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Another protected pedophile

You can't blame diverse religious groups for the presence of pedophiles and abusers. Pick any profession, teachers, doctors, scientists, dentists, whatever, and you'll find that there are some low number of criminals and psychopaths in their midst. But religion is somewhat unusual in that this seems to happen routinely. The police suspect that the ultra-Orthodox community in which the resident lived knew of the alleged incidents but chose not to report them to the police or authorities. In this case, it's a pedophile rabbi, but it's the same phenomenon we've been seeing with Catholic child-…

Conservatism is self-defeating

Tonight my boss and colleague Paul Griffiths asked me who I would exile in the Greek manner for the good of the polis in which I live. After some thought I suggested George Pell, Cardinal of the Catholic Church and general ignoramus about science. Paul asked why, and I said that he was divisive in our society. It hit me: Pell, like all conservatives, thinks that social cohesion is paramount to political activity (of course, like most, but not all conservatives, it is his form of cohesion that he wants, to the exclusion of all others). But things have changed since the 1950s when…

Ars Medica: a spiffy medical arts humanities journal. You'd like it.

It's all that. Ars Medica, or The Ars, as British hipsters call it, is a fascinating "literary journal that explores the interface between the arts and healing, and examines what makes medicine an art." It's run out of Toronto, begun by a group of doctors (one of them my cousin), and really tip-top. So far they've had three issues, each with an eclectic mix of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art. I don't know their future plans, but for the websites claims, so I don't know what the next issue looks like. But the first issue looked like this: All I'm saying is, this is a nice middle…

Science Procastination Reading (July 15/2006)

Quick and fast today. Pavlov's Brother by Andy Borowitz Here's a great piece from the New Yorker - I hear it's a pretty good place to present your work. Conversations with my mother which suggest she may secretly be a primatologist by Kevin Zeidler When John referred me to Yankee Pot Roast, I essentially realized how many other great sites existed where literary humour is the game that is played. Anyway, YPR is also good for many hours of procastination. Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass by Lucas Kovar Ah yes, science is tough. I believe this was a classic in graduate student…

Bedbugs supplant nocturnal micturition as primary reason not to bring women home

Bedbugs say "I'm back baby!": After waking up one night in sheets teeming with tiny bugs, Josh Benton could not sleep for months and kept a flashlight and can of insecticide with him in bed. "We were afraid to even tell people about it at first," Benton said of the bedbugs in his home. "It feels like maybe some way your living is encouraging this, that you're living in a bad neighborhood or have a dirty apartment." Absent from the United States for so long that some thought they were a myth, bedbugs are back. Entomologists and pest control professionals are reporting a dramatic increase in…

Interview about Crazy Pentagon Science

I was listening to the Leonard Lopate Show yesterday on WNYC (my local NPR affiliate), and I heard this great interview with Sharon Weinberger, a defense reporter, about her new book Imaginary Weapons. In the book, she details all the crazy, fringe science ideas that they come up with at the Pentagon, and how these things are still getting funded. And these ideas are truly crazy, like research into how we can telepathically beam voices into enemy soldiers brains. If you are pissed about how your last grant didn't get funded, you should listen to this. We are all in the wrong business.…

More on the really bad journalism

An excellent fisking by Johnny at Ecographica is here - including the cover that New Scientist should have used... More from Larry at Sandwalk here, on the cover and the intent of the article. Marco F at Leucophaea has a blog in Italian that I think says complimentary things about the critics [Babelfish kept on interpreting something as the evolution of the geniuses, and I'm fairly sure that wasn't about me]. And a drunken front doorstop by Malte and David at Mr Darwin's home here. Mr Darwin was unfortunately unwell. Naturalists should never be allowed to drink. More: Chance and Necessity…

Le Guin on Rushdie and religion

David Williams sent me this snippet of Ursula Le Guins' review of Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel: Some boast that science has ousted the incomprehensible; others cry that science has driven magic out of the world and plead for "re-enchantment". But it's clear that Charles Darwin lived in as wondrous a world, as full of discoveries, amazements and profound mysteries, as that of any fantasist. The people who disenchant the world are not the scientists, but those who see it as meaningless in itself, a machine operated by a deity. Science and literary fantasy would seem…

I thought Google was trying not to be evil

Google Scholar is a really useful tool — it's like vanilla Google in that it returns links to resources on the web, but it has additional filters to return genuine scholarly articles, enriched for the kind of stuff that gets peer-reviewed and formally published. Unfortunately, somebody or some algorithm is getting a bit sloppy, and it also returns articles for Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, and Creation Ministries International. It's somewhat understandable — all of those institutions know deep down in their sweet stupid little hearts that rank theology has no…

Omnispectacle? Retrobrain?

