That Great Sucking Sound

A short roundup of a few of the posts/articles that have caught my attention recently.

Let’s start off with some mind-expanding imagry, courtesy of NASA via a tip from a Chaos Manor reader. Just CLICK on the image for a larger size:

That’s a composite X-ray and radio photo of two “supermassive” black holes orbiting each other.

If you don’t mind the maths, here’s an interesting presentation showing rates of incarceration of blacks as opposed to whites in the states of the union. The differences in rates in so-called “Blue” states and “Red” states may be a shocker to faux liberals, so if you show it to aquaintances of the “blue” persuasion, have a ressucitator handy. Be sure to check other material posted at La Griffe du Lion (gotta love that: “The Lion’s Claw”–*heh*).

I ought to have listed Linknzona as a “under-read no matter how big the traffic” blog by now. Here’s a sample of Lomaalta’s work, and another.

If those two posts don’t convince you to blogroll Linknzona, then what are you doing visiting third world county?

Backlash against dumb-dumb science courses in San Diego’s prisons for kids. The headline and subs:

Top High Schools Fight New Science As Overly Simple.
San Diego’s Physics Overhaul Makes Classes Accessible,
Spurs Parental Backlash. Test Scores Barely Budge

For further mind-expansion, read Pascal’s Wager. (Heck, read all of Pensees. Easy-peasy: you can do it in dribs and drabs.)

A reminder of the converse of the sin of despair is Alexandra’s The Christian Virtue of Hope. I need to re-read that about once a week, I think.

The Carnival of Liberty is up. Good stuff, maynard.

This dog ain’t named “Boo”–With a Little Faith. (And thanks, Petifog, for dropping by and commenting. I might never have found your blog otherwise.)

This story was tracked back to my weekend linkfest, but it is IMPORTANT enough to get a separate mention here:

Why is Abu Ghraib a cover story again, but not Darfur?. The shalowness of Mass Media Podpeople (and their hypocrisy) is not the only thing this reveals. Why am I not blogging on this more? Yeh, I mention Darfur here and in comments on other blogs, but why have I not devoted regular posts to Darfur?

Maybe more than just the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army need some self-examination, eh?

And last but certainly not least, That Great Sucking Sound:

Migrants Rush to Border Hoping for Passage

Who’d a thunk it? An “amnesty” bill for invaders in Congress encouraging more invaders to come? Who could imagine such an effect!! Why, it’s almost as if Congress mwere erecting an “attractive nuisance” to entice the poor criminals to break our laws!

(And it’s almost as if I could imagine congresscritters standing trial for treason and being “hung by the neck until dead” when convicted. The only problem? Sweeping the sewers to find a jury of their peers… )

I wonder what Ferdy might make of the co-orbiting black holes? (Probably wonder if there were any cheese sticks available there, eh?)