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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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November 30, 2006

Why The Iraq Failure Was Predicted

Category:

Not predictable. Predicted. Over at DailyKos is a powerful diary by the wife of a Vietnam & Iraq I war veteran. During a discussion with a bunch of conservative college students, the following happened:

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The Easter Bunny Wing of the Republican Party: The Georgia Division

Category:

A while ago, I posted about the Missouri legislative committee that claimed that abortion had led to a shortage of workers which then resulted in illegal immigration. Really. I can't make this garbage up. Now, Nehomee over at Shakespeare's Sister has observed the same thing in Georgia:

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Lindsay's Famous!

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Well, she did have an article published in the New York Press about illegal advertising in New York City. Go read.

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November 29, 2006

Hoover Institute Swiftboats Nancy Pelosi

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There was a time when think tanks on occasion actually thought. Not so, at the conservative Hoover Institute, where Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer slimed Pelosi, claiming she had to explain why her family's vineyard does not use union employees.

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The War on Christmas: The "Massive Resistance" of the 21st Century?

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Tuesday, the Catholic League launched its first salvo in the ongoing War On Christmas with a large ad on the op-ed page of the NY Times.

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So Here's a Plan for Iraq

Category:

So finally, a war supporter, albeit a former one, proposes something kind of like an exit strategy. George Packer argues that we should stay long enough to get exit visas those Iraqis who helped the U.S.:

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November 28, 2006

Dennis Prager and Anti-Muslim Hatred

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Thank you, Dennis Prager for your anti-Muslim bigotry: at least we know where the modern conservatives really stand. Despite Article IV of the U.S. Constitution which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States", Prager has his knickers in a twist over Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison's intention to use a copy of the Koran instead of a Christian Bible while being sworn into office.

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A Question About the Soviet Russian Assassinations

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There are now indications that more Russian exile critics of Putin who live in the UK might have been poisoned with polonium-210.

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"Our Suburb Is Breached. We Will Fight to the Death."

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Sounds like a civil war to me. And as civil wars go, it's pretty awful. A year ago, I was comparing it to Northern Ireland.

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November 27, 2006

Social Security and Compulsive Centrist Disorder

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Someone needs to tell Bush that when I wrote a post titled "Democrats Crush GOP; Bush Declares 'Mandate'", I was joking. Now that El Jefe Maximo has psychologically disinvested from the Iraqi Occupation, he has decided that the message the American electorate sent in the 2006 elections was "You've done such a great job with foreign policy, FEMA, and the budget deficit, we would really like you to screw up Social Security."

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Homosexuality = Insect Venom Allergies?

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It's nice to see that even in the midst of two overseas conflicts, the U.S. military can find time to obsess about homosexuality.

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November 26, 2006

Tariq Aziz? This Is a Joke, Right?

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There are reports that the U.S. has cut a deal with Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, so he can negotiate with the Sunni insurgents.

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News Reporting and a Technically Complex Society

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As a part of the Carnival of the Liberals, I wrote a post about our failing political discourse. Here's something related from the archives.

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November 25, 2006

Salmonella and Illegal Antibiotic Use in Agriculture

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One topic that I don't discuss enough is the role that the agricultural use of antibiotics plays in the evolution (and ecology) of antibiotic resistance. A recent review in Clinical Microbiology and Infection describes how the illegal use of nitrofuran antibiotics in Portugese agriculture led to an increase in highly virulent Salmonella.

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November 24, 2006

More on That NY Times Aquarium Article

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So while on vacation, I was mentioned in a NY Times article about diseases that can be caught from your fish tank. The moral of the story is...

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November 23, 2006

Why Does the FDA Care More About Corporate Profits Than Antibiotic Safety?

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Ok, so after complaining about how no one reads my posts on antibiotic resistance, one reader read this post about the FDA overriding an expert panel that advised against using cefquinome in agriculture, and then went and read the recently released minutes of the hearing (all eight gajillion pages). Here's what the director of the Center for Veterinary Medicine of the FDA said (p. 211; italics mine):

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My Fifteen Nanoseconds of Fame

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While I'm away, I'm using the ScienceBlogs Blogerator 9000 to repost something from the old site. The NY Timesinterviewed me about an Australian Salmonella outbreak. From the archives:

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November 22, 2006

A Reader Request and a Programming Note

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While I'm hardly the first blogger to ever wonder about what the bloggysphere likes and dislikes, I'm curious to find out if anyone actually reads the posts about antibiotic resistance.

