Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology
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
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:
Posted by Mike at 7:54 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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:
Posted by Mike at 12:44 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Well, she did have an article published in the New York Press about illegal advertising in New York City. Go read.
Posted by Mike at 9:43 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 29, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 7:24 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 5:03 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.:
Posted by Mike at 11:47 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 28, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 9:14 PM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
There are now indications that more Russian exile critics of Putin who live in the UK might have been poisoned with polonium-210.
Posted by Mike at 5:08 PM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 10:48 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 27, 2006
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."
Posted by Mike at 2:15 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 11:06 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 26, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 6:11 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 5:23 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 25, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 11:42 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2006
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...
Posted by Mike at 12:08 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 23, 2006
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):
Posted by Mike at 2:49 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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:
Posted by Mike at 12:11 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 22, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 12:24 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 21, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 9:54 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 20, 2006
Casey Luskin is a moron. Carl Zimmer tells us why.
Posted by Mike at 9:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Well, things are looking up anyway. By way of Matt Stoller comes this letter from SEIU president Andy Stein:
Posted by Mike at 6:25 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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?
Posted by Mike at 1:13 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 19, 2006
Category: Bloggity Blog
Here are some weekend links you might have missed.
Posted by Mike at 9:01 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 10:48 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 18, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 6:27 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 10:07 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 17, 2006
CNN describes Nancy Pelosi as "damaged goods"...
Posted by Mike at 4:18 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 1:21 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 9:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 16, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 8:42 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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":
Posted by Mike at 6:20 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Matt Taibbi on politics in the era of television:
Posted by Mike at 12:06 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 9:59 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 15, 2006
I like it like that. Webb writes dirty words in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. You know, words like "class" and "elites."
Posted by Mike at 4:26 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon discusses a shocking development--a majority of voters view Democrats as the fiscally responsible party.
Posted by Mike at 1:34 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 14, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 4:45 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 11:26 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor
I have a question about the movie Borat.
Posted by Mike at 9:25 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 13, 2006
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.
Posted by Mike at 8:40 PM • 32 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 11:12 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 12, 2006
Category: Lotsa Links
Here's some good weekend stuff from the internets.
Posted by Mike at 10:34 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 12:04 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 11, 2006
Notice that I separated these two words. That's because between 2004 and 2006, there was a thirty point shift to Democrats among Latinos.
Posted by Mike at 3:21 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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):
Posted by Mike at 11:41 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Whiskey Fire explains the 2006 election very cogently:
Posted by Mike at 9:38 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 10, 2006
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:
Posted by Mike at 1:16 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 11:40 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 9, 2006
Category: Progressives
A new Carnival of the Liberals is up at Philosophy, et cetera.
Posted by Mike at 4:26 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 11:50 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 8:30 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 8, 2006
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
Posted by Mike at 10:06 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by Mike at 6:50 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I'm kidding about the last part of that header. Sort of.
Posted by Mike at 1:28 AM • 7 Comments •