Priorities

Multi-billion arms deals with the Saudis and other Mid-East states - absolutely.

Providing health coverage for 3 million American kids - absolutely not.

Priorities.

It's all about priorities.

Happy Birthday, JK!

Today is the birthday of the creator of Harry Potter, J. K. (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling, born on the outskirts of Bristol, England, in 1966. (Cripes. She's a lot younger than I am!)

Jaffe - beyond tasteless

This is beyond belief. Over at From Gaza With Love Mona El-Farra posts a heartrending cry that begins

My mother is in the hospital at the moment. She is severely ill. She was admitted to hospital 3 days ago. I cannot reach her.

And on her comments is this piece of spam:

Hey buddy! Nice blog that you maintain here.. I just chanced upon your blog surfing the blogosphere. I was thinking.. you could try out some interesting widgets on your page and spice it up with some great pictures. E.g try out the poster widget on http://www.widgetmate.com with your relevant keywords. It has some of the best images i have ever seen.

It's from someone called Jaffe. Whatever he's selling, please don't buy it from him.

Oh, how much I hate this

I'm not sure I should post this, but ... Justice Roberts is in the hospital after a fall.

What I hate is how my very first thought was to hope he'd have to retire because he was badly injured.

I hate how these people make me feel.

oh, geeze, Reuters

The headline reads: Bomb kills six after Iraq Cup victory

Oh, geeze, I think. Now they're blowing people up over soccer. Or worse, over bonding over soccer.

And then I read the actual lede:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb killed six people in central Baghdad on Monday, police said, the first bombing in the capital since Iraq's soccer win in the Asian Cup brought a brief respite in the violence ravaging the country.

Oh, geeze, Reuters.

Yes, technically, "after" is just expressing a temporal relationship. But you know that causal is implied, and will in fact be the first relationship assumed.

petty annoyance

There is a downside to a week in a training seminar that starts at 9... Freakin' Cokie Roberts on NPR. That woman drives me crazy. She was just parroting the line about how Congress's low poll numbers are the Democrats' fault.

(Frankly, were I a Dem congressman going home for vacation, I'd just point out the GOP filibusters and refusals to vote and consistently supporting the administration. )

But honestly, the days when I've heard her "analysis" I've wondered why she gets paid to deliver it. When it isn't painfully obvious, it's ... well, is "wrong" too strong a word?

"so called" creation

No, I'm not talking about Creationism.

I'm talking about Gordon Brown, who was just on the radio discussing the relationship between the US and the UK, and its long history. He said, and I'm quoting, "since the creation, so called, of the special relationship".

That "so called" is badly misplaced, don't you think?

"since the creation of the so-called special relationship" - I see why he didn't want this one. But how about "since the creation of the special relationship, so called"?

Of course, in British "so called" may not have the same slightly negative feel that it has in US English. But were I he, I'd have said "since the creation of the special relationship, as it's called".

The Seventh Seal and a Summer Night ...

Ingmar Bergman has died.

At this point I must confess that the first thing I think of when I hear his name is neither of those films, nor in fact any of his movies which I've actually seen. Instead, it's Hour of the Wolf - as shown by Count Floyd on Monster Chiller Horror Theater on Second City TV...

That admission made, his films are exquisite and he will be missed.

Monday Science Links

This week's sciency goodness:

• Joseph at Corpus Callosum writes about a man with an astonishing brain condition - you really have to see the MRI
  
• Chad at Uncertain Principles explains how polarized sunglasses actually work and why you should get some.
• Jen at Cocktail Party Physics explains shiny things, or why opals are so pretty.
• Kristjan at Pro-science writes about a paper on how pterosaurs might have fed (and points you to the PLoS paper for follow-up if you're so inclined).
• Larry at Sandwalk has a mammoth series on DNA - reading for several days, at least.

Have fun!

Four suns

Too weird to imagine? Possibly... at least from scratch. Over at Astronomy Picture of the Day is a painting by Pyle of the HD98800 system - four suns and two dusty belts, which might have a planet or two in them. Strange and gorgeous.

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: A couple more episodes of The Last Detective. Also watched some News Radio - I'd forgotten how funny that show was, Dave Foley and Phil Hartman especially.

TV: Caught the Bill Moyers' Journal on impeachment (DVR'd). Made me madder than hell on top of how mad my first listed book had already made me... Starting watching Splitting Heirs. Not that funny, really, so I quit during the funeral. (If it gets better and is worth watching, let me know - it's on On Demand.) Supercop - I do like Jackie Chan and this was a very acceptable opus from his oeuvre, so to speak. The Doctor, of course - part 1 - only one quibble. If they were going to shoot it in late summer, why did they date the paper November 1? So far, at least, the date's not crucial. But Central Park is way too green for November... Still, "Oh, he's into musical theater? Too bad..." too funny.

Read: The Italian Letter - man, some of that crap they've pulled I had almost forgotten in the wake of all the rest of it. Like the whole "try to get ElBaradei fired" gambit. Why aren't they impeached yet? Started The Makioka Sisters - good so far. I'm wondering how large a role the White Russians are going to play; they weren't in the movie at all.

Carnival of Maryland

The Carnival of Maryland is up at Maryland Politics Today.

Combat deaths: Lying with Math

Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority looks at the latest attempt by right-wingers to lie about the war - this is the "military deaths under Bush aren't much different than the deaths under Clinton, so why is everyone picking on poor Dubya?" spin. It's been taken down several places (as Mike points out and links to), but Mike has - as always - a 'closer-to-the-bone' take on it.

Based on this, it doesn't look at all like the Clinton Presidency - or the 1st Bush Presidency, or the Reagan Presidency - is remotely similar to the current administration when it comes to the active duty death rate. From here, it looks like there was a fairly smooth and steady decline in the death rate between 1980 and 2000, a relatively moderate increase from 2001-2003, and a massive increase coinciding with the post-aircraft-carrier-end-of-major- combat-mission-accomplished-speech era. That's nothing like the picture that the right-wingers were trying to paint.

