On 9/27 Tierney’s column in the New York Times (subscription required; the cheapest option is get home delivery and go on permanent vacation hold) again picked up the alt.space agenda of colonization. His advice, “If officials hope to get money for NASA’s new program of manned exploration, I suggest they go to Capitol Hill with a two-word sales pitch: gray goo.”
I second the sentiment that civilization protects and heals itself, but a rich planet can afford a stylish colony just in case the unthinkable happens.
John Derbyshire, of all people, has an eloquent tribute to Bob Dylan. He’s mistaken about Mr. Bojangles, though–it was written by Jerry Jeff Walker, not Dylan.
Ladies and gentleman, I give you Typhoon Longwang. It could pound Asia pretty hard. It may penetrate deep into the continent. Let’s hope it doesn’t result in another premature evacuation.
OK, so it’s a little juvenile.
Actually, it would have been better if they’d hung that moniker on this storm.
Typhoon LONGWANG is still a small typhoon, but the clouds got more rounded and spiralled. It is forecast to keep intensification for the moment, and the typhoon gets more powerful if it starts to be bigger.
The team led by Tsunemi Kubodera, from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, tracked the 26-foot long Architeuthis as it attacked prey nearly 3,000 feet deep off the coast of Japan’s Bonin islands…
…Mori said the giant squid, purplish red like its smaller brethren, attacked its quarry aggressively, calling into question the image of the animal as lethargic and slow moving.
“Contrary to belief that the giant squid is relatively inactive, the squid we captured on film actively used its enormous tentacles to go after prey,” Mori said.
“It went after some bait that we had on the end of the camera and became stuck, and left behind a tentacle” about six yards long, Mori said.
As a diver, I’m glad that they don’t often come near the surface.
A commenter asks what a “moonbat” is. Short answer is a leftist idiotarian. Here’s a picture of the subspecies barking moonbat, but google the word and you’ll come up with plenty of examples and more images.