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Mike the Mad Biologist

Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology

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ntm4-30-7 Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.

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October 31, 2006

PZ Is Right About the 'Religious' Idiots

Category:

While I don't think arguing for or against reilgious particulars is something any political party should adopt a few days before an election (or should be a political issue at all, for that matter), PZ is absolutely right when he says that Robertson and his ilk should be called out for the foolish bigots that they are.

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Sen. George Allen's Staffers Attack Ex-Marine

Category:

Apparently, this is how Sen. George Allen (R-VA) conducts voter outreach.

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I'm Gonna Party Like It's 1969

Category: Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Because if I had been born in 1969, I would be 36 years old, and the Bush administration's new abstinence program which is now targeting people up to 29 years old would ignore me.

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October 30, 2006

Kenya: Why Antibiotic Resistance Matters

Category:

Recently, I described how the most frequent killer of children in the developing world wasn't 'the Big Three' (AIDS, malaria, and TB), but boring old pneumonia. Well, the second greatest killer is diarhhea. And several factors are leading to increased treatment failure of diarhhea.

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October 29, 2006

Some Sunday Links

Category: Bloggity Blog

Here's some Sunday links for you. The sciency stuff:

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One Mundane Reason Why I Like ScienceBlogs

Category: Bloggity Blog

It's not Blogger.

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Are Progressives Just Kinder, Gentler Conservatives?

Category:

A while ago, I described how I feel estranged from the internet Progressives: Bloggers like Kos constantly remind people that the lefty blogosphere isn't liberal (sounds kinda like the DLC doesn't it?). Actually to say that the internet progressives don't stand for much of anything is unfair. It's just that what most of what the internet progressives stand for is what any sane, reality-based person should stand for.

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The Failure of 'He Said/She Said' Journalism

Category:

Billmon has a superb post on the failures of journalism due to Compulsive Centrist Disorder:

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Bushonomics and the Irony of Iraq

Category:

Recent estimates suggest that the dollar cost of the Iraq War and Occupation will be over two trillion dollars. The horrible irony is that, had Bush not fought this war--or very quickly declared democracy and 'cut and run'--the amount of...

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October 28, 2006

The reDiscovery Institute

Category:

I stumbled across this great creationist parody site: The reDiscovery Institute. You'll definitely have a few laughs with this....

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October 27, 2006

Science Isn't So Hard

Category:

At least that's what Tristero of Hullabaloo says:

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Defending, Not Using, Victims

Category:

More than a few conservatives are upset about the Michael J. Fox commercials because they're unfair: how do you respond to the emotional pull of someone who has Parkinson's disease?

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Words As Weapons

Category:

Lance Mannion notes that Rush "Big Pharma" Limbaugh uses words in the same way creationists do: as weapons.

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An Unreal Campaign Event

Category:

Michael Schiavo reports on a truly weird campaign event held by Republican congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave.

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October 26, 2006

I See Crazy People, At Least 14% of the Time

Category:

From Billmon, comes this little factoid hidden in the latest Gallup poll:

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MRSA and 'Search and Destroy'

Category:

I have discussed the "search and destroy" strategy for controlling and reducing methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) before. Search-and-destroy involves the screening of every patient and hospital worker for MRSA.

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October 25, 2006

Google Bombs Away!

Category:

Majikthise reminds us to join Operation Google Bomb.

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The 'Truth' About Harold 'Fancy' Ford

Category:

In the Tennessee Senate race, the Republicans have been viciously playing the race card. They have been referring to Democrat Harold Ford as 'Fancy' Ford because he, a single black man, has dated...white women

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October 24, 2006

"The Vapidity of the Whole Meme Thing"

Category: Memes

Chad writes: He [Dawkins] rubs me the wrong way when he talks about science (I wish I could find the old post somebody on ScienceBlogs did about the vapidity of the whole "meme" thing), and really gets up my nose when he talks about religion. I don't know if he's referring to my critique of the meme concept, but I figured it gives me an excuse to resurrect this post about memes from the old site.

