Mike Dunford
tqa
Posts by this author
January 23, 2007
In his State of the Union Address tonight, Bush will announce a new "plan" to address the need for more affordable health care insurance. After reading the White House "Fact Sheet" on the plan, a phrase quickly jumps to mind - "dead on arrival." That one is quickly joined by others - "smoking crack…
January 22, 2007
Earlier today, I noted that an unusual alliance consisting of representatives from both heavy industry and the environmental movement has released a report calling for mandatory action on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The list of participating industries is impressive, particularly since all of…
January 22, 2007
The United States Climate Action Partnership has just released a report calling for mandatory greenhouse gas emission cap legislation and suggesting a specific set of mechanisms for achieving cuts in the near future. There are a number of noteworthy items in the report, but the most remarkable…
January 18, 2007
It looks like we here at Scienceblogs are not done talking about Dawkins and The God Delusion just yet. The latest skirmish, which I am about to plunge into, started with a post on Pharyngula, which was responded to at Stranger Fruit. The Stranger Fruit article, in turn, just received a counter-…
January 18, 2007
In a post earlier today, I discussed a case where an astroturf group is attempting to stir up popular objection to a clause in a bill before the Senate that mandates disclosure of this type of lobbying activity. In a comment to a post over at Bora's blog, MattXIV raises a point that requires a more…
January 18, 2007
Via Bora, I found a somewhat alarming article. Apparently, it's being claimed, the Lobbying reform law currently in the senate will require bloggers (among other people) to register and file quarterly reports with congress or face possible jail time, "the same as the big K Street lobbyists."…
January 18, 2007
Over at the "ID is nothing but science, we really mean it" Uncommon Dissent blog, there's an interesting little biblical discussion going on right now. In this case, DaveScot's remarkable response to a comment on the After the Bar Closes discussion board does an amazing job at evoking that…
January 17, 2007
Actually, there are two quotes today - one from fiction, and the other from the US Government. The first comes from that all-time classic movie, The Princess Bride:
Vizzini: Inconceivable!
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means.
The second quote…
January 17, 2007
On January 12th, President Bush signed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006. As he so often does, Bush attached a signing statement to the law, reserving the "right" to ignore certain parts of the law he had just signed. I won't pretend to understand…
January 16, 2007
It is rare that I find myself at a loss for words. Anyone who knows me can tell you that. Right now, though, I'm having a very, very hard time coming up with family-friendly language that covers the way I feel about President Bush right now. Why? Because I just saw that half-witted, sneering little…
January 14, 2007
In this 60 Minutes interview, President Bush explained why he brought up mistakes that had been made in his recent speech to the nation asking fordecreeing that more troops be sent to Iraq:
PELLEY: You mention mistakes having been made in your speech. What mistakes are you talking about?
BUSH: You…
January 12, 2007
When people hear the word Drosophila, the image that pops most readily to mind (for those who know what Drosophila are) almost certainly involves scientists working in the lab. There's good reason for that, of course. Lots of Drosophila are used in the lab. Go to any university in the world that…
January 10, 2007
Over the last few years, I've become an increasingly more reluctant supporter of this war. Initially, I am ashamed to admit, I really didn't think that the administration would use classified information to lie to the American public, and I really did believe their claims about weapons of mass…
January 10, 2007
In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, the universe runs on narrativium - the element that ensures that things follow the demands of the story. It's narrativium that mandates that the little old lady in the woods is a witch, narrativium that demands that a third son, attempting a task that killed…
January 9, 2007
Earlier today, I visited Westminister Abbey for the first time. It's an interesting place, and despite the fairly steep (10 pound) admissions charge, well worth the visit. It takes a while just to walk through, and on the way you go past some truly remarkable bits of history. Right near the end of…
January 8, 2007
Mike the Mad Biologist has some thoughts about some things that Nancy Pelosi said on Face the Nation over the weekend. In particular, Mike is concerned about Pelosi's declaration that the Democrats support increasing the size of the military:
Do we really need to expand the military? If we weren't…
January 8, 2007
Just in case either or my readers was wondering, the lack of posts recently has been due to travel - I'm writing this in the lounge in a hotel near Paddington Station, and won't be back to my usual haunts for another week or so. I'm taking copious notes about this trip, and I've been doing a fair…
December 30, 2006
Here's a good New Year's quote, from the first season of The West Wing:
Toby: It's not the new millennium, but I'll just let it drop.
Sam: It is.
Toby: It is not the new millennium. The year 2000 is the last year of the millennium, it's not the first year of the next one.
Sam: But the common…
December 28, 2006
On the First Day of Christmas, I did the "Yes, Virginia" quote. On the Third Day of Christmas, I did Terry Pratchett's take on the same question. Today is the Fifth Day of Christmas, and it's always been my favorite (mostly because of childhood memories of Miss Piggy adding the "BA DOMP BOMP BOMP's…
December 26, 2006
This is a follow-up to the Christmas day quote - the Terry Pratchett take on the same question:
"Susan," said Twyla, from somewhere under the blankets.
"Yes?"
"You know last week we wrote letters to the Hogfather?"
"Yes?"
"Only . . . in the park Rachel says he doesn't exist and it's your father…
December 24, 2006
Merry Christmas.
"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong.…
December 23, 2006
When the time came to schedule this European odyssey that we're currently on, I discovered two things. First, that it was going to be a hell of a lot cheaper to fly on the 18th of December than on the 22nd, and second that it really is cheaper to book a regular round trip ticket than a multi-city…
December 22, 2006
"The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.
--Thomas Henry Huxley
"The Coming of Age of the 'Origin of Species'"
December 20, 2006
A little passage from Hogfather for the Winter Solstice:
Ridcully, after a few more trial runs, settled on a song which evolves somewhere on every planet where there are winters. It's often dragooned into the service of some local religion and a few words are changed, but it;s really about things…
December 20, 2006
The kids and I get to London last night just in time to catch an early dinner and fall asleep. The kids, being used to Hawaiian Time (GMT -10) were up at 3 this morning. We went to see Father Christmas at a well-known London department store, and by the time we got to him at 10:30, I was already…
December 18, 2006
My statistics class took up a great deal of time this semester, so this quote seems particularly appropriate:
No study is less alluring or more dry and tedious than statistics, unless the mind and imagination are se to work, or that the person studying is particularly interested in the subject;…
December 17, 2006
As you can tell by looking at the main page, I haven't been blogging much (again) lately. It's been a long semester, and I've had a lot of catching up to do at school. Between grading papers and trying to catch up on my own work, I haven't had very much time to spend here. And, of course, now that…
December 8, 2006
As I mentioned recently, a number of soldiers in Iraq will be running the Honolulu Marathon this weekend. The course goes around a base several times, mostly over dirt roads. In part, running the Honolulu Marathon lets folks maintain a connection with home, but that's not the only reason that they…
December 7, 2006
A scientific paper just published in the journal Nature provides an in-depth scientific analysis of the evidence in the case of the six medics on trial for their lives in Libya. Scientists obtained RNA sequences from the HIV virus present in 44 victims who had been treated outside Libya. They used…
December 4, 2006
Go read this story in the New York Times and cry for what our country has become, and for what we have lost. The story is about Jose "Dirty Bomb" Padilla, and his treatment while incarcerated as an "enemy combatant" in a military brig.
He was locked up there, with no access to lawyers, for 21…