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Two links for today

Gene Sperling in the WaPo points out that holding the NIH budget flat is like a cutting our budgets as inflation forces budget cutbacks. He forgets to mention the wasted expense of the NIH roadmap and the significant portion of the intramural budget devoted to security, but otherwise he's dead-on. The steady ramping of funding led to a lot of people being trained, and the sudden cut-off has led to a lot of people abandoning science. And I don't usually link Kos, but seeing this quote from Bill Kristol: There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America ... that the Shia can't get…

The Ask A Biologist project

Have you ever wanted to know how much gas a sauropod dinosaur might pass in a day? What an echidna smells like when it dies? If it's true that Indian rhinos don't blink? How far a flea might be able to jump in zero gravity? Probably not. But imagine if you did: the good news is that there is now an open-access internet forum dedicated to the answering of your biological questions. It's Ask A Biologist, the brainchild of Dr David Hone of Munich's Bayerische Staatssammlung fur Palaontologie und Geologie. Though designed mostly for children of school-going age, Ask A Biologist is open to anyone…

Mystery Bird: Black-bellied Plover, Pluvialis squatarola

tags: Black-bellied Plover, Grey Plover, Pluvialis squatarola, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Black-bellied Plover, also known as the Grey Plover throughout much of Europe, Pluvialis squatarola, photographed at Bolivar Peninsula, Galveston County, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Joseph Kennedy, 14 April 2010 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/400s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. This mystery bird might be a little tricky to ID, but once…

The Chatty Duel

tags: The Chatty Duel, The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Hollywood, film, offbeat, streaming video For this week's Silly Saturday, I am sharing this video of the fight between the Man in Black (Cary Elwes) and Inigo (Mandy Patinkin) from the Princess Bride. It's actually funny to watch these two chat while sword fighting. I thought these lines were quite amusing: "You've done nothing but study swordplay?" "More pursue than study lately.. you see, I can no' find him. It's been 20 years now, I'm starting to lose confidence. I just work for Vizzini to pay the bills. There's not…

Father Ted, they weren't

Grim tales are emerging from an investigation of the Irish Catholic Church. For years, they've been running reform schools which sound more like hellish work camps, where sadistic priests were given free rein. I found it ironic that some of these workhouses were used to make religious paraphernalia, like rosaries, that were sold to the faithful. I wonder how many hail marys have been said on beads assembled by child-slaves who were raped or beaten as a reward? It does add a rather sinister gloss to Catholic prayers. A quick summary of the findings: a history of official cover-ups of…

Just laugh at them

Mockery and satire are sometime the most potent weapons. Nobody likes to be mocked - especially not if there is no possible reasonable response. Nobody wants to be aligned with the side that is consistently mocked in a way that shines light on lies and hypocrisy. The partisans will get mad. But the independents can be turned away from the liars: daveawayfromhome: Rock, Paper, Scissors: Republicans play upon our fears to maintain their power, and, as much as Democrats would like it to, careful explanations and reasoned arguments have simply not worked at all with much of the average…

ABATC August Digest

Here are some of my best posts from August, in my own opinion. You know it is a small proportion of all posts, but even if I posted only these, that's quite a nice blog right there if I may say so myself ;-) What I try to do when I travel abroad across several time zones Well versed in science Vote McCain? Importance of History of Science (for scientists and others) The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule? By eliminating Free Market, of course Paperless Office? Bwahahahaha! Science vs. Britney Spears Domestication - it's a matter of time (always is for me, that's my 'hammer' for all nails…

My picks from ScienceDaily

New Fossil Reveals Primates Lingered In Texas (Last I heard, primates are still lingering in Texas): More than 40 million years ago, primates preferred Texas to northern climates that were significantly cooling, according to new fossil evidence discovered by Chris Kirk, physical anthropologist at The University of Texas at Austin. Dinosaur Dance Floor: Numerous Tracks at Jurassic Oasis on Arizona-Utah Border: University of Utah geologists identified an amazing concentration of dinosaur footprints that they call "a dinosaur dance floor," located in a wilderness on the Arizona-Utah border where…

