November 21, 2006
The Journal World points out how turkey populations are changing in Kansas:
In the 1950s the only places where turkeys could be found in Kansas were along the southern border where they had crossed over from Oklahoma, [small game coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks] Pitman…
November 20, 2006
Sandy Levinson tackles the issue of Religion and politics after reading Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael Honey:
Almost every single chapter of Honey's book makes clear, once more, the absolute centrality of churches to the civil rights (and…
November 20, 2006
Brad Delong has some excellent nominees, but Casey Luskin takes the cake.
Casey culminates a three part critique of an article about evolution in a popular magazine by asking:
Was the Ford Pinto, with all its imperfections revealed in crash tests, not designed?
Apparently, the vertebrate eye is…
November 20, 2006
The IDosphere (IDome?) is oddly enthusiastic about an article in the Christian Post about Paul Nelson's attempts to defend ID. The problem is, the title of the piece refutes itself: Intelligent Design Defended by Unsolved Genetic Puzzle.
Set aside (at least momentarily) the issue of whether the…
November 19, 2006
Great minds think alike, I guess. Like Razib and Stranger Fruit, my answer to this week's Ask a ScienceBlogger – "Who would you nominate for Scientist Laureate, if such a position existed?" – was going to be E. O. Wilson.
His work on conservation alone would justify that status, if such a thing…
November 17, 2006
Ryun dissects election defeat:
Ryun, of Lawrence, said his campaign volunteers were lulled into a false sense of confidence because he easily defeated Boyda in 2004.
"It was difficult to get them engaged because they said, 'Well, you won by 15 points last time.' " Ryun said. "I want to say this, I…
November 17, 2006
In August we heard reports of a new island emerging from the Pacific Ocean. A boat tried to investigate, but its engine got clogged by pumice floating away from the volcano. At long last, we have art to show what a baby island looks like.
In the image reproduced here, you can see the top of the…
November 17, 2006
Presidential wannabe McCain took a swing at the White House and the leadership of NOAA:
"They're simply not complying with the law. It's incredible."
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) raised eyebrows yesterday with that comment regarding the Bush administration, made before a crowd of several hundred at a…
November 17, 2006
Chris of Mixing Memory points out this paper by Lombrozo, Shtulman and Weisberg: "The Intelligent Design controversy: lessons from psychology and education."
The findings are not surprising to me, but I think they raise some essential points about the nature of the fight.
Numerous studies have…
November 17, 2006
The Capitol-Journal complains that Connie Morris is Off again:
Morris, who was defeated in the primary during her bid for re-election to the Kansas State Board of Education, repeated this week her intentions of having taxpayers pick up the bill for two out-of-state trips to education conferences…
November 16, 2006
TPMmuckraker reports:
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), HHS last year spent $153 million on abstinence education programs…
Set aside the issue of whether they do any good. GAO tried to see if they did any harm, and concluded they did: Some of the abstinence programs are…
November 16, 2006
By a large margin, Steny Hoyer was chosen to lead the new Democratic Majority. Hoyer is a moderate Democrat who isn't tainted by ethics questions. Murtha would have been a very conservative voice (he sponsors flag burning amendments and is aggressively anti-abortion), and his status as an…
November 16, 2006
Most Students in Big Cities Lag Badly in Basic Science, and the reason seems largely based on economics and race:
while Atlanta was below the median in the ranking of urban performance, its white fourth graders not only did better on the exam than did 86 percent of fourth graders across the country…
November 16, 2006
Pim van Meurs asks:
Is there anything redeeming to Intelligent Design?
No.
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
November 16, 2006
SurveyUSA surveys approval for all 100 Senators, and the Kansas Senators don't do well. Brownback comes in at 67, and Roberts at 71. James Inhofe is among the least popular Senator who will be up for re-election next year. Beating him would be a real win.