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November 21, 2006

Illegal Immigration: It's the Wages, Stupid

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Some brilliant Republican solons from the great state of Missouri have released an official state report that argues that abortion has led to illegal immigration.

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November 20, 2006

Intelligent Design and the Ford Pinto

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Casey Luskin is a moron. Carl Zimmer tells us why.

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Victory for the Houston Strikers?

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Well, things are looking up anyway. By way of Matt Stoller comes this letter from SEIU president Andy Stein:

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Why Wait Four to Six Months in Iraq?

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This week, Democratic Senator Carl Levin proposed that the U.S. begin withdrawing troops from Iraq in four to six months. Granted this is vastly superior to the Bush 'plan' which seems to be 'change absolutely nothing 'cuz it's worked damn well so far.' But I have a question: why wait four to six months?

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November 19, 2006

Some Sunday Links For You

Category: Bloggity Blog

Here are some weekend links you might have missed.

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Saying What They Mean

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One of the maddening things about the creationists is that they are rarely forthright about their agenda. Euphimisms like "teach the controversy" and "fairness" abound.

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November 18, 2006

Update on Anti-Union Brutality in Houston

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I was going to update this post about the Houston police who used horses to break up a peaceful union demonstration. But the way the police treated the union members once in custody is so awful, it deserves its own post.

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First They Came for the Unions

Category: Unions

Last night, Houston police used horses to break up a peaceful demonstration by unionized janitors, who on average, make $5.35/hr and have no health care. You know, if the Houston police were civilized they would have tasered them.

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November 17, 2006

"Damaged Goods?"

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CNN describes Nancy Pelosi as "damaged goods"...

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Mitt Romney: Turning Massachusetts Into Mississippi, One Needy Person At a Time

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Actually, the post title is unfair: Romney is quite capable of screwing over thousands of people at once. In order to further his Republican presidential bonafides by cutting spending, any spending, MA Governor Mitt Romney playing bookkeeping games so he could declare a fiscal state of emergency and unilaterally cut budget items.

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Animalcules, the November Edition, Now Up

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That Carnival o'the Wee Beasties known as Animalcules is being hosted by Andreas Baeumer over at Baumhaus. It all looks really interesting, so check it out.

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November 16, 2006

Will Political Appointees at FDA Overrule a Panel of Experts and Increase Cefepime Resistance?

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A few weeks ago, an FDA expert panel by a vote of 6-4 decided against the approval of the use of the antibiotic cefquinome in cattle. Unfortunately, I've heard through the grapevine that the political appointees at the FDA plan to overrule the expert panel and approve the use of cefquinome. The chairman of the panel is under pressure to alter the panel's findings, and the FDA has not posted the minutes of the meeting, which is apparently required by law.

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The 80s Redux: The Ketchup Is a Vegetable Edition

Category: Hunger

For you younguns, in the 80s, the USDA decided to define ketchup as a serving of vegetables so it could skimp on subsidized meals for needy schoolchildren. Well, the USDA has decided to stop using the word "hunger" and replace it with "very low food security." Here's some statistics on "very low food security":

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Politics in the Era of the Teevee

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Matt Taibbi on politics in the era of television:

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Amniotic Stem Cells Used to Grow Heart Valves

Category: Stem Cells

Every year in the U.S., thousands of children are born with heart valve defects. Researchers have developed a way to grow heart valves from stem cells in amniotic fluid.

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November 15, 2006

Webb Kinda Sounds Like a Liberal

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I like it like that. Webb writes dirty words in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. You know, words like "class" and "elites."

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Uh-Oh. The GOP Has Been Rebranded

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Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon discusses a shocking development--a majority of voters view Democrats as the fiscally responsible party.

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November 14, 2006

If Mice Are Men...

