Around the Web...

Busy, but there are so many good and horrific things to link to, on the Usual Suspects and more and worse...

First, Asia. Look at this map from Strange Maps (courtesy of Rod) showing the "real", ie Han, China as an island. All those places in the ocean to the north and west-- Tibet, Xinjiang, "Manchuria", various tribal states in the southwest- are vassals of the Han Empire.

Which continues its environmental meltdown. Why don't more enviros wake up to the fact that China is doing a lot worse than we are?

Mongolia, though perpetually threatened by Han ambitions, is a cheerier place.Here, Peculiar reviews the movie Mongol, and links to a Tim Cahill piece on a trip there he and others took a few years ago. And our friend Sari from Finland, founder of Tazilist, sends this haunting YouTube video of Mongol throat singing and "moron kurs", horsehead fiddles (that is pronounced "murun" BTW.)

Dogs: Henry's dogs are on TV.

Writing: Liz Hand, author of this wonderful book among others, remembers Tom Disch.

Evolution: Darwin Central has a good post against "I" D here. So with the facts on his side, why in HELL does PJ Myers do things like THIS?? I'm with Freddie. And by the way-- why does he pick specifically on a church which has no problem with evolution and never has? Surely he would do better with, say, "desecrating" a... Koran? Don't hold your breath- apparently he was against the Mohammed cartoons. A brave dissenter...

In cheerier evo news, Emile at World We Don't Live In links (with an awful pun) to new evidence on how flounder "moved" their eyes. There ARE "intermediate" forms. He also links to Laelaps for more-- and if you go to his home page you will find, below this post, one on a fossil "louse" that may have clung to Dino feathers or Pterosaur fur.

Conservation: in typical Government fashion, we pay to save the ferret while simultaneously killing off its prey base. The State-- "what it cannot do?" (Bonus points for knowing that quote.)

Good new "country living" blog here.

Guns. Massachusetts has an idea: make guns too expensive for all but the rich. At some point, will it be an act of civil disobedience to own a gun (Mass.) or breed a dog (California)?

Pure fun. Diana Rigg is 70 smokes, drives fast cars, and finishes off a bottle of wine every night. She is also a fan of fly- fishing. And she still looks good. Any other old Avengers fans out there in Q- Land?

John Derbyshire recently discovered funny Russian names, of which there seem to be many. I emailed him on the great 20th century Russian ornithologist Dementiev, author of the indispensable Birds of the Soviet Union. He posted this selection from Byron's Don Juan, which includes the following (and much more):

"Still I'll record a few, if but to increase
Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff,
Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arséniew of modern Greece,
And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,
And others of twelve consonants apiece..."

Finally for now: sober mice are depressed mice!