Climate change to WWII and O'Reilly in between!

Climate change?  What climate change?  What climate change might unleash.

Whale graveyard in Chile.  Counting whales from space.

Poor Bill O'Reilly... scared of tough wimmen.  Maybe he feels like this?

Therapy dogs.

Plastic in our food... is good for us.  Right?  How about raw fish?

Harry Potter and the aftermath.

President Obama hanging out with scientists.

Fukushima radiation affected the USS Reagan and its crew.

Finding the forgotten Russian soldiers from WWII.

Tom the Dancing Bug

Goes all Harry Potter on us.

Blog sprinkles

Cambrian explosion!





Dumping 14 million bees on a highway... just think of what would have happened if they had been SUPER BEES!

Saving a humpback whale and getting a show.

Raising rabbits for food.

The difference between extreme weather and climate change.

Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) talks about the last 11 years of Harry Potter making....

Michele Bachmann and why we should stop sniggering and start paying attention to this batshit crazy woman.

29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

Weirdness and wizards

The Guardian liked the last Harry Potter movie.

Haboob!! (The video is silent but astonishing)

24 types of libertarian.

Neptune celebrates first anniversary on July 12, 2011

On Tuesday, July 12, 2011, the planet Neptune completes its first revolution around the sun since its discovery on September 23, 1846. Neptune finally reaches this milestone at 22:27 Universal Time today. It takes Neptune 164.79 Earth-years to go full circle through the constellations of the Zodiac, whereas the Earth goes full circle in just 365.256 days.

Russian trilobites.

And speaking of fossilized brains...

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by The Family Leader, a conservative, Iowa-based Christian group that opposes same sex marriage, Sharia law and pornography.

By signing the pledge (PDF), Bachmann vowed to support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage, as well as agreeing that same sex marriage was akin to polygamy.

The document also implies that homosexuality is a choice.

Last battle of Harry Potter and Hogwarts

Here.

Update 4/29: More discussion.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Just be quick to mute the ad at the end of the scene....

Update 11/19:



Update: And then there are those who dislike it...

OOooo!

The Deathly Hallows

Mini blog sprinkles

I KNEW it! Explains why some of us really do act like thuggish cavemen!

Take care not to be bitten by a coral snake.

Via Steve Bates, Al Gore does NOT say,"I told you so."

Bart Stupak is really stupid. Really.

Google earth 3D is really cool.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part one trailer.

The picture of religious oppression.

A rare 'king of herrings' giant oar fish is found in Swedish waters, first time since 1879. Dead, of course.

Expelliarmus!

Latimer writes that administration officials objected to giving author J.K. Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom because her writing “encouraged witchcraft” (p. 201):

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged withcraft.

Strange that she didn't hex the Bush administration to failure and contempt.....

oh.



Rowlings clearly has done the Imperius Curse on some of her fans, though. They feel no shame...

If Cats reported the news...

And now we hand it over to Stripes...

SAN DIEGO – Jumbo flying squid — aggressive 5-foot-long sea monsters with razor-sharp beaks and toothy tentacles — have invaded the shallow waters off San Diego, spooking scuba divers and washing up dead on tourist-packed beaches.

The carnivorous calamari, which can grow up to 100 pounds, came up from the depths last week and swarms of them roughed up unsuspecting divers. Some divers report tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.

Reaction from the cat on the street?

WASHINGTON — A bill to overhaul the safety of the nation's food supply is confusingly written and must not go forward until the Food and Drug Administration power over grain and livestock is removed, food industry representatives and members of Congress agreed Thursday.

Industry representatives from the American Meat Institute , the National Farmers Union , and other groups, as well as some lawmakers, don't think the FDA has enough experience or people to regulate grain and livestock, a job that traditionally has fallen to the Agriculture Department.

[snip]

Every year, one in four Americans are sickened by food, and about 5,000 die, according the Centers for Disease Control . While lawmakers repeatedly touted the nation's food supply as the safest in the world, in April the CDC said food safety is no longer improving.

In March, President Barack Obama formed a working group to examine food safety issues. Its recommendations, which include greater Agriculture Department and FDA authority and an emphasis on prevention, are the subject of several congressional bills, including the one under scrutiny at Thursday's hearing. The working group's recommendations didn't include FDA oversight of grain and livestock.

The FDA wants that authority. "The legislation would indeed transform our nation's approach to food safety from responding to outbreaks to preventing them," Michael R. Taylor , a senior adviser to the FDA commissioner, said in written testimony.

A food safety advocacy group, Safe Tables Our Priority, objected to the makeup of the panel of witnesses Thursday. Only one out 11 witnesses at the hearing represented consumers and victims of foodborne illness. However, lawmakers and the food industry representatives stressed that it was in nobody's interest for people to die from eating contaminated food.

"We're not callous and heartless to these tragedies these families have suffered," said Rep. Michael Conaway , R- Texas . "But we're worried about unintended consequences of this legislation, which would be detrimental to the system."

Reaction to Conaway's comments?



Fun photos of Harry Potter actors growing up and some of the great actors involved in the movies.

Reaction from the street, Fluffy?



Right, never mind.. Back to you, Socks:

Rep. Todd Tiahrt suggests Obama’s mother wanted to abort him.