All in all, though, who gives a damn what the numbers actually are? I brought them up to demonstrate that the new spin is, in addition to being enormously disrespectful of active duty troops living and dead, thoroughly dishonest. But, even if it were not dishonest, and even if it were not wrong, it would make no difference.

...We have a responsibility to do our best to keep the active duty troops from dying unnecessarily

Go read it all, look at the graphs, digest the argument. Mike's right.

Happy Birthday, Don

Today in 1878, in Walnut, Illinois, Donald Robert Perry Marquis was born - newspaper columnist, playwright, and short-story writer Don Marquis, best known for his tales of archy and Mehitabel.

my youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret
wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

the things that i had not ought to
i do because i ve gotto
wotthehell wotthehell
and i end with my favorite motto
toujours gai toujours gai

But he wrote more than them:

The caterpillar just eats and loafs and sleeps -- and after awhile, without any effort, it turns into a butterfly, with nothing to do but flit around and be beautiful. And the tumblebug toils and pants and sweats and worries, pushing its burden up hill forever, like Sisyphus, and pretty soon some one comes along and thinks how vulgar and ugly it is, and steps on it and squashes it. Idleness and beauty are their own rewards.

No trick or kick of fate
Can raise from me a yell --
Serene, I sit and wait
For the world to go to hell.

Happy Birthday, Alexis

de Tocqueville, that is - born in 1805.

"He went with his best friend, Gustave de Beaumont, and after a brief stop in Newport, they arrived in Manhattan at sunrise May 11, 1831. Over the course of the next nine months, Tocqueville and his friend traveled more than 7,000 miles, using every vehicle then in existence, including steamer, stage-coach, and horse, going as far west as Green Bay, Wisconsin, and as far south as New Orleans. He interviewed everyone he met: workmen, doctors, professors, as well as famous men, such as Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence and the richest man in America. At the end of nine months, Tocqueville went back to France, and in less than a year, he had finished his masterpiece, Democracy in America (1835)." [quoted from The Writer's Almanac]

America demonstrates invincibly one thing that I had doubted up to now: that the middle classes can govern a State. ... Despite their small passions, their incomplete education, their vulgar habits, they can obviously provide a practical sort of intelligence and that turns out to be enough.

Let's show him our passions aren't necessarily so "small".

Sigh ... silver lining time?

Christopher Lee and Marc Kaufman write in today's WaPo (the italics are mine):

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy.

I begin to wonder why these things are still front-page stories. But then I think, that's a good sign, isn't it? It means it's not really "business as usual" even now. Oh, for the administration, certainly, and the GOP as a whole probably, but not the country.

Not quite yet.

How logical are you?

Your Score: Very Logical

You are 100 % Logical.

Excellent! You rival Spock in Spockiness. Live long and prosper.

Link: The How Logical Are You Test written by masterfiremaam on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

additions to 'at the water'

Note - since I'm submitting at the water to a carnival I've added a few photos to it rather than making a separate post. If you're interested in swallows and herons, go have a peek.

Goldengrove unleaving (Happy Birthday, Gerard)

Born today in 1844 in Stratford, Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorite poets (still, though I don't agree with his philosophy). Bless you, Robert Bridges, for publishing his work after he died, in 1888, too young and no longer writing... The Writers Almanac today features one of his poems I learned by heart long ago...

Spring and Fall
To a Young Child

Margaret, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's spríngs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

"sane, serious Joe Lieberman"

Check out this post by Glenn Greenwald at Salon (you'll have to look at a tiny little ad first): Lieberman and Hagee and "serious" politicians. It's a sobering look at a truly insane axis (GOP/Neocon - Israel) founded on religious zealotry, and the way a large percentage of the MSM just doesn't seem to see it

Obvious Lesson Number Way-too-high

Here's one of those lessons you'd think no one actually needed to learn.

If you are an evil criminal who has just dropped a ladder from your helicopter to a rooftop so your criminal wife who is escaping from Malaysian police can climb up it, and she in fact has climbed up it, and Jackie Chan is chasing her -

pull up the damned ladder already!

A terrible loss to cultural connections across language lines

Oh, no. What bad news. Ulrich Muehe, one of Germany's greatest actors, has died of cancer. Desson Thomas just posted this at the WaPo:

"I'd like to take a moment to salute Ulrich Muehe, the photogenic, doe-eyed star of "The Lives of Others," who played the Stasi officer. What a performance that was. And what a terrible loss to quality movies in general, and cultural connections across language lines for moviegoers, that he has passed."

Absolutely. His performance was riveting in the best sense, understated and immediately accessible and just flat out brilliant. It is a loss, indeed.

Governance...

(image from here with enthusiastic permission)

I and the Bird 54: writing about birds

Ms Miller at The Egret's Nest hosts a very nice I and the Bird, handing out grades on our papers about birds. She says "We had papers that covered birds from around the world, birds that are common and birds that are familiar." (She's also a pretty lenient grader: about my Feeding Time at the Metro she says: "The Ridger’s piece incorporates marvelous photography but is short on text. This was a writing assignment, The Ridger! However, you clearly grasped the topic. Grade: A". Gotta love those enthusiastic teachers!)

Anyway, head over to the Nest, play with the ravens (you'll see what I mean), and read the papers. They're all good, especially James Birdman's piece on various starlings in Africa (that's where they belong, grrr) - you'd hardly think such gorgeous critters as the Superb, Hildebrandt's, Abbott's, and Violet-backed Starlings were related! - Lynne at Hasty Brook's gorgeously illustrated dippy goldfinch story, Duncan at Ben Cruachan's post on winter birds (he is in Australia), Jeff at Ecobirder's post on bridges and birds ... ah, heck. If I keep this up I'll be listing 'em all and stealing her links - so just go to the Egret's Nest yourself! Well worth your while.

Impeach Now

I just finished reading The Italian Letter. The main thing it did was remind me of all the crap that this administration has done over the past six years, most of which I had half-forgotten in the light of all the crap they've done in just the last year... And then I watch Alberto Gonzales and Tony Snow, and in their different styles they simply exude contempt for the Congress and the people...

So I have a question for Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the House of Representatives: Why the hell is impeachment "off the table"? How can we wait for another year and a half? Why are we saying Bush and Cheney have gone too far, but oh no we can't possibly put the country through an impeachment?

