A Little White-nosed Lie

Leslie Newell Peacock of the Arkansas Times does a nice job here explaining the decision of federal and state agencies to close caves under their jurisdiction. The caves contain bats that may be susceptible to white-nose syndrome, a fungus that kills bats. The fungus is thought to have been introduced from Europe or Africa by human visitors. Note at the end of the article a quote from the owner of a commercial tourist cave who is "skeptical" that the fungus is killing bats. Does that sound familiar? If you don't like the science, just declare yourself a skeptic! White-nose syndrome, anthropogenic global warming, evolution--all junk science, invented by those pesky scientists to make life difficult!

The Party of No

(h/t Arkansas Blog).

Pass the Ammunition!

Today's shooting at the University of Alabama-Huntsville is a horrible event, but not so horrible that gun nuts shouldn't try to score political points off it:

Gina Hammond, a UAH student, told WAFF that she lobbied the University of Alabama trustees to allow students with gun permits to carry their weapons on campus. She was turned down.

“I’m scared to go back to school,” Hammond said. “However, if they were to allow me to carry my permanent pistol on campus, I would not be as scared.

“... I’m sorry that nobody in that room had a permanent pistol to save at least one person’s life,” Hammond said.

That's right--the answer to the problem is more guns! Read the whole news story on msnbc.com.

Martin Luther King--Conservation Biologist

"There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical, and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess."--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., May 5, 1966.

2010--An Assessment

Although only one day has passed, the recent spate of year-end assessments has convinced me that it's never too early to get started on assessing the year.  So, here's my assessment of 2010 so far.

1.  Category One--Archaeopteryx's posting in 2010.  Only one post so far.  Contains some form of the word "assessment" four five six times.  Clearly, this rates a negative score:  -4.

2.  Category Two--Archaeopteryx's meals in 2010.  Breakfast, January 1--Two small banana nut bran muffins, a container of yogurt, one pear.  Score:  -2.  Lunch, January 1--All-you-can-eat buffet at Mazzio's.  Pizza crust was too thick and chewy, accidentally picked up "hamburger" pizza thinking it was sausage, none of the varieties had mushrooms, salad bar mixed greens were wilted.  Score:  -5.  Dinner, January 1--meal at friends' house included grilled andouille sausages (yum!) but also weird, flavorless beef sausages.  Mrs. Friend made unfortunately named "Pea Pie" which contained chorizo sausage, spinach, and mushrooms, as well as otherwise inedible but traditionally required black-eyed peas.  It was delightful.  Mrs. Arch made her always-fantastic potato casserole.  Score:  +8.  Overall food score:  +1.

3.  Category Three--Archaeopteryx's football watching in 2010.  Archaeopteryx's alma mater Auburn prevails in wild overtime victory over Northwestern in the Mazzio's Pizza Bowl.  +5.  However, in the Pea Pie Bowl, Florida, led by Jesus-Loving Crybaby Tim Tebow, stomps Cincinnati, thus vindicating the BCS selection committee and setting back by several years the fight for a college football playoff, and increasing the possibility of having to watch Tebow burst into tears every time whichever NFL team is foolish enough to draft him is walloped by the Colts.   -4, with an extra -3 penalty for the convoluted structure of that last sentence.   Overall football score:  -2.

4.  Category Four--Archaeopteryx's birdwatching in 2010.  A trip to a nearby lake yielded sightings of ring-necked ducks, a pair of hooded mergansers, numerous buffleheads, and a winter-plumage common loon.  Nothing but good here; Score:  +5.

5.  Category Five--Miscellaneous.  Beautiful, but cold, weather allowed some yard work; however two hours of raking leaves caused soreness in recently broken arm.  Playing with new iPod was fun, but cut into valuable internet-time-wasting.  One incident of cat vomit, but this was discovered by Mrs. Arch, who then, according to house rules, had to clean it up.  Score: 0. 

Adding the scores together gives an overall score of....well....zero.  So, on balance, 2010 has been, um, balanced.  Perhaps further assesment of the year is warranted.  Check back with me day after tomorrow.  

Finally, a Little Taser Sanity

A federal judge has imposed limits on police use of tasers. The court sided with a man who claimed that the use of a taser by a police officer constituted excessive force. The taser attack left the man with broken teeth and a taser dart embedded in his arm.

The scary part of this article is that it mentions in passing that taser attacks were responsible for nine fatalities in just the Sacramento area. In other words, tasers allow police officers to act as judge, jury, and executioner, often simply because citizens are acting a bit strangely. Tasers are sold to police departments as a method of "non-lethal" control; clearly, this is untrue. Even if police officers could be trusted to use tasers only when they're called for (and they certainly can't), tasers often have deadly effects. Better that cops use guns, since they presumably know that gunshots are possibly fatal.

h/t Arkansas Times Blog.

Ha! Ha! Hilarious!

My "local" newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has one of the most awful, right-leaning editorial pages one could hope to find. It includes the folksy blatherings of Paul Greenberg, the incoherent ravings of Bradley Gitz, and a selection of unedited, apparently unscreened, often racist and homophobic letters from the Demozette's faithful readers. Despite the goofy rants always found on these pages, the worst features are almost invariably the political cartoons. One artist in particular, a person named Michael Ramirez (a selection of his crap can be found here), should probably win a Pulitzer Prize in the Category of Unsubtle Illogic and General Stupidity. However, today, the Demozette has outdone themselves. They ran a political cartoon by their own artist, Roger Harvell, that seems to be supporting the police officer who tasered a ten-year old girl. That's right. Apparently, according to Harvell and his paper, if a child is unruly, or won't do what mom wants, it's okay to call in a police officer to taser the young ruffian. Clearly, the only way an adult police officer may possibly subdue a child is with 50,000 volts of angry electrons. If you had any suspicion that the editorial staff at the Democrat-Gazette was not insane, this should lay it to rest.