Thanksgiving Special

The other of my audience of two has noticed that I've been putting in a lot of DIY stuff in the links. It's true.

In that tradition, these are a lot of interesting DIY stuff that have something remotely to do with Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Enjoy:

Things to do with plastic bags
Making Home Applesauce
The Thanksgiving Calculator: Organized Cooking for 42
Modular Icosahedron Pie
Making Good Corn Bread
Making Stuffed Sole
Making Paper Snowflakes.
How to Run Christmas Lights on your Bike
DIY New York Pizza
Papercraft Turkey Dinner
National Toy Hall of Fame
DIY LED Bike Light Guide

Okay. Now the science and stuff links.

Crazy Horse Lock Mechanism
SEED: State of Science
Hammers of Quality
Mankind's Best Friend, the Rat. Really. Honest.
Wildest Optical Illusion Ever
Digs you can See Up Close

There, then.

Go Thou and Eat Turky in My Name.

Of Interest

More Rabies Survivors: Here

Political Links
Blunderbushing at Midnight
Blunderbushing at the Park
Blunderbushing for Global Warming

Wall of Idiots
McLawsuit

Of Interest
Art of Michael Pfluger
Art of Arthur Ganson
Art of Mark Soppeland
Moving a Treadmill
Make your own Hot Sauce
Solar Cemetery
Jug Hero
Make Rock Candy
Creepy Soap Man
Make a Universal Bike Light
DOING Thanksgiving
Science of the Five Senses
Maker Faire
Converting Vinyl
Magic and the Brain

Of Interest

Political Links
Politics in Georgia
Blunderbanking: Citigroup
Domestic Spying

Wall of Idiots
Christ on a Cat's Leg

Links of Interest
Bre Pettis
DIY Christmas Ornaments
More Exoplanets SEEN! and HERE!
Louis CK
Vegetable Instrument Workshop
PMC Jewelry
The Talking Guitar
Sea Eagles
Augmented reality
Mini Monsters
LED World
Telematic Drum Circle
Greener Gadgets
Birdseed Skull

Of Interest

(X-Ray of a MacBook here)
Political Links
Battle of the Brains

Wall of Idiots
Laser Cutter Tattoos
Dems Don't Want Your 401K
The Greatest Conspiracy Stories Ever Told

Links Of Interest
Zach's Cool Stuff
Society of Amateur Scientists
Poisonous Pigeons
Paintings on Books
Deep Buried Glaciers on Mars and here
LIFE Science
Views of the Tiny
Jason Freeny: Unique Anatomy
Real Time Turkey Tracking
The Dying Sound of Hard Drives
Smokin' Science
100 Tons of Paint
Universal Nursery
Canadian Meteor
Big Cells
Bit Blob

Of Interest

The Happy Birthday Party Napkin Rocket of the Apocalypse

Links of Interest
Soil Soot Helps
Welcome to Nollywood
Electric Mini
Mammoth Genome Pieced Together and here
All Monty Python. All the time.
A Culture of Thrift
Furbys Rediscovered in Indonesia
Research Cruise Ship
Superscraper! and here
Bow Shock
Fate of the Space Program
Patricia Piccinini Sculptures
The Buran
The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra and here
Soccerbots!
Baseballbots!

Detroit Under Water

I've owned a lot of cars. In order: VW Bug, VW Squareback, 1967 Chevy Nova, Toyota Starlet, Toyota Tercel Wagon (Dream Car), Subaru Wagon, Jeep Cherokee, Chevy Nova, Geo Metro, Subaru Forester, Ford Focus and Scion xA. I'm including my wife's cars as well since I drive them.

So: 2 VW's, 1 Jeep, 2 Chevys, 1 Ford, 6 Japanese cars.

I prefer the Japanese cars and have no love of American automobiles.

I can rant about American cars. I can talk about how they fall apart, how they make user feature choices that ruin usability purely in an attempt to hoodwink the consumer. They are not interested in repeat business-- at least, not mine. Every modern American car I've driven has been inadequate. I liked my 1967 Nova and the later Nova from the 1980s. But the more recent Jeep sucked and the Focus sucks. The only reason I replaced the Geo with the Focus was price. Used Toyotas and Hondas were just too damned expensive for a car to bridge between current technology and what's coming.

So: as a consumer it doesn't matter if Detroit sinks or not.