Tweetlinks, 9-22-09

Celebrity, blogging and the role of the academic Journalism FAIL on climate change: Vital signs weak for climate bill (via @jayrosen_nyu: "For a perfect example of "will it work?" outranking "is it true?" see The Politico's savvy") Rebooting the News #26 (podcast) Canadian Health Care, Even With Queues, Bests U.S. Deadline Sept. 28 for DuraSpace/SPARC Open Access Week Contest Entries Open Access Week has a FriendFeed room - join in. Melatonin Promotes Oligodendroglial Maturation of Injured White Matter in Neonatal Rats Novak Djokovic imitates then plays against John McEnroe (video) Making the…

Re: Design

From NESCent: > "Re: Design" - This is a dramatization of the scientific correspondence between Charles Darwin and botanist Asa Gray, and is a product of the Darwin Correspondence Project. NESCent is co-sponsoring this theatrical production with the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, WUNC-TV and the NCSU Theater Dept. The production will be staged at the newly renovated Thompson Hall theater at NCSU, and will employ professional actors (not undergrads!) so it should be a really high-quality production. It will run for five days (Nov. 4th through 8th), with the first four days being 8 PM…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Fossil Fragments Reveal 500-million-year-old Monster Predator: Hurdia victoria was originally described in 1912 as a crustacean-like animal. Now, researchers from Uppsala University and colleagues reveal it to be just one part of a complex and remarkable new animal that has an important story to tell about the origin of the largest group of living animals, the arthropods. Not All Bats Land The Same Way: People have always been fascinated by bats, but the scope of that interest generally is limited to how bats fly and their bizarre habit of sleeping upside down. Until now, no one had studied…

When NYTimes shills for the Rightwingnutosphere

NY Times and 'Serious' Journalism: Also in the Sunday edition, however, was the paper's long-demanded interview with Obama, which the Times somewhat arrogantly considers its birthright with every new president. The reporters used the opportunity to learn a few things about Obama's work and goals. But in the process one reporter, Peter Baker, asked one of the most idiotic questions I've ever heard from a reputable news organization. He asked if Obama was a socialist, and then, when Obama said no, followed up with, "Is there anything wrong with saying yes?" Obama, for his part, called the paper…

Minnesota once again embarrassed by Michele Bachman

Michele Bachmann gave a science lecture to congress. As you might imagine, this was a grand spectacle of stupidity. Just a few things that jumped out at me (I'm sure you can find more by listening carefully, but I could not bear to pay too much attention). She repeats over and over that CO2 is a natural gas. Yes, we know…no one is claiming otherwise. (Also, what would an "unnatural" gas be, anyway?) Nitrogen is also a natural substance, it helps plants grow, and we produce perfectly natural nitrogenous materials from our bodies — so does that mean that we should stop sewer services and…

Web 2.0 and education

What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education by Paul Anderson: The report establishes that Web 2.0 is more than a set of 'cool' and new technologies and services, important though some of these are. It has, at its heart, a set of at least six powerful ideas that are changing the way some people interact. Secondly, it is also important to acknowledge that these ideas are not necessarily the preserve of 'Web 2.0', but are, in fact, direct or indirect reflections of the power of the network: the strange effects and topologies at the micro and macro level that a billion…

SRBR - Day 2

As you know, I am currently in Florida, at the 20th Anniversary meeting of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, that is, my own society. I have not been since 2002, so I am surprised to see how many people remember may face and are happy to see me. I am also surprised to hear how many people in the field read this blog - some more some less regularly - and even use the ClockTutorials and some other Chronobiology posts in teaching their courses on Biological Clocks. I would have know this before if they would just post comments here! What I am not surprised, yet am pleased, is…

Who is buying all that porn?

An analysis of the consumption of internet pornography found that there are only small differences between states, but that there are some patterns. The patterns will not surprise anyone. The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says. … Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election - Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10…

Infrasonic Communication in Elephants - a new study

Russ reports on a new study of elephant communication via vibrations transmitted through the ground. It was documented before that elephants could detect these. It was also documented that they could send out infrasonic rumbles which travel faster and farther through the ground than through air. But this is the first study I know of in which there may be hints that this is really a mode of communication between elephants: For the study, she used recordings of two calls that had been made to warn of hunting lions. One was taped at Etosha, the other in faraway Kenya. They were played at the…

Now You Can (and Should) rate papers on PLoS ONE!

