Blogroll Additions

Raptor over at Raptor's Nest describes himself as "an aspiring Libertarian author who clings bitterly to both his guns and his religion". My kind of guy, actually. He's also tracking the important news:

Inspired by the Tea Party movement, adorned with beautiful nickel accents, and inscribed with the insignia that proudly flew on the flag that took us to battle throughout the Revolutionary War. This limited edition P226 is a must have for SIG SAUER shooters and will be available at you SIGnificant Dealer by the end of May. Limited production run of 1776.

I think it’s safe to say that I want one. Sadly MSRP is listed at $1050, so it’s very much outside my price range. Too bad…

Mine too, but it sure looks nice.

And Nigel Calder is blogging. Not only is he the author of one of my favorite books of all time, but he was for a long time the editor of New Scientist. As perhaps the Dean of popular science reporting, he brings a sense of perspective to a field that all too often chases the latest shiny trinket (*cough* Global Warming *cough*). And be brings the thought provoking ideas, like how the pace of scientific progress today is no faster than it was a century ago, despite many thousands more scientists at work today:

On the other hand, discovery shows no sign of speeding up. This is despite a huge increase in the workforce, such that half the scientists who ever lived are still breathing. About 20,000 scientific papers are published every working day, ten times more than in 1950. But these are nearly all filling in of details in Kuhn’s normal science, or looking to practical applications. If you ask where the big discoveries are, that transform human understanding and set science on a new course, they are as precious and rare as ever.

The trawl in 1990-2000 included nanotubes, planets orbiting other stars, hopeful monsters in biology, super-atoms, cosmic acceleration, plasma crystals, and neutrino oscillations. All cracking stuff. Yet it is instructive to compare them with discoveries 100 years earlier. The period 1890-1900 brought X-rays, radioactivity, the electron, viruses, enzymes, free radicals and blood groups. You’d have to be pretty brash to claim that the recent lot was noticeably more glittering.

As you'll be seeing quoted in this blog in the coming days, he's another one of those danged Global Warming Deniers. If you're looking for Teh Smart (Scientific subdivision), this is your place.

Welcome to the Borepatch blogroll, all! And my usual note: if you've blogrolled me and I've been too slow (or thick) to notice), please drop a comment or email me, and I'll be happy to reciprocate. [borepatch AT gmail DOT com]