tqa | June 29, 2007
Once again, the unholy wars have broken out here at Scienceblogs. The latest skirmish got started when Matt Nisbet put up an article titled "ATHEISM IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE." In this article, Nisbet claims that atheists don't face a civil rights struggle, but merely "a public image problem." Many of the comments left over there have argued with that basic point, as have PZ, Jason Rosenhouse, Mark Hoofnagle, and other Sciencebloggers. Personally, I think Nisbet is right on this one - but only if the term "civil rights" is defined so narrowly that it loses most of its meaning.
There is…
tqa | June 28, 2007
Both of this blog's regular readers have probably noticed by now that the blog hasn't been written regularly for a few weeks now. There are quite a few reasons for this, mostly involving the pleasures of relocation. Back on June 11th, which feels like an eternity but was just slightly more than two weeks ago, we closed out our quarters in Honolulu and got on a plane for Houston. (I'm never flying Northwest again, but that's another story.) Since then, we've been living in an Extended Stay America. The room is about 15' by 25', and is currently occupied by two adults (at least physiologically…
tqa | June 17, 2007
So-called "junk DNA" has been much the buzz lately. A recent (and outstandingly lousy) Wired magazine article on the topic uncritically printed assertions by the Discovery Institute's lead hack Stephen Meyer that the discovery that some regions of DNA once thought to be functionless do have functions is, "a confirmation of a natural empirical prediction or expectation of the theory of intelligent design, and it disconfirms the neo-Darwinian hypothesis," The author of the Wired article does not provide us with any explanation of how ID "theory" made that prediction, but a more recent article…
tqa | June 13, 2007
Reed Cartwright just forwarded me (and a few others) an email that was just sent out to an evolutionary biology mailing list. I'm going to quote it in full below. Don't worry if you don't understand the technical terms in there - you don't need to know what Bayesian methods are, or how they're used in phylogenetics, or even what phylogenetics is to understand why this email is important, and why all concerned should be proud of themselves.
Dear Colleagues,
This to inform you that we must retract Hall, B.G. and S.
Salipante. 2007. Measures of clade confidence do not correlate with…
tqa | June 11, 2007
It's been a quiet week or two (or three) on this blog, mostly because it's been a busy week or three in the house. We've been finishing off our moving process over the last few days. Since Wednesday, we've mostly been getting ready to clear quarters. Most of you probably don't know what "clearing quarters" really means (and those who do have my respect and sympathy). The short version is that you get to clean the house to within an inch of your life. The longer version is that the military really does take the old expression "leave it better than you got it" seriously.
Actually, clearing…
tqa | June 4, 2007
Today, a United States Marine Corps panel delivered a message to all recently discharged veterans: if you want to maintain all of your benefits, you better sit down and shut the ---- up. The Marines, apparently unfamiliar with the concept of the freedoms of speech and free assembly, decided to penalize an Iraq war veteran for speaking out against the war by taking away his honorable discharge. Corporal Adam Kokesh will instead, if the panel's recommendation is upheld, receive a general discharge (under honorable conditions).
For those who are unfamiliar with the military, a general…
tqa | June 1, 2007
Tom DeLay is on a Mission from God. Apparently, God talked to Tom. Surprisingly, it wasn't about the massive misuses of his (former) power, the rampant corruption charges, the criminal indictment he's under, being a Mean Person, acting like evil personified, or selling his soul to the devil. No, it seems that God is not concerned about those things. Instead, he's chosen DeLay to spearhead a new conservative movement:
"God has spoken to me," DeLay said. "I listen to God, and what I've heard is that I'm supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican party,…
tqa | May 31, 2007
Yesterday, Casey Luskin posted yet another article outlining still more of the Discovery Institute's complaints about the Iowa State decision to deny tenure to DI Fellow and ID proponent Guillermo Gonzalez. This one complains about the characterization of Gonzalez as "having slowed down considerably" and "not started new things." (That characterization appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education last week.)
I have no intention of getting into a debate over the precise merits of Dr. Gonzalez's case, for a number of reasons. First of all, I'm one of those who believes that the effort that…
tqa | May 31, 2007
...odds are good that someone's breaking curfew. In which case, the pistol - though tempting - should probably take a back seat to grounding.
(via Pharyngula)
tqa | May 31, 2007
Note: This is the second of a series of posts that I wrote while on the Big Island last weekend. Due to a lack of internet access, they were not posted at that time.
