Hat-tip Dupa.

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Some people have reported that they don't see the video, and are getting only white space. Trust us -- there's a video there. :)

From Current.com:

Heh heh heh...I love it.

This is, of course, an Open Thread.

Attribution: xkcd. From the site:

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Note: You are welcome to reprint occasional comics pretty much anywhere (presentations, papers, blogs with ads, etc). If you're not outright merchandizing, you're probably fine. Just be sure to attribute the comic to xkcd.com.

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Some people panic easily; others require specific, targeted goading. And then there are those who don't tend to panic at all, but enjoy with wicked abandon the sheer, stark terror of those who do panic and then write about it.

Here's a brief timeline of potentially significant events for this portion of the 21st century:

September 11, 2001: A day that will live in infamy.

September 10, 2008: The first full-circuit test of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will take place.

September 11, 2008: The world ends. It would also be a day that would live in infamy, if not for the fact that it would awfully difficult to pull off, what with the world having ceased to exist.

The first date listed needs no particular introduction or explanation.

The second date pertains to an event that this article touches briefly upon.

The third date is an arbitrarily chosen date on which the Vogons will destroy the planet to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Or something.

It's always the end of the world somewhere.

This is an Open Thread.

Recently, a friend pointed out that the selection of Sarah Palin¹ as John McCain's Vice Presidential running mate was more a political calculation than any type of decision to pick someone qualified for the job. One of the biggest reasons she was selected was that she was female -- a calculation intended to pick up disgruntled Clinton fans. My friend said that the selection of a woman, in spite of the reasoning, clearly brings the GOP into the 20th century.

After thinking about it a moment, I had to agree with him.

Early 20th century, circa 1920; definitely nothing centered around 1973 or beyond.

This is an Open Thread.

Hat-tip JohnnyNYC

This isn't the type of thing that we need right now:

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Border Tightened After Cartel Threats

(AP) Security is being heightened along the southern U.S. border because of a threat that warring Mexican cartels may send hit men into the United States, authorities said Monday.

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Article continues at the link in the title.

With what appears to be an escalating trend toward violence, the last thing we need is a bunch of hit men (or women) making their way to across the border knock off their targets.

What hit your attention meter today?

This is an Open Thread.

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"Trust, but verify."

        -- Ronald Reagan¹
          40th US President

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As each election cycle approaches, more and more articles about alleged voter fraud, voter caging, vote manipulation and voter intimidation begin to come out.

Sometimes, they are simply examples of fear-mongering used to attempt to move the public in one direction or another with regard to Voter Identification laws.

Sometimes, they appear to be conspiracy theories by nutcases.

And sometimes, they turn out to be grounded in reality.

In all cases, you never know what you'll find unless you first look at the facts -- and sometimes getting to those facts takes Herculean efforts.

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"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

        -- Josef Stalin (1879-1953)
          Georgian Soviet politician

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Why?

Over the fold, some quotes, some reflections, some news about ongoing developments over at the Velvet Revolution and a list of related stories.

This is an Open Thread.

eBay has inadvertently opened a whole new dimension in "specialty products" -- undiscovered species. Specifically, and entomologically speaking, bugs.

"Mindarus ebayi," anyone?

^{Photo: ROTHAMSTED RESEARCH VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS UNIT}
Click the image for the original article at the Telegraph.

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"It's not uncommon to find insects in amber... but I'm not sure that one has turned up on eBay that has been undiscovered before. It's a rather unusual route to come by," said Dr Harrington.

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Indeed it is.

So, what's bugging you?

This is an Open Thread.

Hat-tip to Donna for bringing our attention to this disturbing story.

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"Three years ago the Plant city police found a girl lying in her roach-infested room, naked except for an overflowing diaper. The child, pale and skeletal, communicated only through grunts. She was almost 7 years old.

The authorities had discovered the rarest of creatures: a feral child, deprived of her humanity by a lack of nurturing."

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Click the image above or click here to go to the slide show. On that page, there are a variety of related, important links.

It's a horrifying story, but not one without hope.

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The girl in the window by Lane DeGregory, Times Staff Writer

Posted: Jul 31, 2008 04:35 PM

...[...snip...]...

Just before noon on July 13, 2005, a Plant City police car pulled up outside that shattered window. Two officers went into the house — and one stumbled back out.

Clutching his stomach, the rookie retched in the weeds.

Plant City Detective Mark Holste had been on the force for 18 years when he and his young partner were sent to the house on Old Sydney Road to stand by during a child abuse investigation. Someone had finally called the police.

They found a car parked outside. The driver's door was open and a woman was slumped over in her seat, sobbing. She was an investigator for the Florida Department of Children and Families.

"Unbelievable," she told Holste. "The worst I've ever seen."

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The story has a happy ending -- not so much an "ending" as much as it is a new beginning. The young girl, now called "Dani," has a new family now, including an older brother named William, and has been making progress. Slow progress, but more than anyone had initially dared to hope.

Hope grows.

This is an Open Thread.

For a recent story in a similarly disturbing vein -- but one which had an unhappy ending for the child -- see here.

Hat-tip to ricardomath for the heads-up.

When officials who have several options take one of the harshest options first, you know there's something wrong with the government.

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U.S. town turned into an open-air prison
by Charles Lewis, National Post
Published: Friday, August 15, 2008

The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned into an open-air prison.

...[...snip...]...

On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400 undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring bracelets.

...[...snip...]...

"What kind of a government makes prisoners of 43 mothers who all have children and then says, ‘You can't work, you can't leave and can't stay?' That boggles the imagination."

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Boggles the mind indeed.

Click the link in the title to read the whole thing.

This is an Open Thread.

In June of 2002, Scientific American published an article by John Rennie entitled 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense. In it, he provides 15 rebuttals for the standard arguments that creationists attempt to give in order to attack science and promote their biblical agenda.

The article opens with the following words:

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When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.

Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change. Some antievolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a "wedge" for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God.

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Emphasis mine.

Over the fold you'll find the fifteen points that Rennie rebuts.

Feel free to add more in the comments, and remember:

This is an Open Thread.