Events

The new feature I mentioned this morning is done. Now, in addition to the "where was this posted" button on the footer, you will notice the entry's time zone. Each entry can have its own time zone—in addition to the site-wide default. I still have to fix a couple of things related to this change, like the fact that the date headers ("Thursday 24 November 2011," just above this entry) are on UTC rather than local time. But going forward (and going backward if I ever get supremely bored), you can now see...

I'm rushing to get a major change to the resurrected dasBlog code done before I leave tomorrow (because I don't want to push code from anywhere I can't recover). Meanwhile, here's a timely NSFW comic for your holiday.

Via the Chicago Tribune, NASA launched a new weather satellite in October that provides incredible high-resolution images of the planet: VIIRS will collect radiometric imagery in visible and infrared wavelengths of the Earth's land, atmosphere, and oceans. By far the largest instrument onboard NPP, VIIRS weighs about 556 pounds (252 kilograms). Its data, collected from 22 channels across the electromagnetic spectrum, will be used to observe the Earth's surface including fires, ice, ocean color...

A cop in Tuscaloosa, Ala., arrested a suspicious foreigner under the state's xenophobia laws, with predictable results: A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver's license with him under Alabama's new law targeting illegal immigrants, authorities said Friday, in an otherwise routine case that drew the attention of Gov. Robert Bentley. Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag...

A week ago Sunday I mentioned that I'd forked this blog engine so I could add features. I've added the first one, and everything seems to be working just fine. The Daily Parker has used GeoRSS for a long time. All of the entries since March 2010 are geo-coded, which you would only know by looking at the RSS feed. Well, now you can see the geographic information on the blog entries themselves. See the little globe icon next to the time and date at the bottom of the entry? Go ahead, click on it. For more...

After Saturday's PR disaster at UC Davis, the university suspended its police chief and two officers: UC Davis said early Monday in a news release that it was necessary to place police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave to restore trust and calm tensions. The school refused to identify the two officers who were place on administrative leave but one was a veteran of many years on the force and the other "fairly new" to the department, Spicuzza earlier told The Associated Press. She would not...

Via Sullivan, the L.A. Times reports that atheists are moving toward official recognition in the U.S. military: Religion — specifically Christianity — is embedded in military culture. The Chaplain Corps traces its origins to the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Until the 1970s, the service academies required cadets to attend chapel services. Nightly prayers still are broadcast throughout Navy ships at sea. ... [N]onbelievers describe themselves as a minority that is often isolated and...

The Atlantic has a few good Friday's police overreaction at UC Davis. First, the university has launched an inquiry into the incident. I sincerely hope the guy wielding the pepper spray, John Pike, loses his job, as does the guy who ordered him to use it. Alexis Madrigal feels bad for him: "[W]hile it's [Pike's] finger pulling the trigger, the police system is what put him in the position to be standing in front of those students. I am sure that he is a man like me, and he didn't become a cop to shoot...

Video from yesterday in Syria California: Fallows says: Let's stipulate that there are legitimate questions of how to balance the rights of peaceful protest against other people's rights to go about their normal lives, and the rights of institutions to have some control over their property and public spaces. Without knowing the whole background, I'll even assume for purposes of argument that the UC Davis authorities had legitimate reason to clear protestors from an area of campus -- and that if...

One could say he is displeased: Now, Farage is the leader of the UK Independence Party, whose Euroscepticism derives from a xenophobic, right-wing domestic agenda that yearns for the days before those damn Normans came across and wrecked everything. Farage is, in an imperfect analogy, like the UK's Ron Paul. So don't confuse me posting this video with general endorsement; but I do worry that the premiers of Greece and Italy, from where we get democracy and the republican form of government respectively...