Sure Joel, you posted a new kit just to get omni off the thought of thong wearing Canuckistanis.

Boy if this dollar parity keeps up for a week or two, I might be able to afford Great Falls for the curling chamionship next come winter.

No need to thank me Omni.

Dooley, what is your blog link again? If you are out there. I don't know what happened to my bookmark for it.

Too bad the Pythons aren't around anymore:

"Beautiful plumage on that velociraptor!"

So is this Google Ad keying off the "Hobbit" item or the false findings item?

Biblical Adam, First Man
Adam, first man per Bible records, archaeology dates him to 14,000 BP
www.accuracyingenesis.com

Oh, and I didn't know British Petroleum was now a unit of time.

:-)

Feathers on the velociraptor: So should we believe this scientific claim or not?

Maybe the 'raptor just happened to have goosebumps at the exact time it was struck dead. And the goosebumps left the feather-like imprint.

Your Mileage May Vary, or:
Everything is Relative, as Einstein put it.

BTW, I watched most of Seeing in the Dark last night, and enjoyed the heck out of it. I'm going to record and rewatch it with the kids this weekend.

More on this later.

bc

The Dooley Blog:

http://web.mac.com/dooleyclan/iWeb/Site%202/Blog/Blog.html

I keep a list of blogging Boodlers in my sidebar. Let me know if you aren't on it.

Canuckistani thong wearers for the ladies:

Dan Aykroyd
Raymond Burr
John Candy
Jim Carrey
Thomas Chong
James Doohan
David Foley
Michael J. Fox
Brendan Fraser
Matt Frewer
Robert Goulet
Graham Greene
Lorne Greene
Phil Hartman
Michael Ironside
Eugene Levy
Howie Mandel
Rick Moranis
Mike Myers
John Neville
Leslie Nielsen
Matthew Perry
Walter Pidgeon
Christopher Plummer
Jason Priestley
Keanu Reeves
William Shatner
Martin Short
Donald Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland
Alan Thicke
Joseph Wiseman

Surely if velociraptors had feathers they'd have been shown that way in *Jurassic Park!*

Annoyingly, Science's new issue won't be available online for another two hours (5 pm Eastern time).

Feathery dinos have been popping up for a while now. Pre-birds, it seems they were.

The hobbit finding sounds spectacular. Now if only someone could find a thousand year old mini-mastodon on Santa Catalina Island.

Yeah, I thought "Seeing in the Dark" was excellent. It would be great to see it in HD, too. Unfortunately all I have is a regular set.

The thought of seeing Raymond Burr or Lorne Greene in a thong terrifies me.

I'm pretty sure Howie Mandel did a thong bit at one point...

It's Robert Goulet that does it for me Cowtown. He's alive but still...

I'm confused...the velociraptor used the feathers to attract a mate? Like this?

http://www.fredericks.com/product/shoes+accessories+jewelry+hosiery/shoes/boots/glamour+girl+marabou+slipper.do

Maybe they're extinct because they didn't realize you aren't supposed to *wear* the feather.

William Shatner for me....ACK! I've got to go find a picture of Christian Bale to erase the mental picture.

A dozen or more computers running almost continuously since 1989 has solved checkers. Proving that if both sides play perfectly the game will always end in a draw.

Christian Bale is Welsh. If you want to see him in a thong your best bet is the south of France not Florida.

Hey LiT!! *good-to-see-ya Grover waves* :-)

omni,

You forgot Neil Young.

Or maybe you didn't.....

And what the hay am doing still at work. Tchau till tomorrow.

Back at ya S'nuke. Just lurking, looking for a laugh, and found plenty (even though some of the thong images need mind-bleach).

My lists were limited to actresses and actors.

I'm glad the flat-earth bunch doesn't read much. I can envision it now: "So it's TRUE! Anything for which there is evidence IS false!"

I'd put my money on Leslie Nielsen

dbG, I had exactly the same thought as your 3:09. Does this new discovery mean they are going to have to recall Jurrasic park and make a new one? This just proves what I've been sayin': ya just can't trust a Hollywood movie to get the facts right. Next thing ya know they'll be telling us the Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz were really pre-hominid Hobbits, and should have been shown with big hairy feet. And that poor, misunderstood, much-maligned Margaret Hamilton was only a peace-loving Wiccan.

Ah. Okay, omni.

Renewed Home Page alert.

Just spent the last hour training two new high school interns to work in our lab. The local high school has a community service requirement, much to our benefit since we can't afford to hire a technician.

Feathered Velociraptor--that is SO 5 minutes ago! For example, there is this famous dromaeosaur specimen from China that was on exhibit at my museum earlier this year:

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/0701/0701_feature.html

(For reference, the Dromaeosauridae is the dinosaur family that includes Velociraptor.) The thinking now is that all the dromaeosaurs had feathers, and there have even been suggestions that they are secondarily flightless (not sure I buy into that one.)

It is nice to have the Velociraptor feathers confirmed, though.

The hobbit stuff is pretty intriguing. There has been a raging, inconclusive debate about whether it is a real species, or a microcephalic Homo sapiens. This new paper is the latest salvo. Both sides have made very strong points. It will be interesting to see how it turns out, assuming it can be resolved.

Much better title, Joel. That will really drag in the eyeballs.

As for the level of truthiness in publications, this article by Peter Lawrence is relevant:

Peter A. Lawrence
THE MISMEASUREMENT OF SCIENCE
Current Biology 17(5): 583-585

A pdf of the article is available here:

http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/800.pdf

Here is an excerpt:

"The journals are evaluated according to impact factors, and scientists and departments assessed according to the impact factors of the journals they publish in. Consequently, over the last twenty years a scientist's primary aim has been downgraded from doing science to producing papers and contriving to get them into the "best" journals they can. Now there is a new trend: the idea is to rank scientists by the numbers of citations their papers receive. Consequently, I predict that citation-fishing and citation-bartering will become major pursuits."

You forgot David Frum and Charles Krauthammer ..huuagh...huuagh...
*sound of running feet, door slams*
*toilet flush*
...'scuse me...omni.

David Frum in a thong would classify as cruel and unusual punishment, as for Krauthammer didn't he just summer up here, he really isn't one of us is he - pleeeease no.

According to Wikipedia, Chuckie K was born in New York to parents that were from that Citreon driving country but raised in Montreal and is an undergrad from McGill and MD from Harvard.

There are so many reasons to loathe him in just that one sentence.

You're right dmd, Krauthammer was born in NYC, he was just raised and partially educated (McGill) in Montreal. The rest is the Brits and 'Merkin's fault.

I have to learn to refresh after returning from delving in the underbelly of the internets. Just washing my hands isn't doing the job.

I thought that everybody already knew that fully 87 percent of all statistics were made up on the spot.

IIRC, the "Walking With Dinosaurs" series did indeed feature a feathered dromaeosaur/velociraptor, indicating how much the science has advanced since the Jurassic Park movie which is now what, 15 years ago now?

Which actually leads me to another question, maybe for SciTim. If the "event" of 65 million years ago virtually wiped out the dinosaurs (along with most other animal life), what dinosaur line survived to allow the evoultion of modern birds? Is there any "missing link" evidence from just after the event that gives some indication of how this progressed? I know that mammels were well along by then. Did birds evolve before that time, or later?
Inquiring minds want to know.

I linked to an article the other day on the subject of loss languages. I know that there is active research into the origin of spoken language, but I can't recall what the oldest languages are. Anyone know? It makes me wonder if the diminuitive Indonesian man talked, sang, or cussed. Arrrrghhh must certainly be an old expression.

