Archives for September, 2009
Global Warming, The Decline of the Moose, and “Minnesota Nice”
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2009 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 primary cause, and that this climate change has negative consequences.
Roman Polanski may visit Los Angeles Soon
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2009 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 ignored the fugitive warrants because for some reason you can…
Happy Birthday Chris Rowan
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2009 …. of the blog Highly Allochon … Highly Allochthon … no, wait, .. Got it Highly Allochthonous.
Your email account could be shut down at any time for no good reason
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2009 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 was not supposed to see.
Brett Favre. Any questions? I thought not…
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2009 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 I could, threw in some laundry, and watched the beginning…
Republican Mouthpiece “Strategic Vision” Has Been Faking Polls …
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2009 … if Nate Silver’s analysis is correct.
Fahrenheit 451 not fiction
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2009 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.
How to induce an abortion in your unfaithful wife/girlfriend
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2009 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 and some magic, so that your wife/girlfriend will have a…
Help us name our baby
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2009 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?
Happy Birthday Cobol
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2009 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 either.
Why did somebody put this hilarious video on my facebook page?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2009 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:
Beck, Hannity: Global Warming Called Off
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2009 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 the baseline for this variation has been going continuously up. Like…
Pawlenty…. YOU LIE!!!!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2009 From Mn Progressive Project
Female Monarch Butterflies on 30-year decline in eastern North America
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2009 Female monarchs in the eastern part of North America have declined in number over the last three decades, according to recent research.
Al and Frannie on Health Care
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2009 I thought you would never ask …
Posted by Greg Laden on 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, I was telling them everything. Enjoy a little free on…
Spanish matador to advertise gay drink on cape
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 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 P-Town? Or is this something happening in South Africa, in Cape…
Have a Windows 7 Launch Party! Yipeeeee!!!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 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:
Some science links for you
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 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. From South Africa. We’re more likely to behave ethically when…
Brian Malow: Science Comedian
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 Is on Skeptically Speaking tonight. Click here for details.
Americans Who Don’t Identify with a Religion No Longer a Fringe Group
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 You’ve certainly heard of the ARIS 2008 survey from Trinity College. One of the more interesting aspects of the survey is the demonstration that there is a sex difference in patterns of religions identification. Below I give some links where this has been discussed, but I want to note that in many discussions one of…
The Importance of Scientific Literacy
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 “At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth.” ~Neil…
The meme of honourable death
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 The Anglo Boer War (in what is now South Africa from October 11th, 1899 to May 31st, 1902) was a turning point in European style military history. Previously, infantry would operate in large blocks that would move forward, turn and open or close ranks, and winning an infantry engagement would involve getting your columns around…
The Rundown on Mount Rainier
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 Mount Rainier (14,410 ft) has lately attracted a small amount of attention because of what is considered by some an increase in seismic activity there, so I thought it might be nice to get a baseline description of this volcano for those of you interested in such things. For scientifically accurate information and interesting discussion…
Send GrrrlScientist South with the Birds!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 Why are women (slightly more) religious?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2009 Are women more likely to be stupid/gullible? That seems to be the assumption that the ungenerous of us might make when considering the 7% gap between men and women when it comes to religious affiliation…. … that was discussed recently in an ARIS poll. Earlier, I had pointed to Stephanie Zvan’s comments on this, and…
Appyhay Anniversaryway Yptographycray
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2009 This is the sixtieth anniversary of cryptography, according to one way of counting it that I’m sure lots of people don’t agree with. (I mean, seriously, I’ve SEEN the Da Vinci code, man.) Anyway, here is a nice slide show, starting out with the Engigma, working its way through the movie “Sneaker” and eventually to…
There might be an HIV vaccine.
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2009 … this is not close to perfect, but an experimental mix of two previously tested but ineffective vaccines appears to have at least a 31 percent prevention rate based on one recent trial. The story is written up here.
Does getting a regular flu shot increase your risk of getting novel H1H1 swine?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2009 Nobody knows. But, someone does suspect this is the case. (If it is true, and we don’t know, it pertains to LAST YEARs flu shot, and may or may not pertain to this year’s flu shot.) However, it would seem that the proprietary publication process is keeping the information in private for now. David Dobbs…
? … :;”"‘!!!!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2009 Yes, it is “National ‘Punctuation’” Day … in America! All day you should use “extra” [whenever possible] punctuation! It will help to #@%@^# swear now and then…!!! The national “Punctuation ‘Day’” page is …. -> HERE!?!?
, which is now available for the 
