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The Bottleneck Years by H.E.Taylor - Chapter 74

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 73 Table of Contents Chapter 75 Chapter 74 Waiting, September 18, 2059 I went back to the university and sat in my office. Luckily I didn't have any more classes that day. I tried to work, but it was no use. I ended up scanning half a dozen news channels looking for information about the sunshield and the rockets. Finally I felt so useless, I headed back home. That meant I was offline for 35 or 40 minutes while I walked. I could have monitored the net with my padd, but I have always tried to pay attention to the real world around me: Be here…

The Bottleneck Years by H. E. Taylor - Chapter 40

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 39 Table of Contents Chapter 41 Chapter 40 Learning To Stand, June 17, 2056 The weeks ground by. The meetings, the lack of progress really grated. I wasn't doing well in my work. The damned membrane grew, but it kept wanting to curl up in tubes and I didn't know why. It had something to do with humidity. At UNGETF, Group 7 was monitoring corporate activities, but it was soul destroying. Fifty low energy ships were now sailing around the Arctic making clouds to no noticeable effect. One hundred more were planned. They were retrofitting them at…

Sophistry in Defense of the Ten Commandments

I find this highly amusing. Lyle Denniston of the SCOTUSblog is reporting: The Supreme Court on Monday gave two Kentucky counties permission to make a new attempt to rescue their courthouse displays of the Ten Commandments from being struck down as a move motivated by religious objectives. The Court allowed McCreary and Pulaski Counties to file a new brief, even though the case was argued a month ago. The supplemental brief notified the Court that the two counties' local governing bodies had "repealed and repudiated" their 1999 resolutions that gave an explicit religious justification for…

NY State Judge Rules for Gay Marriage

A New York state court ruled today that gay couples must be allowed to marry in that state. Like the decision in Massachusetts, this decision is based upon the NY state constitution, not the U.S. Constitution, so it only is enforcable in that state. But it is still an enormously important ruling. The judge, Doris Ling-Cohan, correctly said, "Simply put, marriage is viewed by society as the utmost expression of a couple's commitment and love." There simply is no rational reason why gay couples should be denied that opportunity when they are every bit as capable of making that loving commitment…

Bush's Baffling Comments

President Bush had a town hall meeting yesterday to discuss social security reform. It wasn't a real town hall meeting, where people could actually show up and say what they wanted so the President could actually find out what people are thinking; it was a town hall meeting set up with people who had been vetted by his staff to make sure no one would say something that might stump him or might say something they didn't want said. But be that as it is, there was this absolutely baffling comment he made. Read this, and keep in mind that he's trying to convince people that privatization of…

The Myth of Christian Persecution

Kevin Drum has a post up at the Washington Monthly about the new meme going around to the effect that saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is some sort of anti-Christian conspiracy. I wrote about it a few days ago with Pat Buchanan's inane blustering about it. He quotes a religious rightie from North Carolina saying that Christians are undergoing "apartheid" just like the blacks did in South Africa, and Drum says: Apartheid in reverse! Hell, why not just compare the plight of besieged, persecuted Christians in America to the Holocaust and be done with it? But that's not what…

Chuck Norris Spinkicks Charles Darwin

Okay, I finally got to watch the NCBCPS press conference on their bible curriculum and it's even funnier than I imagined. You can download or stream the video by clicking here, but the video is very long, about 125 meg. I actually downloaded it. If you have broadband and a half hour to kill, I strongly urge you to watch it, especially the Chuck Norris part of it, which begins about 14 minutes in. It's delightfully absurd. Although he's supposed to be talking about the Bible curriculum, he begins with several minutes of rambling about some program he has for teaching martial arts in school.…

Agreeing with the Worldnutdaily

Even a stopped watch is right twice a day, right? Here's one I fully agree with the Worldnutdaily on. A Canadian minister named Stephen Boissoin has been brought up on charges before the Human Rights Commission of Alberta, his home province, because he submitted a letter to a newspaper condemning homosexuality. A professor from the University of Calgary, Darrell Lund, filed the charges and is demanding that Boissoin be fined (he could be fined as much as $7000) and be forced to apologize. This is nothing short of outrageous. Boissoin is wrong, dead wrong, in his opinions about homosexuals.…

Mind-Boggling Stupidity

This story is absolutely unreal to me. While President Bush is telling "Brownie" (FEMA director Mike Brown) that he's "doing a great job", here's what FEMA is actually doing with 1400 firefighters who volunteered to go to the areas ravaged by the hurricanes to help rescue victims: Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?" As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women…

Hide the guillotines, they're on to us!