Pretty cool about feathery dinosaurs. They're still around, strutting and preening on K Street. Sometimes, you can see them with *really important* walkie-talkies (dinosaurs don't use iPhones).

Had sad news today. A friend emailed me (and a lot of others) notifying us that her husband had died on Tuesday up in BC on his annual fishing trip. Apparently, he told his companions at breakfast that when he died, he wanted it to be with a steelhead on his line. In the middle of the afternoon he reeled an enormous one in, had a massive heart attack and dropped. Whew! He was a very good guy, but was also a newly retired litigator who smoked and smoked and smoked. Don't know if he ever retired from that. I sent a donation to my favorite charity in his memory. Flowers don't last as long as a donation does. Very sad.

Thanks yellojkt. Dooley is now listed in my favourites. I have to spend a day and update my sidebar.

Yeah, you have my blog listed, and I am not sure its a good thing. Its one thing to display my doily obesession to imaginary friends, and equally obsessed yarn people, but your blog exposes me to the whole world. If anyone asks what its all about, just shake your head and tell them its a sad story.

In the world of yarn obsession, here is a really great post not about yarn, but about New Orleans by the Yarn Harlot.

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2007/09/18/a_trip_to_new_orleans.html

Yikes, ftb. Sorry to hear about your friend's husband. He seemed to know it was coming.

FTB, I assume that your friend's husband had not reached the Biblical three score and ten...smoking will definitely do that. Having seen various ways humans leave life, I think I'd rather die quickly, as of a heart attack or a stroke. This cancer thing, with prolonged suffering, doesn't appeal to me.

Condolences for the loss of a friend.

Dooley has the expertise on this subject, but why let that stop me? Birds evolved in the Jurassic. That's when Archaeopteryx was around, still the record-holder for the earliest thing that is clearly a bird, I think. The Jurassic is the middle of the three dinosaurian eras, which comprise the Mesozoic period (Triassic, then Jurassic, then Cretaceous). That's interesting, because a number of the feathered-dinosaur finds are from significantly later than Archaeopteryx, which supports the contention that the feather was present in multiple lineages, only one or some of which became birds. In other words: feathers first, birds later, which shoots down one of the biggest anti-Darwinian shibboleths.

Mammals evolved around the same time as dinosaurs, way back in the early-to-middle Triassic, if I remember correctly. Dooley and ScienceKid #1 could address this topic with certainty, while I have to couch my comments in squishiness. The success of dinosaurs vs. mammals for 150 million-or-so years is a warning to us that we shouldn't get too cocky about how our survival and thriving indicates inherent superiority to reptiles or dinosaurs. Birds are the only kind of megafauna (critter) that are significantly younger than us mammals. Many paleontologists firmly subscribe to the theory that dinosaurs ARE birds, and vice-versa, rather than birds merely branching from dinosaurs. In that case, we are mere tyros on life's stage, and the older and more experienced members of the cast may ask the Director to pull us from the show. So don't step on the other actors' lines.

ftb, so sad about your friend's husband.

You know, since we all go one way or another, I think that is a good way to go, doing something you really enjoy.

Thanks, dr.

ebnut, don't get me started on the end-Cretaceous extinction, but birds were well established by the early part of the Cretaceous, c. 145 million years ago. For example, from the Early Cretaceous of China there is the Confuciusornis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confuciusornis), which already had a reduced tail and a beak. In the Late Cretaceous there was Ichthyornis from Kansas (http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Ichthyornis.html). Also from Kansas is Hesperornis (http://www.oceansofkansas.com/hesper.html), a secondarily flightless seabird. By the time the other dinosaurs went extinct, birds were diverse and apparently globally distributed.

Moreover, ScienceTim, today there are roughly twice as many species of birds as there are of mammals.

"What 'Age of Mammals' are you talking about", Alfred Hitchcock might ask.

Yeah, SciTim. I'd hate to see a return to the days of bus sized crocs.

I remain suspicious of the fact that what are called "non-avian dinosaurs" were wiped out at the end of the Cretaceous, while "avian dinosaurs" (birds) survived. This description requires that all dinosaurs and birds be recognized as basically part of the same phylum (have I remembered my taxonomy correctly?), but some of them happen to have developed flight and are still around today. I don't like this description because the "avian" dinosaurs include both flighted birds, and some that were already flightless and aquatic or ground-dwelling by the end of the Cretaceous but that clearly had winged ancestors. That seems like an awfully powerful selection criterion, that only those dinosaurs with winged and flying ancestors survived. I would claim that this is sufficient evidence to argue that birds are not just a trivial variation upon dinosaurs, but that bird physiology differed so much from dinosaurian ancestors that they really need to be considered as a discernibly new and distinct phylum. There is some essential structural or metabolic difference associated with wings that separates birds from dinosaurs, conferring an advantage on flightless or flighty birds but completely neglecting those dinosaur lineages that never developed flight, even those with similar size and lifestyle to birds. To argue otherwise is to argue that every modern phylum is false and that they really are members of the earlier phylum from which they evolved. By this description, every one of us ultimately is a specialized microbial colony. I argue that we are more than that. Despite the fact that we are certainly colonized by a lot of microbes, our basic organizational plan is not the organizational plan of a stromatolite or other microbial agglomeration. While we certainly are composed of individual cells, a microbial description fails to capture the significant characteristics of our corporeal existence and lifestyle.

I feel certain I have mentioned all this before, and probably Dooley has shot me down. Yet, I remain stubbornly fond of my doubt, and unable to recall why I am demonstrably wrong. Remind me, please? The only thing I can think of is that most of life suffered heavily from the K-T event, so maybe the birds were just lucky in the crapshoot. And the mammals. And the lizards and snakes. And the turtles. And the amphibians. And the spiders and the insects and the crustaceans and the mollusks. And the crocodilians. But not the dinosaurs, the most successful phylum of megafauna for the preceding 150 million years. Nope, they were just unlucky enough to be one of the few phyla eliminated by the K-T event, and the only one that was vibrantly successful right up to the end.

Nope. I just can't get myself to believe it.

Actually, I'm sure there were other phyla that were successful right up until they were wiped out, but I lack the expertise to speak knowledgably, so I mouth off, instead. Don't stop me with mere facts and evidence -- I'm on a roll!

ftb, your message came up while I was busy being self-indulgently verbose. Your friend went while doing something he enjoyed.

ftb so, sorry about the loss of your friend, he died doing what he loved in a magnificent setting, wish everyone could be so lucky when they meet their ultimate end.

That Hobbit story makes me wonder if there are still undiscovered hominids on this planet. You know, creatures that look superficially similar to us but actual belong to a whole separate species. This would certainly help explain some of the things I've seen on You Tube.

And regarding the winged Velociraptors. I would bet serious dollars, either Canadian or American since it evidentially mox nix, that Spielberg will one day issue a "special edition" of Jurassic Park with all those pesky inaccuracies corrected.

And a certain amount of the population will pay good money to acquire it. Which again brings us back to the theory of undiscovered hominids.

from Dooley's 5:39: "Moreover, ScienceTim, today there are roughly twice as many species of birds as there are of mammals."

Let's hear it for our feathered friends (most of 'em, anyway). Flap, flap, Flap.

Wow, there's a lot to absorb in Dr. Ioannidis's study. I think the key observation is the need to tolerate a higher range of correlation values. This means that instead of attempting to draw a definite conclusion where no such conclusion is justified, the proper approach is to determine the range of possible interpretations consistent with the observed data.

This is, of course, exactly where thinking in the Intelligence Community is going. This approach is being resisted by some in the community as being mamby pamby weasel talk. (That's a technical term) I can foresee the same criticisms of excessive timidity being levied at the disciples of Dr. Ioannidis.

