gregladen | September 30, 2008Happy New Year!
I was a good little atheist today, and made a reasonably convincing argument that Bill Maher has NOT gone too far in trashing religion. After all, no one expected the Spanish Inquisition. Or at least, the elderly Jewish and Catholic people were nodding as I was ranting about it, so I think they were agreeing with me.
Dinner included conversation among an investment banker, an S&L officer, a couple of corporate lawyers, and so on, and the general consensus is that something must happen in the way of a bailout. The US Senate, it turns out, has a plan they will try…
gregladen | September 30, 2008Here's a poll you may be interested in.
The question is: Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States?
And so far the answer is "Yes" by a small margin. This poll is at PBS. Here.
gregladen | September 30, 2008Not long ago, Minnesota was moved to the "undecided column" by many pollsters. Well, in the words of the great Inspector Clouseau, "Nit Iny Meour".....
In Minnesota, Barack Obama has opened an eight-point lead over John McCain.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Minnesota voters finds Obama attracting 52% of the vote while McCain earns 44% (Demographic Crosstabs available for Premium Members.)
Last month, Obama's lead was down to four percentage points. Two months ago, the Democrat had a twelve point advantage.
source
Hat tip SZ
gregladen | September 30, 2008
This is a photograph from the vicinity of Galveston Texas. These fish were stranded in this fence after Hurricane Ike's storm surge receded. This photo is one of a dozen or so I received that are allegedly being used in FEMA disaster training, and that may be true. But I think these are also circulating in connection with an internet meme claiming that a media blackout in Galveston ordered by George Bush. According to this meme, or urban myth if you like, about 15,000 people died in a particular area of the city and this is being hidden from us.
I think this meme may have originated in…
gregladen | September 30, 2008You'll need two/three cases of beer, three/four bottles of wine, a few friends, and understanding neighbor. Do not watch this video if you intend to drive.
And now, How to remove red wine stains from your carpet:
gregladen | September 30, 2008This is from Robert Reich's blog:
Prediction: A scaled-down bill will be enacted by the end of the week. It will provide the Treasury with a first installment of $150 billion. Treasury can use it to back Wall Street's bad debts with lend no-interest loans of up to two years, until the housing market rebounds. Or to invest in Wall Street houses directly, in exchange for stocks and stock warrants. There will be strict oversight. Congressional leaders will promise further installments, but with conditions calling for limits on salaries and relief to distressed homeowners.
Some or perhaps most of…
gregladen | September 30, 2008It is a cartoon power point-like thingie about the current financial crisis. Click the picture.
gregladen | September 30, 2008Michael Moore's critique of the bailout recently mailed around the intertubes includes this list of problems:
1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street's spending of the $700 billion;
2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people's money;
3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people's mortgages to avoid foreclosures -- this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;
4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using…
gregladen | September 30, 2008Thirty Days Hath September, which means that tonight I'll be compiling the Carnival of Evolution. I'll actually be putting it up during the day tomorrow, and can probably take late submissions even through the early AM. Either way, please send me your blog posts on Evolution and stuff, or submit them here.
gregladen | September 29, 2008An article just out in PLOS Biology explores one of the most important, but also difficult to observe, phenomena related to DNA regulation.
Figure 1 from the paper: "Atomic Force Microscopy of Lac Repressor-DNA Complexes (A) Schematic structures of biotin (bio)- and digoxigenin (dig)-labeled DNA constructs with one (O-539 and O-349) or two (O-153-O and O-158-O) ideal lac operator sequences (white bars)... (B) AFM image of molecules adsorbed to a mica surface ... (C) Scatter plot of the DNA arm contour lengths in repressor-DNA complexes....(D and E) Left: projection images of two…
gregladen | September 29, 2008Fossils of a newly discovered species of dinosaur -- a 10-meter-long, elephant-weight predator -- were discovered in 1996 along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado, and are now being reported after a long period of careful study. This dinosaur dates to about 85 million years (which falls within the Cretaceous period).
