Year: 2006
The Barroom
Posted on December 4, 2006 in Relationships Responsibility
The worst fights I have watched in my time concern who gets to be the victim.
Not So Level Playing Field for Chavez
Posted on December 4, 2006 in Foreign Relations
Hasn’t anyone on the left noticed that when a Latin American president pursues a policy of land reform he finds himself lying in a pool of his own blood?
Borat Again
Posted on December 4, 2006 in Humor?
Borat gives his reasons why Bush should be impeached.
Such a curious liberal hero Borat is. I have my reasons why I don’t like him.
Friday Anteater Blogging – Pangolin in Peril!
Posted on December 1, 2006 in Xenartha
Foresters in India found a pangolin snuffling around far from its natural habitat last week:
Praveen Kumar said that today morning when he got a call from Mullanpur, the residents were terrified seeing the new kind of animal and compared it with a dianasour. He said that he reached the place and told the people about the animal. He said that the animal was non-poisonous and was very gentle in nature but the residents still seemed scary. [sic]
Confusion about this edentate were rife in the Indian media. One source declared it to be “a distant cousin of the dinosaur”.
Who needs cat or squid blogging when anteaters combine the best qualities of both?
Drowned Rats
Posted on November 29, 2006 in Strange
I’d hate to be a subject in this study:
Neuroscientist Elizabeth Gould of Princeton University and other researchers have found that many types of stress inhibit neurogenesis in rodents and primates. “We were very curious to see whether the reported effect of sleep deprivation on neurogenesis was related to stress or whether this is something specific to sleep,” she says.
To keep rats awake, Gould and her colleagues suspended individual animals above water on a cramped platform for up to 72 hours. The platform would capsize whenever the rodents lost muscle tension, which occurs during deep REM sleep, spilling them into the water and forcing them to scramble back onto their perch.
Motoring the President
Posted on November 29, 2006 in Citizenship
Slate had an interesting article about what goes into a presidential motorcade:
The first of the police cars, sometimes called the “bomb sweep,” may drive a few minutes ahead of the motorcade to clear the way. A team responsible for detecting hazardous materials also rides near the front. A counterassault team deals with potential attacks, with a local SWAT team often available as well. In case of emergency, a group of eight or so vehicles, called the “secure package,” will split off from the motorcade and move the president to a safer location. Only the secure package cars are driven by trained Secret Service agents; volunteers and hired drivers handle the rest. When the president travels overseas, a portion of the motorcade comes with him—cars, drivers, and all.
The president rides in an armored 2006 Cadillac DTS stretch sedan with tinted windows and bulletproof glass, with another one or two limos serving as decoys. The limos may even switch places from time to time as the motorcade moves along. (Think that’s paranoid? Some cities have arranged entire dummy motorcades.) Behind the secure package are cars for staff personnel, press vans, and an ambulance. The local police bring up the rear to make sure no one else joins the motorcade.
Weather Wonderings
Posted on November 29, 2006 in Weather
I’ve never understood the mechanics of rain. I get that when the barometer reading is beneath a certain point that the rain will fall. What I don’t get is how, with the pressure of the clouds over the land, atmospheric pressure falls. And why it rises when the sky above is clear.
Today, a hard wind blows off the mountain. I think this means that there is a low pressure system in the valley below me. The pines bend over and their needle clumps look like the fluff on poodles. The street is clean from the rain and the wind. If there is trash, it is caught in the cul de sac, out of my view.
Proclamation
Posted on November 29, 2006 in Site News
If anything I write upsets you, don’t read it. This is the ancient and true way of the web.
On Self-Defense
Posted on November 28, 2006 in Frustration
The problem with answering those who attack you in a public setting such as a group, a bulletin board, or your own blog is that you find yourself having to explain just what the person is doing to you. And that entails repeating their calumnies when you attempt to explain what is happening. This is a legal form of torture.
