Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
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Strata Lucida has a thoughtful and interesting post connecting the "conservative art" dots between separate online threads concerning Thomas Kinkade and Led Zeppelin. The linked posts are worth your time as well.
Almost an Earth-year after landing on Mars, rover Opportunity now has a chance do some investigating that (A) is a bonus project the mission team didn't think they'd ever have the (snicker) opportunity to do and (B) is something no planetary mission has ever included: The rover will investigate its own discarded heat shield. This has exciting potential for improving future missions. Opportunity's heat shield withstood temperatures of up to 2,700 degrees and speeds as high as 12,000 mph.
Wow.
Preposterous Universe notes that the New Orleans Hornets (recently departed from North Carolina, where the citizens shed no tears at the departure) are the only team in the NBA that opens every game with a prayer -- delivered from center court over the PA system, no less. A pet project of the team's entirely dislikable owner, George Shinn, the prayer asks the great point guard in the sky to deliver success to the Hornets, as well as to the the city's football team, the chronically disappointing Saints. Click the link up there to witness the mighty power of prayer. Dead last place at 2-26, and one of the two wins came on the road.
Are they praying in a sarcastic voice or something?
I've linked to several Beatles mash-ups over the past few months, but here come the Beatles mashed up with themselves. 40+ Beatles songs crammed into three and a half minutes. Yowza.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has an animated view of the Indian Ocean tsunami from outer space. 6 meg mov file.
We live on a very big and very violent planet. The most sophisticated and expensive technology we'll ever develop, even implemented in egalitarian ways we're probably incapable of doing, can not change that reality. Nature will always be able to deal out harsher than we can relieve.
Amidst the sorrow, awe.
On Christmas eve, the Huygens probe was released from the Cassini spacecraft, and is now hurtling toward its January 14th hot date with Titan. Cassini snapped a picture of it about 12 hours after the release, but it just looks like a pixelated white splotch. The probe is in sleep mode, set to awaken about 45 minutes before it enters the giant moon's upper atmosphere. Three sets of parachutes will then open to slow the descent and provide a stable platform for the scientific instrumentation to start measuring. Surface impact is expected about 2.5 hours later at an estimated speed of 15 miles per hour. The doodads onboard are:
1. Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument - measures the density, temperature, pressure, and electrical properties of the atmosphere, and of the ocean should it land in liquid.
2. Doppler Wind Experiment - measures wind gusts and their effects on the probe during descent and will help stabilize communications.
3. Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer - measures radiation flow and light intensity, and includes top, bottom, and side cameras plus a lamp.
4. Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer - identifies and measures the chemicals in Titan's atmosphere during descent and, if it lands safely, the surface material.
5. Aerosol Collector and Pyrolyser - collects and heats aerosol particles to vaporize volatiles and decompose the complex organic materials, then analyzes them.
And then the big finale...
6. Surface-Science Package - "An acoustic sounder, activated during the last 100 meters of the descent, will continuously determine the distance to the surface, measuring the rate of descent and the surface roughness (e.g., due to waves). If the surface is liquid, the sounder will measure the speed of sound in the "ocean" and possibly also the subsurface structure (depth). During descent, measurements of the speed of sound will give information on atmospheric composition and temperature, and an accelerometer will accurately record the deceleration profile at impact, indicating the hardness and structure of the surface. A tilt sensor will measure any pendulum motion during the descent and will indicate the probe attitude after landing and show any motion due to waves. If the surface is, indeed, liquid, other sensors will measure its density, temperature and light reflecting properties, thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and electrical permittivity."
If you're into this sort of thing, you can read all about the probe's operational subsystems, too. The biggest disappointment? The five batteries will only live about three hours (at most) before the craft goes dark for good. Keep your fingers crossed for pictures from the surface.
Not much blogging over the holidays so far, but I'd be remiss if I didn't link to an article that includes the quote: "Ultimately our idea is to turn the current ordeal of the colonic endoscopy procedure into something akin to a pleasurable experience!" You don't say. The story, though, is even stranger than that. Here come the bionic buttworms.
