Drinking with bloggers

Shaine Mata posted a nice picture from a beer and burgers outing at Mother Egan's last night. From left to right are Kevin Kennedy who writes about blogs for Texas Weekly, me, Vince Leibowitz from Capitol Annex, and the fellow who does McBlogger, who by his own designs shall remain nameless.

Shaine is a South Texas blogger who's working for House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee Chairman Aaron Peña's legislative staff this session. He told me he's only gotten to go home twice to visit his family since session began, and that he supports dark horse Bill Richardson for president because "I'm dark, too." Shaine said he thought it was time Latinos began promoting their own leaders for statewide and national office and Bill Richardson is the only Latino in the field. The photo was taken from a cameraphone. Shaine has more pics.

I've known no war, and if I ever do I won't know for sure

Can you even imagine living in a state of constant war? The Virginia Tech massacre shocked the nation, and yet that kind of thing happens in Iraq weekly, maybe daily. Mind boggling.

YouTubin': Some days you miss Stevie:

This Week on Easter Island

I made this over at Witty Comics. Click on the image to view a larger version, and Happy Easter.

Primates lived in Texas 42 million years ago when Laredo was on the coast

Forty two million years ago, the area that today is quite-inland Laredo was a coastal lagoon, and researchers have discovered evidence primates occupied the area ("Researchers study evidence of ancient primates in Laredo area," Waco Herald Tribune, April 2). See an artist's depiction of one of the animals at left. According to news reports:

Lamar University Professor Jim Westgate and two colleagues announced the discovery of three new genera and four new species of primates based on their examination of material removed from Lake Casa Blanca International State Park near Laredo and the Mexican border.

Westgate said the Laredo area was a coastal lagoon during the stage of geologic history known as the Eocene Epoch, which was when primates were becoming extinct on much of the continent.

"It was kind of the last gasp for the primates in North America," said Westgate, a professor of earth and space sciences.

The researchers presented their findings last week at a conference of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Philadelphia.

Westgate and others are still studying the 15 tons of material excavated from the park's fossil deposits between 1983 and 1996. Researchers recovered 1,800 mammal teeth, including 50 from primates.

Dana Cope, a co-author of the study and associate professor of anthropology at College of Charleston in South Carolina, compared the teeth with other primate teeth from the same era. He said the newly discovered teeth, which measure about 4 millimeters, were not from known primates.

"This is a very important locality," Cope said. "Not much is known about Eocene mammals outside the Rocky Mountains."

The Beaumont Enterprise linked to these additional web resources on the topic:

Lake Casa Blanca International State Park near Laredo

The Eocene Epoch link 1

The Eocene Epoch link 2

The Eocene Epoch link 3

Tarsier link 1

Tarsier link 2

Tarsier link 3

Galago/Bush Baby link 1

Galago/Bush Baby link 2