Another day with a lot to blog about.

It's another one of those days - there's just too much out there to blog about, and not enough time to do the blogging. It's partly my fault this time, of course. I've got this bad habit of taking the weekend off from blogging, so there's a backlog that stretches back to Friday.

In the stack right now, there are multiple episodes of ignorant Egnor, DaveScot highlighting an absolutely superb paper, the Vice-President acting like he understands less about the Constitution than the President does, and the continuing "discussion" on flaming science (bit of a freudian slip just then, I meant to type "framing".

From the World of Egnor - Where Ever That Might Be:

I really don't know why I keep focusing on the increasingly inane antics of Creationist Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor. He's making less sense now than he did when he started out on the ID blog circuit, and I didn't really think that was possible. I guess it must be that "train wreck" fascination, or something, because I just can't stop.

Right now, there are a pair of articles that I haven't responded to yet. In the first, he argues that "Darwin's theory" isn't actually necessary to any science at all. In the second, he argues that - actually, I'm not entirely sure what he's trying to argue this time. I recognize all of the words, but they're put together in some pretty strange ways. In both cases, though, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: Egnor has dug himself into a deep logical hole from which he may not be able to escape. This particular hole is one of the bigger ones, and it's swallowed up so many people that it has it's own warning sign. Instead of the generic "Beware of Fallacies," this one has a sign that reads, "No True Scotsman Ever Falls In This Hole." I'll probably have more on this one later today.

From DaveScot, A Reference Worth Reading:

It's not often that I say this, but DaveScot (of Uncommon Descent) get's a tip of the hat for finding and blogging about a recently published review of antibiotic resistance. The article (Alekshun & Levy, 2007, Molecular Mechanisms of Antibacterial Multidrug Resistance, Cell 128(6), p.1037-1050), isn't one that I would have found on my own - antibiotic resistance isn't a major area of study for me - but turned out to be a very good, very readable review of the recent research on the topic. Unfortunately, the article means exactly the opposite of what DaveScot thinks it meant, so I can't give him full marks. But nice effort, and keep working at it, buddy. Reading is a big part of that reading comprehension battle.

From the VP, A One-Clause View of Congressional War Powers:

Dick "deadeye" Cheney did some radio interviews late last week. The topic of the pending supplemental war funding bill came up in them, and Cheney responded to questions with an interesting view of what the relative roles of Congress and the Presidency are when it comes to the use of military force:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, there's an important distinction to be made here. Clearly, Congress has a role to play. They are responsible for appropriating funds. But there's an area, once they cross over a line, that's pretty well drawn in the Constitution that says, under I think it's Article Two of the Constitution, the President is the Commander-in-Chief. He's the one who makes the decisions about the use of military force, how they're deployed, when they're deployed, what purposes they're deployed for.

It looks like he forgot about that pesky "declare war" problem again.

Framing Science:

The debate on this has been huge. See Bora for a roundup of coverage. I'll have more on this one later.