This column reminded me of the quote by physicist Joseph Ford in James Gleick's book Chaos: "Evolution is chaos with feedback."

And although anything with pentameral symmetry and a hydrovascular system is already, by definition, way-cool, this column gave me yet another reason to treat sea urchins with respect.

The mention of echinoderms put me in mind of the echidna. But then I was reminded that echidnas are monotremes, so now I'm *really* confused. And disappointed -- seems there isn't a place for the echidna on this family tree of ours after all.

http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/echidnas/

[Then again, if we're all basically made of the same stuff, then, Same diff, right?]

Wait -- is a monotreme a protostome, or a deuterostome?
I really should brush up on my hole-development biology.

Sea urchins demand respect for one reason, and one reason only: They're horribly spikey wee things. You stand on one and you'll know all about it for days.

Achenfan, if it don't have too many legs, eyes, or segments it's probably a deuterstome. So basically it's us chordates, the starfish/sea urchins, and primitive marine worms.

This paper says so.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7115/abs/nature05241.html

I don't know where they got the "traditional view" that cephalochordates (lancelets or amphioxus) are the closest kin to vertebrates, though.

I always learned it was urochordates (tunicates). Maybe it's an UK view.

Xenoturbella by the way, is a blob. I'm tempted to call it the lima bean of the sea. It has almost no organs whatsoever, not even gonads, and it snacks on molluscs. Its embryos seem to be found inside molluscs, so maybe it is a parasite. This would fits its near-nothingness of being, much coveted by zem masters and couch potatoes alike.

http://www.palaeos.com/Invertebrates/Deuterostomia/Images/Xenoturbella.jpg

Aside from zoos, I saw an echidna, aka spiny anteater, 48 years ago, near Beachport, South Australia. It looked like a reddish-brown porcupine, smaller than my cat. The person driving saw a snake, so screeched to a halt, picked up a stick, and took off after it. (In Oz, just about all snakes are poisonous and some people are on permanent crusade to kill as many as possible, which didn't seem to have much long-term impact on the balance of species humans vs snakes. This guy was no lunatic BTW, later becoming chairman of CSIRO.) Walking back from the unsuccessful snake hunt, we saw an echidna crossing the road. It also saw us, and immediately started to go straight down, with the red soil the road was made of flying in all directions. In 30 seconds it was flush with the surface (in a hole maybe 8" deep). We felt its spiky exterior, but otherwise left it there. Amazing how fast it could dig.

Pat,

I will try your recipe with the 1.5 lbs of chicken. But no beer...I'm a red wine drinker.

Mostlylurking, I like your advice and doubt I will ride a 5 year old mare again. I am very sore but no broken bones, thank goodness. There is, however, a bruise on my right rump that resembles the state of Texas! Ouch! And my hand hurts and my neck is stiff, etc. As I have rested here all day and given up my planned activities I realized I must stop thinking I am a fearless 20 something. Hopefully this jolt of common sense will continue ... but less painfully!

Wilbrod, Joel does whatever it takes to get a good story. A very competitive business. But now we know who the "friend" was that alerted him to the rise of the urchins. We must all toot our horns at times.

Back on the subject of Swiss steak, this dish to me is made from thicker pieces, maybe 1.5 inch thick round steak(s) rather than thin slices from a 3 lb round roast. And leave all the fat on it, that's where a lot of the flavor comes from. With larger pieces, you can't incorporate as much flour, so you won't need as much liquid, so cancel one of the cans of tomatoes. And feel free to use more red wine. Otherwise I make it just like Mudge says.

Oh, I forgot.... Braised dishes like Swiss steak generally do really well covered in a 325-350 oven compared to on the stove top.

Wilbrod, Joel did mention "gnomic".

kb, hope you get your network figured out. I actually replied earlier, in the previous boodle, but things seized up again. I booted and am now using Mozilla instead of IE 7, as an experiment.

RC, you know your riding abilities - and you know what they say about getting back on the horse! I'm not in great physical shape, and haven't ridden much at all since I was teenager. Love horses, though. I volunteered for awhile at a therapeutic riding program - learned a lot about horses as well as people there.

I don't know much at all about sea urchins.

Avast, People. When I was a very young Lad kicking about the Mediterranean an' shippin' out on Galleons and such, ferryin' Goods fro and aft, 'tween the likes of Genoa and Marseilles , the Levant and the Barbaree Coast, I was then whatcher might call a "sea urchin" meself, so I'd appreciate it if ye'd be a might more careful slingin' 'round these here dee-rogatatious Terminologies and Lingo. And yes, we might a had one o' them deutero fellers aboard, not that there's anything wrong with that. We just passed the Word to all the other sea urchins aboard, "Lad, just don't fo'rard to 'inspect the Chain Locker' w' um, tha's all." And generally ye'd be pretty safe.

Coupla sea urchins grew up to become Admirals and Splorers, and such like. Why, there was this Eyetalian feller, Giovanni somethin', went to England and then when 'e's at 'ome he's John Cabot, 'n' orf he goes one high tide, sailing West, and we never seen no parts o' him no more, neither. Took a couple a sea urchins w' him, too, he did. Columbus you all know about. Vasco de Gama. Drake (now there was yer Madcap!) Ferdie Magellan, he didn't come back, neither, though a handful o' his crew did, including a sea urchin or two. Anson, what brought back the treasure from the Philippine galleons, in 1740 or thereabouts. An' I'm forgettin' me own ancestors up yonder in the Nor'land: Leif the Tall, Bjorn the Wide, Bjork the Hairy, Lars the Fat, Gunnar the Diagonal, Anders the Widdershins, Benkt the Broken, Bernt the Umber, Bjarne the Miller, Borje the Pock-marked, Einar the Brave--some fine seafaring buckos, if I do say so meself, and sea urchins to a man, I b'lieve.

'Morning to ye, Cassandra.

"Bjarne the Miller"!!!

*ROFL*

And wouldn't you think we'd be more closely related to sea monkeys???

Morning all!!!

*waving madly*

:-)

Wilbrod, I had learned that cephalochordares were the sister taxon to vertebrates, with the line going

Vertebrata < Cephalochordata < Urochordata < Hemichordata < Echinodermata

Cephalochordates were supposed to essentially be paedomorphic urochordate larva.

Conodonta were supposed to fit in there someplace too; I always suspected they were cephalochordates, but I don't know what their current status is.

I bet Bjarne has a tale or two to tell.

My older brother studied marine biology. He is also into underwater photography. (Candid underwater photography.) So I have spent many an evening watching colorful slideshows and learning all about nudibranchs, echinoderms, coelenterates, mollusks, poriferas - basically the whole cast of Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Older Bro believes that the most significant division is between the bags and the tubes. He takes great delight in pointing out that no matter how many fancy frilly decorative bits we have evolved, we are still nothing but tubes.

RD says, "... we are still nothing but tubes."

Just like the Internet!

"... the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."[1]


________________________
[1]U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), in a Wednesday, June 28, 2006 speech about network neutrality.

Yeah, but Bjarne the Miller talks too much about Fish.

I've had sea urchin once. There was a single one in a large assortment of shellfish prettily presented on an ice covered tray. This was the Paris deuterostomes massacre so to speak. Of all the mollusks, echinoderm and other invertebrate I tasted the sea urchin was my least favourite. On the other end of the gastronomic scale, the Belon oyster was divine.

Speaking of very odd things found in the Mediterranean, here's an article on the Antikythea Mechanism:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/10/AR2006121000628.html

This device has fascinated me since I learned of it some years ago; scientists still cannot figure out how the ancient Greeks used it for email, oratory blogs, stock quotes, online bartering or p0rn.

bc

bc beat me to the punch. Here's a particularly thought-provoking passage in that story:

"Charette said the device overturned conventional ideas that the ancient Greeks were primarily ivory tower thinkers who did not deign to muddy their hands with technical stuff. It is a reminder, he said, that while the study of history often focuses on written texts, they can tell us only a fraction of what went on at a particular time.

"(Imagine a future historian encountering philosophy texts written in our time -- and an aircraft engine. The books would tell that researcher what a few scholars were thinking today, but the engine would give them a far better window into how technology influenced our everyday lives.)"

jeez, I can't believe I'm posting two on-topic bits in a row. I'm on a roll.
A Times piece on strange sea creatures:
"Discovered: the self-boiling shrimp and 500 other extreme sea creatures"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2497678,00.html

The source is the "Census of Marine Life " report for 2006
http://www.coml.org/

I like the Barbary Coast rock lobster. It was probably part of the locals' diet way before it was "discovered".

