Daily Archives: July 16, 2009

Fla murder case gets a little strange

It turns out that the Florida couple that was murdered last week were killed as the result of a safe-cracking job gone bad. The safe was taken from the home. Seven bad guys were arrested, and found to have a very large stash of weapons.

Who has a safe full of stuff worth a home invasion and multiple murder to get? Is this something from a film that spilled over into real life?

source

UPDATE: This is very funny. I was just watching MSNBC and I think I figured something out. It was teh safe itself, not the contents, that the arrested bad guys were after. Maybe an antique, maybe historically significant.

But, I’ll add this: Whatever the explanation is, it is quirky. Strange. Unexpected.

Too bad the interviewer on MSNBC was not thinking on her feet … she could have responded to the clues the Sheriff was giving her….

Sotomayor kicked ass

The part of the hearings that directly question Sotomayor is over.

I watched (substantial parts of) several supreme court justice confirmation hearings. Bork. Thomas. Souter. Roberts. Others. Sotomayor was measurable, palpably, superior to all the others in her intelligence, ability to frame answers so they could be understood, all of it.

The Republicans all looked like morons.

A True Ghost Story Part 4: I see dead people. Hey, It’s my job!

…. continued …

I wrote earlier about the graves that were dug daily to receive the dead. In truth, the details of this procedure are still being worked out by archaeologists at the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, but when we were there on this particular trip, part of the grave yard to which I refer had been just discovered, accidentally uncovered during a public works drainage project. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in all my years as an archaeologist.
Continue reading A True Ghost Story Part 4: I see dead people. Hey, It’s my job!

Extinct Lemur Brought Back to Life. Virtually.

ResearchBlogging.orgAustrian Franz Sikora was a fossil hunter and merchant of ancient bones working in the 19th centuyr. In 1899 he found the first known specimen, which was to become the type fossil, of Hadropithecus stenognathus in Madagascar. This is an extinct lemur. To be honest, I’m not sure when this lemur went extinct, but I think it was not long before Franz found the fossil.

The bones found in 1899 as well as other material have been sitting in an Austrian museum since.

i-0c423f7194921502d2845c80d21bae85-Hadropithecus_stenognathus_skull.jpg

Continue reading Extinct Lemur Brought Back to Life. Virtually.