I buried this information between numerous pretty pictures in a yesterday's post, so let me now tell you a little bit more. A couple of days ago, a new feature was introduced on all published papers on PLoS ONE. Along with commenting on and annotating each paper, you can now also rate it. The rating system is familiar to all of you from other sites, I'm sure - it is a simple five-star system. You can rate papers on three criteria: Insight, Reliability and Style and let the software average your three ratings to produce a single number, as well as average your ratings with other readers…

UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) Workshop - February 4th 2008

UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) Workshop - February 4th 2008: Few people would argue that good communication is the lifeblood of good science - and the Web is opening up a whole new world of possibilities. UK PubMed Central is ideally placed to make the best use of new Web technologies and new ideas in semantics and text mining and so to facilitate sharing of the biomedical and health research literature. We are entering the next stage of developing UKPMC into an innovative and useful resource for UK researchers. We want to ensure that your needs and ideas are heard and incorporated at the outset…

Science Blogging Conference - who is coming? (Open Access)

There are 102 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program (now completely reshuffled) is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. There are already 82 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at about 230). Between now and the conference, I will be highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time. Hemai Parthasarathy is a dear friend of mine, and one of the Biggest Stars we managed to attract…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Global Climate Change: The Impact Of El Niño On Galápagos Marine Iguanas: A before-and-after study led by Yale biologists, of the effects of 1997 El Niño on the genetic diversity of marine iguanas on the Galápagos Islands, emphasizes the importance of studying populations over time and the need to determine which environmental and biological factors make specific populations more vulnerable than others. Evolution With A Restricted Number Of Genes: The development of higher forms of life would appear to have been influenced by RNA polymerase II. This enzyme transcribes the information…

Todd Thomsen would like to hear opposing views

Thomsen is the Republican representative in Oklahoma who proposed several resolutions that would censure the OU zoology department and Richard Dawkins for not being nice to creationism. You really must see his justification for condemning views he finds religiously disagreeable. I am trying to promote free thinking. I strongly oppose the Department of Zoology for their unwillingness to lead our state in this discussion and not have opposing views in this matter. I do not believe Todd Thomsen even knows what free thinking is. The zoology department is not leading the state in the discussion…

On being human

Santino is my hero. He was kept imprisoned in a cage, and his response was to throw rocks at his obnoxious captors. He'd scavenge the prison yard at night for whatever loose stones he could find, and he'd cache them for the morning. When there weren't enough rocks, he'd pound the concrete retaining wall to knock loose chips of stone. Then when the jailers would show up, zip, zip, zip, a rain of stones on them. You have to respect that kind of defiance and planning. Santino is a tough guy. Santino is also a chimpanzee. Doesn't that make you wonder a bit? Chimpanzees fight back at being caged,…

White-throated Sparrow

White-throated sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis, white morph. The photographer writes; I like little brown birds. Seemingly frail, they shrug off drought and blizzard and remain resolute to greet the spring with their songs. While others flash extravagant colors and plumes, the LBBs simply endure. Here is the picture of a white-throated sparrow from my back yard in Eastern North Dakota. This lovely fellow is a close relative of my dissertation research bird, the white-crowned sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys. Photographer: Justawriter. As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will…

Water: More Precious Than Oil

There are approximately 700 million people in the world who experience water scarcity. This number will probably increase to more than 3 billion by 2025. Because the world's lakes and rivers are shared between the world's nations, an integrated cross-border management of this vital resource is crucial, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in a message marking World Water Day. "The state of the world's waters remains fragile, and the need for an integrated and sustainable approach to water resource management is as pressing as ever. Available supplies are under great duress…

Prehistoric Romeo and Juliet Discovered

Two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace were found by Archaeologists buried outside Mantua, only 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of "Romeo and Juliet." The burial site was recently located during construction work for a factory building in the outskirts of Mantua. Alongside the couple, archaeologists found flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig. One hypothesis being examined is that the man was killed and the woman then sacrificed so that his soul…