We should be quaking in our jackboots: a media counterattack is being launched against us wicked atheists. They have a website! American Vision is launching a relentless and systematic response to militant atheism. We've produced a brilliant 2-minute commercial that we plan to broadcast globally via the Internet and Television. Atheists present themselves as enlightened and civil. But this new commercial will reveal the shocking truth to viewers. The French Revolution, Communism, Nazism, etc. have taught us that the atheistic worldview will inevitably lead to the persecution of Christians and…

Fascinating Poll Results

The Pew Research Center and Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, one of the most objective and reasonable organizations studying the subject, has released a massive poll of American attitudes on various legal issues and the results are fascinating. The poll was conducted before the John Roberts nomination was announced and it covered a wide range of ongoing legal controversies including abortion, affirmative action, gay marriage and much more. Here are some of the interesting results. On abortion, the normal 2/3 (65%) of the public says that Roe v Wade should not be overturned; that result…

Bastille Day Reflections

Today is Bastille Day, the French equivalent to our 4th of July, and the crew at In the Agora decided to dedicate the entire day to bashing France. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing, since there are many things I love about France. But like all nations, France has its absurdities and inconsistencies, not the least of which is the fact that they actually find Jerry Lewis funny. I only find him funny when he's trying to be serious; when he's trying to make me laugh, it is rather like having a root canal. So I reluctantly contributed an essay bashing France for their ridiculous…

The Many Meanings of Judicial Activism

John Dean (yes, that John Dean) has an interesting column at Findlaw about judicial activism. He argues what I have long argued, that the phrase has become virtually meaningless because it is thrown around so casually and without definition. He notes recent examples of liberal writers accusing conservative courts of judicial activism and conservative writers accusing liberal courts of judicial activism, with neither of them bothering to define the term at all. He also references a California Law Review article by Keenan Kmiec, a recent graduate of Boalt School of Law at Berkeley. Kmiec goes…

The Election in a Nutshell

David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy sums up perfectly what this election is like for the libertarian-minded: This year, the Libertarian candidate is embarassing. And Ralph Nader has become a parody of the man who once supported some forms of deregulation because it benefitted consumers. I find virtually nothing to admire about John Kerry. W. deserves credit for a certain steadfastness in the War on Terror, but his administration is suffused with the sort of hubris, sense of entitlement to power, and belief in the ameliorative powers of government action (in both the foreign and domestic…

Yet More Post-War Incompetence

Take a look at this article by Peter Galbraith, a former ambassador who reported to Paul Wolfowitz. He reports on more post-war looting and how dangerous it was to our troops: IN 2003 I went to tell Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz what I had seen in Baghdad in the days following Saddam Hussein's overthrow. For nearly an hour, I described the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion -- the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was…

Andrew Sullivan on Iraq

From Andrew Sullivan, an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq, who echoes much of what I've been saying here lately about the situation there: The reason I believe things are dire in Iraq is pretty simple. The evidence is accumulating that the insurgency - fostered by Baathist thugs, al Qaeda murderers, and other Jihadists - is gaining traction. That would be a manageable problem if the population despised them and saw a way through to a better society. But the disorder and mayhem continues to delegitimize the Iraqi government and, by inference, the coalition occupation. And the inability or…

The Sandefurian Majesty of Disagreement

Mr. Sandefur writes this morning: Again, Im sorry if my tone came off as overly hostile to Ed Brayton. Hes right that Mercers phraseology was silly, but the other things he said were wrong (and yes, I know Brayton was joking, but the joke was an attempt to express real beliefs, and it was baseless; one doesnt get a free pass by just saying it was a joke.) But normally I agree with Brayton, and enjoy his blog immensely. Adversity is true friendship.William Blake For the record, I never took Timothy's criticisms as hostile at all. I consider him a friend and, as the William Blake quote implies…

