Vatican sponsors conference on evolution, excludes creationists, plus two other articles on religion

1. The Vatican is sponsoring a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s "The Origin of Species." Proponents of creationism and intelligent design were not invited to speak because organizers "wanted to create a conference that was strictly scientific." Link. Via.

Here's the website for the Pontifical Council for Culture, which is organizing the conference to be held in Rome.

(Darwin's Gym t-shirt previously posted here.)


2. An adviser to the Chinese Central Committee contends that Christianity and the ethical system based upon its teachings are the reason that Western countries dominate the global economy. Link. Via.



3. Forget Sarah Palin, here's real censorship occurring right now. Via.

*Previously: The Unicorn Museum.

*Buy Dan Simmons' excellent sci-fi series about the Catholic Church.

Two excellent military articles

1. Allied forces decided to install a new turbine to generate energy for Afghanistan. The parts of the turbine had to be hauled over 100 miles. The "roads" were in poor shape, filled with obstacles that needed to be destroyed, holes that needed to be filled, and bridges that needed to be tested. The convoy consisted of 200 vehicles, including seven absolutely critical trailers. If any one of those trailers was destroyed, the mission would be a failure and would have to be reattempted in Spring. And every step of the way, Taliban forces would be doing their best to attack. Head over here to read about the mission known as "Eagle’s Summit."

2. French commandos rescue hostages from Somali pirates. Link.

*Read previously posted military news here.

*Buy Warning of War: A Novel of the North China Marines at Amazon.

Video: Hurricane Ike takes out Geraldo Rivera

In the middle of a live report on Hurricane Ike, a wave knocks Geraldo Rivera right off his feet:



Via.

*Previously: Reporter blown into shrub during Hurricane Ike report.

*Buy Weather For Dummies at Amazon.

Reporter's live report interrupted by pigs having sex

Stick with it until she notices what's going on behind her. Via.

*Previously: Guy in a bear suit interrupts Hurricane Ike broadcast.

*It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News is 65% off at Amazon.

Video: Guy in a bear suit interrupts live Hurricane Ike broadcast

Even funnier, here's a reporter blown off his feet by Hurricane Ike:



*Previously: Video of a kite surfer being tossed like a rag doll by Tropical Storm Fay.

*It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News is 65% off at Amazon.

Doping at the Paralympics and other news of the day

1. Ahmet Coskun, a German wheelchair basketball player, tested positive for a banned substance. He's the second athlete to test positive in the Paralympics this month. Coskun says he was just using the product to grow hair. Link. (Steroids do cause hair to grow...on your back, face and arms.) Via these sites.


2. Cattle and deer have a tendency to graze in a north-south direction that aligns with magnetic north. No guesses as to why in this article. Via.


3. Meet the Candiru, aka "toothpick fish." It's a tiny little thing native to the Amazon and hunts in a stunningly horrifying way. Seriously, you probably don't want to read this. Via. You can order a Candiru t-shirt here.

4. Here's footage of John McCain soon after his release from Vietnam. Age has not been kind to him:



Via.

*See previous news here.

*Buy Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures at Amazon.

Fabian Espindola earns publicity for Major League Soccer the hard way

Looks like the video at Youtube is down for the moment at least, but Fabian Espindola plays soccer for Real Salt Lake. He scored a goal and celebrated by doing a backflip. Two problems. He was offside and the goal didn't count. And he broke his leg. A bit more information here.

Here's some more recent news:

1. 100 goats hired to clear Downtown Los Angeles lot of weeds. Link.


2. Police officers, including a SWAT team, surround house for eight hours before realizing it's empty. Link.


3. FactCheck.org analyzes various claims about Sarah Palin. Link.


4. Slovakia beat Bulgaria 82-0 in a women's ice hockey qualifier for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The previous two games for Bulgaria weren't much better. Link.

*See previously posted news stories here.

*Buy Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source for 32% off at Amazon.

A positive story about Ryan Leaf and other news of the day

1. As show in the video above, Ryan Leaf's NFL career was a disaster of historic proportions. But he's finished his college degree, lives modestly and has saved most of the millions he made during his NFL days, is a coach on a Division II football team that's doing terrific, and also coaches the golf team, driving the team bus himself. You can read a bit more here. Via.


2. "Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain." Link. Via.


3. Newspapers are actually a status symbol...in developing countries. Via.


4. Best Buy's Geek Squad technicians make only $23,000 a year. Mac Geniuses make significantly more. Via.


5. Drilling for oil in Alaska won't lower the price of oil BUT it will raise $921 billion dollars. Via.

*See previous news links here.

*Buy The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution at Amazon.

