Intel Dump!

Lots of stuff has built up in my files;

Here's an argument that violence (on the whole) is in decline.

"The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It applies over several orders of magnitude of violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment of children and animals. And it appears to be a worldwide trend, though not a homogeneous one. The leading edge has been in Western societies, especially England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth century." - Pinker

This is a website that lets you compete in an on-line design contest for the 'Darwin Fish'.

Global warming buffs (this means you Highlander) can revel in the latest predictions for aridity and desertification as components of the coming environmental apocalypse.

It seems censorship is still not dead in Canada. Please save us from the morality cops.

"As Jared Diamond points out in his recent bestseller Collapse, the ancient Anasazi did not succumb simply to drought but rather to the impact of unexpected aridity upon an over-exploited landscape inhabited by people little prepared to make sacrifices in their "expensive lifestyle." In the last instance, they preferred to eat one another."

Awesome. We have seen the future and it's a cannibal movie. The only good news is that the mounting evidence is making it very hard for anyone to generate something other than laughter as a global warming sceptic.

From 'Foreign Policy' comes a list of products you might not want to get too attached to. Me, I'll miss the light-bulb. If only for the jokes.

Meanwhile, here's a chance to catch Daniel Dennett discuss the meaning of life.

And while I'm on video of scientist types discussing sicence things here's Horgan (a hum bug curmudgeon if there ever was one) and Johnson kicking everything from string theory to the anthropic principle around. Special abuse for string theorists for sure, but even the transhumanists get deservedly whacked at the end.

Are you ready for Hip-Hop Star Wars? You know you are.

From the 'are you depressed yet' file, is this story of someone facing the death penalty for blasphemy. What makes this case of religious lunacy special is that the blasphemer is just 11 years old.

Ok, so that was depressing, here's a cartoon to put a smile on your face. Really, it's got both chess and Obi-Wan Kenobi in it, and how can that not be comedy gold?

While your giggling over that, check out this creationists 'peanut butter' defense. It'll you push you from snorts and chortles into full blown guffaws. Guaranteed! I hadn't laughed so hard in a long, long time.

Ok, now that you've had your laugh, time to make you slack-jawed with awe. Henry Bekkering is from Taber Ab., and is going to be attending U of C next year. He ought to make those games a lot of fun to watch!

One of the upgrades I want is to have the genes for UV vision added to mine. Work with mice indicates that you can add new visual components and the brains adapt to accept the new input. So sign me up for the upgrade!

With the anniversary of Irish accords in the news Christopher Hitchens goes postal about the deficiency of character at the heart of the mutual fawning between both Protestant and Catholic.

James Duthie had an excellent article about young goaltenders. As a hockey father to be, I found this resonating.

More stuff to come soon!