Daily Archives: December 16, 2010

Good News and Bad News from the Large Hadron Collider

The good news: Despite their best efforts, the folks at CERN failed to produce a black hole that sucked the entire earth into it! That would have been cool. The bad news is for string theory. What might be one of the few empirical tests for that tangle of math and stuff seems to have come out negative. From CERN:
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The Bible-Thumping Grinch who Pissed on Christmas

A repost, of sorts:

I am amazed at the giddiness amongst Christian Fundamentalists that has fomented from the mere utterance of a holiday greeting by Richard Dawkins. The counter-insurgents in the War on Christmas … the Red White and Blue, squeaky-faced smirking shits that call themselves commentators or preachers are creaming in their jeans. But they are also stepping over the line, and I’m calling them on it.

Read the rest here

Amelia Earhart’s Finger Found in Pacific?

If you go to a place where humans have lived for hundreds of thousands of years and bone happens to be well preserved, you will find bits and pieces of people on a regular basis. If you go to a Polynesian island and look for bones you are more likely to find a turtle or fish bone than a human bone. Thus, when I see ….
Continue reading Amelia Earhart’s Finger Found in Pacific?

Clay Duke: The Latest Poster Boy for Gun Control

1) Clay Duke tried to kill several school board members, but missed from a distance of between 6 and 8 feet with his Smith & Wesson pistol. Indeed, over 25 rounds were fired in the small public space, all aimed from a short distance, and only one fatal shot occurred. This puts an end to the idea that if everyone in every public meeting had a pistol that the bad guys would be easily dispatched.

2) Duke had previously been in trouble for a gun related stalking event in which he actually discharged a firearm. Only in a society with very little serious concern over gun ownership could a clearly mentally unstable man who had previously fired a gun in the commission of a crime still be allowed to have a pistol.

3) Once again, a major story in which firearms were used and the press has not even posed the question as to where the firearm came from, if it was legally owned, etc. I know Florida is a fairly lawless state when it comes to guns, but it is still an important issue. What nefarious force causes reporters to be unable to answer this question? Does the gun lobby really control that much advertising in standard news outlets?

4) Duke was, clearly a teabagger, given what we know of his politics. So this particular incident can be chalked up as yet another violent right winger. At least he did the right thing in the end, I suppose.

We need stricter gun laws.