gregladen | January 15, 2009Answer: Depends on the joke.
The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised directly to Bulgaria, which has formally complained over its depiction as a toilet...
The following is a silent overview of the work:
The quote above comes from a BBC story which has a BBC TV reporter creaming in his jeans over the insensitivity of the Czech artist, and the Czech artist being all arty and shit.
Ethnic sensitivity and humor: They don't mix, and you won't find either one in…
gregladen | January 15, 2009This is the third in a series of reposts from gregladen.com on global warming.
Why It Matters What you Burn and When you Burn It
Carbon Dioxide is a deadly poison. It is about 50% heavier than air, so where it occurs in density, in mines or certain natural vents associated with volcanics, it can accumulate in low spots. There are places in the Western Rift Valley where puddles of Carbon Dioxide form overnight while the air is still. These gas puddles can occur over puddles of water. When animals (such as antelopes) put their head down to the water to drink, they take a few whiffs of the…
gregladen | January 14, 2009This is the second in a series of reposts from gregladen.com on global warming.
Why Greenhouses have nothing to do with the Greenhouse Effect, and more importantly, why CAN'T I microwave toast?
A greenhouse is a glass house that is sealed to keep air in and insulated to keep heat in but at the same time allow sunlight in. This sunlight contributes to the heat in the greenhouse by warming the ground or other material in the greenhouse, and of course the light energy is used by the plants. But the point of a greenhouse is to keep air that is warmed, by the sun and/or heaters that may be…
gregladen | January 14, 2009HOLLAND TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Three New Jersey siblings whose names have Nazi connotations have been placed in state custody, police said. The children, ranging in age from 3 to under 1, were removed from their home Friday. They drew attention last month when a supermarket bakery refused to put the name of the oldest -- Adolf Hitler Campbell -- on a birthday cake.
State workers didn't tell police why the children were taken, police Sgt. John Harris said.
story
Hat tip: Virgil the Nazi Hunter Samms
gregladen | January 14, 2009Pursuant to the upcoming conference, Almost Diamonds has posted a list of recommended Science Fiction blogs. There is also a list of recommenced science and tech blogs, science art. Here.
gregladen | January 14, 2009Largest-ever study of US child health begins
(AP) -- Scientists begin recruiting mothers-to-be in North Carolina and New York this week for the largest study of U.S. children ever performed - aiming eventually to track 100,000 around the country from conception to age 21.
This will be very interesting in about 20 years.
gregladen | January 14, 2009What a moron. A lying moron, if you must know.
I love it: "Fair Judge = Norm Coleman Wins"
gregladen | January 14, 2009Suddenly we are talking about "what is science" on scienceblogs.com. Well, according to some of our commenters science is a bunch of stuff that many of us science bloggers never talk about! Which to some extent is certainly true. But we are not a textbook! We are blogger-beings!
This discussion is going on in one form or another here and here. I have a small number of bullet points to add.
1) Science is about material truth. As such, science recognizes the fallacy of truth and at the same time tirelessly works towards 'knowing' the truth.
2) If you think about science too much, it…
gregladen | January 14, 2009The IPCC report is out, "An Inconvenient Truth" has been honored by the academy, a sea change is happening in the way that climate change news is being reported, and you can bet the Right Wing and the Ree-pubs are as we speak working up new Talking Points and Spins to deflate the urgency of the issue. It is an axiom that in reporting science, there are two (not one, not three or four, just two) sides to every issue, and one side is the plank nailed to the Democratic Party Platform, and the other side is the plank nailed to the Ree-pub Party Platform. This is a truth as stable and reliable…
gregladen | January 13, 2009I just got an email informing us that Scienceblogs.com is going to go erotic after midnight tonight, owing to some anticipated activities.
Oh, sorry, I just reread the email. That's ERRATIC. Not erotic. Erratic.
Things will work, they will just be erratic.
gregladen | January 13, 2009... threats. By yahoos.
A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the claim that they cause autism, is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United States.
But there will be no book tour for the doctor, Paul A. Offit, author of "Autism's False Prophets." He has had too many death threats.
Details here at the NYT
gregladen | January 13, 2009The Minnesota DFL Party filed a complaint today with the FEC regarding how Norm Coleman is paying for his recount efforts. Norm doesn't have the personal wealth to fund this himself plus the Republican donors aren't probably all that excited about funding a losing proposition. So this means Norm needed to go where Republicans get the vast majority of their donations ... corporations. But Melendez and Co. think there is something underhanded going on.
Norm Coleman? Underhanded? Is that even possible?
..... details here.
gregladen | January 13, 2009If you are currently using Ubuntu 8, the upgrade to Ubuntu 9 will involve the implementation of Ext4. Ext4 is a super duper very fast file system that will make your computer sing. Sing fast.
If you are not using Linux at all, say you are using WinDoze, switching to Ubuntu 9.04 will make your computer run Two Zillion times faster, and it will not keep breaking and doing annoying things.
But remember, Linux is NOT FOR EVERYBODY. No ...
It is only for cool and smart people. For everybody else, Windows. Because Microsoft is there to help you.
details
gregladen | January 13, 2009Meet Don McLeroy
Doesn't Don look happy? He should. He's accomplished a great many things. He has an engineering degree, is a practicing dentist, has served in the U.S. Army, and has even helped out with his local Boy Scouts of America chapter, or congragation, or whatever they're called. On top of that, he's a Sunday-school teacher!
And he's a creationist and he's the head of the Texas Schoolboard.
The gory, awful details are HERE.
Texans, please don't make me tell you that you are all a bunch of slack jawed morons again! I know you don't like it. But you keep doing this shit.
gregladen | January 13, 2009There is a plan to make a "Web Log Carnival of the Vanities" (aka blog carnival) for all things arid.
Submissions should have something to do with a desert somewhere in the world. (If you're not sure whether your work is desert-related, check out this definition at Wikipedia, and if you're still not sure, send it in anyway.) Submissions can be scientific in nature, or history, or travelog. Images are welcome, photographic or otherwise. Discussions of culture and politics are welcome if they're desert-related. The one restriction, other than geographical, is that -- at least when I'm…
gregladen | January 13, 2009Al Franken has, as his his right and duty, filed papers to the court now reviewing Coleman's suit regarding the Minnesota Senate Race.
Eric Kleefeld has an excellent summary of the paper. You can read the papers here, and read Eric's summary here. Oh, and if you want a real laugh, you can read Coleman's suit here.
I'll give you the bottom line. There are the usual hopeful elements in any such filing, which usually have no effect, such as jurisdictional questions and so on. But there are two key elements based on which I would expect a decision by the court to throw out the case. First,…
gregladen | January 13, 2009RT Rybak is not going to run for Governor, as some of us thought. He's going instead for another term as Mayor. Good for him. Details here.
gregladen | January 13, 2009A new blog called Blogging the Origin launched Monday. It's a Seedmagazine.com-sponsored blog, written by London-based freelance science writer John Whitfield, who has the particular qualification--for this project, at least--of having never read Darwin's The Origin of Species. As he now begins to read it for the first time, he will cover each of the 15 chapters (including the introduction) in detail, sharing his thoughts and soliciting those of readers. By the time Darwin Day rolls around on February 12, John hopes to be an Origins expert. Follow his progress here.