I'd rather see centipedes

 

...than not see whatever they're eating.

Tony Soprano out of context

Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this. season 1 ep 13

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2012 Republican presidential ticket

perfect

this here >

I'd sign this letter, too

link

cast of Enterprise 2

Cdr. Charles "Trip" Tucker III is a chimera-character. I'm prety sure he's designed to combine the homespun Southern charm, best-personal-friend-o-the-cap'n role, and emotional-homunculus-on-the-right-shoulder trope-purpose of McCoy with the more cynically targeted appeal-to-young-women function of Chekov*, wrapped up in Scotty's old crew-slot.

Unfortunately he comes across to me mostly like a Pensacola frat-boy. Since I already know he gets the girl woman Vulcaness in the end, that's kind of a drag.



* even to me, tuning in to the second-season primetime premier the night before my 8th birthday, it was clear that Chekov was a Russian Davy Jones.

Heart of Cheney

I just learned that Dick Cheney received a heart transplant a few weeks ago.
They say he had suffered "at least five" heart attacks, the first at 37 yoa. Many of us have always suspected, however, that his real cardiac problems were similar to The Grinch's:

3, maybe 4 sizes too small?

In any case, the guy's heart was so dead that for almost 2 years he was a cyborg, with an implanted pump doing the work that his left ventricle couldn't. No pulse.
here's the device:

I forget where I got this pic; maybe the NY Times.

Now it's all been pulled out and he walks yet among the living with somebody else's heart.
But it's the end of a beautiful metaphor.

On the cast of Enterprise

Hoshi is the nerd's Mary Ann to T'Pol's nerd's Ginger.

UPDATE 4/30/2012: bwa-ha!!! 2004!

100 Outstanding US Journalists. and years.

Here's the list.

All the usual suspects you'd usually suspect, but I smiled to see many of my favorites:

Steinbeck
HST
John McPhee!
Garry Trudeau
'Hitch'
Rachel Carson
Howard Cosell (yes, I'll stand by that)
Tom Wolfe

The rest (the Professor + Mary Ann), with nice bios for everybody at the link above.

an old poem

Ring around the rosie,
 a pocketful of posie.

Ashes.
Ashes.

We all fall down.

classic Star Trek dialog

Absoluely  critical moment:
Season 2, Ep. 1: Amok Time @ ~20.00:
Kirk [of Spock, to McCoy; and defying direct Starfleet orders]: I owe him my life a dozen times over: Isn't that worth a career?!
He's my friend.

I am the 99%

via Chris Clarke

People for the Ethical Treatment of Opisthokonts

...or Deuterostomes, or Lophotrochozoans, or whatever.

[the point being, y'see, the completely arbitrary whim by which "animals" is typically defined]

not my chair

yeah, I just saw this for the first time the other day. Sue me.

You read it here first

...unless you, you know, didn't.

Idea for a new social media platform: combine Blogger and Twitter.
People can issue 'bleats'.



as they follow the flock, see...

Tortoise splitters

According to Bob Murphy et al. the desert tortoise ought to be split into at least two species, called Gopherus agassizi (California/Nevada/Utah) and G. morafkai (Arizona and, for now, Sonora and Sinaloa).

OK.
My reaction to most taxonomy papers is basically The Dude's:

But as opinions go, I guess Bob Murphy's is a good one.

I am happy they used the opportunity to coin a new North American tortoise name to honor Dave Morafka; he was a good guy.

RIP

Look for serious conservation/political fallout from this one.

-------------------------------------------------------------

here's a FAQ

and here's a map:

This station is: Jamaica. This is the train to: Babylon.

what's wrong with this picture?

