Coincidence or devious plan, either way there is a wonderful diary entry by a contrbutor at DKos here, Tiny Treasures By A Small Pond: A Photo-essay. Takes a while to load on slower connections. Lots of herons, dragonflies and other pond denizens.
Studies on monkeys have revealed clues about the evolution of language
In the journal Biology Letters, researchers said that cotton-top tamarins are able to spot if the order of syllables in a word is “wrong”.
They familiarised the monkeys with two-syllable terms, and recorded their reaction to words that were not consistent with that syllable pattern.
The team says the work illustrates how many animals use patterns that have become intrinsic to human language.
And this provides evidence of the “non-lingual” origin of certain aspects of language, the group told BBC News.
This might also help explain the evolution of people who feel their linguistic skills are so extraordinary, they’re obligated to constantly correct other people’s grammar.
A California issue, but as water for domestic, agricultural and business uses increase, the kind of silliness many localities may find themselves having to deal with, The Budget-Busting Peripheral Canal and the Three Big Lies
Big Lie #1: No Dams for 30 Years
The false contention that no dams or water infrastructure have been built since the 1970’s was the “Big Lie #1″ used in the summer of 2007 by Schwarzenegger and the water barons to promote the peripheral canal. “Do you know that for 20 years, well, actually since the late ’70s, they have not built a dam?” Schwarzenegger stated at a town meeting in Bakersfield in July 14, 2007. “I mean, think about that. They have not built a dam.”
Actually, numerous dams, reservoirs and groundwater banks have been built in recent years, amounting to 6,200,00 acre-feet of water since 1990, according to data compiled by Spreck Rosecrans, a economic analyst for Environmental Defense. Some of the surface storage reservoirs constructed during this period include:
• San Justo Reservoir in Hollister
• Los Vaqueros Reservoir (100,000 acre feet of water) in Livermore
• The Metropolitan Water District’s massive Diamond Valley Reservoir (800,000 acre feet of water) in Southern CaliforniaHowever, virtually all of the economically and environmentally feasible dam sites in California have been already been used. The two dams that Schwarzenegger and his allies are proposing, Sites Dam in the Sacramento Valley and Temperance Dam on the San Joaquin River, are not considered to be economically feasible for the amount of additional water storage they would provide.
When thinking about water storage and redirection of that water, dams are not the only offenders. Canals built specially to redirect water to farms is common practice. The rivers from which this redirected water is siphoned do not magically create new water to replace the bleed off water.
To me best aspect of Google’s Chrome operating system is the potential to make computing and net access more affordable, Five Things Google’s Chrome OS Will Do for Your Netbook.
