LOLbooks

The humor site Cracked introduces books that should never have been written. Hat tip to, and more funny suggestions at, Pharyngula.

And remember: Gravity is only a theory.

Carrot Revolution blog

The Carrot Revolution is an education blog with several participating schools.

Bill Blaikie on The Hour

Deputy Speaker of the House Bill Blaikie was voted Parliamentarian of the Year by his fellow members of parliament. Tonight, he’s interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC TV’s The Hour.

Larry Moran at the Musée d’Orsay

Just check out Larry Moran’s delightful picture of a French cafeteria.

Do something useful with ReCAPTCHA

A “Captcha” program is one that captures human input before allowing new data to be posted to a blog, comment stream, etc. It displays some faint, fuzzy, or obscured text and asks the user to read and re-type it. Some folks have decided to put those keystrokes to good use. For their faint, fuzzy, or obscured text they are using scanned text from the digitizing of old books. The users thus become proof-readers for the digital library. Ingenious! Check out ReCAPTCHA and see if you can use it in your Web applications.

‘El burkini’

Someone has thoughtfully designed a bathing suit that a good Muslim girl can wear: el burkini.

El burkini, traje de baño musulmán que cubre brazos, piernas, cabeza y cuello de la mujer, ha irrumpido con polémica en las piscinas holandesas. Fabricado en poliéster, absorbe poca agua, se seca rápido y resiste el cloro, pero sus usuarias desconciertan al resto de los bañistas.

Just another form of insanity?

A father says that God told him to kill his daughter. There was

…a ruling by Supreme Court Judge Harvey Groberman on Wednesday that Blair Donnelly, 48, was in a psychotic state when he stabbed his daughter Stephanie, 16, to death. …According to a statement of facts agreed on by the Crown and the defence, on the morning of Nov. 23, 2006, Donnelly began praying and studying the Bible, acting out of sorts and interpreting events of the morning as a message from God that he needed to kill his wife.

He walked around the home in his wife’s presence with a knife hidden inside his jacket. Owing to his strange behaviour, his wife asked his pastor to come to their home, and they prayed together, asking for guidance. ,,, When he returned home that night, he found his daughter at the computer and took it as a sign that God wanted him to kill her.

Donnelly’s wife, Patricia, returned home to find Stephanie dead in the living room. Donnelly was found a few hours later praying in front of the Mountainview Alliance Church. He had blood on his hands.

Mike Holmes on The Hour

Mike Holmes, star of Holmes on Homes, is on The Hour.

The animal origins of empathy

It’s still being debated. But people who are not clinging to “Humans are superior” can see affection, sympathy, and empathy among mammals, birds, and cetaceans. It never got into the scientific literature, but my first cat used to lead young strays with encouraging chirps and let them eat his food.

In an article ‘way back in 1995, Natalie Angier wrote about it in the New York Times: “Scientists Mull Role of Empathy in Man and Beast.”

Dr. Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University in Atlanta and author of a forthcoming book by Harvard University Press on animal morality tentatively titled, “Civil Like an Animal,” has gathered what he calls, “stories of remarkable instances of empathy.” …

Dr. de Waal said his observations indicate concordance between a species’ capacity for self-recognition in a mirror and its likelihood of displaying compassionate, empathic behavior toward its fellows. Monkeys do not recognize themselves in a mirror, and they would never put an arm around the shoulder of a friend hurt in a fight, he said. Chimpanzees have been shown to do just that, and they also demonstrate signs of self-recognition.

Bonobo spin

Frans de Waal points out that primate research was being pulled out of shape by “spin-doctors” who wanted to prove a point about human nature. You can read his excellent article in the eSkeptic for 8 August 2007.

Right-wingers were proclaiming that bonobos were aggressive because they were known to hunt small animals. Wrong! Hunting for food has little to do with aggression.

It’s important not to idealize the bonobo, but there are no known cases of lethal aggression in the wild. Violence has been seen in close confinement, in zoos.

Musings on Homo floresiensis

Marek Kohn presents his submitted version of an article he wrote for New Scientist, where it appeared as “The Little Troublemaker.” He calls it “Ebu Gogo, Dwarf, or Hobbit?”

Ricky Gervais on The Hour

Ricky Gervais, whose de-conversion story is featured on his own blog as well as on the science blog Pharyngula, is interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos tonight on CBC Television’s The Hour. It’s also possible to watch online.

Ricky Gervais wakes up

Ricky Gervais explains how one key question took him from “God bless” to God-less in one afternoon. in “My Argument with God.”

Ricky Gervais is a comedian and writer in the U.K.

(Hat tip to PZ Myers at Pharyngula.)

My karma ran over your dogma

…or some such.

More LOLcats

Japan launches Kizuna satellite

Japan has launched a communications satellite, Kizuna. Mitsubishi heavy industries  hopes that the satellite will supply 1.2 GB per second service.