A Sunday Review

My mystery book this week was The Alpine Uproar by Mary Daheim. After a man dies in a drunken brawl, Emma feels that something about the incident is not quite right. This one goes back to the strengths of the series and works through Alpine as a place, using it as the main character. The incidents aren't pretty, but it makes Alpine seem a lot more real as it goes on. Poor Vida. If you want to start the Alpine series, I strongly recommend starting at the first book, The Alpine Advocate.

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Here are reviews of the DCBS comic books that I've gotten around to reading and reviewing, sorted by the original shipping date:

• May 28th
• Aquaman #31 - Aquaman seems to be less than a diplomat with Swamp Thing, but it's Mera who steals the show with her story in this one. That can't be a good position for her to be in.
• Secret Origins #2 - Yet another version of the Batman origin. Fortunately, the Aquaman origin is there and fills in some small gaps left from the details in the series. Excellent! And Starfire's origin is ok, I suppose.
• The Legend of Oz: The Wicked West #18 - Well, that wasn't entirely what I was expecting to happen. And the revelation of just who that other gal is... well, interesting. I really am enjoying this version of Oz.
• Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #5 - Things are beginning to come together, and that's good because I really need this story to hold together better if I'm going to understand it.
• Peanuts V2 #18 - Fun stuff, as usual. This may not be all Schulz, but it's got some really good bits even so.
• Twilight Zone #5 - Nice tie-in with the previous storyline, while also being very much its own story. Nice cliffhanger, as well.
• FCBD - Final three books in this year's haul...
• FCBD: The Tick - A pretty good main story in which Arthur shows off his talents quite nicely. Heh. And then a mildly funny back-up tale. Whee.
• FCBD: Street Fighter - Some vaguely interesting fighter-based stories. Not really my thing, but they had decent artwork and the first one wasn't bad at all.
• FCBD: 2000 AD Special - A very complete sampler of the 2000 AD universe that really does a good job of illustrating just how different some of the British sensibilities are from American in comic book storytelling and humor. I've become a fan of the Judge Dredd/Mega-City One stories, but because I don't seek them out, I suspect I mostly see cherry-picked collections/samples of the best of the best.

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Fortean Times #315 (June 2014). I love this type of cover... the woodcut design is just awesome and the break from the normal layout is very nice. I even like the colors they used. The cover story itself is a fairly typical poltergeist tale, although it lacks a major character if it is a polt. Fortunately, that issue is covered in a sidebar. I like the historical context provided, and the concept that the story has changed in focus as society itself has changed. All interesting ideas. Definitely a good read, well put-together with some decent research behind it.

Another main article is about Igor Bourtsev, a man who has spent his life looking for the Russian Snowman, including a lot of time under Soviet rule. Fascinating stuff about the Russian understanding of yeti and bigfoot, including what Russian researchers think of the Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot film (spoiler: they think it's real).

Another article covers the history of the Nandi Bear and what it might be/might have been. There's a very good theory as to why it hasn't been seen in recent years. There's also some evidence that one or more may have appeared in traveling menageries in the UK a couple hundred years ago. Really strange and intriguing stuff, but the author sort of rips up the conclusions of the guy who was kind enough to send him info about the animal collections, which ended the article on a sour note.

Strangedays starts with pets eaten by snakes. Eeww. (Inkwell wondered why I hugged him after reading that). The allergy round-up didn't surprise me. My mother had a run-in with strange allergies when I was still young that left an impression on me. The lucky escapes had some good tales, but some of them may well have been just that, tales. The special report on the vampire symposium was a good read. The bit about the Island of Poveglia was a nice touch of history. I was amused at all the dread, dead, ghosts in the story followed up by the locals talking about using the place as a swimming hole and playground. Heh. The Mystery Ring photos are cool, and a reasonable explanation put forth. Love the Fortean Follow-ups, although some of these seemed less follow-up than continuation on a theme.

