My two favorite historical quotes are, “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants,” and, “I owe my greatness to the smallness of my contemporaries.” Taken separately, each quote has its charm. Together, they explain…well, academia at least.

“The Giant’s Shoulders” is a monthly science blogging event, in which authors are invited to submit posts on “classic” scientific papers. The blog carnival submission page, and more information about the carnival, is here. The previous carnival is here, at Entertaining Research.

And I just want to say, that of all the blog carnivals out there, this is the best one!!! I mean, seriously, check out these amazing posts….

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Reginald Scot and the Discoverie of Witchcraft reviewed and examined at Skulls in the Stars.

With Halloween approaching, it is worth thinking of one of the iconographic links made to that holiday…the witch. Witches can be fun: We can dress up as them for trick-or-treat, we can have childhood crushes on them (each generation has its hot TV witch, it seems), and of course, there are lots of people running around today who are pretty sure they are witches. The Harry Potter series is a highly successful exploitation of the concept that proves to be very entertaining to all by the most cynical.

But it would be inappropriate to ignore the fact that many tens of thousands (perhaps over 100,000) people were executed during the late Middle Ages through the “Renaissance” in Europe (and the colonies), charged as witches. People become angry at the use of the word “holocaust” in contexts they judge inappropriate. This might count as a holocaust. You judge.

The history of European witches and the persecution of people accused of being witches is very complex and has not been unraveled sufficiently to this day, but one of the more interesting moments in that history was the publication of the book The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) by Reginald Scot. Scot’s book “chronicles the supposed powers of witches and provides devastating arguments against them.” Arguments against the belief in powers of witches, not against the witches themselves. Blogger gg of Skulls in the Stars has read this tome and provides a fascinating analysis of it, placing it in historical context. It would seem that Discoverie is one of the earliest skeptical volumes written in Western history. This blog post is one of the most interesting that I’ve read in a long time.

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Brian Switek of Laelaps won’t sweep Robert Broom under the rug! (Robert Broom and the “End of Evolution”) and the closely related Bain’s “Bidental Reptile” From the Cape Colony.

These two posts were particularly interesting to, and meaningful for, me, as I’ve worked on one of Robert Broom’s paleontological sites and handled some off the original “bidental reptile” material, which incidentally is stored in a room called the “Broom Closet” in the Transvaal Museum. (Some days it does seem like everything is connected.)

Brian explores the “unique view” held by Broom on how evolution works, which, like many of these early ideas, we don’t talk about much today. “Broom rejected both natural selection and Lamarckism as potential factors for evolutionary change. Instead he believed that the evolution of life occurred through a sequence fore-ordained by a Creator…” Well, science marches on, but that does not mean that we should forget the ideas of our forbearer.

In Bain’s “Bidental Reptile” From the Cape Colony, Brian outlines a key chapter in the unraveling of the early history of mammals and the relationship between European science and the evidence coming out of what is now South Africa.

Both essays are excellent reads and can not be skipped by anyone interested in evolution or paleontology.

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The History and Introduction of Nuclear Chemistry and the Atomic Model at Phil for Humanity.

I’ve always been fascinated with the history of discovery of the atomic and subatomic level of matter. I find it absolutely fascinating that observation of regular scale, real live things, a pile of math, mixed with a few powerful insights could have lead to the construction of an atomic theory that was a correct as it was. If you look at the key papers of the day, you will see a series of exclamation points, each representing an insight or discovery as astounding as the last. I assume the reality was less “!-> !-> !-> !-> !-> !” and more “bla bla !-> bla bla bla !-> !-> bla bla !-> bla bla !-> bla !-> !->bla !->”

Whatever. Phil B.’s blog post is an excellent overview of the historical developments by a handful of giant-shoulder-guys around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.

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That’s for Jan Brueghel the Elder … A look at historical telescopes.

My first career was in Historical Archaeology, and during that time, I became an expert on 17th through 19th century Euro-American ceramics. Part of that process involved collecting old images…paintings and etchings and so on…that depicted (as part of the background, but sometimes as the focus, as in the case of still life paintings) such ceramics (as well as tobacco pipes and glassware). Dated (even if approximate) and provenanced (to country) images provide an excellent source of documentation of the material culture of a particular historical period.

Well, it turns out that this works with telescopes as well. How cool is that? Niall at We All are in the Gutter writes about early telescopes in art and covers a paper called, “The mystery of the telescopes in Jan Brueghel the Elder’s paintings.” I’ll let you read the post (and the original paper) to understand the mystery and its implications. You will not be disappointed.

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Petit canard, grand canard, a post on the 1918 Pandemic and the historical silliness of the homeopathic remedy Oscillococcinum.

The virus was discovered about 20 years before the 1918 pandemic, and in those days, ten science years were equal to about one science year of today, so that’s like saying that the virus was discovered just before the pandemic. One reaction to the 1918 flu was a lot of research on the flu. And since viruses were just discovered, it is not that surprising that the presence of bacteria at the scene caused some people to think that bacteria caused the flu.

Medical science, such as it was in those early days, showed this to be wrong, but it would seem that alternative medicine, in at least one of its forms, still thinks so. I’ve just given you the way too simple version of a must-read post by PalMD at The White Coat Underground.

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Skulls in the Stars examines The first paper on invisibility? (1902).

Invisibility is kind of a freaky concept. Air is invisible (to us, most of the time), of course, but most other stuff is not. Well, actually, how would we know….

Anyway, gg has us covered on this topic with a detailed examination of the concept and its early study. This is one to hand out in class.

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Scicurious: Friday Weird Science: the Bees and the Bees

This is about bee sex.

Sometimes the early “giants” had it right. Sometimes they had it wrong. Sometimes maybe they weren’t really even that giant about it. In this case,

[i]t’s a paper from 1777, and so old that half the ‘s’s are ‘f’s. This makes the paper even more amusing, because now, rather than reading “Discoveries on the Sex of Bees”, I got to read “Difcoverief of the Sex of Bees”

The sex of bees eventually became a critically important thing. The whole bee thing puzzled Darwin and inspired Hamilton and to this very day confuses the layperson and fascinates the behavioral biologist. This post by Sci is a must-read for anyone interesting in the history of evolutionary biology.