The number of psychology / neuroscience blogs on scienceblogs.com will soon decrease by one. However, the number of bloggers will stay the same. How is that possible? The hilarious Omni Brain and thought-provoking Restrospectacle are each closing down shop. But they're re-emerging as a new blog that combines the efforts of Steve and Shelley. They haven't yet come up with a name for their project, so head on over to their blogs and offer suggestions. If they choose a name picked by a commenter, they're offering a generous prize. I'm closing comments here so all their suggestions are in the…

Vote for your favorite BPR3 icon!

Over at BPR3, we've picked the top three icons from the BPR3 icon contest. Here are the top three entries in the contest to design a universal icon that everyone can use on their blog posts whenever the post is a serious commentary about a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal: Kevin Z: Uriel Klieger: Jeff Hunt: Vote for your favorite, but also please make suggestions for improvements in the comments section -- the winning entry will have the opportunity to be revised before we declare it "final." Feel free to copy this poll and put it on your own blog so we can get the largest…

Euro-update 2: Is science art?

We've spent an exciting week in Paris, seeing all the fabulous sites, from the Louvre to the Tour Eiffel. Today we decided to do something different and headed for the Georges Pompidou Center, where the national galleries of modern art are housed. Some fascinating stuff there, including some works which attempted to question the very nature of art itself. Jim was particularly perplexed by this piece: The work consisted of three panels, painted completely white. The artist insisted that the color white represented nothing at all. Is this art? And what about this? Another work, of similar…

"Easy" way to keep trim as you age: Just run a marathon a week

They say exercise can help you lose weight. What they didn't tell you is how much exercise. A new study offers the depressing truth: more than you ever imagined. Thousands of volunteers reported their weight and exercise regimens over a seven-year period. Here are the results: 25-to-34-year-old men gained 1.4 pounds annually if they ran less than 15 miles per week. In addition, male runners gained 0.8 pounds annually if they ran between 15 and 30 miles per week, and 0.6 pounds annually if they ran more than 30 miles per week. Even running four miles a day three times a week couldn't prevent…

Cognitive Daily's weekly podcast for January 28, 2007

Here's the Cognitive Daily weekly podcast for January 28. Topics: Brains can tell the difference between metaphor and irony Want to drive safely? Talking to passengers may be okay, but talking on the phone isn't Don't forget that you can subscribe to the podcast using the special RSS feed: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/rss-podcasts.xml To subscribe using iTunes, select Subscribe to Podcast from the Advanced menu, then paste or type in the URL. To access the podcast directly, click on the links below: Cognitive Daily's weekly podcast for January 28, 2007 (AAC version) Cognitive…

The last reader poll for a while

As you may have noticed, we've been experimenting with a new posting format at CogDaily. Previously, we posted a "news" post every morning that included brief analysis of one news item followed by a set of "in other news" links to other news items from across the Web. But many readers complained that they were reading CogDaily using an RSS reader, and didn't like having to come to our site in order to see the second half of these posts. For the past week, we've broken news posts in two, posting a "news" item every morning, and placing the "in other news" links in a separate post every…

Cognitive Daily's weekly podcast for January 13, 2007

Here's the Cognitive Daily weekly podcast for January 13. Don't forget that you can subscribe to the podcast using the special RSS feed: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/rss-podcasts.xml To subscribe using iTunes, select Subscribe to Podcast from the Advanced menu, then paste or type in the URL. (We believe we've resolved the problems we've had with the RSS feed over the past few weeks. Let us know if you continue to experience problems.) To access the podcast directly, click on the links below: Cognitive Daily's weekly podcast for January 13, 2007 (AAC version) Cognitive Daily's weekly…

Cognitive Daily's weekly podcast for January 7, 2007

Here's the Cognitive Daily weekly podcast for January 7. Don't forget that you can subscribe to the podcast using the special RSS feed: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/rss-podcasts.xml To subscribe using iTunes, select Subscribe to Podcast from the Advanced menu, then paste or type in the URL. (We've had a few problems with the RSS feed, but we're expecting to work these out within the next few days. In the meantime, we apologize for the inconvenience.) To access the podcast directly, click on the links below: Cognitive Daily's weekly podcast for January 7, 2007 (AAC version)…

Belgian archbishop represents the church's love

Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard has written a book in which he reveals Catholic thinking about AIDS. The Archbishop who is seen as a conservative does not pull his punches. Speaking about AIDS he says that this is a kind "immanent justice". I note that the archbishop is probably mortal, and appears to be aging. If he someday suffers miserably from a prostate cancer that is ripping his guts apart, I hope he finds comfort in it as a kind of "immanent justice". If he should suffer a massive stroke and his brain should bleed and fail, I hope he has a last moment of awareness to appreciate the "…

