Friday, April 04, 2003

US To UN: Butt Out (Or Else) METAFILTER: Friday Doublethink Fun. "An extraordinary communication from the United States to UN representatives around the world has been leaked to Greenpeace. In it, the U.S. warns that the simple act of support for a General Assembly meeting to discuss the war will be considered 'unhelpful and directed against the U.S.'" But really now, do we actually expect the U.S. (which claims it fights to "democratize" the Middle East) to welcome discourse and listen to what the majority of the world may think? From the article: The Uniting for Peace resolution, which the US is trying to head off, has a long history of stopping conflict. Ironically, it has most often been invoked by the US to overcome vetoes by the Soviet Union during the cold war. Under its terms, the full 191 member United Nations General Assembly can gather to make recommendations for restoring the peace when the Security Council is deadlocked or unable to take action. 7:35:20 PM    comment [] Art Alert: theSCREAMonline A shout out right here to Metafilter. How do they do it? So many good links, all the time. This post is lifted right out of me-fi as it is known. SCREAMonline is excellent. Scope out the beautiful DNA illustration! Reading Matter For The Weekend. At Last A Luxurious Arts And Belles Lettres Magazine You Can Afford: If you have zilch, it's yours: The SCREAMonline, full of goodies for your pleasure. There's Kenn Brown's 8.5 foot DNA illustration [Flash req.]; sober reflections on the fattening of America; the strangely beautiful and boring Mt.Wilson Tower cam; Michael Corrigan's Confessions of a Shanty Irishman; some classic quotations from Woody Allen and the likes; a selection of 18. 7:06:11 PM    comment [] I'm Sorry, Yes, This is Just Plain Sillyness Dancing Cretin (requires flash) Workout Cretin (requires flash) 6:48:49 PM    comment [] Giant Virus Discovery A massive virus has been found lurking in a British water cooling tower. The virus lives in single-celled organisms called amoebae and may be able to infect humans. The virus is so large that at first researchers mistook it for bacteria. Most viruses can only be seen with electron microscopes but this one was spotted through a high quality optical microscope. Mimivirus has at least 900 genes, an enormous figure for a virus. The team compared its genes to other viruses and found it is related to other large viruses, such as smallpox. The virus has been classified as the first of a completely new virus family, the Mimiviridae. Its identity needs to confirmed. (SOURCE: "Giant virus discovered in water tower", CBC News) Oh joy! Oh joy! Welcome to the future, giant future virus. All we need to do now is bombard it with radiation and turn it into the stuff of 1950's B movies: the virus that ate Hong Kong. Oh wait, isn't that SARS? 6:32:30 PM    comment [] Gigantic Pig Alert! One mighty big pig called Attitude could well be the biggest pig in England. Attitude is just over two metres (7 feet) long, over a metre (4 feet) tall and weighs about as much as a car. Check out the photo! I'm thinking: pork sausage stuffed with apple and cherries. 6:27:56 PM    comment [] Colossal Squid Update A colossal squid has been caught in Antarctic waters, the first example of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni retrieved virtually intact from the surface of the ocean. (SOURCE: "Super Squid Surfaces in Antarctic", BBC News) The new, immature colossal squid specimen has a mantle length of 2.5 metres. "It's only half to two-thirds grown, so it grows up to four metres in mantle length." said O'Shea. In comparison, the mantle of the giant squid is not known to be more than 2.25 metres. The colossal squid has one of the largest beaks known of any squid and also has unique swivelling hooks on the clubs at the ends of its tentacles. "This [colossal squid] animal, armed as it is with the hooks and the beak that it has, not only is colossal in size but is going to be a phenomenal predator and something you are not going to want to meet in the water." (Sci-Fi Today) 6:27:51 PM    comment []

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