Konspiracy Korner was a little more insane than usual, and terribly disturbing in implications whether the conspiracy in question is false (more likely) or true. Archaeology made me want to go out and get a metal detector. Or live in a place where hoarded gold coins might show up. I'd heard about the discovery of the Faberge Egg, but the Irish gold fish was a new one for me. Classical Corner was difficult to look at. I just don't like those spontaneous combustion photos. I would've preferred a more classic bit of art on the subject, personally.

Ghostwatch is about Gef the Talking Mongoose. Lots of little bits in there, some really intriguing. And some slightly depressing. The impact the story had on a horror writer also was interesting. Alien Zoo was fine, nothing incredibly shattering. I like how it is now known that whales are making the mystery "bio-duck" sound, but marine biologists still don't know why. Ask Aquaman! Mythconceptions taught me something about early radio sports coverage I didn't know, which is good. The First Forteans talks about Rupert Thomas Gould and his works that paralleled Fort's stuff, but was a little more rigorous in a scholarly sense. I suspect Gould's works might be easier to read than some of Fort's.

A new feature is called "Fairies, Folklore and Forteana" and appears to link stories from folklore to Fortean topics. The first one is a humdinger. It's about a "wool roller" that appears in early 19th century literature. Basically, a big ball of wool that just rolls along, sometimes buzzing, sometimes damaging the legs of a horse. In one case, containing a pixie. Very odd stuff. I like it. Blasts from the Past covers mediums who claimed to visit Mars or host visitors from Mars and what they described the Red Planet to really be like. Some crazy stuff there, including photos purported to be of Martian royalty. Illustrated Police News was about a mysterious disappearance (and reappearance) and Phenomenomix concludes its look at P.L. Travers and her beliefs.

The UFO Files were good, with Flyingsaucery taking on Rendlesham again, Clinton's attempts to discover what the government knows about UFOs while he was president and pareidolia that makes people think a lens flare on a web cam is a flying saucer. The UFO Casebook is about "reality blinks", where something happens and the human mind sort of skips a beat. An example used is two people who both saw a parked car move sideways a few feet, but nobody else noticed. Another example is a man and his cat both noticing a bit of dirt on the wall at the same time, despite the probability that the dirt was there for some time. There's some potential there for good stories.

The Forum starts with a piece on the Crystal Palace and a train car full of skeletons. It's an amazing story that is pretty much not possible, but it's still fun. The second forum article is about Vincent Price's roles in some adaptations of Poe's works, filmed by Roger Corman. The piece is in response to Corman's announced intention of remaking the films, but goes into great detail on Price's role in making the films classic. Neat stuff that I just hadn't heard of. The world is too big sometimes.

Reviews are good with the usual types of books, including a gigantic conspiracy theory in the first book. I thought the review of the Steed and Mrs Peel comic was disturbingly correct, even though I never watched much of the original Avengers. I'd love to read "Lost City of the Exodus" by Ahmed Osman, just to figure out his conclusions, but I'm not sure I'd be inclined to buy it in order to read it. Letters were great, with the usual amount of self-correcting and updates that I love to read about. There's even a defense of the Doctor Who book that was ripped to shreds in last month's reviews. All kinds of fun stuff in this one!

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist -- My Camera Wishlist

Belief has no part in this, only facts

So, here's a conundrum for you.

Let's say people have been seeing an animal for hundreds of years. Sightings go back to almost ancient times, but nobody has been able to catch one and prove the existence of the animal. But sightings continue, thousands each year. Does the animal exist?

According to science, no. It can be hypothesized that it exists, but it cannot be proven.

Ok, so people start looking for evidence of the animal. They find footprints, fur and other signs. They hear it and record the vocalizations. Sightings continue, thousands each year. Does the animal exist?

Well, if the fur can be DNA tested, maybe. But the research would have to be peer-reviewed and be published in a science journal. The rest of the evidence is apparently useless to science.

