gregladen | November 23, 2010This is interesting at so many levels, but I thought you might find it pertinent to the ongoing discussion of whether or not we should assume that a person is good because they are very very religious, or check our wallets frequently and wear body armor when near them because they are very very religious.
Michael Brea is a bit actor who has had roles in TV shows you may have heard of ("Ugly Betty" being one of them). He was heard by a neighbor chanting religious phrases at his mother and demanding to know if she believed in god while he hacked at her with a ceremonial Freemason's sword.…
gregladen | November 23, 2010"It is in these labs -- often late at night, often fueled by a dangerous combination of coffee and obsession -- that our future is being won. For in a global economy, the key to our prosperity will never be to compete by paying our workers less or building cheaper, lower-quality products. That's not our advantage. The key to our success -- as it has always been -- will be to compete by developing new products, by generating new industries, by maintaining our role as the world's engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation. It's absolutely essential to our future."
Barack Obama…
gregladen | November 23, 2010The State Canvassing Board of Minnesota met today to "certify" the election results from earlier this month, and to affirm that the vote was within one half of one percent in the gubernatorial race between Democratic Farm Labor candidate Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer.
Part of that process involves a discussion, which as of this writing is still ongoing, about the procedure for the required recount. There are a number of issues involved, and I will not bore you with all of them. But I will discuss one, because it seems to me that the outcome of today's canvassing board meeting may…
gregladen | November 22, 2010Morals, values, and integrity. And sex-for-tuition.
Parkway Christian School
307 Sawdust Rd
The Woodlands, TX 77380
281-367-4674
Click here to apply for admission.
gregladen | November 22, 2010From USA Today:
An influential 2006 congressional report that raised questions about the validity of global warming research was partly based on material copied from textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticized in the report, plagiarism experts say.
Review of the 91-page report by three experts contacted by USA TODAY found repeated instances of passages lifted word for word and what appear to be thinly disguised paraphrases.
USA Today story here
gregladen | November 22, 2010There is no down side to this, and viewing it s a political move is cynical and unacceptable.
From the White House:
Earlier this year, President Obama called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create new rules for Medicare and Medicaid hospitals that would allow patients the right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay. The Presidential Memorandum instructed HHS to develop rules that would prohibit hospitals from denying visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.…
gregladen | November 22, 2010The recount process for the Minnesota Gubernatorial Race starts this week. The national political significance of this recount is simply not as great as the Senatorial recount two years ago. That recount determined the balance of power in Washington, sort of. It also determined the insertion into the Senate of someone clearly destine by his own abilities and energy to be one of the great ones, Al Franken, and the removal of someone clearly shown by his own actions to be one of the embarrassing ones, Norm Coleman.
But the outcome of this year's gubernatorial race in Minnesota is not…
gregladen | November 21, 2010We braved ice and fog to go down to see Harry Potter this morning. And yes, it was indeed icy, which was a bit traumatic for me. Last time I was walking on glare ice, I fell and seriously injured my knee. That was last February and I'm still doing physical therapy and taking the occasional pain killer. We did make it across the glare ice of the parking lot safely, but the manager of the movie theater did find regret in his decision to put no salt out to keep his customers in said parking lot safe. Yes, it was an embarrassing spectacle for all but when we left the theater after the movie…
gregladen | November 21, 2010Aaron Huey's effort to photograph poverty in America led him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the struggle of the native Lakota people -- appalling, and largely ignored -- compelled him to refocus. Five years of work later, his haunting photos intertwine with a shocking history lesson in this bold, courageous talk...
gregladen | November 20, 2010Over the last couple of weeks, I've written a handful of blog posts that are based primarily on the local news in the Twin Cities or Minnesota. Either we have stranger news than other places (which I think is true), we are going through a strange period (which I think is true) or I've got some sort of strange personal psychotic thing going on so that whenever I see a news story like "Combine runs over, kills black bear" or a web site that says "Help us Decide, Should we Have an Abortion or Not" I think it's odd (which I do).
The "Do we have an abortion?" web site, representing the situation…
gregladen | November 20, 2010So much bad publicity spins out of Louisiana about so many things that we don't often get a chance to shine a spotlight on the competent, dedicated people who are the real reason that this state works at all. And since Thanksgiving is almost here, it is a good time to tell the world that Louisiana has intelligent, accomplished, dedicated citizens, teachers, scientists -- and students! -- who are trying to stop the damage that the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) and their allies are doing to Louisiana science education. Several of Louisiana's finest testified on November 12, 2010, in favor of…
gregladen | November 20, 2010Labor activist Auret van Heerden talks about the next frontier of workers' rights -- globalized industries where no single national body can keep workers safe and protected. How can we keep our global supply chains honest? Van Heerden makes the business case for fair labor.
gregladen | November 19, 2010Video 1: Dan meets Alice, Alice pwns Dan.
Video 2: Dan meets Alice, gets her name wrong. Dan pwned again.
gregladen | November 19, 2010In some societies, men hunt together and this is probably a part of male bonding. Before you write off the idea of male bonding as facile pop psychology, please step back a moment from the term, which is so overused in mostly cynical contexts that it has probably lost its meaning. Let me try to put some fresh meaning on those old bones.
Men are somewhat obnoxious and hard to be around unless they are purposefully trying to be nice (and that can be worse). Many of the tasks in which men engage, depending on the society, require what we would probably call "training," whereby a complex…