gregladen | August 25, 2010Obviously, I have to switch parties:
Katie Couric once described bloggers as journalists who gnaw at new information "like piranhas in a pool." But increasingly, many bloggers are also secretly feeding on cash from political campaigns, in a form of partisan payola that erases the line between journalism and paid endorsement.
"It's standard operating procedure" to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that "at least half the bloggers that are out there" on the Republican side "are getting remuneration in some way beyond…
gregladen | August 25, 2010Don't be a random, arbitrary dick. Be meaningful and relevant in your dickosity:
If your dickishness is going to help you communicate the values of skepticism, it has to relate, directly and immediately, to the circumstances that warrant anger.
Read the rest here
And then, if you want to know everything else about this topic, click here. Don't worry, nothing bad will happen. Just. Click. It. Trust me.
gregladen | August 25, 2010Danielle is a hurricane again. Not real well organized but showing signs of getting its act together, Danielle will likely continue to strengthen for a couple/few days, remain a hurricane for a couple of days, then start weakening in about five days. This is all going to happen out in the middle of the Atlantic, which is, of course, where Bermuda is. But, there are no coastal warnings in effect now.
The other system that has been forming A number, "7", has been given to the system that has been developing in the vicinity of the Cape Verde islands is getting better organized and will…
gregladen | August 25, 2010From Military.com via the TFN:
The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band's concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.
gregladen | August 25, 2010I'm going to talk about one or two peer reviewed papers, but in doing so, I'm going to have to say a few words ... and this will not be pretty ... about a certain science writer's report at the BBC.
In an article titled "Space is the final frontier for evolution, study claims" BBC "science writer" Howard Falcon-Lang uses the old, tired, and quite frankly, stupendously unethical tack of making a claim that Darwin has been overthrown by new research. If someone actually overthrows Darwin, then so be it. But this is not what has happened. Falcon-Lang, or perhaps his BBC handlers, have used the…
gregladen | August 24, 2010What does skepticism look like from a Native American perspective?
...change is never an easy obstacle to overcome. People fear the unknown and find comfort in daily routines, habits, and ritual tradition. Society itself has become too comfortable with some of the ways we think and perceive issues in America. People tend to not understand what is outside of that "comfort zone" that they have created for themselves simply because they are afraid of a change....
Visit Native Skeptic on Blogspot.
gregladen | August 24, 2010Yet another study on why women shop, from an evolutionary perspective:
In an unconscious attempt to outdo female rivals, ovulating women buy sexier clothing, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
"Not unlike the chimps featured on the Discovery Channel, women become more competitive with other females during the handful of days each month when they are ovulating. The desire for women at peak fertility to unconsciously choose products that enhance appearance is driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women," write authors Kristina M. Durante, Vladas Griskevicius (…
gregladen | August 24, 2010Danielle is unraveling. Meteroloigsts are using words like "disorganized" and "decreased dvorak estimates" and "downgrading" and finally, have decided that she is no longer a hurricane. Tropical Strom Danielle may well reintensify into a hurricane, and in fact, she may become a rather intense storm by the weekend. But she'll still be out in the middle of the ocean by then.
A new system, still very near the west coast of Africa, is staring to blow up. This is currently close to the Cape Verde Islands. Changes are happening here very quickly, and there is a very good chance that this…
gregladen | August 24, 2010Terra Sigillata has settled at Central Science. Click here to visit the new blog and find out the details.
gregladen | August 24, 2010My brother, who lives in Kentucky, very recently had similar corrective heart surgery as PZ's. He sent me this video to pass on to PZ of what appears to be the latest trend in Kentucky health food, as well as the main novel food item that will be sold at the Kentucky State Fair which starts up in a day or two.
Mmmm mmmm good. I hope they have this for the Minnesota State Fair as well, but of course, it will have to be mounted on a stick.
Mmmm mmmm good.
Hey, who's going to the fair this year? Starts in two days!
gregladen | August 24, 2010Timely:
Investigations into research misconduct cost US institutions more than US$110 million per year, estimates a study published this week. But experts contacted by Nature question whether calculating the cost of investigation is the right way to measure the impact of research misconduct.
read the rest at Nature
gregladen | August 24, 2010The word on the street is that PZ Myers has been surgically updated and will return home soon, probably tomorrow. My understanding is that he received a stent, which is routine, but as long as they had him on the table they also upgraded his laser eye blaster tubes and retractable squid arm assemblies. So look out.
gregladen | August 24, 2010For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she's made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it's a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.
In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.
"The real kick in the pants is that I don't even have a full-time job, so for the…
gregladen | August 24, 2010You know of DuWayne Brayton as the over the top highly opinionated commenter who is always giving everyone a hard time on this blog, or when not here, on his own blog. (Which, by the way, has recently undergone a style change, and I like it.)
Well, you may not know that DuWayne writes fiction now and then. Have a look at this piece, "Leaving."
I'm afraid the people who really need to read this are not going to. So pass it around, please. It's quite good .
gregladen | August 24, 2010I am sad to report that it is indeed confirmed by official sources that primatologist Marc Hauser engaged in several instances of what is being termed misconduct while carrying out experiments in his lab.
Dean Michael Smith issued the following letter to members of the Harvard community today:
Dear faculty colleagues,
No dean wants to see a member of the faculty found responsible for scientific misconduct, for such misconduct strikes at the core of our academic values. Thus, it is with great sadness that I confirm that Professor Marc Hauser was found solely responsible, after a…
gregladen | August 24, 2010In our recent tour of the northern and western parts of Minnesota, we stopped briefly at Tamarack Wildlife Refuge. Here are a few shots:
Although this diorama is at Tamarack, it is really a story more germane to Itasca. Shown here is the ongoing struggle for existence, etc. etc., between the fisher and the porcupine. This is one of those interesting ecological stories reminiscent of the cats/bees/cows/milk story of Darwin. It goes like this:
Porcupines eat pine trees.
Fishers eat porcupines (and nothing else really does)
Humans love their pine trees (to cut down and sell the wood).…