Hi ghost cabinets,
In UK-centric news:
Hague, Gove, and more, are out of the UK Government. Yay!
Well, sort of -- Gove's no longer going to torture school children. He's been given the job of Party Whip - to torture blasphemous Party members!
But i expect they've been replaced with similar air-headed buffoons [mwa mwa mwa mwaaa]
Nah - that's not possible - Michael Gove got himself stuck in a toilet, on his first day!
"Labour's Angela Eagle told the House that Gove "managed to get stuck in the toilet in the wrong lobby and he nearly broke his own whip". Leader of the Commons William Hague defended his colleague, saying knowledge of Parliament's toilets was a "very important piece of information for any chief whip"."
LMAO
Noteably, some lady buffoons have found their way in -- the total number of women in the Con-Dem cabinet has sky-rocketed from 3 of 22, to 5 of 22. Wowzers!!!
Further information on the changes, in the Grauniad:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/15/conservative-backlash-begins-cameron-cabinet-reshuffle
Even more-less-bad news -- women can now be bishops in the Cult of England!
That means we (residents of Engla Land) can now have the joy of putting up with lady Anglican bigots, as well as male ones.
Well, i am an egalitarian, so of course i see this as good news...
But there are going to be a whole load more female religionists around.
Why?
Well, one thing feminism's taught me as that when girls don't have female role models in something they're interested in, they won't bother to go into it.
That's why female religionists don't exist in the UK.
I know so. It's a fact. It says so right ^ there.
6% of CEOs --> 50% of CEOs
5% of prisoners --> 50% of prisoners
7% of rapists --> 50% of rapists
And now there are going to be lady bishops, there're going to be loads of religious women too. Following them into all the superstitious nonsensical bigotry.
I mean really...
Is nothing sacred any more?!?!?
:-P
'Female church representatives to finally push for equal right to abuse kids'
http://newsthump.com/2014/07/15/female-church-representatives-to-finally-push-for-equal-right-to-abuse-kids/
But it's not all Anglocentric, this week. There's been some stirring news in Oz, too:
While Camoron desperately shuffles his hands ahead of the coming General Election, in a bid to be more popular, Tony Abbott is continuing his venture to lose the next Federal Election in Australia.
'Australia carbon tax repeal a 'perfect storm of stupidity''
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-australia-carbon-tax-repeal-storm.html
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-australia-abolishes-divisive-carbon-tax.html
In order to increase the burden on Aussie taxpapers, he's abolished the Carbon Tax, which means as well as undermining Australia's sustainability, as a country (it will be hard hit by climatic change) its economy will become tougher for all of its residents.
Carbon/Green taxes, whatever you call them, are rare taxes, in that they actually tax entities that have the most money - in the contemporary world, that's the biggest businesses.
Repeal of the carbon tax in Oz has been committed to ease their tax bills, thereby shifting the burden of funding tax revenue to its people... its electorate.
Australians can expect:
- Greater ecological harm
- Greater economic harm
- Greater personal harm, in having to pay for it all
- Personal and national unpopularity for voting for the people who did it, in the first place
Well done, Tone :-D
'The roundup of bizarre conspiracies of MH17'
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/07/the-roundup-of-bizarre-conspiracies-of-mh17/
These stories are taken seriously because the world's Media are populated by rational, competent people, with a thorough understanding of how the scientific method applies to life <s>
- Was the missile meant for Putin? Sent by Obama? (No.)
- Numerology (around the number 7) means the Illuminati was involved. This is an attempt to start WW3 and the New World Order. (No.)
- This was actually the missing MH370 plane? (Ummm… NO.)
- CNN concocted it for ratings. (Well…)
- Israel wants to deflect attention from Gaza. (Desperate.)
- And to top it off, there is some weird connection made to Snowden that makes no sense whatsoever (Not that any of the above ideas did either.)