Great Kiva

View from the Great Kiva, Chimney Rock Pueblo, Colorado. The photographer was fortunate to visit on Jan 2, 2007, the date of the full moon rising between the spires of Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, an event associated with the major lunar standstill and the winter solstice. This occurs only every 18.6 years, but it is likely that the ancient Pueblo astronomers used this site that that same purpose in 1076 and 1094 AD. Image: Dave Rintoul. As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting…

Blog Carnival Available

The newest edition of I and the Bird has me feeling fairly sentimental. Blame it on Duncan, the estimable host of this superb installment. Duncan was a part of the very first I and the Bird and has been an integral part of that community ever since, one whose continuing participation confirms that this carnival is representative of the best bird blogging from around the world. Anyway, as I was saying, Mike has been subtly prodding Duncan to host IATB for a long, long time, though his entreaties probably lost any semblance of subtlety months ago. Why was so important? I and the Bird emerged…

More About That Glouster-Loving Parrot

tags: talking parrot, African grey parrot, streaming video This video is a follow-up of the story I linked to earlier from Birds in the News 102 where Gloucester UK residents, Taffy and Jean Howells' African grey parrot, Severiano Ballesteros, is a big rugby fan [1:19] AN avid rugby lover's pet parrot has taken to speaking the lingo of the fans who stand in the legendary 'shed' week after week. Taffy Howells' African grey parrot has picked up the legendary cry of "Glawster, Glawster" which reverberates up and down Gloucester Rugby's famous stand at Kingsholm. And the parrot, named…

Professor Steve Steve Follows Famous Ale Trail

tags: Professor Steve Steve, London, England, Nature Network conference, science blog conference, Nature Network science blog conference, travel Professor Steve Steve at the beginning of the famous Ale Trail pub crawls (there is more than one of these "Ale Trail" pub crawls in London) -- he convinced me to pursue this Quest through London. Bad Bear! Image: GrrlScientist 4 September 2008 [larger view]. This is a picture of Professor Steve Steve during yesterday's lunch, when he was determined to convince me to pursue one of the Ale Trails pub crawls through a group of classic pubs in London…

More stuff we missed at the Creation “Museum”

We more or less blitzed through the "museum" last Friday, and I think I speak for many of the 300 when I say that we'd had enough lunacy for the day. Some of us, apparently, had stronger stomachs, and went back for Terry Mortenson's talk later that afternoon. Dr Mortenson is, I think, one of those people with Ph.D.s of whom Ken Ham is so proud…but man, that guy is freakin' nuts. He spoke about human evolution, and you can guess where that went. Well, maybe. I wouldn't have anticipated this: I know. One minute they're telling us that Gawd created humans exactly as they are now, and all those…

Pikers

Look here: Britain's National Health Service threw away £12 million on homeopathic treatments. It's a complete waste; millions were spent on teeny-tiny bottles of 'special' water that could have been had for pennies from the local water tap. But hah! America is #1! We spent $2.5 billion on remedies that don't work! Doesn't that make you all feel so good right now? Now one might reasonably argue that paying all that money for clear negative results really isn't that bad; good science doesn't begin with your conclusion, and good studies can show that a hypothesis was wrong. Unfortunately, these…

White supremacist shooter at the Holocaust Museum

The rats really are scuttling out of the woodwork: last week, it's a right-wing anti-abortion hater gunning down a doctor, and this week, we get a white supremacist opening fire in the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Fortunately, no one has died in this incident, but a security guard and the gunman were wounded. They really are afraid and desperate, and violence is all they have left. (via Greg Laden) In case you're wondering about the motives behind this attack, they're rather obvious. The suspect in Wednesday's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is James von Brunn, an 88-…

Sigma Xi Pizza Lunch - conserving and restoring North Carolina coastal ecosystems

Our first 2010 American Scientist pizza lunch is scheduled for noon, Tuesday, Jan. 26. at Sigma Xi in Research Triangle Park. No doubt you've heard about the many forces degrading coastlines. This time we'll hear from someone intimately involved with the challenges of conserving and restoring North Carolina coastal ecosystems, especially oyster reefs. That would be David Eggelston, a marine biologist and director of the Center for Marine Science and Technology at N.C. State University. American Scientist Pizza Lunch is free and open to science journalists and science communicators of all…

OILigarchy: Obscene?