We arrived at Volcano House right after sunset tonight. The best word I can come up with to describe this place right now is "quaint." It's a small hotel. The bedrooms aren't very large, and lack pretty much every modern convenience - to be honest, I was almost surprised that the phone is touch-tone. There wasn't much of an attempt made to match the furnishings in the bedroom, but the rocking chair that I'm sitting in right…
tqa | May 30, 2007
Tara and Revere have posts up today on the story of the anonymous jackass of Air France Flight 385 and Czech Air flight 104. His story has been all over the news lately - he's the idiot with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) who took two intercontinental flights after being diagnosed with the disease because he didn't want to mess up his long-planned wedding in Greece, or honeymoon in Rome.
Yesterday, he told his side of the story to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, because wanted "to make sure his side of the story was heard." Reading his side of the story, I was reminded…
tqa | May 29, 2007
Note: During my trip to the Big Island last weekend, I wrote several blog posts. I didn't have internet access, so I didn't post any of them at the time. I'm posting them now, as originally written.
The 50th State is a group of islands, and if you want to travel from one to another you're probably going to wind up flying. At the moment, there's no commercial ferry boat service between islands - one is planned, but the launch was just delayed again. Unless you're massively opposed to human flight, though, the air travel isn't that bad an experience. Our flight to Hilo was actually quite…
tqa | May 25, 2007
The Island of Hawaii, that is. I'm already in the state. The last time I went over there, it was to do research. This time, I'm bringing the family and we're going to have a nice little vacation. I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to blog in the evenings or not, but I will try to keep and post a daily diary for this trip.
Right now, I'm sitting in the interisland terminal at Honolulu International, waiting for our flight to be called (Hawaiian 262, nonstop to Hilo). It's a short hop from Oahu to Hawaii - about 50 minutes there, 45 minutes back. Once we land, we're going to head…
tqa | May 24, 2007
I just checked the Junk folder for the comments, and found that there were quite a few legitimate comments that came in over the last few days that had been labeled as spam. The IP address blacklist that Movable Type blogs had been using to check for spam shut down recently, and apparently there are a few bugs in the system. I'll be trying to check the junk folder more frequently until the problems are resolved.
tqa | May 22, 2007
. . . what the hell is it going to take before those flaming idiots running Congress figure out how the hell to do the right thing? Collectively, they've got the spine of a beached jellyfish, the tenacity of a chipmunk on speed, and the leadership qualities of a concussed pigeon. At this point, they're going to have to work overtime to make it to the Homer Simpson level. Right now, the only thing that they've got going for them is that they're not as bad as the Republicans. That's enough to keep me voting for them, but only just. Call me crazy, but "not as bad as Bush" just doesn't get me…
tqa | May 21, 2007
The Discovery Institute is (still, and predictably) in an uproar over Iowa's decision to reject Intelligent Design proponent Guillermo Gonzalez's tenure application. The DI is claiming that the decision could not possibly be anything other than an example of discrimination against a brave non-Darwinian scientist by the Darwinian Orthodoxy. Personally, I think it's something different. I think it's about the money.
According to an article that was just published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Gonzalez has not received any major research grants since arriving at Iowa. Casey Luskin of…
tqa | May 21, 2007
The Economist is normally my favorite weekly news magazine. It has a much broader focus than any of the major American publications, covers topics in more depth, and uses a vocabulary that goes beyond the 6th grade level. Every now and then, though, they come out with something that makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking - and this week is one of those times.
Their recent opinion piece on species and conservation (which was also picked up by the Wall Street Journal) was written by someone whose head was so far up - well, let's just say that their scalp's not getting a lot of…
tqa | May 8, 2007
I saw my first political TV ad of the 2008 season last night while watching Countdown. It was a Mitt Romney ad, and it really changed the way I see him. Before I saw it, my impression was that Mitt's a guy who is willing to jettison any belief, change any position in order to win the Presidency - in other words, a younger, better-looking John McCain. After watching the ad, my impression shifted a bit - from "typical politician" to "what a frigging tool."
If you haven't seen it, the spot in question is available on Romney's website. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it, but you should go for…
tqa | May 8, 2007
I'm guessing (hoping) that some of you might have noticed my lack of recent blog activity. There are a few reasons for this, but the big one is that since very shortly after my my wife got home, we've been in a state of military life known as "PCS."
For most people, "PCS" is the acronym that Sprint uses when it describes its cell phone network. For those in the military, it means something different: Permanent Change of Station. PCS combines all of the wonderful fun of moving with the joy that comes from repeated adventures into the Kafkaesque military bureaucracy. At the best of times, a…
tqa | May 1, 2007
Jon Stewart's right. The Bush Administration is really making him obsolete. There's no need to wait for him to spin something the President says to make him look stupid and give you a good laugh. All you need to do is read the raw material.
Today's comedy routine - which I'm going to bet will be featured on the Daily Show tonight - was delivered at a CENTCOM conference at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida earlier today. The President, while trying yet again to make the case for his "surge" strategy, said:
The other option was to pull back from the capital, before the Iraqis could…