bushwells | October 27, 2006Spiked for your pleasure...
These rampant beauties are specimens of Echinoposis strigosa and reside in the Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden.
jfiore | October 24, 2006Suppose you were told that a candidate for congress, while serving as the county DA some years earlier, had gone to New York City for a conference. While there, records show that he made a call to a phone sex number. The DA, in response, does not deny that the call was made but asserts he didn't make it, but rather an aide did, and besides, it was a wrong number. Who would you believe? What if the source of the information to begin with was the National Republican Congressional Committee? Well, if you had already seen this article, you might just reflexively ignore the NRCC.
What? Ignore it?…
bushwells | October 18, 2006I, like, really want to be one of the cool kids here on Science Blogs so I am reading The God Delusion by that Oxford don Dawkins. I ventured into what passes as campus town here in Einsteinville, and bought the last copy on the shelf at a proudly independent and somewhat self-congratulatory bookstore. After reading Dawkins' thesis that religion should not be accorded special respect, I remembered my stash of old National Lampoons (circa 1972-1977ish) mouldering away in the basement. Those NatLamPoo boys respected nothing, and I vaguely recalled that they certainly did not spare religion…
jfiore | October 18, 2006The Military Commissions Act Blues (with apologies to Don McLean)
Bye-bye to our old Bill of Rights
Heard a lawyer in the foyer: "How'd we fall from such heights?"
With Congress's twits helping turn off the lights,
Our King George declares that "Habeas bites!"
Congratulations America, with the president's signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 we are now in a Habeas Corpus Optional zone. This Act allows the president (or a tribunal selected by him) to disallow a writ of Habeas Corpus for any "unlawful enemy". While this is bad enough, there is nothing in the Act that prevents any US…
jfiore | October 17, 2006I live in the 24th Congressional District of New York State. For over 20 years we were represented by Sherwood Boehlert, a moderate Republican (a real moderate, that is). Congressman Boehlert decided to retire this year and we now have what is considered to be one of the hottest races in the country; the Republicans trying to keep the seat with Ray Meier, a NY state senator and in my opinion no way comparable to to Boehlert, and the Democrats trying to tip the balance in their favor with Oneida County DA Michael Arcuri.
I have mentioned elsewhere that I feel Mr. Meier is a poor choice,…
jfiore | October 13, 2006According to Purdue researcher Ken Ferraro, the answer is yes, sort of.
To be more precise, Ferraro found a 14 percent increase in obesity among women who use religious media resources. Ferraro studied the religious habits of over 2500 people to reach this conclusion. Interestingly, he found that frequency of attending services was correlated with lower likelihood of obesity and that men did not show an increased tendency. Here's an interesting outtake:
...this (study) follows subjects over eight years to help explain why religion and obesity are related. For instance, (Ferraro) tested…
jfiore | October 13, 2006If you're like many SciBlog readers you probably have an interest in just how well your elected representatives are truly representing you, whether it's concerning stem cell research, same-sex marriage, church-state separation issues, or what-have-you. For convenient one stop shopping, take a trip over to secular.org, specifically, to their congressional scorecard. You can see a country-wide overview, find the votes for individual representatives, and read details of specific bills. From the web site:
The roll call votes used by the Secular Coalition for America in these scorecards are…
bushwells | October 12, 2006
A little string of pearls is the perfect touch, even for a planet.
Cassini Image Shows Saturn Draped in a String of Pearls
Does Saturn, ice cold martini in one hand, feather duster in the other, greet Jupiter at the door after he returns from a long day in orbit?
bushwells | October 10, 2006Chimpanzees and humans were given the spotlight in "What Makes Us Different," the cover story in last week's Time Magazine (Oct. 9th). It's not a bad piece for the masses, but I anticipate a few "I ain't descended from no monkey" letters to the editor will appear. Although we at the Chimp Refuge appreciate DNA homology and the intricacies of gene regulation just as much as the next monkey, the striking evidence gleaned from field observations is equally compelling.