John Scalzi on Punctuation

John Scalzi has an interesting post this morning (well, interesting if you're a writer anyway) about the use of punctuation, prompted by a little battle he is having with the copy editor for his new book. It's interesting to me, at least, because I just had a similar conversation with Lynn last night in the context of discussing Mencken's writing. John writes: The comma thing does make me aware how much I use punctuation in general and commas specifically for intonation in my writing. Commas are grammatically used today primarily for reading clarity, to separate phrases and clauses from each…

Chaotic Systems are not Predictable

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic. Objection: Climate is an inherently chaotic system, and as such it can not be predicted. Answer: Firstly, let's make sure we define climate. Climate is generally viewed as an average of weather patterns over some meaningful time period. The number of years may vary and there are probably plenty of other finer points to quibble about in there, but the purpose of getting this definition out in front is to be sure we are safe in discounting the very…

Kuo's New Book

Here's an article about the new book by David Kuo, the former #2 official in the office for faith-based initiatives in the White House. The book is called Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction and it alleges that White House political operatives mocked evangelicals behind their back while publicly courting them through the program that gives money to faith-based groups involved in social services. Anyone who is shocked by that is simply naive about how politics works. You would be hard pressed to find a more cynical group than political operatives. Forget what they talk about…

Weekend Diversion: Old Wisdom, New Wisdom?

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." -Confucius I never was any good at taking someone's word for it; I've always been the type of person who wants to learn it for myself, and often that means living it and finding out on my own. This weekend, I'm still reeling from the loss of Magnolia Electric Company's Jason Molina, who died of alcohol abuse earlier this week. I'll remember him best for his heartbreaking vocals and lyrics, particularly at the concert I saw him…

People for the Eating of Tasty Atheists

Over at Pure Pedantry, Jake Young has recently posted two long, thoughtful, and civil entries in the New Atheism debate (he must have a thesis deadline, or something). The first follows John Dewey in arguing that a tight link between science and atheism is counterproductive, while the second collects and responds to criticism of the first. they're both well-thought-out, and argued calmly and carefully. Jake's a better man than I am. I say that not just because he managed to keep his cool after entering this argument, which I'm demonstrably not able to do, but also because I'm going to pick up…

Some Book That Came Out Recently [Library of Babel]

Kate was out of the house around nine on Saturday morning, which usually only happens if we have a plane to catch, which should tell you the importance Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had for her. She tore through it by dinnertime. I'm not that big a fan, but I hate missing out on a Cultural Moment, so I picked it up yesterday, and finished it tonight. Kate's spoiler-free booklog entry has it about right: it's a Harry Potter book, no less, and no more. She also has a spoiler-laden review post, if you'd like more details. If you throw a rock into the air, it will land on a blog featuring…

Trust Me About the Sunscreen

Just in time to drive parents into a panic for the rest of the summer, the New York Times has a big article about sunscreen: Dr. [James] Spencer [a dermatologist in Florida] said that an S.P.F. 15 product screens about 94 percent of UVB rays while an S.P.F. 30 product screens 97 percent. Manufacturers determine the S.P.F. by dividing how many minutes it takes lab volunteers to burn wearing a thick layer of the product by the minutes they take to burn without the product. But people rarely get the level of S.P.F. listed because labels do not explain how much to use, said Dr. Vincent A. DeLeo…

Consider the Source

Inside Higher Ed today offers an opinion piece about "assessment" which is the current buzzword in academia. It correctly identifies a split in academic attitudes toward internal ("for us"-- assessment of classes and programs within the academy) and external assessments ("for them"-- assessments to be used in comparing institutions, as called for by the Spellings commission), and speculates a bit about the reasons, including: We know the "us" -- faculty members, students, department chairs, deans -- and we know how to talk about what goes on at our institution with each other. Even amid the…

Oh, No, William and Mary Won't Do

I mostly read science-oriented blogs these days, where I get to hear again and again about how awful the treatment of academic scientists is, and how physics departments are horrible Kafkaesque operations dedicated to crushing the souls of postdocs and junior faculty. Which makes the train wreck that is the Philosophy department at William and Mary particularly interesting to see: The norm in academe is for junior faculty members to sit out departmental votes on tenure decisions. Such matters should be handled only by those who have already earned tenure, the theory goes. When it comes to…

