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Welcome to Greg Laden's Blog.
September 30, 2009
Depending on what your view was, originally, of course. I've got a review of the piece published in PLoS here at Surprising Science. Where I am blogging for this week and next....
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:30 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Republicans
Turns out, according to a new book by a speechwriter during the Bush administration, there was talk of honoring [J.K. Rowling] with the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom a few years ago but the idea was a non-starter in the White House. The former administration...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:10 PM • 74 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: GLBTA
A news report from back a year ago: The latest:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:10 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Events
A lecture, by Dr. Don Bierle of FaithSearch International.... Sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ at UW-Superior. Dr. Bierle is a "former skeptic" and everything. Location: Kathryn Ohman Theater, McCaskill Hall U. Wisconsin-Superior Superior, WI 54880 10/04/2009 · 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM · (715)...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:17 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: OpenSource
These two OpenSource operating versions, to become available over the next several weeks, demonstrated improvements over prior versions and compare well to each other. I woul like to tell you that my preferred operating system, Ubuntu, came out on top .... and it did! But...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:03 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Republicans
Here is what one Minnesotan says: Also, find out about the Michele Bachmann Action Figure, and Michele Bachmann's spread on the latest Conservative Calendar....
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:01 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
Blasphemy Day is the 30th of September. Don't read this blog post in Ireland because there's a 25 thousand pound fine there for the blasphemer ....
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:56 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Princeton, Minnesota, about five miles north of Zimmerman and thirty or so miles north of me, is the site of a rather odd event. Three "suspicious packages" were found around town, one by the post office, one at the high school, and one at the...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:39 AM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anthropology
The Roman Polanski story has certainly gotten interesting. Well, actually, the story is still only mildly interesting, but the discussion about it has developed in interesting ways. So, I thought I'd muddy the waters by throwing in a few thoughts....
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:16 AM • 83 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: OpenSource
According to Google, this is what wave (which is OpenSource) is: A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:48 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Which is better, Cats or Dogs? From a religious perspective, that is. The Best of Me Symphony, a blog carnival. And get your Godless LOL's here....
Posted by Greg Laden at 3:10 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Republicans
I discussed the Hendrickson Incident here (and now Josh Henderson has come to Quiche Moraine to defend himself from the Hippies from Uptown) but I had missed, until Hendrickson himself pointed it out to me, this coverage from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. To...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:46 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare
Rachel Maddow on yesterday's failures and successes in the Senate Committee. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:42 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
For those of you in the Twin Cities area:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 1:34 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 29, 2009
Coming Soon: Written in Stone "Hey, PZ, how's the book coming along?"...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:03 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
An international team of researchers, including Monash University biochemists, has discovered evidence at the molecular level in support of one of the key tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution. ... that it happened ......
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:38 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
You may know that much of the climate change on earth over the last two million years-the coming and going of ice ages-is caused by the "orbital geometry" of the planet. The amount of planetary tilt and the time of year the tilt occurs change...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogospherics
Whatever she wants - sexual selection .... A post translated by Igor Santos from the original published by Atila at the Brazilian blog Rainha Vermelha. Check out what is New and Exciting in PLoS ONE, including "The Genome of the Stick Insect Medauroidea extradentata Is...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:03 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The De-Fund Acorn Act of 2009: Shame. Maybe even illegal....
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:41 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Do not watch this if you can't handle geeks wearing viking hats....
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:55 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
It runs Linux as its OS. But ......
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:07 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Notes from the North Country
When the wind stiffens it blows the fog off the lake and replaces it with a biting spray. And when the wind slackens the sound of air rushing though the leaves and around the cabins is replaced with the crashing of the white caps that...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:07 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Here at The Lake I don't get enough intertubules to watch a video reliably. So I can't separate the DJ effect from the Slow Connection effect in this video, but it looks good:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:53 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 28, 2009
The Cuban Rapper AL2 of the bad Los Aldeanos has been arrested by the Cuban Police, and released. Meanwhile, some of his personal effects including a computer were confiscated. Rappers are considered very dangerous by the Cuban government. You may recall a major bust up...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:56 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Birds
The scientific evidence is overwhelming and unequivocal, climate change is a stark reality. It is largely caused by human activities and it presents very serious global risks for people and biodiversity around the world and it demands an urgent global response. Human activities, especially the...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:08 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As a youth. Before he went silver. Hat Tip Miss Cellania...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:54 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Did you ever wonder about what I do in my spare time? Did you ever wonder about The Eastern Pacific Black Ghost Shark? Well, these things are connected.......
