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cwilcox | October 29, 2010So the BBC Earth facebook page has put up a photo album of animal factoids under the Halloween inspired theme of "Trick or Treat?" The idea is that you have to guess whether an animal fact is true or not, then you click to the next photo to see if you were right. Those who have read this blog will immediately understand my frustration when I saw this one:
No, no, no, no, no! Not you, BBC! How many times do I have to explain how sharks do get cancer? That the myth that they don't is a ecologically damaging falsehood causing the slaughter of millions of sharks every year for quack medical…
gregladen | October 28, 2010Good cometary and some excellent video, including closeups of Profitt's beer belly and the "pre stomp" events:
See also this.
gregladen | October 28, 2010Danno is dead.
James MacArthur, who played "Danno" in the original version of television's "Hawaii Five-0," died Thursday at age 72.
MacArthur's agent, Richard Lewis, said the actor died in Florida of "natural causes," but no direct cause was specified.
wcco
MacArthur was the adopted son of Charles MacArthur and Helen Hayes.
gregladen | October 28, 2010This seems to be another case of an immature snot-nose sociopath using the leveling power of the Internet to be important-seeming, and accusing stem cell researchers of fraud with highly dubious evidence that reflects more on the accuser's low level of training and inadequate knowledge than anything else. ERV, spotting the parallels with the "Your Not Helping" fiasco, nails it. Here.
gregladen | October 28, 2010This is quite serious. Better have a look.
Greg --
Our opponents think they have this election in the bank.
While you all are reaching out and talking to 7 million voters one on one, they're getting $7 million checks from billionaires and special interests to fund attack ads.
That is all you need to know about the choice in this election.
We're in a battle for the future of this county -- a battle between corporate special interests and hard-working Americans.
And if we want that future to be written by us -- not by a handful of anonymous billionaires -- I need you to do all you can over…
thescian | October 28, 2010So, there's a new heavier neutron star that has been found.
Here's a question: How close can we physically get to it while still keeping most of the atoms in our body intact? We seem to be OK at 3000 light years. Would we be fine at 10 light years, 1 light year, 5000 miles? I suppose if we figure out a few things, we are ready to head straight to the nearest neutron star.
Year 3000, package tour to PSR J1614-2230, spins at 317 a second, come come and have a go yourself! Things the tour company has to sort out: the enormous gravitational attraction and the fact that this is a rapidly…
gregladen | October 28, 2010Got your attention? Good. Have a look at this:
Libertarians are generally characterized by (misplaced) arrogance. Liberals are generally characterized by...well, I don't actually know, but I'm sure I'll get suggestions. Conservatives are generally characterized by fear.
It informs all their policies.... Read the rest here, at "A Movement of Cowards." It is an excellent discussion of the way fear motivates. Fear motivates us all at times and to varying extent, but it mainly works on the cowards. Like Rand Paul and his head stomper, and Michele Bachmann and her ilk in the House.
gregladen | October 28, 2010
This comes from a Daguerreotype taken by Daguerre himself in 1838. It is probably a picture of a man (on the left) getting his shoe shined by a shoe shiner (in the right, less distinct). The image would have been exposed for about ten minutes, so the crowds wandering around on the street, carriages, etc. would be visible in this photograph as nothing other than a virtually undetectable fog as the occasional photon-chemical interaction would occur.
To see the original photograph, of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, and learn more about this photo, visit The Hokumburg Goombah.
gregladen | October 27, 2010It was like a bad dream or something ...
Funny how she knew about the milk.
krandall | October 27, 2010
By Dr. Adrian Brown
Planetary physicist at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, and Gail Jacobs
When most people look at photos of the Martian landscape, they see the kind of dry topography that, while attractive, shows only that at first glance Mars resembles many of the desert areas of Earth. By analyzing spectroscopic data gathered by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, however, SETI Institute planetary scientist Dr. Adrian Brown sees clues to where liquid water might once have puddled and pooled on the Red Planet, and possibly spawned life. Adrian is…
gregladen | October 27, 2010
Well, actually, who cares about the smile. It's the ESSAY that should sway you.
Or, just do me a favor, go here, and click on "Christie Wilcox."
This all about getting Nerdy Christie a 10K college scholarship. She's close. YOU can make it happen!
Thank you very much, that is all.
gregladen | October 27, 2010One possibility would be to get stinking drunk, then later, find her and her male companion and run them over with your car.
At this point, we can't be sure that this is what happened, but the circumstantial evidence suggests that this may have been the nature of Kandyce Stoffel's tragic death Monday in Minneapolis. Kandyce was a student at UMN, about to graduate, and the driver, John Robert Peterson, a high school tennis coach. One other person was hurt in the incident.
The only reason I even know about this is because I've been doing something unusual (for me ... these days) ...…
cwilcox | October 27, 2010Every year, CollegeScholarships.Org offers a $10,000 scholarship for a student blogger. Students can nominate themselves or other blogging students by sending in a <300 word essay about why they blog and why blogging is important. This year, I decided why not? and threw my hat into the ring. Well guess what? I made the initial cut, and got chosen as a finalist! But to actually get the scholarship, I need your help. The winner is chosen by popularity, so I need votes, and a lot of them. Please check out the nominees, and if you feel like I'm the best, click the button to go to the voting…
gregladen | October 26, 2010The following videos are freaky and disturbing in many ways.
What a dick. But wait, there's more:
I'm not a big fan of "animal rights groups" (to say the least) in part because I see hypocrisy and muddled thinking whenever I look in their direction. But this is, indeed, a great example of very poor behavior. This guy Troy should be released in the woods and hunted down by a real bear, don't you think?
I wonder if the dickless NASCAR-symp Country Western loving yahoos defend this. I mean, after all, a bear was killed. That's a good thing, right?
I'll have to check out this
Minnesota…
gregladen | October 26, 2010In principle, if not in detail:
Lillian McEwen was that woman.
At the time, she was on good terms with Thomas. The former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel had dated him for years, even attending a March 1985 White House state dinner as his guest. She had worked on the Hill and was wary of entering the political cauldron of the hearings. She was never asked to testify, as then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who headed the committee, limited witnesses to women who had a "professional relationship" with Thomas.
Now, she says that Thomas often said inappropriate things…
gregladen | October 26, 2010Penguins Unbound (the web site for the Monthly Meeting of Linux Enthusiasts) announces the Ubuntu 10.10 Release Party and Install Fest for October 30th, 2010 at 10:00am to 4:00pm at TIES on Snelling Avenue in Falcon Heights (which you may know of as Saint Paul), Minnesota.
Details here.
gregladen | October 26, 2010And I'm not talking about what you hear when you play the album backwards ...
Paul the octopus is dead. This is the octopus that predicted the outcome of the recent World Cup tournament using an ingenious combination of random behavior and confirmation bias.
Paul had reached the octopus old age of 2½ years and died in his tank on Tuesday morning in an aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen, spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge said.
Paul seemed to be in good shape when he was checked late Monday, but he did not make it through the night. He died of natural causes, Vieregge added.…