If You Pass Along “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” They May Think it’s a Movement

Kip Hawley is an idiot. For those of you unacquainted with Kip, he is the head of the Transportation Security Administration. Apparently his minions at the airport are a wee bit touchy about what people say about Kip and feel threatened if you call Kip an idiot. I’d write it on any clear plastic bag you happen to be taking through an airport security checkpoint – where, apparently the Constitution doesn’t apply. Remember Arlo Guthrie’s famous words in Alice’s Resaurant:

You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and
they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

Just substitute writng ‘Kip Hawley is and idiot” on a plastic bag for “singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant” at the appropriate places.
Civil disobedience is a wonderful thing…

Hominid Brain Size and the Panda’s Thumb

In the spirit of one good link deserves another, Nick Matzke over at the Panda’s Thumb has an excellent post called Fun with Hominin Cranial Capacity Datasets (and Excel). The post discusses increases in hominid cranial capacity through time and is worth a read (and I’m not just saying that because he linked to my post debunking Luskin’s latest). By the by, if anyone out there has the two articles Matzke uses, could you send them my way?
Note also that Salvador Cordova shows up and attempts to refute the post in the typically dishonest fashion used by ID types everywhere…
Update: Nick Matzke has posted a couple of new graphs with species lables etc.

Bush Sucking Up to China

From Defense News.Com:

China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in what experts see as a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft, according to sources.
It remains unclear how many times the ground-based laser was tested against U.S. spacecraft or whether it was successful.
But the combination of China’s efforts and advances in Russian satellite jamming capabilities illustrate vulnerabilities to the U.S. space network are at the core of U.S. Air Force plans to develop new space architectures and highly classified systems, according to sources.

Par for the Course

While surfing the internet I came across this blog entry repeating Luskins errors on the Seattle Times picture. So I left a comment pointing out the errors Luskin made – just concerning the picture. Five hours later the comment still hasn’t appeared. Looks like UD isn’t the only ID site that censors opposing views…
Speaking of Luskin, Chris O’Brien at Northstate science has an intersting takedown of Luskins’ piece definitely an interesting read…

Friday Know Your Primate: Tarsiers

Today’s guest on ‘Friday Know Your Primate” has had more ink spilled in its’ name than any other primate I can think of…

Order Primates (primates)
Family Tarsiidae (tarsiers)
Genus Tarsius (tarsiers)
Species Tarsius bancanus (western tarsier)
Species Tarsius dianae (Diana tarsier)
Species Tarsius pumilus (pygmy tarsier)
Species Tarsius spectrum (spectral tarsier)
Species Tarsius syrichta (Philippine tarsier)

Casey Luskin and Selam

Casey Luskin has a misleading piece about Selam – the juvenile Australopithecus afarensis specimen that has been in the news recently. The Luskin piece is over at Evolution News and Views – the propaganda arm for the DI. Lets take a look at how accurate Luskin is…

The Arlington Springs Man/Woman/Man

I recently received the September issue of the Mammoth Trumpet – published by the Center for the Study of the First Americans. In addition to an excellent article on clovis artifacts at the Topper Site and paleoamericans in Peru, the issue contained a write up on the Arlington Springs find.

Lion’s Manes: A New Study

I have written about this subject before. Science Daily has an article discussing a new study that appears in the Journal of Zoology (the lead writer is Tom Gnoske). I have been unable to track the study down so if someone out there finds it, please send it to me…

Peruvian Dog Mummies

In case you missed it, BBC News has interesting story on dog mummies found in Peru:

Begging for Articles from the Journal of Human Evolution

Added later: I have “A new morphometric analysis of the hominid pelvic bone” The other article comes from Human Evolution – not the Journal of Human Evolution…and I am still looking for it…
If any of you have access to the Journal of Human Evolution can you send me the following two articles?
Size and shape of the australopithecine pelvic bone
Journal Human Evolution
Issue Volume 18, Numbers 3-4 / July, 2003
A new morphometric analysis of the hominid pelvic bone
Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 38, Number 3, March 2000, pp. 347-365(19)