As Libya and Gaddafi move to a more prominent place in the news, I thought I’d point to a few posts on the topic. As an Africanist Archaeologist, I’ve got a special interest in Libya (though I’ve never worked there or visited). Haua Fteah is there. Haua Fteah is a cave facing north and overlooking the Mediterranean. It has sediments in it dating to over 120,000 years ago, which thus transcend the entire recent ice age, going all the way back to the last full interglacial. It was excavated by the guy who trained, at that site, two of the three archaeologists whom I had as advisors, Ofer Bar-Yosef and Glynn Isaac, along with a bunch of other people. Another interesting connection: A friend of mine who has helped fund some of the research I’ve been involved in (especially this work) was serving as a volunteer amateur archaeologist in Libya some years back, working on classic era sites. While doing so, she found herself hanging out with the King of Libya (or Sultan or whatever) on the day that the Royal Palace was overrun by the rebels, and only barely escaped with the help of some CIA guys who were also hanging around there. That was some years ago.
Monthly Archives: February 2011
Why is my poop green?
This post has had a movement, to this new location.
Please Help LaVerne Knight-West
The Skeptics Community is asking for people to help LaVerne. Bad things happened to her and her family. A few bucks from everybody would be nice. Please click here and make a small contribution.
Behold the Nimravids
Dinosaurs aren’t the only source of fascination for paleontologists. Paleontology is a descriptive science that uses a variety of sources for information on how evolution has shaped life to what it currently currently consists of, and paleontologists look to the past through fossilized bones, mineralized records of the tracks and trails of botany, genetic records in modern DNA and geological records of the life that once populated the environments of the past.
Fear, Loathing and Misogyny in the Upper Midwest
Two local stories you might be interested in from my neighborhood.
First, a girl high school wrestler advanced yesterday but was beaten today in the state tournament in Iowa. Why is this interesting? Well, first, this is not a girl wrestling on a girl’s team. It is a girl wrestling on the regular team which happens to be traditionally boys. Second, she advanced yesterday when one of the favorite to win, a boy, refused to wrestle a girl, apparently because he things the sport should be reserved for boys. (I dunno … in his case, maybe wrestling really is a gay sport? Who knows?)
Anyway, Cassey Herkelman beat Joel Northrup by default when he walked away from the match. To be fair, I’ll give you Northrup’s official statement:
On Thursday, Northrup said he respected Herkelman and Black but didn’t think girls should compete against boys in wrestling. In a statement issued through his school, he called wrestling a combat sport and said “it can get violent at times.”
Though I must say I got a bit of a different impression when watching this on the news. In any event, Northrup does not really respect Herkelman or the sport if he feels that he can make unilateral decisions about what the rules are despite the existence of a system that is in charge of those rules. The only truly honorable thing for him to do, other than fighting the girl, would be to resign from the sport. Don’t you think?
Herkelman had a 20-13 record going into the tournament but was defeated today by Matt Victor.
The next story is about a threatening obnoxious fax sent to Congresswoman Betty McCollum by an area teabagger.
Both are reported on CBS/WCCO but I also watched them on the news. McCollum represents Minnesota’s 4th district (mainly Saint Paul and nearby suburbs), and is a liberal democrat, has been in congress for about 10 years and sits on important committees. She recently proposed to cut advertising betwen themilitary and NASCAR. The advertising is expensive, (for 7 million you get a sticker and a couple of driver appearances) they are looking for cuts, there is no evidence that it is effective, and most of the military branches have already cut their use of NASCAR as an advertising outlet. The only reason to keep doing this is for political purposes. It makes sense to stop this funding.
Therefore, a teabagger, who would be happy to stop funding to efficiently save the lives of little wide-eyed children or bunnies, and probably collects most of his income form government sources that he opposes, sent Congresswoman McCollum a fax threatening both her and President Obama, depicting racist and violent acts of a crude sexual nature.
How evolution works, sometimes.
A Sequence of Lines Consecutively Traced by Five Hundred Individuals is an online drawing tool that lets users do just one thing – trace a line. Each new user only sees the latest line drawn, and can therefore only trace this latest imperfect copy. As the line is reproduced over and over, it changes and evolves – kinks, trembling motions and errors are exaggerated through the process.*
Once an accidental feature shows up, subsequent tracers try to reproduce it like good little replicators. Eventually you get a dancing chihuahua.
