Jerks and Tropical Fish

What a jerk

O'Donnell is as ignorant as a box of hammers and shouldn't be anywhere near a national political office, but this guy is still a douchewad in the extreme.

I have to agree with the following comment:

I think the real story here is an adult dude in a boy scout uniform unable to perform unless a vagina looks like that of an 11 year old.

Speaking of 11-year-olds, your daily kawaii:




Amazing~ See also:
Wink
Vocaloid + Touhou I love how they programmed the entire original dance

I tried to upload cat pictures but the internet isn't cooperating

Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Illustrated Encyclopedia

Four books on the right from the Goodwill. I sold a bunch of books and cd's I'd had for a good amount of money and used part of it for the dinosaur books on the left. The Greg Paul one was just published within the last month, got it half off. And I was just recently getting depressed because I couldn't afford to buy it.

Dixon's "Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia..." is an update of a book I've had for a while, that was published in 2006 and mainly features dinosaurs with some pterosaurs and marine reptiles thrown in. For that reason I never thought much about this book when I saw it, but it's been expanded pretty greatly. (I have yet to go through more carefully and see what dinosaurs were added, though.) There are no 3D illustrations, which is awesome.

Random diapsids!

Gorgonopsids!

Litopterns!

For a general-interest level book it's very worth getting.


I particularly liked this section in the Field Guide about biology and anatomy:

Daily cute

More books tomorrow.

More Fun With Creationism

,

For those previously unacquainted, this is how young-earth creationists/Biblical literalists calculate the age of the earth.

****ing flamingos, how do they work?!


Disappointed... I have yet to see any creationist nonsense that includes extinct mammals on the ark, like Moropus or Elasmotherium or Pakicetus.


Some interesting information in the book, such as the idea that there was no rain before the Deluge-- something about mist coming out of the earth.

The rivers were fed by artesian wells, plant life was lush and abundant, and there was probably just one large cotinent instead of several. The mountains were most likely rolling hills compared to wat we see now. It would have taken far less water to cover the highest mountains at the time of the Flood than it would today.

...

The layers of the Grand Canyon are all flat, one one on top of the other. There is no evidence of erosion.

Um... no. (the squiggly lines indicate erosion and/or gaps in time.)

The book also uses the example of stratification in fast-cooling lava flows as proof that any sort of geological strata could have been formed really quickly. Geology fail again, all rock is not equal and forms under vastly different conditions and time intervals.. I should have posted a picture of their geology diagram fail, it claims that the flood created all the mountain ranges. (read more about the creationist geology-think here, and scientific stratigraphy here)

Later, evidence for a young earth based on their ideas about population:

But suppose man has been around for one million years, as evolutionists teach. If the present growth rates are typical, there should be about 10⁸⁶⁰⁰ people alive today!

???

The famous photograph of the Japanese Zuiyo Maru 'sea monster' is used as evidence for the post-Deluge survival of dinosaurs. (This carcass has been thought to have been a basking shark for quite a while now

.On dinosaur diversity: "The fossil record shows that there were several kinds of dinosaurs and often varieties within the kinds." There's a reason for this sort of phrasing; the 'kinds' are called 'baramins' in creationist terminology and the book takes great pains to emphasize the word 'kind' with repeated italics.

Really, you could go on forever about it.

But hey, the artist is competent at least.

Found: One Calico Kitten

I'll paste what I wrote elsewhere:

Iwas getting read to go for a walk, and this kitten runs up and nyaaa's at me, immediately started rubbing on me. Actually I saw this kitty a couple days ago sleeping on the balcony in front of some other apartment, noted that she was beautiful and assumed she was their cat. But when I petted her I saw she was emaciated-looking, her stomach is so hollow and she's thin. You can feel the individual bones of her spine. I went to get some food to see, and she started wolfing it down like its the last food on earth. I gave her a small dish of water and she started gulping it like a fish.

Got a box with a towel in it, and luckily had a plastic tray I can use for a small litterbox. she immediately jumped in and started using it. O___o I wonder if she's someones kitten who got lost, maybe i could like put up an ad or something. Immediately after I dosed her with flea killer and gave her a belly rub, she conked out into a deep sleep in her bed. That's probably the first good meal and safe bed she's had for at least a few days, considering how skinny she is.

Naturally my cats are suspicious, and watching her, but luckily they aren't aggressive aside from a little growling and have never attacked other cats (they pretty much run away.) Would be easier if I could keep this one inside, but she could have fleas and probably isn't immunized either.

So... bothersome.


___

I'll have two Touhou vids today.
TAMusic violin/piano remix of "Reach For the Moon, Immortal Smoke"



Guy whose NicoNico Douga Name I can't Remember, Who Makes These Indescribable Things: A Thing I Can't Adequately Describe


I'll leave you to ponder that one...

And now for something completely different

Well well, this needed its own post, for sanitation purposes. You'll notice in the photo of the book haul, the skinny red book Jokes for the John. (c) 1961 Kanrom Inc, no author is credited.

Excerpted from the preface:

IT'S A GAS MAN!!! (sic) For the prennially pooped, we offer you hormones in print. Someone has pulled our chain again, so relax, loosen your tie and get ready to howl around like a hopped-up Tomcat.

