Forget shark attacks, child kidnappings, WMD's, and snipers, vancomycin resistant staph is a truly scary thing. T
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(5)
10:11:13 AM,
Wednesday 13 November 2002
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I just heard Richard Thompson sing "Sumer is acumin in" followed by his interpretation of Britney Spears "Oops I did it again" followed by his own classic song "Wall of Death". Ordinarily, I barely tolerate Fresh Air, but that was a fantastic radio experience.
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(20)
07:09:48 PM,
Sunday 10 November 2002
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"Isn't it worse to refer "repeatedly to intelligence...that remains largely unverified"--as the Wall Street Journal puts it--in order to trick the nation into war, as Bush and other top US officials have done, than to lie about a blowjob?" The simple truth is Bush is a liar and this time it matters.
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(9)
06:37:53 AM,
Saturday 9 November 2002
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That was one of the scariest moments ever. The undergrad ecology lab has been in the Mac lab all week. No undergrad labs on Friday, so I am all excited about seeing my beloved Mac again. I sit down, wiggle the mouse to wake it up, and it's Windows. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
In desperation I tell it to shut down, hoping that will somehow make things right. Click, we are back to OS 9. It turns out the population modelling thing they were using is a Windows program and they were running it in Virtual PC.
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03:44:34 PM,
Friday 8 November 2002
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When the Supreme Court handed Bush the presidency, we compared it to the end of Empire Strikes Back. What is this then?
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(18)
09:50:18 AM,
Wednesday 6 November 2002
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Today is the day where you can be an apathetic loser or you can get your butt out there. If you've read up and know who you want to vote for, then go vote for them, be they Democrat, Green, Independent, or (God help you) Republican. If you haven't read up and you don't know who to vote for, but you are registered to vote, go pull the lever marked "D". Just think of it as cancelling out the vote of some other uninformed loser who's going to pull the "R" lever.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the people who would rather not be forced to donate their organs to rich people.
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(23)
08:58:18 AM,
Tuesday 5 November 2002
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The Ring is a scary scary scary thing. Not a movie about which one has nightmares, but a movie that leads to every dream about everything turning into a bizarre nightmare (with a little girl with hair over her face).
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08:37:03 AM,
Sunday 3 November 2002
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Yummy Owen Wilsony goodness (in an otherwise not-so-good film).
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(12)
08:35:23 AM,
Saturday 2 November 2002
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"Every gun and rocket that is fired, every warship launched, signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Pres. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower
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09:56:35 AM,
Friday 1 November 2002
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Local politics rules! I was listening to our state senator (Doug Haines, an environmental lawyer) debate his challenger (Brian Kemp, a developer). For the last round, they each got to ask the other a question. Brian Kemp asked this painful, nitpicky question about particular points in particular appropriations bills that Haines had voted for. Haines explained that if he hadn't just bitten the bullet and voted for the things, even though he didn't like the riders, we wouldn't have a budget (then we'd be like NC).
Haines then said something like, "Mr. Kemp, you have run a consistently negative compaign, and people have heard repeatedly all the things I've done that you didn't like. I'd like to know, what have I done that you did like?"
Dead silence...dead silence...dead silence...dead silence...dead silence (keep in mind this is live radio)
Finally, Kemp says, "Well, when we were meeting the other day, you had to leave early to go to Lamaze classes with your wife, and I approve of that, because we did those classes when my wife was pregnant." Dead silence...dead silence...dead silence...
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(7)
09:50:32 AM,
Thursday 31 October 2002
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I now have 5 straight days with no classes. Mmmmm...library time.
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(5)
10:11:50 AM,
Wednesday 30 October 2002
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Remi is currently absent from the web due to something unpleasant happening inside the computer. The Resident Ecology Mac Guru has promised to look at it tonight, and she can fix anything, so hopefully he will be back online tomorrow.
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(2)
01:52:57 PM,
Tuesday 29 October 2002
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A really nice profile of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend featuring ample quotes from Mr. Townsend.
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(11)
11:09:50 AM,
Monday 28 October 2002
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The new ice cream store downtown has ice cream and italian ices. But they also have one flavor of gelato, and it's chocolate-hazelnut.
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(2)
06:33:44 PM,
Sunday 27 October 2002
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Our Majik Market on the corner closed. Where will I get my impulsive junk food?
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09:48:59 PM,
Saturday 26 October 2002
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We got the "Once More, With Feeling" soundtrack. And it rules.
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(10)
04:53:42 PM,
Saturday 26 October 2002
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Paul Wellstone was one of the last true Democrats. We needed him. I don't really know who's left now.
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09:46:04 PM,
Friday 25 October 2002
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I have officially completed my coursework and have had my project proposal approved. I am a candidate for an MS in Ecology, conditional on the completion of an acceptable thesis. Go me.
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(7)
03:24:44 PM,
Friday 25 October 2002
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This morning: popecoc test
This afternoon: committee meeting
This weekend: world domination
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(4)
09:29:30 AM,
Friday 25 October 2002
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Me: Greenie, why do people ask me to do things?
Greenie: Because they suck.
Me: You know, I think you're right.
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03:04:52 PM,
Wednesday 23 October 2002
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Robyn Hitchcock will be within walking distance of our house tonight. And we are walking.
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(2)
11:16:31 AM,
Tuesday 22 October 2002
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People who work for government agencies should reply to email, because they want to talk to me on the phone just as little as I want to call them.
