraire, in refusing to bring his case to trial, it was the dilatory cockwomble Mann who told the world he did not want "a verdict on the real issues in the lawsuit". As the judge patiently explained in language even a climate scientist can understand, the liability for the failure to have "the real issues" adjudicated is Mann's and Mann's alone.

https://www.steynonline.com/9742/michael-e-mann-loser

Hmmm...Mac, Linux, and a Windows waiting list.

Our smart devices are watching us It's time for us to watch them

https://iot-inspector.princeton.edu/

Alienstock has been canceled!

Lawyers incoming.

Guess which character in the entire comic book industry has the best pair of asscheeks?

TIP: It's not Spider-man

https://twitter.com/ComicsBookcase/status/1174301496231395328

Oooh wow, the visuals. I thought at first this was a Stranger Things ad:

https://twitter.com/Fly_Malcolm_X/status/1174311990275321861

He should replace Simon Cowell as a judge

https://twitter.com/worldofcrap/status/1174543001340633089

I guess they ran out of meat shields and are now resorting to rocks

https://twitter.com/woke8yearold/status/1174309417401180160

Interesting, if true:

https://medium.com/impact-economics/rich-families-are-having-more-kids-1c0b80d5a16e

"Poor people have more kids than rich people. Anyone who has taken a labour economics class knows this to be true. At least it used to be true. According to a report from the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Rich, highly educated white women are having more kids than ever before.

"The chart below shows fertility (on the vertical axis) and income Decile (on the horizontal axis). A 10 on the Income Decile is the to 10% of wage earners and 1 would be the bottom 10%. in 1980, women in the top 10% of wage earners were having an average of 1.82 kids. By 2010 that number jumped to 2.66. Meanwhile, the reverse is true for women in the bottom 10% of wage earners who were having 3.38 kids on average in 1980 compared to 2.96 in 2010.

"Bottom line: Poor people are having fewer kids than ever and rich people are having more kids than ever..."

Props to this guy - what a set of meatballs.

Saucy!

Good to see someone pushing back against the Alaskan fundie problem.

I thought not accepting the results of an election was un-American or something?

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1174055558019764225

Women can now legally go topless in Utah, 5 other states, after federal ruling

Sweet

KFC doubles down in the face of the low-carb revolution.

No bun on this chicken sandwich - just two glazed donuts.

They must own stock in mobility scooters or something.

You do realize, Gog, that the women who take advantage of this ruling will INEVITABLY be the ones that YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE TOPLESS???

Right?

Anyhoo, Meet the Bronx Runner Who Beat Her Husband to Win NYRR 18 Mile (while wearing a top)

Been there.

> KFC doubles down

I like some fast food, but don't move in fast food circles, so to speak. Or dietary circles of any kind. So for the past few years I've been wondering about Chik Fil A—

Has anyone every pointed out that serving a breaded chicken filet between two (cheap, flavorless) bread buns is INSANE???

Americans want to die. They want to be dead, and this is their path.

> Saucy

Distantly and obliviously snarking about religion is an asshole move.

Absurdity is only cute when it's actually, y'know, cute.

But it's not as asshole as it is inane. 'Pastafarian' is taking things too far not because it's bitterly sacrilegious, but because it's tepid and inexpressive. I mean, of you wanna make enemies, let's go... Stand up and do it, look somebody in the eye.

I loved Christopher Hitchens, but Cam Paglia was right: "God is Not Great" is a shitty book.

(My copy's autographed anyway, but still.)

I thought Hitchens made a very good point about the Virgin Mary story not being exactly original - or worthy to be taken seriously.

(Though I don't know where he got the idea that Isis, Maia, or Rhea Silvia where virgins when THEY gave birth. If anyone here knows, please tell me.)

As a practicing Catholic (but not always sure I agree with my religion) the Virgin Mary May be a story. It seems
Pretty implausible a virgin could give birth to a son. Don’t think I don’t constantly question this, and In church no less.

But there is something so uniquely spiritual about honoring the feminine. The Mother. And saying the rosary (which includes-many prayers to Mary) has pulled my ass out of some of the darkest moments in my life. When I didn’t know what the hell else to do. Why? I don’t know. And I’m not special. Many I have spoken to and even the doubters have found comfort in prayer.

On topic not on topic.

"Distantly and obliviously snarking about religion is an asshole move."

The Pastafarians are high-school-level at best but I like that the government has to acknowledge there's more than one way to skin a belief system.

Personally the whole Virgin Mary thing is a mystery to me.

Just put the vodka in and stop screwing around with it.

