Scharroo and his colleagues are eager to understand why the Arctic sea level in dropping as “everything indicates the sea level should rise.”
Check this swiftboater:
Justice Clarence Thomas refers to Justice John Paul Stevens’ “unfamiliarity with the realities of warfare” in his dissenting opinion.
Thank you thinkprogress.
These are two nice quotes from 1984:
Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad.
Pretty useful stuff!Sanity is not statistical.
We are moving into that general direction… As always, 1984 is full of anacdotes often used.
And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years — imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation of whole populations-not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.
In a normal world, where zombies didn’t rule the Earth’s crest and birds sang in notreverse order, people would at least say WTF?! But no, Israel is bulldozing around Gaza, arresting government officials. It is said that this is because of Arabs "kidnapping" one of their soldiers and killing two others.
Let’s presume that these were genuine Arab "hostage takers". What in god’s name would make them do it? Would a beach shelling do?
And notice how they always slip in this line:
Hamas, which took over the Palestinian Authority after winning parliamentary elections in January, has resisted international pressure to renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Israeli actions are in total collide with international laws, but I’m at peace. What you reap is what you sow.
Anyone still believes that the US is not living in fascism? Who benefits from this ruling?
At this point, laws become obsolete. Even though FDA approves a drug, there is far too little tests behind it, because no company will wait years before putting a drug on the market - they can’t afford to, as we’ve been told, due to competition.This "Final Rule," which may as well be called a "Final Solution" for drug consumers, claims that consumers can no longer sue drug companies for the harm caused by any FDA-approved drug, even if the drug’s manufacturer intentionally misled the FDA by hiding or fabricating clinical trial data.
A timeline of the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier by three Arabs. I don’t know how accurate the story is.
Pharyngula made a nice post on an event that took place in Oklahoma (Oclahoma?).
In short:
To make it short, an atheist girl in high school was kicked off a sports team because she wouldn’t join in team prayers; abuse ensued; school officials lied; the principal assaulted the father; police and principal perjured themselves to press charges against him; threats were made to try and drive the family out of the state.And:
The night of the verdict, tornados of unusual violence descended on the panhandle of Oklahoma. The home of the Principal who had brought the false charges against Chuck Smalkowski was severely damaged.
Another excuse not to mown the lawn.
California Air Resources Board’s estimate that operating a gas-powered lawnmower for one hour emits as much air pollution as driving a car for 13 hours, and operating a weed-eater for an hour is the equivalent of driving for eight hours.link
Finster was so kind to drop this link.
Under the video, there is Chris’ site with a bunch of interesting mp3s and some graphics.
I saw a hit from google search "why do animals molt"?
Good question. Animals have radiated into many branches, and some of them have developed a unique method of growth. By getting larger, they cast off their old skin and make a new one. Most known animals that do this are of course arthropods, to a lesser extend rotifers and nematodes, and some other groups (see here). Arthropods are animals like spiders, crustaceans and insects.
It’s a great way of regrowing damaged parts, like a torn off leg or the sort. Hard skeleton also provides places where muscles can attach. Some animals have a very hard exocuticule and makes them almost rock hard.
The downside of this method is that when you molt, you’re exposed to most things that likes to eat meat. Crabs for instance take refuge during this vulnerable period in rock crevices or other hiding places. Once they jump out of their old skin, which is not an easy task, they start taking up water so that their skin inflates. To get out of their old skin, all hard parts must be shed. This includes skin that has formed from ectoderm, which include the entire body surface, mouth, esophagus and hind gut! After they have finished, they produce a harder skeleton, made stronger mostly with calcium or some organic molecules, mostly chitin.
The process is called ecdysis, hence Ecdysozoa.
Molting of snakes is not analogous.