Here, for your idle reading enjoyment is a new volume of lusty, gusty,and busty humor, that's been responsible for more blushes than an open zipper at an old maid's picnic.

This is the book that put the smoke into the clubcars.
This is the book that Lolita is afraid to bring home to father.
This is the book that everyone out of their skulls are consulting their psychiatrists about.

(formatting original)

To be honest, most of the cartoons are tired jokes about boring marriages/cheating on your wife, lame things that don't make a lot of sense nor have a lot to do with sex (false advertising!) or just innocuously 'naughty' boredom.

However, there are exceptions which I've taken the time to scan, just for you. Please look beyond the cut, as content may be borderline questionable or even offensive depending on your sensitivity level...

Ufufufu-- atarashi hon wa sugoi deshou

Epic haul; kittie.



Peterson First Field Guide, Dinosaurs' 1990.
Very small slim book, but IMO it's pretty cute and the illustrations are nice in their own way.






How and Why Book of Prehistoric Mammals
Score, I was eyeing this one and dinosaurs version. Nothing really special, but classic cos I remember these from my childhood. I rented every dinosaur/paleo related book from the public library many, many times. (c) 1962, 1981 printing O_O Man, they really got the mileage out of these old things.





Audobon Society- Prehistoric Life 1965.
I had a few of these books when I was younger, they either came from my grandparents' house or my mom got them at some estate sale. They originally, I gather, came with some sort of case, and were an educational program with different nature and science topics. Inset pictures were actually stamps that you glued in. Just happens to be luck I found the paleo one. Meh, lots of Knight and Zallinger and ripoffs thereof, but it's good times nonetheless.





Around the World Library- Attack and Defense: Antlers and Horns

"Illustrations by Hubert Meeze, Adapted by ellen M. Dolan, from the text by Edgard Kesteloot. McGraw-Hill, 1967. Really interesting illustration style. Sample below...




Bonus image from the large book, for you-know-who-you-are, cassowary fetishist. I'll use a separate post for the other pics of this, because they are excessively large and include full fold-outs.



*Thank you, this has been the latest post from a future star of "Hoarders" when I am swallowed by my vintage book collection.

Eocornus

preliminary sketch only

Eocornus, the "Dawn Horn"

It's not always possible, but I wanted to try to draw a creature every day, or every other day or so. This is modeled after Hyracotherium (referenced fossil photos, skeletal drawings and various reconstructions as usual)


Guess what, first page of Google search for "Hyracotherium" turns up lies and stupidity. You may also want to try Googling "Tiktaalik": more lying lies and lies all on page 1 of the search.

It scares me, because there are people ignorant enough to think if it's on teh Google, it must be true.

_____

(Please let me repay you!!) Guess who's coming to dinner...Carnegie Giganotosaurus and Papo Allosaurus,

(Also Included: Teh Rei)

Paleo News: Concavenator & Balaur + Bonus FAIL

(AP image by Raul Martin)

Concavenator corcavatus, hump-backed theropod
The fossil skeleton of Corcovenator is well preserved. And in addition to the small bumps that may have once hosted quills, it has a more showy claim to fame: its eleventh and twelfth vertebrae jut about twice as far from the animal's body as the rest. Unlike dinosaurs such as Spinosaurus, which had continuous fins or sails on their backs, Corcovenator seems to have had more of a short crest.

I can't figure out why they keep calling it a 'hump' when it seems to be more of an ornamental crest... well, whatever. Possibly even more notable than the crest, considering that it is not a dromaeosaur but related to 'carnosaurs' (not a very scientific term, but it works for our purposes) like Allosaurus, is the fact that it may have had feathers on its arms.

Holotype at nature.com
It's beautiful

Oh hi, super-quick feathered-Concavenator art!

___

From last week: Balaur bondoc, relative of Velociraptor. Advertised as having 'double' sickle-claws, I've read evidence that the first digit may not have been used in the same fashion as the famous rapier-bearing second toe (in most other dinosaurs of this type, digit 1 has been reduced to a hallux claw and no longer supported the animal's weight.) Unfortunately, the missing skull is a problem when it comes to accurately classifying it just yet.

Theropoda
If you're interested, there is MUCH more speculation about Balaur on Andrea Cau's blog, in multiple posts.

Note: the name Balaur comes from a Romanian mythological creature similar to a dragon. Now you've learned something about paleontology, theropod phylogeny specifically, AND Romanian folktales.

_____

While looking up articles on Concavenator, I found this hilariously sad state of affairs on the Huffington Post site


What does any of this mean? Why do I need to know it? And what on earth is it doing on the same page as actual science? Oh Morrissey, how the mighty have fallen... T_T

Growth Is Not Sustainable
Go here, instead of reading about Paris Hilton's privates. And start complaining really loudly if you find a good way. I haven't found one yet, I think I need help.

Humanity: failing at life since the advent of organized religion!

Moropus (sp)

Seventeen Skeletons of Moropus; Probable Habits of this Animal
Paleobiology Database
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moropus