Iran has
denied
recent reports that it was
using
the neo-cons' darling Ahmed Chalabi to pass disinformation--lies, in ordinary
English--to the Bush administration. Specifically, to the people who don't
see any reason to bother verifying such things, if the information supports what they wanted to do anyway.
Maybe the war wasn't about the oil. Maybe the U.S. invaded Iraq because Iran wasn't happy about a hostile, secular government next door.
And we've been worried about mercenaries in Iraq? We didn't even get paid for this mission--in fact, the U.S. was paying Chalabi good money for the "information" he passed to them.
I would ask
"What did the pResident know, and when did he know it?" but I suspect,
unfortunately, that the question is closer to "Does Bush know anything
about the actual situation in Iraq, and when will he know it?"
"It's the End of the Age
As We Know It" is labeled as a "beta filk", but this version keeps R.E.M.'s rhythm and
rhyme scheme and Tolkien's plotline. [via Filkerdave].
Paul Campos presents a good
analysis/deconstruction
of the weight-loss obsession and industry. It includes the flaws in claims that
obesity is responsible for huge numbers of deaths every year, and some facts you
won't find in most newspaper articles. In many cases, the headlines and conclusions
are in conflict with the actual data.
For example, a Los Angeles Times article reported that the study provided "the first definitive account of the relationship between obesity and cancer". The article went on to quote the study's authors to the effect that perhaps as many as 90,000 deaths a year from cancer could be avoided if all adults maintained a BMI below 25 throughout their lives. The disjunction between this study's actual data and the alarmist headlines its authors helped generate is especially remarkable.Yes, the researchers urged people in the group with the lower mortality rate to become more like the group with the higher mortality rate.Among supposedly "ideal weight" individuals (BMI 18.5 to 24.9), the study observed a mortality rate from cancer of 4.5 deaths for every 1,000 subjects. Among "overweight" individuals (BMI 25 to 29.9 - a category that currently includes about twice as many adult Americans as the "ideal weight" cohort), the cancer mortality rate was 4.4 deaths for every 1,000 subjects. In other words, "overweight" people actually had a lower overall cancer mortality rate than "ideal weight" individuals.
Perhaps fortunately, that outcome is extremely unlikely:
No one has ever successfully conducted a study into the effects of long-term weight loss, and for a very simple reason: no one knows how to turn fat people into thin people.What they know how to do is to get people to spend a lot of money in the process of not doing so.
Campos points out the link between class and weight, and observes that 150 years ago, the well-to-do felt justified in despising the poor for being poor. In many cases, body weight is now the explicitly mentioned characteristic that "justifies" a feeling of superiority. [via Aiglet]
If you're an American and
can't afford the prescription drugs you need,
this site can help you:
it's a collection of links to programs that may get you want you need, free.
[via Follow Me Here]
A set of
75,000-year-old
beads have been found in Blombos Cave, in South Africa. These beads, 30,000 years
older than any previously known jewelry, are early evidence of abstract thought
and, of course, the human desire for adornment. They're made from mollusc shells, and
stained with traces of red ochre: either the beads were themselves dyed, or someone who
wore them used red ochre as well as a bead bracelet or necklace.
It was at Blombos in 2002 that some of the same scientists announced the discovery of chunks of inscribed ochre and shaped bone tools.These objects dramatically pushed back the date for the first, clear instance in the history of humans for the use of symbolism - the behaviour that would appear to set our animal species apart from all others.
If this is valid, I'd expect
to have heard about it elsewhere and sooner, but the idea of a surviving
trilobite
is incredibly cool, and nobody expected to pull a live
coelacanth out of the
Indian Ocean in the last century either.
[via Elynne]
A cat has been found in a
Neolithic grave
on Cyprus, dated to 9500 years ago--this is several thousand years older than
any previous evidence of cats being domesticated or otherwise living in human
settlements.
The complete cat skeleton was found about 40 cm from a human burial. The similar states of preservation and positions of the burials in the ground suggest the person and the cat were buried together.The skeleton resembles the African wildcat, Felis sylvestris lybica, rather than any domesticated cats, but neither this nor any other species of cat is native to Cyprus, so the cats were probably brought to the island by humans. [via Allyson Dyar]The person, who is about 30 years of age, but of unknown sex, was buried with offerings such as polished stone, axes, flint tools and ochre pigment.
Based on this the researchers argue that the person was of high status and may have had a special relationship with cats. Cats might have had religious as well as material significance to the stone age Cypriots, the French archaeologists add.
More than just a casemod:
Installing
Linux on a Dead Badger includes a complete list of necessary parts and materials,
and cautions such as "Dead badgers do not heal, and a badger with broken legs will display limited
mobility. Brain and spinal cord damage is likely to interfere with the Linux installation and render
any successfully-installed system unstable, as well as voiding all explicit and implicit warranties
according to the laws of any and every state, country, or alternate dimension, present or future."
[via Andrew Gill]
If you're not an Ozy and Millie fan,
and don't attend Evergreen State College, you probably haven't seen this
cartoon about
Bin Laden's political position.
Forensic entomology turns out to be
much less precise
than previously claimed. Melanie Archer appears to be the first researcher to repeat
her tests and measurements of when insects arrived and departed over more than one year.
Archer found unexpected variations. For example, blowfly maggots left the carcasses after nine weeks in the first winter, but after only four weeks in the second winter. A beetle species, Creophilus erythrocephalus, arrived after four weeks in the first winter, but after only two in the second.The article notes that "the differences could be due to several factors, such as varying weather or changes in insect nunbers." Regardless of the cause, this means that one cannot simply say "there are blowfly maggots here, this person has been dead for less than four weeks."
Archer also found that while the standard temperature estimation techniques used by forensic entomologists are usually within 1 °C, they can be off by up to 8 °C.
"The estimates are not as tight as some forensic scientists imply in court," Archer concludes. "We need to introduce some rigour."Forensic entomologist Lee Goff at Chaminade University of Honolulu, Hawaii, agrees. He says many lawyers, and even forensic scientists, are unaware of the limitations. "The legal community want things to be precise, but they have to remember that we are dealing with estimates," he says.
Methane has been
detected in the
Martian atmosphere. The gas isn't stable in those conditions. It's evidence
of either active volcanism on Mars in the last few hundred years--something none
of our orbiters or telescopes have detected--or methane-producing life.
[via Simon Bisson]
If you can't get to the rings of Saturn, you can always
paint
an iceberg red and see if anyone notices.
This
could be an interesting precedent. A Quebec court has ruled that same-sex marriage is legal in
the province because it's legal in Ontario and B.C.
Lawyer Colin Irving, who represented Hendricks and Leboeuf, said the ruling could have national repercussions."The judgment declares as a matter of principle that the judgments in the courts of one province, when they deal with the validity of federal statutes and where the attorney general of Canada was involved, have effect elsewhere.
"If you're dealing with federal law, then the judgment of a provincial court, like the Quebec Court of Appeal, has effect everywhere in the country."
The ruling also states that the Catholic Church does not have standing in the case, because it has no specific interest in the question of civil marriage, and because no attempt has been made to require the church to recognize same-sex marriages for religious purposes.
The Spirit rover has
seen a UFO. It's
probably either a meteor--the first seen from the surface of Mars--or
the Viking 2 orbiter.
Copyright 2004 Vicki Rosenzweig. Comments welcome at vr@redbird.org.
If you like this, you might also like my home page or my online journal.
