April 23, 2013
Every disaster in the US has at least three Congressional representatives associated with it (2 Senators, one House rep). Those representatives have at least two roles: 1) Causing/avoiding the disaster or making it less/more bad, to begin with, by way of their efforts in congress; and 2) Helping…
April 23, 2013
Andy Lee Robinson's latest visualo-info-graphico-depiction of the loss of Arctic Sea Ice:
April 21, 2013
Well, not everybody. First lets talk about some losers. Someday a brave journalist will ask the FBI why they had one of the suspects in sight a couple of years ago but this still happened. Chances are there is a very good answer and we should not be mad at the FBI for this, but at the moment,…
April 20, 2013
All human hunter-gatherer groups that have been studied incorporate meat in their diets. Studies have shown that the total dietary contribution of meat varies a great deal, and seems to increase with latitude so that foragers in subarctic and arctic regions eat a lot of meat while those living near…
April 18, 2013
One of these days I'll tell you the story of when I was almost killed permanently by sink hole. I'll probably have to package that story with the time I was buried alive in a trench (for symmetry). These things happen to archaeologists. Not as often as getting pinned down by gunfire, or running out…
April 18, 2013
So ...
... If you aren't familiar with Jill Stanek, she's just an awful anti-choicer. She thinks if you murder a doctor who performs abortions, it's wrong, but not so wrong that you deserve to be sent to PRISON! That's for like, bad people, and stuff! ... 1. The man who murdered Dr. Tiller "[did]…
April 18, 2013
The FBI has released an electronic wanted poster for you to look at. Somebody knows these people. Do you? You know what to do:
Wanted by the FBI: Boston Marathon Suspects
(click on the picture of the FBI web site to go through to the FBI web site)
Here's an enhanced video of the scene:
One of…
April 18, 2013
Michele Bachmann may be in some serious trouble.
For starters, it seems she may have used presidential campaign staff to support her book tour during her unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year. The Star Tribune reported on April 17th that
Congressional ethics investigators are examining…
April 18, 2013
The following video shows remarks by various individuals including President Obama on the shameful behavior of the US Senate in relation to a bill increasing the scope of background checks on individuals who plan to purchase firearms in the United States.
Go HERE to pick up a nice Facebook Meme…
April 17, 2013
...and release as much carbon into the atmosphere as we can. HERE'S WHY.
April 17, 2013
Hopkins High School is one of the top public schools in Minnesota, which prides itself, though not always with justification, as having excellent public schools. Hopkins is in an "outer ring" suburb of the Twin Cities. This is a set of bedroom communities developed over the last several decades as…
April 16, 2013
We watch these events unfold through a veil of tears. And over time, it only gets worse as we learn the identities of some of the victims, and learn of the horrors of this particular kind of bomb attack. We wonder if the bomber knew that few would die but many would lose their legs, or if…
April 16, 2013
"Denialism on a Large Scale" Greg Laden on Atheists Talk #214, April 14, 2013
I was interviewed on Minnesota Atheists Talk Radio about climate change and climate change denialism last Sunday AM. Since you were in church, I'm sure you missed it! But you can catch the podcast HERE.
April 16, 2013
Years ago it was pointed out by somebody, probably Tinbergen or Lack or Wynn-Edwards or one of the other great bird-savvy ethologists of the day, that young Pelicans would blackmail their parents by biting their own wings, a very self defeating activity for a bird with a huge and powerful beak. “If…
April 15, 2013
The book Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories has a mention in Publisher's Weekly:
While Prometheus Books is the grandfather of publishing atheism books, there are two upstarts, another indication of the category’s strength. The newest is Freethought House, founded in 2011…
April 15, 2013
Apparently, the women have jugs.
No, seriously. In a certain archaeological culture known from the vicinity of Prague, male and female burials are distinguished by the mode of burial and the artifacts. The males tend to be buried with their heads towards the west and along with various weapons.…
April 15, 2013
Why is it snowing so much in the Northern US States this Spring? Two words: Global Warming. Let me ‘splain.
Weather is all about air and moisture. The distribution of air is uneven, with some places having more air in big piles, other places having less air, into which the extra air from the big…
April 15, 2013
Once again, the winged monkeys of climate change denialim are writing fake, stupid, made up an absurd reviews of Michael Man's book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines on Amazon.com.
If you've read the book and like it and have not written a review of it on Amazon…
April 14, 2013
Yuri Gagarin's Falsified Record - It Happened in Space
April 13, 2013
You know about celebrity swatting? It's when 4chaners trick the police into arriving at a celebrity's home under the assumption that there is a hostage situation or something like that. It is incredibly stupid, obnoxious, dangerous, and a famous 4chaner-er (whom you probably know of but whose name…
April 12, 2013
I think the primary political framework for climate change denialism is Libertarianism, with a lot of overlap with Tea Partiers, who are essentially Libertarians Without Brains. Libertarians can't live with the fact that their philosophy guarantees the misery and horrors of climate change so most…
April 12, 2013
The famous climate scientist James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, has just retired from his senior position at NASA. I'll be the climate science denialists are breathing a sigh of relief to have Hansen, who has been instrumental in developing our current understanding of climate…
April 12, 2013
Maine is my favorite state. If you've not visited then your life is an empty shell and you don't even know it. But it is also true that I've seen and heard some of the strangest things I've ever encountered there. So strange I can't even tell you about it. The story that recently emerge from the…
April 11, 2013
Climate sensitivity is the number of degrees C that the earth's average temperature (of the atmosphere air and water on top of the "earth" per se) will increase with a doubling of "pre-industrial CO2" in the environment.
This is an important number ... and it is a number, and to save you the…
April 11, 2013
They always say they won't spill the oil. Then they spill the oil. And we seem to not mind. We should mind
From here, this:
This was a slow month for oil spills, compared to those moments when a tanker hits the rocks or a retreating army opens the spigots.
April 11, 2013
Minnesota's 6th congressional district is represented by Michele Bachmann, who moved from the Minnesota Senate where she was one of the first legislators in the US to introduce academic freedom legislation to silence professors at the University of Minnesota who were lecturing on climate change and…
April 11, 2013
Here's the trailer:
The web site including information on screenings, is here.
April 11, 2013
Have you seen The Corporation? It is an excellent documentary that runs through the list of psychiatric disorders that seem to be endemic to corporations. It came out in 2004, but is still very relevant. If you've not seen it, you should.
The film has a website, here. In some countries you can…
April 11, 2013
Usually I don't mention books unless I've read them, but I thought a lot of my readers would be interested in a volume I have only heard about: Defiant Daughters: 21 Women on Art, Activism, Animals, and the Sexual Politics of Meat.
Here is the description:
When The Sexual Politics of Meat: A…