But a team from the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, found the ragworm, which lives in seashores, could offer a model for a more comfortable test. They say their device would be able to "pull" itself along, rather than having to be forced into the body. The team have developed a prototype device, named the Bioloch Ist, which imitates the undulating motion of the ragworm, also known as the paddleworm. The worm, which is often used as fishing bait, moves in wet environments containing large amounts of solid and semi-solid material - similar to that often found inside the body.
The prototype consists of a simple worm with a flexible central spine and paddles sticking out either side along the worm's body. The team are now working on a more advanced version of the device in which the paddles themselves can also move as well as the central spine. Eventually, the device will be motorised.
I completely understand how this would be a tremendous improvement over the current procedure and yet, my skin is crawling.
Assassination attempt on Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of SCIRI and the younger brother of previous (assassinated) leader Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, at his residence and main office.
But filed under "Boy I'm sure there's an interesting story behind that."
The residence, where Hakim has his home and offices, was previously the house of Tariq Aziz, a jailed former senior aide to Saddam Hussein who has been in prison since April last year.
Not that I think fish have been subject to natural selection over a period any longer than 6,000 years and that their basic anatomical structure is in any way similar to that of my own, I'm just gone fishin'; y'know, indisposed.
The chief lobbyist of the plan to add intelligent design to the Dover (PA) Area School District’s science curriculum has all but disappeared from the scene in recent weeks. School board member Bill Buckingham has been absent from all three public school board meetings this month. On Monday, he missed a special meeting to pick lawyers to defend the curriculum revision he fought so hard for.
The district's lawyers, who have to now defend the curriculum change he ram-rodded through can't even reach him. On roughly Jan 13 (approximately the time the classes will get to discussion of evolution), Biology teachers in this district will have to start incorporating "Pandas to People", a "textbook augmentation" promoting intelligent design that was "donated" to the school district (the district curriculum committee, which is headed by the missing Mr. Buckingham, refuses to name the donors; because of the fact that the books were donated and not purchased, no critical review or vote on them was required), into their Science classes.
Several parents are suing to keep this theology out of science class. They want a restraining order, but the lawyers want a disposition from Mr. Buckingham before going forward. Delay means this theology will be taught as science In Dover Co., PA.
Bold and nutty, with a smoothness you can only find in cat-like mammal dung
INDANG, Philippines - Its origins might put off some coffee drinkers, but an exotic bean that draws top dollar from connoisseurs is plucked from animal droppings. Not just any animal. The coffee comes from beans eaten but not digested by the palm civet, a cousin of the mongoose that roams tropical forests...
Although they normally eat sugar palm nuts, civets prefer the ripest coffee cherries during harvest season, which runs December to March. The beans pass through their systems undigested and are deposited as sausagelike clumps on the forest floor.
Reyes says the civet's digestive process, particularly the enzymes in its stomach, probably gives the brew its distinctive flavor and aroma.
Mmmm. Good to the last droppings.
Step One: Assign musical notes to the ten single-digit integers.
Step Two: Play the first 10,000 digits of pi.
Step Three: Profit.
I listened to this for much longer than it probably deserved.
(via Waxy)
Steve eats things you oughtn't and lives to tell the tale. Very, very funny.
(via Monkeyfilter)
Be sure to check out Vermont artist John Douglas' series of self-portraits entitled Homeland Security.
(via blort)
The so-called liberal media has adopted yet another bit of phraseology mandated by the religious right, and Dong Resin doesn't like it one bit.
Unborn child, right. Merely "killing a fetus" lacks the heinousness, see, the media's gotta dress up the language a little, so we can know just where to feel our outrage. Killing a fetus? Who gives a fuck? That's like getting a boil lanced. Fetus? Ew. "Fetus" isn't a sympathetic word, makes you think of that room full of those deformed Sigourney Weaver clones that didn't go so hot in Alien Resurrection. They wanted to die. Shit, Michael Moore kills nine fetuses a day. Michael Moore eats fetuses like they're brine shrimp. "Unborn child?" It's got "child" right in there, see, so now it's people, just like Jessica Simpson is.
