Why was New York City considered ‘ungovernable’ until Mayor Rudy Giuliani got elected? That’s just the way it is – newspaper columnists tend to make excuses for people they like. The ‘ungovernable’ meme is back, this time for President Obama. Events are not under his control, the US president only has so much authority, no one could have done any...
read moreThings are not great in America but Spain may have the USA beat - even cherries are being stolen. Last year, more than 20,000 thefts were reported at Spanish farms. Is that more or less than in previous years? No one is sure, it was never a problem before so they have few records. Now, thieves steal food from farmers and resell them in ad hoc markets. Welcome to the 14th century. All...
read moreThe Environmental Working Group's annual "Dirty Dozen" report for 2012 has named the fruits and vegetables ranking highest in pesticide residue. Don't get all excited about shopping at Whole Foods to escape the problem, organic food has all kinds of pesticides, they are just 'natural', like strychnine, and the Environmental Working Group did not run any tests of their own, they did a review of...
read moreJoan Gonzalvo of the Ionian Dolphin Project, who studies dolphins off western Greece for the Tethys Research Institute, captured an incredible sequence of images showing a leaping bottlenose dolphin with a large octopus clinging to its belly.Well, more specifically the dolphin's genital slit....
read moreThere's a lot of recent talk about open access in academia - taxpayers fund the bulk of academia in modern times so there isn't much benefit to a billion-dollar corporation charging a subscription fee for science research produced there.But the university system itself, awash in money, new buildings and new employees after two decades of 'a college education is a right' mentality propped up by...
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