Some Sunday Links
Category: Lotsa Links
Happy October! Here are some links for you. Science-related stuff firstest:
Posted by Mike at 8:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
These links do not indicate support of this blog's statements by these groups
September 30, 2007
Category: Lotsa Links
Happy October! Here are some links for you. Science-related stuff firstest:
Posted by Mike at 8:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: News Media
Regarding political journalists, Glenn Greenwald asks why one would "want to become a political journalist and then spend most of their time engaged in this sort of petty, substance-free chatter about which campaign has inched ahead and which one has fallen behind every day." I have an answer.
Posted by Mike at 4:52 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When public figures badmouth Jews, um, we don't like that.
Posted by Mike at 11:01 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 29, 2007
Why are the failures of non-violent resistance always remembered, but the many failures of violent failure forgotten?
Posted by Mike at 3:48 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: NASA
Because if NASA scientists do science, the terrorists win. Or something. The Republican Nanny State runs amok.
Posted by Mike at 10:57 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 27, 2007
It's not like the movies.
Posted by Mike at 5:42 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
And, thankfully, the NY Times' Cornelia Dean calls the intelligent design creationists out on it
Posted by Mike at 5:30 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Education
While resources are necessary for remedial education, they are not sufficient.
Posted by Mike at 11:08 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 26, 2007
There's a lot of bucks to be made if you're a professional wingnut.
Posted by Mike at 5:20 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Hey, he's the one who brought up Imre Lakatos.
Posted by Mike at 11:02 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 25, 2007
Category: Racism
And there's still a long way to go.
Posted by Mike at 5:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When you justify your beliefs based on authority, your beliefs are threatened, not by logic, but by an equal and countervailing authority. One can't have that, so one just beats the crap out of your opponent.
Posted by Mike at 11:02 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 24, 2007
Regardless of the cause of paradigm shifts, the notion that they are the primary mode by which science operates seems to be prevalent. They're not.
Posted by Mike at 10:52 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 23, 2007
Because it's never too late to have lots of surgetastic goodness.
Posted by Mike at 11:50 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
...in the of ideas--one war I'll gladly get behind.
Posted by Mike at 11:25 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 22, 2007
A follow up to yesterday's blast from the past.
Posted by Mike at 11:02 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 21, 2007
Let no one say I won't call out liberals when they're idiots about evolution.
Posted by Mike at 10:58 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 20, 2007
Category: News Media
most good science reporters like science. Most political reporters don't like governance.
Posted by Mike at 11:04 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 19, 2007
Or maybe not? Should doctors be salaried workers?
Posted by Mike at 11:20 AM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 18, 2007
Just a thought.
Posted by Mike at 9:10 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 17, 2007
This is why elections have consequences: the Democrats have decided to increase the funding for college schloarships.
Posted by Mike at 10:40 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 14, 2007
by scientists, not journalists
Posted by Mike at 11:08 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 13, 2007
Genomicron has a great satirical post about how to write a bad science story. So, I ask you, readers, which of these ten journalistic 'sins' is the worst?
Posted by Mike at 11:06 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 12, 2007
Category: Iraq
People are less likely to say that want to leave Iraq the worse they think the situation is. But this isn't surprising or counter-intuitive at all: it's called guilt.
Posted by Mike at 4:08 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
To pose deductions for charitable contributions as a choice between helping the poor versus supporting the arts is a false choice.
Posted by Mike at 11:03 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 11, 2007
Category: Bloggity Blog
Because nothing says solemn commemoration like using the deaths of 3,000 people to sell the Surgegasmic Surge.
Posted by Mike at 11:53 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
For me, the most visceral images of that day weren't from NYC, but from DC.
Posted by Mike at 11:25 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 10, 2007
What happens when the public overwhelmingly holds an opinion that isn't even represented in the government or among the Mandarin class? Tyranny.
Posted by Mike at 11:07 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 9, 2007
Category: Lotsa Links
It's super surgetastic, surgegasmic (surgical?) Surging Sunday. Here are some links for you.
Posted by Mike at 9:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It's really hard to say that the surge is working: even where the trend is in the right direction (e.g., total civilains killed), it basically looks like the surge has only brought things back to where they were before they became really awful. For the other metrics, the only conclusion is that either it has had no effect (car bombs and IEDs) or has made things worse (mortar and rocket attacks).
Posted by Mike at 10:14 AM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 8, 2007
...attack Iran.
Posted by Mike at 11:23 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 7, 2007
We don't know if the virus is the causal agent, but a recent Science paper used a metagenomics approach to find that bees from colonies that have collapsed are infected with a virus (and it's the same virus in different colonies).
Posted by Mike at 12:01 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
he is us.
Posted by Mike at 11:03 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 6, 2007
The statistics of getting shot in the head in Iraq. Or something.
Posted by Mike at 1:01 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Demonic Possession
Actually, before I get to this post about people who believe in demonic possession, I have a very simple question.
Posted by Mike at 11:08 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 5, 2007
This analysis is never going to end (stupid GTR models).
Posted by Mike at 12:40 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
then please take this survey.
Posted by Mike at 11:15 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 4, 2007
Very few problems can be solved solely by throwing buckets of money at them. Annual influenza is one of those problems than can be solved that way.
Posted by Mike at 4:11 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Lobstah!
With resources that can be depleted, it's first supply that drives consumption, then demand. That's what the history of lobsternomics tells us, anyway.
Posted by Mike at 11:14 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 3, 2007
First, rock snot. Now, giant spider webs that cover acres. One more screwy thing, and I'm stocking up on canned goods.
Posted by Mike at 4:35 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
...or too much of anyway. One of the most eloquent speeches that I have ever heard was by Martin Luther King to striking sanitation workers. Take ten minutes and read it before you head out to the barbeque.
Posted by Mike at 11:14 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
...but they don't need no stinkin' healthcare.
Posted by Mike at 10:38 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 2, 2007
Category: Lotsa Links
It's the 'freshmen are invading Boston' links edition. By the way, if you're at the corner of Exeter and Boylston and you can't find the Prudential Center--which is right below the really tall building that has "PRUDENTIAL" on it--you are prima facie evidence that admissions standards are indeed slipping. To the links; science first:
Posted by Mike at 8:56 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Movies
Why did this very good movie get virtually no exposure?
Posted by Mike at 10:59 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 1, 2007
One of the most shameful things about the destruction of New Orleans was the attempt to blame the victims.
Posted by Mike at 11:28 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
