Around the blogs

There's a fine crop of good articles at various blogs this week that I think you'll enjoy.

First, the Feral Irishman (whose blog is not always safe for work, I'm afraid) has a lovely (?) collection of photographs of septic tank pump trucks, with all sorts of interesting (?) slogans painted on them. Here's just one example.




There are more at the link. Good for a laugh. Perhaps some of them could serve as politicians' campaign vehicles this year?

The Adaptive Curmudgeon lets fly at a bright young thing who complains about being "over-qualified" for a barista position. The entitlement mentality meets its nemesis in the form of age, experience and lack of sympathy. Excellent!

I'm sure many readers are aware of the recent hacking of Stratfor's Internet servers. Blogger Angus Batey has published three articles about what this has revealed, and questions it's raised. All provide useful and informative reading. Recommended.

"Orac", who blogs at Respectful Insolence, part of Scienceblogs.com, describes himself as "a (not so) humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will". Despite his self-deprecating description, he's written a truly excellent fisking of the con artist behind the "MMR-vaccine-causes-autism" myth that's had such a devastating effect on child health care around the world. It's a superb article, one that should be required reading for all journalists, IMHO, as it demonstrates very clearly just how they were hoodwinked by a medical charlatan. Also very useful for parents, who may come into contact with other parents who've bought into this nonsensical myth, thereby putting at risk all other kids with whom their own children come into contact. Recommended.

Speaking of journalists, Ed Driscoll has an excellent article on "How the sausage gets made" - in other words, how journalists and the media actively orchestrate news, rather than merely reporting it. Sometimes they go so far as to make it up out of whole cloth - not that any of us would want to believe such evil of such fine, upstanding paragons of objectivity as journalists, right? Riiight . . .

The good people at Dark Roasted Blend have published a wonderful article titled "The Most Incredible Space Imagery". Here's one of their pictures to whet your appetite, reduced in size to fit this blog. It shows the Eta Carinae star system and the Homunculus Nebula which surrounds it.




Spectacular, isn't it? There are many more (and larger) images at the link.

CenTexTim, writing at Bergheim Follies, has an excellent article in two parts dealing with the public education system in the USA. His analysis is penetrating and thorough, and he ends with a call to action. Recommended reading.

And finally this week, an older post from Dr. Whitecoat reminds us of a very relevant story about "choosing our rocks". It's one I'd heard several times before, but not recently, and I was glad to be reminded of it. We could all do with that from time to time!

That's our collection of other blog posts for this week. More to come!

Peter