Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.
mikethemadbiologist
Posts by this author
July 31, 2006
...the neocons had to betray it? Granted, Rolling Stone also published crap by RFK, Jr. But there are some public-domain facts to back up the Rolling Stone article's claim that several neocons tried to prevent a detente with Iran by leaking classified information to Israel (including several…
July 31, 2006
Alex at the Daily Transcript has a great post discussing an editorial by Robert A. Weinberg about the consequences of funding priorities. Here's the short version by Weinberg:
The funding policies of the NIH have made it increasingly difficult for young researchers to procure research funds. This…
July 30, 2006
Can we please have one leader in the Middle East who isn't thoroughly corrupt or nutty bonkers? Iranian President Ahmadinejad has now declared a war against foreign words:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace…
July 30, 2006
And if a lot of people actually take charlatan Kevin Trudeau seriously, we'll be seeing a lot of dead people. Stupid, dead people. Christopher Wanjek and Orac take down the fraud Kevin Trudeau's new book More Natural Cures Revealed. Writes Wanjek:
Bacteria and viruses don't cause disease, which…
July 30, 2006
The NY Times has a very interesting article about an evangelical minister who decided that subordinating his religious beliefs to the Republican Party and the Holy Defender of the Blessed Blastocyst was a bad idea:
After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last…
July 29, 2006
While the main reason to use antibiotics only when needed is to preserve their effectiveness, it's always nice to have an economic incentive coupled with proper use of these important drugs. From the Guernsey Press and Star:
The States prescribing support unit is claiming success in a campaign to…
July 29, 2006
...to give Paris Hilton a tax cut on money she never earned. Over at DailyKos, David Grossman comments on the Republicans' attempt to permanently repeal the estate tax:
So the Republicans in the U.S. House stayed up until almost 2am tonight to give Paris Hilton some extra money (there's something…
July 28, 2006
See, I can actually say nice things about Republicans (dogmatic conservatives, on the other hand...although I always did think Jack Kemp was honest and sincere, if crazy). Former Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey has called for a Democratic Congress.
No, I'm not making this up. His statement…
July 28, 2006
From the archives, comes this post about the health crisis no one cares about (except for the Mad Biologist. We are very caring): the 90,000 deaths per year from infections people get while in the hospital. And this number is probably an underestimate.
Bacterial infections aren't sexy: no one…
July 28, 2006
(from firedoglake)
By way of Pam at Pandagon comes this story of the moral values of the 'heartland', which is apparently a place where gays are considered to be the moral equivalent of Nazis. A store owner hung a rainbow flag outside of his inn/restaurant. He had purchased the flag for his son…
July 27, 2006
Lest you think corporate interference in public health policy is solely a U.S. problem, New Zealand is suffering a brain drain in the area of antibiotic resistance research due to political pressure hindering research on the effects of antbiotic use in agriculture. Worldwide, antibiotics are…
July 27, 2006
From Reuters:
In South Korea, traditionally a U.S. ally, two-thirds of people under 30 said in a recent poll that if there were war between North Korea and the United States, they would side with North Korea.
"Anti-Americanism runs deeper and is qualitatively different than in the past, when it was…
July 27, 2006
In the NSF Strategic Plan, the life sciences (i.e., biology) are not included as an area that needs improvement in infrastructure or translation of research into new products. Is it too cynical to think that the Bush Administration purposely left out biology? After all, this is the same…
July 26, 2006
I've discussed before how former Bush supporters and loyalists suffering from buyer's remorse are now frantically trying to revise history and offer (lame) excuses for why they were so foolish. driftglass brings up another tactic that we'll hear often: everybody went along with Bush. driftglass…
July 26, 2006
The American Medical Association has called for a temporary ban on all direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs. Sounds 'elitist'? Well, so are professional sports. But only an idiot would trust Madison Avenue over his or her doctor. (an aside: I'm not an MD. I just have the…
July 25, 2006
400,000 to-be-discarded embryos? The Mad Biologist has a very evil, nefarious, and sinister idea for them:
(photo from here)
They're mine. All mine! I will rule the world galaxy! I will adopt a menacing deep, baritone voice!
It's really hard to take the blastocyst liberationists very seriously…
July 25, 2006
Yes, I know. Saying this is like picking on the stupid kid. But that's the whole point. Cenk Uygur writes:
If someone is this ignorant, they're usually embarrassed and try not to talk much. But this guy is so dumb he has no idea how dumb he is. This sounds like a conversation you might have…
July 24, 2006
...skippy the bush kangaroo puts you on the permanent blogroll. thanks skippy!
July 24, 2006
Apparently, the Iraqis have moved to "Plan B", which is the dissolution of the Iraqi state. From the Independent:
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, meets Tony Blair in London today as violence in Iraq reaches a new crescendo and senior Iraqi officials say the break up of the country is…
July 24, 2006
Former enthusiastic neocon supporters running for cover heroically deploying towards a rearward area.
Perhaps it's just human nature, but I've always disliked Johnny-Come-Latelys. It's never made sense to me how those of us who figured out that the Iraq War was going to become a pandimensional…
July 23, 2006
From Paul Waldman's book Being Right Is Not Enough--What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success:
But the stance of those in the Radical Religious Right toward homosexuality is unlikely to change anytime soon. Since they believe the Bible absolutely prohibits homosexuality, they don't…
July 23, 2006
From the old digs comes this post about how catastrophically wrong self-proclaimed 'experts' were on Iraq.
I will freely admit I'm no expert on the Middle East. Infectious disease. Yes. Evolutionary biology. Yes. The Middle East. Not exactly. While I speak a smattering of Arabic, can converse…
July 22, 2006
One of the implicit assumptions regarding Iraq and the whole militarization of U.S. society is that the bellicose neocons are manly, and those of us who opposed invading the wrong country the Iraq War were wimpy or 'girly'. This is one of the oldest tricks in the facist playbook: the '…
July 20, 2006
In a post over at Media Matters about the right-wing's attempt to figure out if the Israeli-Hezbollah-Palestinian-My Uncle Morty conflict is World War III, IV, or V(?!), Larry Kudlow rises above the herd with this spectacular piece of ass-hattery (italics mine):
Lawrence Kudlow, discussing a book…
July 20, 2006
This is a modified post from the old digs, moved over here to the new site.
Stem cell research has always been a very personal issue for me: a close family relative is a type I diabetic (this is an autoimmune form of diabetes caused by the body's destruction of the pancreatic cells that produce…
July 19, 2006
From Boston's Beacon Hill Times:
A resident was robbed at knife-point by an unknown Caucasian male suspect at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 11, near the corner of Hancock and Cambridge streets.
The suspect demanded the victim's wallet, according to police reports. The victim said the…
July 19, 2006
(via Shakespeare's Sister)
I've always found it odd that Christian conservatives constantly claim victim status, particularly when so many of them, when it comes to foreign policy are so convinced that will can overcome anything. It's sort of like Norman Vincent Pearle but with fighter bombers.…
July 18, 2006
Josh, at Thoughts from Kansas, has a superb explanation of why the blogospheric left has largely remained silent about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Matt Yglesias has been pondering why the left half of the blogosphere doesn't write more about Israel. My answer is simple: Everyone involved…
July 18, 2006
At the old digs, I asked about Sen. George Allen of VA:
Can we please have presidential candidates who are not psychological basketcases? ... Is it possible for the Republicans to nominate someone who is not cracked in the head? Please? Just in case.
(Shakespeare's Sister, by the way, thinks not…
July 18, 2006
President Bush groped the German Chancellor. What an idiot.