June 30, 2009
And I'm still sayin' it, and I'm going to continue to deny I'm sayin' it, and I'm going to keep sayin' it, and Joe the Plumber, the liberals, I was trapped, they gotta do their job and vet the liberal views in congress, and that's that's what I was getting at....
Apparently, the following video…
June 29, 2009
The best of last June
Note: Since writing this post a year ago, at the time of Scott's talk, I learned something interesting that I think it is OK to share with you. Prior to the talk, Scott has received an injury, which was causing him considerable pain during the talk itself. He left from the…
June 29, 2009
Intermedia Arts Presents
B-GIRL BE
:: A CELEBRATION OF WOMEN IN HIP-HOP ::
Fourth International Multimedia Festival
Summer Camps -- August 11 - 14, 2009
Mama Said Knock U Out! Exhibition -- August 27 through October 23, 2009
Dance Performances -- September 17 - 20, 2009
B-Girl Be Block Party--…
June 29, 2009
Eric Michael Johnson has a Bachelors degree in Anthropology and a Masters in Evolutionary Anthropology. He pursued his PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University before joining the University of British Columbia to complete a doctorate in the History and Philosophy of Science.
And he now…
June 29, 2009
I very recently reviewed Carl Hiaasen's novels. Among his fiction are two books that are written explicitly for kids. Looking just at Hiaasen's titles it may be hard to pick them out from the pack, so I'm making a special reference to them here. They are called "Hoot" and "Flush." Details…
June 29, 2009
Following the excellent round of rocket photography by Steve Jurvetson, we now come down to earth with minerals photographed by B. Jefferson Bolender.
June 29, 2009
A racist arrested by chance at a railway station was "on the cusp" of waging a terror campaign using tennis balls and weedkiller, a jury has heard.
Neil Lewington, 43, had a bomb factory at his parents' home in Reading, Berks, and wanted to target those he thought "non-British", prosecutors alleged…
June 29, 2009
The novel swine flu has affected its one millionth American. The first death in England has been recorded (a 9 year old girl). Yesterday, the first Brazilian death was recorded. When we look at the map of the disease, note that many regions of Africa are totally devoid of cases. Just so you…
June 29, 2009
Skepchickcon is a Track at Convergence 2009. Convergence 2009 is one of those science fiction conventions where everyone dresses up as Klingons and such. I've never been to one but I've sure seen plenty of them on TV and in the movies.
Skepchickcon is a "Track," which means it is a series of…
June 29, 2009
Time Pawlenty has become famous for his ability to be extraordinarily vague. Now we are seeing this in relation to the expected Minnesota State Supreme Court decision on the Franken-Coleman Senate election contest.
For the most part, Pawlenty has signaled that he will only sign the election…
June 29, 2009
I have no comment on this.
Gotta go ... helicopter coming.
June 29, 2009
Bing, son of blogger and politico Mike Haubrich, has just arrived in Japan where he will spend several months assisting in a linguistic research project in the Greater Tokyo Metro area. And hopefully getting around the country a bit to see some cool stuff.
He's got a web site tracking his trip…
June 29, 2009
UPDATE: grrrrrrrrrr.....
The original story, now retracted, is below the fold.
Somebody is dicking around on the internet. It is possible that the Daily Express article is a "hoax" or a "fiction" ... at least, this is what some are claiming. See the updates here on Bad Astronomy.
I'm not…
June 28, 2009
On this day in 1885, Thomas Henry Huxley died at the age of 70. He is most famous for his sideburns, but in addition he was also involved with the study of evolution and the defense of Darwinism.
He also invented the term Agnostic. Which he was.
T.H. Huxley, Darwin's Bulldog
June 28, 2009
DOS stands for Disk Operating System.
In the old days it was how you ran your PC. You booted up the computer and you had a prompt much like today's Linux command line in appearance. If you typed "wp" at the command line, a text-based non-GUI version of WordPerfect would run. If you typed "dir…
June 28, 2009
As you know, there has been quite a bit of discussion about missionaries in the Congo on this blog. This is the central post pointing to everything else, and at Minnesota Atheists you'll find a link to today's radio show on the topic.
It turns out that a number of calls and emails did come in to…
June 28, 2009
The best of last June
Triatoma infestans, Chagas vector This is the conclusion of a report to be published in the June 2008 PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal. The report, by Peter Hotez of George Washington University and the Sabin Vaccine Institute, is a clear indictment of economic…
June 28, 2009
previously reviewed
Birds: Nature's Magnificent Flying Machines is a book by Caroline Arnold and illustrated by Patricia Wynne for, I'd say, Pre-Elementary School kids and first/second grade. This is a good book to read to a pre-literate kid. Then put it away for later when the first grade…
June 28, 2009
Whenever I sat at Joseph and Mary's dinner table, Mary showed a great deal of interest in my work. In between her frequent forays away from the dining room table to get this or that food item, or to issue instructions to a servant, or whatever, she would sit at the table across from me and ask…
June 28, 2009
Prisoners, nuns, do the wave for Jacko:
I concur with BGF's opinion on this.
Except I've got to add: When the nuns came out I kind of freaked. Also, as I've mentioned before, I totally missed the "we ae the world we are the Coke Commercial" event because I was in the jungle with the ...…
June 27, 2009
The best of last June
... is certainly still in the future. But we have seen a step in that direction in a new paper, coming out this week in Science. This research applies intensive and extensive genomic analysis to the avian phylogenetic tree. The results are interesting.
This paper is…
June 27, 2009
Let us not let the death of Ed McMahon and some other stars overshadow the anniversary of the death of one of the greats. In memoriam, let's talk bullshit:
June 27, 2009
The long running Minnesota Atheist Talk Radio air's its very last show tomorrow morning at 9:00 Central Time. Details of how to listen to the show, which will also be a podcast, are here.
This week's show will feature yours truly, and I'll be interviewed by Stephanie Zvan. The subject will be…
June 27, 2009
cats:
Dogs:
Bonus cat:
June 27, 2009
Joseph and Mary, and Little Joe and Mary, and Grinker and I, sat around the table where most of the dinner had been laid out. Additional bits and pieces of the dinner would be brought out as needed shortly, but now it was time to pray.
So we held hands and bowed our heads, and Mary led a prayer to…
June 27, 2009
In case you didn't know, the marriage proposal launched by Jodi (asking Jason) and largely organized by Stephanie, has resulted in an answer.
Congratulation Jodi and Jason!
Not long before this internet round robin was launched, Jodi made a limited distribution, organized by Stephanie, of some…
June 27, 2009
previously reviewed
It utterly shocks me every time I make a reference to plastic alligators, Macy's bags with poisonous snakes in them, a guy named Skink or my favorite Bass Lure .... the Double Whammy .... and people look back at me with blank stares. Like, don't you get it? "To be or not to be…
June 27, 2009
We left it around here somewhere. Maybe here?
June 26, 2009
I have obtained a document that describes the secret, inner workings of the on line publication PLoS ONE. The document also exposes future plans for the enterprise.
The link is below the fold.
The link for the PDF of the document is here. Don't tell anyone where you got it.
From the Abstract…
June 26, 2009
Diane Benscoter spent five years as a "Moonie." She shares an insider's perspective on the mind of a cult member, and proposes a new way to think about today's most troubling conflicts and extremist movements.
