At Macaroni Grill. UPDATE: Bad lighting, I fear. Romantic fripperies (complete with a putto in the upper left corner), colored in by Katherine. this post enabled by airblogging.com….
At Macaroni Grill.
UPDATE: Bad lighting, I fear. Romantic fripperies (complete with a putto in the upper left corner), colored in by Katherine.
this post enabled by airblogging.com.
The ‘Rents are here. 🙂 UPDATE: And helping Katherine with her homework. this post enabled by airblogging.com….
The ‘Rents are here. 🙂
UPDATE: And helping Katherine with her homework.
this post enabled by airblogging.com.
Fascinating chart of housing prices in the US since 1890. That said, as Kottke notices, houses today are not what they used to be. Averaging square footage into it…
Fascinating chart of housing prices in the US since 1890.
That said, as Kottke notices, houses today are not what they used to be. Averaging square footage into it would almost certainly change the graphs substantially.
Twenty things you (probably) didn’t know about death. 3 No American has died of old age since 1951. 4 That was the year the government eliminated that classification on death…
Twenty things you (probably) didn’t know about death.
3 No American has died of old age since 1951.
4 That was the year the government eliminated that classification on death certificates.
I’d count that as “one thing,” but, hey, I’m not a popular science magazine editor.
18 Eighty percent of people in the United States die in a hospital.
19 If you can’t make it here . . . More people commit suicide in New York City than are murdered.
20 It is estimated that 100 billion people have died since humans began.
(via BoingBoing)
Six foods that used to be condemned as Horrible For You, but (this week, at least) appear to be not all that bad. For example: PORK RINDS Why you think…
Six foods that used to be condemned as Horrible For You, but (this week, at least) appear to be not all that bad.
For example:
PORK RINDS
Why you think they’re bad: These puffy snacks are literally cut from pigskin. Then they’re deep-fried.
Why they’re not: A 1-ounce serving contains zero carbohydrates, 17 grams (g) of protein, and 9 g fat. That’s nine times the protein and less fat than you’ll find in a serving of carb-packed potato chips. Even better, 43 percent of a pork rind’s fat is unsaturated, and most of that is oleic acid — the same healthy fat found in olive oil. Another 13 percent of its fat content is stearic acid, a type of saturated fat that’s considered harmless, because it doesn’t raise cholesterol levels.
Also on the list: alcohol, beef jerky, sour cream, coconut, and chocolate bars.
Of course, eating too much of anything’s bad for you. But it’s fascinating when you get changes in the wind like this on stuff “everyone” knows.
(via GeekPress)
That Greg Potemkin has a very interesting org chart on his whiteboard … this post enabled by airblogging.com….
That Greg Potemkin has a very interesting org chart on his whiteboard …
this post enabled by airblogging.com.
… “Trying to Take Tomorrow Off ‘Cause the Relatives are Visiting, but First I Gotta Get My Job Duty Act Together, Especially (But Not Limited To) Moving Forward at Highest…
… “Trying to Take Tomorrow Off ‘Cause the Relatives are Visiting, but First I Gotta Get My Job Duty Act Together, Especially (But Not Limited To) Moving Forward at Highest Priority a Job Opening to Backfill for a Key Staff Member Who’s Resigned, Not to Mention a Bunch of Other To Do List Drop-Dead Most Critical Items, All Amidst Many Phonecons” Blues.
Set aside the question of whether Abraham Lincoln — who had a great many strengths as a leader and politician — should be the end-all source of all questions regarding…
Set aside the question of whether Abraham Lincoln — who had a great many strengths as a leader and politician — should be the end-all source of all questions regarding dissent and wartime. After all, this is the guy who suspended habeus corpus, too.
That said, if folks are going to quote him on such topics, they should be careful to make sure it’s a real quote.
Supporters of President Bush and the war in Iraq often quote Abraham Lincoln as saying members of Congress who act to damage military morale in wartime “are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.” Republican candidate Diana Irey used the “quote” recently in her campaign against Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, and it has appeared thousands of times on the Internet, in newspaper articles and letters to the editor, and in Republican speeches.
But Lincoln never said that. The conservative author who touched off the misquotation frenzy, J. Michael Waller, concedes that the words are his, not Lincoln’s. Waller says he never meant to put quote marks around them, and blames an editor for the mistake and the failure to correct it.
Let us leave aside as well the question of whether any candidate for office should be suggesting (even backhandedly) that their opponent be “arrested, exiled, or hanged.” Analysis of Waller’s article not only indicates that attributing the general sentiment to Lincoln is an error, but the article itself is full of other factual errors.
For what it’s worth, upon learning that the quote was not an actual quote, Ms. Irey acknowledged and apologized the error (though not for the sentiment behind it).
Denver’s hosting the World Science Fiction Convention in two years, 6-10 August 2008. Woot! More on the Worldcon here. (via Randy)…
Denver’s hosting the World Science Fiction Convention in two years, 6-10 August 2008. Woot! More on the Worldcon here.