Anyone has a clue of what kind of fish would form a 20-million school of fish off the coast of New Jersey? Herrings, sardines, caplan ?

Padouk kicked off the Kit with the quote, "Evolution is chaos with feedback."

Wait a minute, there, Padouk. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out two articles about genetics that appeared this past weekend in the NYT.

The first, by reporter Nick Wade, "Lactose Tolerance in East Africa Points to Recent Evolution," tells about how there are three new mutations (all independent of one another and of the European mutation, that keep the lactase gene permanently switched on and) that enable many humans to be milk drinkers in adulthood, and refutes the notion about chaos playing an important role in genetics.

The recent finding is significant because, as the article states, "As Dr. Tishkoff has found in the case of lactose tolerance, evolution may use the different mutations available to it in each population to reach the same goal when each is subjected to the same selective pressure."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/science/11evolve.html?ref=science

The other is more up Joel's National Geographic alley. This artilce by Amy Harmon, "DNA Researchers Hit Snags: Tribes Don't Trust Them," dicusses how one researcher in particular involved in National Geographic's Genographic Project, Ted Schnurr, is in last place among the project's other scientists in collecting DNA swabs. His goal is to collect 10,000 vials of DNA from Native Americans, and he has only 100 vials.

Opinions are mixed among native groups about giving their DNA for research. The Havasupi of Arizona don't want to relinquish DNA for fear that it will upset their long-held religious beliefs. Lorianne Rawson of Alaska had test results that indicated that she was not Aleut, but Yup'ik Eskimos, and wants more family members tested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/us/10dna.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science

Hey Shrieking you beat me to posting that Census of Marine Life article.

Pat, saw the most amazing sunset on the weekend, (Saturday night), I had just come out of a store and looked up and most of the sky was bathed in bright pink and orange clouds, it lasted the entire drive home slowly changing hues of pink and orange.

I will post this sad story though, about the daughter of Bob Gainey, who was swept off a sail boat.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165792209600&call_pageid=968332188492&StarSource=RSS

JA calls out this passage from the WaPo story today about the Antikythea Mechanism:

"The books would tell that researcher what a few scholars were thinking today, but the engine would give them a far better window into how technology influenced our everyday lives."

Ain't nuthin' like hands-on evidence.

As if they didn't have enough problems from these external threats (Woodward's radical Flood theory, Reaumur's factual descriptions of faluns, thick sedimentary layers made almost entirely of broken shells, and de Lapeyrere's proposal that there had been people on Earth before Adam--helped, in part, by the "discovery" of the New World with its native population), biblical chronologists shook up the orthodoxy with their own internal controversies.

Other chronologists besides Ussher's famous version, based variously on the different Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts, vied for respectability. Isaac Newton was a dedicated biblical chronologist, spending more than a decade on his own idiosyncratic timetable. One seventeeth-century priest compiled a catalog of more than seventy separate biblical chronolgies known to him. By the early eighteenth century, the number had swelled to the hundreds, no two exactly the same. The discrepancies could be glaring. Was the Flood in the year 1656 after Creation? Or the year 2256? Or the year 3882?

One could hope that the biblical scholars would eventually resolve their differences, and many dismissed the heathen chronolgies as the unreliable fantasies of barbarians. But the lesson of the Galileo affair had not been lost on the Catholic Church or its Protestant counterparts: to deny a theory in the face of hard empirical evidence was a losing game.

And petrified seashells were nothing if not hard. To some, in fact, they epitomized the kind of hard evidence one could gleam from nature. The "oldest library in the world" had too long been left unread, and fossil seashells were icons of a new literacy and an expansive new vision of the world.

--Alan Cutler's "The Seashell and the Mountainside," pp 191-192

And the new literacy keeps unfolding and we continue to have fascinating glimpses into the oldest library in the world.

I must cut to the bottom of the boodle and protest the misleading title of this kit. I expected a nice story about impoverished, starving childeren singing, dancing, and commitining interesting feelonies. I certainly didn't pay my good money for a report on spineless echinoderms followed by recipes, science, and Scandavaian homoerotism; tube feet or no.
While I would normaly take huge amounts of umbrage I am unable to at this time as I am still wearing my jammies, but I am sure that when looking in the mirrror to shave I'll discover myself chagrinned.

Always nice to hear from you, Boko. Are those jammies the kind with the feet on them (speaking of tubes, as we were)?

I woke this morning to see a gorgeous bright red glow in the east. It faded to pink but covered a larger area and broke into pretty pink clouds against a blue background. Apparently it ran out of energy because now there is just a white sky with a feeble sun looking like a flashlight covered with multiple layers of cotton.

I wish I had a more scientific mind because I truly have no idea what you all are talking about half the time. I do find it fascinating that ancient civilizations had the curiosity and patience to figure out all that stuff about the stars and the sun. Stonehenge and the Mayan ruins were the best examples I knew of until I read that piece about the Antikythera Mechanism. Now I can add that to my list of things that amaze me.

>Antikythera Mechanism. Now I can add that to my list of things that amaze me.

What'll be really amazing is when they find the letters "Franklin Mint" inscribed on the back.

A quick thought on Joel's generalization. It is true that in any non-linear system a small perturbation can result in a huge change given enough time. The problem is, without a detailed understanding of the system, it is nearly impossible to predict that change. This means that each and every little decision you make each day can (although not necessarily will) have a tremendous impact on your future, and possibly the future of others, in an essentially un-knowable way.

If you think too much about this kind of stuff you end up paranoid. Especially if you have been foolish enough to reproduce.

The Antikythera Mechanism: From the Franklin Mint Lost Technologies of Atlantis™ Collection. Order now and get a suitable for framing copy of the Great Pyramid Blueprints.

Yes 'Mudge, Yes, my jammies have feet and that fact is an indicator of how upset I was. Utilizing the rear hatch,the bag like properties, and the jammies preter-natural stretchiness I could've de-umbraged not only the city of Washington but the whole state itself.
That's not my problem now, though. I thought I was using a nice Irish word, shegrinned. However upon typing it I didn't like the look of it and decided to consult a dictionary. Imagine my chagrin. While I feel a litte embarassed by my ignorance I find the suspicious provenence of the word "chagrin" the most upseting. It's all rather gaulling. Provenence is a bit unsettling itself.

The point, of course, of my quote is the same one Joel makes. Even itty bitty shifts in the genetic material of an organism can result in a significantly different new form. And those forms that are not tenable quickly fade from the scene. This suggests that there need not necessarily be any intermediate forms. I think this is a very powerful way to think about evolution.

Boko, I really like "shegrinned" and its Irish ancestry; I think you ought to copyright it. You'll need a new definition, of course. Not surprisingly, I've thought of several, but they are all a bit too naughty for the Boodle. If I can get my mind out of the gutter, I'll try and think of something we can say in front of the wimmin and children. You do the same. (And the least you could do is shave; it's almost lunchtime, yanno.)

"Shegrinned" takes it one step further. It's when a woman has fun, thereby causing a man's disappointment.

"What'll be really amazing is when they find the letters "Franklin Mint" inscribed on the back."

It's right next to the "Athena Inside" logo, EF. Clearly, this model was made to run on wireless Aethernet, hosted by Pandora servers.

I do find it interesting that as we learn more and more about the history of humanity, life, and the universe, we find that many things happened much sooner than we originally thought.

That makes sense when you think about it.

The earliest water clock mechanisms go back to between 2 and 3000 years BC. Given 2000 years of timepiece development, the Greeks obviously do have the technology and knowledge to constuct the Antikythera device; it's just not liquid-powered.

bc

"Shegrinned" is how a woman looks at her wedding.

It's also how she feels some years later when she realizes he's not going to change.

bc

The opposite is Playstatious: n. the female state of disappointment when a man is having fun.

In the spirit of the holiday seasoln as well as cultural and intellectual literacy, one would be remiss if one didn't pass on this column from the folks at Motley Fool (courtesy of Liz's Celebritology link):

O.J. Shelved: Top 10 Other Celebrity Book Titles
http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2006/mft06112131.htm

By Motley Fool Staff
11/21/2006

News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) cancellation of both the publication of O.J. Simpson's If I Did It book and the related Fox TV special was a victory for common sense -- even if it took a universal outcry to prod chairman Rupert Murdoch into the decision. Also interesting to us are some stories floating around the Internet that the act of pulling O.J.'s book off the shelves might put a dent in holiday book sales.