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Steel Cage Death Match: da Vinci vs. Galileo in The Renaissance Man Uniform Gravitational Acceleration SMACKDOWN.

What can I say. What goes up must come down. And either way, there are coriolis forces working. But do they work differently on objects falling towards a spinning planet vs. away from a spinning planet?

I recommend getting out your slide rule, a cup of coffee, and a piece of pie, and sitting down with this post for a fascinating flight of science.

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GetOddNews: What is Gravity.

This is a detailed historical description of gravity with reference to Newton, Einstein, and other historical figures. Suitable for use in an educational setting.

I checked. There are rules for this invertebrate-oriented blog carnival. One of the rules says that there are two kinds of posts: writing about spineless critters and photography of spineless critters. Obviously, that rule was written before it became apparent that the two so often come together that you can’t really tell them apart.

This month’s submissions to the Circus of the Spineless web carnival represent an astonishing array of organisms and the full range of the kinds of interests people take in those organisms, and each post is illustrated with at least one, often many, very pretty pictures. I’ve taken a detail (usually) of one image from each post and used it below as illustration. Click the picture to visit the post!

For those of you who are here to see the bugs and stuff but have not been to Quiche Moraine before, I welcome you to poke around. This is an eclectic web site with three regular authors and a string of special featured guest authors. We address Minnesota things, political things, science, the arts, writing, and so on and so forth. We like to think of Quiche Moraine as a slower moving than average higher quality than average web site, much like most nature blogs seem to be.

The Circus of the Spineless has a web site all its own. Click here to visit it. There you will learn that the most recent edition was at Wandering Weeta and the next edition will be at Marmorkrebs. You can find the email to submit your posts at this about page.

Please visit each of the sites referenced below. StumbleUpon them, Digg them, FARK them, enjoy them. Point to this carnival on your blog so everyone can find it, and in so doing, find the excellent entries. This is a carnival. The carnival is a shameless promotion of what a community of bloggers thinks is worth promoting. So, let’s do that!

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The ubiquitous tiger beetle at Beetles In The Bush

This ubiquitous species is restricted to nearly the entire North American continent and is found only in just about any habitat you can imagine.

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Weekend Bugs at 10,000 Birds

Click the ladybug to see some of the nicest “bug” photography you’ll get anywhere.

I spent my weekend in upstate New York with Daisy visiting my folks and we had a good old time eating far too much food, having far too much fun, and, somewhat unfortunately, considering some of them were of the biting variety, seeing far too many bugs.

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Flight of the remote-controlled cyborg beetle at Neurophilosophy

The miniaturized system developed by Sato and his colleagues is mounted onto the pronotum (the dorsal, or upper, plate of the exoskeleton), and consists of electrodes implanted into the brain and wing muscles.

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Moth Night: Zales at A DC Birding Blog

Moths were already flying at dusk when Patrick and I arrived, and more gathered at the lamp as the evening grew darker. … The two types of lures attracted different sets of species, so it was best to check both at least once to get the most out of the event. Patrick and I walked the trail at least twice and spent plenty of time at the sheet. In the course of the evening, I saw several moth types I had not seen (or at least identified) previously.

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It’s National Moth Night(s) at 10,000 Birds

…when you do take the time to look at moths they’re every bit as beautiful and variable as butterflies, and – usually – far better represented in terms of species in most gardens (or similarly easily-accessed piece of land).

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Crane Fly at A DC Birding Blog

This large insect was sitting near the top of a picnic table umbrella at my uncle’s house. It sat without budging for a long time allowing many pictures, which was good because it was perched well above my head. This is one of the largest insects I have seen…

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Jaspers! at The Magpie’s Hoard

I thought that only Sheffield folk called wasps “jaspers” but apparently the name is widely-used across the British Isles. Peter Marren believes that it is probably a corruption of the Old French word for wasp, guespe.

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A Walk in the Woods: 2 Insects and a Gastropod at Birder’s Lounge

As I put this post together, I am reminded of how much I don’t know. No matter how much time I spend learning about birds, insects, mammals, native plants, etc – it seems like the body of knowledge I am attempting to learn keeps growing. Since I delight in new discoveries, this is exactly how I like it.

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Thatching Ants at Dave Ingram’s Natural History Blog

While most people don’t like ants I find them quite fascinating. Thatching ants are entertaining to watch and are beneficial in controlling other insects. In addition, many species of birds visit the mound to use the ants for “anting” in an effort to rid themselves of skin parasites.

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Cave dwellers at Wanderin’ Weeta (With Waterfowl and Weeds)

The crevices serve as hiding places for small critters. Saturday, I found a few baby slugs, a miniature harvestman, a tiny red mite. A millipede took off running as I lifted the stone. And of course, there had to be a sowbug; there always is.

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The jelly hunters at The House and Other Arctic Musings

…As we caught it we began to see more and more jellies, and ended up with at least four different kinds. Collecting them in one of our blueberry picking containers.

That is all. Thank you for visiting.

It was a good day to be becalmed. The captain, new to her position, had been looking for a place to store the embarrassment of booty she’d collected. Only one month, and the crew of the Elitist Bastard had run across so many poorly defended positions that the hold swelled gratifyingly. Placid waters and a nearby island were welcome.

Finally, they neared the shore. The hands slipped over the edge and towed the dinghy up onto the beach. The captain stood and prepared to step over the side. Just then, the admiral leapt from the other side of the boat, rocking it hard and tumbling the captain to the sand.

“Cap’n! Are ye arright?”

The captain stood and brushed wet sand from her elbow, mouth and hair. Rough hands pawed at her shoulder and…”Yes! I’m fine. On your way!” The captain turned to face the Elitist Bastard, sitting low on the horizon, and tried not to spit.

