Links

A wonderful ancient sculpture.

All- female lizard clone species. Several of these are common in the Magdalena area.


Terrierman talks about veterinarian bill- padding, kickbacks etc. Luckily ours is an old- fashioned ranch woman-- but I have seen both the demand for pre- op bloodwork and the referral kickback.

Did a comet contribute to the Pleistocene extinctions? It looks more complicated all the time. HT Chas.

The Swedish army castrates its heraldic lion. So why does it leave the mane on?

Could the founders have been any more explicit about the Second amendment?

Stuffed roadkill toys are almost too weird. HT Laura Niven.

Dog armor. Chas again. He suggests chain mail for tazis.

A book about how to build toy guns and projectile launchers out of Legos has become a surprise best- seller.

A new organization to fight for sporting dog owners. HT Michael Spies.

Pluvialis has a good review of the not- very- good Golden Compass here. Saved me a few bucks-- it was the best of the books, with its cold Oxford and colder North, but if they can't give me good daemons I'm not going! She also links to a surprisingly affable discussion between Pullman and a Christian film critic-- surprising because I thought he would be more like the irritating "smug" Dawkins ("smug" as counterpart to the Dawkins- Dennet "bright".)

(And yes, Dawkins is a great writer on biology. I just wish he would follow the advice of his predecessor Huxley (in his debate with Ussher) when venturing out of comfortable territory.)