Beyond whether or not this is an attempt to wrestle the language into a more anti-abortion place, which, by the way, it obviously is, "unborn child" is fucking stupid English. Unborn child. They're renaming something not based on what it is, but based on what it's destined to become. It's not a red light, it's ungreen. Dave isn't a philosophy major, Dave is unhomeless. Trump is unbald. Britney is undivorced. Also, it causes conflict with the 'un' words that already existed before this piss. With The New English, when they say an altar boy is unmolested, does the church have to start pretending that they're going to fire the guy or not? It's confusing.
Looking past the perversion of the mother tongue, "unborn" is a fucking creepy term as well. Unborn. Great. "You must shoot the unborn in the head with a silver bullet, or they'll just keep crawling up your leg, the bastards! Not really alive, not really born. THE UNBORN."
Now if you'll excuse me, this discussion just makes me want to go get unsober.
Download the Beatles/Beastie Boys mash-up before the lawyers inevitably get involved.
You better not shout,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus will eat you.
Had prostate cancer not taken him down in 1993, today would be Frank Zappa's 64th birthday. There's a public tribute to him in Vilnius, Lithuania, and he's still considered the God of the Czech underground.
Well then Fido got up off the floor, and he rolled over
and he looked me straight in the eye
And you know what he said?
"Once upon a time, somebody say to me"
This is the dog talkin' now
"What is your conceptual continuity?"
"Well I told 'em right then," Fido said,
"It should be easy to see:
The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe."
Well you know, the man that was talking to the dog
looked at the dog and he said,
Sort of staring in disbelief,
"You can't say that."
And the dog said,
"It doesn't, and you can't, I won't, and it don't
it hasn't, it isn't, it even ain't, it shouldn't, and
it couldn't."
I told him, "No, no, no."
He told me, "Yes, yes, yes."
I said, "I do it all the time.
Ain't this boogie a mess?"
-"Stink-Foot"
How many versions of this story must I read?
A school board that is requiring students to learn about alternatives to the theory of evolution voted to retain legal counsel for its defense against a federal lawsuit filed by eight families who oppose a new "intelligent design" mandate. Seven members of Dover Area School District board voted unanimously to retain a nonprofit law center that describes itself as a defender of Christians' religious beliefs, the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., despite the objections of most of the community members who spoke at the meeting. The board did not issue a comment on its decision.
The meeting came nearly a week after two civil-liberties groups filed a lawsuit against the south-central Pennsylvania district on behalf of families who objected to the teaching of "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some higher power.
Alternatives to the theory of evolution.* Color me cynical, but it sounds to me as though what is being learned is not "alternatives" but a single, preferred "alternative." You want to teach this silliness in a science class? Then you'd better cover the rest of the alternatives. It isn't as though they are any less plausible.
*Also known as "superstitious bullshit."
Well, that's just, just, uh... icky.
A Phoenix couple are in custody after authorities in four states busted up a "hog-dogging" fighting circuit that advertised bloody battles through the Internet. Dozens of black boars, bulldogs and hounds were taken into government custody yesterday in a raid at the home of James M. Curry and his wife, Jodi Marie, on North 14th Street about 6:35 a.m. Other raids occurred in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
"What you have here are hogs that can be very, very cruel, especially if they are not neutered," said Katie Decker, spokeswoman for the Arizona Agriculture Department. "You take these dogs that have an aggressive nature, such as American bulldogs, you starve them or get them underweight and then you put a really big ham in front of them," she said. [...]
The Phoenix pair face drug, weapon, child-abuse and animal-cruelty charges. Three children, ages 11, 9 and 8, were taken into custody by state Child Protective Services, Yavapai County sheriff's officials said. Although Arizona has laws outlawing dog fighting and cock fighting, there is no law banning fights between hogs and dogs, Decker said.
