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Best Lines on the Cheney Shooting Accident

My first thought when I heard on Saturday that Cheney had shot someone by accident on a hunting trip was, "Jay Leno just got very excited." These incidents are a dream for comedy writers and last night, they teed off on it. The best lines, predictably, came from Jon Stewart on the Daily Show: "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt ... making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting veep since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, (was) shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering.…

King's Funeral

I've just spent the last couple hours watching the funeral of Coretta Scott King and shedding not a few tears. I may be a heathen, but I have a great affinity for gospel music and good preaching. Rev. Joseph Lowry was brilliant, the first President Bush was unexpectedly charming, and Bill Clinton delivered his usual brilliant oratory (Hillary really should learn not to follow him to the podium; she looks terrible by comparison). And Maya Angelou was inspiring. I hope others got to watch it and took away the message that we all have an obligation to work for justice, liberty and equality. Okay…

Bush the Fiscal Conservative

I'll give you a moment to stop laughing at the title of this post. ***whistles for a minute*** Ready? Okay. Here's a good example of the absolute vacuousness of state of the union addresses (and by extension, pretty much all political rhetoric). From last night's speech: Every year of my presidency, we've reduced the growth of nonsecurity discretionary spending. It reminds me of those commercials for some vitamin supplement that uses as many weasel words as possible - "Some studies suggest that eating caramelized rat droppings may reduce the risk of some types of cancer." Here's what that…

NCBCPS Lawsuit On the Way

Odessa, Texas, you're the next contestant on the Federal court, establishment clause game show: Trustees of the Ector County Independent School District here decided, 4 to 2, on Tuesday night that high school students would use a course published by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools for studying the Bible in history and literature. The council is a religious advocacy group in Greensboro, N.C., and has the backing of the Eagle Forum and Focus on the Family, two conservative organizations... David Newman, a professor of English at Odessa College, said he planned to sue…

Looking forward to Armageddon and the cleansing of the earth

Last summer, a lot of people hated this post where I advocated calling the apocalyptic cultists on their evil delusions. Then we had some prominent Christian leaders calling for war with Iran, and John Hagee gave a demented interview with Terry Gross, in which his rapture rubbish was used as an excuse to advocate hate and war and destruction, all because his "prophecies" said that's what we need to do. Want some more fun? Watch this video from a Christians United For Israel conference. There's Hagee promising unconditional support for Israel until the Messiah comes, and then standing up in a…

Andrea

The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season has developed. Tropical Storm Andrea formed over the last several hours, and now exhibits winds of 63 knots at 5000 feet, with a surface intensity of about 50 knots, though these winds are only found in the "right hand" side of the storm, now sitting in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Most likely, this is all Andrea is going to manage as the storm moves north to make landfall, where it will also interact with upper level winds which will convert the storm to a big rain storm over the next day and a half. However, Andrea will be a very…

Christian Science Monitor Screws The Pooch Big Time

Today, the Christian Science Monitor published on their web site a piece, Global luke-warming: Is the threat of climate change overstated? by James Stafford. It is an interview with climate science denialist Anthony Watts, in which Watts gives his usual argument that climate change is not important. Well, not his actual usual argument, because he has several different conflicting things to say about climate change, ranging from it isn't happening it's actually cooling to it is only warming a little to yeah, it's warming a lot but we'll adapt. The thing is, interviewing a denialist like…

CNN has not done a good job reporting climate change...

... but this can change, according to a report from Media Matters. CNN founder Ted Turner said in 2011 that climate change is "probably the most serious ... problem that humanity has ever faced," adding that we need to "increase the amount of the debate" to motivate people to take action. Unfortunately, the network he created has often failed to live up to that goal, devoting minimal time to the issue even while reporting on its consequences. A recent study by the Project for Improved Environmental Coverage found that environmental stories accounted for only 0.36% of CNN's news headlines…

Are we having more forest fires in the US?

