Nothing confuses people living in the Middle Ages more than dinosaurs - and here is Yemen with really decent tracks on an old beach front. I think if we are ever going to truly climb out of the Middle Ages, intellectually, as an entire race, its going to be on the back of our beloved dinosaurs !

Wouldn't you love to walk through a forest of the Jurassic period? Keep you hair pinned up, you don't want the flying what-evers getting caught in it, do you?
And Just bring a good size strong net to your next Jurassic outing !!
Seriously -- sounds like it was anything but dull. Lets of jumping, flying and even parachuting going on.

BIG impressive !!!!!! --- how about knowing the color/ hues of early bird plumage (as in Jurassic Birds ?? ) just read. OHHHHH, MY !!
What next?

Somehow, I am skeptical.. really skeptical... think of how vulnerable they would have been to attack - unless we got their locomotion wrong,too - and no armor, can't run and how long did it take them to take off?

A herd of dinosaurs seen on the Arabian Peninsula!!! News at 7, tonight.
Oh, sorry, just some lovely prints. Anybody got a time machine?

WAY INTERESTING! I've read this before.. there have been several very good suggestions why the pulse of extinction events seems to be every 33 million years. I don't think science will find out unless it happens, and God save us all, then. - and that little aside about life spreading outward !

Is 65 million years long enough to inspire me to put a piece of dung in my living room and call it art? I don't think so!
Now a meteor, oh, yes, please, please, please!

I would love to see the pictures of the scans, wouldn't you? I love amber and have several pieces of it either as Jewelry or as samples - Don't have an example of the most precious kind, though, ie. visible bugs.

New dinosaur.. meat eater, too - Looks like something to duck if you ever meet him in a dark alley -some of the best discoveries are coming out of Africa & Asia, right now !!

Hi, everyone. Today is going to be a very busy day for me - all my handwork hangs up on a line in my study to dry, I need to take it down, do a little steam ironing to finish it for good and wrap all for Christmas. I am going to do one grand picture. I have three shawls  but only two are drying- a black shawl is already boxed - 4 scarves & two hats hanging up. I am also knitting some last minute socks that won't be finished quite in a minute!
We didn't all blow away, contrary to what Drudge says. The winds kept in 35-40 MPH range in our area...though a few gusts may have hit 50 during the worse of it (a guess.) so a few branches fell - and for once, we didn't lose electricity here though there were power outages in other cities and towns. That, itself, is a surprise ! There is flooding in the state but that isn't unusual - Centralia & the coastal towns often flood.
I think I am just accustomed to the weather, here. It can be a heaven on earth or one of the most depressing places to live on earth. (if you don't like constant rain!)
 We even walked to the library. It rained rather hard most of the day and eased off in the evening for a few hours. The winds were constant, but not incredibly high. The temperatures are warm, its almost a pleasure to walk in this weather, compared to the freezing and near freezing we had last week.

  Did you all see the report about the dinosaur discovery - a duck-billed hadrosaur mummy, fossilised. Seems the veggie eater could outrun his main predator, or, at least, give him a good run... there must have been a lot of frustrated T-Rexs 65 Mil Years ago. I sometimes wish time-travel wasn't just a science fiction plot device but could actually happen... I would like to meet some historical characters (hey, question : who would you like to meet if you could go back in time?) - but I would also love to see a hadrosaur change his skin color to mate or run from Mr. T-REX , wouldn't you ?
Pocus, the my cat buddy (he is the white one) is at my study door mewing and scraping the door with his claws. He hates closed doors but I can't let him in until the shawls are safely in their boxes.

I considered asking for it for my anniversary but can you imagine trying to DUST a complete, complex fossil and where would I put IT??????? I wonder how the cats would react?

Some of the new South American discoveries in all their primative glory. I haven't read it yet, so I can't comment any further. Its worth a look, though. Of course I bought it!

Evil walks our land, we invited the evil man here, we listened to his lying words and we praised ourselves for our openness and love of freedom of speech. He threatens us with war and destruction, he says we must convert to Islam or die. This man who hates everything we love: the rights of man & women, freedom of speech, the enlightenment, democracy, freedom of religion, in short : everything we have built here in the West. We hate our own hard working men and women who do their best to serve us but we adore the enemies of our country, is this sane or right?
Will this be believed in the future when this era is played out to its sorry end ? Will those who welcomed this evil man to the university hang your heads in sorrow and embarrassment in some future era when all his victims are dead and buried or will you congratulate yourselves still for your insight and intelligence in inviting an important monster to your hallowed halls ?

The president of Columbia university has said he would welcome Hitler, if he still lived to the University. Madness, true and honest madness. All the victims of Hitler should haunt this insane man until he recovers his good sense --- showing him their wounds in his dreams that would soon become nightmares. He has forgotten the blood that flowed for years all over the globe because of Hitler. He has forgotten. He is brilliant but foolish and arrogant. The wise are not necessarily intelligent and the intelligent are rarely, also, wise.

As Bruno said so often, the fact that the majority believe something has nothing to do with whether it is true or not. He fought men like the president of Columbia University his entire life. He was not a popular man among his fellow intellectuals, ever, because he did not bow to the intellectual gods of his times.
He didn't win but history won for him. There are idiots by the ton in higher education, brilliant idiots, I suspect it has always been so.