Have a few more demonstrations of their excessive excellence <s>
'Coventry hospital ghost photo is laughable'
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/07/coventry-hospital-ghost-photo-is-laughable/
"He who can, does; he who can not, teaches it; he who can not teach, becomes a journalist" - a corruption of George Bernard'Shaw's writings
In-and-on-or-around-this-date-or-time-of-year:
Another anniversary for NASA - the 10th anniversary of the Aura atmospheric chemistry satellite, that has been watching the changes in our atmosphere - noteably, the concentrations of various pollutants, and of ozone, that protects us from skin cancers. Watch the video to find out more:
http://youtu.be/0VmbuNXpiIA
'NASA | Nitrogen Dioxide from Aura/OMI, 2009-2010 [HD]'
http://youtu.be/muOI1AKudoE
And also the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11's moon landing. Here's a video, developed by stitching together pictures from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which enable us to revisit the original site, and see the Eagle Lunar Module still sitting in place:
http://youtu.be/gxZPdHal1Z4
This week, a ham in the USA celebrated the 112th anniversary of its... 'birth'. Well, obviously it didn't, but somebody did. Cured hams are typically eaten by two years old (not by two-year-olds), but some are eaten at up to 8 years. Staggeringly, the Virginia Museum ham might not be the oldest. A 122-year-old ham apparently still hangs in the window of an Oxford butcher's shop!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28299440
In other news:
Has the Beeb ditched the 'false balance' problem? Apparently, the BBC is going to train its staff not to invite cranks on to its Science programmes. I don't see how this is going to solve the problem of journalists confusing evidential substantiation with the authoritarian 'he said, she said' slagging matches that they are so habituated to! Furthermore, how are the management of the BBC expected to effectively distinguish cranks from real scientists, when they've credulously replicated propaganda from anti-vaccine superstitionists, hysterical technophobes, and climate-change deniers, in the past? To think that a systemically sensationalist industry can overcome this with a letter in the Torygraph is highly optimistic!
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/bbc-ditches-false-balance
This can be taken as an example of the BBC's scientific illiteracy, that will be very difficult to eradicate. In 2006, the BBC did a 'documentary' about the Turkish family with Uner-Tan Syndrome, which makes it infeasible for them to walk 'upright' (bipedally) and so instead, they walk on feet and hands. The conjecture, through the 'documentary' was that this was an example of "backward evolution" despite the idea being preposterous. Evolution is simply adaptation to circumstance - it is a scalar phenomenon, and so could not be said to be going either backwards or forwards (or up a ladder or down it). Recent research has shown that their gait is simply a pragmatic adaptation to their physical disability.
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-fours-evolution.html
WWF (the World Wildlife Fund) has told the two Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) covering the Pacific that they must halve their catches of Pacific bluefin tuna, or cause the demise of their own careers, and the species they rest on, according to reports from the International Scientific Committee (ISC). The fishing industry itself has been problematic in ensuring that this can happen, and not just in the Pacific. As i wrote this time, two years ago, short-sighted capitalism has led to industry lobbying for quota redundancy, facilitating the very overfishing that will doom their own careers!
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-halve-pacific-bluefin-tuna-wwf.html
Last week, i churnalised the story on the biggest avian dinosaur ever known - Pelagornis. This week, i bring you the feathered dinosaur with the biggest known feathers! Changyuraptor yangi, found in the Liaoning Province of northeastern China, lived 125 million years ago, measured 120cm from tip to tail, and 30cm of that was tail feather! Changyuraptor is the largest known four-winged feathered dinosaur, so-called because it had feathers on all four of its limbs.
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-feathered-predatory-fossil-dinosaur-flight.html
For the first time, researchers have developed a boron equivalent of 'bucky balls' (Buckminsterfullerene - named after Richard Buckminster Fuller) that instead of forming an enclosed structure of 60 carbon atoms, forms an enclosed structure of 40 boron atoms. The molecule has been dubbed borospherene. Rather than a series of five and six-membered rings, as in 'bucky balls', borospherene consists of 48 triangles, four seven-sided rings and two six-membered rings. Several atoms stick out a bit from the others, making the surface of borospherene somewhat less smooth than a buckyball. The same researchers had previously developed a boron analogue to graphene, called borophene, giving confidence that boron and carbon's properties are similar enough to achieve this feat.