The boat was quickly emptied of booty and tools, and the crew awaited her next move. She walked inland past them, not looking at the admiral.

She should have known the admiral would cause her trouble. Beloved by the entire crew, the admiral was generally careful to defer to the captain, but every time she wanted something, it was hers. She was a constant challenge to the captain’s authority, just by being there. The captain needed to do something.

Finally, the captain reached dry sand at the base of the rock that was the small island’s interior. Her footing was less sound here, so she stopped near the first moderately distinctive feature she could find. “Here. Now, where is that refusal to allow the dogmatists to call what they do ‘science’?”

One of the crew stepped forward with a small casket. The captain looked inside. “Yes. Perfect. Bury it here.”

With many hands and shovels, a pit was soon dug, despite the captain’s continued calls to make it wider and deeper. The casket was placed in the bottom.

“Now shoot him.” The captain pointed to the crewmember standing in the hole. Everyone gaped at her. “He’ll guard his treasure. Shoot him.” No one moved. “What is all this fuss over a Lousy Canuck? Shoot him already, and we’ll be on with our task.”

The crew started to speak among themselves. The captain knew this was the first big test of her captaincy. Would they stay with her, or would they refuse? She turned away so they couldn’t see her uncertainty.

Oh, this wait! It was interminable. She suppressed the urge to brush at the sand on her clothes and gritted her teeth despite the grit. Would they never decide?

BANG!

It was done. She turned back to see a body slumped over in the hole. “Very well! You and you,” she pointed to the closest hands with shovels, “bury the treasure well. The rest of you follow me.”

She walked them until she thought they should have burned off any nerves–or at least until she was tired–then found another landscape. “Where is the booty we lifted off the idiots paddling around in circles to defend dairy subsidies?” The hand known only as “Z” stepped forward. “And the bit about figuring out who to trust on complicated issues like health care reform?” Z’s partner A. “Right. A larger hole this time.”

The captain was impressed at the lack of hesitation. Everyone knew as well as she did what a larger hole meant, but even the two carrying the booty pitched in with their shovels. The captain walked on while the work was being done, looking for the next good space. She jumped when she heard the shots.

While she let everyone catch up to her, she thought hard. They had fallen in line so very easily, but would they stay there? There was only one way to find out for sure. It was risky, but so was piracy. The captain smiled as everyone assembled. “Who has that beautiful collection of plants that grow under such arid conditions? The one so big it needed two chests?”

“That’ll be me, captain.” The admiral stepped forward.

“Will it?” The captain opened her eyes wide. “It looks like you have something else for us as well? Oh, yes. The paean and exhortation to continued learning. Yes, that’s a beauty.” She looked up at the crew. “Bury them here.”

There was a pause this time, but a raised eyebrow from the captain (and a nod from the admiral) got the shovels moving. Standing next to the woman she’d just condemned to death made the captain edgy. She caught one of the crew watching her fidget.

“Make this hole extra wide as well. Cujo359′s cry to feed our very human need for learning belongs with the admiral’s booty, as do his pretty pictures that tell the ugly tale about science literacy.”

The captain turned and strode away as briskly as the cursed sand would let her. When she stepped around a large rock, she paused for a breath and small moment of self-congratulation.

BANG! BANG!

The timing was perfect. There was no one left who would challenge her control of the Elitist Bastard.

She was still celebrating when the crew caught up to her. “Ahem. Yes, this is another good spot. Where is the tribute to the achievements of human excellence? DuWayne, thank you. Here, please.” Then she wandered off to celebrate some more.

At her next stop, she ordered the burial of the lovely debunking of the idea that nature (or Nature) maintains a balance, as well as the simple explanation of why thinking of government as “them” is so gratingly wrong. It was a pity to see Greg and Mike go. They’d helped to get her this far, after all, but with a secure captaincy…well, best not to be seen playing favorites.

Then it was time for a damned fine explanation of the pricing of prescription drugs. Shame about Chris, too, being as he was new to the crew and all, but booty like that must be guarded.

All this slogging through sand was making the captain hungry. Time for some rations. She decided to spare Last Hussar, whose recipe for cheesy stuffed baked potatoes was the envy of the rest of the crew.

Then it was back to burying booty and bodies. Lou had his turn with his skeptical view of Governor Crist’s answered prayers for good Florida weather. The captain shuddered as she ordered its internment. She’d been too close to that last storm for her liking.

The captain’s feet were starting to hurt. At her next stop, she took pity on the grossly overburdened John, who was carting refutations of Luskin and Egnor, Meyer and West, and Klinghoffer–twice! She figured he’d be happy to get the rest, even if it was eternal.

Stumbling through the sand, she sorted through the remaining treasure. What was next? Oh, yes, Toaster’s mad burning away of chakra energy and woo.

Then George’s tale of the comforts of elitism to an intelligent but dyslexic child. A pity to bury that one before responding to its request for more tales of inspiration, but booty was booty, after all.

And then…and then…ah, yes. Brian’s clever differentiation of modes of writing, his realization that even fantasy must be grounded in reality, and a demonstration of the elitist’s dedication to producing quality even in the face of adversity.

Oh, and she wouldn’t forget where she had them bury Vic’s refusal to reject an historical theory out of hand just because it related to woo. Important to remember that sounding strange doesn’t mean no one ever believed it. Yes, very important.

And that was…no. That couldn’t be everything, could it. There was something else, something she was forgetting. Damn this sand. She kicked at it and almost lost her footing.

Looking down, she finally remembered that she was carrying something herself. She stared blankly at the box in her hand for a moment, wondering what was inside. Ah, right. A little essay about why knowledge of scientific fact, and trust in scientists, isn’t enough. Time to bury that.

But who would…who was left to guard her treasure. Oh, right. “Last Hussar, I need your pistol.”

