The good, the funny and the ugly

Cosmic DNA

Avian flu has reached Israel where hundreds of thousands of animals have been slaughtered and three people have been hospitalized with possible avian flu.
For someone like me who followed closely the onset of AIDS in the 80's this is cause for some aprehension.(via An Unsealed Room)
Ask Oxford.com is a great site for anal retentive types like me who will loose a couple of hours of sleep over a mispelled word or a badly structured sentence. Upon which you might comment that I probably don't get much sleep...Anyway they have a list of coomonly asked questions on grammar. (via Kokkte)
Another flying cow story (well sort of).
I have just discovered The Old Foodie, a blog for the food history buffs. It has old (really old) recipes and a bit of the usage of unusual products. It's wonderful.
Over at Pharyngula there is a debate going over mating strategies and what they imply. Some interesting comments but by far the best is from Bro. Bartleby who acididly (pun intended) comments:
"Evolution before our eyes.
Evolution in the males of India has produced a most curious behavior. When courting an attractive female, if the female spurns the sexual advances of the male or rejected his proposal of marriage, then male hurls acid into the females face. This instantly reduces this previously attractive female to a disfigured female with little chance of mating or reproducing. Thereby attractive females are not passing on their attractive genes, whereby the "acid throwers" are free to pass on their "acid throwing" genes. I'm surprised none of you scientist have observed this. Perhaps too many hours staring into the microscope?
Shalom,"
Oh Thank you Dear Brother, wherever you are!
And finally, Tom Tancredo of Colorado in the good old tradition of demagogues everywhere has discoved that immigration is a trigger issues and the more inflamed the better. He has found that blaming the immigrants, a solid American tradition, will turn you from an obscure and insignificant politician to a nationally recognized bigot. And we are all the worse for it but he's able to push is personal agenda which is to get recognition so as to continue to stay in that lofty space in Capitol Hill. Oh politics yuck!!!

immigration, tancredo, old world recipes