View Larger Map

Two views of an adult Calvin

Calvin, Hobbes, and Bacon (sweet)

CAL v.1n (not)

nother Hero

because at the moment  I am digging Reese and the Smooth Ones (1969), Lester Bowie:

there goes the East Mojave

UPDATE: oh dear. Google Earth has updated to the post-landrape landscape.
Well, rest assured that both photos now (4/21/2012) show early stages of the planned landrape construction and so pretty soon, I guess, with further updates at G**gle's end, the contrast will go the opposite way.
damn it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ivanpah Valley, north of I-15.
Then, via Google Earth:


View Larger Map

Now, via Basin and Range Watch

I'd sign this letter

A six-word open letter to the environmental movement.

Bring it, Paraguay!

U.S. politicians and Garcia

Any advice, Jer?

so long, Bear

re: the Thread, anymore

I will stipulate the almost incredibly passive-aggresive nature of this post.
have a nice day

Two years of the as yet interminable Thread

So that's two years, 175.76 subThreads, 135,539 comments.
Year Two alone accounted for 144.76 of the subThreads and 107,490 of the comments (= 79%).
Here's the overview:

Fig. 1: [click to enlarge] Comment count for the first two years of Pharyngula's Endless Thread. The colorful vertical lines mark each of the first 50 or so subThreads, but I gave up on that shit. Red threadmarkers with adherent vestigial green threads mark anastomoses. The pink threadmarkers are the 1- and 2-year marks. Somewhere in there in light blue are the parallel subsubThreads CXXVb and CLXIIb.

Up, up up. It's a long way from last year for damn sure.

by pretty much unpopular request

Really?
man, am I loath to re-enter this conversation, but

Here we go

posted in memory of someone I did not know

for SC

Hemiphractus fasciatus via Jerry Coyne

Kermit the Frog via Jim Henson

Snapping turtles of Long Island

this or this

read all about it

The Colors of Christmas Through the Decades

White Christmas (1942)

Green Christmas (1958)

Blue Xmas (1962)

Black Christmas (1974)

Yellow Christmas (1986)

(Charlie) Brown Christmas* (1992)

Orange Christmas Orange (2003)


*yeah, kind of a stretch. *shrug*

last chance? please help

Laura Cunningham photo.


If enough people write letters in the next few days, it seems there is a chance to stop the TopKill of a big chunk of Ivanpah Valley.
Please read and act if you can:
Save Ivanpah Valley

depressing news

I used to know this place really well*.
Read it and weep.
I did.

*I spent a good part of three years just below the first 'e' of 'Preserve' in the map shown here. Keep reading.

teh Truth

Biology is always more complex than you think.

bivalves vs. amniotes

This post at Tet Zoo reminded me of a photo I had stashed away. Apologies for utterly forgetting the source.

This is a juvenile stinkpot (Sternotherus odoratus) killed by a freshwater mussel of some sort.

Nature! Red in tooth uh valve and um claw umbo.

They're so cute when they're little

[click to enlarge. You know you want to.]

Mem'ries

Light the corners of my mind

Misty watercolored mem'ries


Of The Way We Were...

Heroes, another in a series

Paul Krassner: Satirist, author, underground publisher, and raving, unconfined nut.

New New Thread Everlasting Omnibus Update Toodle-oo

[meta: I guess this is probably the last one of these I'll do.

Anyone interested in the data can e me: svendimiloATgmail]

Here is the State of teh Thread: Two years! Hoo-ray!
[a kind of minimalist 2-y retrospective from the IJoTS is over here.]
Updatedate: 02/25/2011
Comment Count: 135698
Current Episode: Episode CLXXVI: Atheism ain’t just for us old geezers (link)

Fig. 1: [click to enlarge] Comment count for the first two years of Pharyngula's Endless Thread. The colorful vertical lines mark each of the first 50 or so subThreads, but I gave up on that shit. Red threadmarkers with adherent vestigial green threads mark anastomoses. The pink threadmarker is the 1-year mark. Somewhere in there in light blue are the parallel subsubThreads CXXVb and CLXIIb..

Archives and detailed history of teh Thread are squirreled away here, frozen in time on 3/30/2010 forever.

so it goes