The Eternal Fishmonger

I've been told that there is a drop of old Dutch blood in my ancestry—that way back in the 17th century, an intrepid few Dutch immigrants mingled their seed with the mongrel mess of my father's line. I think now I sense a kindred spirit. Adriaen Coenensz, a fisherman and fish seller from Scheveningen in Holland wrote and illustrated a book between 1577 and 1580 titled Het Visboek ("The Fishbook"). It's an amazing browse. Apparently, Coenensz was interested in adventure and exotic dining experiences… …he was an early devotee of science fiction… …and most of all, he was obsessed with squid…

Young children's decisions about future mired in the present

A new study finds that 3- to 5-year-olds appear to conflate their future needs with those of the present. Young children who have been fed pretzels and are thirsty are more likely to say they'll need water tomorrow than pretzels. If they haven't eaten pretzels, they'll say they will need pretzels tomorrow. One of the researchers, Cristina Atance, said the research will help adults understand childrens' needs: We often see children object when mom asks them to put on their coat in a warm house before going outside into the cold, or when she tells them to bring water to the park when they are…

CogDaily's big summer vacation!

The whole Munger family will be heading out of town for the next three weeks. Fortunately, there should be plenty to keep you occupied here while we're gone. We've written up a few posts in anticipation of the trip, and they've been scheduled to appear intermittently while we're gone. In addition, we've gone to the archives and found some of our all-time greatest hits, which are scheduled to pop up a couple times a week. If you started reading Cognitive Daily later than, say, May of 2005, there'll certainly be something here that's new to you. Finally, I'm going to try to post a few smaller…

Are boys really falling behind girls?

There's been a decent amount of press lately about the struggles of boys in education. More women than men go to college, and more graduate. But Jay Matthews of the Washington Post is skeptical. He cites an Education Sector report (full PDF here) which claims that much of the hype about boys suddenly falling behind is overblown. Take a look at this chart, for example: Girls have outperformed boys in reading for decades, and boys continue to outperform girls in math. 'The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse,' the report says, 'it's good news about girls doing better.' But one…

Young and old get it wrong: older people are happier

A new study adds fuel to the notion that older people misremember how happy they were when they were young. What's more, young people mistakenly figure they won't be as happy when they're older. "People often believe that happiness is a matter of circumstance, that if something good happens, they will experience long-lasting happiness, or if something bad happens, they will experience long-term misery," says lead author Peter Ubel. "But instead, people's happiness results more from their underlying emotional resources -- resources that appear to grow with age. People get better at managing…

Chicago Talk Tonight

As mentioned before, tonight I'll be participating in the Bookslut.com reading series here in Chicago, along with two distinguished science writers, Deborah Blum and Jennifer Ouellette. Here are the details: 7:30pm Hopleaf Bar 5148 North Clark Street, Second Floor I have actually prepared the trial version of a new talk for this event. You see, while I've given a few preview talks about Storm World in recent months, I haven't actually spoken about the "war on science" since last November, around the time of the election. But a lot has changed since then--most noticeably, the Congress. So I…

The Media Evolution of the Pachyderm Posterior

I know I am supposed to be working on my book, and indeed I am--a productive day today has made me feel less guilty about blogging. Anyway, following on my last post, I'd like to go further. The earliest elephant's ass I've seen in the media (broadly conceived) is the following: However, so far as I know, there was no influence of the above image (# 1) on this one: I cannot be sure, however, that image # 2 (above) did not in any way influence image # 3: So, where does that leave us? Well, first of all, the elephant's tail has moved to the center and then swung back to the left again…

Liking These New Digs

Well, I've been here at ScienceBlogs.com for a few days now, and would like to reflect a bit on the experience. Overall, I must say, I'm overwhelmingly pleased. I'm a technical moron and my old blog was held together with spitballs and sealing wax. It had big technical difficulties. By contrast, writing here has been very smooth, and it has been much easier to engage back-and-forth with commenters. The discussions following my posts have generally been much better as a result. (The fact that more people are reading and commenting now than before certainly doesn't hurt either.) I also dig the…

Welcome to the New Intersection

Well, here I am, now officially blogging at scienceblogs.com, with its whizzbang technical features and its awesome collection of other science bloggers. I have little doubt that this site will become a dominant--if not the dominant--locus for science blogging on the web. Just check out the folks who are joining me here: Tara Smith, Tim Lambert, Ed Brayton, PZ Myers, and John Lynch, just to name a few. It's exciting to be writing in this new location, though I certainly won't be getting rid of chriscmooney.com completely. For now, the site will remain as an archive of my prior blogging and…

