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Intolerance? What intolerance?

A beautiful quote from John McCain during the 2000 election, when he was trying hard to distinguish himself as the moderate candidate in relation to Bush: "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right." Now, of course, he's delivering commencement addresses at Falwell's university. Which one has changed in the last 6 years, Falwell or McCain?

More foam

A little while ago I was ratty at Romm for being ratty at Peilke. All very exciting, but I was challenged to Please identify a single scientifically inaccurate statement in the paragraph that Pielke excerpted from the report. This isn't difficult; Pielke has already done it. Romm also asked me to please identify the scientifically inaccurate statements in my blog post that you trashed. This turns out to be harder: though all the ranting, I can't actualy see any strictly scientific statements in there at all. Can anyone else?

What is this?

A thin excuse for no blogging, but I've been away and fighting off the wackos. In the meantime, what is this: [Some creative answers so far, but no-one has come close. Answer soon -W] [My favourite answer is the Harley handlebar... I can just see a custom harley hand-crafted from antique silver. But the true answer is: a leg-of-lamb holder; the bone is inserted into the tube and secured with the screw, which then provides an elegant handle to hold the joint when carving -W]

Never mind me, it's just the chronic framitis

When ever I try to read about "framing" anymore, I start to twitch and suffer from hysterical blindness, which makes it really hard to blog. Fortunately, Greg Laden has a stronger constitution than I do (either that, or anthropologists have access to exotic drugs that help them overcome), so I'll just send everyone over there to read that. Don't tell me what it says, though: ir'll jost teigger the husertical twrches agian ind I'll hve to fo lie diwn for aquile. Eck. soasr neb vwiffffleop. Gorsnck.

Nietzche and Astronomy?

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster. And if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. --F. Nietzsche That's supposed to be a metaphor, right? Not so, says NGC 1097. In visible light, it just looks like a barred spiral galaxy: But damn if the abyss isn't gazing back at us in the infrared. From the Spitzer Space Telescope: Universe Today has the full story on what we're seeing. You're going to have to go there; apparently, I have a monster to battle.

Nah, not really worth it

Sorry, Rev. BigDumbChimp: you asked if Faith Converter 1.1 for Mac was any good. It's a gimmick program that will take a chunk of text or a web page and supposedly convert it to be compatible with a specific religion. It's a nice use of the Mac Webkit and so forth, but otherwise, it's just a program to do an automated global search and replace of certain terms. It's marginally amusing, not something I'll every use again, and you can get the full joke just from the promotional web page.

More Mississippi Meanderings

From Kristin Montalbano: Mark Twain once said, the Mississippi River is a "wonderful book with a new story to tell every day." Well, Nat Geo WILD spent an entire year exploring the length of North America's longest and greatest waterway in Wild Mississippi and we can tell you the man was NOT exaggerating. We gave a few of our favorite science, animal and nature bloggers the chance to check out the miniseries before it airs this Sunday - see what they had to say below: Check it out!

Climate Change and Sex

I have two questions: 1) Which high power storms had zero extra energy from warming in the atmosphere and seas owing to the release of fossil carbon? 2) Which high powered members of the military, other government units, or industry and business had zero extramarital affairs or the equivalent? Answer: Number 1 has been on the increase, number 2 on the decrease, on average, the former owing mainly to the burning of fossil fuels, the latter to the disestablishment of the hareem system. Visit the Petraeus Affair Tumblr.

How to talk to a climate change denier

Originally posted on Mar 18, 2012 Communications expert George Marshall offers six strategies for talking to people who don't accept that climate change is happening Drawing on his workshops in climate communications and the latest social research he proposes a respectful approach that responds to their interests and values. He says that you should keep away from an argument about the science and concentrate on the personal journey that led you to accept the problem. Try it and you'll find it works. More here.

Wikiblues

I'm frustrated about Wikipedia. Cultists are slowly and surely readjusting the Falun Gong article to their own rosy and "oh-how-persecuted-we-are" perspective. The other day I watched some anonymous loon create a new user account for the single purpose of deleting an article about someone he doesn't like -- and he's succeeding. And Alun Salt is retiring from Wikipedia to redirect his efforts to the forthcoming Google Knol, whose name reminds me of the Swedish word for "fuck". Check out Alun's farewell speech!

US Stoners Afraid to Report ODs

A stoner friend (who is also a dedicated father of two and a successful computer consultant) sent me a link to a sad and thought-provoking story. A Seattle teen girl takes ecstasy with her friends, the drug apparently triggers undiagnosed diabetes, she dies from ketoacidosis. The girl's friends tend to her for hours before she dies, but nobody dares call an ambulance, because in most US legislatures a drug user runs a great risk of a jail sentence if she reports an overdose. Another casualty in the War on Drugs. Danielle McCarthy was sixteen.