I'm not sure about the NUMBER of fires. That might be hard to count. If five small fires emerge and are put out, there are five fires. If five fires emerge, join into one configuration, and wipe out a handful of mountain villages in the Rockies, that's one fire. It might be better to look at acreage burned per year. My friend John Abraham has used the data supplied by National Interagency Fire Center to make a graph of acreage burned per year since 1960. The graph is a 10-year running mean of millions of acres burned in the US. Here is the graph: The annual rate of acreage burned in…

Happy Birthday Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace was born on this day in 1823 (he died in 1913). You know of him as the other guy who invented a theory of Natural Selection which was very like Darwin's; they published the theory together. He also spent considerable time traveling around on boats in the tropics, like Darwin did, and collected one or two items that made it back to to various museums. One of the most awful tragedies of 19th century science happened to Wallace, when on July 12th, 1852, the ship he and his very important and interesting insect specimens, and notes, that he was taking back to the UK from…

Is reality real?

I like to ask people who believe in reality the following question: "What is the one single piece of evidence that convinces you that reality is real?" The answer is always easily debunked. For example: "Evidence": Reality is real because I can sense the world around me. Answer: Senses have been known to fool people, quite often. "Evidence": Reality is real because if I base predictions on my understanding of it, they are generally accurate, so my understanding of it is probably pretty accurate. Answer: Predictions are not evidence. "Evidence": When people from entirely different…

Curiosity Cruises Ever Closer

This just in: Curiosity Closes in on its New 'Home' Sat, 04 Aug 2012 06:20:24 PM CDT With Mars looming ever larger in front of it, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft and its Curiosity rover are in the final stages of preparing for entry, descent and landing on the Red Planet at 10:31 p.m. PDT Aug. 5 (1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6). Curiosity remains in good health with all systems operating as expected. Today, the flight team uplinked and confirmed commands to make minor corrections to the spacecraft's navigation reference point parameters. This afternoon, as part of the onboard sequence of…

Dang, I'm slipping

George Shollenberger is not happy with scienceblogs. He sent an email to the scienceblogs website (whatever that means) with a complaint: I started to inform 'the people' on my website that our mathematicians are practicing atheism. Then, after I investigated the website, ScienceBlogs, I concluded that all sciences also practice atheism. So, my website is now informing 'the people' that mathematicians and scientists are practicing atheism. However, I am dismayed to discover that the overwhelming godless influence on scienceblogs is not me, but Mark Chu-Carroll! I feel so inconsequential now…

Mess with the Nazis

The Nazis in Greece, who over the weekend gained some seats in Parliament, are likely to continue to be a factor in a new election experts say will likely be held in about a month or so. These are the real deal ... apparently they self identify as Nazis but the party name is "Golden Dawn" and they have a record of violence and nastiness. They even do the Nazi salute and everything. Here's the thing: Their web site is hosted on Wordpress, and Wordpress has a policy that should actually exclude them from using that resource. For this reason, people who dislike Nazis are invited to SIGN A…

Climate "Controversy" in American Classrooms

PBS has something coming out tonight about teaching climate change in American Classrooms. From a press release I just got in the mail: The PBS NEWSHOUR examines the struggle over teaching climate change Wednesday The PBS NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan will report Wednesday (May 2) on how the controversy over climate change affects America's classrooms. Part of a NewsHour series on the impacts of climate change, Sreenivasan's piece takes a look at a political think tank creating climate change curriculum, examines recent state laws dictating what can be taught about global warming and…

Criminal Charges Filed in BP Oil Spill (UPDATED)

Yes, it was a crime; it was a crime against nature and against the law of the land, and now the first criminal charges are being filed, according to an exclusive report at NPR. "The first criminal charges in connection with the BP oil spill have been filed against a former BP engineer named Kurt Mix," NPR's Carrie Johnson reports exclusively. Carrie just told our Newscast unit that Mix has been charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly deleting text messages after the spill. The texts were related to the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf. Mix will make his first appearence in court…

How Girls Evolved to Shop

Rebecca Watson gave the following talk at Skeptcon. It is funny, well done, and critiques a Pop-Evol-Psy concept or two, which I have also addressed (Why Do Men Hunt and Women Shop?, Understanding Sex Differences in Humans: What do we learn from nature?, Falsehoods: Human Universals, A Tutorial in Human Behavioral Biology, Driving The Patriarchy: Demonic Males, Feminism, and Genetic Determinism, Race, Gender, IQ and Nature, What is the most important human adaptation?, How Do You Get Sexual Orientation and Gender in Humans?, Men = Testosterone Damaged Women!, Sex and Gender in An Odd…