There was only silence. The captain looked behind herself to see empty beach. How long had it been since she’d last turned around? How long since she last heard a shot or a shovel hitting sand?

She stumbled three steps back along her path before realizing she’d come almost all the way around the island. She turned again and staggered on.

She saw the ship first, then the dinghy about a hundred feet off shore. In it sat…no. She shielded her eyes from the now-setting sun.

“Admiral, ahoy!” The captain waived her arm over her head. “Come back! You can’t strand me here!”

“Aye, lassie, we can. We have.” The admiral pointed further up the beach. “We’ve brought ye rations and grog. We’ll check on ye in a month to see whether ye’ve learnt yer lesson ’bout booty.”

The admiral nodded, and the oarsmen took up their job again.

“But wait! I don’t understand.”

One of the oarsman spit overboard and laughed. “Oh, Cap’n. Yer as barmy as any we’ve seen this last month. Ye’ve heard too many tales meant fer bairns if ye think pirates wuld trust booty to ghosts. The only way fer keepin’ your treasure safe is t’ spend it. Spread it far and wide, as we mean to do.”

The captain, who was captain no more, collapsed again on the wet sand, where she lay to watch the Elitist Bastard sail on.

This week, Quiche Moraine brings you a recipe for Quiche Botanique, the main course made entirely of plants.

First, a little bit of orientation. This is the 19th edition of the blog carnival Berry Go Round, which is a blog carnival dedicated to writings of any aspect of plant life from the blogosphere. Although the carnival is called “Berry Go Round” you should know that we refer to it affectionately as “the Berries.” I also want to let you know that the previous edition of Berry Go Round, number 18, is here, at Foothills Fancies.

Now, on to the recipe….

This recipe is entirely 100 percent natural. So we’ll begin by asking … Is there a natural diet?

The idea that our preferences and appetites were shaped some time ago is a common one, and in diet gives rise to ideas like the Pleistocene Diet. As Ford commented, his theory suggests a new explanation, for humans, of chemicals plants make to defend themselves against insects, the very chemicals that breeders are trying to increase in some varieties.

Well, maybe not, but this shall not deter us.

OK, so now, we need some ingredients. First, in picking ingredients, make sure you avoid the weeds.

….the Phactor recommends you come to terms with weeds on a philosophical level. Such an attitude adjustment is greatly aided by sitting back and enjoying your garden with the help of a tall, cold mojito.

OK, so maybe avoiding the weeds is not necessary. But let’s have a look at the other ingredients:

Buttercups, which are always yellow …

But the white flowers were something I hadn’t seen before. They’re all over the place up there right now … the Marsh Marigold isn’t a member of the Rose family. Rather it’s a member of .. The Buttercup Family, Ranunculaceae.

Well, OK, so they are not always yellow. (see Uintas Hiking, Flowers, Chipmunks and 2 Cool Things About the Remarkable Buttercup Family)

Asparagus, which I’m sure has some fancy Latin name no one can pronounce.

Know your genera – Lesson 1: Asparagus: Asparagus. How easy is that? You thought botanical Latin names were so difficult, but …

That may look familiar to you, recipe collectors! Oh. OK. Whatever. Well, the next ingredients are wild flowers. Select Five New Wildflowers:

The upper Mill Creek flowers right now are fantastic. Even if you know absolutely nothing about flowers, you can’t helped but be blown away up there right now. The trails are lined with touches of almost every color- white, blue, purple, yellow, red, pink- and every open meadow is just an explosion of color. It just doesn’t get any better than right now.

Some wild rice (as discussed by the Senate):

Funding for wild rice and forestry research cleared a Senate committee hurdle last week, said U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn.

Some mystery plants:

It’s almost anticlimactic now to tell you that these are the …. [click here to find out]

Garnish with butterflies:

When we were first being shown around our cottage by our potential landlord, Robert, he pointed out a large buddleia bush (a Buddleia davidii) in one corner of the garden and asked us not to cut it down. Apparently the last tenants had been a touch over-enthusiastic with the trimmers and Robert was a big fan of this particular buddleia. We assured him there was no way at all that we would be hacking it down. Why, you ask? Because those in the know – er, know that the buddleia’s alternative name is [click here to find out]

Then, we need to place the mixture in the oven and bake it for nine minutes, using one of these clocks.

Linnaeus’ floral clock on the island of Mainau

-or-

The Sundial Floral Clock at Kirstenbosch

Then, digest:

Digesting Annals of Botany: Annals of Botany have what I think is quite an innovative feature where they ask Prof. John Bryant of the University of Exeter, UK to take “a closer look at some of this month’s Original Articles.”…

perhaps by taking a walk to Visit Your Local Arboretum!

The arboretum is quite small, but it’s got a good representation of the region’s plants and habitats and fantastic demonstration gardens for people who want to use less water and native plants.

And then …

Take some nice pictures of the final product.

Our own Quiche Moraine blogger, Greg Laden, has won the Dichotomy Prize for his post on “good” vs. “bad” birds.

This is a very important blog carnival because it has served for so long, and so consistently, as a model for all other nature- and science-oriented carnivals.

The blog post was written by N8 (I assume N’s 1 through 7 were unavailable), and it is a stupendous carnival, with seemingly thousands of entries.

Please go read it and click on all the links!

-LLSC

When we last saw our insipid heroine-in-her-own-mind, she was proposing legislation to keep America safe for the dollar and joining her fellow party members in flirting with sedition. Reaction to both behaviors continued long after our last carnival.

Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, who has chronicled a great deal of stupidity, goggled at her fears of foreign currency. Ranjan X. Roy of Shadow Bankers used the opportunity to write an excellent piece explaining what has actually been proposed. Civilianism, who is unfortunately and unhappily a constituent, tried to make some sense of her conspiracy touting. Political Muse at Dump Bachmann reminded us that the reason Bachmann was in a position to make her ignorance so well known is that she is (somehow) a member of the House Financial Services Committee. watertiger of Firedoglake noted all the Republicans who were willing to join her in sponsoring the pointless bill.