Atheist Blogroll

A burgeoning community of atheist bloggers has come into being since Mojoey published his Atheist Blogroll. The many blogs publishing that list has done a lot for Aardvarchaeology's Technorati ranking. I haven't got a blogroll, mainly because it saves me from having to add courtesy links all the time. But I try to spread the link love in other ways, such as doing feature entries on good underappreciated blogs. And so I decided to post the entire atheist blogroll under the fold. Random chance and purposeless existence bless ya, guys!

Morning mist rolls over cliffs at West Bay

Found via the Beeb but also available from Youtube. Lovely. Refs * Applications are invited for an artist to join HMS Protector for a three to four week placement during the Antarctic summer season (January to April 2017, precise dates TBC). The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work as the resident artist on board HMS Protector. * ASICS GREATER MANCHESTER MARATHON IN TRAFFORD APRIL 2ND 2017. A bit shouty but I've entered anyway. * All Brexit arguments settled by 0.5 per cent third-quarter growth

North Shore Battlefield

Spent the day metal detecting for Thomas Englund at the battlefield of Baggensstäket, anno 1719 (as blogged about before: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4). This was my third time there, and the first time I've helped on the northern half of the area across the water from where I live. Thomas found musket and pistol balls. I picked up an 18th century coat button and loads of steenkeenggg aluminium bottle tops, and saw an abandoned tree house. I'm particularly interested in the pre-battle finds that are starting to accumulate.

Falling out of the clown car, down the stairs and into the electric eel pond

Shamelessly stolen from Brian at Eli's (this is about plagiarism, after all) is the Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, Milt Johns Sue John Mashey For $2 Million as reported by JM. Brian's My one semi-serious comment is that this is the quality of the opposition. We ought to be kicking their butt. is worth a ponder. Arguably, we are "kicking their butt" - any sane government dialogue on the issue acknowledges the reality of GW. All that's missing is a sane response, viz carbon taxes. Refs * Makes retraction watch

Lents: Caius and Christ's

Alas, I missed Caius retaking the Men's headship on Thursday, mostly because I didn't think it would happen (they were nowhere on Wednesday) but partly because I was bag-carrying for King's, who rewarded me with an exciting bump on (LoL)Catz and ensuing chaos; and on Christ's on Friday. But I did see Christ's take the Women's headship from Emma, somewhat to my surprise, though Kate says they listen to her. Anyway, here it is: (it doesn't happen till 4:40, do feel free to skip ahead).

16 years

Global warming stopped [insert random number of years] ago is probably the most common and mainstream of all the climate denier arguments out there.  It is shallow and wrong and there are many refutations of it out there.  I think this video from Skeptical Science is about as clear and straightforward as it gets. If someone watches that and still thinks the argument holds water, then they can not be reached with reason. If attribution arguments are too complicated, there is always this excellent graphic: (click to enlarge)

Orin Kerr on DeLay and Anthony Kennedy

Orin Kerr has a pithy comment about Tom DeLay and his silly comments about how "outrageous" it is for Justice Kennedy to use the internet for research: What's next? I fully expect DeLay to introduce H.R. 8615, The Stop Anthony Kennedy From Using the Internet Act of 2005. Stay tuned. Professor Kerr, it should probably be noted, had the unusual experience (at least I think this is unusual) of leaving his position as a law professor to clerk for Justice Kennedy during the 2003 term, then returned to his teaching position.

Two Great ID Fiskings

The Panda's Thumb currently features two essays thoroughly fisking attempts by pro-ID pundits to defend ID. The first post, by Timothy Sandefur, deals with an article from Hugh Hewitt, the religious right talk show host (and ironically, Sandefur's con law professor in law school). The second, by Steve Reuland, absolutely blisters a ridiculous column by Phyllis Schlafly on the same subject. Schlafly has written numerous similar columns in the past, all showing a very poor grasp of both the science involved and the basic use of logic.

Greenfield Misses the Point

At Reason's Hit and Run, Jesse Walker nails CNN analysit Jeff Greenfield for this silly statement: "For weeks Republicans have been saying, 'Do you really want Charlie Rangel of New York running the Ways and Means Committee, which does taxes? Do you really want John Conyers at the Judiciary Committee? Do you want Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco?'--a code word that has a pretty clear meaning of 'extreme liberal.'" Uh, no, Jeff. That's not what "San Francisco" is a code word for. It's a code word for "gay".

