Always Trust the Goats

The turkeys lined up in battle formation. They had risen up against the oppression of the geese from across the sea. The turkeys had greeted the geese with open wings, but over time the geese had started attacking and taking the lands of the turkeys. It was not fair to blame all geese, but turkeys could not abide the white geese any longer.

The great gobble of war had gone out. Both sides had won and lost. No side had a decisive edge. Neither side had quacked in their determination. Both were in it for the long flight. The geese felt the turkeys didn't have the staying power. The turkeys didn't think the geese would bother gander what was really going on and thought the turkeys gobble up the geese's nests.

It turned out the geese were right. The geese really didn't look around or pay attention to what was really going on in the greater world. They'd even hired canine mercenaries and that decision would dog them: the greater world was not pleased by this. However, the turkey nation was exhausted and war would soon be over unless they crushed the geese. It was now or never. Do or die. Gobble or be drumsticks.

Here and now, the turkeys rolled the die. Here they stood. Rank upon rank. The last stand of the nation.

Benjamin Tarmagin, colonel of the feather flock, stood with his avian army. He was commanding but one small part. However, it would crucial they stand their ground this time. And this time they did.

The battle unfolded and it was not going well. The dogs of war tore through ranks even as the turkeys slashed their talons. The geese marched forward, clashing and killing with their weaponized beaks and long necks.

Pressed in on all sides, the turkey defeat was near. Until...until...a great noise swept the field. The generals of both sides were the only ones to notice: every bird or canine was fighting for their lives.

Then.

Then there was sound like thunder and the massive line crashed into the flank of geese, butting them to the ground. The dogs yelped and sprinted away, tails between their legs.

Benjamin Tarmagin said, turning to his friend and companion, Captain Capra Verata, "Trust the goats."

Verata looked back with his oddly shaped eyes, "You should always trust the goats."

Oh NO! US Giant Robot Team Challenges Japanese Team to Duel

Skyline: Best Part of The Movie?

Some day, somebody has GOT to sit down and plan a military strike by military folks given the resources at hand for an alien invasion movie.

The drones, kewl. No problem. The way they were used. erm. Looks kewl, but soooo inaccurate.

Oh well.

No, not seen the movie. However, someone flagged me to look at this youtube clip of it.

Cell Phone in 1928 Chaplin Film?

Good for a giggle. There's a youtube video on the UT site too.

I have to wonder if this was a case of someone with TEH AWESOME photoshop powers striking.

Night of the Living Wonks (had to be made for Noel)

here are many sources of fear in world politics -- terrorist attacks, natural disasters, climate change, financial panic, nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflict, and so forth. Surveying the cultural zeitgeist, however, it is striking how an unnatural problem has become one of the fastest-growing concerns in international relations. I speak, of course, of zombies.

For our purposes, a zombie is defined as a reanimated being occupying a human corpse, with a strong desire to eat human flesh -- the kind of ghoul that first appeared in George Romero's 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead, and which has been rapidly proliferating in popular culture in recent years (far upstaging its more passive cousins, the reanimated corpses of traditional West African and Haitian voodoo rituals). Because they can spread across borders and threaten states and civilizations, these zombies should command the attention of scholars and policymakers.

here are many sources of fear in world politics -- terrorist attacks, natural disasters, climate change, financial panic, nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflict, and so forth. Surveying the cultural zeitgeist, however, it is striking how an unnatural problem has become one of the fastest-growing concerns in international relations. I speak, of course, of zombies.

For our purposes, a zombie is defined as a reanimated being occupying a human corpse, with a strong desire to eat human flesh -- the kind of ghoul that first appeared in George Romero's 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead, and which has been rapidly proliferating in popular culture in recent years (far upstaging its more passive cousins, the reanimated corpses of traditional West African and Haitian voodoo rituals). Because they can spread across borders and threaten states and civilizations, these zombies should command the attention of scholars and policymakers.

That had to be for Noel...just had to be.

;)

Meet The Sahara Forest Project: A Biosphere 2 for the 21st Century?

A renewable-energy "oasis" slated to be built in 2010 may serve as a proving ground for new technologies designed to bring green living to the desert.

The planned research center is part of the Sahara Forest Project—but that doesn't mean it'll be built in Africa. Sahara means "desert" in Arabic, and the center is meant to be a small-scale version of massive green complexes that project managers hope to build in deserts around the globe.

(See pictures of the planned Sahara Forest Project reseach center.)

Experts are now examining arid sites in Australia, the U.S., the Middle East, and Africa that could support the test facility.

"The Sahara Forest Project is a holistic approach for creation of local jobs, food, water, and energy, utilizing relatively simple solutions mimicking design and principles from nature," said Frederic Hauge, founder and president of the Norwegian environmental nonprofit the Bellona Foundation.

For instance, special greenhouses would use hot desert air and seawater make fresh water for growing crops, solar energy would be collected to generate power, and algae pools would offer a renewable and easily transportable fuel supply.

In addition, planting trees near the complex would trap atmospheric greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide while restoring any natural forest cover that has been lost to drought and timber harvesting.

(Related: "Africa-wide 'Great Green Wall' to Halt Sahara's Spread?")