I also love the term "data dredging." In my world this is called ""cherry picking" but I think the intent is the same - to find support for a conclusion that "makes sense" by looking at huge amounts of data until you see what you want.

Thanks, all, for your condolences. My friend has said (in emails) that she is not able to talk yet, and I certainly understand. My job is to sit and wait and in a few weeks or so (or maybe more) to give her a call or send an email.

Grieving is such an individual matter. It takes as long as it takes and has its ebbs and flows. He was maybe 15 years older than she was and I think was, if not close to, may have already exceeded 70. Not sure. He was an intense guy (the litigator in him) but really a sweet guy, too. She has two daughters in their early to mid-twenties, so there is a supportive family (as opposed to, um, unsupportive families).

I spoke recently with Lars Forssell's widow (after his funeral) and not only was she gracious enough to allow me to practice my Swedish with her, we ended up just cracking up at one thing after another. We laughed and laughed and laughed. It's a different thing with different people. I hope my friend will be okay and that the passage of time will smooth the very sharp edges on her heart and soul right now. Actually, at the moment they're still working on how to get the body from British Columbia to Virginia. After he's "home" it will be time to plan the memorial service/funeral. I plan to be there.

I must note that one thing about this blog which is so lovely is that we all really do care about each other (okay, maybe not *all* of us) and it's a very nice community. The snarkiness coefficient is generally miniscule (except when required to be higher -- mainly during a full moon or the like), and it's really just folks communicating.

Sorry for hyper boodle hogging, but I've been trapped in a training class all day. Fortunately I passed and am now an official Technical Hiring Adviser. I've got a certificate and everything.

Oh my, I totally missed your unhappy news firsttimeblogger. My condolences to you. So much sadness in the world.

Congrats RD, I just passed a MD pool operators course,perhaps we can both use our certificates for something cool.

I just found another yellow jacket nest the hard way. I got stung about 5 times before I realized what was going on. It is about 10 feet from the other one I gased a month ago. This time I am going to gas and torch those buggers.

Oh and Birdie, sorry for the late reply but I live in the eastern Panhandle of west by god,5 miles from MD and 10 miles from VA as the crow flies. We have Piliated woodpeckers here all year round, sometimes they sound like Jack Hammers.

Someone once said tht journals ought to print more results of failed experiments: "Failure of betainositol enzymes to affect growth rates of lagomorphic stem cells" or whatnot. The point being that research was done, and results were informative. At the least, it would help prevent reinvention of the square wheel, and at best such results might be data-mined for leads on true breakthroughs when the data is put together with other data from other sources.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_walter_c_070919_bringing_die_hard_wa.htm

Proposal for a general strike in the USA November 13, for all Americans to strike continuously until the Pres and VP resign. From this month's Harpers, which is online but not this particular article!

FTB, keep in mind he left this world exactly how he wanted to. Not everyone is so lucky. But it is always sad for those left behind. Sending sympathies.

Regarding smokers, my organization will be enforcing a complete "no smoking on campus policy" in January which means no smoking on breaks even if off campus if the employee plans to return to work. How in the heck can they enforce this?

greenwithenvy--how nice...jackhammers in the morning. :-) But woodpeckers are cool. Very independent.

ftb: I pass along my condolences. My hope is for peace for you and your friend.

It is a measure of my compulsiveness that I must do this (it's been driving me nuts for 10 minutes): when Padouk wrote "mox nix," it should be "machs nichts." ["makes nothing" auf Deutsch]

*whew*

I feel so much better now.

I haven't posted in a while, but since no one else took up jack's language question, here's my take on it. Basically, no one knows. It's pretty clear that language originated somewhere between 150,000 and 40,000 years ago (nice window, there) -- there's a good summary of that question here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5393/1455. (I'll take instruction on how to post links.) But since languages don't fossilize, there's no evidence what the earliest languages were. It doesn't make sense to talk about one currently-spoken language being "older" than another, since all languages constantly change, and they've all developed gradually from older forms, whether you call the earlier form by the same name (Modern, Middle, and Old English) or different ones (Latin and Italian (or French, or whatever other Romance language you care to name)). Historical linguists can look at current related languages, and older ones that we've got written records for, and plausibly reconstruct their ancestors -- they've got a pretty good idea what Proto-Indo-European was like -- but once you get far enough back and you're trying to compare various reconstructed proto-languages and reconstruct something from them, it just gets too squishy. So don't feel bad that you don't know -- if anyone told you authoritatively that "X is one of the oldest languages," all you know from that is that they don't know what they're talking about.

Ooh, the link worked, great.

Well, no, it didn't, but it does if you delete the period.

OK, I was going to avoid the Cretaceous extinction, but ScienceTim goaded me into it.

Your are completely correct to note the unusual fact that the avian dinosaurs (birds) are the only dinosaurs to have survived, even when their close relatives such as the dromaeosaurs and troodontids went extinct. It's a point that I emphasize when I lecture on the Cretaceous. But there are some assumptions need to be pointed out, and patterns to consider:

1) You're assuming that birds are monophyletic (i.e. that birds share a single common ancestor to the exclusion of other groups.) This is not necessarily a valid assumption, as the early history of birds is not well understood. It is quite possible that some living groups of birds could be more closely related to dromaeosaurs (for example) than they are to other birds. In that case, dromaeosaurs would technically be birds and represent a bird lineage that was wiped out in the extinction.

2) So far as we can tell, birds were as severely affected by the extinction as most other groups. Most of the Cretaceous bird groups, including flying birds like Ichthyornis, didn't survive into the Paleocene. Most of the modern diversity of birds seems to have evolved after the KT extinction, from an adaptive radiation of a small number of surviving lineages.

3) The bird survival mystery extends even further, in that the pterosaurs (pterodactyls), which were capable of powered flight and apparently endothermic, also went completely extinct. So, not only did the closest genetic relatives of birds go extinct, their closest ecological analogs did as well.

I think this does not indicate that birds have vastly different internal workings than other dinosaurs--that would require that those changes have no measurable affect on any of the skeletal anatomy, which is very unlikely. Bones are much more easily modified than biological processes.

Rather, I think it shows that we don't understand the mechanisms of mass extinctions very well. It's very simplistic to say that a meteor hit the Earth and everything died, but there a bunches of indicators that suggest that extinctions are much more complicated (including the differential bird/dinosaur/pterosaur survival rates.) For example, the Cretaceous extinctions are particularly harsh in rather odd categories (all large organisms regardless of taxonomic group, for example.) There are some very sizeable impacts on Earth that didn't cause any mass extinctions at all; in fact, geologic time is long enough that it's hard to find a time when Earth wasn't getting hit by something. Yet, some mass extinctions aren't associated with any known impact.

I believe when the bird survival is finally explained, we'll learn something significant about ecology and extinctions, but not necessarily about birds.

And let me offer my condolences as well, ftb.

If you're not sure you can test your links in the preview window bia.

Oh, thanks Boko! I'll do that next time.

Drive-by boodling (sis is in town) -

Condolences, Linda, firsttimeblogger.

CowTown, don't have time to read the story right now, but thanks - I'm sure it's great.

Went to an alpaca farm, got a bunch of yarn *and* alpaca manure (in a bag)!

Mudge, if you Google "mox nix" (as I did, because it looked so wrong) you will find an interesting story about how that is an accepted form now. And why.

Different bags, right Mostly?

Mudge, Mudge. If Aunt Bessie wrote "mox nix" that's gooden enough for me. We're talking PA Dutch here.

I read some of those links about mox nix', nellie. People who support the troops say mox nix;-)

Ha, dmd, absolutely, the yarn and manure were in different bags. I transported both in the trunk further down the road to the Puyallup Fair, and then back home, and I definitely was hoping the manure bag was tied tight. It was.

