Archives for September, 2008
Click Here
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 on October 3rd. If you click there now, you will get this: James Nachtwey, one of the world’s greatest photojournalists and winner of the 2007 TEDPrize, received “one wish to change the world”: “I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in…
What I had for Rosh Hashanah Dinner
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 Happy New Year! I was a good little atheist today, and made a reasonably convincing argument that Bill Maher has NOT gone too far in trashing religion. After all, no one expected the Spanish Inquisition. Or at least, the elderly Jewish and Catholic people were nodding as I was ranting about it, so I think…
Poll on Palin
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 Here’s a poll you may be interested in. The question is: Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States? And so far the answer is “Yes” by a small margin. This poll is at PBS. Here.
James Nachtwey
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 So, what do you’all think of this guy? Should I trust him?
Gnome system wide shortcut keys
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 A few more shortcut keys for you to learn and live by: Alt + F1 Opens the Applicantions Menu . Alt + F2 Displays the Run Application dialog. Print Screen Takes a screenshot, opens dialog to save the screenshot as a PNG file. Alt + Print Screen Takes a screenshot of the window that has…
Obama Surges in North Star State
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 Not long ago, Minnesota was moved to the “undecided column” by many pollsters. Well, in the words of the great Inspector Clouseau, “Nit Iny Meour”….. In Minnesota, Barack Obama has opened an eight-point lead over John McCain. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Minnesota voters finds Obama attracting 52% of the vote while McCain…
Galveston Dead and Missing Mystery
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 This is a photograph from the vicinity of Galveston Texas. These fish were stranded in this fence after Hurricane Ike’s storm surge receded. This photo is one of a dozen or so I received that are allegedly being used in FEMA disaster training, and that may be true. But I think these are also circulating…
Get ready for the Vice Presidential Debate
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 You’ll need two/three cases of beer, three/four bottles of wine, a few friends, and understanding neighbor. Do not watch this video if you intend to drive. And now, How to remove red wine stains from your carpet:
Plan B
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 This is from Robert Reich’s blog: Prediction: A scaled-down bill will be enacted by the end of the week. It will provide the Treasury with a first installment of $150 billion. Treasury can use it to back Wall Street’s bad debts with lend no-interest loans of up to two years, until the housing market rebounds.…
August Berkshire Interview
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 We need a society in which laws are based purely on secular reasoning. So, for example, let’s take the marriage laws. There’s no reason to prohibit same-gender, same-sex marriages. The government is supposed to treat all citizens equally, so there’s no secular reason to be against same-sex marriages. But there are religious reasons, and they…
Sub Prime Explained: You must read this
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 It is a cartoon power point-like thingie about the current financial crisis. Click the picture.
Moore on the Bailout
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 Michael Moore’s critique of the bailout recently mailed around the intertubes includes this list of problems: 1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street’s spending of the $700 billion; 2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal…
Empty Oceans
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 See also this short article on film director Randy Olson.
Evolution, the Carnival
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2008 Thirty Days Hath September, which means that tonight I’ll be compiling the Carnival of Evolution. I’ll actually be putting it up during the day tomorrow, and can probably take late submissions even through the early AM. Either way, please send me your blog posts on Evolution and stuff, or submit them here.
Figuring out DNA looping with unbelievably advanced technology
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 An article just out in PLOS Biology explores one of the most important, but also difficult to observe, phenomena related to DNA regulation. Figure 1 from the paper: “Atomic Force Microscopy of Lac Repressor-DNA Complexes (A) Schematic structures of biotin (bio)- and digoxigenin (dig)-labeled DNA constructs with one (O-539 and O-349) or two (O-153-O and…
Aerosteon riocoloradensis: A Very Cool Dinosaur from Argentina
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 Fossils of a newly discovered species of dinosaur — a 10-meter-long, elephant-weight predator — were discovered in 1996 along the banks of Argentina’s Rio Colorado, and are now being reported after a long period of careful study. This dinosaur dates to about 85 million years (which falls within the Cretaceous period). Perhaps the most interesting…
With the economy in shambles, you just can’t pay retail anymore
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 And just in case, you better also learn how to walk in high heels.
Effective Polygyny in Humans: Turns out it is for real
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 Human societies tend to be at least a little polygynous. This finding, recently reported in PLoS genetics, does not surprise us but is nonetheless important. This important in two ways: 1) This study uncovers numerical details of human genetic variation that are necessary to understand change across populations and over time; and 2) the variation…
Calamity! Republicans Fail Us All!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 The Republicans failed to come up to the plate, and with 66 voting for and 132 voting against, the critically important bailout bill has failed in the house. As the vote turned against the bill, we watched the stock market dive precipitously. The Dow stands now at about 500 down, but it was much lower…
By the numbers
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 560 Billion Dollars Cost of the Iraq War to the US so far. 700 Billion Dollars Cost of the one time bailout to compensate for deregulation and greed in the financial markets. 560 Billion Dollars Pluse 700 Billion Dollars The cost of two terms of Republican Leadership Five The approximate percentge of Democratic Candidate Barack…
Protein Synthesis in Stop Action Animation
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 Hat top: blgoSci
Time Scales
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 This is not a profound post. This is more of an internal memo among bloggers. I needed a time scale for something, so I went to the USGS and ripped two different ones. These are modified so that they are 500 pixels wide and have space on the right to slap in symbols or text…
To go where no TV show has gone before….
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 Here are excerpt from a list of things you will never see on Star Trek 1. The Enterprise runs into a mysterious energy field of a type it has encountered several times before. 2. The Enterprise goes to visit a remote outpost of scientists, who are all perfectly all right. 4. The crew of the…
John McCain = Manchurian Candidate
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2008 The proof is finally in. John McCain has the uncanny ability to say whatever he wants no matter how utterly untrue it is and retain support in the double (albeit diminishing) digits. The Chinese are also able to say whatever they want (like, this girl can sing, and hey, look at the cool fireworks) even…
Let’s talk about Alt-Tab for a moment
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2008 Ready for more shortcuts? And a small rant? These days, I find myself using a Windows computer far more often than I want to, and every day I am reminded of how much better the user interface that you get with Gnome running on Linux is than Windows XP. I can’t speak for Vista, but…
Republicans emerge, briefly, from their cave
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2008 The waiting is over. Republican house representatives initially reluctant to support the newly crafted legislation to fix the markets have been meeting for the last two or three hours. It took a lot longer for these Republicans to go over the bill than it did for the Democrats, owing I assume to their reduced intelligence.…
Kyle will give Maine a pass
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2008 But Nova Scotia will take it in the neck, so to speak. Kyle has made a pretty hard right turn and is going to make landfall in Nova Scotia. This changes the landfall estimate by many hours, because of the complex shape of the New England/Maritime coast. Indeed, Kyle is essentially already there, with the…
Yet Another Great Parody of Palin
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2008 These parodies are getting better and better . This one is hysterical:
This photograph needs a caption
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2008 Hurricane Kyle Details
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2008 As a supplement to my essay on Maine here is the actual important information on Kyle. Kyle is only barely being thought of as a hurricane at this moment. The forcasters are using terms like “Ugly” (which means not well formed as a hurricane) and “Convectivly Challenged” in their discussion. Kyle will come ashore in…
, which is now available for the 