Israel hacks into Lebanese voicemail and other news of the day

1. Israelis hacked into the Lebanese phone systems and sent recorded messages asking for help in finding five Israeli soldiers lost in Lebanon over the last 22 years. A ten million dollar reward was offered for any useful information. This isn't the first time Israeli's have hacked Lebanese phone and tv.


2. One of my favorite military bloggers uses his own example to artfully explain why the fact that Palin's daughter got pregnant isn't a negative reflection on Palin's mothering skills.


3. NY Times Op-Ed contributor laughably expresses surprise, and somehow suggests that it's a bad thing, that the richest people in our country also work the hardest. Isn't that a wonderful thing about our country, that if you want to be really rich, you'd better be prepared to work really hard, and if you work really hard, you can become very rich?


4. Wild video of a soccer riot. Stadium security overreacts violently to a fan running on the field, crowd storms field, rescues fan, beats security.



Via these sites.

*See previously posted news here.

Has time travel already happened?

1. Is time travel the explanation for the cancellation of the Super Conductor Super Collider:

Why the LHC? The authors argue that these sorts of time-violating interactions could be associated with whatever new particles we create at the LHC. For example, the production of a large number of Higgs particles in the future could have a backwards-in-time causal effect on the machine that produced them, stopping the machine from ever running. As possible "evidence" for such a backwards-in-time effect, the authors cite the now-canceled Superconducting Super Collider (SSC)--a particle accelerator that was meant to hunt the Higgs and was partially constructed in Texas before Congress pulled the plug on the project. As the authors write in their paper: "Such a cancellation after a huge investment is already in itself an unusual event that should not happen too often. We might take this event as experimental evidence for our model in which an accelerator with the luminosity and beam energy of the SSC will not be built."

It's as though the Higgs plays the role of the time traveler who goes back to the past and murders his grandfather, thus preventing his own birth.

Read more. (Photo link.)


2. Scientists have found water deep in the Atlantic Ocean that's 407 degrees Celsius, 765 degrees Fahrenheit. It's called "supercritical water." Wasn't there a G.I. Joe episode about this?


3. Looking for a book? Why not go to a booktown.



*Find more weird news here.

*The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century is 32% off at Amazon.

Teenager sells website created with free tools for $60,000 (and other news)

1. Using free software, Hansup Yoon, age 15, created a forum called ZuneBoards, devoted to Microsoft's Zune. In two years it grew to 60,000 members and pulled in about $1,000 a month thanks to AdSense and Tribal Fusion. He just sold it for $62,000, which is presumably far more than Microsoft has made by selling the Zune. Details here.

2. Buffalo Bills rookie offensive tackle Demetrius Bell is the lowest rated player in Madden 2008. Link.

3. See the differences between an article that appeared in the New York Times, and the heavily altered version that appeared in a Beijing newspaper.

4. NASA space shuttle mission had a secret emblem which signified that the shuttle mission had the secret task of deploying a satellite inspection spacecraft.



*Previously: Awesome U.S. military patches part 6.

*Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World is 32% off at Amazon.

Video of UFC fighter Jon Koppenhaver explaining why he legally changed his name to "War Machine" amd other news of the day

You can read more about "War Machine" at Wikipedia.

Other weird news of the day:

1. Video of a moth with the face of Jesus.

2. Video of driver driving wrong way on freeway. The reporter mocks the driver at length, repeatedly calling him a "rocket surgeon." First time I've heard that phrase, but it's surprisingly common.

3. Roger Ebert tells Jay Mariotti to suck it.

4. West Point instructor describes fascinating visit with Sikhs at the Golden Temple.

*Find more weird news here.

*Buy War Machine action figures at eBay.

O.J. Simpson attacked and bloodied by 39-year-old daughter and other news of the day

1. O.J. Simpson was reportedly attacked and bloodied by his 39-year-old daughter Arnelle. In a bit of delicious irony, he declined to press charges for the domestic violence.

2. LA Times editor allows article to mention that robbery suspects were "5'6" - 6'0" tall, 150 –200 pounds – in their early to late 20s" but removes fact that they were African-American. After readers pointed out the obvious missing information, the LA Times said it was just a mistake by an overeager editor. Well, that's sort of what the explanation was.

3. TMZ has video of Beyonce's sister, Solange Knowles, starting an interview by saying she is dissatisfied by the introduction the host gave.

4. Wikileaks intends to auction off limited time exclusive access to three years worth of Hugo Chavez's personal email.

5. Dave Barry reminisces about the time he and a few colleagues went to the 1988 Democratic Convention "protest zone" with boxes on their heads and managed to be covered by the national news.

*Find more news stories here.

*Find great deals on Dave Barry's books at Amazon.

