mikethemadbiologist

...what he said. I was going to write about how Rep. Joe Wilson, who during last night's presidential address shouted "You lie!", shouldn't be criticized for being rude or uncivil. After all, if Obama had advocated sending left-handed people to gas chambers, I hope someone would have the courage…

The staff of PLoS Medicine does not like ghostwritten articles: If you are an editor, author, reviewer, or reader of medical journals, or if you depend on your doctor or health care provider getting unbiased information from medical journals, then the 1,500 documents now hosted on the PLoS…

Needless to say, I'm not happy with Obama's healthcare proposal. Before I get into this, I want to make something clear: my opposition is due to experience, not ideology. If it appeared (or better, if there were evidence) that putting on a pink mumu, whirling a rubber chicken around our heads,…

A dissertation committee member who will remain nameless once told me, "Mike, in the end, it all comes down to those stupid fucking natural history facts." This might have been the only worthwhile thing said committee member ever told me. More about this in a bit. Anyway, I bring this up because…

One problem with the Blue Dog Democrats is that they're corrupt, venial, and cowardly. Sadly, there's not much to be done about that. Another problem, and usually much less noticed, is that many of them are dumber than a fucking sack of hammers, with a good dash of ignorance to boot. Certainly,…

Merry Tuesday. Links for you. Science: Report: Bill Nye "The Science Guy" Exposed as Godless, Soulless Blasphemer in Texas The price and privilege of beefcake Bonus Dinosaur of the Week--Paleontology and The Excavation Process. Other: The Stay-In-School Conspiracy Theory Casual Fridays: We…

If you haven't read Paul Krugman's recent NY Times Magazine article "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?", I recommend it highly. One of the interesting things about Krugman is that he has been talking about this issue for over a decade. In a 1996 lecture, he presented an argument that economics…

In one of his last speeches before Martin Luther King was murdered, he spoke to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. It seems appropriate for the day: My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here…

(from driftglass) You might have heard about the latest successful rightwing hissy-fit: environmentalist and White House advisor Van Jones is being attacked by conservatives for calling Republicans "assholes." But he's saying what many Democrats are thinking. I don't mean that any individual…

Sure, it's nice outside, but wouldn't you rather be reading good posts? Science: Google Books: A Metadata Train Wreck Genes and Income 15 Horrifying Reasons to Never Let Anyone You Love Near a McDonald's Placebo is not what you think it is Other: Quit Giving Us More Work A cake knife is useless in…

I bet you didn't think life insurance policies could be securitized. You would be very wrong: The bankers plan to buy "life settlements," life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash -- $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured…

He was in 1952, anyway. By way of Oliver Willis, from Glenn Hauman: (click to embiggen) It goes without saying that Superman is an illegal immigrant, which, no doubt, is why he's spewing all this liberal crap.

Here's some good reading for your long weekend. Science: Dehumanizing the Two Cultures How global warming sealed the fate of the world's coral reefs Great Barrier Reef facing 'catastrophic damage' from climate change Great Barrier Reef faces catastrophe 200-pound snake killed in Okeechobee adds to…

Part of me sympathizes with ScienceBlogling Bora when he writes about the publishing bidness: I am excited about the way the Web is transforming society and all they care is how to save their jobs! I get it - they should care. The new media ecosystem can support a much smaller number of…

If you show up and boast about how you would shoot people in the head, your addresses and other things get entered into the spam filter. It's my blog, that's how it goes down here.

...the coelacanth is already being sequenced by the Broad Institute. I do like the idea of getting people excited about genomics and getting public input. Update: Don't ask me about progress; I don't know precisely. But a genome will be produced.

Well, now we've reached flat out thuggery. He must be a moderate: he only punched him in the face, he didn't shoot him in the face. From Miami: A 65-year-old man rallying in favor of healthcare reform was knocked to the ground by a man who disagreed with the call for a government-run health plan…

Or at least until the next bestest legal opinion comes along. In the NY Times, there's a story about Judge Arthur M. Schack of New York State Supreme Court who has the crazy notion a bank shouldn't be allowed to foreclose on someone's home unless it can prove that it actually holds the mortgage.…

Stupidly, Democrats have never pushed back against the idea that a hard-line deficit reduction hawk is a 'moderate', which I think might be what leads an astute political observer like Steve Benen to describe Senator (D-ND) Kent Conrad as a "moderate." To me, a moderate is someone who attempts to…

I'll have more to say about the first part of the post header tomorrow (hopefully), but this exchange between Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, a proponent of a Medicare-for-All public option, and CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo is mind-boggling: At one point, Bartiromo was critical of the…

This blogging thing would be easier if the series of tubes that is the Internet were clogged up a bit more. Anyway, here are some links for you. Science: Holy **** at this anti-evolution victory in Missouri. If You Are So Rich, Why Aren't You Smart? Greg Mankiw Hearts Genetic Determinism Are…

During one of the many framing-related flare ups (kinda like zits, aren't they?), I argued that biologists have done the following things well while confronting creationism: Calling creationists fucking morons (because they are). Arguing that a better understanding of how life evolved is good in…

Republican Dick Armey supports an option to enroll in Medicare. Which isn't socialism. Or something.Hunh? Dick Armey in an interview with The Economist: If you in fact freely choose to enroll in Medicare that's a wonderful gift, it's a charity, it's something I applaud. But when they force you…

To set the context, in 2007, the Republicans in the Senate were using all sorts of parliamentary maneuvers to prevent a bill from reaching the floor for a vote--the bill raised the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour (TEH SOCIALISMZ!!). It gets really good around 4:00. Of course, I'm sure there are…

More stuff I never get to blogging about. Maybe you will! Science: Reducing Quinolone Antibiotic Use Lowers Resistance FCC Hires Industry Shill to Develop US National Broadband Plan The Game The Whole Family Can Play! Other: What Would Teddy Do? Part 3 Roads that are designed to kill Pete Stark:…

Hunter has a succinct summary of the Romneycare the proposed healthcare legislation coming out of the more conservative committees (italics original): But a trade of mandated purchase of a for-profit, private product in exchange for a meager promise to not abuse customers is -- let's all say it…

Middle class families with thousands of dollars of expenses will end up paying more: In Massachusetts one in six people who have mandated insurance still say they cannot afford care, and 30,000 people were evicted from the state program this month because of budget cuts. Expect the same debacle…

Michael Seitzman sums up the Mad Biologist's philosophy of dealing with creationists, denialists, and other sundry morons: I have some advice for all of us. Stop trying to get these people to realize how wrong they are and how right you are. Stop trying to apply reason to the profoundly…

In a bunch of different contexts, I keep reading about how poorly the U.S. is doing in science. And that's true at the national level--we do fare poorly in comparison to other countries. But it's worth remembering that the U.S. is a really large country, geographically and in terms of population…

I came across an email that made me realize that I'll never get another quite like it: Dear [Mad Biologist] Thank you for your letter on S. 549 the Preservation of Antibiotics for Human Treatment Act. I share your concern on this critical health issue. In recent years, we have done too little to…