I think the alligator-mountain lion fights are still okay for now, so get your bets in quick.
Apparently they hadn't fallen far from the tree Bush.
A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up. [...] The documents were obtained after the ACLU and other public interest organizations filed a lawsuit against the government for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.
The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.
Another e-mail, dated December 2003, describes an incident in which Defense Department interrogators at Guantánamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" against a detainee. The e-mail concludes "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [sic] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the public." [torturing the English language as well, I see - 'r] [...]
The June 2004 "Urgent Report" addressed to the FBI Director is heavily redacted. The legible portions of the document appear to describe an account given to the FBI’s Sacramento Field Office by an FBI agent who had "observed numerous physical abuse incidents of Iraqi civilian detainees," including "strangulation, beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings." The document states that "[redacted] was providing this account to the FBI based on his knowledge that [redacted] were engaged in a cover-up of these abuses."
The documents are here. This is what you voted for, America; it is not a by-product of your vote, you can't claim you didn't know about it. You. Voted. For. This. We are now officially a torture state. Do you feel proud? Do you feel righteous? Do you feel all warm and safe and Christian? Because mostly I just feel sick. Every day I watch the Bush family and its band of Rasputins smugly wiping their asses with our flag and our Constitution, I get a little angrier. Not so much at the administration - they are just doing what comes naturally and what they plainly promised to do - but at the voters who returned them to power. You did this to my country.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We'll show them what for.
I believe the request was made in those words or ones very similar.
I present Froz-the-smallest-yet-certainly-wisest. And then in the company of his elder, Froz-the-smaller-but-not-necessarily-lesser.
Sorry for the delay.
If I walk around with an idea in my head all day, eventually somebody else writes the post for me. Man, that was easy.
The breakfast of champions! If the sport is bypass surgery.
Starting Dec. 15, Carl's Jr. becomes the first major fast food chain to introduce a burger topped with a fried egg, developed exclusively with its breakfast customers in mind. [...] The Breakfast Burger features a fresh, fried egg, crisp bacon, hash brown nuggets, cheese, ketchup and a charbroiled all-beef patty, all on a sesame-seed bun. Participating Carl's Jr. restaurants will offer The Breakfast Burger during morning hours, for a suggested retail price of $2.39.
Don't tell anybody I told you this, but if you slide the cashier an extra buck or two, they'll dip the whole thing in corn batter, deep fry it, and roll it in powdered sugar.
Eek.
A North Carolina National Guard member thought to be the first U.S. soldier convicted of murdering an Iraqi said he "snapped" and shot the 17-year-old boy after they had consensual sex, according to court-martial records released this week. Pvt. Federico Daniel Merida, 21, of Biscoe, a tiny town south of Asheboro, pleaded guilty during a court-martial in Iraq to shooting the Iraqi national guard private, whose name the Army withheld. [...]
According to the records, Zaggam and Merida were on guard duty May 11 in a tower on the perimeter of an Army camp near Tikrit in northern Iraq. About 10:30 p.m., Merida shot Zaggam repeatedly with his M-4 carbine. The "gay panic" motive was the third that Merida offered. He first told investigators that Zaggam demanded money at gunpoint. Later, he said he killed Zaggam because the boy forced him to have sex. Interviewed a third time by skeptical investigators, Merida said he got angry after the two had consensual sex. [...]
In an agreement with the Army that limited his prison sentence to no more than 25 years, Merida pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder but guilty to murder without premeditation. He pleaded guilty to two counts of giving false statements in his initial explanations. He was found not guilty of dereliction of duty for having consensual sex while he should have been guarding the camp.
Twenty bucks says this supervisor is still banging his head against his desk.
Baggage screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport spotted - and then lost - a fake bomb planted in luggage by a supervisor during a training exercise. Despite an hours-long search Tuesday night, the bag, containing a fake bomb complete with wires, a detonator and a clock, made it onto an Amsterdam-bound flight. It was recovered by airport security officials in Amsterdam when the flight landed several hours later. [...]
