My efforts to undermine the cat hegemony with much more interesting creatures with spines, slime, and fangs has not made much headway. I must change my tactics. Therefore, taking a cue from some of the comments here, I am deploying the latest weapon in the war on felinity: cuteness. You will not be able to resist.
Quick summary: the event is sparsely attended, full of nuts, everyone who isn’t there is a communist, and it ends on a note of desperation. A right-wing think tank seems to be dying. Hooray!
There are more images, and a poll to determine which one will grace the cover of Development. Go vote!
At last! Here is the much delayed Carnival of Evolution 48!
I must begin by apologizing for my tardiness, especially since John Wilkins managed to post the last one on time. I was traveling in the 2½ weeks preceding the deadline for CoE, and the combination of spotty internet access, extreme jetlag (British Columbia to Germany to Iceland, where the sun hovered around the horizon all night long, just messed me up), and of course, the incredible distractions of exotic foreign lands, meant that I was disgracefully dilatory in putting it all together.
To reward your patience (or punish you all for allowing me to do this carnival), I thought I’d sprinkle the listing with some of my travel photos. Iceland is a lovely place; it’s also a strange place to consider evolution, in a land that’s only about 60 million years old and that is lacking in large animals (other than humans and their livestock), and mainly seems to be a place for rocks, lichens, mosses, fish, and small insects, as well as the busy bacteria…so in a sense it’s a place where we get back to the roots of evolution. Anyway, I’m just splattering the text with my photos; ignore them or get motivated to visit this gorgeous place.
On to the linkfest!
This is an amendment to a law, and sure sounds weird.
(b) No county, municipality, or other local public body shall adopt any rule, ordinance, policy, or planning guideline addressing sea-level rise, unless it is a coastal-area county or is located within a coastal-area county.
(c) No rule, ordinance, policy, or planning guideline that defines the rate of sea-level rise shall be adopted except as provided by this section.
(d) The General Assembly does not intend to mandate the development of sea-level rise policy or rates of sea-level rise. If, however, the Coastal Resources Commission decides to develop rates of sea-level rise, the Commission may do so, but only by instructing the Division of Coastal Management to calculate the rates.
(e) The Division of Coastal Management shall be the only State agency authorized to develop rates of sea-level rise and shall do so only at the request of the Commission. These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise. Rates of sea-level rise shall not be one rate for the entire coast but, rather, the Division shall consider separately oceanfront and estuarine shorelines. For oceanfront shorelines, the Division shall use no fewer than the four regions defined in the April 2011 report entitled “North Carolina Beach and Inlet Management Plan” published by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The oceanfront regions are: Region 1 (Brunswick County), Region 2 (New Hanover, Pender, and Onslow Counties and a portion of Carteret County), Region 3 (a portion of Carteret County and Hyde County), and Region 4 (Dare and Currituck Counties). For estuarine shorelines, the Division shall consider no fewer than two separate regions defined as those north of Cape Lookout and those south of Cape Lookout.
(f) Any State agency, board, commission, institution, or other public entity thereof and any county, municipality, or other local public body that develops a policy addressing sea-level rise that includes a rate of sea-level rise shall use only the rates of sea-level rise developed by the Division of Coastal Management as approved by the Commission. If the Commission has not approved a sea-level rise rate, then the sea-level rise policy shall not use a rate of sea-level rise.
Why are they trying to define in a law precisely how you are allowed to measure a physical quantity, and why are they trying to decree that only linear rates are permissible? It sounds like they are trying to legislate reality.
But maybe some Carolinians in the know can explain the logic of their legislature.
In this video, I discover that baby puffins are called “pufflings”…which I find totally adorable.
(via Iceland Islande)
