It's been a long hard week both in the macro and the micro. But here we are with a fresh new one to break and sully. And you know what to do.

So What Was Really in Spock's Scanner
Well he was always busy watching something in it. Now the truth can finally be told: he was goofing off at work just like you. And he's also a dirty, smelly Vulcan.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:07 PM | Comments (616)
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Goddamned barbarians.

“The children were literally slaughtered,” an IDF officer said, describing the scene, including the children’s toys spilled out on the floor and covered in blood. “This is one of the most brutal attacks we have ever seen.”

This is what happens in the real world, while our President and State Department cluck their tongues about settlements. Commander in Chief Scoldy McScolderson plays a few rounds of golf while the world erupts in flames, and dares to offer us platitudes and nonsensical crap musings about how bad "bullying" can be.

A three month old baby girl named Hadas. Two little boys, 3 year old Elad, and eleven year old Yoav. And their mother and father.

I can't even find the words to express my contempt for these monsters.

Story from Slublog. A father just like me. Younger, smarter, and better lookin, but the rest is pretty much like that.

UPDATE: dear God. video via commenter Beedubya. Strong content warning.

UPDATE II [Slublog] - As if the story above isn't enough to boil your blood into steam, guess who had a party yesterday?

Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children.

Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy "is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank."

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he "clearly and firmly denounces the terror attack, just as I have denounced crimes against Palestinians.

Three guesses on who the U.S. will ask to "show restraint" in the wake of this atrocity.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:15 PM | Comments (563)
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Apparently this is a thing.

I may not give a damn about any college sports but at least we can all agree on one important thing...soccer sucks.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:14 PM | Comments (40)
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Normally not that big of a deal but this guy is a real tool, even by the low standards one generally has for professional mouthpieces and people who work at the State Department.

It hasn't been confirmed yet but the reason is suspected to be his recent idiotic comments about the treatment of accused Wikileaks source Bradley Manning.

State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley, speaking at an academic event regarding new media and foreign policy Thursday, called the treatment of accused Wikileaks leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid," according to reporting from BBC reporter Philippa Thomas.

Crowley was speaking at an event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he was asked about the treatment of Manning, who is currently detained at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.

Crowley criticized the Defense Department's handling of Manning but added that "Nonetheless Bradley Manning is in the right place." Crowley continued that "there is sometimes a need for secrets... for diplomatic progress to be made."

Crowley's comments got lost in the bigger news of Libya and then Japan but his fate was pretty well sealed on Friday when Obama was asked about them and Manning's treatment in general. Obama sidestepped the Crowley comments but said this about Manning's pre-trial confinement.

"With respect to Private Manning, you know, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards," Mr. Obama said. "They assured me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well."

Yeah, putting the President in that spot is not a career enhancing move.

I've long disliked Crowley because of his comments during the 2009 Iran uprising.

The State Department strongly rejected claims that the U.S. was interfering in the disputed June 12 election, pointing out that diplomats from other countries had also been summoned.

"I suspect we are in good company. As the president has said, we are not interfering in the debate that Iranians are having about their election and its aftermath," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "This is not about the United States."

If you follow the link, you'll see that I was not amused at the use of the word "debate" to describe the slaughter of peaceful protesters. My language was a tad bit harsh and somewhat unprofessional but I was infuriated at the time. In retrospect if I could do it over again...I"d use even harsher language.

Not that the next mouthpiece will be better or the policy they will be spinning for will be any more coherent but I'm happy to see this guy go.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:02 AM | Comments (374)
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Here is another thread.

By the way, if you miss the days where the news was less occupied with gigantic killer waves and exploding nuclear reactors and more so with a total rockstar from Mars with tiger blood, you can thank me later:

BTW art thread (finally) later today instead of Wednesday. If you have submissions for it send to theoneandonlyfinn(at)gmail.com.

Posted by: CAC at 06:45 AM | Comments (92)
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For those who'd rather chat about things not involving books.

Posted by: Monty at 05:28 AM | Comments (241)
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One thing that's often struck me about the discussion of human evolution -- both pro and con -- is that the people who are arguing often don't know much about the subject. Schools teach the subject (if they teach it at all) very badly, and the shriekers on both right and left have so muddied the issue that many people still aren't sure if evolution is a science, an unproven theory, or just some nasty leftist/atheist lie.

I don't want to re-fight the battle here (you can get plenty of yelling on that topic elsewhere on the internets). But I'd encourage people, regardless of their predisposition to the whole idea of evolution by natural selection, to read some books on the modern state of the theory. A lot has changed in just the last twenty years, especially in genetics and the fields of sociobiology and evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo").

First up is a basic explanation of what the so-called "Modern Synthesis" of evolution by natural selection really is. The best modern book on this topic, in my opinion, is Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker. Yes, Dawkins is a militant atheist jackass; yes, he's a complete tool. No matter. This is still the best book I've read about the basic theory underpinning evolution. His later books tend to be strident anti-religious tracts, but not this one.

Another good primer is Jerry A. Coyne's Why Evolution is True. Again: whether you agree or not, you need to understand where the modern science is at, and this book does a splendid job of explaining it.