Comment on Comments

Over at Cosmic Variance, Sean is pondering comment policies: So the question is: how can the comment sections be better? To decode this for our more innocent readers: how can we increase the signal-to-noise ratio? Increasing the signal is one obvious way, but that's hard. The real question that I've been wondering about (haven't consulted my co-bloggers on this) is: should we take more dramatic steps to decrease the noise? In particular, should we have a much heavier hand in discouraging, deleting, or even banning people who are rude, disruptive, off-topic, or just plain crackpotty? And in…

Chuck Klosterman, Fargo Rock City [Library of Babel]

This is actually Klosterman's first book, but the fourth one that I've read. As previously noted, I'm dangerously fond of his writing, so when I saw copies of a new printing of Fargo Rock City on a display in Borders, well, I had to pick it up. To be perfectly honest, though, I was slightly apprehensive about this. It's packaged in a way that makes it sound like it will be a standard autobiography about his childhood in rural North Dakota, but while there are plenty of autobiographical elements, it's mostly a book of his usual slightly skewed pop-culture criticism, applied to 1980's vintage…

The Dresden Files

I meant to post a comment on the new SciFi Channel series of The Dresden Files yesterday, but really, it's hard to work up much enthusiasm. It's not that the show was bad-- if it was bad, I'd have no problem writing something saying that. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that good, either. The series, for those not aware of it, is based on a popular set of fantasy novels by Jim Butcher, following the adventures of Harry Dresedn, the only wizard listed in the Chicago phone book. Dresden ekes out a living as a sort of mystical private investigator, doing jobs for members of Chicago's…

Science: 3.8% Notable

Last year, around this time, I posted a rant about the lack of science books in the New York Times's "Notable Books of 2007." While I was out of town last week, they posted this year's list. So, have things improved? Yes and no. They do, in fact, have two books that are unquestionably science books on the list: THE DRUNKARD’S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow (which I also reviewed), and THE SUPERORGANISM: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, by Bert Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson. By my count, they list 52 non-fiction titles, meaning that a whole 3.8…

Little imaginary beings

I recently mentioned the way some serious theologians believe in demons and exorcisms. I can't help it; I find these notions ridiculous to an extreme, and the absurdity of serious scholars blaming diseases on demonic possession in the 21st century is something one has to find laughable. I was being hard on Christianity, though. I left out an important exonerating factor for these people. Some of them believe in angels, too. Yes, I'm joking when I say this is an exonerating factor. This merely makes them even more silly. But no, you say, they can't possibly argue for demons and angels being…

Bunnies Made of Cheese: The First Draft

"Hey, dude. What's in the binder?" "Well, it's the first draft of my book. I finished it this morning, and printed it out to have a paper copy to look at." "Ooooh! The book about me?" "Well, it's a book about physics, featuring you. But yes, that's the only book I'm working on at the moment." "That's fantastic, dude. You're all done, and now I get to be famous!" "I wouldn't say I'm all done. In fact, I'd say that the work is really just getting started." "What do you mean?" "Well, for one thing, it's too long. The contract calls for 40,000 words, and this is a hair over 53,000. That's about…

How to Hand-Wave Quantum Phase?

Kind of a technical question, but typing it out might provide some inspiration, or failing that, somebody might have a good suggestion in the comments. Here's the issue: I'm starting on a chapter about quantum teleportation for the book, and one of the key steps in the teleportation scheme is an entangling measurement of two of the particles. If you're teleporting a photon polarization state, the easy way to do it is to make a joint measurement of the polarization of the photon whose polarization you want to "teleport" and one photon from the entangled pair you're using for the teleportation…

Turtles and Strings: Where Does Science Stop?

