Archive for the ‘Raised Eyebrows Dept.’ Category
Eddington on Protons
Famed astronomer & mathematician Sir Arthur Eddington: I believe there are 15, 747, 724, 136, 275, 002, 577, 605, 653, 961, 181, 555, 468, 044, 717, 914, 527, 116, 709, 366, 231, 425, 076, 185, 631, 031, 296 protons in the universe and the same number of electrons. [Quoted in The Sun: A Biography, by […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Patriotic Atheists
It's amazing how easy it is for some people, let's say some political "leaders" — okay, let's make that presidents and their presidential fathers, simply to write off big chunks of their citizenry. This exchange is reported as taking place between G.H.W. Bush & Robert I. Sherman (a reporter for the American Atheist news journal) […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Such Language!
His Humpty-Dumptiness
Watch in amazement as top US military spokesmen try to maintain that we are most definitely winning the war in Iraq (and have been for some time — probably averaging in our military successes for several years before the invasion). Here is Donald Rumsfeld helping the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff maintain his […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Microsoft's Tarnish
More about what one dispassionately hopes is a growing scandal for the Evil Giant (Microsoft): Microsoft Corp. is paying social conservative Ralph Reed $20,000 a month as a consultant, triggering complaints that the well-connected Republican with close ties to the White House and to evangelist Pat Robertson may have persuaded the company to oppose gay […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Whose Pyramid?
For one thing — probably because I'm one of those radicals who tend to think that MicroSoft is the evil empire (recently confirmed) — I've always turned my nose up at anything quaintly called "My_____", since it always sounds to me like an unwarrented intrusion into already decaying standards of discourse by the evil empire's […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Speaking of Science, Splenetics, Such Language!
Toxic Homo Fungus
The following tidbit, saved from an article I read some weeks ago, reinforces two well-known facts: 1) homosexuality is common in nature; 2) homosexuality can be toxic. The new spin on the old trick is that this time the guys (or gals) can have kids: Same-sex mating found in toxic fungus An infectious fungus has […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Don't Ask!
This statement confuses me: At a crowded news conference, Mr. DeLay said he would not entertain questions about his political activities. ["DeLay Asks House Panel to Review Judges", by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, 14 April 2005.] Since Mr. DeLay is a politician, what else would he talk about?
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
What a Slime-Mold Beetle!
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are now species of slime-mold beetles U.S. President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may not all get a library, airport or highway named after them. But each has a slime-mold beetle named in his honor. Two former Cornell University entomologists who recently had the […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
The Crow's Ear
I am now certain that Avedon Carol (of The Sideshow) is a person after my own heart for pointing out this gem from The International Herald Tribune Just 15 hours after he died on Saturday night, the great pageantry around the death of a pope began Sunday morning, with a huge public Mass in St. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Such Language!
Black is White
Expanding on the tradition of death-bed conversions: WASHINGTON, April 8 – Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
The Human Clock
I'm fascinated and I'm envious: The Human Clock.
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Non-Hostile Casualties
Is it just me? I find the following paragraph very odd and unsettling. Thanks to a mention at the Whiskey Bar, we read this (AP) — As of Saturday, April 2, 2005, at least 1,533 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Fishy Links
This is another entry in the "questionable links" category (for when the times comes that there is such a category here). My news feeds took me to a story, "Love At First … Smell", a diverting story, summarized well by the first paragraph: Why do some males smell better than others? Scientists at Cardiff University, […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
That's a Lot of Big Macs!
While McDonald’s CEO Jack Greenberg makes a healthy $7,331 an hour, young people are toiling away, often for minimum wage, which hasn’t even kept pace with inflation. If it did, the federal minimum wage would be at $8.65 an hour, and if it was pegged to productivity, our lowest paid workers would be netting $16.55 […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Pseudo-Science & Schools
Some things just make you want to throw your hands up in the air, or scream and punch a brick wall or something. Somebody kindly pointed out this transcript of a report on yesterday's Newshour with Jim Lehrer called "Creation Conflict in Schools", reported by Jeffrey Brown. Here were a few comments made by students […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
How Could They Be So Stupid?
The following exhilarating exchange was reported by Media Matters as taking place "On the March 28 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, host Joe Scarborough interviewed Dr. Ronald Cranford, one of the two neurologists selected by Michael Schiavo to examine Terri Schiavo pursuant to an October 2001 appellate court mandate." [Lisa] DANIELS: Doctor, was a CAT […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Key-Word-Based Science
I was reading an interesting article at Science Blog, "Changes in Earth's tilt control when glacial cycles end", about a new report (written by "Peter Huybers, a postdoctoral fellow in the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department, and coauthor Carl Wunsch of MIT") suggesting that changes in the tilt of the earth's axis may indeed be […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Melting Pyjamas
I just love reading The Scotsman. Get me to hospital, my pyjamas are melting Nicola Stow MELTING pyjamas and a brush with an alligator were among accidents which put almost a million Britons in hospital last year, figures revealed today. A host of bizarre incidents were littered in the statistics of accident and emergency admissions […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Herring Farts
Some people know that I am an old fart, and have therefore an abiding interest in farts, but I have not yet mastered using the fart for communication, except as it might be construed as some sort of anti-social, vaguely aggressive statement. Through a chain of links that is now lost to me, I arrived […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
"Ethical Lapses"
The thing that strikes me as odd, as I read the mushrooming stories about Tom DeLay, is that these stories keep using the phrase "ethical lapses" to describe his syndrome; given the phrase's currency, it must have originated at some point and then been parroted since. Usually, we associate the word "lapse" with a brief […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Such Language!