Put the country through...? WTF? Who's putting the country through something? Who's doing violence to American ideals and the American form of government? (And who's helping by posturing but refusing to follow through?)

It's really very simple: We must teach the executive branch a constitutional lesson: in the words of John Nicholls, an election does not make a king for four years - the Founders set up a mechanism to save the country.

But there are a few other questions here, too.

What has happened to the GOP? Less than a decade ago they insisted on impeaching Clinton for lying. They thundered on our television screens about high crimes and misdemeanors, and insisted that he was setting a precedent that placed the president above the law. Where are they now?

And why won't the Democrats insist on impeaching Bush for his genuine high crime of undermining the Constitution, claiming the authority to kidnap people and "disappearing" them on his say-so (I choose that specifically because Alexander Hamilton once denounced it in ringing terms:

To bereave a man of life... or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.

These people do that and more, arrogating to the Executive Branch powers that were never meant to be there. They are criminals, if guilty, and only an impeachment will settle that question.

(Granted, it's entirely possible that Dick Cheney is genuinely delusional, and I don't insist on his impeachment for high treason, swift and inevitable conviction, and incarceration - I can accept his being locked up in a psychiatric ward. Bush doesn't have that out.)

The plain truth is that impeachment is not some evil we need to fear. Impeachment is the cure for the arrogant, imperial presidency that the Founders feared and the GOP desires.

Impeachment is not "taking an axe to the government" - impeachment is a scalpel. It's not murder, it's surgery - it's cutting out a cancer on the government. It's not a Constitutional crisis, it is - as John Nicholls says - the cure for a Constitutional crisis.

Frankly, Congress is to blame. They can't even bring themselves to censure this administration - this lawless, over-reaching administration which makes the claim that we're in a war without end and without border, where the commander-in-chief runs, not the army, but the nation, without check, without balance, without advice much less consent. This administration is lawless: it sets itself above the rule of law, and that precedent must not stand.

The Executive Branch is not supreme. The Founders feared that and gave us a way to put an end to it. Congress must act. The Founders expected Congress to act. If they do not, the government falls.

Their duty under the Constitution is to impeach them, and impeach them now. That's what the Constitution tells us to do when the Executive arrogates kingly powers to itself. If they don't do it now, the Constitution will erode, fade away, and disappear.

What happens if we do nothing, when the people know the high crimes and misdemeanors, and yet Congress does nothing - out of fear, or out of some belief that the country "has suffered enough"? What happens? The people cease to be citizens. They learn they can do nothing but rage in silence. They fear the government even as they despise it. They turn away from politics, they seek out bread and circuses - or Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan - and they become subjects.

And that's when the republic falls.

And if you're a real W supporter and can't stand the thought of impeaching him, consider this: the precedent set by this administration will result in the next president having precisely the same powers and abilities this one claims. Do you want Hillary to be able to do whatever she damn well pleases?

"those kids will be dead"

This is true - all of it (from a NYT editorial today):

A Darfur video, which included a screen full of children in a refuge camp, was the set up for the best line of the night. Senator Joseph Biden said the United States should send troops to Darfur because “those kids will be dead by the time the diplomacy is over.” The sterility of normal debates and presidential campaigns allows the candidates to avoid talking about individual refugee children dying.

merch o liw ewyn - a girl the colour of foam

From Language Hat I learn that the University of Swansea has undertaken a major project: putting Dafydd ap Gwilym on line.

As they say

Dafydd ap Gwilym composed Welsh-language poetry about love and nature in the mid-fourteenth century, using extremely sophisticated verse forms. He is generally regarded as Wales’s greatest Welsh-language poet, and is a major figure in medieval European literature... It will also make the poems accessible to a wider audience, both Welsh and English-speaking, by providing paraphrases in modern Welsh and English translations of all the poems.

You can get the original (of course!) and any of sources, modern Welsh paraphrase, English translation, audio, manuscripts, notes, and more.

Here's a sample:

Y Seren

Digio'dd wyf am liw ewyn,
Duw a ŵyr meddwl pob dyn.
O daw arnaf o'i chariad,
F'enaid glwys, fyned i'w gwlad,
Pell yw i'm bryd ddirprwyaw
Llatai drud i'w llety draw,
Na rhoi gwerth i wrach, serth swydd,
Orllwyd daer er llateirwydd,
Na dwyn o'm blaen dân-llestri,
Na thyrs cwyr, pan fo hwyr hi,
Dros gysgu y dydd gartref
A rhodio'r nos dros y dref.
Ni'm gwŷl neb, ni'm adnebydd,
Ynfyd wyf, yny fo dydd.

Mi a gaf heb warafun
Rhag didro heno fy hun
Canhwyllau'r Gŵr biau'r byd
I'm hebrwng at em hoywbryd.
Bendith ar enw'r Creawdrner
A wnaeth saeroniaeth y sêr,
Hyd nad oes dim oleuach
No'r seren gron burwen bach.

Cannaid yr uchel geli,
Cannwyll ehwybrbwyll yw hi.
Ni ddifflan pryd y gannwyll,
A'i dwyn ni ellir o dwyll.
Nis diffydd gwynt hynt hydref,
Afrlladen o nen y nef.
Nis bawdd dwfr, llwfr llifeiriaint,
Disgwylwraig, dysgl saig y saint.
Nis cyrraidd lleidr â'i ddwylaw,
Gwaelod cawg y Drindod draw.
Nid gwiw i ddyn o'i gyfair
Ymlid maen mererid Mair.
Golau fydd ymhob ardal,
Goldyn o aur melyn mâl.
Gwir fwcled y goleuni,
Gwalabr haul, gloyw wybr yw hi.

Hi a ddengys ym heb gudd,
Em eurfalch, lle mae Morfudd.
Crist o'r lle y bo a'i diffydd
Ac a'i gyr, nid byr y bydd,
Gosgedd torth gan gyfan gu,
I gysgod wybr i gysgu.

