The following videos are freaky and disturbing in many ways.
Continue reading Country Western Star and Gun Nut Troy Gentry Kills a Bear in Minnesota →

In principle, if not in detail:

Lillian McEwen was that woman.

At the time, she was on good terms with Thomas. The former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel had dated him for years, even attending a March 1985 White House state dinner as his guest. She had worked on the Hill and was wary of entering the political cauldron of the hearings. She was never asked to testify, as then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who headed the committee, limited witnesses to women who had a “professional relationship” with Thomas.

Now, she says that Thomas often said inappropriate things about women he met at work — and that she could have added her voice to the others, but didn’t.

The story

Hat tip: Virgil Samms

Penguins Unbound (the web site for the Monthly Meeting of Linux Enthusiasts) announces the Ubuntu 10.10 Release Party and Install Fest for October 30th, 2010 at 10:00am to 4:00pm at TIES on Snelling Avenue in Falcon Heights (which you may know of as Saint Paul), Minnesota.

Details here.

And I’m not talking about what you hear when you play the album backwards …
Continue reading Paul is dead. →

The Ration of Reason is a new science nature and skeptics podcast in which podcaster Matt Johnson and sometimes Samantha Johnson read selected science, nature, or skeptic related blog posts.

Today’s installment includes one of mine (“The most important human adaptation“): Ep. 4: Ostriches Don’t… Most Important Human Adaptation and One-Way Mars Missions.

Check it out!

And in this case, the teabagger is an actual tea party candidate, in the sense that the Republican Party is the Tea Party and Joe Miller is the Republican Nominee for the Senate.

Continue reading Alaska Teabagger uses US Military Guards to Detain, Threaten Journalists →

This guy is not interested in anything but hearing is own voice. Obviously he knows exactly where the money is coming from.

It should not really matter how long it takes to boot your OS. Why? Because a good OS will start up once after a major system upgrade, then stay on forever after unless there is a power failure. If you want to shut down the computer you can hibernate the state to keep all your apps ‘running’ and files ‘open.’ You never really need to reboot, so why worry if a boot takes one minute, two, or three?

Unless, of course, your operating system is Windows. In this case, it matters a LOT how long it takes to reboot because you have to reboot the damn thing every time somebody’s hat falls off. So, Windows booting time is important.

JH at Linux in Exile has done a number of Windows/Linux boot comparisons. His results to date have always shown Windows to be slower. Many people insist that there are data that show that Windows is always faster. I personally know that Windows is slower because my wife and I have fairly similar laptops, but mine runs Linux and hers is a managed Windows system. When we both turn our computers on at about the same time, mine boots up, I do my stuff, I hand her my laptop and she does whatever web-based things she can do on my laptop, we make dinner, feed the baby and put him to sleep, maybe paint the living room, etc., then her laptop is maybe booted up, almost.

OK, I exaggerate but that’s what it feels like.

Anyway, JH has a new test that is slightly biased towards letting one of the two operating systems win the race to boot, and the results shocked me. Have a look.

Today is Genie Scott’s birthday. Genie is loved by all in the community of biological scientists because of her central role, as director of the National Center for Science Education, in fighting the good fight against irrational efforts to teach creationism in our public schools and elsewhere. Genie is the author of several books, articles, and book chapters, including Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction and Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools.

Where is Science in the Public Forum Heading? It’s time for a discussion!

Most know Ira Flatow as a science journalist, producer, and as the host of “Science Friday,” broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR) every Friday afternoon. But did you know about his Minnesota connection? He was the original host and writer for the Emmy award winning “Newton’s Apple,” which broadcast from the television studios at KTCA in St. Paul, Minnesota. Science communicators Greg Laden and Lynn Fellman will ask Ira about the major changes in delivering science news and the effectiveness of new media for science education. Science is changing our culture and Ira has insights on the value of communicating science through the humanities.

Ira Flatow is a national science journalist working in multiple media: TV, web, blogger, national speaker and book author, and most widely known as the host of the very popular radio show “Science Friday” which is a major stopping point for science geeks on their weekly rounds.

Greg Laden is a scientist, a science educator, author and Scienceblogs.com blogger focused on biological anthropology, the creation-evolution “debate” and human evolution.

Lynn Fellman is a visual artist who also speaks and writes about the intersection of art and science; most recently at the “Personal Genomes” meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Lab.

More details, links, here.