A true hero for women’s rights and lives was murdered today. Dr. George Tiller, who endured countless threats, an assassination attempt, bombings and assaults on his clinic, and many legal challenges by anti-abortion extremists was murdered in his church by such an extremist today.

I am greatly saddened by his death and by the loss of a friend to me and countless women, but I am also outraged that this could have happened again. I and the Feminist Majority Foundation had the privilege of knowing and working with Dr. Tiller over the last two decades. He was a courageous, unassuming, and soft-spoken man who cared deeply about his patients and about women’s rights and lives. He knew his life was in danger, but continued to provide vitally needed healthcare services to women when few others would.

Dr. Tiller expected no accolades – he was doing what he knew was right and medically needed. However, he deeply appreciated the gratitude he received from his patients and pro-choice supporters nationwide. I am glad so many of us had the opportunity to thank him — He deserved it.

Many of you have heard from us before about Dr. Tiller and his dedicated and courageous staff. Many of you have responded to our appeals and have sent kind messages of support to him and his clinic staff.

I know you want to send his family and clinic health workers your sympathy and gratitude for his work. We will facilitate this my forwarding your messages.

Ellie Smeal
President

George Tiller was a physician who performed late term abortions. Apparently, this bothered someone enough that he was gunned down earlier today in church.

A 51 year old white male has been apprehended in connection with this murder.

There are some details here.

This is what the right wing does when it does not get its way.

UPDATE: I like PZ’s suggestion of heading over to Feministe’s site to check out the pro-choice charities.

UPDATE: Suspect drove a car with this on the back of it.

UPDATE: Suspect may have had “Operation Rescue” ties. That does not surpize me.

… is here.

… a monthly compilation of posts that are just good stuff. .. your best writing–writing being the key word here.

Enjoy.

repost

Cute baby lions. When they grow up, they will want to eat you. I’ll never forget the first wild lion I ever saw. It was a pitch black night, on the savanna in the Western Rift Valley. I had climbed on top of the hood of the Land Rover, engine off, but headlights on. My plan was to search the horizon for lights indicating the presence of the research camp I was trying to find. Once I was on the hood, I was about to tell my colleague, still in the vehicle, to cut the headlights so I could see better. That’s when she walked into view.
Continue reading The Evolutionary Dynamics of the Lion Panthera leo Revealed by Host and Viral Population Genomics →

Quo Computer plans to open its first retail location, selling Mac clones, on June 1. …”It’s exciting. We are trying to stay as close to Apple as we can with our products,” Rashantha De Silva, Quo founder, told CNET News. “We are trying to mimic things as much as we can. I’m hoping that Apple sees the value in what we are doing.”

Read the details here.

Sometime this fall or early winter, they are going to turn the Large Hadron Collider back on. It may run for several minutes or hours and then break down again. In fact, expect that. This is a huge machine the like of which have never before been seen. Why would we expect it to work without several startups?

Absurdly, the LHC press office and others have been conversing about what is going to happen next without much (or any) mention of the likelihood of a repeat performance of last year’s breakdown (though presumably with a different technological problem). When it comes to physics, De Nile is a big ol’ river in Europe.

But none of that is the point, actually. The point is that the LHC will run through the winter, instead of shutting down to save money given high energy costs in Europe during the winter, if it gets going. This will be paid for out of their standard budget, as they have not been paying the energy costs for normal operation over the last several months. Details here.

And this just in: A film from the LHC, featuring Chief Engineer Clark Griswold, showing what it will be like when the LHC turns on later this year:

There is a very interesting discussion going on at Sandwalk regarding adaptationism vs. … whatever that other thing is that Larry believes in.

But seriously, it is a very interesting discussion that is shaping up as a debate between John Hawks, who wrote a post on this topic recently, and Larry.

Note: Michele Bachmann is in this one:

Hat Tip: Dump Bachmann