What does Jennifer Carroll mean when she says that “Black women” who “look like her” don’t have Lesbian relationships. Does she view herself as too ugly? To pretty? To feminine? Or what?
Did you know that Sony BMG issued a takedown notice to the the Romney campaign takedown notice to kill a the Singing Campaign ad?
Were you wondering where Michele Bachmann got her Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy theory from?
This just reported:
The legal, business information and media company Thomson Reuters said Friday that an amendment to ban gay marriage in Minnesota would be bad for business.
Prominent companies including General Mills and St. Jude Medical spoke out earlier against the proposed amendment, which goes to the voters in November. Minnesota already has a law against gay marriage, but gay marriage opponents say the amendment is necessary to put the ban in the state constitution.
That’s good, but also note that the main group pushing for the amendment has recently raised a LOT of money. Expect this argument to heat up just as the summer starts to cool down.
From Rachel Maddow: Continue reading Reprieve for Mississippi Abortion Clinic
Amazingly, CNN notices that Romney is lying.
This is baby bird week on 10,000 Birds. From the intro post:
Somehow it seemed fitting that after our last theme week – Bird Love Week – that we should spend a full seven days examining what could be the results of that theme. It’s Baby Bird Week on 10,000 Birds and the adorable, fuzzy-wuzzy, itsy-bitsy, baby birdies will be everywhere! Can you handle the cuteness?
If you go to the bottom of that post, you’ll see a current listing of posts…as of this writing there are four beyond the intro…so you can explore them all. My contribution will be up tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.
Pamela Gay does a good job in her talk at TAM 2012 walking the line between telling people to shut up and suggesting that we turn our backs on internet harassment and trolling. By all accounts this talk was the best one given at TAM. That is interesting because the talk is in part an implied indictment of JREF’s and DJ Grothe’s handling of the harassment issue at TAM. But even more importantly, Pamela Gay broadens the focus of the current internet strife to include more inclusive consideration of other real problems, and she highlights a number of excellent examples of people not liking the way something is and going ahead and fixing it. Fortunately, the talk exists as a transcript, which is worth a read, and a careful read. Click here to to get there.
…. while attempting to gang up on President Obama. The action starts at about 5:17.
We’re getting closer to the Impossible Landing that NASA is going to attempt on Mars, and the space agency has sent out a new press release. Continue reading Curiosity Update
I want to tell you about a cool book, but first, here’s something interesting about Dragonflies. Terrestrial animals (like humans) require long chain fatty acids but don’t synthesize them from basic parts. Higher terrestrial plants don’t make the biggest of these molecules either, but plants do make molecules that can be turned into things like EPA and DHA in animals. So, while terrestrial animals can get what they need by consuming other animals or by starting out with plant molecules, it is a long slog from a bunch of readily available simple molecules to large and hard to get but very important long-chain polyunsaturate fatty acids. This is why nutrition experts tell us to eat fish or fish oils. Fish have lots of these molecules already in them.
Where to the fish get them? Well, at the base of aquatic ecosystems are algae that produce these molecules. So, stuff that eats stuff that eats stuff in aquatic systems eventually eats these algae directly or indirectly. And here’s where Dragonflies come in. They hatch and mature through non-adult stages in the aquatic ecosystem. There, the Dragonfly larvae are little tiny super predators, eating other invertebrates and even tiny fish. In this manner they concentrate long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. Then, they emerge as adult insects and fly around where terrestrial animals munch on them. In this way, these rare and important complex molecules become a bit more abundant in terrestrial systems than they otherwise might. This applies broadly to “emerging” insects that start out in an aquatic form, but in some environments the Dragonflies are a major factor. More generally, dragon flies move piles of biomass across the landscape, away from ponds and lakes where bio-molecules naturally accumulate because stuff goes down hill.
Citations for two recent research papers that discuss this are below.
And now for the book. There are over 300 species of Dragonfly and Damselfly in North America east of the Rocky mountains. Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East (Princeton Field Guides)
Paulson also has a Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West
Images provided by Princeton Press.
