YAP

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.  
Friedrich Nietzsche

The Novel Coronavirus

    Peter Kohama/MCT/Landov, via NPR

There is a novel SARS-like Coronavirus stalking the Middle East.  There have been 10 identified cases since Summer 2012, five of them fatal.  So-far, there have been 5 cases in Saudi Arabia, 2 in Jordan, 2 in the UK (one of them Qatari) and 1 in Germany, also someone from Qatar.  It seems to spread from person to person, but with difficulty.  Scientists think the virus comes from bats.  There is some concern that a mutation might occur that makes the virus much more communicable.  One to keep an eye on.  You know, if you don't have something more immediate to worry about and you are tired of worrying about global warming and asteroids.

One odd thing is that the news outlet covering the outbreak most often is... The Toronto Star.  Not normally known for hard hitting science reporting.  But they have featured every new development on their (web) front page.  Way to go Star!

My Pix

    Icy twigs in Humber Bay Park East, Toronto.

Squid Update!

    That's a fucking big squid.

Yap

I loved when Bush came out and said, "We are losing the war against drugs." You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it. 
Bill Hicks

My Pix

    Ice and snow at Humber Bay Park East, Toronto

Yap

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts. 
Napoleon Bonaparte

Staals Staap Pleeze

Apparently a real screenshot from last night's Leaf's Hurricanes game.

WW2

    Photo by Georgi Velma T-34, Stalingrad February 1943.  That's the Univermag on the left.

The battle of Stalingrad ended 70 years ago today.  70ish years before that was the Paris Commune.  70ish years before that, Nelson was famously disobedient at Copenhagen.

Explain That Science