'Paca Poop from Puyallup. Sounds like the name for or at least a song from a Weingarten musical. We'll have to get to work on that.

Hi everyone!
I've missed all of you. I hope everyone is doing fine since I visited last. This year is soooo different from last year, and I'm trying to make the most of that. Usually at this time of the year I have some problems keeping myself sane and happy. Last year things got messy, but I've been ok.

I figured I'd share this here and see what you smart and objective folks have to say.

Today my daughter said, "My teacher told me not to believe what I hear in the news." My eyebrows lifted up all the way to the traffic light I was passing and my eyes barely escaped popping out past the windshield. I asked why the teacher would say such a thing. Well, for some unknown reason, this group of first grade students was discussing war and my daughter said the US is not winning the war in Iraq.

I don't know. I don't lie to my children. When she asked this summer why people were arguing about the war on the radio, I told her some people didn't want us fighting the war. She asked if we were winning and I told her I didn't think so. I may have torpedoed my daughter's 1st grade experience by voicing an opinion.

But RD, the PA Dutch ARE German. Aunt Bessie was saying "machs nichts."

Catching up a bit,

My thoughts are with you, firsttimeblogger. As others have said, he died doing something he loved. My sister-in-law's father died on the golf course after birdieing a hole he always had a tough time with. That was over 25 years ago and we still miss him.

Good luck on your trip, TBG. I hope everything works out great.

dr-save your Great Falls money to go to Grand Forks, where the curling championships will be at the world famous Ralph! (as in Ralph Engelstad arena).

So sorry ftb.

a bea c- It's tough to help kids figure out that teachers aren't always right and that there is a difference between fact and opinion (without the unintended result of having them decide teachers are always wrong). I speak from experience, look behind you before using phrases like "mindless twit" in reference to any of your dear child's teachers-she just may repeat your opinion too. Other than that, I have nothing to offer. Good luck!

Hmm, wonder if Obama will regret skipping tonight's candidate do on PBS.

Oh, Kim, I'd LOVE a picture of Christian Bale in a thong. He is, well, Christian Bale. I just returned Newsies to Netflix today. My kids watched it about 50 times and can't stop singing "I'm the King of New York".

I wanted to share this very cute video, too.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/34244097/

Enjoy!

Nellie, Padouk, "mox nix" isn't accepted by me. It's German, and it's macht (or macht's) nichts. I can't help it that GIs couldn't spell it; they weren't expected to. But I can, so I do (except when I'm messing around." Consider it as just a small fraction of my own little (admittedly futile) protest against phat, krazy, gansta, boyz, fiddy (for 50 or fifty), "Juan" being pronounced Joo-Wan, and a hundred other abominations.

Kapeesh?

Gesundheit!

Si, capice, Herr Mudge-san. (Thought I'd get all the Axis Powers in one sentence in recognition of the new Ken Burns series on WWII.)

I thought machts nichts was an idiomatic contraction of "Es macht mir nichts" - literally, it makes me nothing. I can't find 'machts' in the conjugation of 'machen' so I assume it's just a sloppy contraction (e.g. PA Dutch) or an inaccurate memory of high-school German (wouldn't be the first time!).

Or maybe I'm overthinking this.

a bea c, my kids went to theatre camp this year and performed two plays (one younger group, one older), then they all did a song and dance number - it was "King of New York". I was really impressed with what they were able to accomplish in just one week.

Re the teacher, perhaps just letting her know that people have different perspectives on issues, and that the best way to make a determination on a topic is to get a lot of information and make an informed choice.

ftb, I am very sorry to hear about your friend's husband, although the fact that he died while doing something he loved has to be a comfort of sorts. My Dad, when hearing about someone who died in their sleep, would always say that he wanted to go that way. His wish was granted, it was a solace to us, albeit a small one.

Condolences, ftb. It's good when people go the way they wanted.

I want a week's notice.

I tell my students what you said, dmd. Lots. The trouble is that nearly half of the students in our building read a couple of grades below level and it's tough to get them to read anything. As a consequence, I've learned a lot about how predominantly aural learning occurs. I repeat a lot of things three times.

ftb... so sorry about your friend. When my mom was dying in Hospice, the nurse commented on how my three sisters and I spent every day there just sitting around and on her bed, talking and laughing and sharing our sorrow for our loss and the joy of the life we had experienced with Mom and each other.

The nurse said, "When I die, I hope my family and friends are with me, too."

Thinking about how my mom had suffered over the five months from diagnosis to death, I said, "Yes. Me, too. I hope they are all on the bus that runs me down!"

Look. PA Dutch isn't German. It is derived from German. And I actually speak some German so I know how to spell the German phrase.

All I know is that my wife's Mother spells it mox nix. As does her Father. As does her surviving Grandmother. And, if surviving letters are to be believed, so did her Great Aunts and Great Uncle.

If you want to go tell them that they are doing it wrong because it isn't how it's done over in Deutschland feel free.

I am sure they will appreciate being corrected about it.

Auf Wiedersehen y'all.

a bea c... love the video. Thanks for sharing.

I'm sorry your daughter's teacher said something so stupid to her, but aren't you glad she shared that with you? You're doing right by being honest with her and by allowing her to be honest with you and with others. Make sure she doesn't lose that just because her teacher put her down.

Speaking of first-grade teacehrs, I was amazed in November 2000 when my daughter's first-grade teachers made absolutely no mention of the drama that was the presidential election. They never talked about the fact that we had no clear winner for weeks.

I mean, come on... they're first graders, they're not idiots. There's got to be some way for grownups to discuss current events with 6 year olds.

Wait! I KNOW there's a way... because my husband and I did it every day.

Sorry if that last post sounded rude. It's been a long day. But this kind of mean spirited pedantic correction seems uncalled for. We are talking about a regional dialect expression I threw in as a throw away line. Is enforcing the purity of High German really worth it?

a bea c, the video is great, a while ago I watched our friends son create one of those animation videos, it was really fascinating.

Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome. C'mon in.

RD, my father's family is Pennsylvania German, and I grew up on the same block as my grandparents. My dad and grandfather built every house on the block. Pennypack Creek was between our properties, and while I'd say *Pennypack Creek* (long e) or pronounce any other creek with a long e, the family section was called *the Crick.*

Some things are too good to give up.

Just visiting after a long time away. I am glad to see many of the "old timers" are still posting and chatting as usual. I miss the place but since I am working at two jobs it is too hard to tune in daily as I once did.

Sorry about your friend's husband, ftb. May time do its job of healing the hurt.

The corn is growing great here in fly-over country and the Cubs are winning for a change. Hello to all.

boondocklurker
bdl.

Science has an interesting perspective by Jared Diamond on Easter Island. I was struck by this paragraph:

According to a third view, deforestation was caused by introduced rats, as suggested by rat gnaw marks on many nuts of the extinct palm (15). This hypothesis does not account for all those palm stumps cut off at the ground and burned, nor for the larger number of palm nuts burned rather than gnawed, nor for the disappearance of the long-lived palm trees themselves (with an estimated life span of up to 2000 years) (16). If rats were responsible, they were unusual ones, equipped with fire and hatchets. Thousands of other Pacific islands overrun by introduced rats were not deforested, and many other tree species that survived on other rat-infested islands disappeared on Easter (16). . . .

Reference #15 is an article in American Scientist last year (emphasizing rats) and #16 is a fresh one from Rapa Nui Journal
http://www.islandheritage.org/rnj.html

I'm amazed at the notion of 2000 year old palm trees. They evidently belonged to the genus Jubaea (I think just one species, from Chile, which is quite big and gets quite old--there's one in the Temperate House at Kew in London).

ftb, my condolences on the loss of your friend, and to your friend's family and friends.