People say that people like myself are stupid, ignorant because we value traditions and conservatism, we love God and believe in less government being better than a powerful central one but I am not stupid enough to invite a murderer who plans to kill me to dinner, are you?
Update : there is news that the president of Columbia university actually challenged Ahmadinejad about his actions and country's efforts to perfect the bomb - if this proves true I will apologize , at least to a degree. I have only heard one thing other than this - that there are no homosexuals in Iran or in Islam? Heavens, Sir, at least say no living homosexuals. I have seen the pictures of the hangings.
This is an article concerning the hangings.
Here is the picture I saw eariler. God knows how many are killed by their own families, just as women are when they 'misbehave'.

People seem to think that we conservatives are just as bad as this man - do I disapprove of homosexuality? I think it is a sin. I think we must allow others their rights if we expect them to respect our rights. Therefore, while I suspect homosexuality is a sin (just as being too fat is a sin!) I would never advocate limiting their right to exist. That is what America really is... a place where you can sin if you want to !!!

Dinosaur News : OK, you all know I am a dinosaur nut. here is some interesting news for you. Big bad velociraptor actually had feathers. Why do I suspect that dinos and birds are just about the same ... ??? well, the experts seem to think so and a heck of a lot of them had feathers. This cries for a question if Mr. V. had feathers than why would he be so sensitive to climate change, wouldn't this discovery suggest that even the large dinos had some insulation as would the discovery of dinos in the far north and south ? It also makes me wonder whether they were also hot or cold blooded.... were some of them on the way to being fully hot blooded - technically called endotherm ?

I thought I would comment on the article above - Jurassic Park IV and the dinosaurs have weapons? I really don't believe this, I am massively incredulous and will remain so until I see the movie website with actual pictures of T'Rex sporting a 50-mm rifle. Mr. Spielberg and his buddies are nutty as loons but not stupid. I cannot believe he would make a movie that costs millions that would appeal 4 -year-old but would make a 55 year-old laugh with embarrassment. The trick is to make a movie that will captivate the 4 year-old and does not bore the 55 year-old.
It will be a terrible movie if they start going into such a comic book land of nonsense, but I have never truly respected Spielberg and his intellectual abilities - He always falls slightly short of being impressive (my personal opinion). That said, it is a given that I will not be going - or buying this movie. I am fascinated with dinosaurs - natural history fascinates me and my husband has more than once protested the replaying of dinosaur videos - the National Geographics that cover everything from the history of the science of paleontology (scary that I can spell that word correctly first try.) to the origin of birds as theropod dinosaurs. A quick explaination of their place on evolution's endless lists!
(The origin of birds is a favorite subject of mine.)
So next time some bird walks past you with really dumb look on his face just bow slightly and show some respect for the only dinosaurs that survived the asteroid 65 million years ago. The truth is that the whole premise of the Jurassic park scenario is impossible - DNA does not survive 65 million years well enough to build an animal from it - even a few hundred is pushing it unless the tissue has been well taken care of, such as frozen. The Japanese spoke about bringing mammoths back. I have no idea if they have succeeded!
There has been some success but nothing like 'Jurassic Park'!!
I admit the dinosaurs of 'Jurassic Park' were just about perfect and that it (the movie) opened up a new world of well done computer generated documentaries on the subject of evolution but I am rather sensitive to tension. I usually cannot watch a horror or over-done, violent action movies. I almost become ill when the tension involved. I am not sure why I am like this but I consider it a weakness. I've never been able to watch the Jurassic Park trilogy, soon to be four movies, all the way through. Maybe I take things too seriously or my body reacts to tension differently than most people...
'Walking with Dinosaurs ' was the first of many documentaries that took advantage of new technologically computer generated beasties, and while it is not adult-level informative, it is worth getting out of the library - It is a moving picture book. I tend to like a little more meat in my documentaries and I suggest the PBS NOVA series and National Geographic's many offerings. Thank God, little drama and no emotion is ever expended in a good documentary!
The Wikipedia article of 'Walking...". It is still available just about everywhere they sell DVDs.
Here is a selection that the NG store. NOT much.
Discovery channel also has a store.
All the videos in the world won't really educate you, though - the real education comes in reading books on the subject. I suggest starting with the shows, yes, but then use the names of the scientists interviewed in the documentaries to research on line and at the library - there is no replacement for the written word.

Now for some fun. Old movies on the subject are usually based on fine old books, like 'Lost World' by Arthur Conan Doyle. I suspect the name of the modern movie is a bow to this great classic. The first time the book was dramatized was 1925, it is a silent movie but is still worth watching - the stop action battle between dinosaurs was well done and the plot of the movie is pretty faithful to the book. My favorite is still the Michael Rennie 1960 film - I just like Rennie but the movie fails to stay faithful to the book. The book is free on the net. Isn't life great?
Of course, there is the absolutely worse movie made on this subject - 'One Million Years B.C' with Raquel Welch - a lady of many talents - or, at least 2 talents ! A small article about a really bad movie - 1966 wasn't the best year for outstanding Sci-Fi movies, that would come later.
It was, as I said, a truly BAD movie with no science to speak of and a story line as slim as Miss Welch, herself.
There are a hundreds of movies, TV show episodes and even whole shows devoted to dinosaurs Here is the IMDb site with a list.
We all remember the great dinosaur scenes in the first 'King Kong' and its overly sentimentalized recent remake - and I am absolutely sure you all can remember your favorite scenes in what ever science fiction movies you happen to love best !

A note to everyone on the subject of religion : I see no conflict between my love of Jesus Christ and my fascination with paleontology - The bible, as a wise man once said, is a book about how to get to heaven, not how the heavens - or the earth - evolves !

One could hope that Mr. Speilberg won't ruin his new movie with a lot of political messages and correctness - would it be too much to ask Hollywood to lay off the politics and just entertain us with some dinosaurs ?