jlynch | August 24, 2008
Pine marten, Martes martes L.
(source)
[Strictly speaking, #27 should be the Nilgiri marten, M. gwatkinsii, but I can't find any images.]
jlynch | August 24, 2008
The Stoat
Walking in the warmest afternoon this year has yielded yet, through slopes of whin that made the shadows luminous, and filled the slow air with its fragrance, we went down a narrow track, stone-littered, under trees which with new leaf and opening bud contrived to offer a green commentary on light; and as we wondered silent, stone by stone, on lavish spring, a sudden volley broke, a squealing terror ripped through twig and briar, as a small rabbit pawing at the air and stilting quickly thrust full into view, clenched on its rump a…
jlynch | August 23, 2008Irish boxer Kenny Egan is in the light heavyweight final against Xiaoping Zhang as I type. Naturally, I can't see it live in this country ... instead I get to see a bunch of overpaid millionaires play basketball against Spain. Here's hoping the Spaniards win.
Best I can do is follow the fight round by round on RTE (video not allowed outside Ireland, damn it!). We've two bronze medals already this Olympics (for boxing). A gold would be nice, given that it's only the fifth time in Olympic history that an Irish boy has made a boxing final.
Update: End of round 1 ... Egan is down 2-0.
Update:…
jlynch | August 23, 2008Steve Matheson over at Quintessence of Dust has posted part IIb of his "Why I'm not a fan of Behe" series, this time covering Behe's abuse of genetics. I've referred to previous posts in this series here and here. Steve ends with:
In summary, I find Behe's handling of genetics in EoE to be unacceptable. He seems ignorant of basic evolutionary genetics, and is clearly content to create a folk science alternative to modern evolutionary biology. No one has proven that random mutation generated the wonders of biology, to be sure, and so I'm not saying that Behe's conclusion is known to be false.…
jlynch | August 23, 2008Over the past day I have been running across folks in the progressive blogosphere grousing about Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden apparently is a "hawk", too centrist, too pro-Israel, too ... well, you get the picture. But I'm wondering, what did these individuals expect? Who else could perhaps deliver the White House with Obama? Clinton? Feingold?
Certain quarters on the progressive left are lacking pragmatism, lacking the realization that the goal at the moment should be to win the White House and work from there. Unrolling the "revolution" that Reagan started in the…
jlynch | August 23, 2008Your irony meter may just exploded on this one.
Predictably, the idiots (at this stage there really is no other word for them) over at Uncommon Descent have been removing comments that criticize Fuller's vacuous defense against Sarkhar, a philosopher whom philosophical-know-nothing Denyse O'Leary calls "third-rate" (seriously!). In justifying the censorship "Dave Scot" states:
In order to make this thread a little easier to manage any critics of Fuller's must use their real name to post a comment. Check the anonymous bravado at the door. I ought to make that a policy for the whole damn blog…
jlynch | August 22, 2008A few days back I noted Sahotra Sarkar's review of Steve Fuller's latest ejaculation. John Wilkins brings to my attention that Fuller has finally shown his true colors and joined the madhouse that is Uncommon Descent with a post attempting to deflect Sarkar's piece. It's amazing how individuals who claim to be dispassionate observers of ID eventually reveal their true colors and climb into bed with Dembski. He, Fuller and Denyse "I'm a serious journalist" O'Leary make quite a threesome!
As one would expect, Fuller's piece is full of sound & fury, signifying nothing, and Wilkins takes him…
jlynch | August 22, 2008I'm a little disappointed at Jim Lippard's recent post on "Obama resume-padding, a post which favorably quotes this Jerusalem Post blog.
Whatever about Obama's legislative record (and that is an argument for another day), the authors of this piece show that they know nothing about Law schools. They state:
Obama spent twelve years on the University of Chicago Law School faculty--singularly famous for its intellectual ferment and incubator of scholarship--and produced not even a single scholarly paper. He was President of Harvard Law Review, but wrote nothing himself.
As anyone who has spent…
jlynch | August 21, 2008With the recent tragic loss of over 150 lives in Madrid, the following strikes me ...