To Dooley, Wilbrod, and SciTim's points; evolution of species has rarely been a straight line AFAIK. All of that genetic drift and mutation and natural selection for conditions that may change quickly from favoring one trait over another and whatnot results in many genetic lines that end up as dead ends. Those Hobbits are likely an example of that, as well as most of the dinosaurs (Republicans? We'll see, I suppose...).

Now, on to Truth, Studies, and (ahem) Bad Information. As we've noted before (and RD notes here as well), if you look around long enough, you can find data to support darn near any theory about darn near anything you may want to believe in. Hollow Earth? Extraterrestrials living among us (does Karl Rove still count?)? Moon Landings staged in a film studio? The earth being 6,000 years old? WMDs in Iraq?

There's information to support all of those theories and more out there.

I've always thought of the Internet as an analogy for the Universe; when I look at one of the Deep Field photos of the Universe and see all of the galaxies billions of years ago in just a tiny slice of the sky, and realize that there are something along the lines of 100 billion galaxies that are visible with our current levels of technology for astronomical observation (and who knows how many more billions or more out there as our observational powers improve), I think to myself that just about anything *might* be true somewhere out there in those uncounted and uncountable stars.
Anything.

bc

Firsttimeblogger, sorry to hear about your friend's husband. The best way to leave this world is to die while doing what you love best. That way you die happy.

I just went back and read the previous boodle to "catch up" and really enjoyed your story, CowTown. I still remember those cow jokes you posted eons ago - a year or two.

Condolences to you, Linda, on the loss of your mother, if you happen to be reading but not writing. One never gets over that, but it helps to remember the good times.

I'm glad to see so many of the familar boodlers are still boodling. I might be tempted to lurk again. You truly are a family.

bdl

Mornin all
Can someone tell me what star/planet is rising in the eastern sky before sunset?
It sure is bright and still looks brilliant even after sunrise.

It was an itchy night and I forgot to nuke the bees last night before work. Perhaps tonight.

'Morning, Boodle. 'Morning, Padouk. Didn't mean to prod a sore spot. But I *did* begin by announcing that it was my own neurotic compulsiveness that made me correct "mox nix." The fault is mine, not yours. (It is, after all, the hallmark of a little German ancestry, isn't it, to be compulsively neurotic?) I, too, grew up with the phrase all my life, from my grandmother and mother, and only learned how to spell it in 11th grade (the first year I took German), where "mox nix" wasn't an option. I knew the Pa. Dutch used it, but was unaware they had an alternate spelling, since our teacher, Herr Fink from Dortmund,never discussed it. So I've had it rattling around in my brain the German way for 46 years. Sorry. Old habits die hard.

scc-Sunrise

We Italians have been known to over-react a bit as well. No harm done.

GWE, I believe that would be Venus, wouldn't it?

Sorry about the itchiness. I hope it gets better today. Cortisone cream helps, if you pass a drugstore.

Do you have to pass the drugstore on the left or the right for the cortisone to help?

Oh, oh. The Germans and Italians have made up. See what the Japanese are doing and send a 'heads up' to the Poles.

Good morning all! Family's still asleep in the hotel room. Gonna wake them up soon to get on with our day. Can't wait to see Son of G this afternoon. This is the longest I've ever gone without giving or getting a squeeze and a kiss from him. I know I have to get used to this, but... well... you know.

I'm sorry I missed the visit from boondocklurker out in flyover land! If you're here again today, bdl.... HELLO!

Does this headline make you say anything other than "Well, duh" when you read it?

Fear Drives Iraq's Housing Bust
With hundreds of thousands of Baghdad residents forced to flee their homes, prices spiral to naught.

Mornin' all...

Boy am I in a strange mood today (and that's sayin' something). I'm hoping this is a good thing.

It could be because the coffee is a little stronger than usual this morning. I spent about half an hour yesterday poking a pin through the million little holes in the percolator's metal basket (they were all plugged up), so now I'm getting the pure unadulterated stuff.

Gawd... this stuff is like crack.

bzzzzzzzzzzz.......

TBG... maybe you're onto the *real* reason for the war. Maybe it's not about oil after all, but cheap real estate.

Morning all!!!

*particularly-happy-and-not-just-'cuz-it's-TGIF-but-I-can't-tell-you-why-just-yet Grover waves*

ftb, my condolences, and your friend will certainly thank you for being there.

RDP, I don't think you want to know what first came to my sprained little mind when I read "mox." ;-)

martooni, as long as your coffee's not crunchy, I think you'll be fine.

:-)

"*particularly-happy-and-not-just-'cuz-it's-TGIF-but-I-can't-tell-you-why-just-yet Grover waves*"

Maybe it's because you got to sleep in today?

What are you thinking, checking in with first Grover waves at 7:45 a.m.?

Scotty... it's not crunchy, but the spoon does stand up on its own.

BC,

I've copied your view of the Internet as the universe and will share with a few people today. September 22 is OneWebDay and some teachers are planning special activities for their students today.

TBG, I do tell my daughter to think for herself, and we discuss daily events from the news. She also had a run-in with a few people last spring when she said, "my mom thinks Bush broke the law and Bill Clinton and FDR are her favorite presidents." This was after the two of us spent a couple of hours following the links from Washington to Bush on Wikipedia. My son, all he wants to discuss is the Count Dooku versus General Grievous. He has LOTS of friends.

Ooooh. A mystery!

ftb, Condolences. Your friend died doing what he loved in a beautiful place. All the fishermen of my aquaintance would smile and say, "That's how I'd like to go."
They're all a little screwy. But hey, whatever turns your crank.

Hi Martooni. The last time I had perked coffee was out in the bush a few years ago.
Reminded me of the reason drip coffee became so popular so fast.
Jeez, perked coffee, fishing trips, I'm getting all nostalgia-like.
There's a mist waist high on the fields and the air has that September smell I love so much. I just may take the dog down to the river and put a line in the water.

Not quite, TBG... ;-)

And I'll try and get those Grover waves in as soon as possible every day.

:-)

Sending you my condolences ftb.

And visits from a bea c, bdl and bia...nice.

Hmmm. I'm wonderin' if I have an idea why Scotty's so perky this morning. TBG, you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?

Just yesterday all this talk about dino-birds and what not got me to thinking: The thing I want to know about birds is why are there no poisonous birdies. I mean there are poisonous insects, spiders, lizards, snakes, frogs and toads. All kinds of poisonous plants: shrubs, trees, vines, flowers, even poisonous fungi. Then there are all kinds of poisonous animals swimming in the waters of the world. But no poisonous birds. I've even met a few poisonous people in my life. But no poisonous birds.

This AM I find out thare is a poisonous bird: three species of the passerine.

http://aabirding.com/mes.jpg

It's probably not what you're thinkin', 'Mudge...

Then again, it might be...

*devious little chortles*

:-)

I have a guess as to why S'Nuke is extra-happy today. I think I shall email it to dbG so that she can verify that I'm right, retrospectively.

omni, you never heard of the pressure-treated woodpecker? Very toxic. And then there's the Undercooked Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I thought that might be venus but wanted to ask the experts.

Listened to Steve Miller's Fly like an Eagle on the way home. I forgot how much I like that album/tape/cd. I really like "Wild Mountain Honey" and "dance dance dance"

Wildlife report I saw that big woodpecker again this morning and a few females in the vicinity too.

omni - that's a very interesting observation about the relative lack of poisonous birds.

