Here's a cluster of news stories and testimony excerpts from this very important court case in PA. I can't take my eyes off it, if intelligent design wackos win, they could be coming to my school next...   more »

Now here's a protest I could really get behind!

From Sheep lovers going naked at Australian embassies (AFP via Yahoo News) (possibly NSFW):

Animal rights activists will reportedly go naked outside five Australian embassies around the world in a bid to force Australian sheep farmers to stop a controversial farming practice...

...with the Australian flag painted on their buttocks and fake blood on other parts of their bodies...

...We don't mind showing a little of our behinds if it will save lambs from having chunks of flesh hacked off of theirs...

Scientists are observing an unprecedented level of melting in the arctic ice cap. For the last four years the summer melt has been more and more extensive, and with each successive melting, the arctic grows warmer causing even more melting...   more »

Just the other day I was remarking to James how sooner or later some evangelical moron was going to say that God sent Katrina to punish the wicked, and within 24 hours someone did, Senator Hank Erwin (R-Alabama)...   more »

Here's an interesting article from the BBC showing a series of cool photographs of scientific interest or with a science-related bent.  Enjoy.

Here's a pair of interesting items James pointed out to me recently...   more »

I figure this one is going to be only about the raft people and we won't hear a peep about the hatch.  Wait and see!

9:17 PM: looks like we're getting to see some of what is going on in the hatch.  Cool.

10:17 PM: well looks like we found the others!  And from the previews I see that Michelle Rodriguez will be joining us next week!  Woohoo!  I'm glad they found Jin.  I was worrying about him.

Funny how we manage to have revisted the folks in the hatch and not moved past the point we were at in the previous episode!  Ha ha ha!

I've watched about 20 minutes of "invasion".  Yeah I'm just not interested in this show.  Is anyone enjoying it?

I'm working from home today on a rather complicated modification to the software we are building at work. How complicated?...   more »

Well my landscapers left for the day about 20 minutes ago.  They worked from about 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM, and then again from about 2:00 PM until about 3:20 PM.  Of the 5 rolls of weedblock, the crucial factor that kept them from working yesterday, guess how much they put down.  If you guessed NONE, you're right! It turns out that before they could put down the weedblock they had plenty of other work they needed to do, digging out areas, removing the stumps of old plants, etc.

Obviously the annoying thing is that if they needed to do all this, they needed to do it before I got them the weedblock that they should have gotten themselves.  Which means they could have worked a "full" day yesterday and never have needed to touch weedblock.  The "we don't have weedblock" excuse was just that, an excuse.  I don't know what the real reason was for them not working, but it wasn't because they didn't have weedblock.

For the record, they *still* aren't ready to put down weedblock in front of my porch (stumps are still there), or on the side of my house (there is still a lot of old mulch and old weedblock there that needs to be removed first).

This kills me. Dubya is asking Americans to conserve gas, don't take nonessential trips, etcetera, in the wake of the Katrina/Rita impact...   more »

Many of you recall that I had to drop anonymous commenting because I was getting spammed. I'm pleased to report that BlogHarbor has added comment verification to their standard comment form, and because of this, I'm going to turn anonymous commenting back on until such time as it becomes a problem. How does the verification work? Well you'll note an odd graphic at the top of the comment form...   more »

I've noted before how much I've been enjoying Ron's Blog, blogrolled it even, but today I read an unnerving article there about a recent visitor to the public school Ron's child attends...   more »

Well it's not really a Kraken, but it's still cool.  A Japanese science team has taken the first ever photographs of a live giant squid in the wild.  Neat!

It's a beautiful sunny day on my little patch of dirt in Fitchburg, MA. Can you guess how many landscapers are working in my yard? If you guessed ZERO, you're right! Today's excuse? "Jay didn't drop off the weedblock."...   more »

Apparently the "ousted" ex-head of FEMA is still on the payroll as a consultant.

It doesn't take a genius to recognize that Intelligent Design is simply Creationism under another name, and that it has no place in ANY science class.  Why?  Duh!  Because it's not science!  The fact that it doesn't take a genius to figure this out says something about the Dover Pennsylvania Area School District which voted 6-3 to require students to be exposed to Intelligent Design back in 2004.  Now, eight Dover families are suing the school district...

From 'Intelligent design' takes center stage in Pennsylvania trial (AP via Billings Gazette) (Emphasis mine.):

Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education ... said the controversy has little to do with science because mainstream scientists have rejected intelligent-design theory.

Intelligent design supporters "seem to have shifted virtually entirely to political and rhetorical efforts to sway the general public," Scott said. "The bitter truth is that there is no argument going on in the scientific community about whether evolution took place."

So Sunday I was going to catch up on the work I didn't finish Friday. My wife was going to Pickety Place with her folks and then taking a trip up to David's House so I would basically have the day to myself...   more »

So yesterday we went down to Somerset to hang out with our friends James and Maggie. Shortly after arriving at rancho Burke we visited a nearby corn maze to get lost. It was fun!...   more »

I haven't mentioned it here before but we hired landscapers to come in and redo our front yard. I was afraid to bring it up because it might not end up going well and then I would be in a position of having to explain how badly things are going despite all my rosy predictions. It turns out things aren't going all that great so I guess it's just as well...   more »