Continue reading How evolution works, sometimes.
Skeptically Speaking: Quacks and Scams
Don’t Miss Skeptically Speaking #99 Quacks and Scams, with Dr. Stephen Barrett of QuackWatch , James Randi and Jamie Williams.
Libyan Dictator Warns Against Facebook, Microsoft Bans OpenSource
These stories are closely related at a philosophical level: Both stalwart entities have similar philosophies about what they think they can tell other people to do, how they do things, and what they fear:
Libyan dictator warns against use of Facebook, 40 protesters injured
Many Libyan Internet activists have declared their support for the pro-democracy movements and revolutions in the Middle East. After seeing the power of the people succeed in Tunisia and Egypt, they created groups on Facebook to call for political and economic reforms in Libya. Libya’s dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, has responded by warning against the use of Facebook, according to IFEX.
Microsoft bans open source from the Marketplace
Microsoft has raised the ire of the open source community with its Windows Marketplace licence by specifically refusing to allow software covered under an open licence to be distributed.
The licence, which anyone wishing to distribute Windows, Windows Phone, or Xbox applications through the company’s copy of Apple’s App Store is required to agree to, is the usual torrent of legalese – but hides a nasty surprise for those who support open source ideals.
Are you my Facebook friend?
Are you? If not, you can click here and be my Facebook friend. I don’t need you to do that but it would be better if you did, just in case. It’s good for you, it’s good for me, really, you should do it. You need to do it. I don’t really need it but maybe you do. You should, don’t you think? Just click here.
Meanwhile,
Continue reading Are you my Facebook friend?
I and the Bird # 144: The Bird Vocalization Edition
Birders in every hemisphere spend this time of year preparing for the Great Migrations. It does not matter where you live, several species of birds are going arrive at your location, pass through, or simply come out of or flee to the woods or marshes as Spring or Fall approaches. This means it is time to brush up on your birdsong and vocalization knowledge because when the birds are en route or newly arrived they tend to hide and your best bet at identifying them is with the sounds they can’t stop themselves from making.
So, for this edition of the I and the Bird blog carnival, you will be asked to practice your vocalizations as you read through the submissions. For each submission I’ve indicated a bird call. The bird call is the link to the submission. So, when you go to visit the submission, make the bird call at the same time that you click on the link. If you do it correctly, there will be a special dinging sound. If you do it incorrectly, there will be no dinging sound. Keep clicking going through the links until you are able to produce a proper call, indicated by the dinging sound, for each one.
Good luck:
Continue reading I and the Bird # 144: The Bird Vocalization Edition
The Egyptian Revolution, Tweeted
“Zebrafish and Dictionary Atheism,” PZ Myers and Greg Laden on Atheists Talk, Sunday
From Mn Atheists:
Drs PZ Myers and Greg Laden will be our guests on today’s show. PZ is in the Minneapolis/St Paul metro for a pair of talks this weekend. First he will be presenting “The Evolution of Cooperativity” to the Humanists of Minnesota on February 19th, and on the 20th he will be explaining the broader topic of Evolution to the Minnesota Atheists.
PZ Myers is not shy of controversy, as he seems to invoke and generate it at will through his blog, Pharyngula. He writes about atheism, science, politics from a liberal perspective, zebrafish, critical thinking, pirates, sexism and poorly reasoned e-mails. Greg Laden joins PZ for a question and answer session in our studios. Greg generates his own share of controversy at his own blog.
Sunday’s show is more open ended than our usual format. Greg is culling questions posted in the comment section at this post from Greg Laden’s Blog. I invite callers and e-mailers during the live show as well.
The Palin/Bachmann Ticket Moves Into Position
Did anyone notice the straw poll results from the CPAC convention? CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference. With all this talk about Palin and Bachmann and Palin/Bachmann and Bachmann/Palin and so on and so forth, one would be surprised if they didn’t come in at or near the top of the poll. Here were the results:
Ron Raul: 30%,
Mitt Romney: 23%,
Gary Johnson 6%,
Chris Christie 6%,
Newt Gingrich: 5%,
Tim Pawlenty 4%,
Continue reading The Palin/Bachmann Ticket Moves Into Position
The linguistic genius of babies
Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another — by listening to the humans around them and “taking statistics” on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world.