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then what we think makes community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) so infectious might be wrong. A to-be published article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (Dec. 15) asks "Is Panton-Valentine Leukocidin the major virulence determinant in community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus disease?" Before everyone wanders off due to boredom, let me translate: we don't really understand how CA-MRSA can kill you.

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Some of My Readers Are Brilliant (Fear the Teachers' Union)

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I appreciate all of you (well, except for a couple of conservatroll assholes), but this comment by "The Teachers Union" in response to a rightwing screed left in the comments is brilliant.

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A Question About Borat

Category: Humor

I have a question about the movie Borat.

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November 13, 2006

People Who Believe in the Easter Bunny Shouldn't Be Running Things

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A while ago, I wrote about the effect that the rise of certain forms of Christianity was having on the military. To summarize: certain ideological or religious views mean that you might not be able to do your job very well. Bob Broughton carries the analysis over to the White House staff.

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Zero Sum Policies and Compulsive Centrist Disorder

Category: Compulsive Centrist Disorder

Now that the Democrats have taken both houses of Congress, there will be loud calls for them to govern from center. This silliness will be promulgated by the likes of David Broder and other Mainstream Media Mandarins who suffer from Complusive Centrist Disorder. Complusive Centrist Disorder has always bothered me because a certain policy or view will mysteriously be labelled 'centrist' regardless of where it actually falls on the political spectrum, and suddenly it will be far more respectable than other policies. It's intellectual cowardice and laziness of a high order.

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November 12, 2006

Some Weekend Links You Might Have Missed

Category: Lotsa Links

Here's some good weekend stuff from the internets.

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Can We Impeach the Potomac Punditocracy?

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Usually, I add good weekend posts to my weekend roundup, but Glenn Greenwald's post about the soulessness of the Mainstream Media Mandarins is so good, it deserves some special Mad Biologist commentary.

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November 11, 2006

Latinos and Republicans

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Notice that I separated these two words. That's because between 2004 and 2006, there was a thirty point shift to Democrats among Latinos.

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IG to Probe Censorship of Government Scientists

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This is one reason why having a Democratic congress matters. The Inspectors General of NASA and the Commerce Department have begun to investigate whether scientific findings were muzzled or altered by the Bush administration (italics mine):

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Some Help for the Mainstream Media

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Whiskey Fire explains the 2006 election very cogently:

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November 10, 2006

The Movement Conservatives Are Becoming Completely Unhinged

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This isn't to say that they weren't well on their way there to begin with. Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online's blog, The Corner, and an LA Times columnist (no, really, he is) gives Little Lord Pontchartrain some post-election advice:

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2006: A Victory For the Clueless?

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Both the establishment centrists and the grassroots within the Democratic party are claiming the 2006 victory as their own. But what's really terrifying is that the group which pushed the Democrats over the top probably were the utterly clueless and indesicive voters.

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November 9, 2006

Carnival of the Liberals #25

Category: Progressives

A new Carnival of the Liberals is up at Philosophy, et cetera.

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Beware of the Conservative Vampires

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So Bush fired Rumsfeld. Big deal. He should have done it 2800+ lives ago. Lest you think this election will somehow make Bush wiser, consider whom El Jefe Supremo Maximo picked to replace him: Bob Fucking Gates.

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Democrats Win National Congressional Vote By Nearly Four Million

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So after reading Brad DeLong's post about how the Democrats won with a 13.4% majority in the Senate (if you total all the votes cast for each party), I decided to do the same with the Congressional races, since everyone votes for a congresscritter.

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November 8, 2006

Interesting Election Day-After Story

Category: Bloggity Blog

I was at the APHA meeting today in Boston (and I got to meet Revere from Effect Measure at the meeting!). About 14,000 people attend, including a lot of military personnel

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A Tale of Two Trends

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Already, you're seeing two competiting ideas about why the Democrats did so well in the election. This argument matters, particularly within the Democratic party, because, once again, the centrist Democratic establishment is urging Democrats to move to the right.

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Dems Crush GOP: Bush Declares "Mandate"

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I'm kidding about the last part of that header. Sort of.

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