November 22, 2010
From USA Today:
An influential 2006 congressional report that raised questions about the validity of global warming research was partly based on material copied from textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticized in the report, plagiarism experts say.
Review of the 91-…
November 22, 2010
There is no down side to this, and viewing it s a political move is cynical and unacceptable.
From the White House:
Earlier this year, President Obama called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create new rules for Medicare and Medicaid hospitals that would allow patients the…
November 22, 2010
The recount process for the Minnesota Gubernatorial Race starts this week. The national political significance of this recount is simply not as great as the Senatorial recount two years ago. That recount determined the balance of power in Washington, sort of. It also determined the insertion into…
November 21, 2010
We braved ice and fog to go down to see Harry Potter this morning. And yes, it was indeed icy, which was a bit traumatic for me. Last time I was walking on glare ice, I fell and seriously injured my knee. That was last February and I'm still doing physical therapy and taking the occasional pain…
November 21, 2010
Aaron Huey's effort to photograph poverty in America led him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the struggle of the native Lakota people -- appalling, and largely ignored -- compelled him to refocus. Five years of work later, his haunting photos intertwine with a shocking history lesson in…
November 20, 2010
Over the last couple of weeks, I've written a handful of blog posts that are based primarily on the local news in the Twin Cities or Minnesota. Either we have stranger news than other places (which I think is true), we are going through a strange period (which I think is true) or I've got some…
November 20, 2010
So much bad publicity spins out of Louisiana about so many things that we don't often get a chance to shine a spotlight on the competent, dedicated people who are the real reason that this state works at all. And since Thanksgiving is almost here, it is a good time to tell the world that Louisiana…
November 20, 2010
Labor activist Auret van Heerden talks about the next frontier of workers' rights -- globalized industries where no single national body can keep workers safe and protected. How can we keep our global supply chains honest? Van Heerden makes the business case for fair labor.
November 19, 2010
Video 1: Dan meets Alice, Alice pwns Dan.
Video 2: Dan meets Alice, gets her name wrong. Dan pwned again.
November 19, 2010
In some societies, men hunt together and this is probably a part of male bonding. Before you write off the idea of male bonding as facile pop psychology, please step back a moment from the term, which is so overused in mostly cynical contexts that it has probably lost its meaning. Let me try to…
November 19, 2010
If you ever get to see "Millhouse" do so! I'd love to watch it along side any similar documentary on George Bush. I don't have the film, but here is a documentary about the documentary.
Part I
Part II
Part III
November 19, 2010
Ecologist Eric Berlow doesn't feel overwhelmed when faced with complex systems. He knows that more information can lead to a better, simpler solution. Illustrating the tips and tricks for breaking down big issues, he distills an overwhelming infographic on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to a few…
November 18, 2010
We laugh at the idea of you burning in hell and we hope you get hit by a church van tonight!!"
... Richard Dawkins reads some of his hate mail while relaxing at the hearth.
November 18, 2010
First, this one that Julia just sent me:
Then, this one I just made. It's experimental.
November 18, 2010
From rockets to stock markets, many of humanity's most thrilling creations are powered by math. So why do kids lose interest in it? Conrad Wolfram says the part of math we teach -- calculation by hand -- isn't just tedious, it's mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. He presents…
November 18, 2010
The distinguished evolutionary biologist Morris Goodman died on November 14, 2010, at the age of 85, according to the Wayne State University School of Medicine. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 12, 1925, Goodman attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, before enlisting in the United…
November 18, 2010
Paul was a real live scientific meteorologist who accidentally ended up a TV weatherman. (The regular one was sick, the substitute was sick, so they threw him in front of the camera.) He then became so popular that they fired him during a budget crunch. He was one of the first weather reporters…
November 17, 2010
Murkowski Wins Alaska Senate Race
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Wednesday became the first Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a write-in campaign, emerging victorious over her Tea Party rival following a painstaking, week-long count of hand-written votes.
details
Nancy Pelosi elected…
November 17, 2010
Let's have a look and see if we can decide.
Sciencedaily.com has this piece on a paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in which the claim is made that "US Scientists Significantly More Likely to Publish Fake Research." The problem is that the statistics given don't show that.
The study…
November 17, 2010
Denis Dutton is a philosophy professor and the editor of Arts & Letters Daily. In his book The Art Instinct, he suggests that humans are hard-wired to seek beauty.
November 17, 2010
Cats:
Dogs:
November 15, 2010
The first order of business of the lame duck House of Representatives was to pass a resolution (as far as I know resolutions have no meaning) to oppose through federal legislation (which only has meaning if it is written, passed, signed into law, etc.) to 'address' (ban? regulate? tax? allow under…
November 15, 2010
Last year, the American Freedom Alliance, a California based Don't Think Tank, attempted to insert, Trojan style,* a creationist film called Darwin's Dilemma into the repertoire of films shown at the California Science Center.
The film is a pro-Intelligent Design film, and behind this insulting…
November 15, 2010
No, wait ... not exactly. Well, sort of.
We all thought Facebook would be announcing Facebook.com, the email server to end all googles. But instead it launched something else. It is called a "Modern Messaging System" and it combines email, instant messages, and SMS.
Hold on, I'll be right…
November 15, 2010
It has been with us all along. In movies, on TV, documentaries. We wuz lookin' 'em right in the face and never done nowd it.
I recommend that you stop watching around six minutes. You have been warned.
November 15, 2010
In a recent blog post, Krazy Kristian Guy Ray Comfort (the "Banana man") notes that atheists are planning a billboard campaign that will point out the barbaric nature of passages from the Christian and Muslim texts. He goes on to note that anyone who offends Islam is likely to get their heads cut…
November 15, 2010
And, is that necessarily a bad thing?
Sometimes I feel like I'm watching Ubuntu running quickly towards a big cliff.
Recently, it was hinted/announced that Gnome would be dropped as Ubuntu's default desktop, and x.org dropped as the x server. The mint Distro has forked itself to produce a pure…
November 14, 2010
The question recently came up as to whether the term "Moslem" (as opposed to "Muslim") is considered insulting or somehow anti-Moslem*. More specifically, I made the claim (though I did not put it this way exactly at the time) that "Moslem" was a dogwhistle signifying teabagging anti-Obama racist…
November 14, 2010
Yesterday in Minnesota, 546 vehicles drove off the road and 461 vehicles crashed into something (often, another vehicle) due to storm conditions. In one of those incidents, a person died. In neighboring Wisconsin, there were over 400 crashes and two dead.
If this was a disease epidemic over the…
