We have taigans as well as tazis and Arab salukis in NM. (courtesy of Shiri and the other LB) They still seem exotic. Taigans and tazis and salukis are relatives; all are Silk Road dogs, and, whether you think they came west or east they followed those tracks. Only 5 days to go, with about …
Category: Uncategorized
Only six days left…
..to fund the Russian life- Kickstarter Silk Road trilogy translation project, with $4300 to go, or all is in vain. I think Q readers may make up a majority now! Consider digging in a second or even a third time– we are!
The Purebred Thing Again
Great post on the “Closed Studbook” debate on Jameson Parker’s Barking Backward blog here. I replied at length and thought it might be worth double posting here; this is an edited version so go to the original for more. Hear, hear! The closed studbook paradigm is a recipe for genetic impoverishment and disaster. I have …
Rude scary poster
From Annie Davidson. My preferred caption is: “So Feduccia: explain to me again how birds aren’t dinosaurs…” More on the “controversy” (not very, actually) here.
Fenton, Light
James Fenton is a serious poet and has written some chilling ones (Tom McIntyre remarked that being in Cambodia in the bad days might give you a rather chilly view of human nature). His new collection Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968- 2011 (available only from the UK so far) has plenty of those, and melancholic and …
Fireworks
I hope you all had an enjoyable Independence Day. I am in California on business, and was able to catch fireworks at Long Beach Harbor with my daughter and her family. You can see the Queen Mary in the middle of the pic. I know one little girl who enjoyed herself.
Hot Links
Chinese archaeologists report they have excavated more of the famous life-sized terracotta warriors dating to the Quin dynasty. Another group of Chinese archaeologists has excavated a vessel still containing liquid wine that may be nearly 3,000 years-old. Research into the yak genome is telling biologists quite a bit about high-altitude adaptations. Scribners is publishing a …
Cool Bug
A South American treehopper sent to Q by Jonathan Hanson, who writes: “… It was posted by a herpetologist (and virtuoso violinist) friend of ours, Robert Villa, on Facebook. The description offered by a friend of his who has collected them was: ‘It is a treehopper, Cyphonia trifidia ; cicadas lack the pronotal expansions along …
Second Quote of the Day
I doubt I will ever buy a Purdey but I have always shot beautiful guns, as good as I could wrangle. I have never hesitated to buy fine guns, good books or for that matter art or even good custom shirts. This thoughtful unsigned post from the excellent Mannlicher Schoenauer rifle site gets to the …
New Damascus Steel
Purdey has reinvented Damascus, using a process I don’t even pretend to understand. From Michael Yardley’s site: “Powder steels have around twice the fracture strength of normal steels. The molten steel from the refining furnace runs into a nitrogen-filled vacuum chamber. In the chamber powerful gas beams atomize the alloy into a fine powder. The… …