In October, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that screeners missed one in four fake explosives and weapons in secret weekly tests conducted throughout the summer by TSA agents. Screeners there also have been plagued by problems with absenteeism.
In Tuesday night's test, a TSA supervisor secretly placed the bomb, which was designed to resemble the plastic explosive Semtex, inside a bag that was put through screening machines, Davis said. A baggage screening machine sounded an alarm, but workers somehow lost track of the bag, which was then loaded onto the Continental Airlines flight that was due to take off around 6 p.m.
That's right - the system spotted the "bomb," sounded the alarm, and in the resulting confusion, they actually managed to get it on a plane and across the ocean. Very encouraging. But you know, it could have been worse.
The Newark incident closely resembled another embarrassing incident last week in France, where security officials lost a bag containing real explosives that were being used to train bomb-sniffing dogs. That led French authorities to prohibit using live explosives in future tests.
Probably a wise choice.
If you are really such an inept drinker that you feel you must enlist the aid of a beer bong to get it in you, be sure to only use the acoustic beer bongs. The electric-powered ones may f**k you up rather more literally than you expected.
The man, a mechanical drafter who did not want his name published, said yesterday that about six other party-goers had used the "jug helmet" before him. "No one else had any problems and I didn't think it would be any different to other things like funnels that people use," he said. "But I knew something wasn't right soon after I drank from it. I started spewing up red stuff and was in a lot of pain."
Although he has little memory of the next few days, friends took the man to the Murdoch hospital's emergency department where staff originally thought he was just drunk. When his friends told about the skolling device doctors suspected something was seriously wrong.
The man underwent urgent surgery to repair a 10cm tear and was then on life support for a week. Surgeon David Cooke said the split in the wall of the man's stomach had pushed food and beer into his abdominal cavity, making him septic. His insides had to be "washed out" twice and he was put on heavy-duty antibiotics. The man's mother said that for several days it was touch and go.
(via boingboing)
I'm not sure "homeless" is quite the right word here.
The Lake Shore Drive drawbridge that spans the Chicago River carries thousands of cars a day. It's among the first structures to catch the vicious winter winds off the lake. And it's one of the final barriers for tall-masted rivercraft seeking open water. To suburban native Richard Dorsay, though, it's home. Or it was until Sunday, when the 36-year-old homeless man was evicted by police and city officials -- who were stunned to find he'd been living for at least three years in a little wooden village built into the beams and girders of the bridge's intricate underbelly.
Dorsay and several of his "neighbors" were able to enter through a slim, almost unnoticeable opening in the median of the double-decker bridge's lower level. They then crawled to their lair, which was replete with creature comforts and nearly invisible to anybody on the river. Dorsay tapped into the bridge's electricity to power a space heater, television, PlayStation video game and microwave. If he had to bathe, he might slip upstairs to the usually vacant -- and sometimes unlocked -- bridgetender's office and wash off in a sink.
Authorities were amazed not only by his elaborate setup, but that he had managed to survive so long inside a bridge that, in the warmer months at least, regularly rises and lowers, shifting gears and tons of steel. But to Dorsay, that was just part of the pace of his life below, which included watching Bears games and sharing a few beers with friends. When the bells rang, signaling the arms of the bridge soon would ascend, he braced for a ride and cruised with the bridge as it slowly pitched him forward. If he was sitting down, he'd soon be standing. "The first time it was scary," Dorsay said in an interview. "After that, it was almost like riding a Ferris wheel."
Dorsay had built several wooden huts inside the bridge for sleeping quarters and even had two, uh, roommates. Predictably, it was one of the roommates that ruined his swell deal, telling police about the hidey hole after getting busted for stealing a car.
NASA has released some pretty swank images over the past few weeks.
This one shows unusually long plasma filaments snaking across the surface of the sun.
Here's our most recently discovered comet, Machholz.
Inside Endurance Crater last month, the Opportunity Mars Rover peered up at Burns Cliff and then climbed up and out of the crater after six months exploring it. Upon emerging, it snapped pictures of wispy Martian clouds.