Leaving aside the issue of the appropriateness of this book as a gift ("Nothing says 'Merry Christmas' like O.J. talking murder!"), we at The Motley Fool have several ideas for replacement material to fill those empty shelves at Borders(NYSE: BGP), Barnes & Noble(NYSE: BKS), and Amazon.com(Nasdaq: AMZN). Agents, contact your star clients!

Top 10 Other Celebrity Book Titles
10. If We Had Beaten the Market, This Is How We Would Have Done It, by the Beardstown Ladies

9. To Fend Off Outrageous Lawsuits for Make Glorious Profit for Me, by Borat

8. If I Faked My Death and Retired to Argentina, Here's How I Would Have Done It, by Kenneth Lay

7. I Spend My Nights on a Pile of Your Money, by George Lucas

6. How to Handle Hecklers and Kill Your Career the "Kramer Way," by Michael Richards

5. Our Totally Normal Marriage, Which Is Not Weird or Creepy in Any Way Whatsoever, by Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes

4. 101 Catchphrases to Stardom, by Jim "Booyah" Cramer and Donald "You're Fired" Trump

3. How to Make a Fortune Without Doing Any Work, by YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen (foreword by Raiders receiver Randy Moss)

2. The Elusive Search for a Conscience, by Rupert Murdoch

1. I Got a Record Deal and Half of Britney's Fortune, and YOU call ME a Loser?, by Kevin Federline

11. If I was subverting NATO attempts to support democracy in Afghanistan, how I would have and would still be doing it, by Pervez Musharraf

12. If I Had Really Known What I Was Doing, Here's How I Should Have Handled Afghanistan and Iraq, by A High-Ranking White House Elected Official

I already knew sea urchins were cute, excellent aquarium viewing with a small child, and marginally edible (or so I'm told). Now I find they're an example of evolution and a metaphor for the progress of all life. As RD suggests, the sea urchin presages certain otherwise unfathomable, though clearly genetic, characteristics of my offspring. In fact perhaps this, like other knowledge, was previously known before being lost, and explains the other common use of the word "urchin" to describe a particular kind of child.

The other knowledge to which I refer is of course the Antikythtera Mechanism. In yet another example of the insidious nature of the Kit and Boodle, I once again had read this article all on my own before it was mentioned. I feel so proud and pointy.

Ivansmom, I have started reading many more articles inspired by the influence of the boodle, I am still working on the comprehension of some of these articles though! I am still more round than pointy.

Mudge, shouldn't the "-" be deleted?

bc

Only if the rumors that he fell off the wagon are true, bc.

Regarding the Antikythera Mechanism: back in the old days when I was a kid (pre-sea urchin), all the kids had one. They were a real b1tch to lug back and forth to school, too. They were what we did our math homework with, because abacuses and chisan-bop weren't invented yet. You could do long division and multiplication on 'em during first period, and then you'd have to lug them to second-period astronomy or astrology class, and then you'd have to just lug it around to third and fourth period rhetoric and Greek literature class until lunchtime, when you could finally put it in your locker and go out to recess. (I'll never forget when KayPro came out with a miniature version of one, and then Sinclair had one with 16 kalioptys of onboard memory, which was enough to "remember" an entire three-digit number. Ah, those were the days.)

urchin: Middle English, from Old Norse French, from the Latin, meaning hedgehog. Of course, the contemporary meanings of sea urchin and a mischievous boy. I get the sea urchin and hedgehog connection through their spiny spikes or hairs, but how is a hedgehog like a mischievous boy or the chiefly dialectic English meaning of an elf or mischievous sprite?

Speaking of hedgehogs, I am also reminded of this Nov. 12 NYT article by John Schwartz about genetic naming of genes in the NYT (I'm getting it for you through my archive priveleges with Times Select, hence no link):

"Lunatic fringe," "head case" and "one-eyed pinhead" might sound like insults from the schoolyard or talk radio. But these are actually examples of the kind of oddball names that scientists give to genes they discover.

The idea is to make the names unique and memorable -- with so many genes being discovered and described, a little color helps scientists tell them apart. But the trouble comes when science is transmuted into medicine; what works in the lab may be jarring in the clinic.

The names are causing problems for doctors who have to counsel patients about genetic defects with names like "sonic hedgehog" and "mothers against decapentaplegia."

"It's a serious problem," said Dr. Sue Povey, a professor of biology at University College London, and head of the genome nomenclature committee of the Human Genome Organization. Her group is renaming some of the most objectionable names, in some cases by requiring that they be referred to by their initials, to render them inoffensive. The move was first reported by the journal Nature.

Dr. Chris Doe, a professor of biology at the University of Oregon who specializes in the genetics of the fruit fly, or drosophila, noted that evolution is conservative: a gene that works in one creature is likely to be found in others, and so a version of a gene discovered in the fruit fly or zebra fish may well be found in humans.

Many of those genes were given weird names when first discovered. Scientists have come up with names for genes in fruit flies, for example, that may be mystifying ("faint sausage," "fear of intimacy"), cute ("tribbles," "groucho" and "smurf"), or macabre ("sex lethal" and "death executioner Bcl-2.")

Dr. Doe said that while he considers himself a fan of colorful gene names -- and gives his own discoveries the names like Prospero and Miranda, from Shakespeare's "Tempest" -- he recognizes the potential danger.

A gene with a funny name may be linked to a medical condition that can be heartbreaking. The human variant of the fruit fly's "hedgehog" gene, known as "sonic hedgehog" after the video-game character, has been linked to a condition known as Holoprosencephaly, which can result in severe brain, skull and facial defects.

"Shegrinned" does not describe my mood today.

While pulling up his boxers in the john earlier this morning, my husband knocked framed artwork off the wall opposite he toilet bowl with his shoulder, really knocking out a big chunk of molding and paint just above the floor, creating a small hole in the drywall, severing apart the mitered corners on the bottom of the frame, and loosening the frame's grip on the artwork itself.

Relatively the same scenario with the same artwork played itself out in our earlier San Antonio home.

I cannot wait for him to go back to work. This does not bode well for our retirement.

LindaLoo;

Two words:

Rubberized frames.

:-)

Linda, That must be some special 'artwork' if it is only for limited viewing in the bathroom.

And when you read the Antikythtera Mechanism article, didn't you also think, "I wonder when the Boodle is going to talk about this? Maybe Joel will Kit about it."

We still have a BPH planned for tomorrow night, right?

Has anyone called M&S yet to reserve a couple of front tables?

Yup, still on. But I didn't call. Scotty, you there?

What few people realize is that the Antikythtera Mechanism was actually the PS3 of its age. All the cool Greeks had to have one. Awful fights would break out. Indeed, some believe that that whole tiff between Sparta and Athens originated when an uppity Spartan tried to cut in line. Those lucky Greeks who did score one of these prized machines quickly hid them away in well-defended rec rooms. Or, some theorize, inside wooden horses. This is why they are so hard to find.

Oursinade (soupe d'oursin/urchin soup/soupe de hedgehog maritime)
In a large pot : sweat cut-up fennel bulb(1), leek(1), onion (2), garlic (1 head), celery (1 branch) in a generous quantity of olive oil.
Turn up the heat and add 4 lbs of white saltwater fish with the skin on, thyme, laurel, tomatoes (5) and tomato paste (3oz).
Sautee for about 10min.
Add a roux made with 2 oz butter and 3 oz flour and poor half a bottle of white wine.
Simmer for 30 min.
Puree the whole thing in a food processor or manually in a chinois (conical fine strainer).
Add 24 shelled urchins (including the coral). Cook 5 minutes.
Pass the soup in a very fine chinois. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper
Heat-up to a boil and add 2 cups of heavy cream just before serving.
A sprig of parsley on each bowl makes a nice touch.

(Never tried it, just translated it quickly)

Hedgehog=(h)ericius in latin, hérisson (modern French), hériçon (old northern French) or ursin (old Provençal) oursin= ursin da mar (sea hedgehog in Provençal)
Ursin and urchin are purty darn close IMO.

