Walking Octopi

Fark has been just great today. It pointed me to this New Scientist article about newly discovered walking behavior in octopi. They use all but two of their legs for camoflage and then sneak away by walking with the other two. It's hard to explain, but the videos are amazing.

Librul coffee

At a time when conservatives are being hunted to extinction in America, a few brave righties have taken a stand against liberal one-liners printed on coffee cups from Starbucks. According to the St Petersberg Times:

Moments after picking up a venti vanilla latte from a St. Petersburg Starbucks, Sam Maston removed his cup's cardboard sleeve to inspect a message printed beneath.

"America's national debt is now $7.5-trillion, and it's skyrocketing, even as America's population ages," the cup read. "There will never be a better time to start paying off this crippling debt than today."

The quote, from environmentalist Denis Hayes, didn't faze the 29-year-old Maston.

"I'm a pretty hardcore Democrat," said Maston, who wore a black rubber wristband bearing the words I DID NOT VOTE 4 BUSH. "I think they should put that stuff on there."

Not everyone agrees.

The Seattle coffee chain has raised some eyebrows over its "The Way I See It" campaign, which prints quotes from thinkers, authors, athletes and entertainers on the side of your morning machiatto. The goal, according to the company, is to foster philosophical debate in its 9,000-plus coffeehouses.

...

Yvette Nunez, a 27-year-old Republican from Tampa, said she hadn't noticed the quotes on her weekly caramel machiattos. On "tall" cups, the text is obscured by a cardboard sleeve.

"There are a lot of great conservative quotes, but oh well," she said. "I'm not surprised. I'm used to being under-represented."

Someone should really call the President and tell him that America's conservatives deserve some representation. They have the same rights as the rest of us, and then some.

Separation of ahh fuckit.

Fresh from the White House (not the parody site, but the actual White House):

President's Easter Message

Easter 2005

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

I send greetings to all those celebrating Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through His sacrifice and triumph over death, Christ lifted the sights of humanity forever. In His teachings, the poor have heard hope, the proud have been challenged, and the weak and dying have found assurance. Today, the words of Jesus continue to comfort and strengthen Christians around the world.

During this holy season, we thank God for His blessings and ask for His wisdom and guidance. We also keep in our thoughts and prayers the men and women of our Armed Forces -- especially those far from home, separated from family and friends by the call of duty. May the joy of Easter fill our hearts with gratitude for our freedom, love for our neighbors, and hope for peace.

Laura and I wish you a Happy Easter.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Crossfire: who needs science anyway?

I've watched Crossfire maybe twice in the past year. Today's show, supposedly about religious politics and the Schiavo case, was quite a gem. In the midst of their typical gibberish arguments, the Left and the Right were thoroughly divided on every "issue" but one. Both sides agreed that funding for scientific research is little more than frivolous pork. As evidence, one pundit noted that she wasn't even familiar with the subject of the research in question. It must, therefore, be pointless.

Here is an excerpt from today's transcript:

WATKINS: Interested in some light reading?

"The Pig Book" is sizzling on stores right now. It -- it -- it chronicles some of Congress' more spectacular pork barrel projects from 1991 to 2004, more than 52,000 of them, running a tab of $185 billion. Waste? You tell me. Check this out, $15 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa, $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole, $273,000 to combat Goth culture -- Goth culture -- in Missouri.

I suspect Senator Rick Santorum, for one, is especially dismayed by such frivolous use of taxpayer money. A couple of weeks ago, he and other senators rolled out the Senate Republican poverty alleviation agenda. The 12-point plan includes boosted charitable giving, enhanced welfare reform, hunger relief and work programs. Senator Santorum's plan to fight inner-city poverty could use an infusion a whole lot more than, let's say, a study of screw worms, which, by the way, got $102 million.

You know, the Republicans are beaten up so often, Donna, for not caring about the poor and the oppressed, but Senator Santorum and a number of his colleagues have come out with a 12-point plan that really is going to do something to help people who are down on their luck.

BRAZILE: Well, look, look, Democrats welcome Republicans' interest in helping and serving the poor. But I got to agree with you that I think there's a lot of pork in this budget. And, by the way, what's a screwworm?

(LAUGHTER)

For those who are curious, "screwworms" are the larvae of an insignificant fly known as "the fly that eats men's flesh", which is all but eradicated in the US. Although the fly occasionally reappears in the southern US, certainly there is no compelling public interest in studying some stupid man-eating parasite...

According to the USDA:

The Primary or New World Screwworm, Cochliomyia hominivorax (Coquerel), is an obligate parasite (meaning it must pass part of its life cycle in a living host) of warm blooded animals, including humans. The species name, hominivorax, in fact means "man-eater" and was given by the French physician, Dr. Charles Coquerel, in 1858 describing the species that he identified as responsible for the deaths of hundreds of prisoners of the Devil's Island penal colony in French Guiana. Once an animal becomes infested with screwworm, death almost inevitably results unless the wound is cured.  

The female fly typically lays an egg mass containing 200-300 eggs on or near an open wound on a living animal. The eggs hatch in 10-12 hours and the first stage larvae (also known as maggots or worms, each approximately 0.04" or 1 mm in length) crawl into the wound and begin tearing at the host's tissue with a pair of sharp mouth hooks. The larvae feed on the resulting liquid that oozes into the wound. Once a wound has become infested with larvae, it also becomes more attractive to female screwworm flies ready to lay eggs. As a result, a wound may become infested with hundreds to thousands of larvae. The larvae feed in the wound for about 5 days and pass through two additional stages before they crawl out of the wound and drop to the ground. Once on the ground, the larvae (now approximately 0.2-0.7" or 6-17 mm in length) burrow into the soil to a depth of about 1-2 inches and form the pupal stage. After about 7 days, the adults (flies) exit the pupae and make their way to the surface of the soil. Both sexes range in color from dark metallic blue to metallic bluish green to metallic green and have three dark longitudinal stripes (the middle stripe slightly shorter than the outer stripes) on their backs between their wings. Both sexes are larger than house flies with males being about 0.4-0.5" (10-12 mm) and females about 0.3-0.4" (8-10 mm) in length. They then expand and dry their wings and fly away. After about 3 days the males and females mate and females begin the cycle of laying eggs on the living hosts. Females may be capable of laying a mass of eggs once every three days for up to 10 or 11 times during their approximately month long adult life span.

"Academic Freedom"

Republicans in Florida are pushing new legislation to protect "academic freedom" by allowing students to sue their professors if their beliefs are challenged or undermined in class. According to James Vanlandingham of The Independent Florida Alligator:

Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism” by “dictator professors” in the classrooms of Florida’s universities.

The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee.

The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House.

While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views.

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue.

“Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,’” Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.