Meanwhile, the Spirit Rover began heading for Columbia Hills six months ago. Having climbed into them, it paused to glance back.
Following its first flyby of the Saturnian moon Dione and catching this stunning color photograph of Mimas against Saturn's blue atmosphere, Cassini swooped back in toward Titan, preparing for its Christmas day release of the Huygens probe.
Click.
If every cigarette takes seven minutes off your life, how old would this woman have been otherwise?
Nursing home staff paid tribute to a 105-year old British woman who had smoked since the age of 15 by cremating her with a packet of cigarettes and laying a large floral cigarette on her coffin. Marie Ellis died -- of natural causes -- at the Eaton Lodge Nursing Home in Kent, southeast England, in early December and was cremated on Tuesday, clutching a packet of her favorite Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
"We will always remember her for her smoking because the first thing she asked when she got up was 'Can I have a cigarette,'" said matron Maria Kallis, who commissioned a large wreath in the shape of a cigarette, made with white and yellow chrysanthemums, for the spinster's coffin.
The enigmatic Ellis, an ex-typist, arrived at the nursing home 15 years ago. Apart from her 15-a-day habit, she was also notorious among staff for her unhealthy eating habits, often asking for sugar in her soup and always demanding three sugars in her coffee. Staff played the song Smoke Gets in Your Eyes at Ellis' funeral and are planning a memorial concrete ashtray for her in the nursing home garden, where her ashes will also be buried.
This story gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling... in my lungs.
A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold. Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan showed up Monday at his Covington County courtroom in southern Alabama wearing the robe. Attorneys who try cases at the courthouse said they had not seen him wearing it before. The commandments were described as being big enough to read by anyone near the judge.
Attorney Riley Powell filed a motion objecting to the robe and asked that a case he was defending be continued. He said McKathan denied both motions. The judge said the Ten Commandments represent the truth "and you can't divorce the law from the truth."
Sigh. I know this may strike some folks as a minor issue, but when a judge wears scripture from a particular religion emblazoned on his robes while hearing cases, that is an explicit endorsement of a specific religion by the government. However innocuous it might seem, IT IS AGAINST THE LAW. Not a minor law, the very first one written after the Constitution. They call it the First Amendment, see? I'm pretty sure they covered it in this guy's law classes.
Why do I suspect that Judge McKathan (elected as an independent, by the way) has his eye on higher elective office?
Tobacco Road represent, baby. Have all Big Four teams ever been in the Top Ten at the same time before?
5. Wake Forest
6. North Carolina
7. Duke
9. NC State
And when I thay growth, I mean thuper-growth.
Nearly every time I hear a news story about a tumor being removed it's "the size of a grapefruit." Every time I know somebody personally who has had one removed, it's "the size of a golf ball." I had begun to believe that those two objects represented the ends of the removed tumor spectrum. Not hardly. How's about three watermelons?
Grace Radtke said she knew something was wrong, but had no idea it was a 66-pound tumor that was causing her pain. "I couldn't believe it," Radtke said. "It just floored me."
Last week, Radtke underwent surgery to remove the giant ovarian cyst -- the size of three watermelons -- that was lodged under her ribs. [...] After hours of surgery, four people were needed to lift the heavy tumor. Doctors said they had to roll the tumor onto a stretcher.
Would I link to an article that didn't include pictures of the 66-pound tumor? Of course I wouldn't. Who loves ya, monkeys? Keep clicking 'til you reach the one of the surgeon and nurse giving the exposed, medicine-ball-sized tumor the Lynndie England thumbs up. That's my favorite.
Y'know, back in the day, I had a pretty sweet mullet, yo. But via the magic of google's image search I am now able to pronounce that this, my friends, this is what I'm talkin' about! Holy crap.