Socks? Socks?



But it's FRIDAY!! What are the cats saying?



And that's our news hour...

One liners

Israeli soldiers begin to confess Gaza offenses.

Ethics Complaint #18 Filed Against Sarah Palin, you betcha also!

9 stupidest products.

And what our military is working on: Military EATR: Contractor Working On Horrifying Corpse-Eating Robots. Something that would be useful if you had say.. a nuke go off somewhere, right?

Learn Italian!

Exchange students live American nightmare

The Blob is back!! Big blobs of mystery goo floating off Alaska coast

Bits you will like and dislike about the newest Harry Potter movie.

Do not piss off your girlfriend...

If you had had to play a bully for ten years of your childhood

I think you'd want to smoke something to relax too...

London, England (BANG) - A "Harry Potter" actor has been charged with producing class B drugs. Jamie Waylett, who plays Hogwarts bully Vincent Crabbe in the film franchise, allegedly grew 10 cannabis plants at his home.

I thought pot in the UK was not a big deal, anyway....

Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince

Not that I'm dying of anticipation or anything...

More found here.

Apparently J. K. Rowling is a witch

Because she writes about wizards and witches and stuff so she must be one and it must be evil because witches are evildoers and must be burned or drowned or something....

Discussions found on the threads on Amazon discussing the sale of Rowling's The Tales of Beetle the Bard:

Gary Oates says:

Not that I have anything aganist witches, but I think now its fairly obvious that Rowling and her writings seem to be favoring a certain sect of paganism where she cleverly hides her beliefs and practices in a story where everyone can have a witchy, magical good time. There are several books that back me up available on this website stating that the Harry Potter books encourages kids to take an interest in witchcraft and a few even raises the possibility of real white magik spells in the Harry Potter books. The skull on this auctioned book and the drawings of several paganistic objects associated with witchcraft (including wizardry) only makes it more obvious. Just making a point to those who are confused about this whole issue... By the way, what is the difference between white and black magik when the power behind the both kinds of magik and their spells come from the same source?

I wonder what it feels like to be so benighted....

Oh, the knickers that are getting in a twist

Via Chet Scoville of The Vanity Press.

Love it! Thanks for your humor and your epic saga, J. K. Rowling!

Update: Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof has some choice words on the matter:

Rail on, supercilious twits. Your rants and outrage only point out how ridiculous and ignorant you are and prove once again that your predilection for focusing on irrelevancy pretty much confirms that you have no earthly business as literary critics or social commentators. And in an ironic way, making a big deal out of Dumbledore's sexual orientation will only sell more books.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Harry Potter series has already served as an allegory for misunderstood and demonized people -- witches and wizards -- and it's not too far a stretch to make the connection to the gay community. In Rowling's world, the wizarding community has to live apart, they have their own language and traditions, and they do all they can to conceal their true selves as they move through the Muggle world. As the story is told through the point of view of a teenager, the additional layer of adolescent angst and hormones makes it even more allegorical, and I daresay that there are probably legions of young readers who are already coming to terms with their own identity -- sexual or otherwise, gay or straight -- who felt an affinity towards Harry Potter as an outcast based on nothing more than who he was by birth and yet the rest of the non-magical world cannot accept him. The fact that "the gay character" in the story is Dumbledore and not one of Harry's contemporaries -- Ron or Neville, for example -- is understandable; these kids already have enough to worry about as teenage wizards. It also makes it clear that a gay man such as a teacher can be a mentor and a friend without any of the lurid overtones of pedophilia that is never far from the fevered imaginings of the Christian conservatives and their perpetual adolescent fixation with sex.

I have news for them: there is more -- much more -- to being gay than the basic matter of attraction, sexual or otherwise, to someone of your own gender. The fact that the fundies cannot get beyond that says a lot more about their hang-ups than it does about anything else.

Update 10/24:
Bill O'Reilly galumps up to put his two cents in:

On his Fox News show last night, Bill O’Reilly joined in the fray, asking if Dumbledore’s outing was part of the “gay agenda” of “indoctrination” of “children.” O’Reilly claimed that by dropping “the gay bomb,” Rowling is a “provocateur” who is “going to let all hell break loose”

Uh... right, Billo. Just what hell is that? Does it involve falafels, loofahs, phone sex and a huge mega-million dollar settlement? That kind of provocateur?

Update 10/25: Paul Croft's two foot tattoo of Dumbledore is a teasing point with his workmates, but Paul says:

“The tattoo is about 2ft in length and shows Dumbledore played by Richard Harris – who was the original and best.”

He insisted: “I don’t regret it and I’m not going to get rid of it.”

Way to go, Paul! How about acknowledging that Dumbledore is one hell of a cool wizard, you guys?

In honor of Harry Potter's Deathly Hallows

(submitted by Ellroon's son)

I think I should be insulted

Find out your Harry Potter personality at LiquidGeneration!

I don't have a beard. Sheesh!

What a difference

A summer makes.... (Not really safe for work).

'Hermione' returns to Hogwarts:



Harry Potter - Sexy Version - video powered by Metacafe
(stolen from Der Verrückte Philosoph at Peripetia)