Open Reading Frame

The Priory Of Sion - CBS News
""I am not a naive innocent who was hoaxed by Monsieur Plantard and Cherisey. No, I am a very, very careful researcher," says Lincoln. " Bwahahahaha!

Informed Comment
Hoo boy, Juan Cole is pissed. I sent Slate this:
Dear Slate, if you want to retain a shred of credibility, you must provide Prof Juan Cole with a forum in which he can reply directly to Christopher Hitchens' ill-considered and underhanded attack on him (see here).
I understand (from Prof Cole, among others) that Hitchens was once a fine journalist. However true that may be, and however laudable may be your loyalty to him, with this latest attack Hitchens has crossed a line that no reputable publication dare cross with him.

Great Plant Picks
"Great Plant Picks is an educational awards program committed to building a comprehensive palette of outstanding plants for Pacific Northwest gardens. Awards are based on the combined expertise of over forty horticulturists from Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. Great Plant Picks originates at the Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle, Washington, and provides a forum for sharing horticultural information with the wider gardening community."

Flags and Lollipops - Bioinformatics Blog: Commenting on papers
BioMedCentral has a comments page for each paper, Nature has a blog, and now Cell has comments for selected papers as well. Eee!

Digby's right, we should just flat-out buy them. Cheaper by the dozen I bet.
"Since I see little hope that the system is going to be reformed, it occurs to me that we liberals should just hire ourselves some lobbyists. Really. We spend many, many millions on political campaigns that get us zilch. Nada. We should just raise funds to buy congressmen yachts or send them to Australia on vacation or hire their wives at 5 grand a month to survey what congressmen like for dinner. These guys go cheap when you really think about it. They'll do pretty much anything you want for a golfing trip. We'd actually save money just by buying them all French commodes. In exchange we get them to vote for national health care and legal gay marriage and a $15.00 minimum wage. "

So what can I do?: Make trade fair.
From Karama Neal's excellent blog, a list of fair trade clearinghouses that enable the consumer to make informed ethical choices.

SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society Guardian | Hard to swallow
Researchers at the University of Chicago have calculated the relative carbon intensity of a standard vegan diet in comparison to a US-style carnivorous diet, all the way through from production to processing to distribution to cooking and consumption. An average burger man (that is, not the outsize variety) emits the equivalent of 1.5 tonnes more CO2 every year than the standard vegan. By comparison, were you to trade in your conventional gas-guzzler for a state of the art Prius hybrid, your CO2 savings would amount to little more than one tonne per year.

Women's Bioethics Blog
I figure we should include science/bioethics blogs in any list of "science blogs".

Plushy Bugs!
We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes—only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Cough, Ear Ache, Bad Breath, Kissing Disease, Athlete's Foot, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, and Bookworm (and in our Professional line: H.I.V. and Hepatitis).