Now if by "poisonous" you mean offensive poisons, then my guess is it's because carnivorous birds usually kill their prey with talons as opposed to with bites. And since poison evolves from saliva glands and the like (I assume) more easily than from pointy toes, it is relatively rare in our avian friends.

If you mean defensive poisons, then my equally wild guess is that the ability to fly away is such a nifty defensive strategy that the advantage of being poisonous seldom gains an evolutionary toehold.

Scottynuke. Thanks for that observation about mox. I learned something. But I must ask, if one stores this substance in cubical form, are they referred to as mox blocks? And if liquid oxygen is present, would they be lox mox blocks? And if they are stored with high security would they be Knox lox mox blocks?

Just askin'

70 years ago today J.R.R. Tolkien published the Hobbit...hhmmm

1970 the Browns beat the Jets 31-20 in the first edition of MNF.

1981 O'Connor becomes the first female supreme court justice.

26th Annual International Day of Peace http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/days/images/photos/internationaldayofpeace.jpg

Counting today, two days of summer left.

yes RD, defense. either against ectoparasites or snakes and raptors. the poison probably comes from the birds diet and is not something they produce themselves.

And SCC: thare=>there

RDP, I think lox mox blocks would have smoked salmon involved, actually...

But I sure wouldn't eat 'em!!! :-O

:-)

G'morning boodlers. On the CBC last night I heard this "The last time the Canadian dollar was at parity we had a minority government, gas prices were sky high, and the US was mired in an unwinnable war, (pause) just saying."

Question for Canuckistanis-Is Corner Gas considered a good funny show in Canada, or a stupid successful show? I've been watching it on WGN and scaring the Frostcats with uncontrollable laughter. Last night I had this thought, what if this is like the French and Jerry Lewis?

GWE and Slyness-Thanks for the Venus ID. Nearly blinding here this morning.

a bea c-loved that animation link.

TBG-run down by a bus full of friends. Sending that one to Ma Frostbitten, she'll love it.

I saw venus every morning this week but today. Wispy clouds in the way.

Yoki, send it to my work address. I'm all curious!

In our house, Corner Gas is considered a good, stupid show which is pretty darn funny. There have been times it has put us in tears.

But then I grew up with people like that. The father is particularly apt, and well done, a caricature to be sure, but a very good one. I know people like that. I used to serve them coffee.

Think of it in the same way as Red Green.

Frostbitten, I am going to go with funny as well.

For those not familiar - the wiki entry on Corner Gas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Gas

Thanks dr. The father from Corner Gas is on our city council.

Pretty birdie.
Between 1985-1986 and 1996-1997 the population size of Oriental white-backed vultures declined by an estimated 97% at Keoladeo, and in 2003 this colony was extinct. These declines were coupled with high mortality of all age classes.

research by The Peregrine Fund in Pakistan discovered that the major cause of the population decline was diclofenac, an non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used widely in veterinary medicine across South Asia (Oaks et al. 2004, which can be accessed from this web page of The Peregrine Fund)

Slapping forehead-of course there's a wiki entry. Thanks dmd.

frosty, thanks for the correction. Grand Forks, Great Falls. There was about 8 hours yesterday where the brain was not fully functional. Well it was actually 9. I had one really good hour in the morning though. Sigh. Some days.

Scotty's got a secret. Scotty's got a secret!

Frosti, Eric Peterson is on your Town council? He has always been politically active so I am not surprised, very interesting.

dr-I laughed when I saw your comment. Back in the late 70s a Grand Forks radio station hired a dj who was rather notorious for abusing his brain cells. He spent his first week at the station saying "Good morning Great Falls." There was no second week.

Hmm, scotty's secret and yello's new persona. I am not good at making these kinds of guesses

This is just terrible!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/12/shrinking.kilogram.ap/index.html

The 9:56 was me.
Vultures across Asia are almost extinct
due to the vetinary use of diclofenac.
In India the rotting cow carcasses left unconsumed due to the loss of these scavengers has resulted in an increase of the feral dog population with an increase in the incidence of rabies.
http://www.vulturerescue.org/index.html

Good one dmd-not Peterson, the character he plays on TV (with a name change and a few added pounds). A scene from last month's council meeting-

Brent's Dad: "We just replaced that culvert" (under a dirt road beside the post office).

Further investigation revealed "just" was 15 years ago. Hilarity ensues as post master is in ankle deep water during a thunderstorm.

99 Locals quip as they get their mail- "I've got my boat (elongated MN/Canuckistani O) on the trailer if you need it, then."

That means the rest of us are gaining weight. I'm going for a pre-emptive walk.

The star of Corner Gas is Brent Butt.
Need I add more?

A reviewer on IMDB listed 5 reasons that account for the success of Corner Gas. I loved #5

5. There is NO winter!! - Have you seen any snow yet in Dog River? This is critical for a successful Canadian comedy - because snow complicates things. It is bleak, uninteresting, and unfortunately too much of a reminder of reality for those of us who have to live with it for 10 months out of the year. In fact, with out the snow - it makes this small town in Saskatchewan look quite charming, and all the more interesting and lovable.

I'm an Easterner but I like Corner Gas anyway. The little jokes make the difference. Like saying the cop is at THE bush doing a radar speed trap. Everyone knows where THE bush is. Large parts of Saskatchewan are Prairie grass only, any tree you see has been planted or comes from the seeds of planted trees. I have top go back to Tisdale one day, but not in January this time...

I've posted some comments and links concerning Velociraptors and hobbits:

http://web.mac.com/dooleyclan/iWeb/Site%202/Blog/Blog.html

Couple of quick Boodle comments:

a bea c, I wrote a longer item in the 10thcircle last year about the Universe of Information, you're welcome to look it over here. I think even JA commented on it, probably to tell me I'm a dunderhead:

http://www.10thcircle.com/10/?p=126

CowTown, loved the story from yesterday.

LiTs comments from yesterday made me think of a velociraptor wearing those feathered MB FMPs with a feather boa, lipstick, and eyelashes sitting alone at a bar with a martini (an eyeball in it instead of an oilve), coldly eyeing the Dinos in a very reptilian manner as they come in...

Today is also the birthday of HG Wells and Steven King.

Venus *has* been beautiful over the past couple of weeks.

I noticed that kilogram item last week, didn't worry about it because I'm American, and I still weigh just as many pounds today as I did yesterday, as all Right Thinking Americans do. Another reason the metric system, soccer and Formula 1 will never be as popular in the US as they are in the rest of the world, I suspect. People love to second-guess everything, but the Americans we love to vote for Stay the Course, Stick to the Plan, etc. Not so in the rest of the world; Tony Blair had to leave office, GWB is hunkerin' in the bunker as his staff goes job huntin'.

bc

Corner Gas is, well, a gas. Very very funny. Having spent 3 years in Revelstoke, BC I can say that small towns are *exactly* like Dog River.

I also love the truck (Ford?) ad where a young fellow drives around and around a gas station. One of the geezers on the porch says "He's been showing off his new truck all over town."

Eurotrash, you out there? WaPo has picked up the story of what's going on in Belgium:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092002629.html?hpid=artslot

I hope you folks can work through the issues. Secession is not a good solution. We here in the South can attest to that.

Just a little back boodle comment here. Mostlylurking made reference to the Western Washington State Fair, or, as it is known by the semi-rural intelligentsia, The Puyallup Fair. I will not subject this august body to yet another of my rapturous expositions on my childhood memories of this revered event. But I will express a profound jealousy of mostlylurking. For each year at this time I feel a primal longing, much like the Salmon seeking to return to the headwaters from whence it came, to return to my hometown and gorge myself silly on Fisher's Raspberry Scones.