Boys and Girls in America

I'm a huge fan of the last Hold Steady album, Separation Sunday, and I've spent about six months (not consecutively) earwormed with "Your Little Hoodrat Friend," so I'd be really remiss if I failed to note that there's a new Hold Steady album coming out Tuesday. There's also a nice article about the band in today's New York Times. I have to say, from the photos with the Times article, they could hardly look less like rock stars. Great band, though, and I'm really looking forward to the new album.

Those Crazy Chemists

Dylan Stiles is blogging from the American Chemical Society meeting, as only he can. He's got three daily summary posts up (one, two, three), with more presumably on the way for however long the meeting lasts. Personally, I can't make heads or tails of the scientific content, so I can't tell you whether any of the stuff he's posting about is actually interesting to normal humans. He's way into it, though, which makes even the incomprehensible bits fun to read. Or maybe I'm just sleep-deprived.

Teacher-Firing Followup

There are some comments in the earlier post about firing teachers that probably deserve responses. They don't deserve the responses they would've gotten yesterday, though, as I was grading lab reports all morning, and the snark level was high. Having cooled off a bit, I'll try to get back to that today (day job permitting). Let me note, however, Mark Kleiman's follow-up post, after a report from a teacher in a non-union school in Georgia. Well, OK, that's pretty snarky, too, but it does make a useful point...

NanoBowl: People's Choice

The Physics Central Nanobowl collected YouTube videos using football to illustrate something about physics. They've got a bunch of finalists, and the polls are open for the People's Choice Award. Check out the nine semi-finalists, and vote for your favorite. The slickest is probably "Theoretical Football": I'm not sure whether they gain or lose points for using "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burena. There's also the extravagent use of the old-film jitter effect in "Fysics of Phootball": And then... Well, just go look for yourself...

links for 2008-02-10

Book Vs. Film Special Mega Bonus Edition: I Am Legend | The A.V. Club An exhaustive discussion of four movie adaptations of Richard Matheson's novella. (tags: books movies SF) 5 Retro Commercials Companies Would Like You to Forget | Cracked.com "Come with us on a magical adventure of sexism, racism and fun!" (tags: gender history television politics race video youtube) How to Get an eBook of Old Man's War -- Free! Free as in beer, free as in speech, from the nice folks at Tor. (tags: books publishing SF literature)

Good News, Bad News

The good news: the first UNC-Duke game of the year is tonight. It's a little less interesting than it might be, as Carolina guard Ty Lawson has a sprained ankle and the Tar Heels are nowhere near as good without him, but it's still likely to be a good game, and the atmosphere is always great. The bad news: Dick Vitale has recovered from throat surgery, and will call the game for ESPN. I wonder how annoying it would be to stream the radio call on the tablet...

Spring Term Hat Blogging

It's grey and dreary here, with an expected high temperature around 50F. That can only mean one thing: Spring has arrived in New England! (You can distinguish spring from winter by the daytime high temperatures-- they're both grey and dreary, but winter is grey, dreary, and cold...) Spring means mud, yard work, and a new academic term. But on the bright side, spring also gives SteelyKid an excuse to show off her spiffy spring hat: Hope your spring gets off to a good start.

CCW - Extinction: It's not just for Polar Bears anymore

Okay, so this one is a bit of a tear-jerker and I usually like to avoid mixing sentimentality with environmentalism, but it is very informative and interesting if sad. It is greenman3610's Climate Crock of the Week from about three weeks ago and as usual well worth watching. I tend to be skeptical about anthropomorphizing our fellow earthlings, but I'll be damned if that wasn't a very affectionate mama walrus hugging her baby! If walruses weren't so ugly they just might top polar bears in terms of public concern...

Residual Analysis: Statistical Proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming v2.0

Here is an interesting analysis designed for those who claim that CO2 does not correlate to temperature. (Sound familiar?). It is by a recently familiar name from the comments, Joseph. I am not statistically well endowed, but Robert Grumbine comes to the same conclusion that when you accept the noisy nature of the data (aka reality) the fact is that CO2 does correlate to the modern temperature record very well, as expected. How does Joseph's analysis look? He has some big numbers in terms of confidence.

Save me a seat (OT)

Being from Vancouver, I can't let the winter olympics go by without at least one brief note. They are going on for a week and a half now, but by design, I am back in Australia for work. I love Vancouver, it's a beautiful city: But, I am no fan of the olympics, so I am delighted to share an amusing sign put up somewhere in the interior of British Columbia: To avoid persecution by the Olympic Special Forces, the exact location and the friend who sent it to me will remain unnamed (hi, Steve!).