The Star

I am going wild about [a girl] the colour of foam,
God knows everyone's thoughts.
If I should go because of love for her,
my lovely darling, to her region,
I have no intention of sending in my place
an expensive love messenger to her house yonder,
nor of paying a fierce grey-headed old woman
(licentious job) to act as a bawd,
nor of carrying lanterns before me,
nor wax torches, when it is late,
instead of sleeping at home by day
and roaming around the town at night.
No one will see me, nor recognise me,
I am mad, until it is day.

Lest I should get lost on my own tonight
I will get without hindrance
the candles of the Man who owns the world
to lead me to a jewel of fair countenance.
Blessed be the name of the Lord Creator
who made the craftmanship of the stars,
so that there is nothing brighter
than the round pure-white little star.

Sun of the high heavens,
it is a clear-minded candle.
The candle's countenance will not disappear,
and it cannot be stolen by deceit.
The wind of autumn's course will not extinguish it,
consecrated wafer from the height of heaven.
Water will not drown it, wet torrents,
watcher, feast-dish of the saints.
No thief can reach it with his hands,
base of the Trinity's bowl yonder.
It is no use for a man from his place
to hunt Mary's pearl.
It is bright in every region,
a coin of yellow burnished gold.
True buckler of light,
sun's form, it is a dew-drop of the sky.

It will show me without concealment,
proud golden jewel, where Morfudd is.
Christ will extinguish it from where it is
and send it, it will not be short,
shape of a lovely whole white loaf,
to sleep in the sky's shade.

Modern Welsh

Y Seren

Rwy'n gwylltio am [ferch o] liw ewyn,
Duw sy'n gwybod meddwl pawb.
Os bydd i mi fynd i'w hardal
o gariad ati, f'anwylyd hardd,
nid yw'n fwriad gennyf anfon negesydd serch costus
yn fy lle i'w chartref draw,
na thalu hen wraig (swydd anllad)
lwyd iawn a ffyrnig i fynd â neges serch,
na chario llusernau o'm blaen,
na thorsiau cwyr, pan fydd hi'n nos,
yn lle cysgu gartref yn ystod y dydd
a chrwydro ar hyd y dref gyda'r nos.
Ni fydd neb yn fy ngweld, nac yn f'adnabod,
(rwy'n wallgof) nes iddi wawrio.

Rhag i mi fynd ar goll ar fy mhen fy hun heno
mi a gaf heb ddal yn ôl
ganhwyllau'r Gŵr biau'r byd
i'm harwain at y gem tlws ei hwyneb.
Bendith ar enw'r Arglwydd Greawdwr
a saernïodd y sêr,
fel nad oes dim byd goleuach
na'r seren gron burwen fach.

Haul y nefoedd uchel,
cannwyll chwim ei meddwl yw hi.
Ni fydd golwg y gannwyll yn diflannu,
ac ni ellir ei dwyn drwy dwyll.
Ni fydd gwynt hynt hydref yn ei diffodd,
bara'r offeren o frig y nef.
Ni fydd dŵr yn ei boddi, ffrydiau gwlyb,
gwylwraig, dysgl bwyd y saint.
Ni fydd lleidr yn ei chyrraedd â'i ddwylo,
gwaelod bowlen y Drindod draw.
Nid oes diben i ddyn o'i ranbarth
hela perl Mair.
Golau fydd ymhob ardal,
darn bath o aur melyn gloyw.
gwir darian gron y goleuni,
delw haul, gwlithyn yr wybren yw hi.

Hi a ddengys i mi heb guddio
lle y mae Morfudd, gem euraidd a balch.
Crist a fydd yn ei diffodd o'r lle y bo
a'i gyrru, nid [am amser] byr y bydd,
ffurf torth wen gyfan hyfryd,
i gysgod yr wybren i gysgu

"That is the seduction"

I'm watching last night's The Daily Show, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson is on. And he just nailed it.

Jon asked him: "Isn't that the trouble with your job, the not knowing?"

And his answer: "That's not the trouble - that is the seduction."

And then a bit later he says: "You carve through what is known and you come to this precipice between what is known and the unknown, and that's where the research scientist lives. And that is what excites a person and makes you rush to work every day."

And then: "You keep pushing the boundaries back and you reach the ignorance that attracts us all."

That's a spaceship

I was over at archy today to see if John had posted anything new - yes, I know, RSS, but I actually like going by the blogs every couple of days, and this is one reason why. Anyway, the last post is still the one about the moon landing. And while I was looking at that post I suddenly remembered this:

Years ago, when Apollo 13 had just come out on video, I was in Saturday Matinee and they were playing it on the store's TV monitors. They had gotten to the point in the movie where the Saturn is lifting off the launching pad. I was just standing there watching, and a man about my age was standing next to me, mesmerized.

"Do you remember that?" he asked me.

"I do," I said. "We saw a couple."

"God, I wish I had," he said. His young son was with him. After a while he came up and stared at the screen, but after a moment he looked at his father and said, "Dad, what's that?"

"That," his father said, "is a spaceship."

His son looked at the screen, with a skeptical expression. "A spaceship? Really?"

"Yes. Really." He paused. "It was a real spaceship." His voice almost broke as he added, "And it was ours."

at the water

Water is important to birds and others. Walking to and from work this past week I've spotted various birds, and another passer-by, at the water in the park at the College Park metro. The adult green heron has apparently raised some kids who learned a bit too well: the young and older herons occasionally arrive at the pond at the same time, and when that happens there's fireworks. The adult doesn't like it at all when the youngsters show up, and he (she?) tries to run them off into the woods beside the creek. Occasionally they are satisfied with the creek, but sometimes they keep coming back around to the pond. Once in a while, the young one wins, but usually the adult has the pond until he wants to leave.