American Airlines deliberately flew two planes 58 times in December that it knew had broken parts and thus could be unsafe in certain situations. For this - and improper drug and alcohol testing - the FAA fined the company $7.1M. That, frankly, is ridiculous.
American should have been put out of business. Yes, air travel is safer than any other form of travel, but when accidents happen they can, and do, have large death tolls. If a company puts its customers at risk, that company should not be allowed…
jlynch | August 21, 2008
Yesterday marked the start of the Fall semester here, and by marked I mean saw the circle of hell that is a seven hour faculty retreat. Saturday morning brings the Fall Assembly for honors students and teaching then begins on Monday.
Two classes this semester - my regular honors seminar and a (new for me) course on the history of science since 1700.
jlynch | August 17, 2008Juan Cole on the world Bush made:
The problem with international law for a superpower is that it is a constraint on overweening ambition. Its virtue is that it constrains the aggressive ambitions of others. Bush gutted it because he thought the United States would not need it anytime soon. But Russia is now demonstrating that the Bush doctrine can just as easily be the Putin doctrine. And that leaves America less secure in a world of vigilante powers that spout rhetoric about high ideals to justify their unchecked military interventions. It is the world that Bush has helped build.
jlynch | August 17, 2008
Bornean clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) ... now with mounted headlights.
See here for previous story on the species.
(click for larger version / image source)
jlynch | August 17, 2008
Mike Price has a nice piece over at Smithsonian.com on how the rediscovery of Galilaeus Galilaeus His Life: In Five Books, by Thomas Salusbury, a biography of Galileo written just twenty years after his death is causing some to reinterpret the cause of Galileo's trial. In short, Salusbury proposed that Galileo was raked over the coals because Urban VIII wanted to punish the Duke of Medici.
jlynch | August 17, 2008From here:
Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.
Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss…
jlynch | August 15, 2008Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain attended an economic forum in Aspen Thursday where he chastised Congress for going on recess "while people are paying $3.75 a gallon for gas." (source)
This from a man that has missed 407 votes (63.8%) during the current Congress, including one to "increase the supply and lower the cost of petroleum by temporarily suspending the acquisition of petroleum for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve" (S 2284). He's been "on recess" for the majority of his term. (In fairness, of course, Obama has missed 45.5%, though the 20% difference is notable…
jlynch | August 15, 2008
Via Chad, a list of 100 food items. You are supposed to bold the ones you have eaten (55) and strike-through those you'd never try (4).
1. Venison 2. Nettle tea 3. Huevos rancheros 4. Steak tartare 5. Crocodile 6. Black pudding 7. Cheese fondue 8. Carp 9. Borscht 10. Baba ghanoush 11. Calamari 12. Pho 13. PB&J sandwich 14. Aloo gobi 15. Hot dog from a street cart 16. Epoisses (I don't like strong cheeses) 17. Black truffle 18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes 19. Steamed pork buns 20. Pistachio…
jlynch | August 14, 2008
Like a desert flower waiting for rain, like a river-bank thirsting for the touch of pitchers, like the dawn longing for light; and like a house, like a house in ruins for want of a woman - the exhausted ones of our times need a moment to breathe, need a moment to sleep, in the arms of peace, in the arms of peace.
Like a Desert Flower / Parween Faiz Zadah Malaal
jlynch | August 13, 2008I have a large digital music collection. Every file is correctly tagged and album art is both embedded in the file and available as a jpg in the album folder. All of that took about four straight days to do over the summer using MediaMonkey (which I now also use to sync my collection with my iPod Classic). Unfortunately, I have some DRMed music bought from the iTunes store and have to use iTunes to get them onto the iPod. But here's what gets me - every time I transfer the DRMed tracks over, iTunes not only screws up the album art on the DRMed tracks, but also screws with the album art of…
jlynch | August 12, 2008Dear Reader,
We launched Seed and ScienceBlogs because we believe that science can change the world and science literacy is how we get there. In the pages of our magazine we've tried to capture the ideas and issues fueling this cultural shift. Online we've aimed to foster a lively and spirited conversation about where it's all heading.
Now, we invite you to share with us directly your perspective on the state of science, and your opinion on how we can improve our own efforts to raise science literacy. The survey should take about 20 minutes to complete.
As a special "thank you" for…