Random Thoughts

Tangential Science: it's not necessarily science, but it's still funny. 1. In an overhyped analysis certain to make biologists want to reach for their pistols, it has been declared that women are evolving to be more beautiful: "Evolution has led to women, but not men, getting progressively beautiful, according to scientists" it reads. That's right, evolution doesn't take any time at all; in a generation or two, it can make women even more superior than they already are.   Somewhere in Heaven, Lamarck is giggling and Darwin is wondering why biologists haven't caned Markus Jokela, a…

This really takes the cake - or, the rice krispies, as it were. As Josh so cleverly described, General Mills took one for the team when FDA sent a warning letter about the claim on GM's Cheerios box that it lowers cholesterol. So when I saw "IMMUNITY" in splashy letters stretched across a box of Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies, I figured a warning letter would soon follow. But not so, according to Kellogg - and they may just be right. Why can Kellogg make a claim but GM can't? Maybe FDA is partial to Snap, Crackle and Pop. But there is another reason, a loophole of sorts, that GM should have picked…

There are no words to explain this. Perhaps British folk like Patrick can explain. Cheese rolling is a sport, according to ESPN's E:60. It's just like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, except it's in England, and you're chasing cheese instead of bulls chasing you...ok, so it's not really like running of the bulls, but makes about the same amount of sense. People stand at the top of the concave Cooper Hill in Gloucester every year, usually in costume, and some old guy rolls a wheel of specially made Double Gloucester cheese (Diane Smart apparently makes the best), and then...they run…

Indexed comes through on a Monday morning, as always!

The happy nights of Italy's Premier Silvio Berlusconi, now documented in hot recordings taken by Escort Patrizia D'Addario, have by now circled the free world (in Italy they are only available to readers of a couple of newspapers allegedly "hostile to the government", Repubblica and L'Espresso). Together with the parties in his Sardinian villa, where scores of starlets and easy girls were allegedly invited to cheer up the leader and his occasional guests, or the rendez-vous in a wellness center closed to everybody else for the occasion, where Berlusconi allegedly met with at least three other…

You're all either old enough or young enough to remember "Where's Waldo?"   It involved a lovable scamp with glasses who would get himself trapped in awfully complex situations and only keen eyes could rescue him. We have our own lovable scamp, sans glasses, and his name is Garth Sundem.   If you haven't seen Garth be lovable, watch this clip from his show on the Science Channel.  I'll wait.   See what I mean?  If you still aren't convinced I will put up his clip from "Good Morning America", after which I am pretty sure Diane Sawyer tried to kidnap him and chain him…

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Approximately $1500 worth of fried electronics has taught me a valuable lesson.I had surge protection on the AC.  Nothing was plugged into a wall outlet, nothing at all... Yet this morning when a rogue lightning bolt hit apparently it fried my TV completely, and the internet port on my wireless router was fried as well. (Just the connector where the ethernet plugs into the device the rest of it works somehow).  It was my best TV 42" 1080P connected via HDMI to the cable box.  I would think that the cable box would be totally fried by any surge which could be passed by…

CNN is trying to look like they are impartial by simultaneously only having talking heads who stress how vital government health care is while then proclaiming it Obama's "Waterloo." If you aren't familiar with military history, or only know the colloquial term, here is a brief summary:  Napoleon was a brilliant General during the disastrous French Revolution who made himself Emperor after a coup d'etat.  He battered around the continental powers, reinstituted slavery, implemented French modern civil law and tried to invent a new week.  Oh, and sold us Louisiana. After…

Tangential Science: it's not necessarily science, but it's still funny. 1. Pity poor Conde Nast.  Not only are they going to lose $200 million in 2009, meaning Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair may have to limit himself to one personal driver while he jets off to expensive dinners on his expense account, but now a blogger on the Internet has gone after Wired because, surprise, their coverage of science is not all that great. Well, is it supposed to be?   I thought they were a tech and culture magazine.  Sure, it's fun to kick them or New Scientist around when they throw out…