how many times have I looked back over my shoulder at downtown LA?
headed east through the desert.
love taken for granted.
3 brothers walk across my desert road.
....let. this. heart. be. STILL.
for democracy, any many would give his only begotten son.
This man would give all for a republic, (even if for my Iraqi brethren)
Getch'yo mind out the gutter, foo!
I'm talkin' bout some squirrel tail........jeesh.......
No seriously--this is freaking ridiculous and fascinating: (credit Brad DeLong and Marc Andreesen)
It's Californian ground squirrel versus rattlesnake in a potentially lethal showdown. But the squirrel has a secret weapon that until now has remained invisible to the human eye.
The ground squirrel heats up its tail then waves it in the snake's face - a form of harassment that confuses the rattler, which has an infrared sensing organ for detecting small mammals.
This defensive tactic remained invisible to biologists until they looked at the animals through an infrared video camera. Now they believe that many other animals might be using infrared weaponry to ward off potential predators.
Young California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) are easy prey for snakes, so protective adults harass the predators while puffing up their tails and wagging them.
Infrared organ
Graduate student Aaron Rundus and his supervisor Donald Owings of the University of California, Davis, wondered how this might affect the snakes’ interaction with the adult squirrels. So he borrowed a $35,000 infrared camera from another scientist and spied on squirrel-snake stand-offs.
He saw the adults’ tails heat up, presumably due to increased blood flow, when they were warning rattlers away – making the squirrel appear larger to the snake’s infrared organ.
Confronted with a gopher snake, which has no infrared sensory organ, the squirrels wagged their tails but didn’t bother to warm them up first.
Tests with robotic squirrels confirmed that a warmed squirrel tail made rattlesnakes more likely to act defensively, say Rundus and Owings.
The squirrels themselves do not see in infrared, so they cannot see another squirrel's tail heating up. But the snakes can, proving that the squirrels have evolved a specific way to deter rattlesnakes.
“It taught us to focus on the perceptual world of the animal we’re studying” rather than thinking only of human perceptions, says Rundus.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0702599104)
What?
How is this even possible?
Even at the sub-atomic level??
HOW?? I demand to know!
Oh...it's the "only violation" of conceivably unbreakable laws of physics; i.e. special relativity. Ok. Cool. (whatever)
No, seriously...how? If even it is sub-atomic, the particle--by definition--has some sort of mass, and I cannot understand how that mass can be propelled at a velocity exceeding light waves.
This is why I was a criminal justice major...and played football
stupid science ;)
I for one, will lend my astute political and media perspective to ALgore as a consultant on the film.
We will first interview a leading climate change scientist from the 1970's (yeah; global COOLING was the man-made problem just years ago), who may explain why carbon dioxide emissions have been "conclusively scientifically proven" to be a cause of both global warming AND cooling.
Maybe then we'll have some Michael Moore style fun with the NASA climate "experts" who just realized that the 1930's dustbowl was the hottest temperature this last century--NOT 1998!
Must have been all those damn SUV's and power-plants of the 1930's....
"Wait! You say! Why haven't I seen that on the evening news, if it's true??"
Kids, you have to ask yourselves these same questions. Although maybe a bit red-faced, if you ask your parents, they were probably also in the "Corporate America is killing the planet" global cooling brigade of the '70's. Then they were leading the war to save the ozone.
Yeah--remember the ozone layer? I thought we were all supposed to die or melt by now...how is it that the ozone layer has actually repaired itself? Couldn't possibly be our cyclical climate, right?
Kids. Don't drink the Koolaid. Ask tough questions....it doesn't make you compassionate, virtuous NOR informed to be an intellectual lemming.
I digress, back to the film:
Maybe, me and the monotone-monster algore will then go back to Greenland and figure out which one of Halliburton's SUV's is responsible for the ICE GROWTH in Greenland
As with all great Documentary pieces, we need to move people to action!
I will then wake up algore, dress him in some earth tones, call him an alpha male, and try to scare everybody into agreement!
And then when our beloved Hurricane season "proof" fails to materialize, we will tell people that Global Warming is just taking a nap. A siesta. A timeout. A break. A little nappy-poo.......
BEFORE IT COMES BACK WITH A VENGENCE IN 2008!!! MUUUAAAAHHH HA HA HA HA!!!
...and algore and I will laugh all the way to the bank. Suckers.
I don't know...maybe it's just me....but this is scarier than firearms....because at least most people are too scared to go buy a firearm. This frightens me as a Dad, boyfriend and LA resident. If I were the predatory criminal type, and I came across a target of opportunity, say for instance a gorgeous girl, little girls, convenience store owner, or just an apparent-well-to-do 4Runner-driving white guy, I could drop/incapacitate my victim and not have to use deadly force.
I am a HUGE, strict-constructionist of the 2nd Amendment (well, the rest of the Constitution for that matter)...but this thing, coming to a WALMART near you?!
Now packing 50,000 volts in your purse?!
Comrades....let us go make some babies!
Time to procreate...FOR MOTHER RUSSIA!
Wow.
I don't begrudge anybody the opportunity to throw down some cash on one of the greatest machines in the world....but I hate that *stupid* people can afford this car...
Sucks to be this guy
It must really suck to be an insurgent these days....first the Predator, then the Predator gets the hellfire:)....and now this?!
Terminators: 1
Insurgents: 0
Marc Andreesen is incredible.
Excellent article. Marc's Blog is a must-read.
coffee for the brain
Stayed true to that oh-so-enlightened-Eastern-tradition, of cowardly Kamikazi'ing himself...
Well, at least he didn't create the "commit suicide with Elmo" doll first...
Most comforting news since the Clinton Dept of Justice brought us this feel-good image of stealing kids:
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