Today in Einsteinville NJ, the matriarch of the Bushwell troop was spotted food gathering with one of the young males of…
bushwells | October 10, 2006
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell - Oscar Wilde
A recent Sunday found my kids and me careening through the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey as participants in the local "Run with the Devil" MiniCooper rally. Yes, I own one of those goofy little automobiles, and my little devil car has struck me wild-eyed and drooling with car lust, causing me to seek congregation with likeminded enthusiasts. The rally was organized by a charming Empire-type couple, complete with accents from somewhere in the UK or its territories, who are very much into things Gothic. Last year's…
jfiore | October 4, 2006As an electrical engineer and college professor, I often have to correct my students' use of the words ironic and optimize. Lots of people use ironic when they're referring to what might be better called a curious or interesting coincidence. No, it's not ironic that Larry died on his father's birthday. Irony involves something producing a result the exact opposite of what was expected. Meanwhile, many people use optimize as a synonym for efficient or best. To an engineer, to optimize something means to trade off performance in areas deemed unimportant in order to improve performance elsewhere…
jfiore | October 3, 2006This weekend, October 6-8, San Francisco will be the site of the 29th annual convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Among the activities will be talks by Sam Harris (The End of Faith) and Dr. Richard Sloan (Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine). Julia Sweeney, of Saturday Night Live fame, will receive the "Emperor Has No Clothes" award and will also be performing "Letting Go of God", her one-woman show described as a "beautiful loss of faith story". One thing I love about the FFRF is that in spite of the serious nature of their work (frequently involved in…
bushwells | September 28, 2006Once again those feisty young fellows at Frink Tank have caused my withered ovaries to twitch with faint lust. As a Simpsonophiliac, casual (and sometimes cynical) Dawkins observer, and admirer of All Things Irreverent, I was sent over the edge by this blog gobbet from Not Shitashi. Crazy Cat Lady. Ha! I will never think of Dawkins as Darwin's Rottweiler again.
That cephalopodean dude wrote a review of The God Delusion which appears in the November '06 print edition of Seed Magazine. We coddled Science Bloggers get freebie print mags but you readers will have to rush to your…
bushwells | September 22, 2006Nothing lascivious about this specimen. This is the kind of flower you'd take home to meet mom, dad, the cousins and grandma. Cue Dusty Springfield...
jfiore | September 19, 2006I decided to do something a little different the other day. This doesn't seem to have much to do with science per se, but eventually perhaps it will. Just how sensitive are a musician's "hands" to their instrument?
For over two decades I have been playing electronic drums, designing my own in the pre-MIDI days, and currently playing a system based on a Roland TD-20 MIDI module. For many years prior I played acoustic drums. As I am not an economy size human, being a giant only in the land of dwarves and peoples of a similarly diminutive proportion who might look upon my 5'10" 142 pound frame…
jfiore | September 16, 2006Jason over on EvolutionBlog has some interesting commentary regarding Greg Easterbrook and string theory. Like Jason, I find Easterbrook to be tiresome and a less-than-worthy commentator on topics scientific. I had written my own frisking of Easterbrook with respect to Richard Dawkins on a previous incarnation of the Refuge some time ago. It follows, below.
I was reading an interview with Richard Dawkins the other day. Quite nice. Dawkins is his usual clear and straightforward self regarding the public's take on evolution versus so-called intelligent design. What caught my eye, however, was a…
jfiore | September 15, 2006I was reading David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding the other day and came across a lovely item. Mind you, I tend not to wallow in philosophy texts, but I find the occasional jaunt into the realm a welcome relief from my usual reading in science and politics. Given the inevitable connection between religion and politics that will once again be thrust upon us by the talking heads for the midterm elections, whether you call them "values voters", "moralistic moms", or just plain "over-zealous, domineering, jingoistic, superstitious pinheads", this quote hit home:
There is no…
bushwells | September 15, 2006Insects and plants co-evolved because insects are the marital aids of flowers. Magnolias entice beetles, apple blossoms seduce their bees, and orchids go to elaborate lengths to draw in horny wasps. But sometimes sex toys go bad and take eating out (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean, say no more!) to an extreme. For example, check out these gaudily striped, ribbed-for-her pleaure dildoscerpillars.
Here's a dude munching away lustily. His little claws give that extra stimulation.
A double headed toy for fast action:
And here's the orgy shot. That parsley plant didn't have a…