jlynch | August 26, 2006Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has once more taken a stance on evolution and once more illustrated his lack on knowledge:
"What I desire intensely is that, also in school programs, questions be explained, at the scientific level, opened by the theory of evolution, such as the famous question of the missing rings [sic]," Cardinal Schönborn said.
The cardinal said that 150 years after Darwin's theory, "there is no evidence in the geological strata of intermediate species that should exist, according to Darwin's theory."
No "missing rings" eh?
It's hard to know which is sadder, Schönborn's…
jlynch | August 24, 2006
Some readers may recognize this image - BBC test card F, shown since 1967 while the station was off the air. As one BBC reporter noted, a "never-ending game. The poker-faced, Alice-banded girl locked in eternal combat with the gurning stuffed clown. It's reminiscent of the feudal knight taking on Death at chess in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal ... only with noughts and crosses, in colour, after the pubs shut."
My way of saying I may be off the air for another day or two and thus have to post the Friday poem late.
jlynch | August 23, 2006Things have been quiet here - start of the semester is alway hectic. Tomorrow (Thursday) sees my last class of the week, so I hope to get back on the wagon Thursday evening. As Pooh used to say "Ta Ta For Now".
jlynch | August 21, 2006John Wilkins notes that Fr. George Coyne was been removed from his post as head of the Vatican observatory. It's not clear from the news reports that I have read whether Coyne was removed due to this stance on ID, which he described as a "kind of paganism". He has been replaced by Fr. José Funes who apparently has stated:
"When I teach at the University of Arizona, I tell students, I am a priest, a Jesuit, but my class is a science class ... and Science is about natural, not supernatural causes."
It will be interesting to see what Funes has to say about ID.
jlynch | August 19, 2006If, like me, your teenage years were spent listening to 80's music, (and you thus remember when MTV used to play music) this site will probably bring back memories - a listing of 80's videos available on YouTube. Prepare to walk down Amnesia Avenue.
jlynch | August 18, 2006Bought some more catfish today. I've now got two tanks going, so I decided to go with a few more South American species - three Emerald cats (Brochis splendens Castelnau, 1855) and a single pictus cat (Pimelodus pictus Steindachner, 1876). The former are in my main tank with the peppered corys (Corydoras paleatus), lace catfish (Syonodontis nigrita), the plec (Hypostomus plecostomus), and some smaller fish, while the pictus is in another tank with the eclipse cat (Horabagrus brachysoma). If I had my way, I'd have big tanks full of catfish.
jlynch | August 18, 2006The Fall semester officially starts tomorrow with the Fall Convocation - a meet and greet with the incoming class and their families. Next week will, like every first week, be chaos with teaching coupled with getting students back on track with their thesis research. As always, I can't decide whether I'm happy to be back teaching or not!
Teaching load this semester is as follows:
HON 172: The Human Event (2 sections) - our freshman honors seminar. This semester I'm basically going with what I taught last semester though I've added a little more literature to keep the science-phobes happier.…
jlynch | August 17, 2006Your Friday poem ...
"Epic"
Patrick Kavanagh
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row…
jlynch | August 17, 2006Following a tagging from Janet:
Five random quotes from here that "you think reflect who you are or what you believe." As Janet did, I just picked the first five that seemed to work ... no point in searching the whole database.
What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens. - Benjamin Disraeli
Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. - Confucius
There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is - Isaac Bashevis Singer
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think…
jlynch | August 17, 2006The Maine beastie is apparently getting significant media coverage on the eastern seaboard. Loren Coleman (a cryptozoologist) has some more photos and thinks that it is a dog gone feral, possibly a chow or akita. All very plausible, imho.
jlynch | August 16, 2006Sullivan on the British bomb plot:
So far, no one has been charged in the alleged terror plot to blow up several airplanes across the Atlantic. No evidence has been produced supporting the contention that such a plot was indeed imminent. Forgive me if my skepticism just ratcheted up a little notch. Under a law that the Tories helped weaken, the suspects can be held without charges for up to 28 days. Those days are ticking by. Remember: the British authorities had all these people under surveillance; they did not want to act last week; there was no imminent threat of anything but a possible "…
jlynch | August 16, 2006
Boingboing has picked up on this story of a "hybrid mutant of something" found dead in Maine. Apparenty locals have, over the past few years, been "seeing and hearing a mysterious animal with chilling monstrous cries and eyes that glow in the night." The above photo makes the animal look a litte weirder than it was. The one below is better:
My gut feeling - having worked on the morphoogy of wolf/dog hybrids - is that, if it's anything out of the ordinary, it's a cross of a dog and perhaps a wolf or coyote. As the original story notes, one has turned up before in northern Maine. It's…
jlynch | August 14, 2006From AP:
X-ray machines that screen airline passengers' shoes cannot detect explosives, according to a
Homeland Security Department report on aviation screening.
Findings from the report, obtained by The Associated Press, did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from announcing Sunday that all airline passengers must remove their shoes and run them through X-ray machines before boarding commercial aircraft. ...
In its April 2005 report, "Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security -- Phase I," the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don…
jlynch | August 14, 2006Busy week here. Teaching starts next week, so this is full of organizational meetings, retreats, syllabus writing, xeroxing, etc. And to top it all, I'm currently laid out with lower back pain. Argh!
Blogging will thus be sporadic for a while, and in lieu of anything significant to say ...
You are Hulk: you are a wanderer with amazing strength.
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
jlynch | August 13, 2006Bruce Schneier writes:
None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 -- no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews -- had anything to do with last week's arrests. And they wouldn't have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn't have made a difference, either.
Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads,…
jlynch | August 11, 2006Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing:
Here's a question: Does Tony Blair get to bring his laptop on his government plane? Can Laura Bush keep her lipstick with her on Air Force One? Does Dick Cheney take off his shoes and get them x-rayed before he flies? How about Condi Rice's knee-high lace-up boots? Is her mission to Israel delayed while she tries to re-lace them while balancing her laptop bag on one shoulder and trying to get her watch back on?
It seems to me like our glorious leaders are pretty good at setting out the "minor inconveniences" that the rest of us have to put up with, but when…
jlynch | August 11, 2006It's Friday and I feel a poem coming on.
Down By The Salley Gardens
Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
William Butler Yeats, Crossways 1889.
Salley is an anglicanization of saileach,…
jlynch | August 10, 2006Science has just published a short comparative study of international acceptance of evolution. Thirty-four countries were polled, and guess what? We score 33rd - edging out Turkey for last place.
Reference is, Jon D. Miller, Eugenie C. Scott, and Shinji Okamoto (2006) "Public Acceptance of Evolution" Science Aug 11 2006: 765-766.