Author Archives: whyevolutionistrue

Who’s the best painter of all time?

October 31, 2020 – 11:00 am

In the next-to-latest New Yorker, staff writer Adam Gopnik discusses the history and contents of the Louvre while nominally reviewing James Gardner’s new book, The Louvre: The Many Lives of the World’s Most Famous Museum.  It’s a good piece, and two of his statements intrigued me, inspiring this post. Click on the screenshot to read the […]

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Caturday felid trifecta: Why Socks was the best cat, Nazca giant felid drawing discovered in Peru, cats help jailbirds (and lagniappe)

October 31, 2020 – 9:45 am

Remember Socks, the White House cat under the Clintons?  Here, from Revelist, is a list of reasons why he was the best of all the Clintons (click on screenshot): Here are a few:   Here he is with Buddy, the White House d*g: **************** Many readers sent me news articles about the recent discovery of […]

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Readers’ wildlife photos

October 31, 2020 – 8:15 am

Send in your photos, but make sure they’re good ones. Thanks! Today was have some lovely landscapes from reader Bill Zorn. His captions are indented. Sand Dunes, Colorado: The Narrows, Utah: Altamaha River, Georgia: Monument Valley, Utah: Jekyll Island, Georgia: Jekyll Island, Georgia: Linville Gorge, North Carolina: Irwin Creek, Colorado: Reeds, Georgia: North Fork of […]

Posted in landscapes, photography, Readers' wildlife | Comments (10)

Sean Connery died

October 31, 2020 – 7:46 am

I found this out from a tweet that Matthew sent me, one made by Larry the Cat, the Official Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. It shows the actor with a kitten. pic.twitter.com/vtm8kb1DRm — Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 31, 2020 Connery was 90. The obituary from Variety is here. He was the best James […]

Posted in obituary | Comments (16)

Saturday: Hili dialogue

October 31, 2020 – 6:30 am

BE SURE TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK TONIGHT, AS AT 2 A.M. AMERICA GOES OFF DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME. YOU GET AN EXTRA HOUR OF SLEEP! It’s the weekend: Saturday, October 31, 2020, and it’s Halloween! It’ll be a distanced one this year, and I fear that kids won’t get their usual allotment of candy. One […]

Posted in Hili Dialogue, Kulka | Comments (17)

A bizarre paper in an Elsevier journal suggests that Covid 19 is a geological/magnetic-like phenomenon and can be prevented by wearing jade amulets. Elsevier defends the paper.

October 30, 2020 – 12:30 pm

A really insane paper was just published in an Elsevier journal, Science of the Total Environment, a paper that connects the outbreak of covid with serpentinization phenomena known in geology, as well as the Earth’s geomagnetic fields. At the end, the authors (who hold respectable jobs) suggest that putting nephrite jade amulets on rats may […]

Posted in lunacy, pandemic, quackery | Comments (63)

A disaffected staff member at Smith College complains about its obsession with race, makes a video that will doom her

October 30, 2020 – 9:30 am

Here’s a 10½-minute video produced by an extraordinarily courageous woman bucking the wokeness of her employer, Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.  This is the first of several videos promised by staff member Jodie Shaw, an alum who works as a student support coordinator. Her picture has disappeared from the staff page—only the first step in […]

Posted in Colleges acting badly, colleges and universities, race | Comments (73)

Notes to readers

October 30, 2020 – 8:15 am

I periodically put up this reminder because some people either haven’t read the commenting rules (see those rules here) or have forgotten them. Please review them on the sidebar or here if you’re either a newbie or a regular, although most of the regulars behave well. One thing I’d like to emphasize is Rule #9: […]

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Readers’ wildlife photos

October 30, 2020 – 7:45 am

Don’t forget to send me your good wildlife photos, as the tank is depleted at a rate of 7 batches per week. I have a backlog of non-duck photos from biologist John Avise; he sent me these back in February. He calls the series “Passerines on a stick.” I’ve indented his IDs and notes: Passerines […]

Posted in birds, photography, Readers' wildlife | Comments (12)

Friday: Hili dialogue

October 30, 2020 – 6:30 am

Good morning on Friday, October 30, 2020. It’s gonna be a bad day because it’s National Candy Corn Day: one of the very few candies I detest.  Here: see in the video below how this odious “comestible” is made. As the video notes, “It starts with a slurry”.  No candy should start with a slurry! […]

Posted in Hili Dialogue, Kulka, Szaron | Comments (51)