Many I have spoken to and even the doubters have found comfort in prayer. ~ Feebie at September 19, 2019 5:53 PM

I think that if someone did an investigation, they'd find that the rhythms of early Christian prayers and chants directly mimic the rhythms of non-Christian meditation mantras and shamanic drumming - i.e., rhythms designed to put our minds at ease and facilitate deeper thoughts.

After all, if Christianity borrowed its foundational myths and legends from other religions - virgin birth, death and resurrection, hero's journey, etc. - who's to say it didn't borrow a few other things?

Perhaps these rhythms are part of some deep universal truth the human race knows but cannot articulate. Some truth that the older religions are striving to uncover - before money turned religion into a self-help racket.

They do Conan. But they don't work for everyone. I think the rough number is 60%. I'm only half awake at this time so take this with a grain of salt but as I recall there are 5 main paths to religion. Most Christian denominations only cover two or three (some are contradictory). But all of the denominations together cover everything. Those paths are in no way unique to Christianity. All the old religions use them.

Also, it wasn't money that turned religion in the US into a self-help racket. That is just human nature. If I never hear another vapid 'God is love' speech it will still be too soon.

@Conan

Couldn’t have said it any better myself. Dang, wish I had said
It.

Another thing I wonder about.

Consider that a heterosexual couple that includes a completely inexperienced woman doesn't even really need a modern turkey baster to make her pregnant without intercourse; all they'd really need is some strategic positioning, gravity, and fast timing. (Sperm die quickly upon exposure to air.) Or maybe just a cup.

Now ask: Why is it that we don't hear of religious fanatics trying to create virgin births THAT way? Just for the glory of it? (I'm not suggesting they would try to lie by saying the father is God, of course - how many people would believe that?)

To paraphrase Hitchens' crude remark, it all comes down to the idea that sex, even for married women, is wrong and sinful.

And in the meantime, while I like Richard Dawkins' books, I'd love to hear him try to address an audience of people so poor that for them, religion is the only positive element in their lives.

If you are asking about nut jobs making claims about virgin births, Lenona, they do. It just doesn't get much press. And they don't bother with all the complicated stuff you described. Just have sex the regular way and then claim it didn't happen later.

That said actual virgin births do happen. They are very rare and most of them have severe genetic diseases. But it does happen.

Ben, got any links to individual cases in humans?

While I found this -

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141219-spectacular-real-virgin-births

- the implication was that it doesn't happen with mammals.

And, from Mental Floss:

"...Virgin Birth in Humans?
"Because of the problems stemming from genomic imprinting, research into human parthenogenesis isn't focused on reproductive therapy, but the production of embryonic stem cells for medical treatment. Last year, Dr. Elena Revazova and her research team at International Stem Cell Corporation produced the first intentional human stem cells from unfertilized human eggs through parthenogenesis. Intentional is the key word there, because before ISC's achievement, Hwang Woo-Suk, who famously fabricated the results of his attempt to extract stem cells from cloned human embryos, unknowingly produced the first human embryos from parthenogenesis.

"Stem cells are one thing, but a bouncing baby is another. Could a human naturally be produced by virgin birth? In theory, yes, if a number of biochemical events occur by chance or genetic defect in close succession and the egg doesn't complete meiosis (when an egg does this, it loses half of its genetic material to make room for the paternal DNA in the sperm. But without the sperm, each half of the divided egg would come up short on genetic material). The chances of all that happening are almost zero. But even if nature found a way, we run into genomic imprinting again, so we wouldn't wind up with a viable embryo.

"There is one documented case of a natural half-parthenogenetic birth. In 1995, Nature Genetics reported a child that had some cells (about 50%) that consisted of genetic material only from his mother and some that were normal and consisted of a DNA from both parents. Doctors who studied the child theorized that one of the mother's eggs that had been fertilized by the father fused with an unfertilized egg that was dividing parthogenetically..."

Not on me Lenona. But yes what was written there is accurate. The chance of it happening is very very low. As my failing memory recollects there was a proven human virgin birth about twenty years ago. The child was female and a clone of it's mother. And it had severe genetic issues. So it only survived a day or so. Maybe I am recalling the same event you documented and the story got updated as more information came in.

There are lots of extremely rare things that happen. When you multiply a very large number with a very small probability you can still end up with an event happening.

Another fun birth defect that rarely happens but there are still people affected by it walking around is when twins merge in the womb. There was one guy who most of his body was one person genetically but his crotch was his brother with an entirely different set of genetics. As I recall this came to light when he had to take a paternity test for some reason and it turned up he wasn't the father. In most cases you would just accept the results and move on. But this was an odd case to begin with because both parents had no question that he was the father (they weren't the ones contesting paternity). After his case got well documented there were other people who turned up. I recall another case where the woman failed the paternity test for the same reason.