another new icon

hopefully i won't have to use it often, but its a new one for "stress"...

best quotes on Pluto's status yet!

IAU Demotes Pluto to 'Dwarf Planet' Status:

Not since Brontosaurus was renamed to Apatosaurus have I been this upset. -- /. user Average_Joe_Sixpack

Another commented that given the crappy state of science education in America, combined with all the headlines this has gotten, that probably more people today know that Pluto isn't a planet than actually knew it was one beforehand.

Classical music lovers are already weighing in with this lively comment: Gustav Holst was Right!  Bumper stickers should be forthcoming...

I may have to get a cafepress account after all...

Kemp Update: Plagiarism?

The Loom : Jack Kemp and Phyllis Schlafly--One Mind, or One Ghost Writer?:

Cut-and-paste creationism?

Yesterday I pointed readers to a column attacking evolution by Jack Kemp on the web site Town Hall. Today a sharp-eyed commenter pointed out that it is almost entirely identical to a column from Phyllis Schlafly from August 16 on the Eagle Forum. I don't know if these pages are going to be pulled down or otherwise altered if word gets out, so here's a screengrab of Kemp and of Schlafly. It looks pretty much word for word identical to me. You be the judge...

The images go to screenshots of Kemp's column I linked to from the 21st, and Schlafly's possible original from the 16th (which now it seems may have been published as early as August 6th).

update - the Town Hall editors are the ones that suck ;-). It was supposed to be labeled a "guest columnist" by Shlafly as Kemp was on Vacation, but it went in wrong and the editor didn't catch it.