…and release as much carbon into the atmosphere as we can. HERE’S WHY.
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The 26th mile was dedicated to the Newtown victims
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Feed me or I’ll die, and possibly take you with me!
Years ago it was pointed out by somebody, probably Tinbergen or Lack or Wynn-Edwards or one of the other great bird-savvy ethologists of the day, that young Pelicans would blackmail their parents by biting their own wings, a very self defeating activity for a bird with a huge and powerful beak. “If you don’t feed me right way, I’m taking off this wing and your reproductive success is done!” they seemed to be saying.
More recently a study of Babblers in South Africa may have demonstrated a similar kind of extortion….
Read the rest of my monthly contribution to 10,000 birds HERE.
The rest of my stuff at 10,000 Birds is HERE.
Atheist Voices of Minnesota Mention
The book Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories
While Prometheus Books is the grandfather of publishing atheism books, there are two upstarts, another indication of the category’s strength. The newest is Freethought House, founded in 2011 and debuting last August with Atheist Voices of Minnesota edited by the press’s publisher, Bill Lehto. He says the house plans to publish up to four atheism titles a year, the next being Deliverance at Hand! by James Zimmerman (2013), a memoir by the former Jehovah’s Witness. Da Capo Press has another out-of-religion memoir with Hope After Faith: An Ex-Pastor’s Journey from Belief to Atheism by Jerry DeWitt with Ethan Brown (June). Lehto says among the reasons he founded Freethought Press was to promote more moderate voices. “I think there is this view of atheists that they are all militants who want to destroy religion, and I wanted there to be a book out there that isn’t a diatribe against religion, but just personal stories.”
Anthony Leiserowitz on Making People Care About Climate Change
Climate Denialists Attack Author on Amazon. Again.
Once again, the winged monkeys of climate change denialim are writing fake, stupid, made up an absurd reviews of Michael Man’s book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines
If you’ve read the book and like it and have not written a review of it on Amazon, please go do so! Help a scientist out.
Thank you very much.
Soviet Era Space Flight White Lies
Yuri Gagarin’s Falsified Record – It Happened in Space
Celebrity Swatting: 4Chan? Probably
You know about celebrity swatting? It’s when 4chaners trick the police into arriving at a celebrity’s home under the assumption that there is a hostage situation or something like that. It is incredibly stupid, obnoxious, dangerous, and a famous 4chaner-er (whom you probably know of but whose name I will not mention or he’ll do bad things to me) told me he has done several times.
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Nice going, assholes.
Jonathan Winters 1964 The Stick
Remember, before you get mad at him, this was 1964.
The Hermit of Maine
Maine is my favorite state. If you’ve not visited then your life is an empty shell and you don’t even know it. But it is also true that I’ve seen and heard some of the strangest things I’ve ever encountered there. So strange I can’t even tell you about it. The story that recently emerge from the Pine Tree State, about a man who became a hermit nearly 30 years ago, is not as strange as all of that, but you will enjoy it:
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I hear he’s a very good prisoner.
13 Oil Spills in 30 Days
They always say they won’t spill the oil. Then they spill the oil. And we seem to not mind. We should mind
From here, this:
This was a slow month for oil spills, compared to those moments when a tanker hits the rocks or a retreating army opens the spigots.
The Corporation. Have you seen it?
Have you seen The Corporation
The film has a website, here. In some countries you can watch at least part of the film there (it may also be on YouTube, I’ve not checked lately) and The DVD
Minneapolis Mayor Rybak on MSBNC inre Gun Control
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The new bird flu: Is it serious?
There is a new outbreak of a bird flu in eastern China, referred to as H7N9. The first thing you need to know is that human populations have not been previously exposed (to any degree) to H7 or N9 type virus, so if this virus were to mutate in such as way as to spread human to human, the result could be very serious. Moreover, the “H” component of the virus is thought to have a genetic sequence that is known to readily mutate into form that would be target (bind to) human rather than bird cells.
The virus has been found in chickens, pigeons, and ducks in markets where live birds are sold. It is not known if there is a particular species harboring the virus, acting as a reservoir, but chances are there is one species of bird out there somewhere that has been passing the virus to other birds probably in the context of the live bird markets. It is possible that the reservoir is a domestic bird or a wild bird.