I was under the impression our resident gnomic canine communicator was going to obtain the table @ M&S.

*preparing to fall on sword if in error*

Calm down, Error, the sword has nothing to do with you.

:-)

dooley - i read what you wrote 5 times... i still don't understand a word!

i am not pointy

holiday cheer! (cassandra - maybe this will put you in the holiday spirit!)

http://www.southflorida.com/events/sfl-scaredsanta,0,2245506.photogallery?index=1

Ha ha, mo, me either. But we are techies.

yep mostly - i am indeed a geek! a non-pointy geek...

Right you are, scotty. Wilbrod, did you call/ Want me to call?

One of my first memories is being frightened by a Santa somewhere in the depths of New Hampshire. I can still see him to this day. He was about 125 lbs. with a cheap scraggily fake beard worn over 3 days jet black growth.

Curm du Geon is a new [censored] boodler?

After catching up with the last Boodle, I wonder - do cooked sea cucumbers taste like regular cucumbers? And if so, do cooked sea urchins taste like cooked regular urchins? And who will admit being able to make the comparison?

Regarding RDP's 11:03, that's essentially the original idea behind Eldridge and Gould's punctuated equilibrium. If speciation occurs among small, isolated populations, they will mutate rapidly. This is especially true given the cascading effects of regulatory genes, in which small genetic changes can cause substantial morphologic changes. Since this happens in a geographically small area, over a geologically short period of time, the likelihood of preserving transitional fossils is small--what's amazing is that we have as many as we do.

Good afternoon, friends. I have been quite busy this morning. Just got a chance to check in.

Mudge, love the story, and good morning to you or rather good afternoon to you.

Error, franklin mint? I laughed out loud. My granchildren think I've lost my mind.

Mo, love the pictures. Those kids dont't care anything for Santa.

As to the kit Joel has written, don't know anything about it. It is interesting, but need to go back and check out my biology lessons to get a handle on that.

Pat, this morning I got a chance to walk to the lake, and it was breathtaking. The lake mirrored the sky so perfectly, I felt like perhaps what a fish must feel like in water looking up. It was so clear, even the colors of orange and blue were shown with such clarity, I thought the angels in heaven have to be looking down on us. And the lake was smooth and glassy, not one ripple. Of course, I'm looking at the sky in the lake, and there are clouds everywhere. Real cold this morning, but the air felt good to me after being shut up for so many days. The sun is shinning and I can't find a cloud anywhere, just a lovely day, Pat. And slightly warm. All is good.

Have a good day,my friends. Christmas is right around the corner, and another year is on us. I will not be sad because this year has been difficult, but look forward to better in the new year. And as always no matter what is going on around us, we can say in truth, that God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

one demi-pointy geek here

OMG. I googled Santa's Village NH and the place is still going. They must have gussied it up or they would have gone out of business. Six Gun City is still going and I remember watching a staged gunfight there. It couldn't have been later than 1958 when we visited.

Shriek, we put the "U" in Curmdugeon, only we put it in the wrong spot (le plaice de maladroit, as they say in [Censored]). I blame my faulty digits. (Actually, I just ate a big Honeybell orange, and my fingers are still a little sticky. That's my story, and I'm literally sticking to it.)

Sorry, mo. Here it is in non-pointy:

There are a few living groups of invertebrates that are apparently closely related to the vertebrates. This includes a little vaguely fish-like critter called amphioxus (a cephalochordate), and the sea squirts (urochordates). As I recall (feel free to correct me, Wilbrod), the cephalochordates have a notochord, which is a stiff rod that runs along the back and is structurally related to the backbone of vertebrates.

The sea squirts are these strange little filter feeders that permanently attach themselves to rocks, that seem to have nothing in common with the vertebrates at first glance. However, the larvae of sea squirts look entirely different from adults; they actually look a lot like Amphioxus, complete with a notochord (I think). That has lead to the suggestion that the cephalochordates and chordates are descended from larvae that reached sexual maturity without ever growing into their adult shape (paedomorphs). This is actually a very common evolutionary mechanism.

Vertebrates, cephalochordates, urochordates, and echinoderms are all dueterostomes, which refers to the way the embryo develops. The debate is which group (cephalochordates, urochrodates, or echinoderms) actually includes the direct ancestors to the vertebrtaes.

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Ivansmom,
Quoting Jonathan Swift here...

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food..."

One fresh from the sea was be even more divine!

Thanks Dooley - I have heard of Punctuated Equilibrium, but never realized that it dealt with the question of intermediate forms. (Hey, coming up with an idea 30 years late is one of my hallmarks.) And your "non-pointy" explanation is brilliant.

Did everyone see the Gulf War III piece in Outlook? This is what I've been worried about lately -- the next Gulf War. The author's argument is that there's no end in sight. That there's something a bit naive and wishful (he uses the word "narcissism") about the withdraw-now-or-withdraw-later debate.

"We think Iraq is about us. We made it happen and we can undo it. But one-sided solutions for ending the Iraq war are as unrealistic as the one-sided impulses that started it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/08/AR2006120801686.html?nav=most_emailed

Note the very last sentence of the piece:

"Over the long-term, one reasonable approach in the Middle East could be called "parallel containment:" The United States must contain the complex threats it faces in the region, and at the same time try to limit our vital interests there. On the first score, Hezbollah and Hamas must know that the United States is present and stands ready to take action. Iran must know that it will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, period. Moderates in the region must know that we will stand by them, with economic aid and political support, helping to restore U.S. moral authority in the Middle East. And everyone must know that an attack against Israel will always be considered an attack against America. On the second score, we must embark on the long-term but critical task of reducing our energy dependence on the Middle East. No strategy in any Gulf war could produce more lasting change in the region than a prolonged fall in oil prices. The only dependable formula for ultimate victory in the Gulf wars will come through innovation and conservation right here at home."

SCC: 'was' should be 'would'. All this Science has made me go all shaky.

From " A Modest Proposal". Do I get a prize?

Boko,
Yes indeedy! The shop steward will fax you a drink of your choice from tomorrow's BPH!

Whaddaya havin?

>Calm down, Error, the sword has nothing to do with you.

Man you know me too well. :-) That's alright, I keep mine by the door.

>Error, franklin mint? I laughed out loud. My granchildren think I've lost my mind.

Glad I could bring a laugh to your day Cassandra!

Wow. Just read the comments on the Kofi Annan piece. Some people are not diplomatic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/comments/display?contentID=AR2006121000768

I find it interesting, by the way, that there's a lot of talk about escalation in Iraq. I think that's probably a very bad idea given the political instability (who exactly are our friends?), but many conservatives view it as the right course, as opposed to the "road map for defeat" of the Iraq Study Group.

See here for example:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/994zsofb.asp?pg=1

"...it is very likely that a surge of 50,000 American troops would be sufficient to stabilize the capital. Subsequent phases of the operation would then move on to stabilizing al Anbar and other restive areas of the country..."

I suspect this is think-tank talk more than a real military strategy.

Makes you glad to be here instead of there, doesn't it?

Joel, e'en as we speak (or type, in this case), someone has just delivered the mail, and I am now In possession of "The Grand Idea" AND "Why Things Are," which I am taking with me on vacation to Cancun on Thursday. I shall lie on a beach by the Caribbean, basking in sunshine and your prose (in that order), occasionally murmuring in my best Yucatecan (with a fain Maya accent), "Cerveza con limon, por favor. Gracias." (Did I mention this place has two 600-foot pools with FOUR, count 'em, FOUR swim-up bars? I've got two weeks--anybody know what the existing world's record is for sitting on an underwater barstool?)

I mean, it makes you glad to be here on Achenblog instead of in the comments on the Annan piece, not glad to be in North America instead of Iraq. Though that too, of course.

Joel - I think that the notion of parallel containment is a good one. We need to go back to defining our foreign policy in reactive terms. (Do that and we will do this.) The world is just too complex to be mucking about trying to impose our high-minded will. Wilson tried that, and remember how well it worked? Containment is the only technique that seems to actually work.

And the need to reduce our reliance on foreign oil is a no-brainer. (Speaking of good ideas that are over 30 years old.)

Of course there will be nasty comments. Any dweeb with an internet connection can let his or her voice be heard. (Consider this post Exhibit A)

hey mudge - are you going to go to chichen itza? (i luv cancun! i'm so jealous!)

