Archives for June, 2009
First Ever Gay Exorcism Film?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 … in the sense of an attempt to Exorcise Teh Gay.
Falcons vs Cardnials: I and the bird 103
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 The current I and the Bird blog carnival (it is about birds) goes into extra innings. This is a particularly good version of the carnival, which is always good anyway. Check it out here.
Supreme Court: 8-1, Strip search of girl to find ibuprofen was … wrong. Duh.
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 Eight to one? Any guesses as to which of the nine supreme court justices think it is OK to get a 13 year old girl to strip down and shake out her underwear so you can see if she has TWO ASPIRIN ON HER??? The Supreme Court said Thursday school officials acted illegally when they…
Farrah Fawcett Dead
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 … At age 62. Updated:
The Great White Missionary
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 It was a rare day that I was at the Ngodingodi research station at all … usually I was off in the forest with the Efe Pygmies, up the road excavating an archaeological site. It was also rare that Grinker, my cultural anthropologist colleague, was at the research station. He was spending most of his…
Light in Moon’s Permanently Dark Craters
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 I have friend who has been trapped in a mostly underground research facility at the South Pole since early winter. She recently broke her foot, which is just tough luck because nobody gets out of there until spring, which is, I think, in October. This will remind you of the stroy of Dr. Jerri Nielsen,…
Catherine Mohr: Surgery’s past, present and robotic future
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 Surgeon and inventor Catherine Mohr tours the history of surgery (and its pre-painkiller, pre-antiseptic past), then demos some of the newest tools for surgery through tiny incisions, performed using nimble robot hands. Fascinating — but not for the squeamish.
Anti Gay Seattle Yahoo Forces Mass Outing of GLBTQ City Workers
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 … who are mostly probably out anyway, but that is not the point. OK, this is complicated. Philip Irvin is an anti-gay emplyee of the Seatle City Light company (a city agency). He believes that gay people are sick and need to be de-gayed. THe LGBTQFC is a GLBTA group which is one of several…
Gay Bashing Neighbors Fined
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 Patricia and Alexander Harrison have been ordered by a British Columbia supreme court justice to pay $15,000 (approximately $13,000 U.S.) for harassing and tormenting a gay couple who lives next door to them. Rod Boggs and Bill Hart, who have lived in the four unit condo since 2006, said the Harrisons and their 17-year-old son…
Do you have an unending sense of dread?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 Hat Tip: Rob
Final Exam
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 This is what I got on the Internet for my Birthday.
Remember the Columbia House Record Club?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 “So take this and fill it out,” he suddenly said, thrusting a small square of paper in my general direction, a piece of paper that looked like a postcard on one side and a form to be filled in on the other. “As soon as you can. Do it right now.” So my boss had…
BBC: DNA mutations followed by selection does not lead to new species!?!?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 In an BBC article describing a Royal Society paper on the rate of mutation in warm vs. cooler climates, the BBC made this statement: DNA can mutate and change imperceptibly every time a cell divides and makes a copy of itself. But when one of these mutations causes a change that is advantageous for the…
SC Governor Abducted by Aliens
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 First he was, I dunno, in the bathroom. Then he was, perhaps, down in the parking lot waxing his car. Then he was home working on his stamp collection or something. Then he was hiking the Apalachian Trail. Now, it turns out, supposedly, that Republican South Carolina Governor Sanford was in South America. What next?…
Our Research Camp as a Mission Station
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 A couple of “missionary” posts back, I intimated that we got to stay at the missionary stations while visiting various cities or en route between points in return for our work giving out medicine and such at our research camp. In truth, the arrangement was a bit more complex and subtle than this, and in…
I know it’s not Christmas, but …
Posted by Greg Laden on June 23, 2009 Finding Coral
Posted by Greg Laden on June 23, 2009 Background: The Finding Coral expedition set sail June 8th in search of deep sea corals on in Hecate Strait and the Queen Charlotte Basin. Two Deep Worker manned submarines will be piloted by our blue ribbon science team, traveling to depths up to 500 metres to document evidence of corals, associated species, and damage from…
Almost all LGBT youth are harassed …
Posted by Greg Laden on June 23, 2009 … In Illinois, at least. And probably lots of other places. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) released a report Wednesday showing that LGBT students in Illinois face an alarming level of harassment, both physical and verbal, at school. Inside Illinois Schools: The Experiences of LGBT Students surveyed 206 Illinois students about the…
Forget the Maginot Line, What About the Beer Line?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 23, 2009 Near the end of the earth there are lines one might not cross for fear of falling off. OK, you won’t really fall off, but you will become scared and lost.
Coturnix did me
Posted by Greg Laden on June 23, 2009 A Blog Around the Clock is doing interviews with participants in the ScienceOnline-Oh-Nine conference in North Carolina last winter. Today, he did me, here. In the interview, I reveal many secrets about my blogging and stuff. So please, if you read it, don’t tell anybody.
Gay Dad’s Kids Can Meet Dad’s Boyfriend On Father’s Day… ok, itcomplicated.
Posted by Greg Laden on June 23, 2009 OK, so this guy is married, and he and his wife have four kids. But he’s gay, and has a few affairs, gets caught, there’s a messy divorce, and some judge in Georgia (the state, not the country) orders dad to keep all his homosexual friends away from the kids forever. Which, when you think…
Third-trimester abortions
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 In light of the recent assassination, by a member of a right wing Christian anti-abortion cabal, of a physician who specialized in late term abortions, it may be worth having a look this medical phenomenon. Well, my blog colleague Monado contacted me a week ago or so and we discussed this, and I felt that…
Stop violence masquerading as political activism
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 Citing recent killings in Arkansas, Kansas and the nation’s capital, Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said new hate crimes law were needed to stop what he called “violence masquerading as political activism.” The attorney general’s call for Congress to act came as a civil rights coalition said there has been a surge in white…
Girls Doing Math
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 This is a struggle I can relate to: Perez Hilton thinks that hot chicks can’t do math. I have taught math to children of a variety of ages. It is difficult to convince young women in our society that they can do math. Young women often lack self-confidence about mathematics. Many of them think that…
How Twitter can make history
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
Watermelon Dan is at it again
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 Republican Congressperson Dan Burton calls for a Plexiglas shield to be built over the congressional chamber to protect the congresspeople from attack. This is the same guy who carried out the famous and embarrassing reconstruction of Vince Foster’s suicide: Burton gained attention for re-enacting the alleged crime in his backyard with his own pistol and…
Barack Obama, Superhero (new jibjab)
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 South Carolina Governor AWOL?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 UPDATE: There are reports that the missing governor is tweeting. These reports are unconfirmed. His wife does not know where is his. The lieutenant governor does not know where he is. It is said that “he needed some time away from his children to write something.” It is said he is working on a book.…
Physics, To A Dog (A poem)
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 To a dog, a balloon is a rock that floats. To a dog, a lever is a perch for stoats. To a dog, particle decay1 is not about nooks To a dog, gravity is just another way to puke. To a dog, a quantum is a kibble To a dog, a quark is to nibble.…
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