The young herons in the trees by the creek disturb the barn swallows (I don't know why - do herons go after nestlings? Swallow nestlings would be small enough for a heron to swallow, that's for sure.) The swallows get disturbed a lot - perhaps nesting in a culvert isn't such a good idea? They generally only perch in trees across the pond - but I got one sitting where a heron had been until the harassing of the swallows had made him leave. Most of the swallows are barn swallows, but I've seen a few banks swallows, and one mystery guy with a white-edged tail (an Eastern Kingbird, of course!) . And of course, the creek isn't only for the herons and swallows to fight over. Pics below:

an immature green heron in a tree, where he was chased


the immature green heron

the immature green heron

an immature heron settle by the creek

young heron in the creek

one heron chasing another one away from the pond

the young heron enjoys his momentary triumph

the adult green heron, the usual winner

the green heron in the pond

young heron in a tree too near the swallows

a swallow resting in a tree he'd driven a heron out of

three swallows in a willow by the pond

mystery swallow Eastern Kingbird landing in willow

mystery swallow Eastern Kingbird in the willow

a crow drinking at the creek

a mockingbird at the creek

a sparrow on a sand bank

the geese have returned

a raccoon in the creek, who annoyed the barn swallows who nest in the culvert he's heading for

a trumpet flower floating down the creek

The Week in Entertainment - addendum

Oh, man. How did I forget? Last week I also read god is not Great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hitchens is an extremely entertaining writer.

Giuliani: buy private health care

From Dispatches from the Culture Wars comes this link to the Iowa Independent, a typical GOP totally-missing-the-point story (to be fair, some Democrats miss it too):

Giuliani's health-care plan is firmly based in the private sector. He proposes a $15,000 tax exemption for individual health insurance. "If you can find it cheaper, you can keep the difference." He said with 50 million to 100 million Americans participating, this would create a marketplace for affordable individual plans: "Lots of people would buy private health insurance if it was as attractive as employer plans." All plans would have to have some co-payment, to encourage people to make choices about their care.

And if you make minimum wage, you make $12,000 a year. Is the government going to actually pay your health care plan for you?

If his plan was a credit, not an exemption, this might work. But if you can't afford the health care plan because you have to, you know, pay your rent and your heating and your grocer, and you make so little money you aren't paying income tax anyway, how exactly is this going to help you? Especially with the co-pay?

"Lots of people would buy private health insurance if it was as attractive as employer plans."

And lots of people would buy health insurance if they just had some money. What about them, Rudy? And you know what? "9/11" is not the right answer.

years which admit... er, what?

However, nothing will diminish the pain and suffering experienced by our international medical colleagues over the last eight years whose original admission of guilt was secured by methods of torture.

While I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, I find the sentence a bit awkward.

If you have an idiolect which prohibits "whose" with inanimates, then this sentence, presumably, gives you no trouble. I don't: inanimates deserve a relative possessive pronoun, and since English doesn't have "whiches" or "thats", "whose" it is.

So I initially read that relative clause (beginning "whose original admission") as referring back to the immediate antecedent, "years". It doesn't work. I had to back up and start again.

I'd have moved that "over the last eight years" to follow "experienced".

Minimum wage goes up today

$5.85 an hour. For 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year - full time, no time off - that's $12,148.

This is a great step forward, but who can live - let alone raise a family - on that?

(And please - never forget that waiters make about 2/3 of that. Your tips are expected to make up the difference.)

Happy Birthday, Robert!

Today in Wimbledon, England, in 1895, Robert Graves was born. 18 when WWI started, he was immediately shipped off to France. He was badly wounded and reported dead; he believed his life had been spared to write poetry. He suffered from PTSD - recurring nightmares and flashbacks that paralyzed and terrified him. But after he married he began to write, prolifically. In 1929 he published a memoir called Goodbye to All That, and he was able to support himself and his family on his writing for the rest of his life. He may be best known for The White Goddess, a exploration of poetry and myth, and his novels I, Claudius and Claudius, the God, his translations from Latin, and the controversial King Jesus. But he also wrote poetry:

Dead Cow Farm

AN ANCIENT saga tells us how
In the beginning the First Cow
(For nothing living yet had birth
But Elemental Cow on earth)
Began to lick cold stones and mud:
Under her warm tongue flesh and blood
Blossomed, a miracle to believe:
And so was Adam born, and Eve.
Here now is chaos once again,
Primeval mud, cold stones and rain.
Here flesh decays and blood drips red,
And the Cow’s dead, the old Cow’s dead.

The Lady Visitor in the Pauper Ward

WHY do you break upon this old, cool peace,
This painted peace of ours,
With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,
With garish flowers?
Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,
Selfish old skin-and-bone?
Leave us to quiet dreaming and slow pain,
Leave us alone.


Two Fusiliers

AND have we done with War at last?
Well, we’ve been lucky devils both,
And there’s no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

By wire and wood and stake we’re bound,
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay.

Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the red bond of blood,
By friendship, blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men breath.

Happy Birthday, Zelda!

My father grew up in Montgomery, and once when he was ill Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald read him a story. She was beautiful and crazy, and her life is a tragic romance...

They're free!

What great news to wake up to! Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Cecilia Sarkozy have pulled it off! The Tripoli Six are free and in Bulgaria!

"all the critical civil rights"

As far as marriage goes, Obama said, he believes it should be up to the individual denominations whether they want to allow gay marriage. "But all the critical civil rights that are conferred by our government - those should be there."

It's what I've been saying for years. Decouple "marriage" from civil law; let the churches have their "sacred rites" and let the state do the civil rights.

No wonder he's so high up on my "Ideal Candidate" match.

Dennis said he would fight for gay marriage, so he's still my guy, but... Obama is looking better.

“the most complete and effectual weapon"

A very good column in today's NYT by Adam Cohen. You have to pay for, and I do, so I share it here:

Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War

The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn’t have the power to do it. “I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,” he said at a recent press conference. “I think they ought to be funding the troops.” He added magnanimously: “I’m certainly interested in their opinion.”

The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.

Given how intent the president is on expanding his authority, it is startling to recall how the Constitution’s framers viewed presidential power. They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom. To guard against it, they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called “the foetus of monarchy.”

The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe’s history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that “absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal.”

Many critics of the Iraq war are reluctant to suggest that President Bush went into it in anything but good faith. But James Madison, widely known as the father of the Constitution, might have been more skeptical. “In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed,” he warned. “It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.”

When they drafted the Constitution, Madison and his colleagues wrote their skepticism into the text. In Britain, the king had the authority to declare war, and raise and support armies, among other war powers. The framers expressly rejected this model and gave these powers not to the president, but to Congress.