JTNB at State of Protest asked Garrion Keillor to explain how paranoia like Bachmann’s could come out of Minnesota–and called for a recall. sgwhiteinfla at Smooth Like Remy saw a connection between Bachmann’s battle rhetoric and the shootings in Pittsburgh. So did Metavirus at Library Grape, who put her words in the current and historical context of right-wing hate mongering. Charles Blow reminded us at the New York Times that not all dangers come from outside the country. Elizabeth Burke at The Clyde Fitch Report explained the dangers of treating this all like political theater.

Let me add that I am the first person to say “bring on the crazy.” I love watching a good train wreck like everyone else, and Rep. Bachmann obviously has a constitutional right to shout her brand of Minnesota loony from the highest rooftops. That is one of the reasons why our national politics is so much fun, and why foreigners (real foreigners, not Bachmann-style foreigners) risk life and limb to get here. I am so grateful to have been lucky enough to be born here, to have the freedom millions can only dream of having. I can write what I want and say what I want without fear of retribution.

But with such freedom comes great responsibility, especially from elected figures with a rapt and — dare I say armed? — audience. I get the feeling that Bachmann has no idea the power of words, especially her own. I also don’t think she cares. While she blathers on to anyone with a tape recorder or camera, endlessly reiterating her “us against them” view of the nation, she had better hope and pray that her call for revolution is ignored, that her dream of a violent overthrow remains unfulfilled.

Down with Tyrrany continued the theme, showing how Bachmann fits into the general right-wing destructive looniness, including the tea bag protests.

On a lighter note, speaking of Bachmann and teabagging, this month marks the first time I’ve considered subscribing to a YouTube channel. Why? The answer is here and NSFW, unless you’re in a sound-proofed room so people won’t hear you laugh. Also finding Bachmann funny this month is Comically Partisan, which awarded her a second Commedian of the Month award, this one for “[n]othing specific.” Just for being herself.

So what else has Bachmann done this month? She herself noted that she’s wasting more of Congress’s time (as is her wont), joining with Rep. John Kline to sponsor a bill to keep former Guantanamo Bay detainees out of Minnesota. I’m sure that will get broad support. She got upset that the Department of Homeland Security would consider right-wing extremists a threat. Political Muse at Liberal in the Land of Conservatives rightly asked why she was so anxious (or uncharacteristically self-aware) to identify herself with them.

She picked a fight with a fellow Minnesota Representative, Keith Ellison, suggesting the “Flying Imams” (the six scholars who drew attention to US Airways when they were removed from a flight in 2006 at the urging of nervous passengers) were detained after attending Ellison’s election victory party. Greg has Rachel Maddow’s excellent summary of the situation. The City Pages has Ellison’s response. And Kamran Pasha at the Huffington Post explains why, as usual, Bachmann can’t be dismissed as just part of the fringe.

The fact that American Muslims historically identified and voted Republican will likely shock many people. But it shouldn’t, if we remember what the Republican Party used to represent. Growing up as an immigrant from Pakistan in Brooklyn, every Muslim I knew embraced the Republican brand of economic growth and family values. We were entrepreneurs who left our countries to find a better life in America, and loved the Republican promise of free enterprise and social mobility. As people of faith, we embraced the Republicans’ traditional values and social conservatism. And we saw Republicans like President George H.W. Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker as statesmen who were sympathetic to Palestinian suffering and willing to work hard to bring peace between Arabs and Israelis.

And then something started to change within the party. An ugly cancer of anti-Muslim bigotry began to reveal itself during the first Iraq War. I was an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where the student body was perhaps the most conservative of the Ivy League schools. At meetings of the College Republicans, I began to hear distressing venom against Muslims. American Muslims were being openly talked of as a fifth column in the country, and my fellow students applauded rumors that internment camps were being set up in the Midwest for Muslim subversives. I was shocked to see my friends suddenly speak of my faith as the enemy. Our fight against Saddam had finally revealed the deeply held hatred for Islam among my fellow conservatives.

Bachmann also expressed concerns that expanding AmeriCorps, the government-run volunteer program, was a plan to…well, here:

Even our esteemed Rep. Michele Bachmann has appeared on various broadcasts with dire warnings about the program: “The real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call reeducation camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums,” the Republican said. “It is a dream come true for people who want to transform our country from a free-market economy to a centralized, government-planned economy.”

Jon Tevlin of the Star Tribune gave this idea all the respect it deserved. Congress Watcher of That’s My Congress put it all very simply and very devastatingly. The Minnesota Independent wondered whether Generation Joshua, a group of homeschooled kids whose assignments included handing out Bachmann campaign literature, might be the pattern for Bachmann’s concerns. Daily Kos was moved to restart its Act Blue anti-Bachmann fundraising.

Still, despite backing down slightly on her calls for Minnesotans to be “armed and dangerous” in order to fight those who are trying to address climate change, Bachmann adopted the issue as her new baby and spent most of the month trying to smother it under a blanket of stupidity and misdirection.

Bachmann penned an op-ed for the Star Tribune claiming the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade proposal would cost each American household over $3,000. She made this claim despite the figure already having been declared by PolitiFact to be so wrong it set their truth meter on fire. The Star Tribune opinion page editor told Think Progress he was embarrassed to have published the figure. Yet, when the MIT professor on whose study Bachmann claimed to have based the figure issued a correction to his math that was still well under $3,000, Bachmann took the opportunity to claim a higher figure yet.

She also held a couple of “forums” in Minnesota, which consisted of her reading her op-ed and a speech by Chris Horner, a global warming denialist. His claim to expertise is that he is an attorney who works for a foundation funded in part by ExxonMobil. Anna commented at Dump Michele Bachmann about why the plans behind the forums were ludicrous. She gave lots of reasons, but this is my favorite:

It’s just loopy that she’s trying to assert any expertise in this area . . . she’s a creationist for pete’s sake . . . for her the earth is only 6,000 years old, and now she’s trying to tell her constituents that she understands holocene era climate change? Give me a break.