M. I. Gladyshev, A. Yu. Kharitonov, O. N. Popova, N. N. Sushchik, O. N. Makhutova, & G. S. Kalacheva (2011). Quantitative estimation of dragonfly role in transfer of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems DOKLADY BIOCHEMISTRY AND BIOPHYSICS, 438 (1), 708-710 DOI: 10.1134/S1607672911030094
O. N. Popova, & A. Yu. Kharitonov (1). Estimation of the carry-over of substances by dragonflies from water bodies to land in the forest-steppe of West Siberia CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF ECOLOGY, 5 (2012), 49-56 DOI: 10.1134/S1995425512010043
Abstract: The results of many years’ monitoring of the number and distribution of dragonflies in the Chany area of the Baraba forest-steppe are presented. An estimation of the biomass carry-over by dragonflies from water bodies to land ecosystems is given. The data presented provide evidence of the important role of dragonflies in the migration of substances from water bodies to land.
Louisiana is preparing to spend over $11 million to send 1,365 students to 20 private schools that teach creationism instead of science as part of Governor Bobby Jindal’s new voucher program. It is time to halt the implementation of this creationist voucher program.
It is increasingly clear that one of Governor Jindal’s primary education goals is the teaching of creationism. He supported, signed, and defended the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), Louisiana’s 2008 stealth creationism law, which allows teachers to sneak creationism into public school science classrooms by using creationist supplemental materials. …..
Read the rest here, and Sign the Petition to Stop it!
Because when I say I am a feminist, this happens:
Google and Apple, you ruined my daughter’s birthday!
Well, it wasn’t that bad, but it could have been. Anyway, this is a warning to anyone who uses Apple products of any kind and who uses gmail as their main mail. Continue reading Warning to Apple Product Users Who Use Gmail
There are all kinds of reasons why it does not matter, apparently, that the US Athletes participating in this summer’s Olympics in London will be wearing uniforms made in China. These reasons are things like “Everything is made in China” and “They don’t make clothing in America anyway” and so on and so forth. But there are also reasons that it matters and that team should, in fact, be wearing uniforms made in US shops. Union shops.
Did you know that when a political party runs a candidate or pushes an issue, and they make t-shirts, bumper stickers, and other artifacts of rhetoric, they get those things produced in US based union shops? Why? Because they are patriotic. Even the Republicans are patriotic about this. To demonstrate and document this patriotism, the design of these shirts and other items typically includes the “Union Bug.” The Union Bug is a little icon thingie that marks an item as Union produced.
Political candidates do this because people who represent Americans in the American Government should be supporting American workers. One can argue all one wants about union (and if you are anti-union, your arguments would be stupid, but that’s for another time) but one sure fire way to support American workers is to have your t-shirts and Literature printed up in a Union Shop.
If you are a company who wants Americans to buy your stuff you should be buying their stuff. You should have your literature and base ball caps or whatever other artifacts of marketing you produce made down the street in your local union shop, not in China. If you are an activist organization and you are trying to clean up the environment or improve social justice or whatever, you should have your literature and shirts produced in a union shop, where workers conditions are (relatively) guaranteed and a living wage is ensured. It is the way humans should treat each other, the way politicians should act, and the way organization should implement their outreach and information flow.
I would love to add this: As long as the Olymic Team is taking taxpayer money, they should be buying their uniforms from taxpayers. But the US Government does not fund the US Olympic team. And they should. But since they don’t, that is not part of the argument.
But the argument still holds. We can’t do much about what people do when they shop at JC Penny’s and Target. It is very difficult to be a human in this country and not by a lot of products made by underpaid workers in horrible conditions who are taking away your neighbor’s jobs, etc. etc. And we can even be annoyed at US industry. I gave up a long time ago on buying cars produced by American automakers, because they were using their American-ness as a sales gimmick and producing crap (in my price range). Now, I intentionally own a car that is made 100% by American workers in America in an environmentally friendly plant. The 1%ers who own the plant, however, are not Americans. They are Japanese. Nani nani boo boo, Detroit, you’re doin’ it rong!
Oh, and the Uniforms look stupid. Well, not stupid, really, but annoyingly militaristic. If I was an Olympic athlete, I’d wear something else during big parade. I’d be wearing my carhartts.
Here’s a pretty good video discussing the Higgs Boson and stuff. It turns out you can’t have anti-gravity. Oh well. Hat tip Nathan.
Are you a Secular Woman? I am. Joined a couple of weeks ago. Kimm Rippere is the president of Secular Woman, and she’ll be the guest on Atheist Talk Radio on Sunday Morning. Live, so you can call in. All the details are HERE.