So, a researcher goes to the trouble of doing the DNA tests on samples collected across the area that have clear lines of possession (eliminating the possibility of contamination) and submits the research to scientific journals. Here's where the researcher runs into trouble. Because science has said in the past that the animal doesn't exist, none of the journals want to deal with the possibility of being embarrassed when they publish a paper about the supposedly fictional animal. So they decline to even give the research a fair hearing, and it becomes a catch-22: Science won't accept the animal as existing until research on it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but scientific journals won't accept the research because they all "know" the animal doesn't exist and would be too embarrassed to admit they are wrong.

In this particular case, a journal agreed to start the peer-review process, and then apparently got cold feet. Here's what Melba Ketchum, the DNA researcher in question, said about the process.

We encountered the worst scientific bias in the peer review process in recent history. I am calling it the "Galileo Effect". Several journals wouldn't even read our manuscript when we sent them a pre-submission inquiry. Another one leaked our peer reviews. We were even mocked by one reviewer in his peer review. We did finally pass peer review with a relatively new journal. It took a fresh outlook on the part of the editors and their careful selection of reviewers with knowledge of next generation whole genome sequencing in order to pass. I have no idea who the reviewers were though I have the reviews. That was kept confidential as is the way journals handle peer reviews. That was only part of the delay and problems associated with publication though. After this journal agreed to publish the manuscript, their legal counsel advised them not to publish a manuscript on such a controversial subject as it would destroy the editors' reputations (as it has already done to mine). I have documentation on all of this drama. So, rather than spend another five years just trying to find a journal to publish and hoping that decent, open minded reviewers would be chosen, we acquired the rights to this journal and renamed it so we would not lose the passing peer reviews that are expected by the public and the scientific community.

The author tried to give a concrete example of what the process has been like as well:

To get an idea of bias, the Lesula monkey paper in PLOS One used 6800 bases of DNA sequence to prove it was a new primate. We have aligned 2.7 million bases of nuclear DNA on two of the three Sasquatch genomes in this first manuscript and generated a phylogenetic tree to prove it. We also had 20 whole mitochondrial genomes at 16,500 bases each. That same publication wouldn't even send ours out for peer review.

All this said, the research is going to be ignored and ridiculed by many people for being 'self-published' although the peer-review process had already been finished before the rights to the journal were acquired. It's a pity, because I'd much rather have more scientists looking at the data, not just the subject matter, and drawing conclusions from solid facts. I'm fine with scientists finding flaws in the research, but I have an issue with simply ignoring a subject because it doesn't fit the prevailing viewpoint of the scientific community.

Cryptomundo has published the press release about the paper, and the project has a website as well. Without reading the actual paper, and possibly earning an advanced degree in DNA sequencing to understand it first, I can't say whether or not this is any sort of real proof. But I wish it had been given a fair shake.

Scientists can be as dogmatic as some religious folks on some topics. It's been a problem with human nature as long as there has been science, and will continue to be so into the future. Close-minded skepticism of anything out of the ordinary is as foolish as open-minded belief in everything.

A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Torchwood: Miracle Day: "Escape to L.A." - Ah, it's painful to watch characters making really stupid mistakes. But then, that's how real life works some times, too. Really stupid mistakes followed by other people paying for those mistakes. I like how they are keeping Rhys and Anwen in the show, but at the same time I'm not liking it at all. It seems like there wasn't a lot of forward progress in this one, so we'll have to see what happens next, if it gets a bit better.
• Torchwood: Miracle Day: "The Categories of Life" - Ok, so they are categorizing people into different slots depending on how "alive" they are. And there is a deep and terrifying secret to the overflow centers they are sending "dead" people to. This was a painful and scary episode. Disturbing in almost every way.


• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: "Pawn of Shadows" - Best line of the series so far, Shaggy says, "Yeah, like, we've been teenagers forever" when giving advice to writer HP Hatecraft on current teens. That's just before the most scarring event of the series so far happens. Angel gets really involved in this one, and the end is a bit of a surprise. One more episode? I'm kind of excited to see it!
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: "All Fear the Freak" - Final episode. The group investigates Fred's dad, as the friction of the group comes to a head. Secrets are revealed, stories are told, and the series ends with the possibility open for a second (or more) season. Wow. Best Scooby-Doo I've ever watched. I'd gladly watch a second season.