(via Randy)
Katherine Harris, as Florida Secretary of State during the hotly contested 2000 Presidential Election, was understandably, if annoyingly, partisan in her efforts to swing the (re)count to Bush. But, hey,…
Katherine Harris, as Florida Secretary of State during the hotly contested 2000 Presidential Election, was understandably, if annoyingly, partisan in her efforts to swing the (re)count to Bush. But, hey, that’s dirty politics, a fine (and foul) American tradition.
Unfortunately, now a US Representative running for the Senate, she’s also either a dangerous religious partisan, or willing to pander to same, which makes her much more of a threat.
Harris made the comments – which she clarified Saturday – in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues.
Separation of church and state is “a lie we have been told,” Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is “wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.”
“If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin,” Harris said.
Seems to me you can legislate sin quite nicely whether you’re electing “Christians” or not. And, of course, if God’s the one actually doing the choosing, how can Man stand against him (or, rather, how could anything the electors do thwart that choice by God)?
Harris, facing a flurry of protest from even within her own party, tried to lamely back down from her comments.
Harris’ campaign released a statement Saturday saying she had been “speaking to a Christian audience, …
As if that made a difference. Or are they saying that she would have spoken differently if speaking to a non-Christian audience? In what way?
… addressing a common misperception that people of faith should not be actively involved in government.”
It’s one thing to say that people of faith should be involved in government. It’s another thing to say that to not have people of a particular faith in government will lead to “legislating sin.”
The comments reflected “her deep grounding in Judeo-Christian values,” the statement said, adding that Harris had previously supported pro-Israel legislation and legislation recognizing the Holocaust.
So does that mean Harris is willing to go on record saying it’s okay to elect Jews, too? Darned white of her.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like we’ll have to worry much about her this election cycle.
State GOP leaders – including Gov. Jeb Bush – don’t think she can win against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in November. Fundraising has lagged, frustrated campaign workers have defected in droves and the issues have been overshadowed by news of her dealings with a corrupt defense contractor who gave her $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions.
Speaking of legislating sin …
New Internet acronyms. I think ICSRG (“I Can Still Reach Google,” i.e., my Internet access is working) and BWPWAP (“Back When Pluto Was A Planet”) have real possibilities….
New Internet acronyms. I think ICSRG (“I Can Still Reach Google,” i.e., my Internet access is working) and BWPWAP (“Back When Pluto Was A Planet”) have real possibilities.
Cool Venn Euler diagram showing the difference between England and Britain and the UK and all that stuff. Or you can wade through the text description of the same….
Cool Venn Euler diagram showing the difference between England and Britain and the UK and all that stuff.
Or you can wade through the text description of the same.
Nike ran a set of high-speed digital cameras on Tiger Woods driving a ball. The resulting slow motion replays are like watching ballet (in a good way). He makes it…
Nike ran a set of high-speed digital cameras on Tiger Woods driving a ball. The resulting slow motion replays are like watching ballet (in a good way).
He makes it look soooooooo simple.
The key? Watch the head shot. His eyes are nailed to the ball. Far as I’m concerned, if I could learn that trick, I could die a happy man.
(via Neatorama)
Covering an airplane crash and its causes? News. Calling up relatives and friends of the victims, looking for quotes to make the tragedy all the more viscerally tragic? Exploitation….
We took several vacations when I was a youth to the Crater Lake area (we stayed at nearby and far-less-interesting Diamond Lake). I always found the idea of the…
We took several vacations when I was a youth to the Crater Lake area (we stayed at nearby and far-less-interesting Diamond Lake). I always found the idea of the crater — a caldera, actually, a volcano that blew its top and collapsed — to be fascinating, along with all the volcanic geology surrounding it — vast expanses of pumice, etc. and so forth.
Crater Lake is ancient. The freshwater
lake began to form nearly 7,700 years ago when the volcano, Mount Mazama, at a former elevation of 12,000 feet, violently erupted and collapsed on itself with enough force to incinerate parts of Oregon and spewing ash as far as Vancouver and Kansas. The event exerted 46 times more force than that of San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake.
The lake, itself, is also interesting, being a closed ecosystem with lots of unique goodies, very deep, and all that. So this article about some deep underwater probing of Crater Lake’s secrets was pretty spiffy to read.
Researchers here are going deep into the giant volcanic hole with aquatic robots and highly sensitive sonar. The lake, formed by a massive eruption 7,700 years ago, is one of the world’s purest bodies of fresh water and, at 1,932 feet, one of its deepest. Most interesting to scientists, it’s had little mixing with the outside world–no feeder creeks, no rivers, just snowmelt and rainwater.
“This is a simple system we’re just beginning to understand,” said Irja Galvan, a professor of biology at Oregon State University, who was here Tuesday visiting friends who are studying Crater Lake.
