Monday, April 14, 2008
This and That
Well, that "Hypocrisy" business was fun, wasn't it? Makes me almost wish I had a politics blog going somewhere.
A couple of assorted notes from the weekend: first, for those of you who have been following along, I finally captured Rasputin the evil Russian squirrel. Except I have now renamed the creature: Katherine the Great, as in great with child; a pregnant female, as it turns out. We finally set out a big cage trap and had her snagged within a couple of hours.
Dealing with her afterwards was a poser. Ethically, I couldn't kill her or countenance her being killed, but squirrels are so fiercely territorial that, if released into the wild, they can find their way back to their home neighbourhood over great distances.
I finally opted to release her to the care of a teenager we know who is said to have an "interest" in wildlife. The nature of this interest sounds ominous but I opted to take a 'don't ask - don't tell' attitude to it. I only asked that the animal be treated in a humane manner, and left it at that.
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On another topic, I got a good laugh out of this story from the weekend papers:
"British physicist Peter Higgs said on Monday it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible -- as he first argued 40 years ago.Higgs said he believes a particle named the "Higgs boson", which originates from the force, will be found when a vast particle collider at the CERN research centre on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year....
Scientists at the centre hope the process will produce clear signs of the boson, dubbed the "God particle" by some, to the displeasure of Higgs, an atheist."
Source: Reuters, April 7, 2008
No matter what your definition of irony, you have to find it ironic that an atheist could end up discovering an all-pervasive cosmic force that makes life possible. It's like a teetotaler discovering wine is good for you.
posted by Mentok @ 9:45 a.m.,
2 Comments:
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At 3:59 p.m.,
adam said...
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I'm sure his quote went on to explain how there is, according to his theory, a one in forty billion (or something) chance that his experiments will cause the universe to end. Fingers' crossed, eh?
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At 4:13 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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More like the world than the universe. His experiments could indeed create a black hole that could in theory swallow the planet. Yes, that is a rather untidy little detail, isn't it?
Even that detail has a certain "look not upon the face of God" vibe to it, don't you think?
