NGM Photos

I normally dislike flower photography, but this just has to be seen!

More Starlings

Starlings over Somerset marsh from Steve Parry on Vimeo.

Starlings from doncrowley on Vimeo.

Starlings 7 from Steve Parry on Vimeo.

Starlings 5 from Steve Parry on Vimeo.

European Starling from Eldon Zigarlick on Vimeo.

Non-mating Plumage:

Europian Starling from Ed Matuod on Vimeo.

Umberto Eco's Books

Eco: I'm afraid that, by now, it might actually be 50,000 books. When my secretary wanted to catalogue them, I asked her not to. My interests change constantly, and so does my library. By the way, if you constantly change your interests, your library will constantly be saying something different about you. Besides, even without a catalogue, I'm forced to remember my books. I have a hallway for literature that's 70 meters long. I walk through it several times a day, and I feel good when I do.

--From interview with Umberto Eco, that lucky bastard

The Birds and the Bees

Andrew Zuckerman's fantastic site with content from his Bird Book Amazing photos with bird calls also.

We also have Telling the Bees, a super blog about everything bee-related.

My new favorite bird.

When I was young, my sister voiced her concern over the validity of Plato's view of women in the Republic. She proposed that the entirety of Plato's philosophy is cast into doubt if he be sexist. The same issue arises again. Discuss.

Video: Hitchens + Fry + Archbishop John Onaiyekan + Ann Widdecombe, M.P.

It's as if someone looked up "strawman" in the dictionary and handpicked the two most incompetent defenders of the Catholic faith possible. Christopher Hitchens was a greasy, smarmy, ignorant fool (as usual) and Stephen Fry was well-spoken and convincing.

New Deal

So instead of filling Facebook with postings, I will now consolidate all my writings and links here...for better or for worse.

We begin with the next post, which hopefully will be either about neo-atheism or birds.