From John Lynch Via Twitter:
PROVO, Utah — Thousands of issues of the Daily Universe student newspaper at Brigham Young University were pulled from newsstands because a photo caption on the front page misidentified leaders of the Mormon church as apostates instead of apostles.
Although they are mostly good at basic arithmetic.
Continue reading It turns out chicks CAN do math
Those people are steeped in bling. Check it out:
Fearing the appearance of their well appointed properties on the Web site would attract criminals scouting for burglary targets, villagers in Broughton, north of London, summoned the police after spotting the car.
The car being the Goolge Camera Car that puts the street level view on Google Maps.
“I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” resident Paul Jacobs told The Times of London.
“The lane.” That makes me laugh.
“My immediate reaction was anger: How dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.
A crime?
“This is an affluent area. We’ve already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it’s an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police.”
Ah. The crime. The crime of having no dough.
Hat Tip: Bioephemera
Perchlorate, a hazardous chemical in rocket fuel, has been found at potentially dangerous levels in powdered infant formula, according to a study (pdf) by a group of Centers for Disease Control scientists. The study, published last month by The Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, has intensified the years-long debate about whether or how the federal government should regulate perchlorate in the nation’s drinking water.
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For the first time, MIT researchers have shown they can genetically engineer viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery.
The new virus-produced batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars, and they could also be used to power a range of personal electronic devices, said Angela Belcher, the MIT materials scientist who led the research team.
According to news reports, the Minnesota Election Contest Judicial Panel finished their review of votes, counting just under 400 absentee ballots that were previous excluded. These votes were included as the result of Former Senator Norm Coleman’s legal challenge to the election. With Senator Al Franken’s lead over Former Senator Norm Coleman rising from 225 at the start of the process to 312 as of a few moments ago, it would appear that Coleman’s challenge has backfired.
The judicial panel still has a few more issues to rule on.
One of the issues os the ca 130 votes that were lost in a Minneapolis precinct. It was previously decided that the machine count, rather than the hand recount, stand in for this set of votes. Even if the votes were thrown out, it would only change the current count by a small amount.
Another outstanding issue is the assertion by the Coleman challenge that some votes were double counted. Again, if this ruling went in favor of Coleman, it would not change the total count too much.
It is estimated that if these two rulings both went Coleman’s way, he would gain fewer than 100 votes.
Coleman is planning to appeal the outcome of the 3 judge panel’s decision in the Minnesota Supreme Court. In that appeal he is expected to argue that many more absentee votes be counted. Even if that were to occur, it is not expected to change the outcome of the election, but it will delay the seating of Senator Franken in Washington. It is now widely accepted that the Coleman challenge and subsequent appeals are nothing more than a bald faced attempt to delay the seating of Democratic Senator Franken, as an overall Republican effort to block the Obama Agenda.
Sources: NPR, WCCO
One of the arguments in favor of unrestricted ownership of firearms in the united states is that the 2nd Ammendment guarantees gun ownership as an inalienable right for all Americans. It doesn’t of course. Depending on which version of the Contitution you look in, it says this:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
or
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
What it really means is what the courts have said, and that is largely a set of 20th century case law leading to the “rights to bear arms” concept. But what it REALLY REALLY means, with respect to having an armed populous, is this:
…Sure, political and bureaucratic takeover isn’t as sexy as a cold, sleek piece of metal that makes noise and holes, but it’s the reality. Eric Rudolph didn’t change anything for any length of time except his own address. Same with the mountain militias. Same with every idiot who ever shot a government agent performing their duties….
Which you will find in its fully expanded form here. Worth the read, go there please.
Some of the symptoms of the autistic condition Asperger Syndrome, such as a need for routine and resistance to change, could be linked to levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research led by the universities of Bristol and Bath.
Normally, people have a surge of this hormone shortly after waking, with levels gradually decreasing throughout the day. It is thought this surge makes the brain alert, preparing the body for the day and helping the person to be aware of changes happening around them.
However, a study by Dr David Jessop from the University of Bristol and Drs Mark Brosnan and Julie Turner-Cobb from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, has found that children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) do not experience this surge.
He wore sex appeal like good cologne, just enough to be a constant undercurrent without knocking anyone over at ten paces….. he stood out against the backdrop of her sleek modern office of steel, leather and glass like a bonfire in a snowdrift.
… No, just fiction. Good fiction by Stephanie Zvan. Check it out.
Do you believe that indoctrination of children into the fundamentalist christian is child abuse? If so, skip this video. If not, watch it and I’m sure it will change your mind.
Hat tip: Colloquy
A cute puppy:
The latest comprehensive survey of Black-faced Spoonbill Platalea minor has revealed a decrease in the number of wintering birds, with 2,041 individuals counted compared to 2,065 in 2008. Coordinated by the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society (BirdLife in Hong Kong) and supported by Wild Bird Society of Japan (BirdLife in Japan), Chinese wild Bird Federation (BirdLife in Taiwan), and the Indochina Programme Office, plus input from Chinese and Korean birdwatchers. This census is one of the best examples of single-species population monitoring in Asia.
In the late 1980s, only a few hundred birds were recorded at two sites in southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, and all were under threat. As recently as 1999, Black-faced Spoonbill was classified by BirdLife on behalf of the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered. At the BirdLife World Conference in Rosenheim, Germany in 1994, BirdLife Partners agreed on the first International Action Plan for the species, coordinated by the Chinese Wild Bird Federation (BirdLife in Taiwan). Implementation workshops were then held in Beijing (1996) and Tokyo (1997). These resulted in a systematic winter census, satellite tracking of migrating individuals, coordination of colour ringing (banding), an increased public awareness of the species and the discovery of new breeding sites in China and Russia and rediscovery in the Philippines The satellite tracking revealed for the first time that the demilitarised zone on the Korean peninsula is the species’s main breeding area.
A new blog carnival, called Scientia Pro Publica, has been launched at Living the Scientific Life. Have a look at edition numero uno.
In June of 1940, France fell to Germany. Among the troops who were overwhelmed by the German attacks were about 17,000 black West African colonial troops with the French Army. Many of these soldiers were shot do death by the Germans, who considered these Africans to be subhumans, as they stood in surrender. Surely, it would be fair to consider this to have been part of the Holocaust.
Then the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese did a pretty good job of trying to take over the world, millions upon millions died in that war, and the rest of the Holocaust happened.
The Allies banded together and put everything they had into defeating the racist, fascist, imperialist, evil Axis forces. And eventually prevailed. And Paris was liberated and the first troops to march into the city just abandoned by the Germans were, suitably, French.
But not the Black French.
The units that would have marched into Paris at the time of liberation consisted of a majority of black faces, as the French Army was staffed at this time primarily with colonial troops. But the black faces were weeded out of the ranks, intentionally, so that the companies of soldiers marching into liberated Paris would be 100% white.
I ask you, what, the fuck, were the Allies fighting for?
This fact has recently come to light (although, presumably, people have known about this since it happened) as the result of a BBC archiving project.
… Charles de Gaulle, made it clear that he wanted his Frenchmen to lead the liberation of Paris.
Allied High Command agreed, but only on one condition: De Gaulle’s division must not contain any black soldiers.
In January 1944 Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, Major General Walter Bedell Smith, was to write in a memo stamped, “confidential”: “It is more desirable that the division mentioned above consist of white personnel.
“This would indicate the Second Armoured Division, which with only one fourth native personnel, is the only French division operationally available that could be made one hundred percent white.”
This is a very interesting article. Go read the rest here.