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This week's comic book related review is Aquaman: Death of a Prince. This collection features some of the most classic of Aquaman's tales, including Aquaman being deposed from his throne, Aqualad learning about his parentage, and the death of Arthur Jr. This is a very nice complete package, and I can say that those stories have probably never looked better. It's one of the best collections I've seen in a long time, and well worth it for Aquaman fans and just general comic book fans as well.

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Agatha Christie this week was Nemesis from 1971. Miss Marple is called upon by a dead man to solve a mystery without any clues whatever, and agrees. Of course, the clues start arriving once she's signed on, and eventually she figures it out. I didn't. Anyway, this isn't her best, but it's not a bad Marple story. I feel like her writing is in a bit of a downward slide, but I hope that's just my misperception. There's a scant handful of novels left for me to read, and a bunch of short stories. I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy them because even the worst Christie mystery tends to be a bit better than average.

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Finding Bigfoot - I was a little doubtful about this show, having heard allegations that parts of the hunt were misrepresented by the production crew to increase drama. I don't "believe" in Bigfoot, but I do accept the possibility of it existing. There's not enough evidence to prove anything, though, which is the problem. And that's the conceit of the show. The group is trying to prove that bigfoot exists by finding real scientific evidence. The catch-22 is that if the group proves the existence of bigfoot, the show is over... and we'll hear about it on the regular news before the show can air. So the fun of this show is the stories that people tell, because the show itself can never prove anything. Anyway, on to the episodes:

• "Swamp Ape" - This episode starts with a family who is having night visitations and think they are being stalked by a bigfoot at their home in North Florida. The team spends the night, and has inconclusive experiences. The group then visits the Seminole nation and discuss the beast with some members. Then they follow-up on three witnesses in South Florida and do another search, this time with cool remote control drones.
• "Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia" - Neat story about a cop with a passenger who spot a bigfoot crossing a road and catch the thing on the cop car's dashcam. The video is, of course, too grainy to use as proof, but it's still cool. Of course, they make someone run across the road in the middle of the night to try to duplicate it. Not dangerous at all, ha. They talk to some more witnesses, including one that isn't credible because he's easily led, then wander around the forests in the middle of the night.
• "Caught on Tape" - A thermal video taken in North Carolina Uhwarrie National Forest seems convincing until the team duplicates the video almost perfectly... which they justify with a bunch of excuses. Then there's a chase up a hill that apparently was a human and the crew knew it, but they presented it as a mystery. At a townhall meeting they heard some good stories and follow-up on a few. I'm liking Ranae, as she's the only one properly skeptic.
• "Fishing for Bigfoot in Oregon" - Another video, this one in central Oregon, that isn't exactly convincing at all. But the team goes and risks their lives in the middle of winter to duplicate the video, then hunt the bigfoot in the middle of the night. Again, Ranae is cool... Cliff and Bobo are ok, but Matt is actively annoying. Anyway, another area, another meeting with the locals to hear stories. The best part of the show by far, even if some folks are clearly not credible.
• "Frozen Bigfoot" - Ah, my home state. The team goes to Southwest Washington, the Silver Star peak in the Cascades, in Gifford Pinchot National Forest. They go to investigate some interesting pictures taken by a hiker a few years ago, and are able to duplicate the images pretty well, although not perfectly. They go to Yacolt for another town meeting, get some more cool stories. I like them deploying the goosecam and the disguised canoe, hilarious. This is a funny show.
• "Alaska's Bigfoot Island" - This one is a little different, as a community calls the bigfoot hunters in because a town is feeling threatened by unknown animals. They start with a witness to footprints and running around in the forest at night. Then another town meeting! Lots of good stories, particularly with the natives whose families have been in the area for centuries.

