Scribal Terror

Quote of the Day

Samizdata found it, and I like it:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

- C.S. Lewis

Czech this out

We could learn a thing or two from these guys:

The Czech Republic, which held general elections in June, still has no government. Judging by the atmosphere of mistrust between the main political parties, it is unlikely that the Czechs will have a government anytime soon. Five months later, the only certainty is that political stalemate is likely to continue until an early election can be agreed. Notably, the sky has not fallen. The country's institutional framework remains sturdy, the economy continues to grow apace, and some Czechs wonder if they even need government at all.

Heh.

New monument in Marseille

Just in case you're planning to see the sights in southern France this year, don't miss the monument that has just been unveiled in Marseille -- in honor of two kids who broke into a power substation and electrocuted themselves while fleeing police last year. This was used as a pretext for burning cars. Now it's buses. Think a nice plaque will make a difference?

Journalistic tour-de-farce

In this article, the BBC manages to cover the rash of bus burnings in Paris, by pyromaniacally disaffected yoofs, without once mentioning the word "Muslim."

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

Favorite quote ever

"The word procrastination has a long history much of which has not been written." --Procrastination Research Group

Ever stuck your foot in one of these?

I vaguely remember one from my childhood.

Vampire Finches

On Wolf Island in the Galapagos, the finches are hard up for food during the dry season. So they drink the blood of other birds:

The finches begin by landing on the tail of a seabird [such as a booby]. They peck at the base of its wing feathers breaking the skin and causing it to bleed. As the blood oozes out the finches sip it every few seconds. Other finches line up behind the booby . . . and as soon as one leaves it's blood-sucking perch another takes its place. It looks gruesome but doesn't appear to do any long term harm to the boobies.

Comparing Bush and Camus

Don't laugh. Michael McDonald in The American Interest does a pretty good job of demonstrating why the president might have taken The Stranger to Crawford for a little vacation reading. In fact, the rallying cry of the war on terror: "You're either with us or you are with the terrorists," could easily be a translation of Camus's "“Tout ce qui n’est pas avec nous est contre nous."

“These are moments when everything becomes clear, when every action constitutes a commitment, when every choice has its price, when nothing is neutral anymore. It is the time of morality, that is, a time when language becomes clear and it is possible to throw it back in the realists’ face.”

Who said it? George or Albert?

What causes the smell of rain?

Some sources say that "petrichor" is the gas that gives rain its distinctive smell:

[It's] the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

[From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology). Coined by researchers I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas.]

  "Petrichor, the name for the smell of rain on dry ground, is from oils    given off by vegetation, absorbed onto neighboring surfaces, and released into the air after a first rain. Matthew Bettelheim; Nature's Laboratory; Shasta Parent (Mt Shasta,    California); Jan 2002.

Other sources say that the smell comes from a bacteria in the soil:

Streptomyces bacteria, a genus belonging to the Actinomycetales order of Gram-positiveeubacteria, also called actinomycetes.

The bacteria grow in damp, warm earth before fine weather dries out the soil, which then blows around as dust. During a dry spell, actinomycetes produce spores that are released on contact with moisture. Rain hitting the ground kicks up an aerosol of water and soil and you breathe in fine particles of soil containing the bacteria.

H/t Paperclip