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October 23, 2006

An Obvious Solution for the Lancet Article 'Controversy'

Category:

When the Lancet study first came out, I argued that conservatives couldn't just criticize--they had to offer their own alternative, credible numbers for the civilian death toll. Matt Yglesias goes one further: why not a second study using credible methods...

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Guidelines for Treating Strep Throat

Category:

The NY Times recently had a very good article about strep throat, which is caused by group A streptococci.

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October 22, 2006

Some Sunday Links

Category: Lotsa Links

Here's some good links from the weekend. First, the sciency stuff:

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The Funniest Campaign Ad Ever

Category: Humor

Political ads are hardly great film making. But this ad about the Idaho congressional race will make anyone laugh, regardless of his or her political leanings.

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Too Little, Too Late

Category:

In an interview with al-Jazeera, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US State Department...

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October 21, 2006

The Lost Year in Iraq

Category:

PBS' Frontline has made their special "The Lost in Iraq" available on line. This is TV that makes you smarter, not dumber. Check it out....

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The Best TV Science Show Evah?

Category: Bloggity Blog

Marlon Perkins' "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."

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God Has an Inordinate Fondness for Beetles...

Category:

and Donald Rumsfeld? From the AP:

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October 20, 2006

One Reason Why I Blog

Category:

A friend asked today, "Why is there no one seriously critiquing the Gates Foundation's priorities?" Given the influence that "Gates" has on the setting of public health priorities, as well as the massive sums spent, these priorities need to be critically examined.

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October 19, 2006

I See Stupid People: The JD Hayworth Edition

Category:

Here's a joke: a Republican staffer of a conservative Christian Republican goes into a synagogue and tells the congregation that his candidate is more Jewish than they are. It's not very funny, and, sadly, it's true. You see, Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona has a slight Jewish problem.

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It's the Acute Respiratory Infections, Stupid!

Category:

At least when it comes to killing young children in the developing world. A recent Lancet article describes the devastation pneumonia causes to children:

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October 18, 2006

Antibiotic Resistance: The Message Is Getting Through

Category:

By day, I work for an organization that combats the spread of antibiotic resistant microorganisms. One source of antibiotic resistance is the misuse of antibiotics by patients.

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Meanwhile, Habeas Corpus Is Dead

Category:

Did you ever think in 1999 that Congress would pass a bill, and that a President would sign a bill that eliminates habeas corpus at the whim of the president? I sure as hell didn't.

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October 17, 2006

Political Outings: I Told You This Would Happen

Category:

A while ago, I posted about "The List", which was a list of gay Republicans being shopped around to various news media, of all political persuasions.

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'Faith-Based' Religious Discrimination and the Failures of Conservatives and Modern Conservatism

Category:

While there's been a lot of discussion about David Kuo's book Tempting Faith, the wee lil' Mad Biologist seems to be the only one who has viewed the intentional rejection of proposals from non-Christian religious organizations as religious discrimination ('no Jews need apply'). This discrimination is why funding faith-based organizations based on their religiosity and not on what they would to do advance the interest of the Republic is so odious.

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Good Articles on the Faith-Based Flim-Flam

Category:

Howard Friedman has a nice roundup of the Boston Globe series of articles, "Exporting Faith", which is all about how the intrusion of sectarian dogma is screwing up our foreign spending. It's a good read....

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October 16, 2006

Creationists: Liars For Jesus

Category:

I was reading this LA Times story about the quashing of intelligent design creationism in Michigan, and I was stunned by this:

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I, For One, Welcome Our Benevolent Lionfish Overlords

Category:

A while ago, I posted about the lionfish invasion of the Atlantic Northeast. Here's a really good post about our Benevolent Lionfish Overlords.

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October 15, 2006

Some Sunday Links

Category: Bloggity Blog

Got it in under the wire. Here's some interesting links for you:

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Romney's Ready for Republican Prime Time

Category: Romney

First, Republican MA Gov. Romney cozies up to Dobson and Perkins on Faith Sunday (and let's not forget his elimination of the funding for suicide prevention and outreach for gay teens). Now, he apparently lied about conducting Big Dig safety inspections.

