July 14, 2004

Slime mold and Senate procedure

Believe it or not, these two things didn't *start out* related. A friend suggested a cool... well, alright, incredibly GEEKY way for me to blog more often.

As I aspire to learn at least two new things a day, she suggested I blog them. (She claimed that people other than me would be interested in it. If I bore you to tears with my obscurity, you can go blame her. I, of course, will hog all the credit if this entertains you.)

And so, the dubious fruit of my labors for today: slime mold and bit of procedural verbiage from the Senate.

Today I learned that slime mold isn't exactly a mold, and it's not exactly a single organism, either. They're frequently classified as protoctists, as they have characteristics of both plants and animals. They're basically just a slushy mass of protoplasm-- think of a gang of amoeba hanging out-- but they reproduce by spores, like fungi.

And in a completely (no, really!) unrelated search, I learned that there *is* a way to end a filibuster (that is, blocking a bill by B.S.'ing endlessly about it on the Senate Floor) in the U.S. Senate: by invoking something called "cloture." From the Senate's own glossary, cloture is "the only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes." And that's basically why the gay marriage ban amendment failed in the Senate-- they couldn't pass cloture.

Posted by gris at July 14, 2004 10:12 PM
Comments

From what I've read, slime molds start out as individual cells feasting on whatever detritus is available (usually dead leaves). When the available food supply runs out the cells gather together forming a collective that resembles a slug. The slug then crawls to the top of the pile of leaves where it transforms itself into something resembling a mushroom, which releases spores, thus continuing the species.

Posted by: Jeff at July 15, 2004 02:33 PM

Gee, tough luck, Bob. Get off my blog, spammer. ::KICK::

Posted by: Gris at August 16, 2004 09:29 PM