The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by JeremyT:

When I saw this headline in my RSS reader, I thought for sure I would see a list of the top 10 digg stories, and they would all be about Ron Paul.

If it won't work on you, why the hell would it work on the other guy?
Excellent point, Renee. I'm going to try and use that the next time I debate this issue with my coworkers.

Is it really as simple as "blue state" vs "red state?" It sure seems that way to me.

This really sucks. Can the drug be imported from another country, semi-legally?

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Delany. The whole business of manifestos strikes me as rather elaborate cat-waxing anyway.

It seems like there's some kind of primal pleasure to be derived from judging the parenting skills of others. And there are people out there indulging plenty. It's a hell's road paved with good intentions thing too. Some might say it's hard for you to criticize the phenomenon because these mother drive-by-ers have "good intentions"--the health or well being of a child, which as a non-parent, seems to me at times to be the most holy and sacred of bovines. That status sure does give a lot of protection to the behavior, I think.

Wow. What a mess. As a non-parent who is giving some consideration to the idea, it frightens me parents become the target of so much criticism. And not just criticism, but... really self-righteous criticism.

"Since we don't have coastal populations of elephants to look at modernly..."

Actually, when I was puttering around on the coast of Kenya, the locals of Lamu Island told me that elephants swim out to the neighboring islands and that you can hear them trashing about in the mangrove swamps at night. Why they do remains a mystery to me.

I'm with Jo. The team of geneticists currently involved in attempting to engineer a living wooly mammoth (fertilizing elephant eggs, I think) is based in Japan. Perhaps they can be convinced to miniaturize them as well? It's a small step from square melons to pygmy shaggy elephants, right?

This quote was particularly interesting regarding their "childfree" aspect:

When I was... eight or so I believe, my much-older cousin became pregnant for the first time. Up until then, she and I had gotten along pretty well, but her unripe crotch-fruit began to kick her one day while she was over at our house. Which was fine- none of my business, right? Wrong. She demanded my sister and I come over and "feel the baby kick". I shook my head and hid in the kitchen. My mother dragged me out. I shuddered visibly when my hand met her stomach.
My cousin has hated me ever since :). And I'm twenty now!--kwobtchan

"Unripe crotch-fruit" has a certain ring to it I guess.

And what is the origin of this term "sprog?"

I love a good biogeography mystery. I solved why there are few ground-dwelling species of amphibians in the S.A. rainforests to my own satisfaction, so let me see if I can figure this one out.

My first thought was that there was something in South America that could outcompete roses. However, it stands to reason that if something could outcompete roses in the same niche there, they'd outcompete roses in the north eventually as well (see marsupial extinctions). So scratch that.

I checked into the pollinators of roses, but there's nothing special there. I thought, maybe they rely upon migratory pollinators, like monarchs or something. No go there either.

So what's the main difference between the north and south hemisphere, I have to ask. As far as I know, it's mostly just a reversed seasonality. When one is winter, the other is summer.

So I suspect that roses were, for whatever genetic reason, never able to alter their flowering season to match the southern hemisphere, so they were flowering ( or not flowering at all) when pollinators were available. So due to the seasons, they couldn't reproduce, and never took hold.

With modern breeding and the assistance of humans, we've been able to adjust the rose's blooming season, perhaps.

That's my guess. I'm checking with some botanists I know to see what they think.

I dig this. Thanks for linking to it, Teresa.

I've wonder why there aren't more conversions between ideologies in politicians and pundits. I know that this person is not suddenly calling herself a liberal, but it's got me thinking about that. It seems the high profile instances of a person changing their views to is always liberal to conservative, and not the other way around.

Most people hold the belief that humans get more conservative with age. I'm curious what people think is the explanation behind that.

Then again-- I guess it wouldn't be an "ideology" if you changed it easily. And I could be laboring under a misconception, and such switches are more common than I know. But at least in my admittedly short lifespan, I rarely see the two sides agree on anything of substance, and I rarely see anyone conceding a point to the other side.

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