The Wikipedia article on Benazir Bhutto."[Wikipedia clip-subject to change]... a "thin man" on a motorcycle, carrying an AK-47 rifle, fired two shots, one into Bhutto's neck, and she fell back into the vehicle.[3] After this, the assailant proceeded to detonate an explosive which resulted in the deaths of himself and at least 22 others..."
Bhutto Supporters Blame Musharraf. "[Forbes.Com] She was considered a leading contender to take office a third time in the January elections.
Former rival Nawaz Sharif, who also returned to Pakistan recently for the January elections, promised to take up Bhutto’s battle. "This is very tragic…I assure you that I will fight your war from now on..."
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[Pics click to enlarge]
This cartoon idea was found hiding in a sketch pad. There is a chance of resuscitating the cartoon... perhaps.
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This 2004 sketch idea shows a bear/human transformation being, rising from a megis shell with a rawhide/antler rattle. [Eric's rattle gallery]
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New visitors; click bass for link to papier mache bass sculpture gallery:
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Click the cartoon for link to XKCD homepage
[A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.]:
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A short review of the LA Skins Fest; a new Native American film festival.
A worldwide directory of Indigenous peoples and resources at "Aboriginal Connections.
Some great looking handmade knives at BUFFALO "WALLER" KNIFE WORKS.
Online Native "web magazine", American Comments. I'm not sure how often this site gets updated.
Vermont artist had several bronze sculptures stolen from inside and outside his studio, local scrap yards bought the pieces and returned them; the thieves have been caught.
The largest dam-removal project in history will begin to restore the Elwha River and its Salmon runs.
"Starting in early 2008, the 108-foot-tall Elwha Dam and the 210-foot-tall Glines Canyon Dam will be dismantled in stages, reopening 70 miles of prime salmon and steelhead spawning habitat. The Elwha offers a unique opportunity to fully restore a river since nearly all of the river's watershed is preserved in Olympic National Park..."
Nick Coleman article (MPLS Star Tribune) about the upcoming 150'th anniversary of Minnesota and the bloody roots of its statehood.
"Minnesota was baptized in blood, and reminders are scattered across a vast landscape: A monument in a cornfield that marks the spot of a small settlement whose settlers -- all of them -- were surprised and killed on the first day of the war. A marker in a woods where more than 1,000 Indian women and children were imprisoned in a pen. A barren place on the Missouri River where hundreds died of starvation and disease after being "deported" by a new state that exiled the people whose language gave the state its name..."
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Things could have been worse.
Prior to the current US administration's preparations for mass detentions; "Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover...
"had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal, according to a newly declassified document."
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Cdesign proponentsists claim that the eye is far too complex to have 'evolved' from simpler forms ["irreducible complexity"], so it is interesting to find that a predicted transitional form of the eye has been discovered in a fossil Australian fish.
"Part of the trouble in tracing the evolution of the eye is that soft tissues don't tend to fossilise. But the eye cavities in the braincase of these 400 million-year-old fossil fish were lined with a delicate layer of very thin bone. All the details of the nerve canals and muscle insertions inside the eye socket are preserved - the first definite fossil evidence demonstrating an intermediate stage in the evolution of our most complex sensory organ.
"These extinct placoderms had the eyeball still connected to the braincase by cartilage, as in modern sharks, and a primitive eye muscle arrangement as in living jawless fish." Dr Young said that this anatomical arrangement is different from all modern vertebrates, in which there is a consistent pattern of tiny muscles for rotating each eyeball."
Richard Dawkins has a proposal for how the eye could have begun as a light sensitive patch of skin on an ancient lineage.A practical lecture, from Richard Dawkins, with demonstrations can be found here and here. Watch the animation, below, for a quick explanation:
Wikipedia entry for "irreducible complexity".
Richard Dawkins:
"...There really was no neeed for Darwin to shudder. Half an eye is better than no eye... 1% of an eye is better than no eye at all."
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