Conclusion: Overall, not a bad show, but not one that I would be inclined to watch much, especially if that Matt guy stays on it. It has a good format, but I need more skeptics like Ranae before it's truly watchable. I'm interested in bigfoot, but watching a couple of guys screaming in a forest in the middle of the night just isn't that interesting.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Rant About Science and Those Who Ignore It

The Bad Astronomer links to stories of the latest person to attempt the Million Dollar Challenge. I was impressed by how gobsmacked the challenger was that she failed, but not surprised that she managed to convince herself why it didn't work a few days later. It's a shame she didn't want to believe that she's just really good at cold reading and not actually psychic.

I'm not a complete skeptic. I'll allow that psychic abilities could exist. But so far they haven't been proven at all. Just like ghosts, or bigfoot... they could exist, but absolute scientific proof has not been offered, only tantalizing bits and pieces (and in too many cases outright fraud and hoaxes). And, as Phil Plait often points out, people who blindly believe often hurt other people or themselves. No, I'm not a complete skeptic. Heck, I really enjoy Fortean Times... and I'm not always laughing at the writers. But I certainly lean towards skepticism unless you are willing to apply the scientific method.

Since I'm on the subject of anti-science, let's talk about the antivaccine movement. First, if you haven't already, READ THIS. Read the whole thing. Read it? Ok, now you have a tiny inkling of what vaccines are fighting against. Most people my age have NO understanding of what a disease like Polio can do when it ravages an unprotected population. We simply have no concept, nothing to compare it to. Nothing in our experience allows us to appreciate the depths of fear that parents went through, nor the deaths and ruined lives left in the wake of those diseases. And as a result, some people have freely bought into the utterly false notion that vaccines cause more harm than good. They are wrong. Vaccines save many more lives than they injure, and not getting a vaccine doesn't just hurt your own child. It may kill somebody else's child.

I have stated in the past that I don't care if you vaccinate your children, as long as any unvaccinated children are kept away from the ones who have responsible parents who do vaccinate. If the "herd immunity" of a community gets too low, death is the result. Even for parents who did the right thing, and thought they had fully protected their child. So if you do not vaccinate your offspring, please keep them away, FAR AWAY, from any vaccinated kids or kids who haven't had their full vaccination schedule yet. Unvaccinated children should be treated as lepers by the rest of the community. They may carry the disease that will murder another child for whom the vaccination failed.

There is a lie about vaccines, linking them to autism. Vaccines do NOT cause Autism. The initial study that "proved" the fact was a fraud, and no other reputable studies since have been able to prove a link. And not for lack of trying on the part of some researchers. What has been proven is that children die from diseases that are easily preventable when parents succumb to the lies and stop vaccinating their children. Those children die horribly, in pain. But that's ok for Jenny McCarthy ("If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f___ing measles."), who would rather have children die in horrible agony than risk autism (which they won't get from vaccines anyway, so she's full of it).

Linkdump

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #168: Coincidences, Two-Face, and The Beast.

While the water cube is clearly a fast pool, they left out two changes that would've granted swimmers superpowers.

These bike helmet covers look both cool and silly at the same time.

Nobody knows what caused the big bangs under Lake Huron.

Penguin becomes Knight.

SHHH!

You never know who might be a spy.

As expected, known huckster Tom Biscardi didn't deliver on his promises at the Bigfoot press conference, thus setting back cryptozoology another 10 years in the eyes of the media. If Bigfoot is ever proven to exist, it will be despite Biscardi, not because of him.

Renewable Diesel Fuel. I'm all for alternative forms of energy. On the same line, The Smart Fortwo gets a test drive, and doesn't impress with its gas mileage. In the meantime, some drivers are converting their own cars in electric powered vehicles. I wonder if I could get someone to convert mine, and if it would be worth it? As for solar, Metafilter directs us to a website that calculates the solar potential of your roof. Our new home in Eastern Washington will have much more sun, so we're thinking of going solar in a few years if we can pay off all the current debt we've built up.