Mudge I am positively green with envy.

I hear that you need a Passport to get back into the country now. Without one you might end up stuck in Cancun forever.

Reading about George Washington in Cancun? I don't think so. Mudge, you need to be reading a spy novel, or Hiaasen, that kind of thing.

Just fyi, I'm throwing out electronic files and here's something I wrote for an NPR commentary way back when about beaches:

In your mind you may have an image of the perfect beach. Perhaps the sand is like talcum powder, squishing between your toes. Or maybe it has a boardwalk, with carnival rides and ice cream vendors and french fries cooked in peanut oil. Maybe it is remote, rugged, the cliffs plunging into rocky coves, not a soul in sight.
A perfect beach is a personal matter. As you conjure one in your mind, you might see, in the distance, a tiki bar. Margaritas! Daqueries! And the beautiful people, the hardbodies. Only YOU, as minister of your personal beach, can decide its policy regarding the thong bikini.
Hmmm, are there some sailboats? Yeah, OK, but they're not ostentatious sailboats. They're just rentals. No yachts allowed.
Palm trees? Definitely. They're coconut palms, with slender, curving trunks that have been lashed by hurricanes. Somewhere in the picture you realize a man is opening a coconut with a machete and carefully eating the flesh. He is, perhaps, a fifth-generation fisherman, from whom you have just bought the fresh lobster.
Perhaps there's a sandcastle. Tough call. You know that you'll be asked by the kids to help build the sandcastle, and if you're not careful you'll become obsessed with it, and long after the children have scampered away you'll be making turrets and moats and drawbridges and secret tunnels and dungeons, and days later you'll look up and discover that your family has gone back to the city.
I have my own idea of the perfect beach. This beach is full of cars.
Yes, cars. Automobiles. Cruising down the beach, right on the sand. I'm thinking of Crescent Beach, the beach I grew up with, in Florida, south of Saint Augustine, north of Daytona. It's not the most famous beach, the most glamorous. But it's just right.
We always got there on narrow country roads, a drive through the pine trees, barely slowing for little towns like Melrose and Putnam Hall, past the malodorous paper mill in Palatka, over the sultry St. John's River, through the potato fields of Hastings, until we finally reached a broad salt water inlet called the Matanzas River. In the early days you had to cross on an old wooden bridge that went chunka-chunka-chunka under your tires. On the other side was the barrier islend. We'd shoot through a gap in the dunes, down a ramp, onto the beach. No beach could be flatter. The sand was beige, and hard-packed. At that point we celebrated our arrival at the ocean by doing a little more driving. Eventually we'd find a patch of sand to our liking, and throw down some towels, and immerse ourselves in the raw beauty of the shore, watching, all the while, for on-coming traffic.
Everyone understood that cars belonged on a beach. Cars were as much a part of the beach as frisbees, and big coolers filled with cold beer. The interface of automotive technology and nature wasn't perfect, as sometimes cars would get stuck in the soft sand. Strangers would come to the rescue, heaving the vehicle to safety before the ocean swallowed it up.
To this day a beach doesn't seem like a proper beach to me if I can't drive on it. A beach has to have sand, surf, some rolling dunes, seagulls and sandpipers, shells, driftwood, and most importantly, speed limit signs.
Sad to say, the nearest beach to where I live now is at least 3 hours away, and with traffic it can be 4 or 5. I rarely go there. I have a new quest: In search of the perfect pool.

Wait - are you saying sand castle obsession is a bad thing?

And to me the perfect beach has tide pools. Full of Sea Urchins and other cool stuff.

And lots of rocks to turn over.

Totally off-topic, but reminiscent of, and connecting very recent topics, space heroes and Navy ships, this link:

http://www.marinelink.com/Story/ShowStory.aspx?StoryID=205321

You're a real son of beach, Joel!

Of course I meant son of a beach, Joel.

James Wolcott on our friend Katie Couric:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/01/wolcott200701

I thought Mr. Anans said it very well. That does not deny that there are serious, serious problems with the UN. Its not just the US that the last statement needs to be aimed at, but all nations.

I saw an interview with Colin Powell on the weekend on PBS Spokane. Goodness, I like that man. I could have listened to him talk for hours more. I fear the world may have missed a real opportunity when he choose not to run.

And I sure wish that I could have stayed awake through the whole thing.

'Mudge should read the novels of Anthony Bourdain (of Kitchen Confidential fame) at the beach, as well Hiassen.

Or Graham Green or maybe The Tailor of Panama. Pablo Neruda. And you should try to see Apocalypto before you go.

How can it be that Child #1, who frequently says things like "Oh. Wow. Dude. Didn't think about that. Hmmm." asked for a Leatherman for Christmas, yet Child #2, with 4 (count them...four) AP classes asked for People Magazine?

I think that Mudge should read Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry and The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene while sitting on his underwater bar stool. That'll give him something to think about!

Joel quotes:

"...it is very likely that a surge of 50,000 American troops would be sufficient to stabilize the capital."

This is the kind of thing that worries me. You don't send 50,000 people somewhere, especially somewhere at which they could be harmed or killed, based on "very likely." You need to know with certainty that your plan will do the job, regardless of the cussedness of your opponents. You may be wrong, because your opponent is making plans and moving manpower and pateriel at the same time as you. Nevertheless, your plan should be based on the things that you know that you CAN do and WILL do, not based on hoping that your enemy will be more craven or more foolhardy than you and do something conevniently stupid for him and good for you. Have none of these think-tank fools ever played a game of chess or Go? The better the player, the less he relies on his opponent's mistakes.

Joel also quotes from the Gulf War III piece in Outlook: "Iran must know that it will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, period."

"Will not be allowed?" And who is going to enforce this bold and powerful statement? We and Israel are the most obvious first targets for an Iranian nuclear weapon. Given that, are we empowered to go to Iraq and destroy nuclear facilities, dispersing radioisotopes all over the place? Would the international community support that? Somehow, I doubt it.

LIT, LOL, that's the joy of parenting, isn't it? Just when you think you got them figured out, they surprise you yet again!

That would be "materiel", not "pateriel."

I'm really sorry I missed the dog discussion over the weekend--a favorite topic. Have been catching up whilst trying to resuscitate a spreadsheet created by someone that wouldn't know good model design if it bit him in the...
'Mudge, am so jealous of two weeks of pool bars! Enjoy!
Following up on another weekend discussion, did the ISG really suggest that civilian agencies get employees to go to Iraq? Are they aware that the majority of the workforce is due to retire in 5 years? Hmmm...maybe they are...another way to save retirement $ maybe?

Sorry, second sentence was supposed to have a rant warning. Computer ate it.

Yes, Slyness, there are so many unexpected joys of parenting. Maybe the Leatherman has something to do with an interest in the hemp industry. Or, since he's a junior in college, maybe it has something to do with kegs? The People magazine subscription has me stumped.

Hmph.

I do not know what to make of this Achenbach person who is tossing out new topics like a chunk of radionuclide material undergoing decay.

An Alpha particle of ISG over here, a Positron emission of Kofi Anan over there, a beach photon overhead...

Re. ISG and Gulf Wars, it would be easy to pull out of Iraq and throw up our hands, saying that the Middle East has been in the throes of one sort of war or upheaval or another for a long time and will probably continue to be so? After all, some would say, don't most of the major religions mention areas in the Middle East as where the Armageddon starts (Megiddo, the sixth cup in the Euphrates, etc.)?

I for one, think it would be irresponsible for us to run out of there as fast as possible, and I also am not too thrilled with the idea of committing 50,000 *more* troops without a Good Plan.

Re. Beach reading - it's essential for me:

http://www.10thcircle.com/10/?p=84

Almost doesn't matter what, really.

bc

maggie o'd | 'Mudge is going on vacation fer cyin' out load. I strongly reccomend Brighton Rock or Monsignior Quiote. Oh Oh Our Man in Havana

I mean he should re-read them. Why not visit old friends on vacation>

It's all good, Joel--I''m also taking the new Hiaasen, the new Hillerman, and the new Michael Connelly.
mo, you're welcome to come along--we're probably going to Isla Muheres, Tulum, Xcaret and Xel-ha. I've been to Chichen Itza twice before-may not go again until I've seen a few other places: may go to Ek-Balam and/or Coba, two places I haven't seen yet. We're doing one week in Cancun and the second week 51 miles south of there, in an eco-village near Puerto Aventuras. (The only echo might be me yodeling, "Cerveza con limon (...mon, ...mon, ...mon), por favor (favor, favor, favor)", from the bottom of some jungle cenote.)

