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.

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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.
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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