Transfered over to a new server this weekend. If anything is askew, please drop a line. (I had to recreate two tables in MySQL, so I’m expecting some hiccups.)

In other news, the season premiere of Metalocalypse sucked. Let’s hope Squidbillies does better.

Using the names of deities for spontaneous exclamations of frustration and delight has a long and storied history.

When I was a Christian, even though it was considered in poor taste, I felt my shouts of “Jesus Christ!!” were respectful and reverent in a round about way. I didn’t think Jesus would mind, and if it got his attention (and some divine help sent my way) all the better.

But as a post-Christian UU, I feel something is off when I use the names of other folks’ gods to meet my exclamatory needs. Just yesterday, after resolving a long drawn out tech support problem, I surprised myself by yelling out “Thank you, Jesus!!” with my best exasperated tone of voice.

For some reason, my UU co-workers thought this should be greeted with howls of derisive laughter. Hmph.

What say ye? What are some good UU “god shouts”? Maybe something like, “Holy Interdependent Web!! I just hit my thumb with the inherently worthy and dignified hammer!!” Or, “Ralph Waldo Emerson! That’s a sweet new car!”

No, really, he was. You can hear all about it at Zookers Radio, about 31 minutes in.

I think this has become the month of bizarre stories from my cousins. First, being tied with rope by my aunt at the state fair, then this.

And, no, I wasn’t the one taunting the buffalo. So there.

So says Stephen Colbert.

Just wait until he reads my fiery blog post response.

I’m fascinated by the slow but steady trickle of evolutionary studies of morality. (Here’s the latest. And here’s the quiz.)

On the one hand, they’re just damn silly. Really, disgust evolved because we started to eat meat? I’ve seen dogs throw up out of disgust; I think it’s safe to say disgust isn’t unique to our species. These folks need to leave campus more. Or just go to the zoo for a day.

Then there’s the ah-ha! angle. There’s less and less of this, but I’m always alert for the brag: “See, it’s all just genetics. I always knew ‘morality’ wasn’t anything more than meaningless emotions!” Because we all know that anything that evolved is meaningless, right? Especially emotions. Nothing to see there, folks. Move along.

Of course morality evolved! We‘re doing it, aren’t we?

But it’s nice to see the studies get better and more reasonable and less biased. I hope the evolutionary psychologists doing these studies will be in closer touch with ethologists who’ve done similar work for years. No reason to do everything from scratch.

(Hat tip to 4alarm.)

At least Jesus got a dirt bike out of it.