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Aerosteon riocoloradensis is that it demonstrates the evolution of a bird-like respiratory system in an animal that is definitely not bird-like in most other ways. Indeed, the authors of this paper imply that this dinosaur's…
gregladen | September 29, 2008Human societies tend to be at least a little polygynous. This finding, recently reported in PLoS genetics, does not surprise us but is nonetheless important. This important in two ways: 1) This study uncovers numerical details of human genetic variation that are necessary to understand change across populations and over time; and 2) the variation across populations are interesting and, in fact, seem to conform to expectations (in a "we don't' really care about statistical significance" sort of way, for now) regarding human social organization.
Before examining the paper, we should…
gregladen | September 29, 2008The Republicans failed to come up to the plate, and with 66 voting for and 132 voting against, the critically important bailout bill has failed in the house. As the vote turned against the bill, we watched the stock market dive precipitously. The Dow stands now at about 500 down, but it was much lower a few minutes ago.
Make no mistake: This is a situation where the elected representatives need to make a decision: Do they act in their own self interest and vote against the bill (which makes sense because the average American does not want this bill), or do they act in the interest of the…
gregladen | September 29, 2008
560 Billion Dollars
Cost of the Iraq War to the US so far.
700 Billion Dollars
Cost of the one time bailout to compensate for deregulation and greed in the financial markets.
560 Billion Dollars Pluse 700 Billion Dollars
The cost of two terms of Republican Leadership
Five
The approximate percentge of Democratic Candidate Barack Obama's lead over Republican Candidate John McCain
8.5
The average difference between winner and loser in percent of the popular vote in US Presidential elections since 1960.
Zero
The minimum difference between winner and loser in percent of the popular vote in US…
gregladen | September 29, 2008Here are excerpt from a list of things you will never see on Star Trek
1. The Enterprise runs into a mysterious energy field of a type it has encountered several times before.
2. The Enterprise goes to visit a remote outpost of scientists, who are all perfectly all right.
4. The crew of the Enterprise discover a totally new life form, which later turns out to be a rather well-known old life form wearing a funny hat.
6.The Captain has to make a difficult decision about a less advanced people which is made a great deal easier by the Starfleet Prime Directive.
12. The Enterprise visits an…
gregladen | September 28, 2008The proof is finally in. John McCain has the uncanny ability to say whatever he wants no matter how utterly untrue it is and retain support in the double (albeit diminishing) digits. The Chinese are also able to say whatever they want (like, this girl can sing, and hey, look at the cool fireworks) even when it is not true and somehow get away with it.
Well, suddenly it all makes sense. On Thursday, the Chinese space agency released a story about the successful launch of their space craft, including taped dialog between ground control and the astronauts and everything. The launch, of…
gregladen | September 28, 2008The waiting is over. Republican house representatives initially reluctant to support the newly crafted legislation to fix the markets have been meeting for the last two or three hours. It took a lot longer for these Republicans to go over the bill than it did for the Democrats, owing I assume to their reduced intelligence.
So, after meeting for a few hours, they've come out of the meeting and are being rather mealy mouthed about the results. On one hand, they are claiming to support the package, but only if they can blame the failing economy on Obama. Always blame it on the black guy. OK…
gregladen | September 28, 2008But Nova Scotia will take it in the neck, so to speak. Kyle has made a pretty hard right turn and is going to make landfall in Nova Scotia. This changes the landfall estimate by many hours, because of the complex shape of the New England/Maritime coast. Indeed, Kyle is essentially already there, with the windiest conditions expected to occur over the next several hours in SW Nova Scotia.
Here's the relevant part of the official forecast:
A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE COUNTIES OF DIGBY... YARMOUTH...AND SHELBURNE IN SOUTHWESTERN NOVA SCOTIA CANADA.
A TROPICAL STORM WARNING…