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You can laugh at conservatives' ideas for a lot of reasons, but their light bulb fixation could be their most amusing obsession. Watch the clip here. (The Rights' light bulb, left and the Left's light bulb, right.)
The NYPD trainees get to watch a movie.
Cool site of the week: Is the amazing world clock, which is basically a real time world almanac.
Albino Monday: The melanistic barn owl (the one on the left) is a one in 100,000 occurance.
Wonderful words with no English equivalent.
The beautiful snow leopards of Afghanistan are making a comeback, and their cubs steal hidden cameras. I wouldn't have thought there'd be a nature preserve in Tajikstan, but the researchers from Fauna and Flora International (FFI) are actually working there.
On January 18th an online protest movement occurred, where tens of thousands of websites went dark to send congress a message not to support the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act(SOPA and PIPA). These kinds of acts, like the Occupy Movements still going on around the country, may seem like futile stands to cynics. But (via The Boy) look at this chart of how congressional support changed in one day (January 19th).
I’ve never seen a rainbow where both ends are visible.
What wiped out the ice age giants?
Today’s slide show is about people getting ready to eat a species of fish they most resemble.
Warren Buffett and his secretary talk taxes.
A fake butcher shows shoppers how sausages are made.
As someone who struggles with psoriasis, this article about the psychology of itching was interesting, even though it features a woman who’s itch was so intense she scratched right through her skull. It’s the New Yorker, so it’s pretty long of course.
Linda Cline, at Dancing Fish, has some phenomenal underwater photographs that are worth some time browsing through.
The Milky Way and storms over Africa, as filmed from the International Space Station.
Apparently Willard is unemployed. And he’s making a killing at it. I wish I paid 13.9% in taxes. Atrios boils it down to its bare basics.
The answer to yesterday's trivia, the leaf nests of squirrels are called "dreys". These are outside nests, as opposed to cavity hideouts.
How did I miss squirrel appreciation day? I’ll try to do better next year. The article mentions their “leaf nests”, but for 5 Biomes points, what are these nests actually called?
If you’re confused (like me) about how Willard made his bucks at Bain Capital, the New Yorker has a short little primer on the economics of private equity firms.
Iowa’s ancient history, but Stewart nails the press to the wall on their weird dissing of crankpot Ron Paul.
Tuesday coonhound blogging: I don't know what this expression means, but it was taken after a long hike through the woods.
As far as intelligent animals go, you just don’t get more awesome than crows. Here’s one that tricks two cats into fighting each other. And it seems he does it just for kicks.
Albino Monday: Bennett’s tree kangaroo, and this one’s a true albino with red eyes (via Hans).
Pet Corner: Dog on helium. I'm thinking this dog's owner aught to either be jailed or given his own show.
Geek stuff: I’m sure I’m destroying my geek-cred, at least by The Boy’s standards, by saying I’m not, and have never been, a Dr. Who fan. Still, I can appreciate the woman who has created knitting patterns for all of the Dr. Who scarves.
This week’s Green Thing is a koi pond observation tower. I’d guess this is one of those things (like a fish toilet) that looks great at first, but becomes an eyesore once it gets coated with algae (thus qualifying it as a Green Thing).
Ever since Japan deregulated ear cleaning practices, salons are springing up all over the country. Here’s a good quote from the story: “Some say their wives clean their ears at home, but it’s just not the same without the traditional Japanese style room and the tatami mats.”
Forty colorful birds.
Today’s slide show is a series on the Doomsday Seed Vault, in Norway, the world’s repository of food crop seeds. It is designed to store two-billion seeds of 4.5 million varieties of plants, and should keep them viable for thousands of years.
Obama asks Betty White for her long-form birth certificate.
Pet parrots that have been released to the wild in Australia are now beginning to teach native birds to talk.
Misspelled political protest signs have been around for years (such as this old classic), but what’s interesting about this collection is that I couldn’t find one out of the seventy that were from the liberal side of aisle. Could be cherry-picking, but it’s from About.com (which I don’t think leans either way in general).
This photo of a pair of Siamese pike is making the rounds, but the Ontario fishing community site shows how it can be faked.
January's architectural eyesore of the month.