Health officials are concerned because the number of human cases seems to be rising dramatically. A few weeks ago a few people were infected and there had been a few deaths. The most recent information, probably a few days old, indicates that 24 humans have been infected of whom 8 have died, across 11 cities separated by hundreds of kilometers, but with most of the cases in a couple of locations including the vicinity of Shanghai.
Also, birds with the virus appear healthy. This is different than the more famous H5N1 bird flu, which made birds sick and thus made it possible to survey for areas where the virus was around.
The more pessimistic interpretation of all of this suggests that this is a “perfect storm” of factors to start a real pandemic. The virus is spread over a large area in heavily populated areas. The most direct ways of identifying potential reservoirs is unavailable. Humans are not predisposed with any sort of immunity to the virus. Genetically, the parts that would make it a human virus are primed to do so. The mortality rate is very high. And so on.
The more optimistic interpretation would note that a fast spreading disease like this is more likely to wipe itself out quickly. A high mortality rate is often seen in the early days of an emerging disease. People got sick and died because no one was expecting it, but with a better planned response moving forward, that rate should drop. We know a lot more about flu virus genetics and transmission than even just a few years go, so the science is a powerful tool. Most importantly, there is no human to human transmission of the virus at this time. Unless that happens, this is an important public health crisis and will have impacts on the economy linked to birds, but we are not all going to die. From this. And so on.
I’m not sure if this is behind a paywall, but most of the information here is from this piece in Nature. See also this from the CDC. CDC calls this an “evolving situation.” Haha.
Photo Credit: IvanWalsh.com via Compfight cc
The Cult of Lego
The Cult of Lego is a thing … a cult … a past time, a cultural phenomenon. But it is also a book called, as you might guess, The Cult of LEGO
The book is written by John Baichtal, of Make Magazine and Wired GeekDad blog and Joe Meno, the founder of Brick Journal. The publishers describe the book thusly: “The Cult of LEGO® takes you on a thrilling illustrated tour of the LEGO community and its creations. You’ll meet LEGO fans from all walks of life, like professional artist Nathan Sawaya, brick filmmaker David Pagano, the enigmatic Ego Leonard, and the many devoted AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO) who spend countless hours building their masterpieces.” And that is pretty accurate.
Lego has an interesting history. The company Lego Group is Danish and was founded in 1932, an early on made a variety of toys. “LEGO” comes from Leg godt” which is danish for “Play Well.”
The company survived, perhaps even thrived ruing, Nazi occupation of Denmark. They company started making injection molded toys after WW II, and began production of the Lego blocks we are familiar with today in 1947.
We learn from The Cult of LEGO
Also, there are about 200,000 Youtube Videos that address LEGO. However, if you search for “lego” on Youtube there are over 13 million entries. That exceeds the 9.5 million entries one finds in searching the word “Evolution.” (Presumably both search terms find many entries that are not specifically about the building bricks or Darwin’s famous theory.)
The book is totally pro-LEGO, almost jingoistically so, but if you are a LEGO cultist, you will not mind. The Cult of LEGO
Chapter 1: The History of LEGO
Chapter 2: Building Again
Chapter 3: Minifig Mania
Chapter 4: (Re)creating Icons
Chapter 5: Building from Imagination
Chapter 6: LEGO Art
Chapter 7: Telling Stories
Chapter 8: Micro/Macro
Chapter 9: Digital Brickage
Chapter 10: LEGO Robotics: Building Smart Models
Chapter 11: Gatherings
Chapter 12: Serious LEGO
I’ve covered a lot of LEGO related books on this blog. This book is different from all the others in that it is not a “how to” book. Rather, it is a guide to the bigger picture of LEGO world, a coffee table book to place right next to your latest LEGO creation or perhaps, on the coffee table you’ve made out of LEGOs. In your room made of LEGOs, in your house made of LEGOs, where you live along side various LEGO people you have made.
No other book I’ve seen says “I welcome our new LEGO overlords” better than this one.
