gregladen | September 23, 2009A part time teacher and US Census worker was lynched in Kentucky earlier today. The word "FED" was scrawled on his body.
Michele Bachmann, I wonder what your opinion of this killing is?
The AP and other agencies are just starting to report this.
gregladen | September 23, 2009M a-G vs. the Town of Bedford, New York. (See also this.)
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gregladen | September 23, 2009While I was living in an Armenian enclave near Boston, this happened: A Turkish-American jeweler with a shop in Somerville was driving his car somewhere around Medford, and was ambushed. Several bullets were fired into his car, killing him and totally ruining the Cadillac. The Armenians partied, and the secret organization of assassins took credit.
Please check out my latest post at Quiche Moraine. Thank you very much.
gregladen | September 23, 2009The H1N1 Rap was written, composed, produced, and performed by John D. Clarke, MD, FAAFP. This music video is a fun, highly educational, and entertaining way to learn about prevention of the H1N1 virus.
gregladen | September 23, 2009OK, I'm taking steps to avoid unnecessary confusion and ensuing chaos on this blog. From now on, if you are going to comment on this blog, the first thing you must do if to fill out this form:
I, [state your name] am a [state your biological sex] and a [state your gender] and a [state your ethno-normative affiliation]. Uh.
[Sign here]
Thank you very much, that is all.
gregladen | September 23, 2009Sometimes people walk around with only half a brain, or a large portion of their brain disconnected, or simply having never developed, or an extra large brain, and we usually take little notice. But when there is a five or ten or twenty percent difference between two groups of people we are quickly willing to use that to decide (as in the Bell Curve) that those people with the (on average) smaller brain are inferior. The fact that all the well known studies comparing groups of living people that show such differences have been shown to be bogus (i.e. made up or doctored data) is often…
gregladen | September 23, 2009No one will take Muammar al-Gaddafi's speech at the UN seriously because he is generally seen as a raving lunatic. And he might be. However, he made numerous valid points (not all of which I agree with). I loved the part where he threw the book over his shoulder.
Interestingly, MSNBC made the editorial commitment to showing Gaddafi's speech in its entirety, but now of course they are explaining how he's mostly a raving lunatic. No one has mentioned a single actual point that he made, which tell us that the US press is scared to give him even a small amount of recognition.
Obama's…
gregladen | September 23, 2009This is the third of three parts of this particular falsehood. (Here is the previous part)
I previously noted that to survive as a Westerner, you can get away with participating in a culture that asks of you little more than to understand the "one minute" button on the microwave, while to survive in a foraging society you needed much much more. Moreover, I suggested that the level of complexity in an individual's life was greater among HG (Hunter-Gatherer) societies than Western societies.
However, this is not to say, in the end, that one form of economy and society is more complex than…
gregladen | September 23, 2009Are women less skeptical than men? Follow that link to find Stephanie Zvan's analysis of the recently reported study that is making its way around the Internet. Stephanie seems to buy into the study uncritically, you know, like chicks tend to do ...... NOT!
gregladen | September 23, 2009Sarah Palin gave her first speech outside the US, to the CLSA Investors Forum, in Tokyo, on Reqaganomics, China and Human Rights, Tibet, and the economices of the United States and Asia. She apparently also covered Alaskan Moose. The speech was 90 minutes long. Several people left early, there was apparently some kind of non-disclosure agreement because the press could not get most people to issue any kind of opinion, and those who did opine were generally non-committal with some mildly positive, some mildly negative. Opinions gleaned from the CNN story:
"I can't say I was actually…
gregladen | September 22, 2009... or, maybe gets shallower. I'm not sure.
This is a follow-up on "Goldilocks, a Very Cold Winter Night, And a Strange Sense of Empty-ness" which was followed by "The Mystery of The Returned Outboard Motor". More information has come in.
The following note was transmitted from the people who had stayed at the cabin during the week the motor mysteriously reappeared:
... I am anxious to tell you about the 4 pound bass I caught off the dock ... bla bla bla ... if you go up this weekend, you will notice an extra boat motor in your new storage building. We went for a walk up the driveway…
gregladen | September 22, 2009This poll has many tens of thousands of responses so far. PZ turned it from 60-30 yes/no to 30-60, but his minions, though vast, are not vast enough.
So, all 11 of you: Get over there and vote! Like the charge of the light brigade!!!
gregladen | September 22, 2009Sbling Darren Naish has a book out! It's called Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries.
Publisher's notes:
This elegantly illustrated volume is a journey through more than two centuries of remarkable discovery. Books on dinosaurs are usually arranged by classification or epoch, but this unique work tells the story chronologically, in order of the key finds that shaped our understanding and brought these creatures to life for the public. From the fragmentary remains of giant extinct animals found in the early 1800s to the dinosaur wars in the American West to the amazing near-complete…
gregladen | September 22, 2009PZ Myers' review of Richard Dawkins' book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, printed in Seed Magazine, is available on line here.
gregladen | September 22, 2009Lucky for Chris Joe wasn't there. He tends to interrupt the interviewee even more than these other guys do.
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gregladen | September 22, 2009Something terrible is happening. Pass it on.
Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell
gregladen | September 22, 2009Dario Ringach used animals in his research in neuroscience. When extremist animal rights activists tried to blow up his house in 2006, and accidentally almost blew up the wrong person's house (in characteristic fashion, they got the address wrong, and the bomb did not function) Ringach got spooked and quit using the animals. Recently, Ringach has been speaking out regarding this issue, and the current Nature News has a write up.
After three years of keeping a low profile, Ringach is now trying to raise public support for the use of animals in research. This month, he published a commentary…
gregladen | September 22, 2009In the first part of this discussion, I reminded you that we are talking about "falsehoods." "Falsehood" is a term I and others have co-opted and have used for well over a decade in courses across the land on evolutionary biology and related topics. The idea is to identify a statement that, when uttered in some particular demographic or sociocultural context, invokes a relatively consistent set of meanings in the minds of those present, such that those meanings are at least iffy, probably wrong, and often (but certainly not always) offensive and destructive in some way. Such a construct…
gregladen | September 22, 2009You know, if the Rapture happens, God is going to take PZ first, so he can make PZ collect tickets at the Pearly Gates, then after everyone is in, including all of PZ's nemesi, St. Peter slams the door on him and makes him stand on a cloud forever.
So, I checked to see if PZ is still there, given that yesterday was the predicted start of the Rapture and all, and he's still there.
How could the bible be wrong?