Even so, a lot of people do buy American cars. 22% market share is still 17 mCars/year. And if we're in the business of bailing out Citigroup and AIG for stupidity that makes the auto makers look like geniuses, what's the problem dropping a paltry $25 billion on Detroit? I mean, AIG has gotten well over a $120 billion alone and Paulson is dropping money on bankers like it's raining money-- from the point of view of AIG I guess it is.

It's strange to listen to the rhetoric. Why should we save them from their own mistakes?

You can make exactly the same argument for AIG. The answer for AIG is that there's a financial meltdown if you don't. The answer for Detroit is you get massive unemployment for Americans if you don't. We know whose side Bush is on.

I like Barney Frank's plan: the companies must follow hard rules such as no dividends, no increase in executive pay, etc.

I only wish they'd forced AIG to follow the same rules.
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Signs of the Coming Apocalypse
Agreement between Popkes and Buchanan

Political Links
Ted Stevens Loses. Loses. Here that? Loses.
Cross Correlating Obama by County and Race

Wall of Idiots
Killdar
Fox News Financial Advisor

Links of Interest
2008 Gadget Guide
Betty Davis Webcam Eyes
Doctor Atomic
Categorizing Grief
New Drug Resistant Pathogen
Gamma Cygni from Sky Factory
Brain Damage vs. Psychosis
Google Life
World Wide Space and here
Apple = DRM = RIAA
Laser Healing
Ancient Turtles

Of Interest

Life Viewed Through a Microscope
The Cost of Natural Gas
Oceans of Mars
The Cost of Mismanaging Water
Grenade Camera
Planetary Maps and here
Maori on Mars

Of Interest

Political Links
Absentee Ballots in Virginia
The Bailout Blog
The Sarah Palin Presidency
Blunderbanking

Wall of Idiots
Columbine Videos on YouTube (Idiocy on the face of it.)
Chalk Drawings: A Capital Offence
Billboards on the Grand Canal

Links Of Interest
Replication Before Metabolism
New Scientist SF Special
Chandrayaan 1
Facebook: A Love Story
Sex Among the Avatars
Bizarre Lobster
Squid Pickles
Survival of the Fuzzy
The Terrible Siberian Vampire Moth
The Strange Case of Dr. Sugarman
Fear and Money in Dubai
New Star Trek Trailer
Shark Cam
A New Approach to Pancreatic Cancer

Exoplanets Seen!

(Picture from here.)
We can now see, actually see, I mean with a telescope actually, really, truly, see a planet orbiting another star. This isn't checking for wobbles in the movement or blinking. This is like seeing the moon at midnight.

The picture shown is from a planet orbiting Fomalhaut, 25 light years away. It's a big thing-- somewhere between Neptune and three Jupiters.

But that's not all. We have sightings of three-- three-- planets orbiting HR 8799, 130 light years away.

Humans are amazing.

Enough of my rants. Look a the links. See the pictures. Imagine the possibilities.

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.
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Political Links
Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota

Wall of Idiots
Obama Iconography
Why Sean Tevis Really Lost
How to Become an Expert
The Supreme Court Justices

Links of Interest
Cornburgers
Juan Enriquez on Oil
The Great Sulfer Pyramids of Canada
Evolution and War
Mining the Unminable
The Promise of Synthetic Biology
Animal Rights Extremism
XYZ: Female Embryology
How Bleach Kills Bacteria
Homo Erectus Pelvis and here
Picosatellites
Oddstars
Causes of Asthma
Red Meat -> Cancer
Spirit Lives!
The Hunterian Museum
Retinal Jesus

Of Interest

Political Links
Obama in Mississippi
Taxing Issues

Wall of Idiots
Killer Sonar Okay
Obama Gestapo

Links of Interest
Mountains in Ice
Omniphobic Materials
Neural Control of the World and here
Miskatonic University
Scenes from Antarctica
Sport Animals as Furniture
The Moon and the Seven Sisters
Orridge and Lady Jaye
Google Rome
A New Generator
Avisapiens
Miracle of the Buddha and here
Wizard of Oz Redux and here