Good PBS documentary

So it took me a long time to finally watch the last segment, but I did find this documentary from PBS to be very engaging and very informative. Maybe not so encouraging though... FWIW, In It for the Gold agrees you should go watch it. The synopsis is here: Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, fires, floods and droughts. On the eve of a historic election, award-winning producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates how the world's largest corporations and governments are responding to Earth's looming environmental disaster.

Watermelon Dan is at it again

Republican Congressperson Dan Burton calls for a Plexiglas shield to be built over the congressional chamber to protect the congresspeople from attack. This is the same guy who carried out the famous and embarrassing reconstruction of Vince Foster's suicide: Burton gained attention for re-enacting the alleged crime in his backyard with his own pistol and a pumpkin standing in for Foster's head. After hearings into Democratic fundraising (see section below) began, a Democratic National Committee staffer appeared in a pumpkin suit with a button that read, "Don't shoot." wikipedia

Pirate Update

Negotiations are continuing for the release of an American captain held by Somali pirates in a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa. He was taken from cargo ship Maersk Alabama after it was briefly seized by pirates a day earlier. A US warship on anti-pirate patrol in the high-risk area sailed to the ship. It remains unclear what the pirates want, but maritime sources say it could be a ransom or compensation for their boat which sank during the attack. ... More with the BBC

National Science Standards: We can haz!

On Change.org, the site where you can submit ideas and/or vote on ideas and then Obama has to do them ... or at least listen ... a college student named Griffin Jeffrey has suggested that we create nationalliy required science standards. National standards on the teaching of Evolution and the origins of life, decided on and created by top scientists from significant scientific organizations, should direct curricula of all schools nationwide, overriding any state laws on the subjects. We want this. Go vote for it. Here.

UN appeals for DR Congo back-up

The head of UN peacekeeping has asked the UN Security Council for more than 3,000 extra troops to protect civilians in the eastern DR Congo. Alain Le Roy said current peacekeeper numbers were not enough to protect civilians from violence perpetrated by rebel groups and the Congolese army. There are 9,000 UN peacekeepers in the region, out of 17,000 nationwide. The latest crisis began in August when rebels advanced towards Goma, which is now ringed with refugee camps. Read the rest: BBC

When the shit hits the fan.....

A giant inflatable dog turd brought down a power line after being blown away from a Swiss museum. The artwork, entitled Complex Shit, was carried 200 metres on the night of 31 July, reportedly breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again. The sculpture, by American artist Paul McCarthy, was equipped with a safety system that should have deflated it. The fake faeces has been returned and will remain on display at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern until October. More details, if you really need to know them, here.

The Joy of Sets

I have a guest post up over at the blog of Oxford University Press, discussing a few amusing tidbits from set theory. The post was inspired by this earlier post, in which I mentioned the bizarre criticism of set theory served up by a publisher of Christian home schooling materials. In my new post I discuss Russell's paradox, another classic paradox whose name I do not know. and finish with a set-theory-based “proof” that all counting numbers are interesting. (More precisely, I show that the set of boring counting numbers is empty.) Enjoy!

Evolution, Immunology, and Vaccines: Tomato, Tomahto, Tomater!

YAAAAAAAAAY!!! A *big* "THANK YOU!!" to The Thinking Atheist for recording and producing these videos (all of the speeches will be up on his YouTube channel). He brought all the equipment, the audio is great, the video is great, he integrated in the slides from my PowerPoint, dealt with uploading everything to YouTube (I know thats a headache), and on top of it all, he was a super sweet guy. And youll be able to see that for yourself when his speech gets uploaded!! THANK YOU!!!

The Antarctica Files: Penguin Highway!

Penguins share parenting responsibilities 50-50-- one parent watches the nest, one parent gets to go feed, and then they switch. Over and over and over. Well some of these damn rookeries were WAY far away from the water! HUGE journeys for little foot-tall penguins, especially when they can only waddle on land, especially when the snow is up over their heads! How do they make that journey just a little bit easier? Same way we make long journeys on land a little easier-- HIGHWAYS! HA!

Chess In Parsippany!

I will be spending the next few days in sunny Parsippany, NJ, participating in the annual chess extravaganza known as the World Amateur Team Chess Championship. I'm mostly retired from tournament play these days, too stressful, but I always poke up my head to push the wood at this one. I get to see a lot of old friends, and with 1500+ players it is an event not to be missed. Monday Math will get the week off, in honor of the fact that my poor students have a test next week.

