Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I took an awful grainy cell phone picture yesterday, one where it’s hard to see the subjects for the sun glare. But really, this is amazing:
Fifteen years ago when I started out at UMM, our intro biology course had an exercise where students were given butterfly nets and sent out to capture, tag, and release monarch butterflies. It was relatively easy: you’d find a tree with a swarm — and I do mean swarm, they’d be covered with butterflies dripping from every branch, and there’d be clouds of them flying about — and you’d swish that net and catch dozens. Then every year after that, we saw fewer and fewer, until it was an exercise that was frustratingly impossible to do. Most years of late I’d see only an occasional solo monarch, and some years I’d see none.
But yesterday, I was seeing scattered monarchs everywhere, and then I found this tree across the street with masses of butterflies hanging from a few branches. It was nothing like the glory days, but still…maybe they’re making a comeback?
This is a deeply anti-intellectual message.
He’s telling people that school is irrelevant. He starts off with history, and actually makes a good point: that history is often taught poorly, with a narrow focus. That’s a complaint about the quality of the teaching, and I think it’s good to encourage students to demand better of their instructors.
But then it gets weird. He starts complaining about the subjects themselves: no one needs to know any math beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and how does he know? Because he’s a satirist on television who doesn’t understand logarithms, and he’s just fine.
It’s Labor Day! And you know what that means…no, not hot dogs and barbecue and all the soporific consumption The Man wants you to practice. It’s a day of righteous anger.
About four dozen people showed near the Judicial Building at the State Capitol complex in St. Paul to counter protest individuals who had planned on holding a rally in defense of the Confederate Flag on Saturday, September 5, 2015. The Confederate Flag rally organizer BC Johnson, who had intended to rally at the State Capitol said the event was relocated to Savage Community Park. He estimates 10 people showed up. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)
We have hateful loons here in Minnesota, too. A group calling itself the Minnesota 10,000 for Southern Heritage tried to organize a rally for the Confederate flag in the state capitol today. It turns out the 10,000 was a wee bit optimistic.
They applied for a permit to hold their rally, and had to estimate how many would attend: they guessed…25.
The rally was held this morning. A counter-demonstration was scheduled that brought in about 50 people, and when they heard about it, the chickenpoops waving the traitor’s flag ran away and held their rally in a park, instead.
About 10 people showed up.
I think they need to change their name to the Minnesota 10 for Southern Heritage.
Tom Harkin is a toxin in the bloodstream of American science. Watch this report on his legacy: billions of dollars swirling down the drain of alternative medicine.
A NY Times opinion piece asks the question, Does Down Syndrome Justify Abortion? The answer is easy: yes. Yes it does. But then, so does having 46 chromosomes.
The only questions you should ask are whether the mother wants the child, and is well-informed about the risks. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t have to “justify” getting the abortion.
Earlier this summer, Michael Shermer wrote a column for Scientific American to explain Why Do Cops Kill?. I was rapturously unaware of it because he’s an author I long ago decided I could ignore, but just recently a reader had to destroy my state of ecstatic ignorance by pointing it out to me. I read it with growing disbelief, my jaw sagging further and further at the dreadful illogic and the scientismic insipidity of the thing. How does he still get published?
To make it short, for those who prefer not to read anything associated with The Shermer, his answer is…it’s not racism, it’s because they have brain circuitry. No, really. It’s even illustrated with a cartoon of a clockwork murder-bot.
The Reason Rally has got a date: 4 June 2016.