Howdy y'all. RD and Mudge, you're so cute. And thanks to RD for reminding me of my favorite read-aloud children's book. Knox lox mox blocks indeed.

Speaking of fairs, this week the Boy and I will be attending the Oklahoma State Fair. I have waited patiently all week. We may well see some examples of differently evolved humanoids, particularly on the Midway and at the fried mashed potato booth. [Yes, really, and no I wasn't planning to try any, even for Boodle research.] I asked if the Boy wanted to bring a friend and he said he'd ask a GIRL (or three, apparently they run in packs). Gulp. I'm hoping it is too short notice for them (her).

frosti, I don't watch Corner Gas, but I would say it is legitimately funny. Personally I would say the best current Canadian comedy tv is Rick Mercer, but it's too Canadian specific to be funny elsewhere, I think. I would vote for Kids in the Hall as the best ever Canadian comedy.

bc, re kilograms. Such a reactionary position! And all that on today, the last day of Fructidor.

I love Rick Mercer! (when I get it)

Cute?

*turning purple*

So, Ivansmom, does this mean that you already thinking about how soon it will be when you are a grandmother?

No, no, no. I wouldn't dare suggest that the boy would do ever do anything inappropriate. Just commenting on the rapid passage of time. First he was a boy, now enter girls, next courtship, then marriage, then fatherhood. It takes about a week, or so, all in all.

Oops, I meant to say "fried mashed potato on a stick". Makes fried pickles and Oreos on a stick seem commonplace.

Bite your tongue, just sayin'. The Boy may procreate when he has moved away from home, finished college and graduate school, and can pay his own insurance. This is our regular litany (when can I have a motorcycle? a TV in my room?) and I see no reason to alter it for grandchildren.

I'm not worrying about grandkids just yet, since (a) he admires a new girl every week and (b) he hasn't yet plucked up the courage for so much as a phone call if not surrounded by friends.

S'Nuke, the straw polls are in and if you check that hot place . . . ?

Ivansomom, my mother gave my brother this advice. A quote from she of all wisdom (aka, mom)

'you can have a motorbike when you get married. Till then you have to listen to me. When you are married you have to listen to your wife. She will say no.'

My brother cheerfully ignored her considering she didn't tell him this till he was 35.

Why does the motorbike discussion remind me of why a grad school friend told me as soon as he'd bought a plane (age 24) and didn't tell his parents for 2 years? :-)

His now-wife let him keep it, but he sold it when the babies started coming.

jus sayin', while I agree with the substantive aspects of your behavioural projections, I do disagree with some of the procedural elements as articulated. Some of my objections, inter alia, include the omission of a tree. I submit that it is an open and notorious fact that the first step must surely be the party of the first part, with a party of the second part, sitting in a tree. I suspect, but don't want to go too far astray on the point, that a deciduous tree would probably be most likely in the circumstances. In any event, once a tree is present, a certain amount of K-I-S-S-I-N-G most assuredly is indicia that the first procedural element has been satisfied. I am aware that some have posited that the passage of time has rendered this step as antiquated, but my submission on this point is that the involvement of a tree (acknowledging the possibly a more urban representation of the seclusion evoked by the pastoral imagery of sitting in a tree i.e. an otherwise unoccupied domicile or the passenger area of a motor vehicle) seems to be fundamental.

The remainder of my objections should not be considered decisive in terms of agreement with your position. I do wonder if the nomenclature used in terms of "courtship" represents the current consensus on that point. Also, I would point out that even the traditional conclusion involved the party of the first part pushing a baby carriage, which makes one consider whether our forefathers were actually more progressive than is sometimes thought, as your conclusion assumes a great deal not specifically considered elsewhere in both the procedural and substantive elements.

"Made in Canada", produced and written by Rick Mercer, was brilliant. And I'm not saying that just because one of the cast members was my landlord when I lived in the big TO and the theme song was "Blow at High Dough" by the Tragically Hip. The fact that Leah Pinsent (daughter of Gordon) is absolutely gorgeous has nothing to do with my high opinion of the show either.

dbG can see my hot place??? WHAT????

*hastily checking self in front of mirror*

:-)

In the United States, France, Australia and Latin America, the show (Made in Canada) was syndicated as The Industry

And in the Almost-Darwin Awards department...

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html

:-O

Ivansmom, when I was The Boy's age I also developed a crush on a different girl every week.

It would probably be wisest if you didn't really think through the full implication of this observation.

Boko, I still miss Made in Canada.

The Newsroom, was fantastic as well.

boko999, Thanks for the unfortunate but oh so common news about another near extinction of an earth creature. Upsetting the applecart has dire consequences. So easy to say...so difficult to learn. Hopefully it's not too late.

Ah, RD, I have told him that, thanks to hormones, that will be the case for some years yet. My conclusion is that he is not allowed to have a girlfriend or "steady" while this condition lasts, thus precluding any intimate congress. I do encourage him, within those limits, to enjoy it as it runs its course.

Not only is Peter Blais, who played the Parson on Made in Canada, and talented actor, costumer he's an acomplished painter.
http://www.paintedsaltbox.com/petergalleriesnew.html

Great link Boko, looks like a great place for me to explore next time I visit the in-laws.

"Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on"
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL2181446120070921

If you love hyphens Mudge don't look. The story is that people don't know how to use hyphens (me! me! me!) so the words get either fused together (bumblebee, waterborne, crybaby) or the hyphen simply disappear (pot belly, test tube, hobby horse).

Just teasing, Ivansmom, just teasing, mostly about how these "life milestones" seem to set upon us well before we are ready.

That's why I wanted to make sure that there was no mistake about the boy's upbringing. On the other hand, it's like the situation you have when you have a number of kids in your house, playing. When there is laughter and noise and rambunsciousness, you can let them alone, within earshot. But when it gets real, real, quiet, it's time to stick you head in the room to see what's going on.

Ah, to be a pre-adolescent again. Kinda like being a frisky old geezer, in a way.

Oops, I shouldn't have posted that link.

Joel, please just remove the post. Don't hurt me.

The missing hyphen is a bugbear (LOL!) of mine. The blank, or sometimes hostile, looks I get from supposedly literate people when I say "adjectival phrase" makes my blood boil. Bloodboil. Blood-boil.

I'm about to do something I haven't done in ages...wish me luck.

What wine goes best with Boiled Blood a la Yoki? :-)

Would I still make your blood boil, if I altered my blank look to a cute puppy tilt of the head, (or is that puppy-tilt)? :-)

Oh, no! omni's gonna go hang upside-down on the jungle gym!

Ya had it right the first time. Blood boil. "Boil" is a verb. Wine: Sanguia.

That hyphen article didn't bother me a bit, Shriek. I approve. It's lack of hyphens in compound modifiers (Yoki's adjectival phrase) and training in school on how to do same that make me (and Yoki) crazy.

Son of Carl, your 12:29 got me thinking. For youths who get into a relatively minor scrape with the law, courts arrange a visit to an adult jail, where they are "scared straight", or somesuch.

Maybe it should be a pre-marital requirement that a prospective couple sit in on divorce court proceedings for a day or so. Beats sitt'n up in a tree, doin' whatever it was that song suggested. Sheesh, now I got a tune cootie.

Word-Nazis?

Not word-nazis, Boko, just editors who want to be grammatically correct and clear. This is what all writers should aspire to.

Ve haff vays of making you hyphenate. Zey are not pleasant...but zey are most...effective.

Having prospective marrieds visit divorce court is like scaring kids straight by having them watch a jail break. Better to have them witness the hard work of a good marriage.