Waited 'til the last minute to do your holiday shopping? Yeah, me too. If you're badly up against it, try Heritage House and have yourself a fetus-fetish Christmas. I understand that every Christmas tree is lacking if it doesn't sport at least a few anti-abortion ornaments. That just goes without saying, and the pro-life Christmas cards naturally follow. Similarly, the fetal models are pretty cool when they're all laid out like Russian nesting dolls. Choose from white, brown, or black! And don't miss out on this one; it's on closeout at $1.95. Buy them by the gross.
Beautifully finished 14K gold electroplated charm. This tear drop with an image of a child sucking it's thumb is worn in memory of all the women and preborn children harmed by the abortion industry. Size 1"x 5/8". Normal retail price $4.95.
Two bucks, baby! On the other hand, if the rest of your child's school stubbornly refuses to believe that he or she is the lamest one of all, you probably can't go wrong with the pro-abstinence temporary tattoos. It seems almost dirty to use them as stocking stuffers, though, doesn't it? Maybe best to stick with the George W. Bush dog tags (just like he wore in 'Nam!) and the George W. Bush Re-Elect 2004 POW bracelet. I'm not sure what makes it a POW bracelet, exactly.
Ho ho ho!
♪With perfect memory.♪ Oh for chrissakes, now I can't get that song out of my head.
Dec. 8, 2004 – University of Utah scientists taught baby sparrows to sing a complete song even though the birds were exposed only to overlapping segments of the tune rather than the full melody. The study provides clues about how musical memories are stored in the brain and how those memories help birds learn to sing...
In the first experiment, the scientists played one segment or phrase of the sparrow song at a time, separated by 2.5-second silences. They played the segments in reverse order – E, then D, then C, B and A – to control against the birds simply storing what they heard (ABCDE) in short-term memory and repeating it. The nine birds in this experiment could not string the segments together in the right order to sing the entire song ABCDE.
Next, eight young sparrows were played two segments or snippets of their song at a time. Each pair of segments was in the correct order, but the pairs of segments were played backward – DE, then CD, BC and AB. Because each pair of song segments overlapped another one, these birds were able to string the segments together in the correct order and sing the full song ABCDE. Plamondon says that when birds hear two song segments at a time, they implicitly learn the rules for putting all five segments together.
In a final experiment, five sparrows heard pairs of song segments, with each pair in reverse order: BA, then CB, DC and ED. The birds again learned to string the segments together, but because the segments were reversed, they sang with the segments strung together backward – EDCBA.
you on down wrath PETA's bring will that stuff of kind the That's. birds to dyslexia teach, Great;
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a full-on Welsh Sweaty Claus charity riot.
Police called to a mass brawl found an army of Santas punching and kicking each other. Officers had to use batons and CS spray to quell the fight in the centre of Newtown, Powys. Four were hurt and there were five arrests.
The battle of the Santas followed a 2-1/2 mile charity run involving more than 4,000 people dressed as Father Christmas. Some of them are believed to have overindulged in alcohol after crossing the finishing line.
(via freakgirl)
Oh, so many links I didn't publish during the hiatus here. These here internets, they never sleep. This one might be old news to you but just in case you missed it, I can't imagine better casting than this: Dubya, The Movie.
I'm not dead. Honest. Just very, very busy and a little burned out. I'll be back in full blogging form shortly, I assure you.
In the post below, I quoted a wackjob's call for a policy of nuking 100 Islamic cities (and North Korea, just for good measure) in response to a WMD attack on the US. You can read other wackjobs praising his call for genocide and rendering wide swaths of the planet unliveable here and here, if you were under the misconception that such insanity doesn't enjoy some popular support. Inspired by Pharyngula, I thought I'd just list the Top Ten Targets:
1. Jakarta, Indonesia
2. Cairo, Egypt
3. Karachi, Pakistan
4. Dhaka, Bangladesh
5. Tehran, Iran
6. Istanbul, Turkey
7. Lahore, Pakistan
8. Khartoum, Sudan
9. Baghdad, Iraq
10. Alexandria, Egypt
Okay, so just those 10 cities - we haven't even gotten around to nuking North Korea, Mecca, or Medina yet, as Mr. Atkins would have us do - already equates to 100,000,000 people killed. Only 90 cities left to go! Oops, seven of the ten are in states that are allies with the US, and that doesn't count Baghdad, which currently hosts many tens of thousands of US citizens, but fuck it. Bombs away! That'll show 'em.
