Month: December 2011

Elephants have a sixth toe on each foot.

Here’s your science for the day:

A mysterious bony growth found in elephants’ feet is actually a sixth “toe”, scientists report.

For more than 300 years, the structure has puzzled researchers, but this study suggests that it helps to support elephants’ colossal weight.

Fossils reveal that this “pre-digit” evolved about 40 million years ago, at a point when early elephants became larger and more land-based.

That’s it; I just thought that you should know.

Moe Lane

I am conflicted about this.

On the one hand, these people need to be mocked for ‘suffering’ from what have been accurately described as ‘First World problems.’

On the other hand, I think that some of these people are ‘suffering’ in a deliberately ironic way, in the justified hope that a little fake whining can often bring in the real whiners, too.

On the gripping hand, I already have an iPad 2*, so I can take a detached view on this sort of thing anyway.

Moe Lane

PS: Here.  The Salvation Army.  They help people with real problems.

Continue reading I am conflicted about this.

#rsrh Frank Lautenberg’s staff’s running scared?

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest – and neither does the news that Lautenberg came out of the blue and nominated Sen. Schumer’s brother-in-law Kevin McNulty for a federal judgeship.  The ironic bit is that there’s nothing really wrong about giving McNulty a federal judgeship (well, no more than there would be for any other Democrat): the man was an assistant US Attorney when younger and people aren’t objecting to him on principle.  But the timing and suddenness of it all is raising eyebrows.

Personally, my first guess would be that somebody in Lautenberg’s staff realized that they’re working for an 86 year old Senator in frail health, and that after November of 2012 there’s likely to be a sudden glut in the supply of Democratic Senate staffers for the job market.  So best to shore that re-election now and hope the old guy lasts long enough for the economy to pick up again, right?

…What?  Everybody else was being cynical about this.

(Via Hot Air Headlines)

Just realized something.

If I snapped at anybody yesterday, it was probably because I was putting toys together for two small children, one of which has just really gotten what this Christmas thing is all about – and who has apparently developed a sudden phobia of talking dolls, although that may have been the homemade chocolate chip cookies talking.  Now I understand why I associate certain cuss words with Christmas; my father apparently liked to save the worst ones for special occasions.

So.  Sorry?

#rsrh Heather Mac Donald asks a question.

Background: she’s reacting badly to this story about an atheist schmuck named Damon Vix who gamed a Santa Monica town lottery for spaces for holiday decoration.  Said schmuck ended up with more than half the spaces, which he then proceeded to leave blank except for a sign insulting religions.

Heather asks:

Does every public dissent from faith, my own included, inevitably come off as equally unpleasant?

My answer is: No, but it’s only because believers make a good-faith effort to try to remember that not every atheist is like Damon Vix.  Which is a courtesy that people like Vix notoriously do not extend to believers.  Which is not really fair to Heather Mac Donald, but then so is Vix’s charming little exercise in applied schmuckery.

Exit question: anyone reading this willing to bet that going up to Damon Vix and casually saying the phrase “War on Christmas” would not guarantee you a twenty minute, utterly dead to irony, tirade on the topic?

(Link via… I’m not sure, actually.)

Moe Lane

PS: Note that I’m personalizing this most cruelly; that’s because I know that I have atheist/agnostic readers who would themselves like to smack people like Vix in the face with a halibut.

Did the VA GOP change the rules on primary ballot access in November 2011?

Apparently, yes.

Richard Winger over at Ballot Access News has an EXTREMELY interesting post (link via here) on the mess that the Virginia Republican party has found itself in over… access to the ballot in Virginia. For those coming in late, background here and here: the very short version is that the VA GOP only certified Mitt Romney and Ron Paul for its primary ballot.  Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich both had too many signatures tossed; Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann didn’t even try.  Of the seven candidates, one (Romney) had more than enough signatures (15K) to bypass the verification process entirely.  All of this has caused a lot of agitation among Republicans following the primary process, of course; and not just from people who disapprove of what the VA GOP has done.  There has been a good deal of defending of the outcome; and one argument heavily used in this defense has been that the campaigns all knew the rules and that previous Republican campaigns were able to get on the ballot, so clearly a competent current Republican campaign should have done so.

One small problem with that: as Winger argues, the rules were allegedly drastically changed.  In November of this year. Continue reading Did the VA GOP change the rules on primary ballot access in November 2011?

#rsrh QotD, Election Day Can’t Come Quickly Enough edition.

Walter Russell Mead, on our British cousins:

One of the central dynamics that made Britain great for so long still seems to be working.  Financial and economic crises recur in healthy capitalist economies.  When these crises come, some countries that have only reluctantly embraced a capitalist system (and usually done so poorly and half heartedly), see the crisis as proof that capitalism is a flop, and lurch toward “alternative models” that generally lead to stagnation and the capture of the state by rent-seeking elites spouting empty populist slogans.  Think Argentina.  Think Greece.

Think the Obama administration… sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.

Britain is one of the countries that historically responds to crises of capitalism by doubling down: seeking reforms that make capitalism work more effectively rather than trying to hobble and block it.

Hmm.  Maybe I did mean to interrupt.

Via Instapundit.