Archives for July, 2010
Mountaintop Removal Mining Should Be Abolished
Posted by Greg Laden on July 31, 2010 On April 1, Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced strong new guidance on mountaintop removal permits, which, if applied rigorously, could prohibit most MTR operations and the resulting toxic dumping into streams and valleys. However, two weeks ago Lisa Jackson’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the Army Corps of Engineers a green…
Walking around the lakes
Posted by Greg Laden on July 31, 2010 When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at lakes, but the idea of walking around a lake hardly every occurred to me or anyone else. This might be because the lakes were either really big (like the Great Sacandaga Reservoir) or nestled into deep sided rock canyons carved out by glaciers,…
Coming Soon to an OpenSource Platform Near You
Posted by Greg Laden on July 31, 2010 Item 1: Linux has perfectly good fonts these days, and they are getting better. Patents held by Apple Corporation did not allow basic technology (the Bytecode Interpreter)to be implemented in Linux fonts (without paying). FreeType (the Linux font system) worked around this and things were workable, but still, having the Apple technology would have been…
Really sucky environmental news
Posted by Greg Laden on July 31, 2010 Plankton, base of ocean food web, in big decline Worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The likely cause is global warming, which makes it hard for the plant plankton to get vital nutrients, researchers say.
Minnesota Atheists Radio is Back
Posted by Greg Laden on July 31, 2010 Minnesota Atheist Talk Radio aired for some time on Sunday Mornings, and developed a nation-wide audience and became one of the more respected atheist related radio show/podcasts in North America. After a hiatus of several months, the show is back, ad a new and more convenient time slot, 8:00 Sunday Mornings on AM 950 KTNF.…
Stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
Posted by Greg Laden on July 31, 2010 Earlier this week, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a letter that approving the Keystone XL pipeline would be “a step in the wrong direction” and criticized the State Department’s limited environmental impact statement about the pipeline. The proposed pipeline would transport 900,000 barrels of oil…
“You had me at tentacle”
Posted by Greg Laden on July 31, 2010 Apropos this discussion, for your weekend entertainment:
The Piñata is a family tradition and this is how we indoctrinate the children
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 He’s already got the hang of it.
This guy will NOT yield! Go, Tony, Go!
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 The following video relates to this.
Skeptical Search Engine Update
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 So far, my new experimental Skeptical Search Engine has been used hundreds of times, and the top searchers are: deepak chopra homeopath ghost high fructose corn syrup god evolution zecharia sitchin creationism ghosts global warming ancient astronauts ufo pyramids egypt love vaccines methane bubble climate change pyramids fossil sirenia carbohydrates easter island acupuncture vaccine Gmos…
The Evolution of Homeopathy
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 … or not.
My congressperson embarrasses me, as does my neighbor
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 Both Erik Paulsen, my representative to the US congress, and Michele Bachmann, the infamous insane person who represents my neighbors a few blocks away, have elected to vote against worker’s health compensation for 9/11 first responders. And they dare to call themselves Americans!!!
Lost in time, freezing cold … unable to utter the simplest “beep”
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 The Rover Spirit is hibernating on a dark slope on the winter end of the planet Mars. Solar panels may be providing enough energy to keep its clock going. If not, it will become suspended in time and not know to wake up and send a signal that it is ‘alive.’ The panels may or…
Does drinking beer increase your attractiveness …. to mosquitoes?
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 The anopheles mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, is the primary vector for human malaria. Mosquitoes in general, the A. gambiae included, find their prey by tracking body odor exuded from the breath and skin. Apparently, the composition of body odor determines A. gambiae‘s preference for one individual over another. It has been known for some time now…
Be afraid. Be very afraid. You’d be sort of wrong, though.
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 Desiree Schell of Skeptically Speaking diabolically matched The Culture of Fear author Barry Glassner for a live interview, and a fear-riddled edition of “Everything you know is sort of wrong” (on how poor people are breeding so fast they will take over the earth) by yours truly for TONIGHT’s Skeptically Speaking show.
Nature, Energy, Technology Wow Moments
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 Can a fly’s eye(s) be used for solar cells? Apparently so. Speaking of which, I have a gripe. Nuclear power supporters have always ignored the fact that Nuclear power (a.k.a. “unlimited safe free energy”) is more expensive than other traditional forms of energy. In the mean time, anti “alternative” energy, often the same people, have…
Own The Poll UPDATED (Or, more proof that Christian = Liar)
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 This one is very much worth the effort. Stop here first for some instructions on strategy, then go here to do this thing. UPDATED!!!!! Holy crap! The Kent Hovind poll started out looking like this: What do you believe about evolution? It’s a religion. * It’s a fact! * It’s a reasonable scientific theory. Then…
Wanted
Posted by Greg Laden on July 30, 2010 Wanted: A bash utility that sends the contents of a file to standard output. It would be named spew. It would be like cat but with the problems oft’ complained about in cat fixed. There would be a few options. One option would be to chomp the final newline if there is one. Other options…
ca 140 killed in Congo boat sinking
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 Up to 140 people are feared dead after a boat carrying passengers and goods capsized on a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials say. The accident happened on the Kasai river – a tributary of the Congo River – in the western province of Bandundu. Information Minister Lambert Mende told the BBC the…
The end is near
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 So, do you think there is any connection between this: 9 months, 23 days Mark your calendars! The end of the world is nigh, and we’ve got a specific date: the Rapture will occur on 21 May, 2011, and the world ends on 21 October 2011. How do we know this? As near as I…
Quick, we need five or ten bucks…
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 For a new project to fund progressive candidates, with the intention of countering the 200 million or so that Republican-aligned special interests have raised for the 2010 election. Click here.
Barry Glassner, Fear, Poor people and their babies: Friday!
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 I’ve been interested forever in human perceptions of risk and culturally mediated fear. I got to work with some of the cook risk perception people at the Kennedy School of Government for a while (as a bystander), and as an archaeologist, I find the question of risk and fear important in human foraging (and other)…
Livingston, LA School Board To Implement Discovery Institute’s “Academic Freedom” Law
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 Barbara Forrest, author of Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, has a major blog post addressing the current maneno in Louisiana. A Parish school board there wants to place creationism on equal or higher footing than evolution. Read Barbara’s piece here.
Yellowstone area griz kills one, mauls several UPDATED
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 As you know, I have a long standing interest in dogs and bears and in the topic of animals eating people. (SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST)
From Mountain to Sea: A Movie about Lava
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 Hat Tip: Highly Allochthonous
Tim LaHaye: Obama will cause the End of Days
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 There is an open seat in the White House press room. Who gets it?
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 Bloomberg? NPR? Or FOX?
Argumentum ad hominem vulpes
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 It turns out, Sponge Bob Square Pants Roolz. But never mind that. Keep focused on the racism, it is actually important: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Sociosexually, what is “safe”?
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2010 Are you a “safe guy”? Or do you know someone who (you or he or some else thinks) is? Stephanie Zvan has written about this at Quiche Moraine, and I think I might have been living in a different world than Stephanie’s because my experience has always been that the attribute of “safeness” is a…
, which is now available for the 