When you've got the basic theory under your belt, a good follow-on is Matthew Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. This book does a good job of explaining why humans are the way they are -- why in some ways we're like our ape cousins and in other ways not.

You might give Sean Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo a try. This book ties the gene theory of evolution to the "evolution by natural selection" science in a comprehensible way for beginners.

For Christians (and maybe even those of other religions who struggle with the implications of human evolution), I've found Karl Giberson's book Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution to be a necessary "bridge" to the more science-oriented books. It's more of a cultural history than a science book, but it does a good job of showing how religious belief and and understanding of human evolution do not necessarily conflict. Kenneth Miller's Finding Darwin's God is another book in the same vein.

Finally, one of my favorite books on the philosophy of science ("How do we know this is true?") is Edmund O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. (When you hear someone -- again, pro or con -- say that evolution is "a theory", what does that mean? This book will explain it.)

(You'll note that I didn't include any of Darwin's own books in this list. They're mainly interesting as historical artifacts now from a scientific standpoint, and a beginner is better advised to use modern sources to understand the current state of the theory. Darwin was writing long before, e.g., we knew anything about genetics. It's amazing how far he got on simple observation and intuition!)

Posted by: Monty at 04:41 AM | Comments (259)
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A Brief History of Time:

Daylight Savings Time that is.

"The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin (portrait at right) during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay, "An Economical Project."

Some of Franklin's friends, inventors of a new kind of oil lamp, were so taken by the scheme that they continued corresponding with Franklin even after he returned to America.

The idea was first advocated seriously by London builder William Willett (1857-1915) in the pamphlet, "Waste of Daylight" (1907), that proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September. As he was taking an early morning a ride through Petts Wood, near Croydon, Willett was struck by the fact that the blinds of nearby houses were closed, even though the sun was fully risen. When questioned as to why he didn't simply get up an hour earlier, Willett replied with typical British humor, "What?" In his pamphlet "The Waste of Daylight" he wrote:

"Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shortage as Autumn approaches; and everyone has given utterance to regret that the clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used"

It all seems so clear now. This was just a money-grubbing scheme by Big Lamp Oil. I'm quite certain that Halliburton and the evil Mr. Cheney were involved as well.

Water resistant to 50 meters. 10000 year warranty. Stylish brushed nickel band sold separately. more...

Posted by: Genghis at 06:33 PM | Comments (522)
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Above The Post Update:
[DrewM.] Looks like a second reactor at Fukushima is in trouble.

AP: Japanese government spokesman says partial meltdown is likely under way at second reactor

(I removed something about the first reactor because I'm not sure I was right. There's enough bad/wrong/confusing information out already)

Original Post:
From Kyodo News, another reactor loses cooling functions:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday another reactor of its quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plants had lost its cooling functions, while at least 15 people at a nearby hospital were found to have been exposed to radioactivity.

The utility supplier notified the government early Sunday morning that the No. 3 reactor at the No. 1 Fukushima plant had lost the ability to cool the reactor core. The reactor is now in the process of releasing radioactive steam, according to top government spokesman Yukio Edano.

It was the sixth reactor overall at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants to undergo cooling failure since the massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck Japan on Friday.

And, for reference purposes, pictures of BWR plant innards. Reports are that Fukushima #1 lost secondary containment and that primary containment is still in place. I'm guessing the first picture more accurately depicts the structure of Fukushima #1 than the second, which shows a single large containment shell. Maybe our resident nuke experts can shed some light on this.

more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 06:28 PM | Comments (398)
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That stupid-ass time change is upon us again.

This tinkering with clocks is our inheritance from a people obsessed with time. Clocks spread rapidly in early America. They were expensive imports, but popular among the Puritans, who despised idleness. Massachusetts passed a law in 1663 making the wasting of time a crime: “No person, householder or other shall spend his time idly or unprofitably, under pain of such punishment as the court shall think meet to inflict.” A century later, the Boston-born Benjamin Franklin (“time is money”) proposed a version of daylight saving time as a joke to stop slothful Parisians from sleeping in. But it was an English Puritan, Ralph Thoresby, who invented an early alarm clock.

By the mid-19th century, Americans were producing their own clocks. Workshops in Connecticut produced cheap models with wooden gears. Peddlers sold them from coast to frontier. The “Yankee clock peddlers” managed to “stick up a clock in every cabin in the western country,” reported George William Featherstonhaugh, an English geographer who visited the States. “Wherever we have been, in Kentucky, in Indiana, in Illinois, in Missouri, and here in every dell of Arkansas, and in cabins where there was not a chair to sit on, there was sure to be a Connecticut clock.”

There's a fairly interesting recounting of the phenomena of setting our clocks this way. But it boils down to one simple fact: Congress is made up of a bunch of meddlers.

Set your clocks one hour ahead. (So you lose an hour of sleep...or an hour of drinking while sobbing over your pathetic existence, as the case may be.)

I'll be all messed up for a week because of the change. As far as my body is concerned, the sun is in the wrong place in the sky. I might as well be on another planet.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:18 PM | Comments (48)
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