The Constitution does make the president “commander in chief,” a title President Bush often invokes. But it does not have the sweeping meaning he suggests. The framers took it from the British military, which used it to denote the highest-ranking official in a theater of battle. Alexander Hamilton emphasized in Federalist No. 69 that the president would be “nothing more” than “first general and admiral,” responsible for “command and direction” of military forces.

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush’s assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly. Madison described Congress’s control over spending as “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”

The framers expected Congress to keep the president on an especially short leash on military matters. The Constitution authorizes Congress to appropriate money for an army, but prohibits appropriations for longer than two years. Hamilton explained that the limitation prevented Congress from vesting “in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence.”

As opinion turns more decisively against the war, the administration is becoming ever more dismissive of Congress’s role. Last week, Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman brusquely turned away Senator Hillary Clinton’s questions about how the Pentagon intended to plan for withdrawal from Iraq. "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq,” he wrote. Mr. Edelman’s response showed contempt not merely for Congress, but for the system of government the founders carefully created.

The Constitution cannot enforce itself. It is, as the constitutional scholar Edwin Corwin famously observed, an “invitation to struggle” among the branches, but the founders wisely bequeathed to Congress some powerful tools for engaging in the struggle. It is no surprise that the current debate over a deeply unpopular war is arising in the context of a Congressional spending bill. That is precisely what the founders intended.

Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.

"And now we're stuck"

Thanks to Kevin at Dr Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge for this pointer to Carl Hiassen's recent column on Iraq. Two excerpts follow (emphasis mine) - check out the whole thing:

This is the story of the war in a nutshell -- misbegotten, misrepresented and mismanaged.

Stoned on his own delusions, the president still talks of installing a functioning democracy in a country throttled by civil war and aflame with ancient religious grievances.

Newly doubt-ridden Republicans in Congress speechify about a ''new direction,'' but do nothing. Democrats call for a staged withdrawal, but can't muster the votes to make it happen.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government remains paralyzed and rudderless. Car bombs continue to explode in open markets, killing and maiming innocents by the score. The Shiites and Sunnis keep on kidnapping, torturing and executing each other.

And American soldiers, caught in the middle, keep on dying. The total now surpasses 3,600, with roadside bombs being the leading cause of death....

In sum, the news is grim and getting grimmer. You didn't need to be Nostradamus to see it coming.

The president started an unwinnable war against a nation that had absolutely no role in the heinous acts of 9/11. The invasion was one of the most arrogant and costly blunders in the history of U.S. foreign relations, empowering our enemies beyond their wildest hopes.

And now we're stuck, with no good options for getting out.

If U.S. troops leave Iraq, the civil war will surely get bloodier. Al Qaeda fighters will claim victory and also a safe outpost, at least until the Iraqis turn on them.

And if U.S. troops stay in place, the violence will grind on as it is now, with the Americans a handy target for militants on all sides.

As the civilian death toll rises, the idea of splitting Iraq into sectarian nation-states doesn't seem so farfetched. Unfortunately, Bush shows no interest in pursuing any diplomatic solutions; with his eyes wide shut, he keeps waiting for the magic of instant democracy.

He'll still be waiting 18 months from now, cruising around on his riding mower back in Texas while a new president struggles to extract the country from this wretched, unsolvable mess.

Most Americans want a timetable set today, but the only certain date of change is Jan. 20, 2009, when Bush, Cheney and the other bunglers finally depart.

Whether the troops return home all at once or in waves, a pullout from Iraq is inevitable. The way back will be long and treacherous, and we should pray that those armor-plated trucks will arrive in time to carry at least some of our soldiers out safely.

Monday Science Links

This week's science links:

• Stefan at Backreaction discusses some of the new telescopes and how they get their mirror so large.


• Scott at Shtetl-Optimized explains mass and charge to us non-physicist.


• Jennifer at The Infinite Sphere goes caving and meets Tennessee cave salamanders.


• Martin at Aardvarchaeology hosts a one-off carnival of readers' archaeology sites - where his readers went out and found the science happening near them. (I wish I had something around here I could have gotten to!)


• Another from Backreaction, this one from Bee - her talk at the Loops '07 Conference on Phenomenological Quantum Gravity.

Dig in.

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: A couple eps of a British show called The Last Detective with Peter Davision; I do like him and the show's fine - nothing spectacular, but a good solid police show. Also Dark City - this movie, which I found a mention of a couple of weeks ago on a blog (I've forgotten which one but they were talking about how odd it is for Kiefer Sutherland to be a "hero"), is really good. It's confusing (in a positive way) and mesmerizing and visually arrresting. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. Highly.

TV: The Doctor - this was a good ep, some nice character bits. I wonder what the Face of Boe meant - I daresay we'll find out someday. Also (as anyone who looked at my blog today knows) some British Open - most of Saturday and all of Sunday. Oh, Sergio! Sergio! So close to the Claret Jug...

Read; Finished up The Hundred Secret Senses, very good. Read No Nest for the Wicket (Donna Andrews's comic mystery series, very enjoyable), and, of course, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All I'll say about that is: very satisfying.

Playoff for the Claret Jug

Okay, maybe just one giant post? I'll update it hole by hole.

1:
Harrington hits a lovely drive. Sergio answers just a wee bit shorter, but still good. Sergio's second in the bunker close to the face. Harrington's on the green. Sergio's third is actually on the green, remarkable, really, from where it was, but leaving him a long putt. Which he just barely misses. Harrington's birdie putt looks simple and he strokes it dead center.

Harrington leads by 2.

The cameras found a kid in the stands at 18 reading Harry Potter. Presumably he'll stop when the golfers get to the green... but maybe not.

2:
Harrington's tee shot not particularly brilliant, to the left, up against a mound but quite acceptable. Sergio hits the pin with his, but it rolls past, leaving a long putt. Still, the ball was running, so this is actually a break for him. Not as much as holing it would have been, of course, but it stayed on the green. We could see a swing here! Harrington chips on, sort of close. Sergio putts for birdie, misses. Harrington putts for par, gets it. Sergio for par and gets it.

