Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called Transitions:The Evolution of Life His previous blog can be found here.
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"Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul..." Mark Twain
"Ideology is a poor substitute for rational thought..." Afarensis
"It isn't faith that makes good science...it's curiosity" Prof. Jacob Barnhardt, The Day the Earth Stood Still
"This man wishes to be accorded the same privilege as a sponge. He wishes to think!" Clarence Darrow, Inherit the Wind
"...I become fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason..." Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still
"I want you to grab life by its little bunny ears and get in its face..." The Simpsons
"This is between me and the vegetable..." Seymour Krelborn, The Little Shop of Horrors
"There are bad laws and cruel laws and the people who enforce them are both bad and cruel..." Thea, Isle of the Dead
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." Jean- Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
"But the limit of tolerance for these human foibles is obtained when the proponent of a questionable scientific doctrine endeavors to maintain it against all possible odds by misrepresentation, misinformation and suppression of contradictory data, and by insinuating unfairness in opponents of his views." Franz Weidenreich, Morphology of Solo Man
"Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconcious, impersonal material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny." George Gaylord Simpson, Life of the Past
Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd,
he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd,
he's smarter than you he's got a science degree! Unknown
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. Frederich Nietzsche
Ed mentions that the Supreme Court a federal judge has struck down Gideon Bible distribution at schools. Interestingly enough, some people tried to distribute Gideon's Bibles at my daughter's high school last week. The principals discovered it and made them...
A conservative plan to trash the way judges for the State Supreme Court, Appeals Courts and Trial Courts in Missouri has been defeated in the Missouri House. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:...
I have lucked into a couple of days off before I start a new job, so I may do more blogging than normal between now and Monday. Another example of the lunacy being spread to try and defend McCain, consider...
This NPR story comes at a perfect time given the current discussion over framing. Although ostensibly about rumors, the story makes several good points that can be applied to the current "troubles"....
Eschaton links to an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune. Apparently, after the demonstrators left Jena white supremacists and the KKK moved in:...
Chuck Jones, of the Carl & Elisabeth Blegen Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, left a link to a picture of the fires in Greece seen, I assume, via satellite. Astonishing....
As I mentioned here Greece is experiencing major wildfires in the Peloponnese - smoke and soot from the conflagration have covered Athens - even the island of Euboea is on fire.Yahoo is reporting 60 people have died in the blaze:...
Seems like the Bush administration is riddled with people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. First, it was Scooter Libby suffering from massive memory problems, then Albert Gonzales revealed massive memory deficits. Now, via Firedoglake we learn: The three-star general who kept...
I find this deeply disturbing. Clearly it is time for Congress to take the next step. If it were me I'd cut the White House budget by about a third just to get their attention. The British make their Prime...
Best comment I've heard on Scooter Libby... Oh, and you should probably read this. Especially this part: And Bush couldn't even thumb his nose at the rule of law competently. In his commutation order, the president said Libby should still...
Dan Rather has gotten himself in a bit of trouble for suggesting that CBS news "dumbed down and tarted up" the news. Something Samantha Bee said more eloquently on the Daily Show awhile back......