Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Last week, Irregular Times writer Peregrin Wood wrote about a super-secure space mission dedicated to releasing microscopic animals called tardigrades into the deep, cold, empty, irradiated vacuum of outer space. Peregrin Wood promised that “Any time now, scientists will examine the water bears that were retrieved from the vacuum of outer space, and look to see if they are still alive.”

Oh, how naive.

Four days later now, and the report on the tardigrades from outer space is, dare I say, a little bit tardy.

What are they trying to hide? More importantly, what are they really trying to do, exposing the tardigrades to the cosmic radiation of outer space? Anyone who has read a Fantastic 4 comic book can imagine the implications of super-powered little microscopic animals unleashed on the world.

A dictator with that kind of power could rule the world. No one would have the power to resist. Is that what this space mission was really all about? Designing a new tardigrade biological weapon to enable the wicked people behind the scenes to make us all slaves?

The lead researcher on the Tardigrades In Space project, K. Ingemar Jönsson, has not answered these questions. How convenient. I wonder why? Could it be that no one has bothered to translate the phrase, “None dare call it a tardigrade conspiracy” into Swedish?

A couple of days ago, there was a little bit of a dispute, in response to my first mantis shrimp blog entry, about whether people eat mantis shrimp. It turns out that the Italians do indeed eat mantis shrimp. Here’s one recipe: Canocchie alla Pezza.

It will be noted, however, that this recipe does not call for the use of tawdry cocktail sauce. Instead, it suggests lemon, garlic, salt and olive oil. A much lighter taste.

For a better read, catch the same blogger’s visceral repulsion to the stomatopod, in her article entitled: The Horrible Mantis Shrimp. Fun fact from that article: A few mantis shrimp species have sufficient strength in their front claws to break through the glass of aquarium tanks, and scuttle around your home in fury for a while before dying.

Another blogger, Astron, refers to mantis shrimp meat as “tender and sweet”. Oh, the humanity!