December 12, 2006
All the cool kids are doing this quiz:
1.
Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2.
Liberal Quakers (98%)
3.
Secular Humanism (96%)
4.
Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (93%)
5.
Theravada Buddhism (82%)
6.
Neo-Pagan (81%)
7.
New Age (73%)
8.
Baha'i Faith (70%)
9.
Taoism (66…
December 11, 2006
IDolatrous bloggers ask Is altruism all about cost-to-benefit ratios?, and conclude after reviewing a paper in Science that lays out the current thinking on the evolution of altruism:
Of course, there is another avenue for thinking about altruism: but this means going beyond neodarwinism and…
December 11, 2006
The KS GOP Insider and the Star both confirm that outgoing pantysniffer Attorney General Phill Kline is working for votes to take the job of the guy who took his job. Paul Morrison has been the Johnson County DA for a long time, serving as a Republican. He switched parties and booted Kline out of…
December 11, 2006
The first bill filed for next year's state senate session would ban thimerosal in vaccines. Thimerosal is a preservative formerly used in many vaccines, now mostly found only in flu vaccines. Because it contains a form of mercury, people have tried to link its use in childhood vaccines with…
December 8, 2006
As new Board of Ed candidate Shaver prepares to take office, she is laying out a pretty sound agenda:
Shaver said priority number one would be to hire a new commissioner of education after former commissioner Bob Corkins resigned recently. Shaver said she thought the new commissioner would need…
December 8, 2006
Scientists from the University of British Columbia have been following the oldest animals alive in unexpected places. Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) are believed to live several hundred years, and can reach sizes of several meters.
While they are usually found in cold, Arctic waters,…
December 7, 2006
I never had terribly high hopes for the Iraq Study Group. It smacked too much of Papa Bush trying to put little Georgie on the right path, not like a serious effort to come to grips with the catastrophe that Iraq has become (and which, I hasten to note, I and others predicted it would become).…
December 6, 2006
Administration Officials Brace for Departures:
Important Bush Administration officials are ready to leave the government rather than undergo two years of hell from Democratic committee chairmen in Congress. Leading the exodus are officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fearing…
December 5, 2006
Brownback forms committee:
Topeka Republican U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback formed a campaign exploratory committee Monday to measure the nation's appetite for his possible run for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2008.
Voters across America ignored this event. The Anti-Sam, back from…
December 5, 2006
Melvin Neufeld:
even though the November election results produced a more moderate House, the Republican caucus went further to the right in selecting Neufeld, who was seen as the most conservative of the three speaker candidates, which included Mike O’Neal of Hutchinson and Kenny Wilk of Lansing…
December 5, 2006
Retrospectacle points out an interesting radio experiment:
At the end of [a] one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, [host Jerry] Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not…
December 4, 2006
This week's Kansas Guild of Bloggers is up at The Force That Through …
December 4, 2006
SAn international team of scientists has gotten the first look ever at deep sea communities off the coast of New Zealand. The project, part of a larger effort to survey all the major areas where such communities exist, turned up new species and new problems. The area surveyed has four types of…
December 2, 2006
The AP reports:
Gov.-elect Deval Patrick complained Friday about Gov. Mitt Romney's decision to appoint a budget planner to be executive director of a board overseeing state funding for stem cell research.
Aaron D'Elia, a 35-year-old assistant secretary in the Executive Office of Administration and…
November 30, 2006
Energy Use Can Be Cut by Efficiency, Survey Says:
To take advantage of the energy-saving opportunities, some product standards would have to be tightened and some policy incentives changed. Current regulations and fuel subsidies, for example, often favor consumption over efficiency. But many steps…
November 30, 2006
Publius descends into the madness of the right wing blogosphere, it's commentariat and Presidential hopefuls and concludes:
It’s more than a little ridiculous that I feel compelled to defend the First Amendment (tomorrow – "Why Water is Good: A Reply to Ledeen"), but there are a couple of points…
November 30, 2006
Chris Mooney finds Justice Scalia being proudly clueless as he prepares to decide whether the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, if it permits such regulation, or whether the state of Massachusetts has a right to even get into that argument.
JUSTICE SCALIA: your…
November 29, 2006
Undoubtedly this rent in the GOP's former unity will get as much airtime as squabbles over Democratic leadership positions.Tiahrt's run for head of the conservative caucus in the House may tear the GOP asunder before the new session begins:
A major fight is brewing among conservatives in the House…
November 29, 2006
A big part of the 6 for '06 agenda that Nancy Pelosi proposed as the agenda for the incoming Congress was allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Forbidding that simple expedient was by far the most foolish thing (among many foolish things) in the Bush prescription drug plan. The VA…
November 28, 2006
Disease decimates Kansas buffalo:
Nearly one-fourth of the buffalo have died at the state-owned Maxwell Wildlife Refuge, home to one of the oldest surviving wild buffalo herds.
A new disease is decimating buffalo herds across the state and has prompted the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks to…
November 28, 2006
Every week, the KGB gathers to promote the finest of the Kansas blogosphere. The original KGB is back in the news this week with the recent assassination of a former spy in Britain. Non-Kansan Effect Measure reviews the effects of polonium-210, while Kansan j.d. discusses the story some more.
It…
November 27, 2006
An oldie, but a goodie. Way back in February of 2003, D-squared Digest said:
give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:
1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
2. It was significant enough in scale that I'd have heard of it (at a pinch…
November 26, 2006
Right before the long Thanksgiving weekend, incompetent, unqualified hack:
Education Commissioner Bob Corkins resigned Wednesday, ending a short and stormy tenure as Kansas’ education chief before a new Board of Education could do it for him.
In a 7-3 vote, the board accepted the resignation “with…
November 25, 2006
The whole "who is dividing the pro-science camp" debate has jumped the shark. Dr. Myers made the following comment at Pat Hayes' blog:
The only ones who are advocating openly sticking the knife in any subset of the evolution side are these resentful middle-of-the-roaders who want to get rid of the…
November 24, 2006
I haven't weighed in on the Larry Moran/Ed Brayton/etc. squabble over the different motives people have in the creationism wars. My feelings are well known, I'm in Ed's camp, and I frankly don't see why the Moran camp cares so much about what people believe. And I'm glad that I haven't written…
November 23, 2006
Over the last two years Thoughts from Kansas went from a blip on the side of the infotainment highway, to a privileged place in the political and scientific blogosphere. We started writing occasional complaints about the political abuse of scientists and comments on the culture wars.
Then we…
November 23, 2006
Gobble gobble.
Go spend time with your family.
November 22, 2006
DaveScot, apparently just having figured out PZ Myers' first name, has a problem:
I have a problem with these people in that they arbitrarily limit what science can potentially explain. The so called supernatural remains supernatural only as long as there’s no metric by which to measure it. Once a…
November 21, 2006
The Kansas Guild of Bloggers has busted down John's door with the best Kansasish blogging of the week. Next Monday it returns to Thoughts from Kansas, so be sure to pass your best blogging on.
November 21, 2006
Bob Corkins is the classic lame duck. Since August, he knew that the first action the new Board would take in January was to can him and start looking for a replacement. He has only been on the job for a year, and has managed to get most school administrators and teachers against him. And since…