Savita Halappanavar’s Death

As you know, it was recently reported that a woman named Savita Halappanavar was killed in an Irish hospital when she was not given proper medical treatment for religious reasons. One of the last conversations she had was with hospital employees who told her and her husband that this was an "Irish Catholic Hospital" so of course there would not be a termination of a pregnancy, which was in the process of a long and problematic miscarriage, even if the patient, Savita Halappanavar, might die with out it. Well, she did die, at the hands of the hospital staff. First, the fetus died, but the…

Where to eat, not eat

Several restaurants are laying off employees, needlessly, as a form of passive aggressive snit in objection to Obamacare. They don't want to have to give their employees health insurance. I think some of these companies are also known for having opposed Obama in the election, which is their right (corporations are people too, after all!) but this is actually, in my view, a form of voter intimidation large scale. If the mainly fast and medium-speed food industry collaborates tacitly or not to make a certain voting pattern hurt all of their employees, they are creating a class of people who…

Take a stand, or watch it all slide away

First the ideologues came for evolution, making it uncomfortable for teachers to teach it, even when it is not only legal, but mandated by state education standards. What will they suppress with indirect social pressure next? How about those bits of history the fascists and the religious find objectionable? Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government-backed study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. As I said in the previous…

Death notice

The regal old willow that has graced our front yard for longer than I've been alive, and which has sadly shown signs of advancing senescence, is scheduled for termination tomorrow morning. It's a beautiful old tree, but its habit of dropping a ton of log every spring has made it a hazard, so we've decided to end it quickly, rather than a slow death by yearly spontaneous lopping of limbs. I've had several people ask me about this tree, and several have mentioned their sorrow at its imminent passing. If you'd like to pay last respects, tonight is your last chance. Feel free to step into the…

Dear Pakistan, WTF? An eight month old baby charged with murder?

From NBC: ... Mohammad Musa Khan appeared in court in the city of Lahore last week, charged with attempted murder along with his father and grandfather after a mob protesting against gas cuts and price increases stoned police and gas company workers trying to collect overdue bills. "Police are vindictive. Now they are trying to settle the issue on personal grounds, that's why I sent my grandson to Faisalabad for protection," the baby's grandfather, Muhammad Yasin, told Reuters, referring to a central Pakistani city. The baby is on bail and due to appear at the next hearing on April 12 but…

Storm Boreas: Thanksgiving Nor'easter?

If you are in, going to, or coming from New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or as far south as Maryland/Virginia/DC area, on or around Thanksgiving, you better keep track of Boreas, a storm heading in that general direction that long-range forecasts suggest might be a snow-dumping rainy windy Nor'easter. Jeff Masters says: (Boreas) is bringing snow and difficult travel conditions to Arizona, and will spread a variety of dangerous winter weather across Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Utah over the weekend. On Monday and Tuesday, the storm will dump heavy rains…

Epic, Nay, Biblical Flood.

Almost everything in the bible is exaggerated, including the floods. So when we have a flood that IS exaggerated (as a weather event) it is natural to call it biblical. The National Weather Service is calling this flood BIBLICAL (They always use all caps). Paul Douglas is calling it biblical (see below). I sent my friend the National Weather Service bulletin mentioning the biblical nature of the flood. She read my email on her cell phone while gazing at the wreckage of part of the back of her house down stream in a large river that was never there before and used to be the road, trapped at…

Do you think NASA should put the Shuttles on Craig's List?

Now that space shuttle Discovery has returned from its last mission, NASA workers will start getting it ready for its next voyage -- to a museum. NASA is retiring its shuttle fleet this year, and 21 museums across the country are vying for the chance to become a retirement home for one of the iconic space shuttles. I remember when John Glen's space capsule toured and was displayed briefly in the State Capitol in Albany, in the same place they displayed the bodies of various touring dead presidents and other similar memorabilia. It would be really cool to visit the Space Shuttle in some…

Wisconsin: It ain't over 'till it's over

What happened in #Wisconsin, and what happens next by Laura Conway: Last night, Wisconsin State Senate Republicans stripped most public employees unions of most collective bargaining rights. After insisting for weeks that busting the unions was essential to balancing the state's budget, they broke Governor Scott Walker's "budget-repair bill" into two parts. One part contained the anti-union provisions, the other the items that Republicans now deemed fiscal. Read the rest The Uptake on Wisconsin Senate Koch Industries Employs PR Firm To Airbush Wikipedia, Gets Banned For Unethical 'Sock…

Science Friday on the DailyKos--welcome!