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-boron-buckyball.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'LE REGNE DES ENFANTS - Raphaël Descraques'
The rule of children. 13.5 glorious years!!!
http://youtu.be/ZHLIYViubGc
'John and Kevin's Sunday Papers - July 2014'
http://youtu.be/L4qkX73L7RA
'"Weird Al" Yankovic's TACKY (Parody of Pharrell's "Happy") Official Music Video'
From the new album that came out on the 16th of July.
http://youtu.be/XsWo8apgLys
'Exclusive "Weird Al" Yankovic Music Video: FOIL (Parody of "Royals" by Lorde)'
http://youtu.be/w-0TEJMJOhk
'Weird Al Yankovic Sports Song'
http://youtu.be/WAfU6vbsm3k
'Weird Al Yankovic Inactive'
http://youtu.be/HOBIXxR5q3w
'Weird Al Yankovic Now That's What I Call Polka!'
THIS. IS. FANTASTIC :-D
http://youtu.be/wpe-FU6gpN0
'Sex organ art reveals body diversity'
http://youtu.be/B91PXyYk0MQ
'The Science of Circumcision'
http://youtu.be/71ToUO1knhE
Is it Genital Week, this week, or something? :-D
'"SCROTUS" by Roy Zimmerman'
http://youtu.be/IDMdSJJCKzk
'Promise me woman to woman love scenes' (my upload)
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/92323210535/promise-me-woman-to-woman-love-scenes
'Crazyrussianhacker Tries for a Darwin Award (RE Dry ice air conditioner)'
Incidentally, carbon dioxide in the body also triggers an innate panic response. People with damage to their amygdalae, maybe as a result of Urbach Wiethe disease, are unable to feel fear, but have been found still able to panic when inhaling 35% CO2 air mixtures!
http://youtu.be/YIgV2Q8Leh0
'POOPING IN THE BATH TUB Pt 1'
For anyone who likes disgust humour, this is the bilogy for you :-D
http://youtu.be/4Bdw28e5vJI
'In Search of Fossil Fish'
Do you dig fish? Here's how to dig fossil fish :-P
http://youtu.be/6EMRujEbhQQ
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: olfactorithmetic -- an intuitive number sense, as defined in New Scientist Issue 2948 "We define it as the ability to glance at a document and announce "This number smells wrong". It is not necessarily correlated with the ability to show workings as to why it's wrong. Those who have cultivated olfactorithmetic abilities may need to ask a colleague to calculate, but often the numbers their noses identify turn out to stink."
Etymology Of The Week: awkward -- from 14th C Norse, meaning 'in the wrong direction'; with 'awk' meaning 'back-handed'; and 'ward' implying a direction, as in 'forward' and 'backward'. The meaning of 'clumsy' developed around the 1520s
Quote Of The Week: "I was the only person who liked Germany 20 years ago" - Philip Hensher, in The Independent
Fact Of The Week: 6mm -- the distance pitch has fallen in the last 100 years, in the Aberystwyth pitch-drop experiment. In a similar experiment in Queensland, Australia, pitch has broken off just nine times since 1930
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'Food to Scale 1:12'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/91686142769/comida-a-escala
'Television Adverts from April 1994'
How much have adverts changed in the last 20 years?
Well the coffee one's almost exactly the same; the fast food ones too; 'women's' things still use fake anecdotes, and pads ads haven't changed at all; cat food's exactly the same; car ads don't employ women as much; cereals still don't make any sense; Sainsbury's ads are unrecognisable; Post Office ads have gone corporate; charity ads are far more melodramatic and staged; Heineken's advertised by someone who can actually speak - Stephen Fry!; Hotpoint don't/can't bother; petrol companies advertise fuel efficiency instead of wear-and-tear prevention; British Gas greenwashes rather than advertises empowerment. So now you know :-P
http://youtu.be/6TlJkRXxDB4
'Outtake TV - Weakest Link Special - Part 2'
http://youtu.be/ZHln9Y6IxGc
'Outtake TV - Weakest Link Special - Part 3'
http://youtu.be/BrOEEnOzTno
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