Still Harrington by 2.

3:
Harrington hits a very nice tee shot here, well down the fairway. Sergio's starts ugly but finishes in the short grass and well past Harrington's. Harrington's second shot carries the mound and lands on the green. Simply gorgeous. Sergio's second also ends up on the green, but a much longer putt. Oh, damn, Sergio. He missed that huge putt by an inch, if that. Par. Harrington's putt is for birdie and a three-shot lead. He's got to be thinking about how much he needs going to 18. And he misses the putt.

Still Harrington by 2

4:
Harrington hits his hybrid and hits the fairway but gets no run. Sergio hits driver, long and into the rough but a perfect lie. The burn is in play for Harrington but not for Sergio. Harrington has to lay up onto the fairway, with 103 yards to go. Garcia's second is on the green. Harrington's third shot is on the fairway but outside Sergio's. In fact, his putt will be exactly on Sergio's line. If there's a two-shot swing here, we (they) play 18 over. And over. Harrington long putt for par - doesn't make it, and leaves himself not a gimme for bogey. Now Sergio for birdie. If he holes it, Harrington will have to make his. O. My. Gawd. He hit it too hard; the ball ran right over the top of the hole. Sergio for par, and drops it. Now Harrington must make this bogey putt to win. And he does.

Padraig Harrington wins the Open.

Congrats to him, but rats.

Playoff at Carnoustie

So. Four holes. Garcia and Harrington. 1, then 16, 17, and 18. Par 4, 3, 4, and 4. And the Burn. If they're still tied, it's 18 one more time.

Sergio at 18

Sergio's drive was nice but short. Then he had to stand around on the fairway for a long time while the Harrington delay was worked through. His second shot cleared the Burn but went into a bunker. He needs an up-and-down to win.

What a nice wedge shot out of the bunker. A little long, not much, about six feet.

One putt to win. Two putts and it's a play-off.

Stricker has to putt first. He finishes -3.

Now Sergio.

Oh. Damn. It lipped around the hole!

Carnoustie. Oh, Carnoustie.

Almost over...

Harrington putted for double bogey at 18 and made it. He's in the clubhouse at 7 under.

It all comes down to Sergio now, standing on the tee at 18 (waiting for DiMarco and McGinley to finish the hole). He's at -8. If he birdies or pars, he wins. If he bogeys, it's a playoff.

That's a four-hole affair at The Open.

The burn! The burn!

Oh noes! Harrington just had his tee shot (way to the right) roll onto the bridge an d into the Barry Burn at 18!

Sergio saved par at 16 so he's ready to tee off at 17, once the foofaraw at the burn clears. And he hits it nicely, nicely, pretty-pretty, and his second shot is on the green.

So he and Padraig just passed each other on the bridge. Gotta be rough for the Irishman. He's staring at bogey for sure, maybe double, what with still having 249 yards to the pin.

OH NOES! Double burn! (The thing snakes around the green.) Harrington's third shot is also wet. He'll be hitting five, and Garcia has a birdie putt.

(picture of the Burn, with Stuart Appleby)

Romero's day is over

Yes! Sergio's back atop the leaderboard. With a birdie at 14. He's tied with Harrington, who's teeing off on 16 and drops it neatly onto the green, leaving himself a birdie chance. Sergio is teeing off on 15, hitting it into the short rough.

Romero finishes up 18 and will drop 2 strokes to finish at -6. He didn't hit a par on the back nine - five birdies, two bogeys, and two double bogeys. He'll definitely be in the top ten and probably top five. Not at all bad for a 26-year-old in his third major.

Stricker, playing with Garcia of course, is at -5, and so is Els. They and Green are out of it now.

ABC takes no chances

Hee hee. They just played a real commercial for that inventor show. It sounds a lot more exciting this way.

Continues to be interesting

Yow. Andres Romero is on the tee at 17 with ten birdies today and the lead. It's his third major, and the second one he's made the cut in.

Sergio on other hand can't buy a birdie - he's had one today. He and Els are now tied, and two back of the Argentine. (Or do we say Argentinian these days?)

Except - omg. Romero drove into the rough and then, inexplicably, took his 2 iron instead of a wedge and whacked it out of bounds. He's shooting for at a par 4 and isn't near the green, and Sergio just birdied... and Romero reached the green. He could possibly hole in for 5.

Meanwhile, Harrington just had an incredibly lucky bounce to hit the green and holed an eagle putt to take the lead -9.

Those three are all tightly bunched (-9, -8,-7). Els has a chance at -5 if he can make some birdies.

Sunday at Carnoustie - did we really think it would be boring?

Getting interesting at Carnoustie

Yow. Three tied for the lead at -7: Garcia, Harrington, and Romero, who has shaken off that double bogey at 12 with his seventh and eighth birdies of the day.

Els is one back, and Stricker at -5 is two back.

You know - Richard Green's -5 in the clubhouse begins to look interesting.

Ouch for Romero and Stricker

Well, Sergio isn't helping himself, but both Romero and Stricker drove into the gorse. Romero dropped three strokes and Stricker two.

Padraig Harrington, on the other hand, is driving forward and is now tied for second with Els, only a stroke back, and has a good chance for birdie to join Sergio in the lead. In fact, he just did.

But, ahhhhh. What a gorgeous tee shot from Sergio at ten.

Sergio and Harrington (playing 11) are -7, Els -6 (playing 11), and Stricker and Romero (playing 13) at -5.

Hey, guess what?

Remember last year when everyone was all excited about how teen-age sex was in a huge decline? Guess what?

It turns out that last year's announcement was, well, spun (I know, quel surprise):

The long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one of the nation's most important social and public health successes, appears to have stalled.

After decreasing steadily and significantly for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers having intercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then, despite the intensified focus in recent years on encouraging sexual abstinence, according to new analyses of data from a large federal survey.

Or, to be quite clear about it:

The most recent survey data, from 2005, was released last year, but attention focused primarily on the overall change in sexual behavior from 1991 to 2005. ... Largely unnoticed was that the percentages for both measures did not change significantly between 2001 and 2005.