I was simply suggesting that he might spend a little of his bar crawl (side stroke) wallowing in human misery while on vacation in Cancun. Why should he have all the fun?

Besides, both books are set in Mexico, which is appropriate,don't you think?

Actually, you don'tneed the passport until Jan. 8, Padouk. But I'm taking mine anyway; no reason not to, since I already have one.

Thanks for all the reading suggestions: i've read 'em all at least once (and Our Man in Havana maybe 5 times), except the Neruda. Pablo's not my cuppa tea. Jeez, what's wrong with Hiaasen, Hillerman, Connelly and Achenbach? (Thanks for the subtle suggestion about the Lowery, maggie, but despite my talk, I'm really a pretty moderate drinker. Two cervezas and I'm probably asleep. Unlike, say, my misspent youth.)

LIT, its the escapist in each of them. It shows balance on their part, I should think.

maggieo' you should be honoured. I lost my afternoon tea to that. However if I may suggest, The Power and the Glory followed by Under the Volcano? The visual is stunning.

Mudge, with that in mind, I trust we are not revisiting the thong issue (Its all Joel's fault) from before your last vacation and is the cummberbund going to see service?

Ah, yes, Mudge, the wisdom and weakness of age...will you have the ability to boodle? We don't want to miss any of your fun!

Never fear, the resort has wireless Internet, so I shall be boodling away.

dr, the cummerbund is staying home. I may not even take a necktie. One blazer, one pair of long pants...and no thong. Maybe a couple pair of shorts, two swim suits, no socks. I am taking my swim fins, mask and snorkle, however.

Actually, it is my intention to do a lot of writing on this trip. (Unfortunately, whenever I have that intention, I don't seem to get much of it done....)

Well, they're set in Mexico. OK.
Some of the stuff in Hunter Thompson's The Great Shark Hunt is set in Mexico. Now that is vacation reading!

And stay away from any establishments named after Ambrose Beirce. We want you back.

dr, Mudge in a thong? Eeewww, :-(

Only thing worse to consider is * me * in one. double :-(

Actually passports requirements were pushed back until Jan. 23. It is on my to do list but I keep forgetting to do it.

Raysmom, I too am trying to breathe life into a badly designed spreadsheet. The dunce who designed it obviously was not thinking clearly.

And to that charge, I will answer as the designer, it wasn't meant for what you are using it for dummy.

Cut, copy, clip, paste, check formulae, confirm totals, repeat.

Frat boys lost lawsuit against Borat:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2006-12-11T222233Z_01_N11213404_RTRUKOC_0_US-BORAT-LAWSUIT.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Actually, Boko, one of my favorite establishments in the entire Northern Hemisphere is a joint called Perico's, on a back street in Cancun City a few blocks off the beaten path and well away from the touristy part of Cancun (the hotel zone on the island). This place has a wild bunch of waiters and waitresses, who lead a long conga line of diners throughtout the restaurant, out a side door in the front door, where a waiting bandito-dressed waiter pours a tecquila shooter down your gullet (if you want). It's great fun. The food is...well, I don't exactly remember the food. I'm sure they have some, though. It's where I learned to read the Mayan glyph, XX, and some of my best Espanol: "Dos Equis, por favor." If ya go to Cancun, ya gotta go to Perico's (none of this Senor Frog or Hard Rock Cafe nonsense, either; you can go to one of those in Omaha, fer cryin' out loud). mo, you been to Perico's?

Don, what can I say. In the immortal words of a certain Looney Tunes character, 'Ain't I a stinka'

Just found this: http://www.bookit.com/travel_guide-m0g0c-Cancun-Restaurants-Pericos-858.html

Even better: http://www.pericos.com.mx/

Didn't realize they have a Web site now.

Just walked out to the mailbox and discovered Captured By Aliens lurking there.
What is a Laboratory School?

The astronomers took rooms on the beach at Guajataca. - J. Achenbach

First line of Captured By Aliens. Coincidence? I think so!

Sorry, Puerto Rico.

Sorry folks, an internet vortex pulled me away from the Blog all day-- and Wilbrodog decided to blogspot.com for himself instead of contributing to the Achenblog.

As it was, I didn't manage to find the guy I talked to when I called M&S. So the other people went from "can't" to "we'll pass the buck to the general manager. Phone at 10:00 AM for Craig."

They made a point that it is Christmas season and they have a lot of business in the dining room, and they don't want to co-opt any space in the dining room for happy hour.

even if dining room is out,I'm pointing out there just aren't any big tables in the bar.

Okay, pending whatever Craig says, (should this guy exist), we still need to find bigger tables with more space around them, at least

So it may be bar scrimmage. I may arrive early and try and find some front tables in the bar. I may need commando backup. I've never done a frontal assault like this to a bar, uh, I mean to establish a beachhead.

I'm counting on the expertise of the first wave of the BPH'ers. Everybody, go to the right to the bar, and then look to the right. That should be our target objective, you know, not so many people going past for bladder trouble or to the kitchen from about every point in the bar.

In the meanwhile I'll phone Craig and try and arrange something in the way of a bigger table set-up.

It may not be a Miracle on K Street, but it'll be a good BPH anyway.

GET OFF THE COMPUTER!!!

Ahem, I was supposed to sign that, not Wilbrodog... excuse me for forgetting my indoor voice as we resolve our boundaries here. He's also been trying to sneak on my bed at night ever since Yokisdogs gave him certain advice.

Boko, how did the intelligence test go, it was last Saturday right? Sorry if you have already posted about this - I had a crazy weekend and couldn't keep up with the boodle.

We could always do a sit-in until M&S relents... Just think of the coverage!!

"Brazen Boodlers Bust Up Bar, Boozing and Blogging For Best Bash Beachhead"

:-)

"Skinflint Seafoodies Ordered To Be Shot Upon Sight by M&S"

*For Sierra Leoneans in U.S., new film "Blood Diamond" tows line between fiction and reality.* current front page, wapo.

I hate towing that line, esp. when it's attached to a barge!

Toe the line, towlines, still nonsense how it is written.

"For Sierra Leoneans in the U.S., the new film 'Blood Diamond' mingles reality and fiction in a bittersweet brew."

By the way, I can't be the ONLY person that hates the modern use of having " ' ' ".

It doesn't make sense. Worse, it forces the rewriting of every quotation mark when you quote something that has quotes?

I say we should be using ' ' for simple quotes, then "" for excerpts with quotes, and then "' for triple uberquotes and so on, until we can read a passage that starts with """"""""" ...... and ends with """""""" and then gleefully criticize the editor for not counting the quotation marks correctly.

Maybe Mudge knows how this odd quotation system came about....

SNAFU on K as gnome B&E's into M&S; GM: All OK.

That looks like right jolly restaurant 'Mudge

dmd | I have no idea how I did on the test.
There were 50 questions to be answered in twelve minutes and for the life of me I can't recall one. Because I'm so arithmetically challenged I ignored any questions with numbers in them and skipped on to the "which of the following doesn't belong" (tune cootie!)and spatial types. I then went back and answered 3 simple numerical questions. I completed 43 of 50 and 23 is a pass so I'm not completely despondent.

Sounds like the same strategy I would use. My daughter had sequencing homework not long ago, I couldn't figure it out, not particularly difficult my brain just doesn't relate to it, sadly I think the oldest is similar.

Snort, SoC. I'm not going to risk that one on my rapsheet.

What is sequencing homework? I'm sorry, when I hear sequencing I think of genomic sequencing.

"Hey boys and girls, for homework count your AT/CG pairs, okay?"

Before they automated that, they'd use grad students to record the sequences by hand. I hear some Japanese grad students threatened to kill their professors if they had to do one more AT/CG pair, more than 20 years ago, just because the mind-boggling insane tedium of doing it all day finally overruled their deference.

(I was told this by some old hands, kind of "hey you got it easy compared to when we had to walk 12 miles on our hands in the snow sorta thing.")

My name is not Mudge, but I'm going to boldly go ahead and suggest that the answer to the odd quotation system question is probably, "By convention."

