Archives for July, 2007
Deep thought on Shakespeare and tax policy
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 23, 2007 A pound of flesh is only ~0.5% of the average person. Would you prefer to pay a pound of (your own) flesh, or your income tax assessment as conventionally calculated. Show your math. Extra credit: Discuss why the pound of flesh should or should not be adjusted for inflation.
Science = bad
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 23, 2007 As French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde tells the National Assembly and the French people “Enough thinking, already,” and calling on them to work harder, not smarter, we find the American anti-intellectual party warming up. Mitt Romney told a crowd: Senator Obama is wrong if he thinks science-based sex education has any place in kindergarten. Rick…
Setbacks in Science
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 21, 2007 Denyse O’Leary uses Bill Dembski’s blog (and a dozen other ID blogs) to report a comment from a friend about the mission statement for Nature. The mission statement reads: First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of…
Attention KU students
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 20, 2007 This post is copyrighted. If you read this on a KU network, or any other copyrighted material, you just forfeited your network access. At least, that’s how I read the new policy the University of Kansas announced: A brief notice on the University of Kansas ResNet site explains the university’s new position very succinctly. “If…
Random Ten
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 20, 2007 “Glory Days“ by Bruce Springsteen from the album Born In The U.S.A. (1984, 4:18). “Angel Dream (No. 4)” by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers from the album She’s the One (1996, 2:27). “A Conta Do Samba“ by Tita Lima from the album 11:11 (2006, 5:30). “A magazine called sunset“ by Wilco from the EP Enhanced…
Skin deep
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 20, 2007 The blogosphere is shocked (shocked!) that the Politico would obsess over petty crap like how much Mitt Romney would spend on makeup ($300). After breaking the story that John Edwards pays non-trivial amounts of money for haircuts, and then beating that story ’til more people knew that fact than could correctly identify how much WMD…
Banner
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 20, 2007 So what do you think of the snazzy new banner?
Botflies
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 19, 2007 Reposted from the old TfK in honor of this story at BoingBoing. Botflies are disgusting. Horrible, horrible little things. We get their larvae on the white-footed mice we trap here in Kansas. The picture to the right is a white-footed mouse botfly that I caught here in Kansas. These are fairly rare in collections because…
Do not buy the Canon Rebel 350D
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 19, 2007 I got my lovely Olympus C4040-Z in 2002, and got it second-hand. It works beautifully, and I’ve never needed to take it in for servicing. Olympus isn’t paying me to say that, and I don’t consider it terribly exceptional. I do find it surprising that Canon would say this about the camera which took the…
Storm World
Posted by Josh Rosenau on July 19, 2007 Everyone admires hurricanes, however grudgingly. When I hear someone described as “a force of nature,” I envision a hurricane’s hundred mile winds and waves whipped to such a frenzy that they merge with the air. The calm at the eye of the storm, the destructive potential, and the courage of the brave pilots and scientists…
Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the