Futurism Now gave an excellent report of the forum, as did Political Muse at Dump Bachmann. Ken Avidor at Dump Bachmann also collected much of the fact-checking of the forums. It’s not pretty.

So, what wasn’t Bachmann doing as she sponsored these less-than-fact-filled forums? As Dusty Trice showed us, she wasn’t answering questions from her constituents. This shouldn’t be too surprising, as she’s known for doing things like sending invitations for teleconferences fifteen minutes before they start, but it’s particularly bad right now, as Bachmann’s constituents have plenty to ask her about.

The Minnesota Independent shows that the highest foreclosure rates in the state are in Bachmann’s district, or as they put it, “where congressional representation is doing the least to address the issue.” Pity, seeing as she’s on the House Financial Services Committee and could make a difference. Instead of taking action, Riley of Licking Calcutta points out, Bachmann is simply calling those facing foreclosure “irresponsible.” Bachmann would rather talk about global warming.

Most recently, she tried to fight those who would fight global warming by persuading everyone that carbon dioxide is very friendly and natural and not harmful at all, and besides, there isn’t very much of it, and besides, we don’t have much effect on the amount. PZ Myers at Pharyngula posted the video. Watch it if you can get through the inanity and innumeracy, but believe me, that summary is a public service. Pharyngula also received this lovely comment:

My 8-yo son was stunned that she called CO2 harmless and suggested *exactly* the same demonstration involving a small room, a tank of CO2, and the rep from MN. He said, “After a minute or two, she’ll get it.”

Apparently Bachmann isn’t as smart as a second grader.

Probably the most polite response to Bachmann’s carbon dioxide statements came from Representative Earl Blumenauer, but even he couldn’t resist a dig (at about 1:20).

It’s easy to point to the big gaffes and ask where all this is coming from, but it’s important to remember that this nonsense doesn’t just spring fully-formed from Bachmann’s head (and to anyone now picturing Bachmann in a toga, I apologize). Bill Prendergast at Dump Bachmann had a great piece this month talking about her connections to James Dobson and the evangelical movement. Bill Maher had another in the LA Times looking at why she and the rest of the shreds of the Republican Party are so desperate to indulge in conspiracy theory.

That brings us to the end of our carnival and one more month closer to the next election. What’s the good news on that front? Dump Bachmann found at least a couple of Republicans who are very unhappy with Bachmann. The Minnesota Independent showed us some redistricting maps that look all the better without Bachmann on them and reported about DFL plans for 2010. A newspaper in the largest city in her district officially declared her a “nonfactor.”

The bad news? Bill Prendergast of Dump Bachmann concluded Bachmann doesn’t have  what it takes to be lured away from politics into conservative punditry. Smart Politics looked at Bachmann’s campaign contributions for the first quarter of this year and discovered they overwhelmingly came from within Minnesota.  Ow.

As always, the best way to keep track of lunacy between carnivals is to follow the Dump Michele Bachmann blog. The DCCC has also, finally, set up Bachmann Watch, a fact checking service. And please continue to share your links, both to the insanity and the analysis it inspires, with us at the main carnival page.

What will you find in the next carnival? More climate dishonesty, reactions to her inability to understand the difference between regular birth control pill usage and a single dose, or something else we couldn’t possibly have dreamt up ourselves? We’ll know in a month.

As usual, we have a great diversity of topics in this carnival, including archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and biological anthropology. Please visit those posts that are of interest, comment on them, submit them to social networking sites, and tell your friends and family about how great they are. Remember, we are all anthropologists, and we’ve got to stick together to promote our academic, societal and political endeavors!

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Quick, answer this question: What is art for? If, when I say “art,” you think of drawings and similar things, and you were a member of certain societies, your answer would be quick and easy: “Art is for magic. Don’t ask me any more questions; I’m not the shaman.” Or words to that effect. Or at least, this is somewhere between a reasonable assumption and an observation based on the available ethnographies. But how do we see shamanism in art in ancient, archaeological societies? How do we “know” that a particular element in ancient art signals shamanistic behavior? Kris Hirst has this covered: Shamans and Archaeology.

Typically, archaeologists have used the presence of a ritual-specific artifact or a rock art drawing of an anthropomorphic creature with animal characteristics to tentatively suggest the presence of a shaman within a given society. VanPool makes a cogent argument that by now anthropologists have identified a suite of cross-cultural traits that can be identified archaeologically and thus used to confidently argue for shamanism as a practice at an archaeological site or set of sites.

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Afarensis asks: Chimps, Dogs, Or Ants: Which is a Better Model For Human Sociality? For me, the answer is obvious. Birds. But never mind me, what does the ol’ hominin have to say about it?

The idea that dogs might serve as models of human behavior is not a new idea. Dogs, like humans are highly social animals that evolved from other highly social animals. For example, one line of research looks at the ability of dogs and wolves to perceive and act on cues provided by humans (turns out wolves don’t pay that much attention to cues provided by humans).

(Wolves have also been used as models for land use patterns among temperate or subarctic long distance logistical hunting peoples. Which might make more sense in some ways.)

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Is it a boy or a girl?

Sexing a pelvis is one of those things that takes practice. In fact, that’s one of the problems with it. There are very few things in a pelvis where you can just look at it and say, “that’s a male” without having a good deal of experience.

A primate of modern aspect addresses this ancient question: Quick and Dirty Pelvis Sexing.

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Check out this video of Oliver Sacks on Neuroanthropology, then read to see how Daniel thinks neuroanthropology has advanced since. What’s that you say? Sacks wasn’t a neuroanthropologist? Well, you’ll just have to read it, won’t you.

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I hate when this happens: Daycare Looters.

Not far from my home, in the woods down by the tracks, are the foundations of an abandoned railroad man’s homestead. Its name, Vinterbrinken (“Winter Slope”), survives in a nearby street name, though few know that anymore.

