PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Seattle Pigeons Attacked With Darts
April 29, 2008—Pigeons in Seattle, Washington, are under attack by an unknown assailant with a dart gun, officials say.
National Geographic Photo
Look, I don’t condone this kind of behavior, so don’t think I’m being too flippant, but read on…
At least three birds, including the one pictured here, have been found alive with the needlelike projectiles lodged behind their eyes.
“At least three” birds have been shot through the head, non-fatally. In what other creature on earth is a through and through head shot not fatal?
What an incredibly small brain they must have!
Imagine the marksman’s rage when his dart found it’s way home and out the other side only to have the intended victim fly away with nothing more than a modest headache and vastly improved FM reception. “Gimme back my dart! Filthy vermin!”
Reminds me of someone.
It bears repeating. T. Rex tasted like chicken.
T. Rex Protein “Confirms” Bird-Dinosaur Link
A new study of ancient proteins retrieved from a Tyranosaurus rex fossil confirms the long-hypothesized evolutionary connection between dinosaurs and modern birds, experts say.
The article includes evidence that mastodons tasted like elephant, but that doesn’t interest me. If mastodon was the meat of the millennium I inhabited I’d eat it, even if it did taste like elephant.
Road trip for some Sisters of St. Cecilia:
U.S. ‘Nashville Dominican’ Nuns Evangelize the Young in Sydney, Australia - Catholic Online
The nuns are in Sydney at the invitation of Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher, World Youth Day 2008 coordinator and fellow Dominican. Normally they would be at home teaching, but their motherhouse in Nashville has sent delegations to assist with preparations for each World Youth Day since Denver was the host city in 1993.
What’s stranger, A white whale in the wild, or an article about a white whale in the wild that makes no reference to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick? I’ve seen the latter.
A white killer whale—fin pictured here— was recently spotted in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, sending researchers and their ship’s crew scrambling for cameras.
“It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: “a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.”
… not on Facebook anyways.
The Curt Jester: Call no Facebook profile Fr.
A couple of weeks ago Joshua LeBlanc noticed that the title Fr. was being removed on Facebook for his priest friends. It soon turned out that not only Fr. was being removed but Sr. also. Though Rev. and Dr. were not be automatically removed from the names used in profiles.
The article in The Guardian I’m linking to below has two main points to make. 1.) What was wrong with the pub? 2.) Who’s running the show at Facebook?
With regard to that second point, I think I’d prefer that it was Santa Claus who knew when I was sleeping, knew when I was awake, and knew if I’d been bad or good.
With friends like these … Tom Hodgkinson on the politics of the people behind Facebook | Technology | The Guardian
And does Facebook really connect people? Doesn’t it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk?
I enjoy a good round of ‘Throw a sheep at…’ as much as the next guy. But I think some cautionary considerations about what you reveal online, who you reveal it to and what you store online are in order.
Business Technology : Bill Gates Quits Facebook
Bill Gates has stopped using the Web site Facebook
He wasn’t answering my ‘friend requests’ anyways, so good riddance.
Be Fruitful and Multiply - By Steven E. Landsburg - Slate Magazine
The day you were born, you brought both costs and benefits into this world. The costs include the demands you made (and continue to make) on the world’s resources. The benefits include your ongoing contributions to the world’s stock of ideas, love, friendship, and diversity.
Do the costs outweigh the benefits, or vice versa? In other words: Should the rest of us consider your birth (or any child’s birth) a blessing or a curse?
I suppose it depends very much on the cost benefit accounting. What are we counting, how, for whom and how do we treat the unknowns? After a look at costs and benefits and a tangent (I think) into the rights to consume said resources the author ends up somewhere around this :
This argument seems to suggest that I should have had more children for the sake of strangers. A second, completely separate argument says I should have had more children for the sake of those children themselves. Presumably they’d have been grateful for the gift of life. I’m not sure how far to push that argument. There’s obviously nothing close to a consensus on how to assign rights to the unborn, so we can hardly hope for a consensus on how to assign rights to the unconceived. But the second argument does tend to buttress the first.
Personally, I ignored both arguments when I selfishly limited the size of my family. I understand selfishness.
Me too Steven, me too.
“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jews and the Vatican: A New Clash - TIME
Good Friday prayer from the ancient liturgy that had called for the conversion of the Jews. The text of the updated version — released this week in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano — deletes offensive language referring to Jews’ “blindness” and the need to “remove the veil from their hearts.” But the substance is left in place: “Let us pray for the Jews,” the prayer says, according to an unofficial translation from Latin. “May the Lord our God illuminate their hearts so that they may recognize Jesus Christ savior of all men.”
This is a seriously dysfunctional ecumenical conversation. If I pray for what I understand to be for your wellbeing, what business is that of yours? If I understand human wellbeing differently than you, what business is that of yours? Are you going to correct me every single time I hold a different belief than you, or only when I exercise my belief in love for you? Do you want me to respect your world view and disrespect my own?
‘Offended’, it’s the new ‘Repressed’.
Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That’s what I’m on about. Did you see him offending me? You saw it, didn’t you?
Father John Z. at “What does the prayer really say?” points out a silver lining in these clouds of anger, namely, that the Traditional Latin Mass is relevant enough to update and squabble over.
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It’s not that ‘Wick soccer belongs in Div III, it’s more like Div III soccer would kinda make sense at The Wick. I know that’s a kick to the inseam for all you die hard Warrior Hawks fans.
The Daily Star, Oneonta, NY - The Newspaper for the Heartland of New York - ‘Wick soccer could drop to Division III
“The culture of Division I athletics is inconsistent with our mission today, whereas this was not the case 25 years ago.'’
Hartwick has had men’s soccer since 1956, and the team won the national championship in 1977.
The former Hartwick College mascot, known only as ‘The Warrior’, answered the door with a shotgun in his right hand and a bad case of Whiskas breath. When asked for comment said “No Comment, now go off and see if you can get my quote right this time. I’m not talkin’ about the old days to you anymore.”