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This Picture Needs a Caption

Category: Bloggity Blog

Have at it readers. And it doesn't need to be tasteful...

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When Sorry Isn't Enough: Here Comes the Iraq Revisionism

Category:

Paul the Spud says: We're actually starting to hear a lot of this lately. Republicans/"real" Conservatives are fed up with the out-of-control Bush administration, and they're ready to vote for the Dems, just to get them out of office. Well gee and gosh guys, that's all honorable and cool of you, but I just have one question for you.

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October 14, 2006

And on the Economic Front, Things Aren't Going So Well Either

Category:

This is one way to deal with looming un- and underemployment.

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Some Good Lancet Article Posts By Lindsay

Category:

Over at Majikthise, Lindsay has been doing some really good debunking of the critics of the Lancet article that indicates roughly 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the Iraq War and Occupation.

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More on Abortion and Religious Freedom

Category:

Apparently, I'm not the only one who sees South Dakota's ban on virtually all abortions as an assault on the First Amendment.

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October 13, 2006

Whether It's Congressional Pages or Schoolchildren...

Category:

it's pretty clear the Republicans don't give a damn about America's children. There's growing evidence that the Republican political establishment doesn't believe in the Christian Right's lunacy. So all the hot air about putting intelligent design creationism

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Thank the Intelligent Designer They Haven't Caught Onto Us Evolutionary Biologists

Category:

Because, you see, they 'discovered' that TEH GAY KONSPIRACIE is actually a covert op by the Democrats to infiltrate the Republican Party. Really. Even with top-notch pharmaceuticals, I couldn't make this lunacy up.

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October 12, 2006

Flu Shots in Massachusetts

Category:

Revere recently had an excellent post about why you should get a flu shot. Let me just add one more reason:

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AG Gonzalez Sells Out Net Neutrality

Category:

Yesterday, the Department of Justice approved a merger between AT&T and BellSouth without any conditions, a consent decree, or judicial review.

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More From the "You're Not Supposed to Tell Them That!" File

Category:

Or maybe this post should have been titled "Faith-based initiatives = anti-Semitism." Keith Olbermann has a story about David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith.

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I Want My Parsonage Tax Deduction

Category:

I've stayed away from the whole religious organization tax breaks issue, mostly because others have dealt with it. But this NY Times article about the parsonage exemption pisses me off to no end (the parsonage exemption allows workers for religious organizations to deduct the cost of their housing). Here's why:

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October 11, 2006

To Save Iraq, We Had to Kill a Bunch of Them

Category:

Or at least 655,000 (± 140,000) of them. Before I get to the news reports, I think it's important to make something clear. These statistical techniques are routinely used in public health epidemiology and nobody complains. Critics of this estimate can't play the same game the creationists do. They can't just debunk the numbers. They have to propose an alternative, reliable method, otherwise this estimate has to be viewed as the best available estimate. (I can't wait to hear Bill O'Reilly talk about statistics...)

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The Crazy Twenty-Sixes

Category:

GrrlScientist was trying to understand how 26% of Americans could think Dennis Hastert should suffer no consequences for covering Foleygate. Tonight, after looking through my neighborhood newspaper, The Beacon Hill Times, I propose an alternative hypothesis:

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October 10, 2006

You're Not Actually Supposed to Tell Them That!

Category:

You know the wheels are coming off the Republican Wurlitzer when Republicans, as opposed to Democrats, are engaging in public 'soul-searching.'

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Time to Cut and Run: Even Conservatives Think So

Category:

There has been an argument by some liberal hawks that once we entered Iraq, it was our obligation to fix it (the whole "Pottery Barn" metaphor). This always honked me off because I knew from the get-go that this whole thing would go sideways. Nonetheless, there was a brief window after the fall of Saddam Hussein to get things to a stable enough point where we could declare Democracy and leave.

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Why Do the Republicans Hate College Football and Basketball?

Category:

The Republicans have decided how they will tackle the deficit: they're going to remove the NCAA's tax-exempt status.

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