It's time for Science Friday again over at DailyKos. Previously, DarkSyde has interviewed Chris Mooney, PZ Myers, Ed Brayton, Wesley Elsberry, the gentlemen over at Real Climate. Obviously he was running out of the big boys*, so today's Science Friday features little ol' me. I'm humbled to be in such esteemed company. (For those of you who've not read many DS posts previously, it's worth checking them out. In addition to his Science Friday gig, he also has a "know your creationists" series that's worthwhile to anyone unfamiliar with the main players--or even those who've followed them…

Dramatic decrease in measles in Africa

Wonder what the anti-vaccination crowd makes of this? Measles cases and deaths fall by 60% in Africa since 1999 Largely due to the technical and financial support of the Measles Initiative and commitment from African governments, more than 200 million children in Africa have been vaccinated against measles and one million lives have been saved since 1999. Measles cases and deaths have dropped by 60%, thanks to improvements in routine and supplementary immunization activities in Africa. This dramatic drop has occurred in only a few years, coinciding with a massive measles vaccination campaign…

Ask a science blogger?

Apparently Seed has a feature called "ask a science blogger" and there is a question of the week. This weeks is "If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?". If anyone can tell me where to find this, though, I'd be grateful. I found it via Kevin V, and here is his answer. I don't have a burning answer, but following on from some discussion down the pub this week I shall go with "as far as physics is concerned, we have no free will". People have been bashing their heads against this one for ages, because the obvious answer is obviously…

ERV debate tonight!

Just a reminder for those of you in the OKC area that I will be debating Steve Kern (infamous husband of infamous Sally Kern) on the topic of Intelligent Design tonight! Some of Kerns homies advertised for the event too: Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee * THURSDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - Dr. Steve Kern, pastor of Olivet Baptist Church in OKC, will be debating an OU graduate student this Thursday evening, 7:00 p.m. on the question, "Should Intelligent Design be taught to our children in public schools? The debate will be held in the College Union on the campus of Oklahoma…

Dog Physics on the Radio

I've done a bunch of publicity stuff for How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog, some of which frustratingly continue to not appear yet, but one thing from this week has gone live: a podcast interview on the Matt Lewis Show, where I talk about why and how I explain physics to the dog, and a little bit about why relativity is cool. I continue to struggle a bit with the fact that relativity is a very visual subject-- most of the best explanations involve pictures, which aren't much help in an audio-only medium. I had trouble with this at Boskone, too-- when I was doing a reading, it was hard to…

Links for 2012-02-22

Astro-Physical Calculator A JavaScript calculator with all manner of physical constants already programmed in, in different systems of units. College Misery: I'm Baffled At My Students And Their Inability to Conquer "Some" Technology. My students are whiz bang on all their electronic gear, flashing their digits and emails wirelessly from phone to phone, downloading first run feature films on Bit Torrent, running blogs, tweeting their whereabouts, bowel movement times, and of course the Facebook, oh my God, the Facebook. Video, photos, uploading, resized, printed out on t-shirts, etc. But…

Links for 2012-02-11

Jeremy Lin, Landry Fields unveil nerdiest handshake in NBA history - San Jose Mercury News Jeremy Lin and Landry Fields of the New York Knicks may comprise the most intelligent starting backcourt in NBA history. It's certainly hard to top a duo that boasts college degrees from Harvard (Lin) and Stanford (Fields). So it's not surprising when Lin and Fields unveiled what has to be the nerdiest pre-game handshake in league history. The choreographed skit features the two skimming through an imaginary book, taking off their glasses and then placing them inside pocket protectors. Confessions of…

Baby Formulae

One of The Pip's Christmas presents simply demands to be shown off here: This is a baby blanket knitted by his awesome Aunt Anastasia, with three physics equations on it. They're subtle, but if you look closely, you can read them: E=mc2, V=IR, and F=ma. All the other babies will be jealous of his knowledge of physics (once he starts day care in March, anyway). For now, here's a show of appreciation from the little dude himself: He's waving his little fist in the air, saying "Rock on, Aunt 'Stasia!" (The actual rocking in this case was being done by big sister SteelyKid: Check out the…

