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
June 4, 2008
A month ago, I told you the rebate was the wrong kind of stimulus plan, that the best thing to would to be to give the money to state and local governments. Why? Because the states and municipalities will have to cut spending as property and sales tax revenues plumet. And now, when it's too late…
June 3, 2008
I stumbled across this interesting post about San Francisco's recent paid sick leave bill:
* Anecdotally, paid sick leave is a good idea. Flocks told story after story of workers who were forced to go to work sick. She told of a server at the Cheesecake Factory whose boss told her that she would be…
June 2, 2008
I'm typically not a big fan of science fairs, at least in terms of the competition. In my experience, too many of the winners simply had good projects handed to them by top notch researchers--it's not a reflection of the students' ingenuity. But this science project is ingenious:
Now a Waterloo…
June 1, 2008
The blog posts recently haven't been focused too much on science research recently for two reasons.
First, I'm deep in the throws of multiple grants, as well as helping to build a bioinformatics pipeline for a whole mess of microbiome data, so, at the end of the day*, I'm often just not up for…
June 1, 2008
In an interview (in which I think Huckabee was trying to ensure he wouldn't be chosen as the Republican vice presidential nominee), Mike Huckabee critiques conservative economic thought (italics mine):
The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it's this new brand of…
May 31, 2008
By way of Lindsay, I read that David Corn relates the following about former Republican senator and McCain advisor Phil Gramm (italics mine):
No one in Washington apologizes for anything, so it's no surprise that Gramm has failed to issue any mea culpa. Post-Enron, says Greenberger, the senator…
May 31, 2008
I like the Smart Car, particularly if it comes with bunny ears. But this is not keeping with the design philosophy of the Smart Car:
(from here)
Besides, how the hell do you even get in the car?
May 30, 2008
One of things I don't get is why so many Democrats are worried about the primary continuing to the Democratic convention. This is the best thing that could happen to the Democrats.
First of all, don't underestimate how important it is to rank-and-file Democrats that they can actually cast a vote…
May 29, 2008
There's a superb piece by Mark Schmitt that's been making the rounds. While most people have focused on the Republicans' use of "Americaness" and identity politics, something near the beginning of the piece stuck with me--and I think it has a lot to do with how Scott McClellan is being treated (…
May 29, 2008
Even using conservative measures, the Bush economy has underperformed. Mind you, I prefer measures like the real unemployment rates, various measures of economic equality, the median wage, and other Dirty Fucking Hippie statistics. But if you're the kind of person who thinks the economy is best…
May 28, 2008
So argues a recent commentary in Science:
The pursuit of novel scientific interventions for AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis has been supported for decades by the traditional public-sector research funding bodies, such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.K. Medical Research Council, the…
May 27, 2008
Recently, I ripped into Kathleen "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" Parker for mainstreaming white power garbage. But Gregory Rodriguez makes a good point about the "formal re-articulation of whiteness as a social category and a racial interest group" (italics mine):
To be white in America meant…
May 26, 2008
Don't forget: at Tommy Doyle's (the one by Harvard Square), Boston Skeptics will be meeting tonight. On the menu:
This month's guest speaker is Patty Pieniadz, an ex-Scientologist who left after over 27 years. She was once the Executive Director of Narconon Connecticut and Director of…
May 26, 2008
Chris Mooney comments on the recent attempt by movement conservatives to rebut the concept of a Republican War on Science:
A new wave of conservative science punditry--epitomized by an essay by Yuval Levin in The New Atlantis entitled "Science and the Left," which was itself recently publicized by…
May 25, 2008
This week, when McCain fired some lobbyists from his campaign, other lobbyists have been complaining how much this hurt them (italics mine):
More than a few Republican lobbyists in Washington are scratching their heads these days, asking: So this is the thanks we get?
It was a small band of loyal…
May 25, 2008
...or more accurately, Israel's 'self-appointed leadership of the American Jewish community' problem. From Jeffrey Goldberg (italics mine):
I am not wishing that the next president be hostile to Israel, God forbid. But what Israel needs is an American president who not only helps defend it against…
May 24, 2008
I had no idea how deeply involved nepotism was in the New York Times' decision to hire William Kristol as an op-ed writer. From the Greenwald:
The NYT should be very proud of itself. Of course, Kristol was hired at the NYT because his dad, Irv, was really good friends with former NYT Executive…
May 23, 2008
So in my blog inbox I received a long piece of propaganda decrying the Universal Service Fund. I like the USF, although I'm sure some improvements could be made. But look at the list of people who sent the letter (italics mine):
National Taxpayers Union is the nation's largest and oldest taxpayer…
May 23, 2008
The New York Times has a disturbing article today about secret funds given to researchers by Big Tobacco with lots of strings attached. The whole article is worth a read, but this little paragraph makes it absolutely clear why tenure and academic freedom are not trivial things:
A tenured scientist…
May 22, 2008
Washington Post syndicated columnist* Kathleen "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" Parker writes about the "patriot divide" (italics mine):
It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Josh Fry's…
May 22, 2008
Photo: Architectural Design by Rolf Mohr; Modeling and Rendering by Machine Films; Interiors by James Nelms ÂDigital Artist @ Storyboards Online
A while back, I posted about apartment buildings that double as farms. New York magazine has a really interesting article about urban skyscrapers that…
May 21, 2008
...in Oregon. Despite all of the talk about how Obama has a problem with white voters, he won Oregon, even though the electorate is essentially entirely white. So what do commentators mean when they say Obama has a problem with white voters?
What they mean is that Obama has a problem with whites…
May 21, 2008
An article in Emerging Infectious Diseases describes a joint collaboration between the CDC and Mexican health authorities that built a system to monitor the spread of Salmonella through the food chain and into people. One finding shocked me.
The authors examined four Mexican states, and the…
May 20, 2008
Make teachers take an evolutionary biology course in college. So say the authors of a recent PLoS Biology paper (italics mine):
The majority of teachers, however, see evolution as central and essential to high school biology courses. Yet the amount of time devoted to evolutionary biology varies…
May 20, 2008
For one brief moment, the editors of the Washington Post have rejoined the Coalition of the Sane:
NO ONE would think it acceptable for a teacher to question the existence of gravity or to suggest that two plus two equals anything but four. It's mystifying, then, that a movement to undermine the…
May 20, 2008
Two stories published in the New York Times today underscore the importance of handwashing in preventing infection. First, from a public hospital in New York:
Timeouts to wash hands and put on hairnets, a simple checklist to ensure that such seemingly obvious precautions are done, and advertising…
May 19, 2008
A loyal reader mentioned to me a while ago that political news is morphing into sports news. Consider the now-famous Chris Matthews' smackdown of rightwing radio host Kevin James. Instead of focusing on Matthews' deconstruction, instead listen to the first thirty seconds or so:
How is this any…
May 18, 2008
Last week, Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 2001-2005, came out in support of Sen. Obama. In light of the Republican propaganda about how Obama would be 'anti-Israel' or some other hooey, it's worth noting why Kurtzer supports Obama (italics mine):
We have one candidate who is…
May 17, 2008
There's been a wee bit of excitement over the opening of the Apple Store in Boston. When you get right down to it, it's just another Apple Store: as far as I can tell, there's nothing special in terms of merchandise. It's the architecture that's the problem.
As a building, it's very sleek and…