Blogs / Bad Astronomy

It is the first day of December, and that means it’s a month of miracles. Just ask Roger Bowman, who is claiming the face of Jesus has appeared in his doggie door.

Yes, I’ll let you catch your breath after that one.

He claims that this must be real, because 1) it appeared when he was thinking of "getting rid of" his dogs (he’s now going to keep them), and 2) the ice machine in his refrigerator suddenly started working again.

I thought Jesus turned water in to wine, not ice, but hey: with global warming, maybe He’s just keeping up with the times.

New Humanist has another photo of the doggie door, including the doggies who don’t appear to think much of it either way. But you know Bowman must believe it’s true, because he put it up on eBay. That’s right, you can now own this slice of flapdoodle ("flap", because it’s a doggie door! Oh man, I kill me!), though it’s now over $1000. But wait, there’s more! If you buy the door, this devout devotee will actually make an appearance at your house for the unveiling! And he’ll bring his dog! If you pay for all expenses, of course.

Sigh. I expect to see more nonsense like this rather than less as Christmas approaches.

And speaking of which, this guy has made a huge mistake. Given that it’s the present-giving season, and what the face in the door really looks like, he should have used it to promote the Iron Man DVD.

Tip o the flea collar to Dave Pearson.

Australia still has a long way to go. My friend and überskeptic Richard Saunders sent me this picture he took at a newspaper show:

As my Jewish Australian friends would say:

Oi!

My congrats go to the fabulous Gia, who apparently is married to one of the sexiest men in the world: People Magazine rated Brian Cox thusly in their annual "Sexiest Men Alive" issue. Twitterer LALisa got a snap of the magazine picture of Brian:

Judge for yourself. I’ve hung out with him, and yeah, it’s true. But then, science is sexy.

Speaking of magazines, I was delighted to see that Skeptical Inquirer had a one-pager in their news section about the asteroids named after Rebecca Watson, Mike Stackpole, PZ Myers, and moi. The article has, sadly, a mistake: it says PZ is the author of "the most popular science blog in the world". While that’s technically true, of course "popular" != "good". I mean, this is science, so we need to be technically accurate, right?

And of course, this isn’t just jealousy because PZ”s rock is bigger than mine. Of course.

It’s Caturday. So, here’s your dose of Jesus appearing on a cat’s leg.

It’s unclear if the owners think this is divine or not, but I’m having a hard time seeing Jesus. It looks more like a mummy to me.

IMHOTEP! IMMMHHOOOTEPPPP!

And yeah, I thought of pusseidolia, but I have a hard enough time keeping the comments on this blog polite.

Tip o’ the catnip mouse to BABloggee Singe.

Perspective. Let me give you it.

I did not know who Louis CK is when I first watched this, but now I love him, for he speaks truth.

Hat tip to Fark.

I don’t know if I should file this under "Politics" or "Death from the Skies!" Maybe both.

Or maybe just "Humor". Yeah.

PostScript: Republicans? Are you listening here? You may want to throw Governor Palin into a sack and lock her in a cellar somewhere far, far away, to prevent her from ever doing media interviews again. I’m just trying to throw you a bone here.

This is seriously weird on a lot of levels.

The guy I morph into is Tom Baker, the actor who played The Doctor back when I started watching it as a kid. I loved his Doctor, so it’s a little odd to see me turn into him… especially without any background music or regeneration effects. But especially especially because of his hair.