Scary Scary stuff

"Last June Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a 'task that is from God.' "

I have to strongly agree with the statement by Rob Boston (spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State):

"I miss the days when pastors delivered sermons and politicians delivered political speeches," he said. "The United States is increasingly diverse religiously. The job of a president is to unify all those different people and bring them together around policy goals, not to act as a kind of national pastor and bring people to God."

Science Debate 2008

Not sure if you guys have heard about this, they tried to get a live debate, unsuccessfully, but at least the candidates agreed to give written responses.

Obama's responses are up, McCain's are still to come.

9 Modern-day Independence Movements

Read the article HERE.

Depending on how things turn out, we may come to regret that #2's independence never came about.

20 Weirdest Endangered Animals

Forget the cute and cuddly endangered animal conspiracy, HERE is the low down on 20 of the weirdest endangered animals, including the Aye Aye above.

Cool time lapse video of molds and mushrooms

It's the end of the world as we know it

cue the 80's flashbacks



Want to know what's going to happen when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN brings about the apocalypse when it starts up next month?
Just watch this informational video and find out!

Note: Successful trials already under way on the LHC have yet to cause the world to end. Lesser folks than myself may be tempted to doubt the coming armageddon, but I am mentally staying the course, and holding firm in my beliefs despite alleged evidence to the contrary.

Bicycling to Freedom

A fascinating article on the effect of bicycling on womens emancipation. Check it out HERE.

Eco-friendly driving

Hummer comes out with new more eco-friendly version that gets to the root of the problem. Listen to audio HERE.

Sheyl, I promise this won't give you an aneurysm.

Fun Commercial

Definitely worthwhile to check out the higher def video HERE

Happy Birthday, Owen!!

Friday afternoon levity

For your amusement: an excellent existential comic, it shows what not to wish for on the off chance you ever come across a genie in a bottle.

Wash Away Your Sin Soap

These may not be such a joke item after all. At least not according to THIS Science article that talks about a study into the intrinsic connection between cleanliness and morality. It's got an interesting concept and really interesting results. Apparently, after telling a story about an unethical act they committed, half of the subjects were allowed to wipe their hands with an antiseptic wipe, the other half didn't. They were then asked to volunteer to help out a desperate grad student (aren't we all desperate, though?). 74% of those who didn't get to wipe their hands volunteered, but only 41% of those who did wipe their hands volunteered.

So I guess the moral of this story for us desperate grad students is to hope that the funding agencies hire people with less than desirable hygiene skills.

Thanks to the blog Not Exactly Rocket Science.

New profession

I've decided to give up school and go apprentice with a tyromancer. I would imagine there should be plenty of them out in the midwest. Its either that or perhayps gyromancy, I could be good at that.

For other interesting careers in the future (hahaha) check THIS page out.

Apologies for the bad pun. I wonder if there's some form of divination using puns, maybe I should try that instead of tyromancy. Punnymancy?

Renewable Petroleum?

More microbes to save the world?

Animated film about movie genres

Watch it HERE.