and Yertle? or rather, Mac?

Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” begins like this:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever”, said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”

Ahabs Vessel found.

Here’s one for Ishmael.

http://www.thirdage.com/news/whaling-shipwreck-captain-ahab’s-sunken-ship-found_

For those whodon’t know the story, our oldest (Ishmael, 24) is named after a Hawaii-built, Curt Ashford schooner named Ishmael, after the Moby Dick lead character.

Interesting wee article. Our Ish works on a super-yacht these days, and will be in Hawaii later in the year – looks like he has a museum visit coming up!

I’ve always had a lot of time for the writings of Jared Diamond

http://dieoff.org/page145.htm

It’s part of ‘Collapse’, but a good wee essay if you haven’t been there.

Raymond Learsky – who funds him? Always the question.

http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2011/02/huffpo_doing_its_usual_job_on.php

Sharon Astyk gets stuck in – rightly. (or is that a political oxymoron – a poxymoron?)

Good on her, and my question is in the heading. Just another Roger Kerr, bleating the mantra, funded by the usual types, is my opinion.