gregladen | August 13, 2009Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care--to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Hmph. That fucked up quote comes from an op-ed in the WSJ by the CEO of Whole Foods Inc.
Whole Foods is now trying to pretend this little missive was never penned, and are backpaddling like kayakers upstream from Niagara Falls.
Joe is on it.
gregladen | August 13, 2009Get me your science post for Scientia Pro Publica, which we are doing on Quiche Moraine.
Submit the posts here
gregladen | August 13, 2009I am told that all Macs come with a three button mouse. I'm not sure I believe that, but it is what I'm told. But to me the three button mouse on a Mac represents one of interesting cultural features of Mac users. Years go, when I was arguing with my friend Mike about which was better, Windows or Macs (Linux was not really an option at the time), he kept insisting that Macs were better for all sots of reasons. After he listed a long list of made up (I assume) reasons that Macs were better, I said to him: "Mike I've got three words for you that make all that irrelevant. 'Three button mouse…
gregladen | August 13, 2009Chris Comer was the Director of Science with the Texas Educaiton Agency until she was forced to resign in November of 2007. That happened because she disseminated information about an upcoming talk that would likely be critical of creationism. She was fired because the TEA (hee hee he said .... "tea") claimed a "neutrality" policy and claimed that Chris had broken the policy. Her reference, via email, to the upcoming talk was an endorsement of ... OMG! Evolution! Evolution over Creationism!!!
Yes folks, you read that right. Chis Comer was effectively fired from her job as director of…
gregladen | August 13, 2009The Gory Details are below the fold.
Oh, and no, not THAT kind of Darwin Award! Not yet, anyway. No, Ed won the Friend of Darwin Award, from the NCSE.
As far as I can tell, it has not been officially announced yet, but you can read the details here.
gregladen | August 12, 2009Have a look at this. Two of my favorite bloggers re in the top ten: Devorah, who is in third, and Danielle who is in eigth. The rest of these people are obviously interlopers, especially this guy Luis who is in first place. Please go and help fix that. Thank you very much...
gregladen | August 12, 2009Four Stone Hearth is the Anthropology Blog Carnival. The main page for the carnival is here. The previous carnival was held at A Hot Cup of Joe, and the next edition will be at Natures/Cultures blog.
The current edition of the Four Stone Hearth Anthropology Blog Carnival is ..... HERE, below the fold. Please visit all the sites and enjoy. We are heavy on linguistics this edition, by the way...
Neuroanthropology ... Uncyclopedia on Anthropology
For our readers not too familiar with the history or current state of anthropology, you could find much more useful resources, but why bother?…
gregladen | August 12, 2009Well, I spent the morning with a wonderful group of Middle and High School teacher committed to doing an excellent job of teaching evolution in their classrooms. Then, I go check my email and I've got a similar number of people sending me this story about a person who could be the next mayor of Tulsa Oklahoma, apparently.
Republican mayoral candidate Anna Falling said Tuesday that putting a Christian creationism display in the Tulsa Zoo is No. 1 in importance among city issues that also include violent crime, budget woes and bumpy streets.
"It's first," she
said to calls of "hallelujah" at…
gregladen | August 12, 2009.... Have you ever had this happen: You are minding your own business, teaching your life science course, it's early in the term. A student, on the way out after class (never at the beginning of class, rarely during class) mentions something about "carbon dating." This usually happens around the time of year you are doing an overview of the main points of the course, but before you've gotten to the "evolution module"...
Jeanne d'Arc was a very influential 10th grader. I understand she gave her Life Science teachers a very hard time. This is the only contemporary depiction of Joan of…
gregladen | August 12, 2009 Watching the guy from New Hampshire, 9mm Glock-Man, being interviewed on Hardball made me want to throttle Chris Matthews. There are limits and they are being crossed every day. Stephanie Zvan has something you should read at Almost Diamonds: "To My Conservative Friends and Colleagues"
gregladen | August 11, 2009Hurry up and vote for Ana if you have done so yet today! And if you have, drive to the nearest coffee shop you've not been to lately and vote for her there!!!!!!! She's gaining momentum. Let's do this thing!
This photo by Ben Zvan of Analiese Miller, who is also known as The Anthropologist, is the entry in a voting contest that could get Ana a chance at a part in Mad Men (the cable TV thing).
It is necessary that you CLICK HERE and vote for Ana by giving her Five Stars (below the photo). Please do this right now, and again tomorrow. Don't vote for any of the other contestants.
I've…
gregladen | August 11, 2009Hot off the presses from the NCSE:
Are state science standards worthless? Are kids learning about evolution or being spoon-fed creationist pseudoscience? What's the proper role of state science standards in American public education, anyway?
To get some answers, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) conducted an in-depth survey of 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The good news: Current state science standards cover evolution more extensively than they did 9 years ago.
According to the report, 40 states received satisfactory grades for the treatment of evolution in their…
gregladen | August 11, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
gregladen | August 11, 2009I just watched the last twenty minutes or so of the Obama Town Hall on Health Care. It is verified by the press that the vast majority of people at this town hall were randomly selected. So, if the Teabaggers are for real, some of them should have been at this town hall mouthing off and disrupting the event. But there was no one doing that. The questions being asked were respectfully, though too soft-ball for Obama's taste. He kept requesting harder questions but they were hard to come by.
There was a Libertarian with a 9mm strapped to his leg sauntering around outside making a total ass…
gregladen | August 11, 2009Well, there are different theories on this, and one is that there is a regional accent that runs from the great Lakes across central and western Canada and the norther Tier of the US. That's my theory, and I think it is correct. Furthermore, I think this accent is the product of Native American and Euro-Immigrant interaction int he 19th century through the depression.
But that theory, as with many of my theories, gets the White Folks mad because it attributes a feature they hold dear to subaltren little brown people and they tend to find that annoying.
Now we have a new theory that is not…
gregladen | August 11, 2009This is the Last Day to Vote! Ana remains in the top ten, but is near the bottom of that list owing to cheaters working for the other contestants, I can only assume. I mean, how else would she not be on top? So, go in and vote! Vote! Vote!
This photo by Ben Zvan of Analiese Miller, who is also known as The Anthropologist, is the entry in a voting contest that could get Ana a chance at a part in Mad Men (the cable TV thing).
It is necessary that you CLICK HERE and vote for Ana by giving her Five Stars (below the photo). Please do this right now, and again tomorrow. Don't vote for…