Not Your Normal Press Release

EurekAlert offered a press release from the American Physical Society over the weekend that may indicate that someone in the press office has won a round of drinks: The American Physical Society (APS) is elated that the Senate has approved the FYO9 Omnibus Bill, which will allow scientists to continue cutting-edge research that will lead to innovation, job creation and economic growth for the United States. "Elated" is not a word I expect to see in a press release. I suspect. Somebody in the press office may just have won a bet.

It's all just metaphor … and toys

Weird ol' Target is now selling talking Jesus toys. Isn't there something in the Bible about idols? Isn't it turning their divine prophet into a cheap gimmick, literally? It seems to me that the real blasphemies seem to emanate from the Christians themselves, rather than us atheists. It might be a useful toy for breaking indoctrination, though, when the kiddies discover that Jesus has "Made in China" imprinted on the sole of his foot, and that they can play games that have him shacking up with Barbie. And Ken.

Baby Advice Open Thread

Most of my best ideas come from Kate, so I'll steal this one, too: If you could only give me one piece of advice [regarding FutureBaby, due in July], what would it be? If you've been itching to provide child-bearing or -rearing advice (and I know some of you have), here's your chance. Please limit yourself to one (1) piece of advice per comment, and one comment per person per day. So, have at it. What should we be doing/ expecting/ buying/ fearing?

Monday Night Mystery

Ok. Now you guys have asked for it. Apparently the mysteries haven't been quite obscure enough. So here you go. A real challenge: One point for order, three points for family, three points for genus, and three for species. Points are awarded for the first correct guess in each category. The cumulative points winner for the month of June will win either 1) any 8x10 print from my insect photo gallery, or 2) a guest blog post on the (safe-for-work) topic of their choosing.

A review of the new Smithsonian ant exhibit

at the Washington Post: This is the multi-generational public exhibition mentality at work: Every show should have something that makes each member of the family say wow. Ants fight, ants work, ants make things. Ants are just like us: "Text messaging is out, but they have other ways to communicate . . . " Which would be pheromones, or chemical signals, something Aristotle never could have detected when he distinguished merely social animals from the social animal par excellence, man, who can speak. Details on the exhibit here.

New ant photos at myrmecos.net

Formica incerta, Illinois Despite a widespread belief that ants produce formic acid, the habit is confined to only one of the 20-some ant subfamilies, the formicinae.  This is among the most abundant subfamilies, containing the familiar carpenter ants and field ants, and is recognizable by the single constricted waist segment and an acid-dispersing nozzle called the acidopore at the tip of the abdomen.  The most recent myrmecos.net upload covers a variety of formicine species from Arizona, Illinois, and South Africa. Click here to visit the gallery.

Friday Beetle Blogging: Martineziana Fire Ant Beetle

Martineziana dutertrei Fire Ant Beetle Texas Any insect that can fool an ant nest's security system gains access to rich stores of food.  Martineziana scarab beetles are found only in colonies of Solenopsis fire ants where they feed on the ants and their brood.  This beetle was collected from a red imported fire ant mound at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin, Texas. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper

Myrmecos on the web

A few places where myrmecos.net photographs have recently appeared: La Banque de Savoirs has a French-language slideshow featuring several of my images. The BBC illustrates a recent news item on the link between pests and climate change using an Argentine Ant photo from my back yard in California. The Xerces Society- North America's premier invertebrate conservation group - is borrowing myrmecos.net images for banners here and here. GIANT MICROBES, the folks responsible for plush Syphilis, are using images to accompany their new line of plush Lasius and Solenopsis.

Unbloggable week, with a silver lining

It has been a horrible week at work. Horrible. Actually, it started in the middle of last week. Suffice it to say I have had many behind-the-door conversations, real sturm und drang, and I find it completely unbloggable. Just no idea where to start. So until I figure that out, let me share the tiniest silver lining of this week: Asparagus from our local CSA guy. Our harvest basket starts next week. And Friday is the last day of class this semester. (If I can make it.)

Oh For Pete's Sake, Bush Said it Again!

He again insists on ending the Iraq War, or, again, so I surmise from this quote half-heard on the radio this morning: "Destroying human life to save human life is just not ethical." I always suspected he didn't read our blog. Maybe he didn't check the RSS feeds he signed up for, or maybe he just read it too quickly, I don't know, it's just, we don't really talk as much as we used to.... But anyway, didn't we handle this life and ethics thing yesterday?