The infamous Davies op-ed has been collected together with some responses at edge.org, and one of the responses is by Sean Carroll, who reproduces his response at Cosmic Variance. Sean's a smart guy, and I basically agree with his argument, but I'm a contrary sort, and want to nitpick one thing about his response. He builds his response around the question, raised by Davies, "Why do the laws of physics take the form they do?" He considers and discards a few responses, before writing: The final possibility, which seems to be the right one, is: that's just how things are. There is a chain of…

"Gifted" is not a "Special Need"

Mark Kleiman has rediscovered a semi-clever approach to the problems of smart kids: So here's the puzzle: is there any justification for not treating high-IQ kids as having "special needs" and therefore entitled to individualized instruction? Yes, yes, I know that in the South "gifted" programs have been used as a technique of within-school resegregation. But that doesn't change the real needs of very bright kids. I don't know how the special-ed laws are written. Is there a potential lawsuit here? I say "rediscovered," because I've heard this proposed and rejected a dozen times in education…

Links for 2010-08-25

Streets of the optical scientists! | Skulls in the Stars "[While a post-doc in Amsterdam] I would take the bus to the rink from my apartment, and every day would travel down Maxwellstraat and past Lorentzlaan, but it didn't occur to me until near the end of my time in The Netherlands that these streets are named after the physicists James Clerk Maxwell and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz! In fact, all streets in the neighborhood of Watergraafsmeer are named after famous scientists and mathematicians, which is really a joy for a physicist like me. So after skating at the last day of the season at the…

Links for 2010-08-13

Think Globally, Compromise Locally - Green Blog - NYTimes.com "Bill McKibben, whose 1989 book, "The End of Nature," helped coalesce and spread worry about climate change, views the national environmental groups' strategy of winning support for energy and climate legislation by compromising with industry as a complete failure. "The result: total defeat, no moral victories," he wrote at the environmental news site Grist, speaking of the Senate's inaction on climate legislation. "Making nice doesn't work," he added. Whatever the merits of his position, it has less traction when it comes to…

World Cup Weekend

Friday's games showcased everything that makes international soccer maddening for Americans to watch: dreadful officiating, lack of scoring, and annoyingly conservative strategy. The referee in the Germany-Serbia game handed out cards like it was a poker tournament, with the result that, in the second half, every time two players got within about a meter of each other, both fell down, figuring it was about 50-50 that he would call something. The cavalcade of cards eventually got German striker Miroslav Klose thrown out (for a nothing little tackle), so Germany spent the last hour or so of the…

Required Reading in Science

Over at Inside Higher Ed they have a news report on complaints about the content of required reading for students entering college. This comes from the National Association of Scholars, a group dedicated to complaining that multiculturalism is corrupting our precious bodily fluids pushing aside the shared heritage of Western civilization, so most of it is pretty predictable. I was surprised by one thing in their list of commonly assigned books this year, though: What are the freshmen reading? Based on the report's analysis of 290 programs (excluding books that are required parts of courses),…

Links for 2010-05-19

Why just earn a degree when you can leave behind a legend? - CharlotteObserver.com "If you've spent significant time on the Davidson College campus the past four years, chances are you've at least heard of "the Name Tag Guy." Or, less likely, Stephen Pierce. They are one. Both were among 427 seniors who graduated during the college's 173rd commencement Sunday - Pierce pinning to his gown the same paper name tag he was given on his first day of freshman orientation in 2006." (tags: academia silly culture education) XENON100 is certain about its uncertainty (Blog) - physicsworld.com "Now,…

Bohemian Mechanical Rhapsody

Blame Bryan O'Sullivan for this-- after his comment about misreading "Bohmian Mechanics" as "Bohemian Mechanics," I couldn't get this silly idea out of my head. And this is the result. I like to think that this was Brian May's first draft (he does have a Ph.D. in astrophysics, after all), before Freddie Mercury got hold of it: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Do objects have real states Or just probabilities? Open your eyes Look up to the skies and see Studying quantum (poor boy), I need no sympathy Because I'm easy come, easy go A little psi, little rho No interpretation ever…

Links for 2010-05-11

The Science and Entertainment Exchange: The X-Change Files: Tony Stark's Science "While the film naturally took some liberties with the details -- sci-fi has the luxury of not having to pass peer review -- Marvel Studios nonetheless cared enough about plausibility to ask the Science & Entertainment Exchange for a suitable scientist with whom they could consult." (tags: movies science culture blogs x-change comics) Using Laser to Map Ancient Civilization in a Matter of Days - NYTimes.com "In only four days, a twin-engine aircraft equipped with an advanced version of lidar (light…

