Archives for February, 2009
OMG, Ken Ham is Right!!11!!
Posted by Greg Laden on February 28, 2009 Is this the best the Republicans can do?
Posted by Greg Laden on February 28, 2009 It turns out Jindal was lying about the Katrina story he told during his response to Obama’s “State of the Union” address. Jindal had described being in the office of Sheriff Harry Lee “during Katrina,” and hearing him yelling into the phone at a government bureaucrat who was refusing to let him send volunteer boats…
LeRoy Bell
Posted by Greg Laden on February 28, 2009 Since someone is posting love songs, I figured I could do that too. Peace Monday! OK OK so that was not a love song. But the love song is not a video, just a still with the music in the background, and that just isn’t commercial. Well, maybe with a couple of Margaritas in the…
Carefully Selected Cool Intertubual Items
Posted by Greg Laden on February 28, 2009 Poking around in my blogroll. So you don’t have to. A letter to Robert Mugabe. This is a must read. By Mugabe especially, but you as well: “Happy Birthday Bob Mugabe” by Nkawzi N. Mhango at Afrospear. Speaking of ironies, here is a list of the Ironies of Ironies. Such as “Wondering who was rude…
Massimo Pigliucci v Jonathan Wells on evolution and intelligent design…
Posted by Greg Laden on February 28, 2009 How to Tell the Difference Between Science and Bunk. Massimo Pigliucci on Atheists Talk
Posted by Greg Laden on February 28, 2009 … Being interviewed by ME! (So don’t expect this to go well!!!!) Sunday March 1, 2009 Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, of the Stonybrook Institute in New York, is a biologist and a philosopher who has published about a hundred technical papers and several books on evolutionary biology. He is a fellow of the American Association for…
For Ol’ Times Sake
Posted by Greg Laden on February 27, 2009 Laughing at Coulter. Below the fold.
Inside CPAC
Posted by Greg Laden on February 27, 2009 Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
How much would you bet on this economy?
Posted by Greg Laden on February 27, 2009 Or, more precisely, during this economy? Stephanie Zvan at Quiche Moraine examines the question of using gaming as a way out of the state’s fiscal crisis in the North Star State, in Assessing the Odds.
Why didn’t Darwin discover Mendel’s laws?
Posted by Greg Laden on February 27, 2009 Perhaps we are all subject to falling into the trap of what I call the Hydraulic Theory of Everything. If you eat more you will be bigger, if you eat less you will be smaller. Emotional states are the continuously varying outcome of different levels of a set of hormones, forming “happy” or “stressy” or…
Tickets to Dawkins
Posted by Greg Laden on February 27, 2009 Minnesotans: Get your tickets to Dawkins by joining Minnesota Atheists. Details here.
Understanding Michele Bachmann in the context of Human Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on February 27, 2009 This barking dog is not very smart. But it could make a good Republican. The only thing harder to understand than Michele Bachmann is the Republican Party. Bachmann is hard to understand in this way: How can a person with her mind be an elected member of congress?!?!??? The Republican party is hard to understand…
PLoS Paleontology Collections
Posted by Greg Laden on February 27, 2009 PLoS ONE is a veritable fire hose of OpenAccess research. Which is nice, but how do you browse a fire hose? By using the PLoS ONE collections you can track your favorite topic or delve into the earlier literature or just browse around. And now, starting just moments ago, there is a PLoS collection on…
Fear 101
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 Public Schools new dress code enforced – watch more funny videos
Technology Tidbits
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 Microsoft’s Ballmer indicates that Linux is moving ahead of Mac as a threat to Windows. UK Goes OpenSource Women in OpenSource Report
‘Pre-Existing Condition’ Fueled Killer Cyclone
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 A “pre-existing condition” in the North Indian Ocean stoked the sudden intensification of last year’s Tropical Cyclone Nargis just before its devastating landfall in Burma, according to a new NASA/university study. The cyclone became Burma’s worst natural disaster ever and one of the deadliest cyclones of all time.
Karmic Koala Prospects Kloudy
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 In a good way. Ubuntu 9.10 is scheduled for release in October of this year, and will include the Amazon EC2 API. This will allow anyone to have a cloud using all OpenSource raw materials. And it will be energy savvy. From Mark Shuttleworth: What if you want to build an EC2-style cloud of your…
Please Don’t Play Games With My Date and Time Data
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 An Open Letter to All Software Developers, I don’t like changing, shifting, cutsie, idiotic date formats, and I don’t like rounding off much either. Many systems that provide information on date and time make unwrarented and embarrassingly stupid assumptions about what you want to know. In Movable Type, the system designers assume that if a…
Advising, Advisee-ing, Mentoring, Mentoree-ing
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 This week we touched on the adviser/advisee relationship between faculty and students in class, and by coincidence blogger k8andcat has posted a very insightful and useful post on this topic. If you are a student (grad or undergrad) or a potential mentor, please read it. It is here.
Insane snowfall
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 We are expecting the storm of the year today in the Twin Cities. I’m looking at a weather map, and there is snow everywhere around Minneapolis and Saint Paul, including where I am. Events have been canceled. The whole nine yards (important planning related sports metaphor). Yet when I look outside, I see not one…
Viva la Evolucion Shirt
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 This t-shirt company uses designs by teenagers in a way that may provide for an interesting creative outlet. Interestingly, a few of these kids are making creationist shirts, and a few are making evolution-friendly shirts.
Bash 4.0 = **, $>>, and associative arrays
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 Bash 4.0 includes associative arrays, a superwildcard called “**” and a new redirection operator. Details are here.
Franken Coleman MN Senate Recount Update
Posted by Greg Laden on February 26, 2009 Ana has contributed a detailed comment.
Male vs. Female Brains
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 The male and female human brains are different. Some of the better documented differences are similar to differences seen in other mammals. They are hard to find, very small, and may or may not be of great significance. Obviously, some are very important because they probably relate to such things as the ability … or…
Topi or not Topi …
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 Go to any bar and you’ll see a lot of males standing and sitting around not mating. I’ll bet you would have guessed that the reason they are not mating is that no females will mate with them for one reason or another. But there is the distinct possibility that they are very inconspicuously resisting…
Midori’s Floating World Cafe
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 Lizzie, got a job. It’s a pretty nice job, with benefits and a salary and everything. Not in her field (biology), but it is a job she likes. So I took her out for a congratulatory dinner, which ultimately gave me a chance to try a new restaurant. Also, we had been in a routine…
Coleman Goof
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 So Ana IM’s me, and I can tell through the text that she was almost out of breath with excitement or fear or something. But then I remembered shes been observing the Minnesota Senate court challenge. Turns out something rather interesting happened. Luckily, TPM has it covered: Norm Coleman’s lawyers just had a very awkward…
First it was bear paternity tests, now it is volcano monitoring
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 When will the madness end? When the Republicans dry up and blow away, of course. In the Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union 2.0 address, by Bobby Jindal, governer of Louisiana, we heard this: “Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.,” The reason…
, which is now available for the 