. . . The petroleum giants were raking in money hand over fist while all of us were sweating blood over gasoline prices that had reached $4 per gallon in many parts of the country -- all during the so-called "gas shortage" caused by Gulf War 2. Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday said its profit rose to $10.49 billion in the third quarter, making it the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company. The world's biggest oil company said its net income amounted to $1.77 per share for the July-September period, up from $9.92 billion, or $1.58 per share, a year ago…

which came first, the black hole or the galaxy?

The AAS is off to a good start: Reines et al have found a good supermassive black hole candidate in Henize 2-10 - an irregular bulgeless dwarf galaxy about 10 Mpc away. A dwarf irregular, with a diameter of only about 1 kpc, Henize 2 is in starburst. It contains a number of massive, very young super star clusters. SMBH are seen in almost every galaxy and, in the local universe, are correlated with the galactic bulge mass. One of the open issues is which came first, the black hole or the galaxy. Henize is bulgeless, and if it genuinely has a real SMBH, that would strongly hint that the black…

Second phase of Eyjafjallajökull Eruption

After a brief hiatus during which the first two fissuers at Fimmvörðuháls closed, the main caldera at Eyjafjallajökull let rip early in the morning of April 14th. ash plume through the clouds - from visir.is - click to embiggen There was a jökulhlaup - wish I could have been there with Vatnamælingar on my old route... - actually there were 2 of them, so far. Only about 1/4-1/3 of the ice cap has melted, it is about 1/4 km thick and several km across. There are, apparently, 5 active vents inside a 1-2 km caldera, with ash rising to 5-10 km. Heavy ashfall reported across the east, with ash…

Palinanity

This is a terrifying video. It's Sarah Palin going on and on in front of her Assembly of God church, talking about the war in Iraq as "a task that is from God", promising the congregants the gift of prophecy, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…it ought to make any rational human being ill. But that's not the scary part. The truly frightening prospect, and the thing that we must not forget lest we underestimate Palin, is that huge numbers of people in this country will find that blithering speech uplifting and wonderful. We atheists view it with alarmed horror, that an idiot like that could be considered…

More MOND

It appears to be a MOND autumn in the science glossies, as Science publishes a review on our favourite alternative physics theory and the status of MOND like extensions to general relativity Earlier we we had a nice little discussion about a paper bu Gentile et al in Nature on galaxy surface densities, with but an oblique hint at MOdified Newtonian Dynamics. Now Ferreira and Starkman have a Review in Science (326 p812 [sub]), also as "Einstein's Theory of Gravity and the Problem of Missing Mass" Ferreira and Starkman, arXiv.0911.1212. It is a nice sensible review, discussing both why MOND…

Obama: can't buy that.

It is often noted on the Intertoobz that President Obama has a number of financial institutions in the top 20 list of "institutions whose invididual members donated to Obama's campaign". So, the bankers bought Obama? Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, UBS AG, Morgan Stanley these come in at #2, 6, 7, 12, 17 - collectively well over $3 million in donations. But... hold on: #1 is University of California - $1.5 million #3 is Harvard University - $850k #10 is Stanford University - $600k #16 is Columbia University - $500k the big universities raised about as much as the financial…

naval chess

So, the rumours are true, the USS Enterprise is scooting back to the Persian Gulf - usual game issue - could be regular rotation, with one of the two carriers already there going home (Stennis should head back in August if they stick to the six month rotation), but it will provide a window with three carriers in the region, just in case someone wants to start flicking at chips on shoulders of paranoiacs... a bit early. I also note the Lincoln, Truman and Eisenhower are all at sea doing warmups. There are not enough aircraft carriers out of dock and warmed up to sustain two carriers…

Manipulating molecules on my new iPhone

Some people, like Imelda Marcos and our new Dr. Isis, have a thing for fancy shoes. I go crazy for gadgets. technorati tags: iphone, DNA, molecules, molecular structure, molecular modeling, Science education For my birthday this year, my family bought me a new iPhone! Yeah! So, I've been killing several hours today filling it with cute little iPhone apps. Who knew one little phone could be so much fun? One app, I enjoy, is called Molecules. Molecules lets you download structure files from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) and play with the structures on your phone! Spreading your fingers…

Don't Panic!

