A Sci-Fi Day

Aliens May Look More Like Us Than We Thought

A Sci-Fi Book List worth reading

The Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life

Some Evolution Info for the Masses

Misperceptions meet state of the art in evolution research
- not gotten to it all, but I have a good feeling.

The Fall

I didn't much like The Cell, except that it was pretty. And I do love pretty movies. This new movie by the same director looks very, very pretty. Plus, Charles Darwin is in it.

Sirius Radio Classics

Dragnet: 6 am, 3 pm
Suspense: 4 am, 10 pm
Superman/Sherlock Holmes: 5 pm
Twilight Zone: 11 pm

All times Central, full schedule here.

This is the channel I listen to as I go to bed.

Did Jesus Go There And Die Too?

A new study suggests that there are far more potentially habitable planets in our galaxy than previously estimated.

Ricky Gervais Explains How He Became An Atheist

Hilarious article from a hilarious guy.

Another One? Really?

Long-time Republican House-member Robert McKee resigns after police search his home for child pornography.

Guess what his favorite cause was. Go ahead. The first two won't count. Ok, it was protecting children from exploitation. Did you guess right?

Guess what he was the executive director for in his county. This one's harder: Big Brothers Big Sisters. I can't believe I'm laughing so hard at this sickness!

With all these perverted degenerates in their party, Republicans really should get off their moral high horse. But if they do, someone watch out for that horse. Jesus knows what one of them might do to it...

Bob Shrinks Several Inches

Not surprisingly, Enzyte is crap. Now it's legally crap.

If you bought it, it's the gray matter rattling between your ears that should be bigger, not the flap of flesh dangling between your legs. But maybe that's not really dangling at all, more like...Bobbing?...which might have contribute to your being suckered by cleverly veiled, savvily marketed placebo.

I Will Not Vote For Any Candidate For A Gay Marriage Ammendment

Besides it's being no business of the federal government to tell states who they can and can't recognize as married, not having gay marriage just leads to sick tragedy. Like this case, where an 18-year couple with children was victimized when one of them fell fatally ill in Florida:

Langbehn says she was informed that she was in an antigay city and state, and she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as family.

The rest is rock-bottom disgusting. Fuck these people. Seriously. Why is it that the very people who want the feds "out of their life" are so willing to use it to mangle the personal legal affairs of other individuals?

I Hated Science Fairs

In my mid-pubescence, science fairs were inflicted on us to test some parents' willingness to get involved in a science fair. For the life of me, that seemed to be the only point of the damn things. It was a beauty pageant for ugly kids ' parents, and whatever I did was uninspired since their outcome (other than for participating) didn't affect me at all. Plus, I was WAY more interested in the REAL science done by REAL scientists (at that age, that was Spock and Carl Sagan, but who the fuck cares). Space was cool, and you can't do proper anti-gravity vacuum experiments on a middle-school gym floor. So I blew the things off.

Anyway, this link shows how science fair projects can go horribly, horribly awry. But really, don't they all? Except for that kid in Real Genius: he got Val Kilmer, space lasers, and lots of popcorn out of his.

Ed. Ad.: It could have been worse: I could have been home schooled.

Navy: We Blow Shit Up In Space

I hate to post about the same subject, but THE NAVY BLEW UP SOMETHING IN SPACE FROM THE OCEAN!!!

The Air Force is chumps! Deploy the fleet when you need to get things done...

One Dead Satellite

We appear to have scored a direct hit - story, video.

Even Tarquin is impressed

Ancient "devil frog" may have eaten baby dinosaurs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It was the biggest, baddest, meanest froggy ever to have hopped on Earth.

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery in northwestern Madagascar of a bulky amphibian dubbed the "devil frog" that lived 65 million to 70 million years ago and was so nasty it may have eaten newborn dinosaurs.

This brute was larger than any frog living today and may be the biggest frog ever to have existed, according to paleontologist David Krause of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, one of the scientists who found the remains.

Its name, Beelzebufo ampinga, came from Beelzebub, the Greek for devil, and bufo -- Latin for toad. Ampinga means "shield," named for an armor-like part of its anatomy.

Beelzebufo (pronounced bee-el-zeh-BOOF-oh) was 16 inches long and weighed an estimated 10 pounds (4.5 kg).

...

Even though it lived far away, Beelzebufo appears to be closely related to a group of frogs that live today in South America, the scientists said. They are nicknamed "Pac-Man" frogs due to their huge mouths. Some have little horns on their heads, and the scientists think Beelzebufo also may have had horns -- a fitting touch for the "devil frog."

Artist rendering shows a Beelzebufo ampinga facing off against the largest known living Malagasy frog, Mantydactylus ampinga.

Our Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

More of what the Dark Ages cost us

Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved: A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unraveled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works from the Guardian.