Personally, I rather like the system. To me, it's logical -- almost like the order of operations in mathematics. It allows the reader to keep track of who's saying what.

Wilbrod I probably did not even describe it correctly, it is a pattern of numbers and you must determine how the sequence works, i.e. add 5, then min 3, then divide by 2 etc. Not sure if it is lacking grey matter in my brain or patience that prevents me from figuring it out - I would say probably the latter.

[On the other hand, trying to figure out whether to use square brackets inside parentheses or vice versa (parentheses inside square brackets) drives me *nuts*. Should it be "([])" or "[()]"? I don't even want to think about that *other* type of bracket ("{").]

But hey, did someone say sequencing homework? Bring it on!

[I am such a geek.]

It's US usage. British usage has it opposite, which I prefer. That may explain my crankiness with American usage.

I found this:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation.htm

-- Single Quotation Marks--
In the United States, we use single quotation marks [ ' ' ] to enclose quoted material (or the titles of poems, stories, articles) within other quoted material:

"'Design' is my favorite poem," he said.
"Did she ask, 'What's going on?'"
Ralph Ellison recalls the Golden Age of Jazz this way: "It was itself a texture of fragments, repetitive, nervous, not fully formed; its melodic lines underground, secret and taunting; its riffs jeering--'Salt peanuts! Salt peanuts!'"

British practice, again, is quite different. In fact, single-quote marks and double-quote marks are apt to be reversed in usage. Instructors in the U.S. should probably take this into account when reading papers submitted by students who have gone to school in other parts of the globe.

In newspapers, single quotation marks are used in headlines where double quotation marks would otherwise appear.

Congress Cries 'Shame!'

One further use, according to the Chicago Manual of Style: in philosophical discourse, key concepts may be set apart with single-quote marks. When such concepts are set off in this way, periods and commas go outside the single-quote marks:

Sartre's treatment of 'being', as opposed to his treatment of 'non-being', has been thoroughly described in Kaufmann's book.

--- While it's of course up to us to spell better than the British, etc. such contrariness on such a simple point that would save a lot of re-editing of quoted material seems cankeratous.

When we were working in Mexico City we went to Cosmel for Christmas but our suitcase didn't. After a couple trips back to the airport a guy from Oregon told us the ultimate truth, "forget about it and buy a bathing suit, have a Cerveza and enjoy the beach"
Our room was right on the beach facing out to the water at the great pier there. The first morning when we open the drapes, the was a really big ship up close and front with a big red hammer and sickle on the stack. Seems the ruskies were giving the contras from Cuba a little holiday enroute. The taxi drivers wouldn't pick them up so there was a study stream of them back and forth from town and ship. Cosumel was a duty free port then. Had the best lobster dinner ever there on Christmas eve. Went back the next night and it was terrible. Poor food and no service. Lesson learned, the best staff and cooks don't work on poor tip nights. Went on to Cancun a couple days later. Interesting ten minute flight where one gets to sit next to the pilot and advise it's clear on my side.
Mudge, when you go to Isla Muheres, be sure to volunteer for a 'spinnaker ride'. Also at Isla Muheres they have the great reef where Cousteau did a lot of filming. We didn't read spanish very well so didn't understand the sign that said 'Don't walk on the reef' so my wife stepped on a nice big urchin. Got the standard treatment advice from the first aid station, 'whack your toe with your sorkel until it bleeds and then pee on it.' We just retired to the bar and numbed it with scotch. Got our suitcase back four months later.

dmd | Our brains probably use a different pattern recognition template than normal people.
There were quite a few people taking the test whose first language is obviously not english. Given the time constraint I think the test measured reading speed instead of intelligence. How many clever and competent people are cut because they may not be able to read english as quickly as an anglophone? I've had too many frustrating encounters with HR types to think very highly of their vocation.
After college I was told I couldn't apply for a factory job because I hadn't finished High School. I wasn't impolite enough to make the woman cry, but not through lack of trying.

Funny that you put all that about brackets and parentheses in there, because when Don from I-270 wrote

:-(

when he was talking about he and Mudge wearing thongs, all I could picture was:

( )( )

Ha!

But wouldn't that be, ()() ()() ?

TBG | ROTFL

Hey, how come my parens came out looking like zeroes?

I'll try one more time to draw two bare butts:

( )( ) ( )( )

Hang on. Don't thongs go on your feet?

Boko, when I moved from Australia to the U.S., I learned very quickly to refer to my beloved "thongs" as flip-flops.

Tom fan |
*Tapping side of head*
These Americans are crazy!

Tom fan, flip-flopping thongs just put some very bad images in my head. The horror..

I guess with thongs it would really be:

( )T( ) ( )T( )

Wow, TBG -- those cheek-splitting thongs you've drawn sure look painful!

In fact, I think wearing thongs like that on a long-term basis could cause some of us deuterostomes to evolve (or devolve?) into protostomes.

Tom fan, growing up in Canukistan we referred to them as thongs too. Then suddenly they were no longer thongs but flip-flops sometime around ten years ago I don't remember the exact date.

I still have difficulty not referring to them as thongs.

TBG, I'm trying to work here, or not work as the case may be. Naughty.

Growing up, we called them thongs, then flip-flops. But my cousins in Maryland always called them zorries. Anyone else?

Check out Wikipedia for what everyone calls them everywhere...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop

ROTFL, TBG...the horror, oh the horror of the thought of thongs on Mudge and Don.

LostInThought, here's the difference between my kids: #1 wears thongs and only thongs, #2 wears grannypanties and won't consider thongs. Each considers the other nuts. But they love each other.

My one trip to Cancun was a disaster even before it began. The ex and I had already decided to divorce but the 'company trip' had been planned and for appearances sake I said I'd go (I figured I deserved a bit of warmth and sunshine, boy was I wrong). Missed connections got us there at midnight, it was warm and humid. I should have appreciated the weather as an unseasonable cold front moved in the next morning and it never got about 65 degrees for the rest of the trip. The first room they put us in smelled like something had died there, the room they moved us to was next to the elevator. The food in the hotel was not the best (nor was the hotel, but you figured that one out already, I'm sure). I spent most of the trip feeling nauseous every time I ate, I'm not a big fan of Mexican food, and inferior Mexican food is possibly the worst food I've ever suffered to eat. We took a bus tour to some Mayan ruin, couldn't tell you which one. The bus had one tape of an old Chicago album that they played over and over all the way there and back. We went to a nightclub the last night, the ex felt chest pains while dancing and I tried to keep him on the dance floor, telling him it was probably indigestion while secretly hoping he'd drop dead so I wouldn't have the bother of going through all the legal divorce stuff. I'm sure Cancun is a wonderful place to vacation under other circumstances.

Bad Sneakers... your Cancun story is funny.

But it's so nice to hear how sweet you are when you talk about "S." It's like you live a different life now, isn't it?

Oh, TBG, you are so right. "S" is everything I didn't have before. He is one very special person. I'm actually glad that the ex is still breathing, he and his wife are a constant source of comic material. It's amazing how distance, both in time and emotion, improves the view. :-)

I don't know about anybody else, but I still wear thongs in my back yard.

The feet kind. Any other kind would give me the willies.

Joel, Your ability to quickly change subjects keeps the blog so interesting. ADD in full tilt. Of course, the variety of loyal, quirky and quick bloggers helps, too.

BTW, I have a rainbow coalition butt right now...one side a myriad of colors from my humiliating fall off the horse on Saturday afternoon. The other, a boring white. But I'd rather the boring white. It still hurts plenty.

Bad Sneakers,
That story is funny, but I'm sure it wasn't at the time! (The part that really gets to me is where you kept your ex on the dance floor - ha!)

My husband and I do pretty well at home, but travelling is pure h-e-double-l. The vacation to Hawaii - he checked his watch and announced the time every 15 minutes (on the way back, I insisted he get a more "comfortable" seat away from me so I could bury my head in a book). And in Hawaii, I wanted to lie on a beach - he wanted to drive, drive, drive. After the road trip to Jackson Hole last summer, I vowed I would never voluntarily go anywhere with him again. He fidgets and fools with things constantly while driving, gripes and grumps, does not plan the route in advance and then gets upset when he gets lost, or when something goes wrong. It does make for good stories, though. After a few years.

*claiming copyright*

Hey! I thought I had #1 and #2! (And Himself.)

Actually, I think Jewish mothers have been referring to No. 1 and No. 2 for a long time before you started it, Yoki.

