Thursday, June 06, 2013

Stuff around the net

The White Path Blog and Austin Bay discuss the riots in Turkey.
For later reading.

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Professor Bob podcasts include a series on William Marshall, the world's best knight....and Napoleon's retreat from Moscow

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Last week's tornado in ElReno was the largest (widest) ever recorded...
A mobile radar unit measured the storm at 2.6 miles across, according to the National Weather Service, making it wider than the previous record holder, a 2.5-mile twister that swept across Nebraska in 2004.


I'm not sure it was wider than the Tri State Tornado of 1925...
The tornado was often accompanied by extreme downburst winds throughout the entirety of its course; the tornado and accompanying downburst increased the width of damage from an average of 0.75 miles (1.21 km) (though at times over 1 mile (1.6 km) wide) to an area 3 miles (4.8 km) wide at times.

the problem with wide tornadoes is that they don't look like funnels but only like storms, so folks before radar didn't always know to take shelter.

and factoid of the day: The two deadliest tornadoes on record occurred in Bangladesh....

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FLP book podcast today is aboutthe discovery of the Philadelphia Chromosone.

which is linked to a rare form of leukemia.

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You're going to need a bigger boat story of the day: 1300 pound shark caught off the California coast.

it's the largest mako shark caught (not largest shark)...the largest white shark was caught off of Australia and was 2600 pounds.....

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Various headlines about Michelle Obama refusing to be cowered by a heckler.

Sorry, with this I'm with Mrs. Obama. When someone gives a speech, they should not be interrupted by activists, be they upper class white feminist who thinks she is queen or tea party protester.

Questions come at the end of the speech, and requests should be made politely at question time or at another venue.

For the clueless who think they are king and have the right to stop another from talking, try listening to Robert's Rules of Order, now at Librivox for your listening pleasure.

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A story about kids thrown off a flight for refusing to turn off their cellphones also mentions that they wouldn't sit down and fasten their seatbelts.

In this one, I'm with the airlines.
and if they weren't fastened in and gotten injured, presumably their parents would have sued to airlines for damages...

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StrategyPage discusses the new puritanism (i.e. the elites naive political correctness) and the military with their usual sarcasm:

Attempts to outlaw extramarital sex, combined with the growing number of women in uniform, have created a lot of unanticipated (but not unexpected) problems. The entire social engineering effort has had a deleterious impact on leadership and lot of good people are simply leaving because of the “nanny state” attitudes. Many commanders believe the ancient saying “if they can’t fornicate they can’t fight.” But modern sensibilities believe men can be better than that. Actually, that is not a new attitude, but in the past no one has made it work when it comes to soldiers and sex. This is becoming one of those, “be careful what you ask for, you might get it” situations.
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Can you say Mass in outer space?

the main problem is similar to that of saying mass on a rolling ship: Spilling the wine.Maybe a sippy cup would work....
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the "calling Art Bell" item of the day (via Lucianne):


So why is radar showing a mysterious blob above Redstone Arsenal? No one seems to know

chaff from a local airbase? UFO's?

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and the photo of the day (from Atlas Obscura):

The Giant pink slugs of Mt Kaputar.

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