Scientists from Oregon State and the U.S. Geological Survey were conducting field studies this week on the lake’s ecology. The project included lifting a submersible robot down onto the lake by helicopter and sending it deep into the water to collect digital video, data and moss samples. The scientists plan to compare the samples and data to
research from the late 1980s, when the scientists first described moss beds at the bottom.Part of the researchers’ goal here is to assess how much moss is contained in the lake, how old it is and then add up all the carbon to understand the ecosystem of the lake. Because there are so few nutrients in the lake as a whole, the moss colonies are rare homes to life such as tiny worms and crustaceans, which are fish food to only two breeds of fish that live in the lake–kokanee salmon and rainbow trout. As many as 40 other kinds of fish introduced to the lake over hundreds of years have died off.
Originally designed as a guide for judges having to evaluate scientific claims and witnesses, this article is worth reading for the “laity,” too. The seven warning signs (refer to the…
Originally designed as a guide for judges having to evaluate scientific claims and witnesses, this article is worth reading for the “laity,” too.
The seven warning signs (refer to the article for the explanations):
Note that these are warnings, red flags, not proof of bogosity. Some scientific advancement has worked this way. But it’s a good rule of thumb as to where to start your skepto-meter from when someone is touting some Big New Thing (especially if you’re being asked to invest money in it).
(via GeekPress)
Two food outlets that symbolize the US to much of the world (and to many of us as well). Cool map here showing their world-wide influence and, in the case…
Two food outlets that symbolize the US to much of the world (and to many of us as well). Cool map here showing their world-wide influence and, in the case of Starbucks, the international economy that drives it.
(via Tyler Cowen)
DOF makes an excellent point viz the “controversy” over whether Hitler’s Master Race / Holocaust plans were inspired by Darwin — the unmentioned point of which is to discredit Darwin…
DOF makes an excellent point viz the “controversy” over whether Hitler’s Master Race / Holocaust plans were inspired by Darwin — the unmentioned point of which is to discredit Darwin and Natural Selection / Evolution.
Historical experts have already deconstructed that association, but I would like to make a different point: It would not matter even
if Hitler curled up every night with his copy of Origin Of Species and required all the Waffen SS soldiers to pass a test on evolutionary theory before going out to do their ‘field work’. The moral qualities of those who believe in a theory have no bearing on its truth or falsity.What matters is evidence, mountains of it. And plains and riverbeds and cliffs and gulleys full of the fossil record of life’s long struggle from whatever (call it God if you like) started it all somewhere on this planet. What matters is the concord of other scientific disciplines like genetics, physics, and astronomy, which provide congruence in their own experimental results. What matters is that evolutionary biology does a good
job predicting how species will change.That is what makes evolution true, and creationism false. It doesn’t make the slightest difference who believes in either one.
Hitler probably believed in gravity, too. That doesn’t make Newton a crypto-fascist, or discredit gravity as a scientific theory.
Evolution and natural selection, like any other science, or any other knowledge, can be used or abused. The eugenicists and so-called Social Darwinists of the 19th and 20th Centuries (and their descendents) used Darwin’s theories as an excuse to neglect the poor and neuter the “defectives” in the US as well as in Germany. Chemistry has given us nerve gas, pesticides, napalm, and the Zyklon-B that was used in Hitler’s death camps.
The same is true for beliefs. Christianity has been used to justify greed and tyranny, and burn and imprison the heretic-of-the-week. Democracy has been used to legitimize mob rule and suppress minority rights.
As DOF put it, “The moral qualities of those who believe in a theory have no bearing on its truth or falsity.”
I’m sure we have some blistering Indian Summer days to come — but temps today are supposed to be in the mid-70s, and the evenings have been cool to the…
I’m sure we have some blistering Indian Summer days to come — but temps today are supposed to be in the mid-70s, and the evenings have been cool to the point of closing the back door, and I actually turned on the heater a little bit on the drive in this morning.
It’s nice.
Was reading a PC Magazine article this morning about cellphones and mobile services for kids — including one phone identified as “the perfect first phone for the 5-9 crowd.” Yikes….
Was reading a PC Magazine article this morning about cellphones and mobile services for kids — including one phone identified as “the perfect first phone for the 5-9 crowd.”
Yikes.
So, does Katherine need a cell phone? Hrm. Not yet, I don’t think. I mean, it would be nice if she could contact us (or vice-versa) whenever needed, but it’s not critical as yet (we know where she is, and there are usually phone available). We don’t need her persistently phone-tethered (and GPSed) to us just yet.
And, of course, I don’t know that I’d trust her with a $50- $100 cell phone. She still loses things too easily.
Still, the current crop of kid-friendly phones — usually with convenient ways to restrict numbers dialed, or what services (if any) are enabled, sometimes by time, are pretty funky. And I suspect this will be one of those “No, we don’t need to do this” things that suddenly turns around into a “Wow, we really need to this” to a “How did we ever live without this?” things very quickly.