And... a pug for the in-laws.

Bigfoot Discovery

I'll link to Boing Boing since Cryptmundo has been hammered to the point where I haven't been able to visit it at all the last few days. The gist is that some guys claim to have a bigfoot body in a freezer, from a bigfoot found in Georgia.

I have always accepted the possibility of unknown animals, including primates, still existing in the wilderness of North America. Which means my philosophy allows for the existence of bigfoot. I've seen how much of the North Cascades are nearly untouched by Man. However, bigfoot's existence has never been proved, although the evidence is tantalizing at times. I would welcome proof of such a primate. I just don't really think this is the proof I've been waiting for.

The first doubt creeps in when you consider the folks who are promoting the thing. A known huckster is involved. Second is how this has played out on Cryptomundo, something which would be hard to check right now, but basically it seems like the people behind it have been trying to string Loren along. He's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I feel considerably less confident than he is, and he's not really that confident.

So, despite my belief that bigfoot could exist, this story just isn't all that interesting.

Update: Read this for the opinions of people who are certain this is a hoax, and are considerably less kind about it than I was.

Friday Linkdump

Wow, I like this idea for overhead lights.

Speaking of overhead lights: more on the Texas UFO.

Heh, no sooner do I post about right of way than Snopes has a bizarre right of way question.

More on the Martian Bigfoot.

This is one case where an LOL really made me laugh out loud. You're doing it wrong.

Why you shouldn't dump seaweed bits down the drain.

A nice little political commentary featuring Aquaman.

Preventing Da Vincis.

Stay on Target, stay on target...

More power to them.

Friday Links

Self-link: Aquaman's one-hour limit and Silver Age beginnings.

Publicity for Minx.

Dorothy of Oz gets mentioned at Bookslut.

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #117.

Speech Bubble Logos.

Stan Lee Movie Cameos (YouTube).

Heroes Season 2 Promo (YouTube).

Everyone is talking about Todd McFarlane's take on Oz.

Don't like Spam? How about bacn?

Here's what I don't get about Wikipedia. If it's supposed to be all-inclusive, why do people attempt to delete articles that are clearly informative? I can see deleting joke articles, or articles that are incorrect. But why delete a singer or cartoonist's entry just because "no one" has heard of him? Isn't that the whole POINT of wikipedia, that people can find out more? UPDATE: Tom Smith Filked his Wiki experience.

Blogging certainly can be reporting. Some of us are echo chambers, but some blogs DO report. Generalizing about blogs is the same as saying all magazines are identical, or all TV shows are exactly the same. It only proves you have no idea what you are talking about. Michael Skube should have known better.

Stephen Colbert's Cast on eBay. It was only $735 when I checked this morning.

There's a hole in the universe.

The Most Kissed Girl in the World.

Community Drug Tests.

Greetings from Seattle, 1942.

First posted on April 1st, this story is pretty funny on it's own (bigfoot spotted at site of new ski resort, environmentalists attempt to claim endangered animal protection of the site). But this quote just put it over the top for me:

A spokesman for the Wolf Creek Development Company, Farmhead Bunmunch, told the Post in an exclusive interview Sunday that the supposedly controversial footage was a joke played by Wild Colorado, or possibly by some of their supporters. "All I see is some idiot jumping around in a monkey suit, acting like he's a Saskachewan [sic.] There's no controversy here... It's just those Colorado Wildness people joking with you."

I can't stop laughing. Bigfoot is a Saskachewan! By the way, don't bother watching the vids. Really bad acting.

Opus is censored. This article links to one of the strips.

Dogs and Vick.

For the in-laws: Pug Skydiving.

Sep 15-19 is "Holy Pasta Week"
Plan your menus now.

Randoms

Bigfoot found footless.

The Barenaked Ladies on DRM, again. BNL has the most sensible position on the problem I've seen, and as a result I'm staying a fan.

