Mike Dunford
tqa
Posts by this author
February 2, 2009
Google just released a major upgrade to Google Earth that includes some features that science enthusiasts are going to love. Besides the regular Earth stuff, new layers have been added that cover Earth's oceans and the planet Mars.
Image copyright Google 2009)
The new stuff is undoubtedly going…
February 2, 2009
Both the economic stimulus plan passed by the House and the plan passed by the Senate have quite a bit of funding for scientific research. As most of you know, scientific research is near and dear to my heart, and I'm generally in favor of spending lots of money trying to learn new things. For…
January 31, 2009
The first thing I thought when I saw the "Lawsuit argues Clinton ineligible for state post" headline was, "what group of wingnut wackaloons suffers from a case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome severe enough to cause them to file this suit?" The very next thought to cross my mind was "gotta be…
January 30, 2009
I'm rereading "Guards! Guards!" right now, and I just came across this quote:
But incompetents with possibilities, nevertheless. Let the other societies take the skilled, the hopefuls, the ambitious, the self-confident. He'd take the whining resentful ones, the ones with a bellyful of spite and…
January 30, 2009
Pareidolia - the phenomenon where our brain is somehow tricked into recognizing vague shapes as significant features - gets mentioned now and then on ScienceBlogs. The usual trigger for this occurs when someone tries to sell the Wonderbread Virgin Mary on Ebay before the blue mold completely…
January 30, 2009
In his Inaugural Address, President Obama announced that he will "restore science to its rightful place." And scientists around the world wept for joy. The era of government meddling with science is over. All we need to do is fund embryonic stem cell research, take decisive action to curb global…
January 29, 2009
In today's political news, Karl Rove just compared himself to an aggressive and hard-to-harpoon whale.
January 29, 2009
Over at the Bad Astronomy Blog, Phil highlights a picture of one of our neighboring galaxies. If you don't click on any other link today, you should go look at this one - it's absolutely gorgeous.
As part of the ongoing International Year of Astronomy celebration, the Hubble Telescope folks are…
January 28, 2009
I might have mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning again: if you want to know what got me actively working on a political campaign last year, it was the cumulative "final straw" effect of some Congressional Republicans who saw fit to question the "Americanism" and "patriotism" of their…
January 28, 2009
Yesterday, I had to modify a post on this blog shortly after publishing it. I had quoted material from a Politico.com story, and it turned out that Politico had made a very large error. Georgia Rep. Phil Gingery had given them a quote that was highly critical of Rush Limbaugh, and they somehow or…
January 27, 2009
Remember how people were talking about it being a bad idea for Obama to single out Rush Limbaugh by name? As it turns out, the President seems to be walking away from that one clean. The political right? Not so much.
Politico just reported that a full-on pissing match between the radio…
January 27, 2009
After reading a lot of different smart people try to explain why President Obama's attempts to reach some sort of bipartisan deal on the stimulus bill is a bad idea, I started to think about writing a post explaining why this really does make sense. Fortunately for me, Al Giordano was writing…
January 27, 2009
A little while ago, while I idly browsing through various mentions of the weatherizing provisions in the economic stimulus bill, I came across this beautiful example of compassion:
Nothing stimulates the economy like government funding, at the expense of working Americans, for layabouts who can'…
January 27, 2009
Back at the end of last week, I took a couple of minutes to make fun of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's rather bizarre assertion that providing money to help poor people weatherize their homes won't stimulate the economy or create jobs. Since then, I've taken a much more detailed look at the…
January 23, 2009
Dear National Republican Congressional Committee:
After reading a couple of very interesting blog posts today, I took a look at your website. It only took me a minute or two to identify some of your party's biggest problems. I know you didn't ask for my advice, but I'm going to give it to you…
January 22, 2009
I understand that the following might not be exactly in tune with President Obama's desire for increased civility in Washington, but then I'm not in Washington.
It would appear, based on news reports, that House Minority Whip Eric Cantor is objecting to part of the economic stimulus plan for a…
January 21, 2009
My last prediction seems to have worked out OK. Let's try another one. President Obama re-swore the oath of office tonight just to be safe and head off the tinfoil hat brigade. According to the pool report, he did not use a Bible for the do-over.
Would anyone like to bet on which right wing blog…
January 20, 2009
Some predictions:
1: Within the next week, at least one member of the tinfoil hat brigade will start to pitch a fit about how Obama's not really President, because he didn't really take the real oath.
2: It's more likely than not that someone (maybe the same person, maybe not) will claim that…
January 20, 2009
I don't know what says "change" better to a geek than this:
11:10 am
12:02 pm:
January 20, 2009
MSNBC is reporting that, as of 7 am, over 200,000 people had taken the DC metro in to the city. The mall is so well filled that I'm having a hard time seeing any empty space between the capitol and the Washington Monument.
I'm going to do some very conservative crowd size estimates right now. I'…
January 20, 2009
Keith Olbermann is describing the scene on the mall as a cross between Woodstock and a religious pilgrimage, and he's wondering out loud if there's a better way to describe what we're seeing.
Personally, I'd suggest "America".
January 19, 2009
I was just looking at some poll numbers. In particular, I was just looking at Soon-to-be-Former-President George W. Bush's final job approval numbers. According to CBS, the final breakdown is:
Approve: 22%Disapprove: 73%Don't Know: 5%
"Don't Know"????
The man has been President for EIGHT…
January 18, 2009
Today, we've got an absurd story that leads to a more absurd story. The absurd concerns yet another remarkably asinine wonderfully American attempt to use the inauguration of our 44th President as a marketing ploy:
"Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American's sense of pride…
January 17, 2009
I only speak English when I'm in the UK. The rest of the time I speak demented hillbillyAmerican.
January 16, 2009
When we talk about the role of fossil fuels in climate chance, what we're really talking about is the carbon cycle. That's the term that scientists use to describe the different forms that carbon is stored in on the earth, and the different ways that it can move from form to form. Understanding…
January 16, 2009
Welcome to the seventh edition of The Giants' Shoulders - the monthly blog History of Science blog carnival.
Courtesy of the Digital Cuttlefish, we have a nice reminder of just why this whole insane thing we call "science" is so important:
They've hit upon something that multiplies thinking,A…
January 15, 2009
... thought it would be a really great idea for my son to get an 800+ Star Wars lego set that he and I could spend quality time building together?
Oh, right. Never-mind.
January 15, 2009
According to the website for the Giants' Shoulders blog carnival, the next edition is supposed to appear here, today, so I was planning to post it here, today. However, when I was going through the entries, I noticed that the submission form on the Blog Carnival submission website claims that the…
January 14, 2009
Just a quick note - the next edition of The Giants' Shoulders carnival will appear right here tomorrow afternoon. Any last-minute submissions can be sent to me (dunfordm (at) gmail.com).
January 12, 2009
At his "farewell" press conference earlier today, President Bush commented that, "most Israelis understand there needs to be a democracy on their border in order for there to be long-lasting peace." A short time later, Israel announced that they were barring Arab political parties from running in…