Researchers at Harvard and MIT have announced that they have completed their decoding of the genome of the domestic dog. Timing is everything – Steve is out of the country and with his interest and knowledge of genetics and dog breeding he is certainly the one to provide insights and comments on the significance of …
Month: December 2005
A New View of Easter Island Prehistory
For many years, the accepted view of the settlement and prehistory of Easter Island has portrayed it as a lesson in human-induced ecological collapse. According to the conventional wisdom, the Polynesians who settled the island deforested it while engaging in non-productive competition in construction of the famous statues found there. The deforestation led to erosion …
Wind Energy Noise Problems
Steve and I have both posted on the pros and cons of wind energy and the ambivalence that many environmentalists feel toward it. One of the issues I pointed out that doesn’t get much play is that of the noise they make. Complaints about noisy wind turbines have caused San Bernardino County to reconfigure their …
Tulane Revives
In our first post-Hurricane Katrina post I mentioned that I am an alumnus of Tulane University in New Orleans, and expressed concerns about its survival after the storm. The university was indeed dealt a body-blow and suspended classes for the fall semester. Fortunately the school is located in the Garden District in one of the …
Big-Box Safari
The LA Times had this piece on the “big-box” stores that hunting/fishing outfitters Cabelas and Bass Pro Shops are opening around the country. I have ordered mail-order from Cabelas for decades (well, on-line now) but had never been to one of their retail centers until I saw their Kansas City store while visiting my daughter …
Sad News from Mongolia
On the eve of his departure for Turkey, Steve forwarded this sad story published in the NY Times about plummeting wildlife populations in Mongolia due to hunting pressure. This is due to a covergence of a population with a strong hunting tradition (the piece estimates that 10% of the population are active hunters), a weak …
Russian Girls and Kalashnikovs
Steve likes most things Russian and admired this photo of girls cleaning their rifles that Roseann passed on to us. Also Roseann’s comments: “I love their little hair pom-poms, and just their expressions, you can just hear the ones on the right, ‘So, did you see Yuri last night at the dance? Wasn’t he just …
Re: Read The Whole Thing
I wanted to give my take on Matt’s post Wednesday about students replacing the reading of complete books in “analog” by taking snippets of data from the Web. I have been reading pieces bemoaning the decline of reading for just about as long as I have been reading. We kicked this topic around a little …
Now That Looks Like an Eruption
Re: my post yesterday on the “quiet” eruption of Mount St. Helens. I borrowed this shot of Popocatepetl (I love those Nahuatl names – the glottal stops give me chills!) in Mexico from the front page of today’s LA Times.
Principles
(Can’t stop blogging yet). It occurs to me that my “Blogfamily” shares a vague yet real constellation of values. In no particular order or hierarchy: Conservation/ “Green” values, but not the PC kind– we tend to be hunters or at least carnivores. Love for traditions, old things, learning– meritocracy? “Social libertarianism”– small “l”. Respect for …