Hawking on Aliens: Not as Silly as You'd Like to Think

I'm a little surprised at the vehemence of some of the negative reactions to Stephen Hawking's comments about aliens. Not so much in blogdom-- Ethan's response is pretty reasonable, for example-- but there was a flurry of Twitter traffic yesterday of the form "Where does Stephen Hawking get off pontificating about aliens?" which strikes me as kind of silly. As all the news stories point out, Hawking's comments were made in the context of a Discovery channel series based on filming Stephen Hawking pontificating about stuff. And, really, if the Discovery Channel called me up and offered to film…

Particle Physics Wants Graphic Designers

Over at Cosmic Variance, JoAnne is soliciting ideas for graphics to explain the Higgs Mechanism and Supersymmetry. If you understand these processes, and have a flair for graphic design, go over there and help her out. She's going to take the best ideas to a workshop on this topic at SLAC, so this might be a path to fame, of a sort... I'll offer some miscellaneous thoughts about the example graphics she provided, below the fold. Here are the existing Higgs boson graphics: (This is a collage of four different graphics from different sources-- JoAnne's post has the original links.) As stand-…

Climate science for your iPod - February 10, 2009

Here are this week's climate related podcasts (and some on only tangentially relevant subjects!). NOTE: Presentation of content in this list does not imply endorsement of the views expressed within and I may or may not have listened to it myself! Please highlight good, bad or interesting aspects in the comments. You can email suggestions for specific items to include next time or additional sites to keep an eye on to a.few.things.illconsidered@gmail.com Happy listening! Quirks and Quarks: Fruitless Fall (source page here) - "It's been a rough couple years for honeybees. Two years ago, hives…

Liquid Wrench: Profanity in a Bottle

It was May, 1992, and I was in a stupor of post thesis-completion cortisol letdown and alcohol-induced lethargy, and Mark Pagel was talking to me as I slouched in a large comfortable chair in the Peabody Museum's smoking lounge. "It's obvious what they need to do," he was saying, and I could tell from the look on his face, even in my foggy state of mind, that a morsel of wisdom marinated in humor was about to be served up. I swear this stuff works great. "Hrmphsmeh," I replied, indicating that he should continue, I was interested. "They need Ross Perot." "Hrmph???," I knew Mark (and…

Texas School Board Prepares To Ruin Social Studies

Having totally borked science education in the Lone Star State, the Texas School Board is now winding up to stuff their right wing ideologies into the Social Studies curriculum. I for one can't wait until Texas leaves the Union so we can put Texas and Turkey in the same category and begin to summarily ignore them. In the mean time, have a look at what they are doing, from the Texas Freedom Network: The Texas State Board of Education is set to appoint a social studies curriculum "expert" panel that includes absurdly unqualified ideologues who are hostile to public education and argue that…

Has the Octuplet Mom Cuckolded The White Folk?

I've always been annoyed at women giving birth to seven, eight kids at once. There are too many freakin' people in the world, who do they think they are? But my annoyances is limited. Other people in the past seem to have been less annoyed, and instead of being miffed they reward these baby factories. The family that has six or seven kids (or more) because of over-done fertility treatments (or some other mojo) gets free diapers, college funds are set up, and so on. They become heroes and society steps up to take care of their children. I suppose that make sense for the sake of the…

How to live trap a mouse

Sheril has asked for suggestion on live trapping mice, and since this is a bit involved I thought I'd blog it. Please feel free to add your suggestions below. First, on the bait. Mice are granivores, so attract them to grain. The ultimate grain ... the orgasmically excellent purest grain-extract champaign of grain, the grain that a mouse will (literally) die for ... is wheat germ. Wheat germ does not behave well in a trap situation, so mix the wheat germ with peanut butter so you can stick it on stuff. There are several kinds of traps that work well. You should browse around for the…

Franken Pulls "Way" Ahead in Recount

Update: Franken is ahead by 249 votes !!! UPDATE: DONE with the Franken re-entered (some withdrawn) ... now looking at some ballots that were set aside earlier. UPDATE: ... bam... the canvassing board just threw out consideration of all the duplicate ballots except seven that have some reasonable 'on the face' cases. UPDATE: The small number of duplicate issue but addressable "on the face" is done. UPDATE: They are now going through miscellaneous challenges, of which I don't think there are too many. I think for various reasons that this is going to be mainly reductions in Franken's…