If I had 2 sons I'd just refer to then anonymously as Cain and Abel-- the ORIGINAL #1 and #2. (Daughters: Caina and Abella.)

(Hey, I didn't say I'd be proud of my children.)

You'd think so. My Mum was brought up by Presbyterians, and then was the tenant of some old-school Montreal Jewish wonderfuls, when she had #1 and #2 and #3.

My kids were born in Montreal, and I still refer to "schlepping" and other idioms. The time my Mum laughed hardest was when #1 began to chew my out at the age of three, and I told her (seriously), "Don't start with me, girlchik." She didn't.

Great quote for a future lawyer, too!

Because Gene chats are caput for the time being...

Today I bought the first box of Christmas oranges (Mandarins) for the house. They remind me of times past, of the little barn my grandfather built out of a Christmas orange box, which was still around for my kids to play with.

I remember all the St Nicholas day (December 6) when I was a kid. ST Nick would leave a big brown paper bag with sticks hard candy, peanuts and an orange in a bag that he left out in the yard.

I remember the Santa Claus parade, where every kid around for miles went to the theatre early in December. First they'd play a whole pile of old black and white cartoons like Heckle and Jekell, or some of the old Mickey Mouse cartoons, then there would be a break and you'd hear bells in the lobby and low and behold, Santa was there to give every person in the theatre a bag of treats, an orange surrounded by peanuts and a candy cane. Then you'd watch a movie, usually an old Abbott and Costello, or Francis the Talking Mule all for free.

I remember working for my Uncle Tony in the grocery store, and how I had to go in earlier in the afternoon to help with the rush when the Christmas oranges came in. We'd have to go through the boxes and pick out any that were going bad to stop the other oranges from spoiling, and then I'd carry the boxes over to the floor trap door so uncle Tony could take them down in the basement where it was cool till closer to Christmas when everyone would want a box.

And I remember my dad, and how he always told us we had to save the little green papers that the oranges came wrapped in. He'd gather them carefully and take them downstairs, to the catch and carry, to be used in place of newspaper and even worse the Sears and Eaton's catalogues.

I never thought about it till lately, how nuts prairie people were for the oranges. I don't think it was about the oranges so much as it was about the little green paper. There is no place where 'Hallelujah' sings so sweet as a prairie town at Christmas once the orages are in.

That is why this really is a Gene story.

Yup, I still only wear thongs on my feet. Elsewhere, I'd need a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to locate them.

Oh my goodness, dr. I remember the oranges from my Edmonton childhood. I think Christmas was the only time we got a whole fresh fruit to our individual selves.

True story. I lived in Northern Alberta with my parents, my three brothers, my aunt and my cousin, all supported on my Dad's aalary of, what, $6000/pa (c. 1962). Dad got a bonus one winter, and with it he bought 8 fresh grapefruit. He put a peeled grapefruit in front of me (I would have been about 4 or 5 years old) and I immediately began sectioning it and giving pieces to everybody else around the table. Dad looked at me, and, sort of laughing, said, "no, hon, that is all for you."

I could not comprehend this.

Good times on the prairies. That was the same winter that a snowy owl landed on our clothesline, like an angel.

I can't believe I'm peacefully minding my own business upstairs in the kitchen and you people have concocted the international symbols or ideoglyphs or whatever the hell they're called, of me and Don in thongs. Jeez, the things you people will do when there's no adult supervision.

Wilbrod, you need to pick up your copy the Chicago Style manual, take it out into the yard, pour gasoline over it, and ignite it. Don't think of it as a book-burning; think of it as a mercy killing-cum-Viking funeral.

Here's a better rule (thanks you, both AP and GPO): Periods and commas go INSIDE the quote marks 100 percent of the time. Always. Forever. In perpetuity. Until Hell freezes over. There! Isn't that a nice, simple, clean, easy-to-understand rule? Much, much easier than the other (19th century, Miss 8th Grade Spinster Schoolmarm) way, trying to remember when they go in and when they don't.

And Tom fan, here's the American rule on those thingamabobs: ([{xxxxxx}]), or if you prefer, ([]) and not [()]. I don't know what they do in the Olde Countrie, and 'round the Empire. (Not my problem.)

I think in my case it might just be more like:
___________
( * )|( )

(You forgot the scarlet pimpernel.)

re: thongs - lots of comedy potential with those different meanings.

True story with a similar twist. To set the stage, I have previously expressed the opinion here that junior high/middle school is pretty much a holding ground for the awkward years. In my Grade 9 art class, our teacher was hot; in fact, she could have inspired the Van Halen song. Anyway, I don't think she was from Britain, but she starts off class one day "okay, class, get out your rubbers!"(1) Gasps, twitters, muffled laughter all around. Not a lot of pencil drawing done that day, as had been the intention.

(1) erasers. Apropos of nothing, some boodlers may also be amused by recalling the British slang for a condom.

Great remembrances dr, I don't know if it was growing up in a large suburb or that my small family didn't have a lot of traditions, or grandparents, but my memories, while good ones, would never translate into such a pretty Christmas vignette.

SCC: Lemme try it again:

________
( * )|( )

//The feet kind. Any other kind would give me the willies.//

Or maybe the Wellies.

SCC: Still not right. Let's try:
______
( * )|( )

dr, I was eating a mandarin orange as I read your post.

says, "Thank you, Curmudgeon."

OK, there's something weird going on. Let's just assume the, er, globes are the same size, OK?

Mostlylurking, my husband can be a bit of a grumble-bum on trips, too.

Although he travels an awful lot on business, and traveling should be second nature to him, he still tends to get stressed out by travel arrangements, airports, hotels, etc. -- it's as though he takes on a whole new personality from the moment we get into the taxi to go to the airport until an hour or so after we've checked into the hotel. (So far, he hasn't thrown a phone at anyone, thankfully.) He says it's because he "needs to stay focused."

I call this changed personality Airport Boy. Between vacations, my husband forgets that Airport Boy exists, but I never do. If he asks me why I don't seem excited about an upcoming trip, I have to admit that, although I'm looking forward to going on holidays with my husband, I'm a little apprehensive about flying with Airport Boy.

This one time, we were flying First Class from Munich to D.C., and there was something wrong with the reclining mechanism on Airport Boy's seat. There were two empty seats in front of us, so the steward said we could move. Having endured Airport Boy's antics since the wee hours of that morning, I was quite happy to stay where I was and let A.B. sit in front by himself. For a moment, my husband couldn't comprehend why I didn't want to move with him, but all I had to say was, "I don't want to sit next to Airport Boy!" and he nodded in a resigned fashion. And to his credit, he gave me the standard-issue Lufthansa rose off his dinner tray when he realized that the staff had forgotten to give me one.

[And this other time, we were making our way to the flight gate, and I saw a door with "A.B." printed on it. I said, "Look! They even gave you your own office at this airport!" He was not amused. (He'd probably say he wouldn't turn into Airport Boy if I didn't provoke him by mentioning Airport Boy. It's a chicken-and-egg thing. I probably should stop with the Airport Boy stories now.)]

dr, your comment about wearing thongs in your backyard reminded me of the time kbertocci said she only wears her Achen-T-shirt to the library. We weren't sure whether she meant, "I wear my Achenshirt to the library only," or "I wear only my Achenshirt to the library." (She later clarified that she certainly did not mean the latter.)

The following is from "Captured By Aliens'
'Occasionally the only recourse was to change the name of the field and see if that helped. "Exobiology" started to feel stale in the 1980's and gave way to "bioastronomy"....A decade later with "bioastronomy" having failed to deliver any extraterrestrial life, NASA began began to favour a new word "astrobiology".' (go nuts)
I think the timelines here are very suggestive. The Creationists are copying NASA.
Creationism, Creation Science, Intelligent Design.

I find it hard to believe that Carl Sagan ever took that "Face on Mars` crap seriously.
Great read though, I haven't had the TV off this long while concious in years.
Kudos Joel

Been out and about, Boodleskimmed, and dbG's 7:11 about the movie "B1ood Diamond" and Sierra Leonians in D.C. comprising the largest number from that small, war-torn west African country in the U.S., as well as the heads-up about the GlobalWatch WaPo chat tomorrow in conjunction with the DiCaprio movie.

I have one more story in conjunction with the movie. Hubby was watching