Some people might read my comments in the article I linked to and think that I'm engaged in tauroscatologizing. I'm not. You, see in order to be engaged in tauroscatologizing, one needs to have no concern for the truth. And I do have a very high regard for the truth. What I was doing in my comments in that article was assuming that strict materialism was indeed the case and to see if that assumption got me to the same point where it got the author of the article. Well, it didn't. It did, however, finally bring me to really understand the position of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Or at least I think it did. If you want to comment on this particular issue, please do it over there rather than in this diary.

My fever is gone for good it seems. I'm still coughing. And today my head began filling with snot. I've had so much drainage into my stomach that I've begun throwing up. Or at least I'm assuming that this is why I'm throwing up. My stomach doesn't hurt. I don't feel nausea. Sometimes, I just need to hurry to the throne room and make a few prostrations to the Porcelain Queen. I don't know why that is.

Discover magazine has more than a few great articles in the April issue. (I'd link, but even though I've received the April issue in the mail, it isn't up on their website yet.) The first was on one of my favorite topics, making oil out of rendering plant remains. The only large scale factory that does this in the US has a cost of about $100 per barrel. But that barrel is not of crude, it is of oil of sufficient grade to be consumed by power utilities with no further processing. Once oil starts to take off again, technologies like this will flourish.

The other article that intrigued me was the profile of Mary Schweitzer, the scientist currently almost single-handedly creating the field of molecular-paleobiology. She made the news around the world when she first discovered organic material inside the fossilized bones of a T. rex. A devout Evangelical Christian, She instantly got hit with insults galore from both scientists and fundamentalists. From the scientist side came charges that she was a fraud and that her discoveries were not scientifically possible and were a product of her faith-based imagination. From the fundamentalist side came the charge that she was going to burn in hell unless she recanted her belief in evolution. But her finds are amazing. She's soaked some fossil bones in dilute acid which dissolves the fossils and leaves only organics behind, what looks like a network of portions of blood vessels, still in an organic state. Good stuff. The next step is to extract DNA and make a bunch of baby T. Rexes, no?

I need to get the show on the road. Despite the mucus and phlegm, I've got a road trip to make to work on Ye Olde House of Doom.

And a letter to write.