Stein helpfully reminds us, in case we couldn't figure it out ourselves, what happened in 2001.

The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federal spending on programs focused exclusively on encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage...A recent study of four separate abstinence programs, conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services by Mathematica Policy Research, a nonpartisan firm, found no evidence that the programs delayed the start of sexual activity among teens

And yet

The House last week approved a $28 million increase in spending on abstinence programs -- Democratic leaders said it was intended to win Republican support for the annual health and education funding bill

Another troubling fact:

The survey indicates that the increase in condom use may also be waning.

Now why would that happen? Could it be because politicians and religious leaders rant against them on a daily basis?

This is why religious agendas have no place in public policy.

Uh-oh redux

Ouch. Sergio just overdrove the green and dropped another stroke on 7.

And Romero is now only one stroke back of him - he's on a tear!

Things are getting interesting.

Uh-oh

Uh-oh. Stricker's gotten a stroke back, and Sergio pulled out his driver (which he has hardly used) and his shot ended up perched on the top of one of those bricked-up bunkers. It would be an easy shot for Phil Mickelson (who's a lefty) but the ball will be about 2 feet higher than Sergio's feet... He has to chip onto the fairway, can't go for the green.

This could be interesting.

Here's a look at the bunkers, though this is Rory McIlroy in one. Sergio's ball was on the grass just above the bricks.

Sergio will have a chance for par if he can sink this long putt. Meanwhile, Romero has made four birdies in a row. Sergio has to hold on.

Sergio keeps on

Sergio just birdied 3 to go to 4 up - Stricker hit his a little too hard and it lipped out for par.

Els, Romero, Broadhurst, DiMarco, and Harrington are 5 under. Green's having one helluva day - 64 on the day, one over low round for any day at any major - but he's done so he can't improve his 5 under. Els is the biggest name chasing Sergio who has a real chance; he's having a good day. (Tiger? He's 9 shots back and playing the eleventh hole. It would talk a meteor shower...)

Satisfactory

That's all I'm going to say about it. Very satisfactory.

Bad Analogy

So, we were just treated to an extended analogy about how hard it is for Sergio.

It's like [basketball player whose name I didn't catch] on the free throw line in game 7, and he's got two shots, one to tie and one to win. He makes the one to tie and all the fans are screaming and he's at the line and then the referee blows his whistle and comes up and says, "No, not today. You have to do it tomorrow." Now, I'm not saying he wouldn't make the shot, but he wouldn't get much sleep.

Sorry, guy. That's just silly.

Every single tournament he's ever played in has been like this. You always have to come back and play the fourth round on a different day. Just like that basketball player had to play game 7 on a different day than game 6.

Your silly little analogy would hold if Sergio was one stroke up with one hole to play and suddenly the Carnoustie course marshals decided that it was too dark, or the skies open with accompanying lightning, and he had to play 18 Monday.

This - waiting to play the fourth round in what might be his first major victory - might have been tough on Sergio (though, unlike Stricker, he certainly hit a nice first shot), but it isn't like your analogy.

The Boneyard #1

Oooooo. New Carnival to enjoy! The Boneyard - a carnival devoted to all things paleontological.. Number 1 (yes, I'm here at the start!) is up Laelaps.

What's there? Lots. For instance, "The big news that everyone has been talking about this week is a new paper in the journal Science announcing evidence that groups of animals present in the Late Triassic of New Mexico (including those who shared recent ancestors with the dinosaurs, like Dromomeron romeri announced in the paper) did not simply vanish the moment dinosaurs came on the scene. A squad of accomplished paleo-bloggers have provided excellent commentary on the new paper.... As any good paleontologist knows, though, fossils don’t begin and end with dinosaurs."

If you like paleontology head on over.

Oh, this annoys the crap out of me

So I turn on The Open and am greeted by a commentator telling me how "it would be a long shot" but "Tiger's only two strokes out of third". That doesn't mean much, guys: the mob at third is six strokes back - meaning Tiger is eight strokes behind. Okay, I know he's popular, but come on. Don't say "two strokes out of third place" when you mean "eight strokes behind the leader".

Carnival of the Godless 71

The 71st Carnival of the Godless is up over at Aardvarchaeology (Technorati's #1 archaeololgy blog). Although it's not one of his usual topics - I'll let him explain: "Aardvarchaeology is mainly about Scandinavian archaeology and various skeptical issues, but I rarely discuss religion much. You see, in my native Sweden, it's not such a big deal. Few people here give much thought to faith issues. Our churches are empty and our political discourse godless." - Martin has done an excellent job of providing links packed with freethoughty and even downright atheistic goodness for your Sunday morning's reading pleasure - or, if you haven't finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yet, your whenever- you-get-around-to-it reading pleasure. My own thoughts on the futility of non-sectarian prayer made it; also recommended are Sean at Black Sun Journal's Atheist 'Metaphysics' and Religious Equivocation; Daylight Atheism's great Ebonmuse's answer to Michael Gerson, who told us "what atheists can't answer"; and Hell's Handmaiden's review of Coral Ridge Ministry's new movie, Atheism: the religion of fools (spoiler: she's not impressed). But I'm certainly not saying those are the only things worth reading! So head on over and drink the heady draft of godlessness...

And if you won't go for anything else, go for the picture - it alone is worth the click!

Which lolcat I am

Your Score: Longcat
51% Affectionate, 40% Excitable, 40% Hungry

Protector of truth.

Slayer of darkness.

Loooooong.

Longcat may seem like just a regular lengthy cat, but he is, in fact, looong. For proof, observe the longpic.

It is prophesized that Longcat and his archnemesis Tacgnol will battle for supremacy on Caturday. The outcome will change the face of the world, and indeed the very fabric of lolcatdom, forever.

Be grateful that the test has chosen you, and only you, to have this title.

To see all possible results, checka dis.

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Feeding time at the Metro

Generally the sparrows at the Greenbelt Metro station fly away as soon as you get close to them. But Friday they were all occupied with either begging for food from their parents or collecting that food, or shoving it down the throats of their large and importunate offspring, who stood around waving their wings and cheeping loudly while their parents scrabbled around in the dust under the trees.