Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Fight them, without becoming them!

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Hot air and ill-informed banter

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em

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12Comments

  1. 1.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    Microscopes are a Satanic plot to wheedle money from taxpayers, and funnel it toward the shiftless atheists who have invented “micro-organisms” in order to line their pockets at our expense.

    True science only thrives when piously extracted from the mother lode of Knowledge, the Holy Bible.

  2. 2.

    Martin

    I agree with Scruffy. I don’t trust this science mumbo-jumbo.

    Sputnik is also interesting because 13 of its 21 encoded proteins are “ORFans.” ORFs are “Open Reading Frames” meaning that those regions of the genome probably encode a gene product of some sort, so ORFans are genes that have no detectable homologues in the current sequence databases, meaning that we cannot even guess their function based on their similarity to other genes that we’ve already identified and studied.

    I can guess their function! They’re trying to give me a homo-log! My log isn’t going near any homos! Are we clear on that?

    They shouldn’t have admitted they’re from France. That’s a dead give away to their plans… I’m gonna go pray now while watching porn. Maybe some good girl-girl stuff to reaffirm my non-gayness.

  3. 3.

    jake

    An apt description of the GOP as well.

    But their surprises did not stop there because they also saw a lot of tiny icosahedral viral particles, a mere 50nm in size, attached to the giant mamavirus

    Sorry, I just like seeing a virus described as “giant.”

  4. 4.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    I can guess their function! They’re trying to give me a homo-log! My log isn’t going near any homos! Are we clear on that?

    Excellent point, Martin. I should point out that this line was obviously written by a homosexual:

    Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em,

    If fleas really are Sodomites, as he implies, doubtless it’s because they’re in league with the Devil.

  8. 8.

    MNPundit

    Oh. My. God. We have beaten the Virus on this day.

    Humanity takes the first step in triumphing over it’s second oldest and second most implacable foe.

    The only foe greater than the virus?

    Old Age

  9. 9.

    RSA

    DeMorgan was just riffing on Swift:

    So, naturalists observe, a flea
    Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
    And these have smaller still to bite ’em;
    And so proceed ad infinitum.

    At least he still has a theorem to fall back on for his fame. :-)

  10. 10.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    Its turtles all the way down.

    Just as long as those turtles aren’t homosexual, I’m okay with that.

  12. 12.

    RSA

    I always assumed it was Ogden Nash

    The first time I ran into this, me too. Who know that Nash had such deep literary (and mathematical) influences?

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