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:10 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Randall Monroe, creator of the webcomic xkcd, discusses stick men, math, science, relationships and what it's like to be an internet meme. ... on Skeptically Speaking, October 2nd. Details here....
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:55 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I don't want my plant twittering me. It is bad enough that they are alway staring at me. Especially the one in the kitchen....
Posted by Greg Laden at 3:23 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
If you really want him to exist. If he wants you to want him to exist. Or to want you to think that he wants him .... Oh, never mind, just watch. Hat Tip Colloquy...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:38 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Climate
We have had a cool summer here in Minnesota, and this has brought out the miscreants who for their own reasons do not want to get on board with the simple, well demonstrated scientific fact that global temperatures have risen, that we humans are the...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:57 AM • 49 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Roman Polanski has been wanted by the Las Angeles police since he skipped town a few decades back before sentencing on an "unlawful sex with a minor" charge. That was the plea he copped for much more serious rape charges. He has more or less...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:33 AM • 135 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Birthdays
.... of the blog Highly Allochon ... Highly Allochthon ... no, wait, .. Got it Highly Allochthonous....
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:22 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 27, 2009
Category: Technology
Unlikely, but it could happen. A judge recently ordered a person's Gmail account to be shut down. Why? Because that person received an email from a bank. The email was not supposed to be sent to that person, and it contained account information that person...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:52 PM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Notes from the North Country
A very interesting day. I got word in the AM that Derick would be digging a trench across the Cabin property tomorrow, and as an archaeologist I could not possibly skip that, so I ripped a rotten board out of the porch as fast as...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:37 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Republicans
... if Nate Silver's analysis is correct....
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:02 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Republicans
You think this was bad? It gets worse. Do not play the movie (below the fold) without your finger/mouse on the volume button of your computer....
Posted by Greg Laden at 3:00 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
Guys. There may be times when you feel your wife or long-term girlfriend has been sleeping with another man. You may suspect she is even pregnant from this activity, and you are not the father. There is a way to fix this, using traditional medicines...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:30 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Birthdays
We expect to have a new male baby on November 20th +/-. But we don't know what to name it. Do you have any suggestions?...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:22 AM • 199 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 26, 2009
Category: Technology
Cobol is the opposite of a modern computer langauge, in some ways. But it is the language that a lot of business systems are written in, so chances are you "use" Cobol almost as much as you "use" Linux, even if you never heard of...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:22 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Its a 1980s dating video montage. I think some of these guys were left over from the 70s. I guess I'd go with the Viking. Bonus video:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:16 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Earth Science
What they are referring to is a paper by Mojib Latif in which he notes that the media often misrepresent global warming as a continuous, year by year increase in temperature. The truth, of course, is that annual temperature varies up and down but...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:33 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Republicans
From Mn Progressive Project...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Nature conservation
Female monarchs in the eastern part of North America have declined in number over the last three decades, according to recent research....
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:55 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Heatlh Care
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 25, 2009
The detectives who waited on my doorstep the afternoon after Jake's murder asked lots of questions, even if they were about Carla, and they listened very well. I was nervous at first, but once I got over the shock of seeing them at my door,...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: GLBTA
I have to admit that when I first saw the headline for this story (which I've used as the title of this post) in the 365-gay-news service (a GLBTA news aggregator), my first thought was "Is this something happening on Cape Cod, out in...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:04 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
This is not a parody. I think. Hey, wait, is that the Apple guy on the left? OK, let's do an activity. Let's list all the things that could GO WRONG at this party! OK? I'll start:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:04 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogospherics
Eric Johnson has a review of Frans de Waal's book in Seed, readable here at Seed Dot Com. Brian writes up fossils found by Bain (and later studied by Brain, of course) that I find near and dear. Both Brian's review and the fossils themselves....
Posted by Greg Laden at 3:57 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Is on Skeptically Speaking tonight. Click here for details....
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:56 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
