Author: Heather Meadows

It could be a futile gesture, but Richmond is looking at banning the transport of chemical weapons by plane, train, or truck.

Such ordinances would seem to pose a problem if the Pentagon decides to send the 523 tons of decaying chemical weapons from Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond to an incineration site, such as the one in Anniston, Ala.

It’s probably not possible to ship a trainload or truckload of the nerve agents VX or GB out of the depot without going through Richmond, which lies between the depot and Interstate 75. The ordinance, which presumably would be enforced by city police, would subject violators to fines up to $5,000.

I don’t know that a mere $5,000 will deter government officials, but then again they are considering moving the nerve agents (previously mentioned here) because of budget restrictions. You never know.

Richmond City Manager David Evans sees the ordinance as more than a symbolic statement.

“If it passes the commission, it would be a strong indication of the feelings of the city, and hopefully that would not be ignored,” he said.

Indeed! It’s dangerous to move them, and destroying them near Richmond would add needed jobs to the area. If the budget is so constrained, maybe there’s a way to privatize.

After what happened in Graniteville, does the government really want to risk moving these weapons?

Norwegians [and liberal Americans] Confused [and delighted] by Bush Salute

Bush, a former Texas governor, was simply greeting the Texas Longhorn marching band as it passed during a Washington D.C. parade in the president’s honor, explained Verdens Gang, Norway’s largest newspaper.

Just the same, the Internet was abuzz Thursday with speculation about what the Bushes really mean by the sign.

Yes, it was. I guess. I only saw BoingBoing’s breathless “OMG Bush <3 Satan” post updated three or four times, after all. (Someone was so excited at the prospect that he even made T-shirts.)

Intelligence in men and women is a gray and white matter: Men and women use different brain areas to achieve similar IQ results, UCI study finds

I remember, back when I was in high school, having a furious debate with Michael Jennings via email over the differences between men and women–I was arguing that they were different yet equal overall, and he was arguing that “separate is inherently unequal”, citing Brown v. Board. I did not consider a comparison of the sexes to be analogous to a comparison of races, especially since the “separate” mentioned in this case refers to the quality of education, not to the actual people involved. To wit: “We conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” I also was unimpressed with the notion of allowing court cases to dictate one’s personal ethics. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very eloquent back then, so I think I ultimately lost that debate.

After all these years, though, it looks like I get the last laugh!

Ahahaha!

;P

(Side note: I don’t know what Michael would say about that debate now. This was, like, nine years ago, or something. Hell, I could have even misinterpreted what he was trying to say…but the debate/argument had a profound effect on my opinions, so I cite it as I remember it.)

It’s so true…

…but unfortunately it’s not on the front page. You have to go to the Games section. I guess everyone who plays games will go there, so it’s not a big deal, but it still would have been cool to see it right there on the home page (not to mention receive it in my RSS feeds).

Here’s the article: NCSoft to Roll Out Hackable Anti-Hack Software

(That Ryu Connor guy sure is sexy…)

O_O

Way too many cool things happened…Naruto vs. Sasuke, Sakura finally on the road to becoming useful (yeesh), and then Kakashi’s backstory…when it said “Uchiha Obito” I gasped aloud, “It’s his eye!!”

Damn!

I am a total Narutard. And I’m unrepentant!

Here’s a somewhat poorly-written (maybe I just don’t like his style) article on the subject, and here is the BUGTRAQ report on the vulnerability.

You may recognize some names in those pieces. I know nuhzing! ;>

Hundreds of giant squid are washing up on Orange County beaches […] The bug-eyed sea creatures, believed to be Humboldt squid, normally reside in deep water and only come to the surface at night. Why approximately 500 of them began washing up on the sands of Laguna Beach and Newport Beach on Tuesday isn’t clear.

It’s funny that no one even speculates that the tsunamis might have caused this. I mean, sure, the world is huge, but so were the effects of those earthquakes. Just looking at an overhead view of where the earthquake took place, one might expect that the islands to the east blocked all the waves. But what if the islands themselves shook (which I imagine happened), causing further undersea turbulence beyond the main affected area? The squid could have been startled out of their deep sea habitat and then washed along with lesser waves.

Just a thought; I’m no seismologist/geologist/whatever.

(Speaking of the tsunamis…the estimated death toll–I am really starting to despise that term–has topped 226,000 people, while the true number of deaths may never be known.)

I am amazed at the beauty and intricacy of these snow crystals, archived by the Buffalo Museum of Science. Here’s the homepage of the project, which seeks to preserve the wonderful work of Wilson A. Bentley. (Via BoingBoing.)

I don’t know why it surprises me so much to see that snowflakes actually look how we’re taught they look in school. I guess I always thought of paper snowflakes as flights of fancy that had little basis in reality. But it turns out that they really do; even the ones I made up from scratch are similar to these pictures. Astonishing, and beautiful.

“All I wanted was a twin brother! And now…the shame…the horror…the smell…”

Someone posted, parenthetically, the following:

I probably learned it when I was teaching myself basic nuclear physics in grade school. Yeah, I’m a geek. ^_^;

He should have said, “Yeah, I’m an insufferable braggart.”

The url is scary (“school_intruder”), but the story is actually pretty funny (sad, yes, but funny, damn it).

A homeless man with nowhere else to go says he went back to his old high school and posed as a student for three weeks, sitting in on classes, showering in the locker room and sleeping in the theater.

“Anywhere I could hide,” Francisco Serrano said from jail Wednesday after he was arrested twice at Apple Valley High.

The four people arrested in last night’s meth lab bust have been charged with crimes.

Jaywalking, I hope. It’s a serious offense!

(Check out the picture in the article…looks like Anakin’s up to his old tricks!)