Hungry Hungry T-Rex!

Lord knows if there are two things I love, it’s dinosaurs and eating meat!  Thankfully, over at Afarensis they’ve brought the two together for me with a post on the Taxonomy of Carnivorous Dinosaurs.

10 Tips for a Better Brain

Paul Mason over at Neuroanthropology has 10 tips for a better functioning brain.  I’m doing pretty well on most of them except #8:  Organization!

Another Iraq? Georgia vs. Russia

Sullivan clarifies:
We can argue over the analogies. Yes, Iraq was a wicked dictatorship, and Georgia is a nascent democracy. Yes, the US is not Russia in terms of democratic norms. But actions and context are important. Iraq is thousands of miles away from the US; Georgia is on Russia’s doorstep. The US invaded without the [...]

Is Our Justice System Rigged?

Is a guilty plea more likely than an innocent one?
Prosecutors want convictions; judges want to keep the cases moving along; defense attorneys have heavy case loads and don’t get paid much for any particular case; and an overwhelming proportion of criminal defendants have participated in some form of criminal conduct. Mix this all together and [...]

Going Green … Literally

Is Levi van Veluw taking the environmental movement too seriously?

Left vs. Right vs. Evolution

Both sides have reason to love and hate evolution, says David Barash:
Indeed, ideologues of both stripes seek to have it both ways: denying evolution when they choose, but, when convenient, twisting its insights to support their causes. Accordingly, some on the political right have actually endorsed aspects of sociobiology, claiming that evolution’s “selfish” individualism and [...]

Want to be a Better Writer? Blog

A quote from Ann Althouse quoting Kurt Vonnegut:
Writes Kurt Vonnegut, in an excellent and short essay on writing style. He’s got 7 rules:
1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers
Great rules for bloggers, obviously. In [...]

Strict Constructionism vs. Judicial Activism: Who Cares?

What’s the difference between a strict constructionist and a judicial activist The Legal Theory Blog goes into what they are and why they may be meaningless:
This entry in the Legal Theory Lexicon is a bit unusual. Rather than explicating concepts that are important to legal theory, the point of this post is to debunk two [...]

Paleo vs. Neo Carbs (not Cons)

(cross-posted @ the Dojo)

Dr. Lam has a post on the link between sugar and all the ills of humanity. While I’m certainly for a low sugar diet (and the proscriptions in the post are largely fine), he brings up some points that are patently false (and therefor irk me something fierce).
In particular, he quotes (favorably) [...]

Were Dinosaurs Warm Blooded?

During the 1990’s there was a lot of discussion (yelling?) over the question of whether or not Dinosaurs were endothermic, that is, warm blooded. In the regular media there is still a pretty solid leaning toward the idea that they were.
I’m inclined to say they weren’t. Here are two reasons why:
Turbinate Bones
Endothermic (warm [...]