A small media commentary
Brought to you by the letters A, B and C.
Spacial Segregation: - What do you do when the Russians start charging you for carrying your astronauts up to the international space station? You introduce segregation! I think the fact that this was put under 'Oddbods' or 'Funnies' is almost as tasteless as the segregation itself. See! Racism and dehumanisation is funny! Oh, those quirky astronauts!
Israel stands firm - A member of Israel's new government has made the claim that the new cabinet is not bound by the promises of the previous government - including peace commitments. This is setting an interesting and somewhat dangerous precedent. Will anyone be willing to parley with Israel if the next government will just overturn everything? Have the found the best stalling tactic ever?
Centrelink stuff-up - A woman whose husband is in a coma was told by a Brisbane office that she should divorce him to get full benefits for him (who knew that disability payments only went to singles?). The Government has now said that she will get the benefits and no divorce is necessary. Notice how the 'apology' is worded so that Centrelink doesn't actually take any blame.
Woman Killed Neighbour over Barking Dog - When I first read this, I went 'huh' - our neighbour's dog drives us nuts (as do his petrol head tendencies at 5am), but I've never been willing to go and talk to him about it because a) I'd be too mad and it wouldn't do much but involve yelling and b) I've been leery of doing it because of the woman last year who asked a party next door to be a little quieter and the party goers broke into her house and beat up her husband in response.
This proves I am justified in my fear of humanity. I will now cease all human contact and hide in my house until I die of starvation. It beats stabbing or beating.
Man shot by Crossbow, Eaten by Dog - ignoring the strong correlation between this and the number of crime shows that have done similar things where animals eat bodies, as well as the fact that clearly no dog food was left out and the dog may need to be put down for 'developing a taste for human flesh', I have one question. Where did he get the crossbow? Those are restricted!
Sauropod dinosaurs kept a level head: expert - This link doesn't work. Nor did it yesterday. I am displeased. I want my dinosaurs, dammit!
The article summary in my email is as follows: 'Long-necked sauropod dinosaurs would had to have used far too much energy to hold their neck upright and browse tall trees, says an Australian evolutionary biologist.'
I find this interesting (not just because of the dinosaurs) because this debate was had by palaeontologists years ago - can long necked dinosaurs hold up their heads, or would they faint from not having enough blood on the brain? A number of palaeontologists have argued that they would have kept their heads down, using them to counterbalance their long tails (which were supposedly used 'whip-like' for defence. I have trouble imagining many creatures actually attacking a 100 ton sauropod, especially when most dinosaurs averaged out at the size of a pony or smaller. They're like modern elephants. Too damn big!). A reasonable idea for the most part, save in the case of long-necked big-foots like brachiosaurs. Their tails are definitely not whiplash material.
Other palaeontologists have argued that such creatures would have used similar mechanisms (increased by orders of magnitude for size, of course) to that of the modern day giraffe, which is essentially that the neck becomes one long blood pressure cuff. You don't see giraffes fainting from blood pressure problems that often in the wild (again, also, note the stubby tail).
*images are not to scale, although you can imagine that there is some sort of reasonable size ratio between the two images if you wish.
So I'm a little curious as to why this played out debate is in the news again - have they made some new discovery, or is it just that an Australian scientist has entered the debate and this make it Australian newsworthy. I doubt it though - we've had prominent palaeontologists working out of Melbourne Museum for years.
And still I do not have my dinosaur article. *sigh*
ETA: dulthar has found my article! Woot!
...pity it is just same old arguments rehashed. :( I might look into publications by this guy, to see if his more technical descriptions cover more. And yes, I am a nerd.
Spacial Segregation: - What do you do when the Russians start charging you for carrying your astronauts up to the international space station? You introduce segregation! I think the fact that this was put under 'Oddbods' or 'Funnies' is almost as tasteless as the segregation itself. See! Racism and dehumanisation is funny! Oh, those quirky astronauts!
Israel stands firm - A member of Israel's new government has made the claim that the new cabinet is not bound by the promises of the previous government - including peace commitments. This is setting an interesting and somewhat dangerous precedent. Will anyone be willing to parley with Israel if the next government will just overturn everything? Have the found the best stalling tactic ever?
Centrelink stuff-up - A woman whose husband is in a coma was told by a Brisbane office that she should divorce him to get full benefits for him (who knew that disability payments only went to singles?). The Government has now said that she will get the benefits and no divorce is necessary. Notice how the 'apology' is worded so that Centrelink doesn't actually take any blame.
Woman Killed Neighbour over Barking Dog - When I first read this, I went 'huh' - our neighbour's dog drives us nuts (as do his petrol head tendencies at 5am), but I've never been willing to go and talk to him about it because a) I'd be too mad and it wouldn't do much but involve yelling and b) I've been leery of doing it because of the woman last year who asked a party next door to be a little quieter and the party goers broke into her house and beat up her husband in response.
This proves I am justified in my fear of humanity. I will now cease all human contact and hide in my house until I die of starvation. It beats stabbing or beating.
Man shot by Crossbow, Eaten by Dog - ignoring the strong correlation between this and the number of crime shows that have done similar things where animals eat bodies, as well as the fact that clearly no dog food was left out and the dog may need to be put down for 'developing a taste for human flesh', I have one question. Where did he get the crossbow? Those are restricted!
Sauropod dinosaurs kept a level head: expert - This link doesn't work. Nor did it yesterday. I am displeased. I want my dinosaurs, dammit!
The article summary in my email is as follows: 'Long-necked sauropod dinosaurs would had to have used far too much energy to hold their neck upright and browse tall trees, says an Australian evolutionary biologist.'
I find this interesting (not just because of the dinosaurs) because this debate was had by palaeontologists years ago - can long necked dinosaurs hold up their heads, or would they faint from not having enough blood on the brain? A number of palaeontologists have argued that they would have kept their heads down, using them to counterbalance their long tails (which were supposedly used 'whip-like' for defence. I have trouble imagining many creatures actually attacking a 100 ton sauropod, especially when most dinosaurs averaged out at the size of a pony or smaller. They're like modern elephants. Too damn big!). A reasonable idea for the most part, save in the case of long-necked big-foots like brachiosaurs. Their tails are definitely not whiplash material.
Other palaeontologists have argued that such creatures would have used similar mechanisms (increased by orders of magnitude for size, of course) to that of the modern day giraffe, which is essentially that the neck becomes one long blood pressure cuff. You don't see giraffes fainting from blood pressure problems that often in the wild (again, also, note the stubby tail).
*images are not to scale, although you can imagine that there is some sort of reasonable size ratio between the two images if you wish.
So I'm a little curious as to why this played out debate is in the news again - have they made some new discovery, or is it just that an Australian scientist has entered the debate and this make it Australian newsworthy. I doubt it though - we've had prominent palaeontologists working out of Melbourne Museum for years.
And still I do not have my dinosaur article. *sigh*
ETA: dulthar has found my article! Woot!
...pity it is just same old arguments rehashed. :( I might look into publications by this guy, to see if his more technical descriptions cover more. And yes, I am a nerd.