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(3)
03:46:54 PM,
Monday 21 October 2002
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Judy is the American Rivers River Hero of the Week!
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(3)
11:26:58 AM,
Sunday 20 October 2002
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Sunday comes, and all is quiet. And I do work. And we're going to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving. And we're going to fly out of Athens. And the airport is 5 minutes away. And parking is free.
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(2)
10:50:59 AM,
Sunday 20 October 2002
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I had to lead the discussion today for Population Ecology. The papers were all pretty theoretical considerations of on what scale natural selection can be said to take place; there was a "selfish gene" paper, a Gaia hypothesis paper, and a Stephen Jay Gould species level paper. I enjoyed the papers, far more than any yet in the class. I simply refused to sit there and recite summaries and I got them to have a conversation. I got to say teleological a lot (though I carefully restrained myself from saying telos). Granted, they all hated the papers and didn't understand why we had to read them. But, hey, they had a conversation about them, and maybe even thought a little bit, so that's progress.
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12:18:19 PM,
Friday 18 October 2002
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I fought the lab work and...I think I won, this time.
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10:51:26 AM,
Thursday 17 October 2002
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Best Metafilter FPP in a long time
They will introduce to the relative the small point with the last one that sillaba of celebrates it of the time tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And all ours hiers illuminates in imbeciles the direction of her with the inoperative polverosa of the women. For the external part, of the short candle. The life is nevertheless a color of the direction, poor player, to whom then ones the relative hour does not feel pavane and if it corrodes in the phase and all
more by much hour in her he. History is one, this is indicated of an idiot, of that one with noises a fury is full and it does not mean everything
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08:20:52 PM,
Sunday 13 October 2002
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Falling down's as common as the rain.
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03:30:03 PM,
Sunday 13 October 2002
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Debbie and Mike are asleep in our living room.
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(2)
08:27:07 AM,
Friday 11 October 2002
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Oh well. It was fun to live in a democracy while it lasted. The senate passed the resolution at 1:30 this morning. Bush can now do whatever he pleases.
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(2)
07:12:16 AM,
Friday 11 October 2002
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It's one of those days when I really need a Powdermilk Biscuit.
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(9)
01:14:46 PM,
Thursday 10 October 2002
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Stats lab and impending doom!!!
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09:38:29 AM,
Thursday 10 October 2002
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Six years too early...
FULL TIME POSITION
BIOLOGIST - WARREN WILSON COLLEGE
Warren Wilson College is a small liberal arts college located in
the Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina, about 10 miles east
of Asheville. Enrollment is maintained at around 800 students. In
addition to the academic requirements for graduation, all on-campus
students are required to work 15 hours per week in support of
college operations. Work crews range from dining to auto shop to
landscaping to blacksmithing. Students are also required to volunteer a minimum
number of hours of service in the surrounding community. The campus
includes a 300-acre farm producing beef, pork and eggs, an organic
produce garden and a 650-acre forest including 25 miles of hiking
trails, all maintained by student labor. The college attracts a
politically progressive student population with strong interests in
social justice and environmental sustainability. Environmental
studies has been the most popular major for a number of years now.
Biolabbers will be interested to know that we enroll a large number
of vegetarians and vegans, but don't seem to have an excessive
number of complaints about dissection.
The Biology and Environmental Studies departments are looking for a
full-time biologist to teach courses in both Ecology and Genetics,
as well as courses in Conservation and Wildlife Biology, General
Biology, Introduction to Environmental Studies, and possibly the
non-majors courses Field Natural History and/or Human Biology. All
natural science majorsĘ are required to conduct and present an
independent research project prior to graduation, so we are
particularly interested in finding someone with an interest and
enthusiasm for using their scientific expertise to help students
identify and refine creative research. Some faculty members of the
college maintain active research programs of their own, while
others do not, but all are expected to be actively engaged in
undergraduate teaching and mentoring. In addition to the natural resources of the
campus and surrounding area, the science departments are all housed
in buildings that are either new or remodeled within the past two
years and modestly well equipped.
If you know of someone who might be interested in this position,
please have him or her visit http://www.warren-wilson.edu
for more information, or have them contact me directly with specific
questions. The official job announcement and instructions for
applying can be found at
http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~humres/Faculty2002-03.shtml. For the
right person this could be a dream job, and there aren't that many of
those around.
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(1)
09:27:21 AM,
Wednesday 9 October 2002
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Tylenol Allergy Sinus good. Head fuzzy. Work hard. Sleep good.
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(8)
11:28:49 AM,
Tuesday 8 October 2002
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Since y'all are thinking and talking a lot about intentional communities, I thought I'd offer up some info about Walden Two--one of the most fascinating books I've ever read--and the communities attempting to follow the model of the novel.
First, yes, it was written by B.F. Skinner, yes, he invented behaviorism, no, that does not make it automatically evil. Los Horcones is a Walden Two community in Mexico founded by several behavioral psychologists, who are trying to follow very closely the ideas laid out by Skinner.
Twin Oaks in Virginia is one of the more famous attempts at a Walden Two community, but they have since incorporated other philosophies and disgarded some of Skinner's key ideas. Some folks think they've lost their way. Twin Oaks also holds conferences for communitarians, which might be an interesting resource.
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(21)
01:44:02 PM,
Monday 7 October 2002
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The Department of Transportation has a nice photoessay on what they call stream restoration. I doubt y'all will be fascinated, but I want to add it to my website and this is a good place to store the link in the meantime.
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(1)
10:44:23 AM,
Monday 7 October 2002
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