It made me laugh and laugh when some commentators were actually offended that Bolt chilled the last 10 yards at the Olympics. I mean, he's the fastest human on the planet -- if he wants to slow down, what's it to them?

I enjoyed that myself. Some of them were a little too in touch with their inner Jr. High Gym Teacher. For pitty's sake, its NOT doing you best that matters, its winning. You haven't figured that out yet?

It makes me think better of her as well.

You must not read enough gossip rags. Nothing she's actually said makes me think more than neutrally about her--usually worse.

its NOT doing you best that matters, its winning. You haven't figured that out yet?

At the very least we should be able to "settle" for setting world records, you know?

And he still hasn't worked out how to come out of the blocks fast. Heaven forbid he ever does.

You must not read enough gossip rags. Nothing she's actually said makes me think more than neutrally about her--usually worse.

That's what I'm saying -- everything I hear from her makes me think she sucks, and then I think about them being a couple and rethink.

I'm not even a palaeaontologist and I know that's a big fat stupid lie.

Indeed. There are some transitions that are remarkably well documented, such as the evolution of whales from land mammals, and mammals from reptiles. IIRC, making this (astonishingly venal) claim requires some semantic weaselling, that all these transitional fossils were fully functional species and therefore not transitional. (This of course betrays a misunderstanding of what 'transitional' means - the two are not mutually exclusive - and a misunderstanding of what a species is. It's a property of an actual population, not some fundamental unchanging essence of dogness or antelopeness or whatever.)

The neat thing about being a fanatic creationist is each transitional fossil find just creates two more gaps for those crazy deluded scientists to fill in!

Or you could just say this.

Evolution Fucked Your Shit Up - world's freakiest animals. And yes it does include photos of naked mole rats.

Ok, that page is bookmarked. There's some awesomeness right there, though I think some are dubious additions. The pygmy marmoset is just a tiny monkey. Cute as hell, and lives on tree sap for which they will fight gangland wars with each other, but one of the 50 freakiest animals?

The tubifex worm, on the other hand, definitely belongs. Aside from looking freaky, and being able to survive in heavily polluted areas such as sewers, they reabsorb their reproductive organs after mating. That's some quality freakiness right there.

There's Tiktaalik [link], for one. (Serendipitously, I was just reading about it.) We've discovered fossils of maybe 1% of the all the species that have ever lived.

There's a good book about that fossil by its discoverer, Neil Shubin, called Your Inner Fish. It's about how you (and other animals) develop, and what it says about our evolutionary history. (Is that where you were reading about it?)

When we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, I was making jokes about all the hoofed herbivores. There were goats and antilopes, and words cannot express how thrilled I was to find that there is, indeed, a transitional species. I have no idea what the real name of it is, but I call(ed) them Goatalopes.

Ayup. The herring gull, too, has a range that circles the northern hemisphere; as you move around the globe, the extant population gradually changes. The two ends overlap - and the populations representing these two ends have accumulated enough differences that they are fully speciated (where they overlap, the other end is known as the lesser black-backed gull). There no agreement on just where and how many species should be delineated.

then I think about them being a couple and rethink.

WRONG WAY ROUND. SHE SUCKS.

a pigeon shit on my head.

Someone doesn't get to stay up late tonight!

Someone doesn't get to stay up late tonight!

They may not even get to drive the bus.

Oh, man, I've been reading notalwaysright.com like crack all weekend. I think I'm halfway through. I can't stop. Even if they're all exaggerations, people are way stupid.

Oh, man, I've been reading notalwaysright.com like crack all weekend. I think I'm halfway through. I can't stop. Even if they're all exaggerations, people are way stupid.

ita, me too! I still have it open in a tab (I'm on page 66).

OK, now I hate you guys because I can't stop reading! I also hate to tell you this, but having worked in customer service from age 15 to age 30, and still being the person who answers the telephone, I doubt all of them are exaggerations. People are crazy.

One of the funniest things that happened to me was working the customer service desk right after monistat (for yeast infections) came on the market. It was very expensive (I think around $50.00) and very small, and we rather stupidly just put it on the shelf. A man came to return it without a receipt because it "made his wife itch". We had to have a managers signature because the price was so high, but we went ahead and did it. Ten minutes later, after not buying anything he cam back to the service desk with MORE monistat and the same story. He didn't even a) leave the store or b) wait for another clerk!