Went to the field to see what butterflies were flying around. Beside the "usual rouster", I found, to me, two new species. One was Limenites camilla and the second one was Argynnis adippe. This was the first time I found Aporia crataegi, abundant in warmer kras areas. On my way back, it had started to cloud, and I got home just in time. It’s hailing a bit now, but nothing serious. In any case, my cacti plant will NOT like it. Here is the list of usual suspects + the two new ones:
Maniola jurtina
Thimelicus lineola
Pieris rapae
Gonepteryx rhamni
Coenonympha arcania
Pieris napi
Limenitis camilla
Inachis io
Brenthis ino
Argynnis adippe
Brenthis daphne
Aporia crataegi
Mellitea athalia
Ochlodes venatus
Melanargia galathea
Clossiana dia
Araschnia levana
p.s.
A. levana was second brood, and quite black on the upper side. Very interesting!
I took some pictures too.
Israel is testing the best route to Iran. WJC calls “on the international community to force Iran to forego any nuclear ambitions and the radical Palestinian Hamas movement to renounce violence.”
I guess what they left out is the bombing and assassinations of Palestinians from their side. They just launched an invasion of Gaza strip. No word of NPT, under which Iran has the right to nuclear energy for civilian purposes. And it’s hypocrytical to ask Iran to not make nukes, while Israel carries a full arsenal of them.
Iran is going to be attacked, and it’s their fault for being unskilled @ deflecting weak critics. The west picked up “Iranian president wants Israel wiped off the map” story quite fast, yet the Iranians have failed to deseminate that the MEMRI translation was, to be generous, faulty.
Or there’s something else at work behind the scenes, who knows. It will be interesting to see what excuse will Israel use to bomb Iran.
US has about 13 million kids living in poverty, which spells fresh soldiers for fresh wars.
And when I read this I nearly fell of my chair.
“Ultimately, negative perceptions of candidates could have participation implications by keeping more youth from the polls,” they wrote.
It would seem that people claiming this have never ever seen Jon’s show.
An interesting thought from Orwell’s 1984:
A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ”good”, for instance. If you
have a word like ”good”, what need is there for a word like ”bad”? ”Ungood”
will do just as well — better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other
is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ”good”, what sense is there
in having a whole string of vague useless words like ”excellent” and ”splendid”
and all the rest of them? ”Plusgood” covers the meaning, or ” doubleplusgood”
if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but
in the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole
notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words — in reality,
only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?
I, like, totally agree that some wording IS useless.
Iran has no intention of abandoning its nuclear program, and the United States has no intention of abandoning its efforts to destabilize the Iranian regime. The US Republican Party’s strategy for next November’s congressional elections keeps the farce before the public. It is doubtful that it can be spun out that long. A warning on Friday from General George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, that the Iranians “are using surrogates to conduct terrorist operations in Iraq both against us and against the Iraqi people” indicates how unstable the game has become.
Note that there is no evidence of such activities.
link
qrswave has a nice post on arming the Iraqi insurgency. Take a peak!
Unfortunately most questions like this get pushed aside as “anti-semite” (whatever that means) or “loony conspiracy theory”. And did you notice that a lot of (conspiracy) theories are loony, even though some of them provide quite some valid evidence, like the JFK assassination or evolution?
It was an interesting day, although it was a bit tight squeeze with time. I patrolled around a tiny pond and found two (to me) new species of butterflies.
Melanargia galathea (Satyridae) was quite a surprise. I was wading a meadow where I could barely stick my head out. I then saw something black and white flying. I rushed it and missed it the first time. I started running after it toward a freshly cut neighboring meadow. At this point, I realised that a backpack full of books, water and a digital camera can be a handy cap. Anyways, I finally got it and did the victory dance. After a few minutes in the net, the butterfly was apparently exhausted (I tried to photograph the upperside) from the handling. I let it go and it flew a few meters away and posed for this beautiful picture. Kudos to the six legged bird!
I suspect this is Mellitea athalia. The pattern is unlike anything I have seen in all my three days of lepidopterology. ^_^ Tolman (the book) says many forms have been described. That could be it.
Another new species for me was this Argynnis paphia. I cought it by accident while hunting for Mellicta daphne.
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