mikethemadbiologist

skippy, the kangaroo-eist blogger in all of blogtopia (and, yes, skippy invented that phrase) is celebrating his fifth blogiversary. Stop by and say hello.

Over at Pandagon, Amanda raises an interesting issue about the subtext of the phrase "trusting women" when used to argue for reproductive freedom: Okay, in all honesty, I think the phrase, while well-intended and certainly catchy, is bad framing. I don't trust women, not all women. Hell, I don't…

One of the fun things about blogging is that I get a lot of weird emails, like this one from the Israeli embassy: Press Release Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor Announces Switch of Official Diplomatic Vehicles to Hybrid-Electric ***For Immediate Release…

The headline in today's Boston Globe: "Colleges fear debt puts damper on donations." Gee, do ya think? When universities are touting college as a personal, economic investment--and not an investment in society, why on earth did they think loyalty would still exist? Most students have been told…

...we can all across political lines and join this movement.

There have been several calls for Democrats to be more welcoming of 'people of faith.' Typically, these have been admonitions that Democrats need to stop acting like Democrats and more like conservative evangelicals (e.g., Mara Vanderslice; also here). However, it has never occurred to most of…

Lotsa links for you. The July 4th vacation refreshed a lot of people I guess. Science stuff first: I have thoughts on the 'macroevolution controversy.' ScienceBlogling RPM gives an overview of the evolution of plants. ScienceBlogling Aaron notes that IQ isn't all that's it's cracked up to be.…

The title is self-explanatory. From digby: When the TB guy story was blazing I wrote that one of the most annoying things about it was that the guy said he was willing to put god knows how many other people at risk because he believed that he would die in a European hospital and had to get back to…

Consider this the Fouad Ajami edition. Some of you may have read that Ajami compared Scooter Libby to fallen U.S. soldiers in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Recently, Ajami tried to defend his statements on MSNBC's Hardball. Before you click away for the video, several meta-observations (since…

Susan Madrak is dead on target: if the rightwing is willing to give its wingnuts cushy jobs (also known as 'wingnut welfare'), why can't the left provide its own moonbat welfare for leftwing moonbats? As Madrak writes: Someone from either the Democratic party or some liberal organization showed…

I'm all for more efficient bureaucracy, but, like it or not, governance requires bureaucracy, something those conservatives opposed to universal healthcare don't seem to get. From From the Archives: In this climate, with this cabal leading our country, you somehow look around you and decide that…

...and the Mad Biologist attempts to give a serious answer. In response to this post about adopting a French-like healthcare system, a reader writes: I know this may sound contradictory to many of you, but I am a staunch Republican who has always believed in the need for universal health care in…

Over at Hullabaloo, I found this great list of suggested slogans for congressional Democrats: Congressional Democrats: "We'd stand up for you, but it didn't focus group well." Congressional Democrats: "We'd stand up for you, but they'd call us bad names." Congressional Democrats: "If we won't stand…

The FTC has released a report calling for the end of net neutrality (FTC's pdf report here*). What does that mean? Well: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access. The FTC said in a report that, despite…

Calling all woo-meisters (including ScienceBlogs Lord High Defender Against Woo). In this Slate article about the vaccines-cause-autism crowd, which describes how this is one idiot idea that will never go away, I came across this puzzling statement about antibiotics: Another apparent benefit is…

It's sad that the only way oversight can occur in our Excellent Iraqi Adventure is when one sleazebag contractor rats out another sleazebag contractor (italics mine): A toughly worded cable sent from the embassy to State Department headquarters on May 29 highlights a cascade of building and safety…

I've always thought if the evolutionary biologists who invented the term macroevolution--any evolutionary change at or above the level of species--knew the mischief that the creationists would do with it, they would have 'uninvented' the term right then and there. I've been meaning to write about…

Go read Hunter now. Here's a taste: Eighteen months from now, on some mid-January day, Libby will of course be lauded for his great service to the nation -- that service in no way being the remarkable ability to keep his mouth tightly shut in face of a criminal investigation into activities at the…

One of the most insidious undercurrents that has aided and enabled the modern conservatives, as well as the Bush Administration, has been the rise of what, in another era, was called malaise. For me, the most disturbing failure of Little Lord Pontchartrain's reign was the Katrina failure,…

...and are you in any way, shape, or form surprised? Has anything in the last six years suggested to anyone in the Coalition of the Sane that the Bush/Cheney Administration has any sense of shame or propriety? Of course not. It should be clear that this administration will do anything and…

Our Benevolent Seed Overlords have devised a survey about your ScienceBlogs consumptive habitats. Please take it. Thanks.

...this is why you should be nice to your employees. Talk show banshee Nancy Grace got punked by her own producer (the last third still has me giggling). I'm guessing the producer has another job lined up and decided to give Grace a 'goodbye present': That's just nasty. CNN at its finest. Now…

I find posts so you don't have to. Here's the sciency stuff: David Hillis has some suggestions for improving biology textbooks. 1700 years later, humans can still influence community ecology. Unlike the Creationist Museum, some museums still try to teach science. Nebraska has one.…

ScienceBlogling Chris, responding to comments on a post he wrote about what he views as misplaced blogging priorities, writes: ....we can talk about what I do outside of the blogosphere to promote the non-scientific causes that are important to me. And cutting off your response before it ushers…

You might have heard about the FDA detention of Chinese seafood because it contains antibiotic residues. I'll have more to say about that later, but there's another food advisory that puzzles me: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to eat Veggie Booty flavor of snack…

Fear the Attractors.

This is my healthcare plan. It is much better than your stinky French one (from here) In a previous post, I wondered why we don't just steal someone else's healthcare system instead of inventing some untried and untested system. In TNR, Jonathan Cohn asks the same question (italics mine): A…

Jonathan Hari of TNR bravely went undercover and joined a cruise hosted by the National Review. That is a heroic sacrifice on behalf of the Coalition of the Sane, and no amount of satire could do that lunacy justice. But Norman "the blood of GIs is better than Viagra" Podhoretz brought up that…

...and the psychological brickwalls they run into. With all of the talk about the Creationist Museum, I thought it would be worth discussing a museum that is trying to teach evolution. In the June 2007 issue of Evolution*, Diamond and Evans describe some of the responses to a revamped evolution…

Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise lost her father recently. Some kind words couldn't hurt.