Links of Interest

Political Links
The Presidential Election Map

Wall of Idiots
Bush Terminates Promising Experiments
Science by Petition

Links of Interest
The Futures Channel
New Light on Dark Matter
Regulating the Antarctic
Enzymatic Memory
ADS-B
Limb Regeneration X-Prize
What is a Gene?
Goodbye Phoenix
The Evolution of Altruism
West Coast Fisheries Management
1910 Manifesto of the Futurist Painters
Battling Sepsis
Recapturing the Energy of Motion
Origamic Architecture
Mimicking (but not very well) Evolution
Operation Sesame
Evolution gets Weirder
Python bites Fence
Beyond Belief
Singing Mermaids

Links of Interest

Political Links
The Cure for Bush is Obama
Presidential Fanboy
Blunderbanking: The End

Links of Interest
Crocodilians Provide for their Young
The Roots of Psychopaths
The Biggest Event
Regrowing the Optic Nerve
The Death of Phoenix and here and here and here
Flight of the Albatross
The Baghdad Commuter Rail
YouTube to post full length MGM Films.
Killing Mister HIV and here
Visual Decisions
Cormac McCarthy on Death
The Lost Bomb
Panspermia: Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.
New Worlds
Lunar Colonization Blog
Ion Shields for Spaceships
Terrific Cassini Video

Foot Shooting

When I was starting out as a software engineer a coworker told me of the three kinds of errors. The metaphor was shooting yourself in the foot.
The most common error is to take careful aim at the foot and blow it off. The most desired error was a system in which you took careful aim at your foot and missed. The most dangerous error was a system in which you took careful aim at your foot, pulled the trigger and blew your head off.

Now we come to Israel.

I am absolutely committed to the idea that Israel exist. I am also equally committed to the idea that for Israel to exist it must be more than some other country. It must stand for something. Otherwise, what is the point of Israel existing? There is an old Talmud statement for which I do not have an immediate reference that went something like this: It is a greater sin for a Jew to cheat a non-Jew than for a Jew to cheat another Jew. In the latter example, the cheat stands for itself and is a minor sin. But in the former case, the Jew is standing as an example of the Torah to the world and therefore the sin is greater as it is against the Torah and God. As was said, God made the world for the Torah, not the Torah for the world.

An odd thing for an atheist to say, isn't it? Still, let us leave that little dichotomy for another time and place.

Given the above, it gives me great pain when the government of Israel does silly things. This weekend I got this link across my desk. It seems the Simon Wiesenthal Center, based in Los Angeles, has decided to build a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem. And it seems it is building it over a parking garage that is also the Mamilla Cemetery. (See here and here.)The Wiesenthal point of view is represented here and here. It's been a parking garage for a while. It's not classified as a cemetery for "over fifty years".

That's an interesting statement to make. Do bodies disappear when a space of land is no longer used as a cemetery? We have little family cemeteries all over the place in New England. I saw them in Missouri, too. It didn't mean they were no longer revered.

It gets even more involved, however. The cemetery fell into disuse in 1948-- when Israel was created. (See here and here) It is the Wiesenthal Center's point of view that the cemetery had been declared abandoned in 1964. Though there are those who dispute that. Regardless, as in Missouri and Massachusetts, people don't quit grieving and revering the dead just because a place is politically modified. A good essay on the subject is here. In Massachusetts there were the "lost towns of Quabbin". Towns that were leveled and destroyed to make Quabbin Reservoir that feeds water to Boston. There are still people who are ticked about it.

Now, imagine that sort of situation with a "Museum of Tolerance" with a known occupied territory in a place where both sides consider all men, women and children of the other side as essentially enemy combatants.

A better solution would have been to rebuild the Mamilla Cemetery and incorporate the Museum around it. That would have been a Museum of Tolerance worthy of its name.

"Shooting yourself in the foot" doesn't begin to cover it.

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Political Links
Betta Republicans
Obameidolia
Undoing Bush
Night of the Long Knives

Wall of Idiots

Media watches Palin trip: Political Assasination and here and here

Operation Leper

Links of Interest
Feathered Dinosaurs and Birds
Engineering Edibacteria
Chandrayaan Orbits Moon
Carnival of Space
The Abandoned Mines of Death Valley New Cancer Treatments Plastic in the Lab Not so Great The Trials of Alternative Fuels How to Get Tickets to the Inauguration Productivity: Be Afraid
Gene Associated with Language Development and here
CO2 Rock Sponges
Eat Fertilizer!
Good Bacteria vs. Bad Bacteria
See the GOODS and here
Octopus Redecoration
Retail: The Comic
Octopus Evolution
How Spam Works

The Blessed GOP Meltdown

I have to say, it's been entertaining reading the right wing pundits try to make sense of the election. It would be difficult for them to say "Gee. Our ideas didn't really set well with the public after being in place for thirty years. Guess we gave them a chance and they didn't work so well." That would be like Rush Limbaugh deciding that drug rehabilitation was good for anybody (except himself.)

