Well, the regular Fuzzball & Scuzzball cartoonist is away, so I get to play Fill-In Guy for a couple of weeks. This week's filler strip is actually more of a compositing job than an original piece, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I'm just hoping Leighton is ok with it when he gets back. The idea didn't hit me before he left, but it was too good to pass up. Cross your fingers.
March 2005 Archives
A friend of mine recently wrote (message in its entirety, ellipses in original):
Subject: Write your representatives, guys......not that it'll do much good with the idiots this state keeps sending to DC.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7195164
Pay particular attention to the percentage difference opening up the reserves would make...a whopping 2.5%...and even the most pro-oil estimates say there's only 18 months worth of oil in there.
I'm actually rather fond of some of the people we send to DC, but that's beside the point.
We can kick the 2.5% total consumption number around for a while. What number you get depends on which estimate of the year we hit peak oil production from ANWR you match up with which estimate of our total oil consumption for that year. Taking a few at random, I'm getting numbers from around 2.5% to 5%. So I'll concede the 2.5% point.
Continue reading Alaska National Wild-Inaccuracy Reserve.
I know some of you would argue that unspeakable evil can always be found on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, and you would, of course, be utterly wrong most days of the week. Today, however, was apparently your day to be right (after a fashion):
For a man who didn't believe in the afterlife, H.P. Lovecraft sure is having a remarkable one. Few people had heard of him when he died at the age of 46 on this date in 1937, and fewer still had read the stories he sold to tacky pulp magazines. Nowadays, however, Stephen King and just about everybody else in the know recognizes him as the 20th century's most influential practitioner of the horror story--a claim he arguably clinched last month with the publication of his best works in a definitive edition.
You can find the rest of the article at the OpinionJournal website at http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006424.
This research sounds interesting:
The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed.
Overall, you would think this would be taken as a positive development. The military alredy has dozens upon dozens of ways to kill people at ranges from two kilometers to 2,000. I don't see how having a few more options between harsh language and a bullet to the brain could be a bad thing, but what do I know, I'm cranky and run a blog. If you've read the article by now, you have of course discovered that some scientists are up in arms over this research because it could be used for torture. To quote from the article:
John Wood of University College London, UK, an expert in how the brain perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should face censure. "It could be used for torture," he says, "the [researchers] must be aware of this."
Well, yes, of course it could. Just about any research on any subject could be used for evil or reprehensible ends. Concievably so could Dr. Wood's own research. I don't suppose we'll see him calling for his own work to be condemned any time soon because it might be misused.
