I want to point you to a post written by Katie Burgess, a community organizer and artist in South Minneapolis (originally from Maine). As executive Director of the Trans Youth Support Network, Katie was invited to give a presentation at the 18th Annual National Coming Out Day Luncheon. It turns out that a major sponsor of the luncheon at which she was to speak was Cargill. You may or may not have heard of Cargill, but if you live in the Twin Cities you know of them as the corporation that … well, owns all the food and the means of producing food (along with one or two other corporations).

Katie went ahead and spoke truth to power. Read the blog post, and the speech with is reproduced therein.

I have a few items for you from the Evolution Front.

First, you can have a free copy of an excerpt form the book Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging, and Mating by Leslie Brunetta and Catherine L. Craig: Click here for the PDF file.

That was complements of the NCSE. Speaking of the NCSE, you can also have the latest copy of the Reports of the National Center for Science Education in its new on-line format:

Continue reading Evolution for you, for everyone, and for the spiders →

A new study confirming the accuracy of existing global temperature records has been ignored by the all the major television news outlets, except for one mention in a CNN news brief. But the omission is most conspicuous at Fox News, which routinely casts doubt on the temperature data, accuses climate scientists of doctoring research to exaggerate global warming, and often just makes up its own temperature facts….

Read more

Looks interesting, but so far my “highlighting” in ebooks is fairly quirky and has to do with specific objectives I have that others may not know. In other words, sharing them would be potentially problematic considering how easy and common it is to take anyone’s words off the web and get all whingy about them.

We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.

Continue reading Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies →

Ruh roh.
Continue reading One still on run in Florida after double prison break →

In a postcard-worthy spot on Big Mountain in Montana stands a statue of Jesus Christ. The statue is in close proximity to Whitefish Mountain Resort in Whitefish, Mont., and it has been something of a curiosity to skiers over the years.

The statue was put there more than 50 years ago by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, to honor World War II veterans.

Problem is the statue is on land that is part of a national forrest, so its placement constitutes a church-state separation violation. The U.S. Forest Service had planned to remove the statue after receiving a complaint from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) until it learned why the statue had been placed there.

Read More

w00t! My blog post on Urban Heat Islands has won the prestigious Editor’s Selection Award from ResearchBlogging.org News!

See the awarding blog post here, and the awarded blog post here.

Thank you Sarah Kendrew.

Two other posts won the award as well: Ovarian Cancer at Microfluidic Future and In Praise of the Comet at the.soft.anonymous. I suppose we will be splitting the prize money.

The psychic told the kid that she was cursed, but could buy her way out of damnation.
Continue reading Psychic Arrested in Alleged Child Scam →

This announcement was made at a meeting of the Frontline Club:

Video streaming by Ustream

“In order to ensure our future survival, we are forced to suspend all publishing operations to direct all our resources to fighting the blockade and raising funds”.

See details here.

If anyone reading this knows the (Chinese?) dialects being spoken, feel free to throw in a translation! (Or must make stuff up if you like.)

Below the fold. May not be work safe. Depending on where you work.

Continue reading All this video needs is a giant spider →

The Universe has been simulated more accurately than ever before. There’s a video. More whooping cranes have been shot to death, you can check on the details yourself but I suspect this problem is related to the fact that you can legally hunt some cranes (not whooping cranes) so you accidentally shoot the nearly extinct cranes.

What is your professional responsibility? Physioprof wants to know. What does a science librarian want to read? How are we doing with this malaria vaccine? Scientists were recently lauded at the white house.

What are the most pressing energy related challenges? There’s a poll on that.

Check out this cool brown dwarf, and video asking questions about homeopathy.