clock | November 15, 2006There is a new carnival in town: Carnival of Citizens:
The public sphere is in disarray. Dominated by demagoguery, mudslinging, and dogmatic regurgitation of partisan talking points, there's scant room left for fair-minded deliberation about the issues we care about. The Carnival of Citizens is a response to this challenge: it aims to foster genuine dialogue between bloggers of diverse perspectives, to bring us one step closer to the ideal of a healthier, more deliberative, democracy.
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The Carnival of Citizens covers all topics of "public debate", i.e. politics and…
clock | November 15, 2006For instance, you can work as a campaign manager and use your knowledge and insight to help a complete unknown win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (and yes, I watched that Dean press conference in which he could not even remember her name).
clock | November 15, 2006An oldie but goodie (June 12, 2005) debunking one of the rare Creationist claims that encroaches onto my territory.
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I got homework to do. PZ Myers alerted me to an incredible argument that the existence of circadian rhythms denies evolution!
bryanm, the proprietor of the aptly-named The Narrow blog, describes himself as "...nobody who wants to tell everybody that there is somebody who can save anybody." In other words he is a know-nothing who keeps bothering everybody trying to push his idea that there is this non-existent being who…
clock | November 15, 2006
Emile Petrone is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 14, 2006The 93rd Carnival of Education is up on What It's Like on the Inside.
The 46th Carnival of Homeschooling is up on Sprittibee.
clock | November 14, 2006Back in 2003, John Edwards announced his presidential candidacy on The Daily Show with John Stewart. Well, he'll be there again tonight - watch it! Will he do the same thing again?
Update: No, he didn't. But he said to watch his website over the next few weeks.
Update 2: Apparently, the appearance on the show moved some people to like him more and pay more attention to him. Shakespeare's Sister is one, which makes me very happy. Read what she said.
clock | November 14, 2006Yikes! This was here in my neighborhood, in Winston-Salem, NC! Poor guy - did he get an education! What does he think about America now?
My Half-Year of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists:
When Polish student Michael Gromek, 19, went to America on a student exchange, he found himself trapped in a host family of Christian fundamentalists. What followed was a six-month hell of dawn church visits and sex education talks as his new family tried to banish the devil from his soul. Here's his story.
Read the whole thing - it is an incredible story. The family's whole purpose in taking him in…
clock | November 14, 200653rd edition of the Carnival of the Green is up on Triplepundit.
Grand Rounds - the Monty Python edition - is up on The rumors were true.
clock | November 14, 2006Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives, new book by Sen.John Edwards hit the bookstores today (I can't afford it right now but it is on my wish list for later). You can read an excerpt here, check the dates and places for his booksigning tour, see the schedule for his media appearances (lots of them, including The Daily Show and Letterman) here and discuss it here.
clock | November 14, 2006
The 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference is now listed on Confabb and the contents there will be filled over the next few days (I think).
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 14, 2006You may have heard about the crazy "discovery" of a pyramid in Bosnia, the scientific nonsense about it and the political heat it provoked. I have covered the story last winter and spring in a lot of detail (see my posts from December 07, 2005, January 30, 2006, April 17, 2006, April 22, 2006, April 29, 2006, May 02, 2006, May 07, 2006, May 13, 2006, May 16, 2006, June 02, 2006 and June 07, 2006), but have lost touch since then. And a lot of stuff happened in the meantime. The members of the Anti-Pyramid Webring have been pursuing the story with vigor and I'll try to catch up with them and…
clock | November 14, 2006* Cleansing nuclear fallout from the body:
A U.S. government scientist envisions purging the body of fallout with a compound from crab shells.
* Gay men likelier to gamble addictively, study suggests:
A small study may fuel a charged debate over why homosexuals, as growing evidence suggests, suffer addictions unusually often.
* Saturn moon found to resemble Earth at life's birth:
Hazy skies on early Earth, similar to those on Saturn's moon Titan, could have provided the ingredients for life, chemists say.
* Mystery of sudden infant deaths may be solved:
"Sudden infant death syndrome" results…
clock | November 14, 2006Michael Shermer has an interview in the latest American Scientist on Creationism and his new book Why Darwin Matters.
clock | November 14, 2006
Steve Burnett is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 13, 2006
This post is a relatively recent (May 24, 2006) critique of a PLoS paper.
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There is a new study on PLoS - Biology that is getting some traction in the media and which caught my attention because it was supposed to be about circadian rhythms. So, I downloaded the paper and read it through to see what it is really about.
Well, it is a decent study, but, unfortunately, it has nothing to do with circadian rhythms. Many examples of tritrophic relationships involve parasitoids (usually small wasps) being attracted by plant volatiles which are…
clock | November 13, 2006
Selby Bateman is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 12, 2006Pam, Lindsay, Scott, Glen and Melissa and all of their commenters passionatelly discuss the effects of Feingold's decision not to run. I suggest you read what Neil wrote (as well as some of his commenters). I only had a couple of words about it (and my commenters as well) here and here.
clock | November 12, 2006On The Media is one of my favourite NPR shows and today I was lucky to be in the car for almost the entire show. Today's show was very "bloggy". First, they had a report of the election and mentioned the positive impact of the netroots as well as the way Internet was ahead of CNN et al. in posting results (e.g., in Virginia).
Then, Steve Rubel talked about the way large companies can use blogs to connect with their customers.
Then , they had Marc Lynch of Abu Aardvark on , not as a blogger, or a curiosity, but as an expert - the best person to summarize the responses of Middle-Eastern…