Please. The Federal Reserve, this morning, sent out a press release. Watching the financial crisis unfold must be like what it would have been like if the LHC had been turned on, and promptly made a small stable black hole that fell out and started eating the Earth. Predicted in some theories, considered vanishingly unlikely, and fascinating in so many ways, were it not for the medium term consequences. So, question is whether Hank and Bernie are fast enough and dextrous enough to get a charge on that sucker and then move it into confinement before it gets too massive to control. "In…

Earthquake in South West Iceland

Sizable earthquake in southwest Iceland this afternoon Magnitude 6.1-6.3 on Richter scale, by Selfoss, about 50 km from Reykjavik, no damage reported in Reykjavik, road to Selfoss is cut, probably some damge in the general area. No reports of injuries, though it is early to tell for sure. Earthquake was felt throughout western Iceland, and buildings in Reykjavik were evacuated. Continuing aftershocks are being felt. Heavy blog traffic in Iceland, on this, but no immediate reports of serious damage or injury, mostly "yeah I felt it too" and "was it bigger than the 'quake of 2000" Seems like…

Assorted news

I was just pondering the appalling lack of interesting science news the other day, and then I got back home and found these: CSI Ambleside... The DAMA collaboration is claiming strong evidence for WIMPy Cold Dark Matter, based on an annual modulation in their scintillator experiment. Ah, I was wondering why Stanford had a non-detection by their CDM detector group as a lead news item last week. Sean has rounded up a guest blogger to explain this result, or lack thereof. There is a new class of high critical temperature superconductors. Non-cuprates, based on FeAs - that is iron/arsenic for…

Friday Fun: Getting into some Manga!

I've been slowly dipping my toes into the manga universe, trying to expand my comics/graphic novel horizon. Moyasimon, for example -- the 1st volume was very good. Beyond that, I've only read a couple of titles here and there. Of course, like any good librarian I've been looking for lists to help me in my explorations. Here's a nice list from Robin Brenner via Jeff Vandermeer: Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga Clover by CLAMP Death Note by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike Monster by Naoki Urasawa Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa Planetes by Makoto Yukimura Yotsuba…

OLA 2010: Our Job in 10 Years: The Future of Academic Libraries

My Lakehead University colleague Janice Mutz and I reprised the session I did at OLA two years ago this morning for an active and engaged crowd of about 50 librarians -- a great crowd for the very first session of the conference since a lot of people are still trickling in after arriving and registering. This time around, we really put the emphasis on engagement and conversation, running the session like a combination Information Literacy and unconference session. Overall, we were really pleased with how it went and enjoyed the input from so many great librarians. Of the 20 or so "…

Friday Fun: December Belongs to Cthulhu...

...on Tor.com! Check it out: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn... In deference to the Great Old Ones, Tor.com has devoted this December to everyone's favorite cosmic tentacled thing-that-cannot-be-described from Vhoorl. All month long we'll be posting articles, stories, and comics relating to the Lovecraft Mythos, and we've invited scholars, editors, and fans of the snuggly beast to contribute. We're thrilled to welcome as bloggers Ellen Datlow, Stephen H. Segal, Seamus Cooper, and others on Tor.com for this very special occasion (along with our regular lineup, natch). We'll…

They're joking, right?

The pope has condemned this silly sculpture as blasphemous, and German Catholics are trying to get it removed from display. They can't be serious, can they? It's kitschy and funny. But really, they're unhappy about this. The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture. "Surely this is not a work of art but a blashphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," Pahl told Reuters by telephone as the museum board was meeting. The Vatican letter said that the work "wounds the religious…

brr

it is cloudy and cold... some random links to ponder: FSP is on form as she asks "How hard should graduate students work?" Mike Tobis studies blog error propagation The Glorious Fool "And I? Ah, would that I might these Rude stanzas shape to worth and rule; But like you, I may not please Half-hearted men, Oh, glorious fool!" The Blog The President's Blog US flattened by self-administered denial-of-service attack Obama is clearly having issues with NASA, to the extent it is even on his radar - but at least some fairly high level Obama assistant is having trouble deciding on NASA - too many…