So, we have Windmill Annie. Ann Coulter spins around so fast in pointing blame in this week's column that she's in serious danger of becoming airborne. As usual, Coulter's column is content free. That is unless you consider bashing liberals to a beat content. There are some particularly nasty quotes to be gotten there.

Like this one: "Apparently Florida voters didn't mind Obama's palling around with Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, either. There must be a whole bunch of retired Pennsylvania Jews down there."

Or this one: "This was such an enormous Democratic year that even John Murtha won his congressional seat in Pennsylvania after calling his constituents racists. It turns out they're not racists -- they're retards."

And, lest you think that Windmill Annie doesn't make a profit on this sort of thing. We have her advice on Obamaproofing your portfolio. This shows that whether or not she is able to put a coherent thought together in an article, she's still able to make money on it. Of course, somebody out there has to actually pay her. One wonders who would even consider her advice useful, much less profitable.

Michael Reagan wasn't a lot better. He and Coulter both think McCain and Bush walked away from basic Republican ideals. After all, military spending, abrogation of human rights and saving corporations from their own blunders isn't a hallmark of the Republican Party, is it? Is it? Really? Hm, well now. After all, this was "not a referendum on Ronald Reagan." Who says saints are only found in the Catholic Church?

Oliver North, that bastion of integrity, considers how the GOP ought to be rebuilt. You remeber Ollie, don't you? He's the soldier who turned his back on his oath, his country and his personal honor to help Ronnie the Robot skunk the Constitution. Then he made money on it. Nice to know who Annie's friends are. He thinks moving Mike Pence (R-Ind) into a position of leadership shows "the rapidity of conservatives’ resurgence after the McCain loss Tuesday". Pence is Human Event's 2005 Man of the Year-- as grisly an endorsement as I can imagine.

Patrick Buchanan, who thinks Palin is the best thing since sliced bread, thinks the defeat was "unnecessary". It's the Mainstream Media. McCain gave it away. Barack had nothing to do with it except for "locking up black America." Nice to know where you stand, Pat. Buchanan is good with epitaphs: "These are the twin causes of death of the Reagan coalition, and as long as the Republican Party is hooked on K Street cash, it will not address either, and thus pass, blissfully addicted, from this earth."

Say it's so, Pat. Please, say it's so.

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Political Links
Ballot Initiative Analysis. Mostly Crying in the Beer, here.
Ted Talk, Morality: Conservatives vs. Liberals
2008 Fact Check Awards
That Damned Liberal Media
Secretary McCain
Threats to Political Muslims
Palin Supporters
Obama and the White Vote
Race and the Executive
Joe Lieberman faces the music and here and here
Obama, McCain, Palin Dancing

Links of Interest
Giant Omelette Celebration
Volcano Slideshow
Social Network for Scientists
LHC Fears
Centauri B Planets Unlikely
Alternative Gun Cultures
Cephalopod Tricks
Kew-el Buildings
Green Spaces Reduce Health Gap

Links of Interest

Political Links
Election Analysis: Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.
Salvaging from Bush: Here. Here.
Alien Weeps for McCain's Loss
The Monster Years
Obama and Science

Links of Interest
AuroraCam
New Millennium Paper Airplane Contest and here, here, here, here and here
Best Animal Photos of 2008
Alternative Energy Overview
Inside the Viet Nam War
Visual Development
Lunar Microbes
Nanobama
Immune Differences between Chimps and Humans
Cancer Genetic Blueprint
DNA Wires
Cougars are BIG
Grasshopper on Vacation
Dark Flow
Good Bugs, Bad Bugs

Links of Interest

Political Links
Pre-emption
Social Progress
Einstein + Obama = Sharpton
Election Analysis and here

Links of Interest
Bye Bye Bluefin
The End of Phoenix
The Oldest Hebrew Text
Melamine Dawns over China
Why do we Forget?
Protecting Astronauts and here
Drugs from China
Self Organizing Optics
Regrowing extinct animals
Saving Orcas through Salmon