mikethemadbiologist

Here's some interesting articles I pulled off the internets for you: Publius argues "The fact that Iraq was so incompetently executed is actually the least of its problems. The bigger problem is that the idea of it represented a staggering failure of vision and judgment in terms of anti-terrorism…

...and calls a dark-skinned man of Indian descent a monkey. When viewed with his other forms of sociopathy, I'll ask once again: can the Republicans please nominate a presidential candidate who isn't cracked in the head? (Just in case). From a historical perspective, a VA congressman once…

At this point, one has to wonder if there are any sane people left in the Bush Administration. In the New Yorker, Sy Hersh describes the run up to the next war: A former intelligence officer said, "We told Israel, 'Look, if you guys have to go, we're behind you all the way. But we think it…

So quipped John Aravosis. He posted the following email: The horror the horror. Just got the following email from my friend Cate: "Yesterday, the TSA was confiscating MAKE UP at America's airports. Yes, MAKE UP. What kind of make up, you ask? LIP GLOSS. Yesterday, a friend of mine informed me that…

By now, you might have heard about the Science article examining the acceptance of evolution in 34 countries. I don't have much else to say that PZ, Shelley, John, and Nick Matzke haven't said already. But I have some additional good news and bad news. The bad news is that we're even more stupid…

Since I'm off to Woods Hole to give a lecture about antibiotic resistance, I thought this interview from the old site with Dr. Henrik C. Wegener about antibiotics and agriculture would be appropriate. In looking through some things at work, I came across this interview with Henrik C. Wegener, Ph.D…

In my stream of consciousness post about Joe Lieberman, I noted that Lieberman's loss reveals just how inept the Democratic consultant and advisor class is. Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon picks up on this theme: This was never our race to win. It was Joe Lieberman's to lose. More…

Joseph beat me to it: there's a Nature article about platensimycin, an antibiotic that inhibits lipid biosynthesis in Gram positive bacteria. While it's not in human trials yet, it's always good to have another antibiotic that's effective against MRSA and VRE. Now, if it only worked against…

There's a very interesting article in Emerging Infectious Diseases about which risk factors are likely to result in an increased likelihood of a macrolide (a class of antibiotics) resistant Streptococcus pneumonial infection. One important factor: having failed to take a full course of antibiotic…

So says the Hartford Courant. Lieberman is precisely why the Democratic Establishment perpetually has its collective head up its collective backside: an incumbent senator loses to a no-name challenger whose only previous political experience was in local government. The challenger was massively…

No, I'm not describing Joe Lieberman (although, hopefully, I will be). I'm talking about Tom DeLay. Says one of his former lobbyist friends (italics mine): A few lobbyists who helped raise money for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)--all of them outside the inner circle of the former Majority Leader--say…

I'm swamped with work, but I wanted to draw your attention to a few posts by Brad DeLong about the media coverage of the Iraq War. There are two very good comments about Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks' explanation for why the media wasn't more critical of the war progress when they had…

I'm swamped with work, and I plan on linking to this post from the old site, so I've resurrected this from the archives of the Mad Biologist. I go away for a meeting and vacation, and the most important court case regarding evolution in a decade is decided. Of course, I liked the outcome, so…

Here are some posts I collected off those internets you might find interesting: The NSA literally doesn't have enough electricity to run all of its equipment. At least, it will be harder for them to violate our freedoms. Maybe there is an upside to global warming... An interesting take on upper…

I was at the Esplanade in Boston, and I noticed something very weird in the water. By the Fairfield St. entrance, the water under the bridge and by the shore (on both sides, river and 'canal') was bright green, as if someone had dumped dye or paint in the water. When I got real close and then…

Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post writes: George Pyle , an editorial writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, complains in the Tribune's editorial blog that I did not include his paper's Sunday editorial in my Wednesday column about editorials from all over the country expressing outrage about Bush's…

...check out Ed Brayton's post. The poor attention span version: ID isn't serious science because it's 'founders' don't have a scientific agenda, but a cultural one. A must read.

...you know everything is fubar. I'll save the author for the end: No sooner had Hezbollah taken the two Israeli soldiers hostage [Mad Biologist: Eight soldiers were also killed] than Israel unleashed an air war -- on Lebanon. The Beirut airport was bombed, its fuel storage tanks set ablaze. The…

One of the lesser known microbiology facts is that the pathogen Shigella is actually E. coli. From the archives, here's an explanation (with a little modification). As I mentioned in a previous post, Orac has two very good posts on MDs and creationism. In one of the posts, he links to a…

It appears that some Lieberman supporters are so frustrated by the internet support for Ned Lamont, they are not only attempting to provoke violence at Lamont events, but are actually behaving violently. From Matt Stoller (italics mine): A large man, around 50 years old or so, then started…

The Mel Gibson anti-Semitic tirade is turning into quite the teachable moment. I've never understood the 'sanctity of marriage arguments.' To me, they always sounded analogous to the arguments against interracial marriage: underneath it all was only squalid and ugly hate. Here's what Gibson…

Blood red that is. At DailyKos, Hunter elegantly describes the Peter Pan Right: No beating around the bush, here: with talk of "World War III" and the blessed "opportunity" of the expanded bloodshed, conservatives and neoconservatives are positively giddy in their proclamations of who else --…

Our Benevolent Seed Overlords ask: What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally.... Here's my list (which I might update): 1) Apollo 13. The heroes aren't the big,…

In response to a CT newspaper editorial that opposed ANWR drilling, Daniel Kish, a senior advisor to the Republican Chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Pombo, spewed some serious bile: "Connecticut should have its statehood taken away from it. The foolishness of its pampered residents…

Sen. Conrad Burns (R) has to be one of the dumber rocks out there. Who in his right mind insults firefighters who travelled a couple of thousand miles to help your state? Maybe my 'Firefighting Dems' idea wasn't so ridiculous after all...

It looks like supporters of reason won out over sectarian ideologues in Kansas. Josh at Thoughts from Kansas writes: The Board is back in moderate hands no matter what. The night is, on balance, a victory. It'd be nice to further marginalize the extremists by winning the remaining races in…

Because that's what it will come to if the medical establishment fails to confront the hospital-acquired infection problem head on. In 2004, 90,000 in the U.S. died from hospital-acquired infections, and two million had a hospital-acquired infection--and in my opinion, those are conservative…

I was going to write a post about the Lamont insurgency in Connecticut, but thankfully, the NY Times editorial staff pretty much covered everything I wanted to say. Instead, I'll discuss something else that's going on here: the beginning of the end of single-issue politics in the Democratic Party…

maha agrees with me that the current Republican leadership is suffering from Peter Pan syndrome: If there's one thing I'm sure of about our President, it's that he has never encountered his limitations. He is as oblivious to his limitations as a spoon is oblivious to soup. He's oblivious to his…

...that conservatives don't have to face reality, they can just invent their own? DeLong writes about one delusional tax 'plan' (italics mine): There is a serious issue here: When one does policy evaluation of the proposals of an administration, does one evaluate the effects of the policies that…