Idiot.
Almost in the spirit of the earlier one, but without all the confusing irony and humor, David C. Atkins floats perhaps the very worst idea ever.
I propose that the U.S. immediately adopt and publish the following nuclear doctrine: In the event of a WMD attack by terrorists on the U.S. homeland or U.S. military facilities overseas, the U.S will immediately and without discussion use its immense nuclear weapons capabilities to destroy the 100 largest Islamic cities on earth, regardless of state, and destroy all of the military facilities of Islamic-dominated states. This will include all of the capitals and at least the 10 largest cities of all Islamic-dominated states and the "holy" cities of Mecca and Medina. In addition, North Korean cities and military installations will be destroyed.
Overreact much? If someone attacks us, we'll just attack everybody and poison the planet. And then we'll hold our breath 'til we turn gay. Or something. Remember when I mentioned Mr. Atkins' lack of any sense of irony? Duck.
The beauty of this doctrine is that it encourages the 1.2 billion Muslims to actually prove that they are adherents to a "religion of peace,"
We, on the other hand, apparently make no such pretense.
At not quite two-and-a-half days since getting the website up and running with my new fancy spam-blocking mojo, here's the count:
Legitimate comments posted to the site - 68.
Spam comments blocked - 1106.
Anybody looking for cheap erectile dysfunction drugs or smoking online casino action, drop me a line. I have plenty of good leads.
Quote of the day, from my childhood best friend, the man with no platform:
WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK
When you're mentally ill, you find yourself saying all sorts of things to yourself. This is what I found myself quacking like a duck yesterday in the car."Are you seriously quacking the word, "work"?, I asked myself. Yep.
It was at that point that I realized, "hey, I might have to go to work today, but I've got baby soft skin. Thanks Johnson and Johnson."
Heh. I hear ya, man. I have those moments too, but it's more like, "I might have to go to work today, but I've got smoky black lungs. Thanks, RJ Reynolds."
What's in a name? For the sake of these newly wed couples, let's hope nothing. Be sure to page through all eleven of them. My favorite is the Butts-McCracken wedding announcement, but then it would be, wouldn't it?
(banner ads and such might not be quite work-safe)
Let's take a spin down memory lane.
Gen. Shinseki had angered Mr. Rumsfeld by predicting that the Pentagon would need a force of 150,000 over several years in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld's civilian aides insisted that the U.S. would be able to reduce its forces to 30,000 within a few months of the war.
Wait, did that sign say No Outlet?
U.S. military commanders are delaying the departure of 10,400 troops from Iraq and deploying another 1,500 Army paratroopers ahead of the planned January elections there, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The moves could push U.S. troop strength to its highest level of the entire Iraq mission, which began in March 2003. [...] The extensions and deployment will boost the U.S. military presence in Iraq from its current 138,000 troops to 150,000 in January, said Army Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez.
Chalk up another victory for faith-based policymaking!
You should follow Josh Marshall's tracking of the story developing about CBS and UPN (Viacom) and NBC refusing to air a United Church of Christ advertisement declaring their church open to all people regardless of, among other things, sexual orientation.
The reasons stated by the networks are flimsy and obviously inconsistent with practice and the spirit of the first amendment to the Constitution, to wit:
The memo says: "CBS/UPN Network policy precludes accepting advertising that touches on and/or takes a position on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance." It then goes on to say that the issue is exclusion of homosexuals and other minority groups and specifically references the president's call for a constitutional ban on gay marriage as reasons that the ad is "unacceptable."
Josh Marshall does a better job at parsing the issue than I can so start here and move forward through subsequent entries.
I will add, however, that the familiar punctuation on UCC's site is a comma, not an apostrophe; our site is not formally affiliated with God.
