S-weeds: Eva Ekeblad, from Göteborg Sweden, has been going out each day and finding a weed in the vicinity of her home, identifying it, and scanning it in. “Persistent walking with eyes to the ground.”

Junkscience.com focuses on the “faulty scientific data and analysis used to further a special agenda. The junk science ‘mob’
includes:

The MEDIA may use junk science for sensational headlines and programming. Some members of the media
use junk science to advance their and their employers’ social and political agendas.

PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS may use junk science to bamboozle juries into awarding huge verdicts. Large
verdicts may then be used to extort even greater sums from deep-pocket businesses that may be fearful of
future jury verdicts.

SOCIAL ACTIVISTS, such as the “food police,” environmental extremists, and gun-control advocates, may use
junk science to achieve social and political change.

GOVERNMENT REGULATORS may use junk science to expand their authority and to increase their budgets.

BUSINESSES may use junk science to bad-mouth competitors’ products or to make bogus claims about their
own products.

POLITICIANS may use junk science to curry favor with special interest groups or to be “politically correct.”

INDIVIDUAL SCIENTISTS may use junk science to achieve fame and fortune.

INDIVIDUALS who are ill (real or imagined) may use junk science to blame others for causing their illness.”

Update: Dan Hartung, in a comment on this post, observes that it is “run by a Cato Institute libertarian.” Certainly don’t want to be inadvertently furthering their special agenda, but for a thinking person a halftruth is still usable…

Bembo’s Zoo is a delightful and beautiful abecedary children’s book by Robert deVicq de Cumptich that will appeal to typographically inclined grown-ups too. The website should be viewed with a child on your lap, especially if you have Flash installed.

“In this first book for children, de Cumptich… has created an abecedary of animals made entirely from Bembo letterforms and punctuation marks — nothing else. And you know, the conceit works.” — New York Times

The exodus from Blogger has begun. Today, I’ve noticed a number of people migrating to greymatter. I downloaded it last week but, alas, my website host doesn’t allow me to run custom Perl scripts without a costly upgrade in my service. Here‘s the weblog of Noah Grey, the author of greymatter.

International Necronautical Society: “…death is a type of space, which we intend to map, enter, colonise and,
eventually, inhabit.”

Reprinted in its entirety, the neologism of the day from Looka!: The word “embushen“,
contributed to the language by a fellow named Steve on
soc.motss, who exhorts us to “please make a point to use this
word as often as is appropriate in your daily conversations.”

Main Entry: em.bush.en

Pronunciation: im-‘bush-&n

Function: verb

Etymology: As derived from George W. Bush

Date: January 19, 2001

1 : to imbue with an attribute of stupidity, ineptitude
and incompetence

It Takes Training and Genes to Make a Mean Dog Mean. [The icing on the cake of this article is in bold below]:

About four million to five million people are bitten
each year by the nation’s 55 million to 59 million dogs,
according to statistics compiled by the Humane Society of
the United States and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, which consider dog bites epidemic.

The reason for the bites vary. Some are clearly accidental,
or the dog is provoked, while others result from various
forms of abnormal aggression in the dog.

Perhaps more significant, a statistical analysis by researchers
at the Humane Society, the C.D.C. and the American Medical
Veterinary Association and published in the Sept. 15 issue of
The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
shows that between 1977 and 1998, pit bulls and Rottweilers
accounted for more than half of the 238 fatal attacks on
humans.

That same study shows that since 1975 dogs representing
more than 30 breeds have engaged in such attacks. Because
so many types of dog can be involved in fatal attacks,
including, in the past year, a Pomeranian and Lhasa apso,
experts in dog behavior have consistently argued that
outlawing specific breeds fails to address the greater
problem of all dogs that pose a threat to people and other
animals.

New York Times

What, Geeks at M.I.T.? Not With This Class The university offers an annual one-day “charm school” to counter nerdy image of its students. New York Times

Wanted: Employee Willing to Snooze on the Job

Government Revises HIV Treatment Guidelines. The good news is that AIDS experts are retreating from the “hit hard, hit early” dictum that has governed AIDS treatment in recent years. This means that the HIV(+) patient can wait longer before starting on the rigorous and burdensome multidrug regimen; findings suggest the immune system can hang on for longer than had been believed. The bad news is that this is an admission that the protease inhibitors are not a cure and, once someone starts taking them, they’re likely going to be on them for life. So putting off initiating treatment is a way of reducing attendant side effects, which include cardiovascular liabilities.

Use your Bush-era tax cut to buy a boat: Polar Ice Sheet Shows Shrinkage. “Scientists have worried for decades that
the Antarctic ice sheet was shrinking, threatening a global rise
in sea level. Now, satellite studies show that about 7.5 cubic
miles of ice have eroded from a key area in just eight years.”