Get Cynical

What would the Simpsons look like if they were real people?
Keeping your feedback in mind from our original Homer study, along with the characteristics of the family members, the following presentation reveals how the entire family would look as real Simpsonoids.

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From LiveScience:

Deceptively attractive, some common flowers and plants can give you headaches, cause convulsions or simply kill you, according to the “Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants” (Springer, 2007). Children under 6 are especially vulnerable; they account for 85 percent of all calls to poison centers, though the most commonly consumed culprits in poison cases are cosmetics, personal care products, cleansers and pills. Most plants are safe, but here are some you need to know about. They might be in your own yard or even in the house.

From here.

Blogs 4 Brownback is another site which I have no idea whether it’s satire or just batshit insanity.

It seems clear that it may occasionally be convenient to assume that the calculations of Copernicus and Kepler were mathematically sound. However, for both moral and theological reasons, we should always bear in mind that the Earth does not move. If it moved, we would feel it moving. That’s called empiricism, the experience of the senses. Don’t take my word for it, or the evidence of your own senses, Copernicans. There’s also the Word of the Lord:

“He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.” (1 Chronicles 16:30)

“Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm …” (Psalm 93:1)

A photoset on Flickr:

A series of drawings and quotes on napkins put in my daughters’ lunches for jr. high and high school every day over a 5 year period.

(via Monkeyfilter)

When it comes to wacky religious beliefs, I can’t tell what’s real or what’s satire. Judge for yourself.

What is Christian Domestic Discipline?

A domestic discipline marriage is one in which one partner in the marriage is given authority over the other and has the means to back the authority, usually by spanking.

A Christian Domestic Discipline marriage is one that is set up according to Biblical standards; that is, the husband is the authority in the household. The wife is submissive to her husband as is fit in the Lord and her husband loves her as himself. He has the ultimate authority in his household, but it is tempered with the knowledge that he must answer to God for his actions and decisions. He has the authority to spank his wife for punishment, but in real CDD marriages this is taken very seriously and usually happens only rarely. CDD is so much more than just spanking. It is the husband loving the wife enough to guide and teach her, and the wife loving the husband enough to follow his leadership. A Christian marriage embodies true romance and a Christian man a true hero.

Feel free to stop by their shop and get yourself a pair of crotchless pantaloons. (Ok, this has to be a joke….. right?)

(via Metafilter)

An old profile of the man who invented the microwave oven.

PERCY SPENCER is the nosiest man I have ever known. Now 63, he still has an intense, small boy’s compulsion to explore every wonder in the world around him. The results of his relentless curiosity have touched the lives of each of us.

Recently I walked into his office at the Raytheon Manufacturing Co. in Waltham, Mass. – an office befitting the senior vice-president of one of the nation’s largest electronic’ manufacturers. “Hi, Don,” the stocky, shirt-sleeved Down-Easter shouted from behind his desk. “Where’d you get the shoes?”

The moccasin-type shoes weren’t that different, but I knew Percy. Were the shoes comfortable, he asked. Would they wear? Why were they stitched like that? In a minute I had one shoe off, so that he could examine it. He wanted to know just how it was made.

The story is typical of Percy Spencer’s direct, homey approach, which he brings even to the miracle world of modern electronics. One day a dozen years ago he was visiting a lab where magnetrons, the power tubes of radar sets, were being tested. Suddenly, he felt a peanut bar start to cook in his pocket. Other scientists had noticed this phenomenon, but Spencer itched to know more about it.

He sent a boy out for a package of popcorn. When he held it near a magnetron, popcorn exploded all over the lab. Next morning he brought in a kettle, cut a hole in the side and put an uncooked egg (in its shell) into the pot. Then he moved a magnetron against the hole and turned on the juice. A skeptical engineer peeked over the top of the pot just in time to catch a faceful of cooked egg. The reason? The yolk cooked faster than the outside, causing the egg to burst.