September 27, 2007
Category: Chatter
Take a long drive with me on California One, on California One Take a long drive with me on California One, on California One And the road a-winding goes from Golden Gate to roaring cliff-side and the light is softly low as our hearts become sweetly untied beneath the sun of California One"California One" by The Decemberists from the album Castaways and Cutouts (2002, 9:50). I always enjoyed this song, but until last weekend, it didn't fully make sense. Some of the Berkeley biology grad students, including my predecessor at the NCSE, organized a camping trip up north on the...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:25 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 21, 2007
Category: Policy and Politics
Salon observes: Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts have written a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs urging full funding for a new cemetery at Fort Riley in Kansas. The reason: With an influx of casualties from Iraq, the existing cemetery at Fort Riley is now full. Well, not entirely full: A spokesman for the facility tells Reuters that bodies can be buried on top of other bodies if family members want to share plots. Thank heavens we have such stalwart men looking out for our troops. It would be horrific to force families to have to share their...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:18 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 19, 2007
Category: Policy and Politics
The National Review writes an analysis of the impact of the internet on the 2008 election, but focuses entirely on the impact of Googlebombing in one race, Jim Ryun's loss to Nancy Boyda. My guess is that the reporter and Drew Ryun met at a party, and started talking about the evils of the internets. A few days later, this emerged: Obviously, the 2006 midterms went very well for Democrats, though there's no way to quantify the contribution of Google bombing to the Democrats' electoral success, especially amidst all the G.O.P. scandal and other national developments heading up to that...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:48 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 18, 2007
Category: Biology
Reposted from the old TfK, in honor of the late, great Greg Beck. Over at Death's Door, there is a certain degree of consternation about the possibility that mallard ducks would be gang raping each other. There is a bunch of confusion wrapped around that so let's start slow. I also wasn't aware that duck's had duck cocks to gangbang with. I never eaten a duck but I've eaten a lot of chicken, and when you buy the chicken in the store and pull out that little pouch of giblets and shit, I've never seen a tiny chicken cock sittin...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:47 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 17, 2007
Category: Chatter
I apologize for not noting this earlier, but the one and only Greg Beck died last week. I knew Greg through his astonishing blog, and had the pleasure of meeting him in person a few times as well. Like the rest of the KC blogging world, I'm stunned and shocked. There's very little to be said about Greg that he didn't say already. His blogging represented the peak of the form; it was personal, raunchy, opinionated and, without fail, interesting. His years as a bouncer in the nightclubs of Kansas City gave him a wealth of material to work with,...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:31 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 11, 2007
Category: Policy and Politics
It was all supposed to be different after 9/11. Everyone agreed that everything had changed. For a while, Democrats lay down with Republicans, France and America agreed on things, and non-New Yorkers didn't think so poorly of the Big Apple. It's a shame everyone didn't get together and figure out what, exactly, had changed about everything. The President seems to think that the Constitution changed, that it suddenly became a document granting tremendous power to the President, and virtually none to the other branches of government. The other branches seem still to wonder whether he was right about that. The...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 11:28 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 10, 2007
Category: Policy and Politics
Fred Thompson's pro-life credentials may be harmed because he hasn't shed enough blood: Rick Scarborough, a Southern Baptist preacher and president of Texas-based Vision America, said that while he is encouraged by Thompson's strong voting record in the Senate against abortion, he questioned the candidate's commitment to social issues. "The problem I'm having is that I don't see any blood trail," Scarborough said. "When you really take a stand on issues dear to the heart of social conservatives, you're going to shed some blood in the process."...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:33 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 8, 2007
Category: Culture Wars
Many years ago, I heard a story about a mohel (the man who performs ritual Jewish circumcisions), and this comment by the Disco. Institute's Bruce Chapman reminded me of it. Bruce told Tom Bethell (author of the Incorrect Guide to Science): if I were to carry around Discovery fellows' peer-reviewed science journal articles on Darwinian theory and intelligent design I would need a suitcase, not a coat pocket.Boy howdy! A whole suitcase in a decade or so of "research." It's a shame that, even when Chapman stretches, he can't come up with anything more impressive. Speaking of which, the...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:51 PM • 5 Comments •
September 6, 2007
Category: Chatter
I realize that my ratio of Random Tens to non-music posts is getting dangerously high, but work has been keeping me busy, and I'm still trying to figure out where blogging fits in my schedule. Blame the Discovery Institute. "Chimes of Freedom" by The Byrds from the album Mr Tambourine Man (1965, 3:53). "The Whistling Song" by Meat Puppets from the album Meat Puppets II (1983, 2:57). "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits from the album Brothers In Arms (1985, 8:33). "She Caught The Katy And Left Me A Mule To Ride" by Taj Mahal from the album The Natch'l...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:49 PM • 0 Comments •
September 4, 2007
Category: Culture Wars
Ben Stein cannot grasp what the GOP's problem is with Larry Craig: What I don't understand is why the GOP is tossing Senator Craig overboard as if he were a terrorist. Even if it turns Senator Craig is gay, so what? Barney Frank is gay and he's one of the best members of the Congress. There are lots of fine gay public servants. But Ben, Barney Frank is not a Republican. The list of prominent members of the Log Cabin Republicans is very brief, and entirely devoid of members of Congress. If the GOP treats a gay member as a...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:54 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at 