"From my perspective as an environmentalist, this could be a game changer in how we produce biomass for food and energy, and how we're going to provide fresh water for the future," Hauge said. "I've never been so engaged and fascinated as I am now."

But not all experts are as enthusiastic about the project.

In terms of the reforestation plans, "trying to grow trees in the Sahara desert is not the most appropriate approach," said Patrick Gonzalez, a forest ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Forestry. After all, even though it was literally green in the past, the Sahara was never heavily forested. (See an interactive Sahara map.)

"I can imagine that this scheme and type of technology in limited cases might work in certain areas like Dubai, where they're used to making palm-shaped islands and 160-story-tall buildings," Gonzalez said.

If the goal is restoring a desert's natural ecosystem, however, "it would be more effective, but less flashy, to work with local people on community-based natural-resource management."

From Nat Geo and the project website (prepare to be flashed to death).

So, Biosphere/2 of the 21st century?

Now They Go Too Far!

Nene Anegasaki is a witty, doe-eyed beauty. She looks perfectly perky in sexy skirts, doesn't pick fights and is always at one Tokyo man's beck and call -- that is why the 27-year-old decided to marry her.

The only complication: She is a videogame character in the Nintendo DS game called "Love Plus."

Still, that didn't stop Sal 9000 -- the only name the groom would give -- from marrying Nene in a ceremony witnessed live by thousands on the Web.

When asked if Nene is his dream woman, Sal replied, "Yes, she is. Her character changes to my liking as we talk and travel to different places."

Japan's Internet community has witnessed relationships and marriages to avatars, though it's typically been within the confines of the virtual world. Last month, Sal decided to be the first human-to-avatar union. Clad in a white tux, Sal married Nene in front of some friends and Web users watching the ceremony live online.

She's not even an AI yet! This goes too far!

And the BAND Plays on!

Researchers at Oregon State University have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight – and the finding means it's unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs.

The conclusions add to other evolving evidence that may finally force many paleontologists to reconsider their long-held belief that modern birds are the direct descendants of ancient, meat-eating dinosaurs, OSU researchers say.

"It's really kind of amazing that after centuries of studying birds and flight we still didn't understand a basic aspect of bird biology," said John Ruben, an OSU professor of zoology. "This discovery probably means that birds evolved on a parallel path alongside dinosaurs, starting that process before most dinosaur species even existed."

These studies were just published in The Journal of Morphology, and were funded by the National Science Foundation.

It gets REALLY good.

BAND, fwiw, means Birds Are Not Dinosaurs. I subscribe to BAD: Birds Are Dinosaurs.

Post KT Sauropod Emergency Helivaced

Giggle Factor: Panarin Claims US to Collapse By 2011

If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.

Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership.

"There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.

The prediction from Panarin, a former spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst, meshes with the negative view of the U.S. that has been flowing from the Kremlin in recent years, in particular from Vladimir Putin.

Putin, the former president who is now prime minister, has likened the United States to Nazi Germany's Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis that has pounded the Russian economy.

Panarin didn't give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources.

He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world's wealthiest country for more than a decade now.

But he said the recent economic turmoil in the U.S. and other "social and cultural phenomena" led him to nail down a specific timeframe for "The End" — when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control.

Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men.

Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington's bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.

"I was there recently and things are far from good," he said. "What's happened is the collapse of the American dream."

Panarin insisted he didn't wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

I can't help thinking that this is more wish fulfillment and projection going on here. This guy is obviously very disturbed on some fundamental level that he's mistaking what he wants for what is. I really want to annex Mexico and return to an expansionist foreign policy, of sorts, but I also recognize that this is not a realistically likely scenario. However, this guy...oy. The fact that he's in the position he's in and the Russians seem to be at least pretending to listen to him...huh, that's all I'll say. At best, huh.

Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin's theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely before Wednesday.

Oh that is sooooo Russian.

Why Didn't They Have This When *I* Was a Child?!

Introducing Kota, the walking, ridable dinosaur! Just in time for Xmas!


I was soooo born too early.

Let's go to Titan to Get OIL!!!

Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.

The new findings from the study led by Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA, are reported in the 29 January 2008 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.

"Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material--it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Lorenz. "This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan."

At a balmy minus 179o C , Titan is a far cry from Earth. Instead of water, liquid hydrocarbons in the form of methane and ethane are present on the moon's surface, and tholins probably make up its dunes. The term 'tholins' was coined by Carl Sagan in 1979 to describe the complex organic molecules at the heart of prebiotic chemistry.

Cassini has mapped about 20% of Titan's surface with radar. Several hundred lakes and seas have been observed, with each of several dozen estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth's oil and gas reserves. The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than Earth's coal reserves.

Oh James!!! Is this as good as the He3 moon colonization taunts I send you?

A bit more seriously, this is a pretty exciting discovery.

Airheads That Just Won't Give Up

*sighs*

Yet Another Attempt to make something out of a lighter than air vehicle.

A hotel for 40 people only that flies around the world at 18k feet. uh huh. OH! The first flight won't be until 2020. (ie never gonna happen). What is it about blimps/zeps/etc and people with crazy ideas?

Next thing you know, people will be trying to make steam cars again.