The house was built by the railroad company in the 1890s and was torn down, along with its barn, in the 1950s. The municipal archives have photographs of the buildings and the people who lived there, and they are all known by name…. Lately, the staff at a nearby daycare centre has been taking the kids down to the site and had them excavate parts of it,…

Teaching children about archaeology by engaging in criminal activity (looting) is not recommended by any archaeologist, including Martin at Aardvarchaeology.

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In a follow-up on some earlier work, Mark Dingemanse discusses the Siwu funeral dirge in a post called A cultural revival?

Last summer I wrote about the ideophone kanana. Here is a funeral dirge in which that ideophone, evoking a tranquil silence, plays a central role. It would normally be sung during the wakekeeping, in the middle of the night.

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This is very funny: Lego Archaeology. Go check it out.

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From SNPwatch at The Spittoon: Genetic Variation May Explain Why Young Women Are At Greater Risk For Melanoma Compared to Young Men:

Melanoma, a rare but potentially deadly form of skin cancer, is more common in women under 40 than in men in the same age group. After age 45, the tables are turned: men are more likely to be diagnosed with melanoma.

Between the ages of 40 and 50 happens to be when many women enter menopause or perimenopause, a time of declining estrogen levels. This has prompted some researchers to suggest that estrogen exposure may play a part in melanoma risk.

In a report published last week in Clinical Cancer Research, researchers show that a genetic variation previously associated with several other cancers may be the link between estrogen and melanoma in younger women. The riskier version of the variation increases the odds a woman will be diagnosed with melanoma before age 40 more than fourfold.

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“People are just animals.” If you say that word in Siwu, an African language, it sounds a certain way. A local bird “says” the same thing when making one of its natural calls. Which the Siwu speaking people find annoying, for obvious reasons. Please visit this multimedia post from The Ideophone to find out what the heck I’m talking about here.

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Consider this:

…a model of the brain as an information processing and memory retrieving machine that manipulates information suggests catching a fly ball is a calculation and comparison problem; calculating the path and recalling previous experience to compare the current situation with previous experiences of catching (or failing to catch). In contrast, an ecological psychology approach ‘argues that the fielder observes the flight path of the ball and can react using the angle monitoring system.’

So which is it? Read this post at Neuroanthropology to find out: Catching fly balls: taking a step forward.

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That’s it for this edition. Now you know what to do. Start clicking away!

Alas, it was not to be. Bachmann continues to run her mouth (now, there’s an alternative energy source) at every opportunity, regardless of the presence of cameras and microphones, regardless of her whether she had anything to say, regardless of who she’s speaking to. It’s behavior that has a certain effect on those who have to listen to her. Eric Kleefeld of TPMDC has named this, of course, the Bachmann Effect.

Gawker explains what that facial expression really means in English. Greg puts this phenomenon in its proper context. Oh, if only she were trying to be that funny. But no, she means it, and there are enough people taking her seriously that we must too. The Replace Michele Bachmann Blog Carnival is back.

We should have known. It only took her three days after the election to be named Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World for snuggling up to Obama after suggesting he be investigated as anti-American.

It wasn’t much later that Bachmann denied ever calling for his investigation, telling Alan Colmes that the direct quote he was reading was an “urban legend.” Colmes didn’t display the Bachmann Effect, unfortunately. I guess that’s a side effect of having reality denied to his face that often. However, a number of bloggers, fairly new to the train wreck that is the Sixth District’s congressional representative, couldn’t keep the literary equivalent of the effect out of their posts, calling her “crazy” and “out there.”

The local paper reported on the urban legend affair and noted that she also used the opportunity to accuse Al Franken of trying to “stuff the ballot box with rejected ballots.” Emily Kaiser at City Pages has the transcript of the interview and points out that Bachmann was repeating allegations that even Tim Pawlenty, our governor who dreams of a national stage for his hair and smile, had declared false by that point.

What else was Bachmann up to in November? Dump Michele Bachmann has the information on how she used the I-35W bridge collapse as an occasion to flirt with Bush and later tried to turn it into a political lever in her reelection campaign. OneNewsNow covers her defense of Sarah Palin. Bachmann herself used her blog (at Townhall.com) to argue that it’s perfectly reasonable for capital to control political speech in this country and to talk about how she’s finally against executive power now that a Democratic executive was taking office. No kisses for Obama, I guess.

December was a quieter month, starting with speculation that Bachmann might run for governor if she loses her congressional seat to redistricting. She was discovered to have endorsed a ministry that fraudulently wormed its way into public schools under the cover of anti-drug education to deliver their real messages, like:

In the girls’ session a female staffer from the band told the girls that they “would get black spots” on their wedding dresses if they held hands with a boy and would be serving “leftovers” to their husbands if they lost their virginity before marrying a “God-fearing man.”

She made the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s list of 2008 Most Embarrassing Re-Elected Members of Congress. She also made the NY Times list of top 2008 television moments for her appearance on Hardball and won Comedy Central’s contest for the Indecision 2008 Best Campaign Villain. Bachmann herself ended her year by eulogizing Paul Weyrich, dominionist and separatist founder of the Heritage Foundation.

Bachmann started the new year with more awards: third place in Crooks and Liars 2008 Golden Crookie Wingnut of the Year contest, fifth place in Comment Is Free’s American Hall of Shame, and two runner-up spots in City Pages list of Best Minnesota Scandals of 2008. Bachmann, perhaps less than pleased at not coming in first, bitched about Democrats in Congress wielding the power they were elected to use. Twice. She also joined Twitter, so now you can keep up with her every thought and public appearance.

January stayed fairly quiet for Bachmann. She said much of what one would expect from a Republican: No multi-million dollar estate tax for small family businesses. (How small is small, there, Representative?) Cut taxes to stimulate the economy. (Which has such a great track record.) The Hill ran a profile suggesting that she had become cautious.