Looking in more detail at the Kansas…
November 15, 2006
Mark, over at Cosmic Variance, surveys The Perils of Poor Science Journalism, dismantling an article about climate change by Chris Monckton (not George Monbiot). Mark asks:
Could it really be the fact that an important ingredient in the frightening implications of climate models is that scientists…
November 15, 2006
Senator Brownback told Fox and Friends:
I want to point out -- and I'm a bit jaded about this -- that we've been trying to be bipartisan for some period of time. And we've been putting forward bipartisan proposals and we were constantly blocked, blocked, blocked.
How bipartisan were those proposals…
November 15, 2006
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has published a look at changes in area and density of forests around the world. The figure above shows that quite a few nations have seen rising forest volume. Volume would be area times density, and the red line marks the line of no change in…
November 15, 2006
Only days after the election, Nancy Boyda has already begun to impress her skeptics. The Pittsburg Morning Sun and the Topeka Capitol Journal write:
This newspaper endorsed Jim Ryun in the 2nd Congressional District race. But we give Nancy Boyda an "A" for her first few hours in victory over the…
November 15, 2006
A Topeka call center for veterans is expanding "due to the number of veterans returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … overloading resources at Veteran's Hospitals across the country."
Conservative radio host Steve Forman has one thought about that news:
It is always good to hear of new jobs…
November 14, 2006
Philip Larkin started a poem that way, but it's good advice for the Forest Service, too. We've long known that fire plays an important role in maintaining forests, prairies and other natural ecosystems.
A new set of studies show that thinning forests without burning makes subsequent fires more…
November 14, 2006
Ed Brayton points out the Thomas More Law Center's silliness:
The pledge [of allegiance] written by a socialist to inculcate socialist values is now being promoted by conservatives who are outraged that a socialist would object to saying it. Yet another irony meter down the drain.
Those things burn…
November 13, 2006
Back in March, I went to the Kansas Democratic Party's Washington Days, and met the candidate for the 1st district, which Jerry Moran won with 79% of the vote. What I wrote at the time was:
The most encouraging person I met was John Doll, running against Jerry Moran in the First District. Doll's…
November 13, 2006
The race for State Board of Education against John Bacon looked incredibly close until the last votes were counted. It had been a 2 point race until the last precincts reported and gave the incumbent creationist a massive lead over Don Weiss.
Don Weiss has asked me to pass on these thoughts:…
November 13, 2006
In an article on the revolving doors between Congress and the lobbying world, James Thurber, professor of government at American University in DC says:
"The beltway here, it’s like a magnetic field, …After spending time in Washington," he said, former members of Congress “find it’s hard to peddle…
November 13, 2006
SurveyUSA polled 500 Kansans on behalf of KWCH. Asked "Based on what you know today, do you support or oppose embryonic stem cell research?" the research had 60% support, 32% opposition.
The poll follows suggestions that Kansas pass an amendment like the MIssouri stem cell amendment. The…
November 12, 2006
Presidential advisor Dan Bartlett sez:
WALLACE: You’re saying you don’t need to have Medicare negotiate lower prices. it’s already happened.
BARTLETT: The marketplace is working. We’re more than happy to have that debate with Republicans, Democrats, whoever wants to talk about it. The proof is in…
November 11, 2006
Woodrow Wilson's last speech to the nation, delivered on November 10, 1923.
The anniversary of Armistice Day should stir us to great exaltation of spirit because of the proud recollection that it was our day, a day above those early days of that never-to-be-forgotten November which lifted the world…
November 11, 2006
The last few years have been pretty rough for veterans and active duty personnel, so be sure to thank your friends and neighbors who have served. We can only hope the next few years will be easier on them and on us all.
November 10, 2006
I know, I know, why would anyone bother? Well, I just finished reading Fred Clark's excellent discussion of how Jim Wallis went wrong, a broad defense of the principle that "whoever is not against us is for us." John Derbyshire is against a lot of good things, but when IDolators attack, I feel…
