They got money from the National Fisheries Institute for it. Some of the group's members had no idea this was coming, and do NOT agree with the conclusions.

NPR had good coverage of this last night: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15005507

Did the microbe die closer to the tree?

From the point of view of the other microbes, yes. Being a microbe myself, I'm ok with that.

After the driver almost ran me over in the cross walk. Then, to complete the tableaux, he screeched to a halt in the middle of a four-lane road, spinning his car into the other lanes in the process, got out, and very carefully said "Fuck you."

I pointed at the cross walk sign and told him I had his plates. I didn't--the spinning had actually obscured them from view--but his demeanor changed and he left in a hurry.

I fondly imagine him wrapped around a tree somewhere. Given his driving, really, it's not so much imagination as wondering when it happened.

Having a process that ensures that every rule is consistently enforced and equally applied is a great help when dealing with large, impersonal bureaucracies--they prevent the personal vagaries of the bureaucrats from causing harm. When we're talking about small mom-and-pop volunteer groups, though, all a "process" does is ENFORCE the personal vagaries of the people who run the place.

What the shelter boss effectively did in the Ellen case was say "I can't be flexible about the rules, even though this is clearly a case for it, and despite the fact that I made them up and I'm their only enforcer." This only adds to the perception that they are more interested their little fiefdom than actual animal welfare.

Um, they pretty much define arbitrary. Sorry, but rules that you make up because you like them, even if you're well intentioned, even if they work sometime, are still arbitrary.

If it weren't for hybrids we'd have plug-in electrics and higher CAFE standards?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I rather suspect that if it weren't for hybrids, we'd have EXACTLY the same situation, just without hybrids. Call me cynical.

BTW, try finding a place to fill up that natural gas-burning model if it's not part of a fleet. I researched doing a conversion job on a old Mercedes, and somehow the notion of driving half-an-hour to fill up my extremely efficient vehicle didn't sit well.

It's going to need real, regular editing. You know, telling the writer to go back and try again, as opposed to accepting it like the bleh blog entry it so resembles. The amateurish mistakes, the lack of substance--this is not a promising start for something you've promised we'll see again.

I'm a writer. I'm not saying my stuff is Pulitzer-ready--but I've also taught writing, and I can tell when something was rushed and not thought out. Or even thought about. I hope Ms. Clarren can do better, and I REALLY hope Salon can.

And then as now I am amused by the number of Salon readers (or at least people writing letters as directed by the people that run their lives, it's hard to distinguish sometimes) who equate nudity with sexuality. It's a choice. It's not everybody's choice, even in the U.S., no matter how YOU were raised to think. Any connections you make are yours, not the letter writer's, not society's. I'm part of society too, and you don't get to speak for me, thank you very much.

As far as the associated belief that getting comfortable with nudity will lead to dressing and acting in a slutty fashion--no. Demystifying the body means that suddenly there isn't an perceived difference between clothes that reveal and clothes that don't. Without that perceived difference, the transgressive appeal of the revealing clothes vanish.

All that said, yes, the point comes when a kid will get uncomfortable with casual household nudity, and that's when the boundaries (which were always there, whether you think so or not) shift. That's fine, it's not an issue, you move along and adapt.

Throughout the majority of history, across all geographies, the vast bulk of humanity has lived in one room structures.

And reproduced busily.

With their kids in the room, one suspects. Whether they were sound sleepers or not.

This includes most of our sainted pioneer forebearers in the US, by the way.

Not saying it's good, bad or indifferent--but much of what we think of as privacy in the US today is a reflection solely of relative affluence. When you can afford more than one room, suddenly you have a need to devote rooms to private behavior.

Why is it that those who fly airplanes do not need to be checked as carefully as passengers? What makes them less nefarious than we in steerage? And please do not respond with, "Well, we are the first to hit the mountain." The issue here is larger than a flip response

Pilots are allowed to carry HANDGUNS on US flights. They sit in a locked compartment with an armored door now. If a pilot wants a plane to crash, here's the foolproof steps:

1) Shoot the copilot

2) Make sure the door is locked

3) Ram plane into ground/building/ocean/amusement park

So no, it really makes no sense for someone who is going to be a position to kill you to be checked for a bomb. If the pilot wants you dead, you're dead.

Happy landings!