Still, she managed to sneak in a couple of classic Bachmann moments. She opined again on the Coleman/Franken recount in an interview with Glenn Beck, suggesting that a fair judge would be one who found in favor of Coleman. She also made an appearance on Sean Hannity with Al Sharpton and Meatloaf (yes, really) in which she said, among other things, that African Americans would start voting Republican because of the issue of gay marriage.

January was just a hint of things to come. In February, Bachmann was back to drawing media attention with her appearances. She really does have a knack for making statements that tell in a few quick words how wrong both her priorities and her facts are. “We’re running out of rich people in this country,” is just one of those perfect gems. Bachmann made the comment to protest the stimulus package. The emphasis on the rich instead of those suffering from our current economy shouldn’t need any comment. Not that that stopped people. Dump Michele Bachmann collected many of the links to the outrage.

Bluestem Prairie has the audio clip and was inspired to evaluate Bachmann’s claim that the stimulus package was a conspiracy to direct funds away from Republican districts. Is anyone surprised to discover that Bachmann’s district would be the district best served by the package? Actually, the people who voted for her probably would be. Unsurprisingly, there was even more silliness to the interview, including unfounded allegations about ACORN, fact-checked by CNN. The Huffington Post was moved to collect reader suggestions for things Bachmann would believe if they were printed on the internet (a game also played later by Gawker).

February also brought Bachmann’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and her question, “I just wondered that if our founders thought taxation without representation was bad, what would they think of representation WITH taxation?” Not to mention her applauding RNC chair Michael Steele with the words, “You be da man!” Seriously.

TPM felt the need to end their post on her words with, “And no, this is not from The Onion.” The City Pages offered her some tips to keep her slang up to date. Greg used her words about taxation as an opportunity to talk about levels of understanding, or in this case, levels of misunderstanding.

Whew. That’s a long way to go to catch up with Bachmann, but we’ve finally reached March. Submitted to a Candid World has a nice summary of March in Bachmannland that brings us up to the ides, but most of the fun has really been in the past week or so. So what’s the representative with the crazy eyes been up to lately? Whoo, boy.

There is, of course, the “armed and dangerous” comment. If you’re not already familiar with her exact remarks, Dump Michele Bachmann has the full audio. Some people are calling this sedition and suggesting that, by her own standards, Bachmann should be censured. Bachmann’s representatives are calling her words merely metaphor, although Jefferson was certainly not speaking metaphorically. Prendergast at Dump Michele Bachmann makes a good case that Bachmann meant every word. Crooks and Liars also sees her statements as part of a pattern–paranoia in this case. Athenae at First Draft explains why claiming that Bachmann’s language is metaphorical doesn’t make her statements a whole lot better.

Then there were the questions to Geithner and Bernanke on the constitutional basis for the bailout. There’s a bit of disagreement about which is the worst part of her questions: the fact that she didn’t know without asking that the Constitution states that Congress authorizes spending or the fact that she didn’t understand that her question was being answered. I’m going for the first one, not just because she really should know, but because I believe her questions are merely the echo of a broader, conspiracy-mongering movement.

Truly, the scandal here is that she doesn’t know this, any more than she understands the basis for U.S. currency or the currency used in international trade. After all, as a commenter pointed out at Dump Michele Bachmann, not only is she on the House Financial Services Committee, “in fact it’s been your ONLY committee assignment for your entire tenure in Congress.” Not a quick learner, that Bachmann. Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that she doesn’t “show up to your own committee hearings.”

Whatever the case, Bachmann first pressed both Geithner and Bernanke to pledge to keep the U.S. dollar as our country’s currency. Both were perplexed, but neither thought it was anything but a good idea. Of course, the issue under discussion isn’t the U.S. currency, but the reserve currency used for trading between nations. The difference isn’t rocket science, and if Bachmann needed someone (besides her fellow committee members) to explain it to her, she could have turned to one of our local alternative news weeklies. Or a local liberal blog. Or any of a number of blogs elsewhere. Or the Treasury Department’s release on the state of the U.S. reserves. Or the largest local daily paper. Or a national news outlet. Or anything or anyone connected to reality.

But no, instead Bachmann has proposed a constitutional amendment to keep America safe for the dollar. And last night, she did an interview with Glenn Beck to explain why it was necessary. Think Progress has this excerpt.

BACHMANN: As you know, Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, many nations have lined up now and have called for an international global currency, a One World currency and they want to get off of the dollar as the reserve currency.

BECK: Most people don’t understand, Michele, what that means.

BACHMANN: What that means is all of the countries in the world would have a single currency. We would give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency. … If we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose control over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom. And then we are no more, as an exceptional nation, as we always have been. So this is imperative.

Forget what the rest of the world is actually saying, Bachmann is pushing this as a conspiracy theory. That’s My Congress puts this in the context of existing currency conspiracies, and Dump Michele Bachmann ties this to her apocalyptic religious beliefs. It’s Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly who really ties everything together, though, and it’s to him that I give the final words of this carnival.

Now, Bachmann simply isn’t well. Were she not an elected member of the U.S. Congress, she’d probably be shouting conspiracy theories and holding cardboard signs on some sidewalk somewhere. But what I find especially interesting is that her paranoid delusions are so detached from obvious truths. If Bachmann wanted to complain that a 39.6% top rate was the epitome of Marxism, she’d be just another conservative. But she’s convinced herself that the Obama administration will “move us to an international currency,” due entirely to her breathtaking stupidity.

My fear, at this point, is that lunacy from deranged politicians and their media allies is going to end up getting someone hurt. Republican officials believe they should emulate the insurgency tactics of the Taliban. They see themselves as “freedom fighters” taking on the “slide toward socialism.” They want a “revolution” because Americans “can’t let” Democrats succeed in taking away “our very freedom.”

This is obviously madness, not from some right-wing blog, but from elected federal officials. But I worry it’s more than that. Incendiary rhetoric like this leads strange people to do strange things.