Shameless (if Belated) Self-Promotion: Me on the Radio

If you want to know how stressed and busy I've been lately, you don't have to look any farther than the fact that I've totally fallen down on the shameless self-promotion front: I was on a radio show, and forgot to post about it here. I know, bad blogger, no pageviews... Anyway, I talked about the fast neutrino experiment on the phone to Clay Naff, who runs the Science Odyssey show on KZUM in Nebraska, and he used it as part of this past weekend's show. My interview is in Part 1, and Part 2 is Alan Kostelecky, who is an actual expert on this sort of thing. For some odd reason, it…

Thursday Sand Picture Blogging 091511

The current quasi-hiatus has the goal of preserving my sanity through reducing stress. Somewhat surprisingly, Thursday Toddler Blogging has actually been fairly stressful lately, because SteelyKid is mostly in a "no pictures" phase, which makes getting a usable shot of her a huge hassle. Which is why there was no toddler blogging photo last week. This week, though, I got this shot which is well worth sharing: The notable thing here is not just the cute toddler, but the figure in the sand at her feet, which you can just make out. This is a self-portrait of sorts, drawn on the sand playground…

Imminent Death of the Book, Continued

A little more tab clearance: these are stories about the transformation of publishing that I've been meaning to say something about but haven't got around to. First, some actual news: rumors of the imminent death of publishing may be somewhat exaggerated, as more books were sold for more money in 2010 than in a while. Of course, that doesn't make Borders any less dead, so here are a couple of eulogies: from Dean Dad and Jeff Mariotte (the latter hosted by Borders so, you know, read it soon before it disappears). If you remain convinced that traditional publishing is going the way of the…

Synesthesia

As other members of my class have posted before me, we are giving presentations on synesthesia. I will be presenting possible mechanisms of grapheme-color synesthesia. Grapheme-color syesthesia is where a person sees numbers or letters as specific colors. One possible mechanism is local crossactivation. In the thalamus is the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGC). The LGC is a sensory relay nucleus. It has six layers, and the fourth layer (V4) is specifically involved in color analysis. It also happens to be next to the visual word form area (VWF). The VWF is responsible for processing strings of…

Fringe Query

I'm going to be talking to someone about treatments of parallel worlds in popular media next week, and as the only going mass media concern with a parallel-worlds plot seems to be the show Fringe, it would be helpful for me to be able to talk sensibly about it. Thus, two questions: 1) Where is the best place to look for an explanation of the show's mythology, particularly in the parallel worlds area? 2) Can you suggest a smallish (ideally single digits) number of episodes to watch to get the idea of how this plays out in the show? I am aware that, the Internet being what it is, there will be…

Arbitrary Numerical Signifier

Today was my birthday, one of the integer-multiple-of-ten ones that's supposed to be a milestone. And, really, to the extent that it does prompt self-reflection, it's nice to be reminded that the last several decades have been pretty good to me: I've got a really good job, a great family, and the whole nice-house-in-the-suburbs life that a middle-class American of my generation is supposed to be going for. Interestingly, while we did go to a birthday party today, it wasn't mine-- one of SteelyKid's friends from day care turns three in a couple of days, so we went to a party for her at a local…

Links for 2011-05-20

A career as editor « the Node "In 1993-4, I went on the job market, looking at standard faculty positions. I received some offers, including one from Vanderbilt University, where I am now. But I was resisting accepting a position, and some friends - who were also on the job market at the time - sent me to a career counselor. The counselor's husband was a bench scientist, so she had some sense of my career until that point, and asked me a very simple question, one that I had never asked myself: "If you didn't have to worry about how much money you made, or what anyone else thought of you,…

Thank god for Salma Hayek's breasts

Salma, Salma, Salma…you heard about my thread to name the feeblest reason for believing in Christianity, and you couldn't just leave a comment like everyone else? You had to go running to the press to submit your entry? Mexican actress SALMA HAYEK was so upset by childhood jibes about her flat-chest, she would pray to God for larger breasts. The Ugly Betty star reveals she was bullied for having small breasts as a youngster - and decided to turn to her Catholic religion for help. She says, "My mom and I stopped at a church during a road trip we were making from our home in Mexico. "When we…