I have shown a few friends the federal child support guidelines before. You would be suprised how less significant your spouse not supporting your desire for a motorbike is following a close review.

Additionally, their mere reference has been occasionally fatal to boodles.

SofC, I think maybe it was caused by omni falling off the jungle gym. I think everyone ran over there to see if he's all right.

Not if being ungrammnivorous is more amusing Slyness

I think this may be, in my opinion, the worst Bush gaffe/Bushism ever. Linking Saddam Hussein to the death (a death that has not occured), of Nelson Mandela. Bush does have advisors correct?

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070921/world/international_safrica_mandela_bush_dc

dmd, maybe some "turnabout is fair play" is in order. Macleans magazine links GWB to Saddam.

http://www.macleans.ca/images/homepage/Macleans_Oct1.JPG

A blood-boiling, grammar-induced rage Yoki?

I saw that byoolin, just before I saw Ms. Amiel complaining about having to live in West Palm.

Ha! NCrosby...

dmd, I'm very, very afraid to look at that link.

dmd - listening to GWB is absolutely cringe-inducing, isn't it? I particularly hated it when he had press conferences with Tony Blair. Mercy, he sounded like a blinkin' nincompoop next to Blair. (Ok - let me have it...is that an improper use of the hyphen in cringe-inducing?) Youse guys scare me...I considered myself to have decent grasp of the English language until I started hanging out in the boodle. Is it *in* the boodle? Or would it be *with* the boodle? *at* the boodle? Somebody help me, please!

Do you think we'll find out Scotty's secret soon?

I'm taking my daughter to her first high school party tonight. She was very displeased to learn that I intend to walk up with her to ascertain that parents will be present and staying present. I don't think there's a problem, it is a birthday party for a girl on her field hockey team. But I want her to know right from the start that I will be making sure of these things throughout her high school years.

I wish I was taking her to a party with a bunch of little girls and a Cinderella impersonator who face paints. Sigh.

As much as I hate to stick up for President SNAFU he obviously meant to say,
"There are no Iraqi Mandelas because Saddam Hussein killed all the Iraqi Mandelas." Which is true.
I admit it's not as funny as Peanut Brain's way

I've read this phrase elsewhere on the intertubes. Gotta stop hanging out at neo-con websites.

Slyness,
Milbank covered the same incident at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092002290.html

He is such a goof.

Have a good weekend everybody. I am going to be spending a lot of it repainting the bedroom of my newly-minted teenaged daughter.

She wanted Vibrant Teal, her mother wanted off white, so they settled on "Bliss Blue."

We'll see how much bliss is involved.

*snorting at all the funny grammar comments*

dmd, if you make puppy eyes all will be immediately forgiven. Something my children know too well.

Jeeze Louise, Kim. Couldn't you just phone?
Talk about cringe inducing.

I would not object to the blue, if I were you, RD. #2 insisted on BM "Neon Red" on absolutely every plane in her bedroom a couple of years ago. Three coats of primer for red, four coats of red. Days and days and days of painting.

Ah heck. Spent so much time fixating on proper hyphen usage that I mistyped my own handle.

Hasta lunes.

I know, I know....now you're making me feel bad, Boko! The junebug is new to the team and doesn't have the girl's phone # or I would do that! Honestly, I'm not trying to make her life miserable!!

I predict plenty of bliss for RD from that Bliss Blue if he just inhales deeply enough.

Hey, which of you Canuckistanis (or even red-blooded Muricans, sacre bleu) are really fluent in *that* langauge which dare not speak its name? I got a song that desperately needs transcribing, and then, if possible a translation made of it. I can even e-mail you the wmv. sound file and you can play it over and over again.

(Please don't suggest I Google for the lyrics on the Internet; it ain't there, very surprisingly, though you'd think it would be. But what *is* there is an interesting discussion by a lot of people trying to find said lyrics. So, you will be doing a favor not just for me, but for all mankind.)

(Furthermore, when we have said transcription and said translation, I'll post it here on the Boodle, and forevermore whenever anybody Googles this song for its lyrics, they will come here and be amazed and forever grateful.)

Sounds like a job for shrieking, 'Mudge. If he demurs, I'll take a stab at it.

Kim, I'd go to the door. I'd go in. I'd meet the parents and smile sweetly. As I told the Boy just yesterday, trust but verify.

After all, it is my job to make him miserable, isn't it?

Milbank wrote.
'Yesterday's news conference was just minutes old when President Bush made a startling announcement.

"Mandela's dead," he said.'

If the Yahoo quate is correct, this is what Bush said.
"I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas,"

Milbank lied.

Why bother delibrately misquote Bush to make a fool of him when you know he'll do it himself if you wait 3 minutes?
Bush mis-speaks, big news.

I know Kim. But if you have a name, address and an internet connection finding a phone number is a snap.

Will you 'dopt me? I could use some looking after.

LOL, Ivansmom. I'm here to tell you that will be your job for the rest of your life. I went to dinner last evening with a group of friends; a major topic was how their mothers continue to drive them crazy. Mine did, fer sure.

Yeah, ladies, do the mom thing, embarrass the kids with love and concern. My wife made me do all that kind of dirty work; something 'bout it being my responsibility and all.

My youngest was utterly and completely mortified when we agreed to chaparone a 7th grade dance, and then had the unmitigated timerity to go out on the dance floor and actually dance: traditional, arm-around-the-waist-full-body-contact type dancing. Talk about needing mind-bleech!! Oh, the humanity.

Good for you, just sayin', and thanks -- I'll repeat your story to the Boy and point out it could always be worse.

My mother used to dicuss every detail of my life, gastro-intestinal tract with her bridge club even if I was there. I finally told her that I had enough on her to make a good story. If she didn't want that blabbed all over the neighbourhood she'd better zip it. I beleive that's now called negotiating with a parent. Blackmail is a better term.
BTW If you think you can "allow" a teenager to have a boyfriend/girlfriend you've got another think coming.
Unless you lock them up of course.

Since we are on the topic of pre/young teens. I just noticed the review of Sydney White, a movie my daughter want to see.

I saw this disclaimer and thought - non of this bothers me - am I way to liberal? I do got to the do to meet the parents for parties, but most often they occur at our house.

Here's the disclaimer in the WaPo review.

It may be an iffy choice for some middle schoolers, as it includes considerable, though fairly mild, sexual innuendo, semi-crude sexual language ("booty" and other non-obscene synonyms), implications of promiscuity among college kids and a matter-of-fact portrayal of a club for gay, lesbian and transgender students. There are references to beer and implied drinking at parties, students who appear hung-over, young women in tight or low-cut outfits, modestly implied male nudity, toilet humor, mild profanity and jokes about overweight kids.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092000604.html

Sniff, thanks Ivansmom.
I do intend to smile sweetly. I didn't actually plan on going in like gangbusters. I just plan on going in, introducing myself to a team mate's (hyphen?) parents and telling them that I'm glad to meet them, blah, blah...and I guess I could find the phone # if I really wanted to, but I would like to get to know some of these parents.

Trust buy verify is exactly what I said to her yesterday. I do trust her, but I don't know these people at all.

Boko - made me laugh...so did your mom stop blabbing?

In case you notice an increase in typos or other errors in tomorrow's Post, this may be the reason why:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html?hpid=news-col-blog

Brad Pitt visited the newsroom.

RD and Ivansmom, your discussion earlier today about The Boy and dating made me chuckle. I don't have kids, but it brought back memories of back when I was his age. Thanks for putting a smile on my face.

How old is your daughter, dmd?

I am not a fan of these movies that glamorize skanky behavior by teenagers. I'm really not a prude, although I know I sound like one. I have pretty much let go of the leash with my 16 year old son and what movies