Author of “100 Things to Do Before You Die” dies at age 47 after a fall at home

1. Dave Freeman, co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die," died last week after a fall at his home in the Venice section of Los Angeles. He was 47. Link.

2. Man finds lost camera loaded with digital photos, uploads them to Flickr, and community teams up to find camera's owner. Link.

3. Philosopher John Rawls lost two brothers in childhood after infecting them with deadly diseases:

In 1928, the 7-year-old Rawls contracted diphtheria. His brother Bobby, younger by 20 months, visited him in his room and was fatally infected. The next winter, Rawls contracted pneumonia. Another younger brother, Tommy, caught the illness from him and died.

Link.

4. China had the most gold medals at the Beijing Olympics and also had the most last place finishes. Link.

*Find more news stories here.

*Buy 100 Things to Do Before You Die for 32% off at Amazon.

Peanut Butter with the warning "Contains peanuts" and other news

1. Wegman's Peanut Butter jars include the warning: "Contains peanuts. Made in a plant that processes tree nuts."

2. Colleen Doran has posted some real horror stories about disturbing comic book fans.

3. 9-year-old pitcher Jericho Scott is so good he isn't being allowed to play in the local baseball league. League officials claim it's because he throws too hard and frightens the other kids, but his parents believe the officials are just trying to improve the chances of their own favored teams.

4. Ryan Block explains how hidden charges doubled his iPhone bill.

*See more weird news here.

*Buy Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source for 32% off at Amazon.

Interesting news roundup

1. Mobile operator Orange is paying actors to stand in line in Poland to drum up interest for that country's iPhone launch. Link.

2. Andres Martinez, who resigned from the Los Angeles Times after it was disclosed that he hired his girlfriend's employer to guest edit the LA Times Sunday Magazine, has filed a lawsuit against the now former girlfriend for...I guess tricking him into abandoning his ethics. Details here and here.

3. Thomas Barnett says that it's silly to get too worked up over Russia's invasion of Georgia. If you believe in globalization of democratic capitalism, Russia is our partner in that effort, and its actions, however unpleasant, are an advancement of that mission. Link.

4. Hamlet 2, which I've previously mentioned, is good!

*Previously: White student named valedictorian at black college.

*Buy Law For Dumies for 32% off at Amazon.

Auctions soon the be a thing of the past at eBay?

Catherine Holahan for Business Week:

Executives at eBay have gotten the message. Since taking the helm in March, eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe has made it clear that fixed-priced items are key to future growth. EBay's "Buy It Now" business, where shoppers can purchase items at a set price even when the merchandise is also listed in an auction, makes up 42% of all goods sold on eBay. It's growing at an annual 22% pace, the fastest among eBay's shopping businesses. "As [Web] search has developed, you can get a great deal in a fixed-price format," Donahoe said in an Apr. 16 interview after his first earnings call as eBay's top executive. "We are going to let our buyers choose."

[snip]

Perhaps the biggest example of eBay's new fixed-price focus is the new fee structure, announced in January. The changes gave breaks to many large vendors who sell fixed-priced goods on the site, while hiking fees for many eBay users who sell using a traditional auction structure.

Via.

Search for the Titanic was just a cover for effort to find sunken submarines

[Oceanographer Robert] Ballard met with the Navy in 1982 to request funding to develop the robotic submersible technology he needed to find the Titanic.

Ronald Thunman, then the deputy chief of naval operations for submarine warfare, told Ballard the military was interested in the technology—but for the purpose of investigating the wreckage of the U.S.S. Thresher and U.S.S. Scorpion.

Since Ballard's technology would be able to reach the sunken subs and take pictures, the oceanographer agreed to help out.

He then asked the Navy if he could search for the Titanic, which was located between the two wrecks.

"I was a little short with him," said Thunman, who retired as a vice admiral and now lives in Springfield, Illinois. He emphasized that the mission was to study the sunken warships.

Once Ballard had completed his mission—if time was left—Thunman said, Ballard could do what he wanted, but never gave him explicit permission to search for the Titanic.

Read more.

*Previously: The reason the US built fancy telescopes wasn't to look for aliens, it was to find Soviet nuke sites.

Vatican to celebrate 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species

Honest. Via.

$40 million later, NY Times finally able to use hyperlinks

Jackson West for Valleywag:

Last week, Publishing 2.0 noted that the New York Times was finally using hypertext links in articles in a meaningful way. Welcome to the 20th century, Grey Lady! The Times invested in WordPress, which is used for the site's blogs, but the rest of the product? That required an expensive upgrade to CCI NewsGate, which comes with a $40 million price tag and is "very time consuming to integrate, especially across multiple properties," according to an editor at another major market daily.