MLK Day in Chapel Hill

Above is a candid pic by Nathan L. Walls, showing yours truly at Saturday's hum & soc sci session. The teeshirt is from the Swedish Skeptics and reads "I am skeptical" in an obscure North-European language. Yesterday's highlights were An informal brunch with congressman Brad Miller, who came across as low-key, thoughtful and friendly, with a serious interest in science policy and gender equality issues. Few US politicians ever come across as half as trustworthy in the media. I wonder if I've ever actually talked to a Swedish congressman? A sunlit 7 km walk into Chapel Hill along a six-…

Academic Labour Market in Swedish Archaeology Stinks

Two pieces of news to illustrate the state of the academic labour market in Swedish archaeology. The good news is that an old coursemate of mine has secured a teaching job. He's 46, he completed his PhD in 1999, he's got a decent publication record, he has solid teaching experience and he has unusually ample formal training in university pedagogics. The bad news is that the job he has been given is 30% of full time ... limited to a period of four months ... in a city located 580 km from where he lives with his wife. Dear Reader, are you by any chance a professional academic? Would somebody…

Stockholm Blogmeet 11 September

Last night's blogmeet was even better than the previous one: more people, some lady bloggers, some archaeologists and all presided over by Prof. Steve Steve. The professor was in a wild mood and immediately upon arriving did something indescribable with a large tabasco bottle, claiming that this was "good for his posture". Kind of disconcerting to have a conversation with a senior academic boasting that kind of... accommodation skills while he's... on the bottle. Missing from the picture are myself (holding the camera) and Lars L of Arkland (who ended up outside the frame because it was too…

Tangerine Carousels and Marmalade Tapirs

[More blog entries about psychedelic, fairground, carousel, zoo, Sweden; psykedelia, Eskilstuna, parkenzoo, karusell, zoo.] Invited by my wife's employers we spent the day at Parken Zoo, a highly original amusement park outside Eskilstuna, an hour and a half by car from my country seat. Originally a Folkets Park (People's Park) established by the victorious early 20th century Labour movement, it has a great big stage, two dance halls, much greenery and loads of bronze sculpture, including a bust of Hjalmar Branting right at the entrance. Since that time, it has also acquired a full…

Saxophone Detector

Just a note about yesterday's metal detecting at the Baggensstäket battlefield. We worked for less than four hours, but I got lucky and ran into the burnt remains of wooden fortifications on a seaward slope. Loads of nails and spikes in one place, and thanks to the fire, some were in pristine shape. Beautiful smithwork: octagonal cross-sections, square heads with bevelled edges -- all clearly taken from army stores (or the royal shipwharfs in town?) when news of the Russian approach arrived. Also charcoal and fire-cracked stone. I'd like to see an excavation there. Bo Knarrström had modded…

Ken Ham's new book

Just when you think these guys can't get any more dishonest, here comes Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots. The tag line on the book is a quote from Ham: "Although racism did not begin with Darwinism, Darwin did more than any person to popularize it." Wow. More than Martin Luther, who helped make anti-semitism a favorite German pastime? More than Nathan Bedford Forrest, who helped the Ku Klux Klan grow to half a million members? More than Hitler? More than our Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision? More than Richard Butler, founder of the Aryan Nations? More than Lester Maddox…

Sweden, Highly Recommended

Just a brief note to tell you that Sweden's a decent place to live apart from the paucity of daylight in the winters. I suggest that everybody move here. I knew before that Sweden's the world's strongest democracy according to The Economist, that it has among the highest standards of living in the world, that it's one of the safest and least repressive countries in the world for females, that it hasn't fought a war in two centuries, and that its taxes and liquor prices are extremely high. I just learned that in addition to all this, Sweden's population is also the most tolerant one in the…

Antarctic iceberg crack develops fork from Aunty

I'm in a boring meeting, fortunately over Skype, so have time to bring you Antarctic iceberg crack develops fork from Aunty. Nicely, they've added Wales for scale; I don't think Swansea is to scale though. The pretty banding is SAR interferometry which is cute stuff, though I don't think the article mentions that. The other picture in the article is also nice, with a clear break in the ice speed at the crack as you'd expect. Update: bollox! I forgot the title first time round. That led to an amusing auto-title in Feedly. Fixed now. Refs * Don’t Let the Core Fall Out: Nitpicking Earth’s…