The ALA (American Library Association) released the winners of their various awards. Go check 'em out. I've read at least one of them.

Google Video Link: Turkish Star Wars (1982). I don't think I'm likely to watch the whole thing, but the bits I did check out were amazingly awful. With Google video you can start loading where you put the slider, so go check out random bits.

If you think bunnies are cute and fluffy and innocent... go check this out. Oh. My. I love the narration. Reminds me of my Dad.

I may have linked to this before, but Reason Magazine's write-up on the broadcasting hijack of a Doctor Who story is just too well done to pass up.

DI is trying to go to print. I need to look under the seat of the car, in the couch, and anywhere else there might be loose change to pre-order me a copy of the book.

Rumor mill: Muppet Show Season Two on DVD and more Muppet TV. Rumor alert: Take both links with a grain of salt!

Banning Wikipedia as a citation source. Well, duh. You don't cite any type of encyclopedia in a research paper. Wikipedia is an on-line encyclopedia. It's good for basic overview and as a starting point for looking for more information. But it's a tertiary source at best, and should never be cited in a paper. Unless the paper is about Wikipedia.

Google uses algorithm to defuse Googlebombs. In short, no more Googlebombing. Discussion on Slashdot.

Oh my goodness, it's for real. I thought it was a Daily Show joke. Stephen Colbert is "Z".

I have discovered another reason to love our TiVo. I like watching Olbermann, but can't stand any coverage of American Idol. So now I can wait until Olbermann is half over before I start watching it and fast forward through the ads and the Idol garbage. Very nice.

01101100 01101001 01101110 01101011 01110011

Gail and Kurt have gone insane.

Check this out. Particularly the Wonder Woman pitch. I would buy it, and I'm not a Wonder Woman fan.

Mike Sterlings Easter Eggs.

Aaron Williams points us to A Whole Bunch of Cats.

A pie-cosahedron.

The Wilhelm Scream.

More on Sasquatch.

More on Jerry Bails: DEWline, Silver Age Comics, The GCD.

The Bad Astronomer on the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) rejecting a gift of 50,000 DVDs of "An Inconvenient Truth" for its members.

Bad soldiers reported on Boing Boing, but Boing Boing also reports that they are being investigated for their cruelty.

Let's make this really clear: If trained election officials cannot get a voting machine to work properly, then the machine is broken. Doesn't matter if it's "human error", the frickin' machines DON'T WORK. If trained officials have problems, the general public won't be able to use the things either.

Book Review

Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science by Jeff Meldrum.

I've read a number of books about Bigfoot, some I enjoyed, some were nonsense... but this is the first one that challenged me as a reader. I have no background in anatomy, and I had trouble following the details of Meldrum's arguments at times. But it was fascinating. The evidence for an unknown primate living in North America is actually overwhelming. Not enough to satisfy the people who refuse to look at the evidence at all, but certainly enough to make anyone with an open mind say, "Hmmm, there's definitely something going on here." Meldrum does an excellent job of laying out the evidence in a logical way, and explaining why some of it is evidence and not just random data or hoaxes (or if it's a hoax, why it's an incredibly good hoax). I learned more about the anatomy of feet than I ever intended to learn.

There is no way that a person who is being intellectually honest could read this book and completely dismiss the possibility that sasquatch could exist. This book doesn't prove the existence of bigfoot, but it definitely demolishes the arguments used by close-minded skeptics. If you aren't willing to at least look at the evidence, then you shouldn't bother with this book. This book is all about the clues that exist and are found anew every year, that there is an unknown primate wandering around North America. If you do have an open mind, and want a tough but fascinating read on sasquatch, this is the book for you.

This book is a companion volume to a documentary by the same title, which I have not seen, but would certainly like to see. If it's even half as good as this book, it must be quite a show.

"Jeff Meldrum's book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science brings a much needed level of scientific analysis to the Sasquatch - or Bigfoot - debate."

- Dr. Jane Goodall