gregladen | August 1, 2009On this day in 1971, on the second day of the Apollo 15 lunar mission, astronauts dug up a really old rock which, of course, they named "The Genesis Rock"
Details here.
gregladen | August 1, 2009Two years ago today, on a weekday afternoon during rush our, the Interstate 35W bridge, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed into the Mississippi river. Thirteen people died and about 145 people suffered injuries.
At the time this happened, Amanda, Julia and I were in the Green Kalahari in South Africa, at Augrabies Falls.
Finding out about the incident was interesting. My BFF Lynne had just heard from her husband, Chris, that "the bridge in Minnesota went down." We asked if more details could be obtained, as hearing this sort of news from that distance away probably meant a…
gregladen | July 31, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
And then things went rather badly...
gregladen | July 31, 2009Berry Go Round, the blog carnival about plants, is up an running here at quiche moraine
gregladen | July 31, 2009
(The fastest computer is the same thing but running a better operating system.)
Hat tip: Joe, copied from here.
gregladen | July 30, 2009"Here," dad to girl, "Get your ID out and have it with your ticket."
"Excuse me, sir," said the TSA officer, pointing to the young female, "She does not need to have her ID out, she's a minor."
Dad: "How do you know she's a minor if you don't look at her ID?"
.... (silence as everyone waits for answer)....
Dad again: "Kind of a hole in the system, isn't it?"
TSA Officer, voice lowered ... "There are a LOT of holes in the system, sir." ... walks away.
Young girl, "Good one, dad. Now tell her our name is LADEN and see what happens!"
gregladen | July 29, 2009Yes! And one of the top staff of that department just sent PZ Myers and the Secular Student Alliance a letter warning them to behave on their upcoming trip to the Creation Museum.
I hope every single one of those overtly homosexual visiting heathens is armed. With a Flip. I have one I can loan you if you are a local, just let me know.
Armbands will not be tolerated!!!!
gregladen | July 29, 2009It is decided. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has met, ruminated, voted, and now decrees that pregnant women, health care workers, and children over six months old will be vaccinated first. The reason we even need to worry about this is that there will not be nearly enough flu vaccine to go around in the event of a real surge in the novel swine flu.
In the US, according to MSNBC,
The government estimates that about 120 million swine flu vaccine doses will be available to the public by late October. Nearly 160 million people are in the priority groups considered most…
gregladen | July 29, 2009Hey man. I confess that did not groove to it, that I did not feel the beat and sense the vibes. But now I do. Hidden. Hidden deep in her sorry salty subtle soul all this time and I did not sense the vibes.
Because I could not do the transformation like William.
Before (watch between 1 minute and 1 minute and 45 seconds):
After:
Sorry, you will have to click here to feel the vibes.
gregladen | July 29, 2009At this point, I don't think I'd have a beer with this cop. Also, I have to agree that Obama stuck his foot in it on this one. He may have been right, wrong, whatever, but when this sort of thing happens it is best to stand back and not get directly involved in this sort of thing until the dust settles.
I already told you about this, but I thought you'd like to see the updated MSNBC piece on it, which starts out like this:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The woman whose 911 call led to the arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. spoke publicly for the first time about the case Wednesday,…
gregladen | July 29, 2009Or, more accurately, of their book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future ... will be found here, in Stephanie Zvan's latest post at Quiche Moraine.
gregladen | July 29, 2009In which I explain how Abrahamic religious tradition, ingrained in Western society since before its very history began, explains some of the special ways in which we can be so dumb.
Leviticus, the ancient Biblical law, does not give us a lot of room for negotiation, and I think this may help explain the illogical way in which most Westerners approach the realities of society and culture. Leviticus asserts that human behavior intersects with the law of god in a black and white fashion. We tend to see our fellow human beings as wonderful or terrible.
A recent news story serves as an…
gregladen | July 29, 2009My own personal experience with Yahoo is a tale of woe.
Years ago, I co-moderated what was then the most heavily used Internet discussion forum on Human Evolution and related topics (which has since evolved into PalAnth. That group was on Yahoo. The three or four of us (depending on when) who moderated the group found ourselves, one day, with no superadmin account. The superadmin was a login that allowed important changes to be made, such as adding other moderators or admins, and so on. For some reason or another, the superadmin account had gone away, and we lost the ability to make…
gregladen | July 29, 2009According to the following, the person who made the 911 call did not mention race until asked, and even then did not mention "two black males with backpacks." The two black guys with backpacks seem to have been added in to the police report authored by Police Seargant James Crowley. Specifically, he states that the 911 caller observed these two men. That is not even slightly surprising to me. There is nothing close to a guarantee that police reports will be accurate, and race is often used as a factor when discussing crime. It is most sensible, it would seem, to investigate black men…