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This week my Marine Life Series essay on Daily Kos is about byssal threads.
According to Gallup, there may only be five red states left. How sweet is that?
Cool Site of the Week: New photos of Enceladus, a tiny moon orbiting Saturn.
Twelve moving buildings.
The Boy will love this 1981 news report on the emerging interweb thingy (via Scout Finch at Daily Kos).
Is this the best complaint letter ever? It was written by a frustrated foody to Virgin Atlantic Airlines and was supposedly read by Richard Branson himself, who called the customer thanking him for his feedback. Read the whole thing, as they say. I was in tears.
"Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It's mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard."
RIP John Updike.
After about 70 years as a non-starter, the flying car may finally be here.
Today’s slide show is Bad Astronomy’s top ten photos of 2008.
Ten little-known species of lemurs.
Ten most popular guard dogs.
The ten dirtiest things in your home and how to clean them.
My used coffee grounds go into the compost bin, but apparently they also have ten more uses.
Ten very good reasons why you should grow a giant beard.
Evolutionists flock to Darwin-shaped wall stain.
Play! The Bailout Game. I pulled a dubya and wrecked the nation.
Discover Magazine has the top 100 science stories of 2008.
Coming February 12 through 15, Blog for Darwin blogswarm. If you’ve got a blog you can take part if you want. You can get details on how to participate at the link.
Tuesday Coonhound Blogging: I need a warm weather image, and if you're in the Northeast you know what I mean. I get up at 5:30 in the morning and it's been in the low teens pretty much every day at that time for the past few weeks. It's really getting old. So here's Creole at the breachway last fall.
If you look closely at the background you can see a great blue heron up in the pine tree. These guys are normally wading around in the shallows and it always cracks me up to see these huge birds balancing themselves on tree branches. Here's a closeup. Clickem to embiggem.
Animal of the Week: Giant squid with elbows.
Cartoon Particles breaks down popular cartoon characters into their basic elements. Guess which character each frame represents and click on the image to check the correct answer.
Abandoned Russian nuclear polar lighthouses (via Apostropher).
On the west coast it’s raining pelicans and no one seems to know why.
Albino Monday: Baby aardvark.
This week's Marine Life Series on Daily Kos is about Andre the harbor seal. I worked with Andre for a few months in 1982, twenty years after he was "rescued" as an orphan in Maine by a man named Harry Goodridge. This essay has been up on the recommended diary list on Kos all night and so far I've had comments or emails from a friend of Harry's son Steve and a brother of one of the producers of the awful 1994 movie about this seal. The movie used a sea lion instead of a harbor seal.
God-man catches a thief.
Buy your finger food ring here.
This week’s Green Thing is BlueTube, a YouTube channel about ocean conservation.
Today’s slide show is about weird architecture.
Seven online security mistakes you’re probably making.
Emailed by reader Arjay, here are ten nine reasons why owning a dog is good for you.
Meet the Wonderful Shot digital camera for dogs.
Check out this amazing shot of the Inauguration Day crowd as seen from space. (via Bad Attitudes.)
Fake trees that are actually cell phone towers.
Today’s slide show is of the winners of the 1995 “small world” microphotography contest (click on “slide show” to view).
iPod Shuffle: There are 4,433 songs on my iPod. (Just added this cd last night). Here are this week's results when I hit shuffle and look at the first five songs that come up at random.
Timewaster of the Week: Word Perhect is a hand-drawn word processing interface. Play around with it.
Today’s slide show is a series of 52 portraits of members of Obama’s inner circle. Click on “launch gallery” to view.
Sixty incredible aerial photos by Yann Arthus Bertrand. Click this one to embiggen.
Geek Stuff: Star Trek as Love Boat.
Bush appointee John Roberts flubs the oath of office.
People seem amazed that Obama is a blogger, but he’s been one since at least 2005.
Writing in Rolling Stone Magazine, Paul Krugman has some economic advice for the POTUS.
I’m an idiot, an xkcd comic.
I was on the road all day yesterday, so I missed all the celebrations. Here are some of the highlights.Today’s slide show is Global Obamamania.
How much money are world leaders paid? I want to be president of Singapore.
The Webby Awards have announced their list of the top ten web political moments, starting with Senator Dianne Feinstein being the first candidate to have a web site (1994).
The Economist, which endorsed Bush in 2000, doesn’t have many nice things to say about the departing WPE.
Keith O. presents eight years of Bush in eight minutes.
Jerome says goodbye to the WPE’s phony accent.
Try out this short term memory checker.
Stuff You Should Know: How airports get those weird three letter identification codes.
That plane that landed in the Hudson River the other day reminded me of the story of the pilot who suffered a stroke and went blind at 15,000 feet and still managed to land his plane safely.
Albino Monday: Regular reader Tony sends in this day-old lion cub. Like many of the monday albinos, this cat is actually leucistic rather than a true albino, but they all count here as long as they're white when they shouldn't be.
My marine life essay on Daily Kos this week is about flounder's twisted skull. Don't forget to take the poll to determine next week's topic.
Yesterday's Non Sequitur cartoon was spot on.
Mad Magazine has a piece called the first 100 minutes of the Obama presidency.
Meet Cadillac One, Obama’s new presidential limo. Click the diagram in the story for the details.
Obama’s official presidential portrait. For the record, it’s the first one taken with a digital camera.