Archives coming live

Over the next few days I'll be dusting off the old Cognitive Daily posts and moving them over to this site. If you'll scroll down a bit to the archives section on the sidebar to the left, you'll notice that they now extend all the way back to our first post back in January of 2005. I've even imported most of the comments (I did take the liberty of deleting over 300 pieces of spam). Of course, there's a bit of a gap between March of 2005 and January of 2006, but that will be fixed soon enough. In the meantime, here is some great reading from the early days of Cognitive Daily: Troxler -- and…

Godless get good press

Jerry Coyne has been given a good bit of space in the cheesy but widely read newspaper USAToday, and he used it to pen a maniacally unapologetic Gnu Atheist screed. It's beautiful. I can't wait for the indignant reactions to pour in. Distracted businessmen will be reading their free copies over their hotel coffee tomorrow, and getting goosed when they open it to that page. Also, the LA Times covered the secular humanism conference. It's a bit of a mixed bag; it claims that there was scorn heaped on believers, and that attendees were calling them ignorant and stupid. This was not the case.…

Does everything have to be laced with religion?

The Smithsonian has opened a new permanent Hall of Human Origins exhibit, which means I need to get out to Washington DC sometime. Unfortunately, it gets a mixed review from Greg Mayer. It sounds like the museum faced the standard dilemma of whether to emphasize information or interaction, and parts of the exhibit steered a little too far in the direction of interactive fluffiness. It also has some underlying weirdness: the hall was funded by a Tea Party bigwig, David Koch, and it also had a "Broader Social Impacts Committee" of mostly religious advisors, which is just plain odd — what was…

Illinois governor race simplified

Now you know who not to vote for: Bill Brady. Brady favors teaching creationism in the schools. It's always helpful when the ninnies declare themselves like that. Although, it's also true that he declares himself a Republican, which nowadays is also grounds for voting against him. However, I also take exception to the newspaper article. This is not right: "My knowledge and my faith leads me to believe in both evolution and creationism," he said. "I believe God created the earth, and it evolved." Creationism generally teaches that the Bible is historically and scientifically accurate, and…

CAM and the "War on Science"

I realize I am a little bit late to this party. But recently (here, there, and everywhere) all of ScienceBlogs was abuzz about Sen. Tom Harkin's complaint that various complementary and alternative remedies are not being validated by the NIH office supposedly designed to do so--namely, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). I haven't written about alternative medicine in many years, though I used to follow it fairly closely. But here's what I don't understand. Whatever its suspicious origins, if NCCAM is now doing rigorous studies on the efficicacy of…

Who's Watching LOST?

In lieu of blasting the Washington Post again over their recent faux pas, I'm interested in finding out whether you're as intrigued as I am lately over LOST... During my recovery, I've been catching up on past episodes and this season includes a lot of 'science' in the script as the island jumps through time and space. And what is the DHARMA Initiative? Presently, we've got a physicist wandering through the jungle, years that span days, and the occasional troublesome nosebleed. All of which has inspired wide speculation about what's really going on. Regular Intersection readers know this…

Colbert Retorts

My latest Science Progress column is up: It makes the case that Stephen Colbert is the heir to Johnny Carson in terms of talk show promotion of science. It also includes various lame and stupid talking points that I made up and didn't use on the show, such as the following hypothetical Q&A responses: Didn't scientists start the "war" in the first place? Didn't they commit acts of aggression? Yes, if you mean by learning things. Why should I care about science? Because America is really good at it--much better than France. Is there really a "war" on science? Where are the bodies? Well,…

I think I'm hoping the world does end in 2012

It would be a mercy. George Lucas is preparing another release of all of his Star Wars movies, after yet again tweaking them. The new versions will be in…cheesy post-processed pseudo-3-D. When the first one was released back in 1977 it was phenomenal — a pulpy space opera with dialogue that had the panache of a Hugo Gernsback short story, and we liked it. Then came the sequel, and we were overjoyed…it was still good old fashioned science fiction, but it was better than the first. And from that point on, unfortunately, it was dissolution and decay, beginning with the Ewoks and ending in the…

A Step Closer To Refundable Renewable Tax Credits

Today the House Committee on Ways and Means passed H.R. 598 by vote 24 to 13. The legislation includes: Investment Tax Credit Refundability. For alternative energy property put into service in 2009 and 2010, companies may apply for a cash grant equal to the value of the investment tax credit from the Department of Energy. DOE must make these grant payments within 60 days of receipt of the application and may not in its discretion deny any such applications that qualify for the credit. Companies may apply for the payments through September 30, 2011. The amount of the ITCs equal 30% of the…

The Blue Blogosphere

The boys at Deep Sea News are hosting Carnival of the Blue this month: This 18th edition of the Carnival of the Blue is one mixed with awe and pessimism, yet optimistic for the beginning of a new political era in the United States. Keep in mind these posts were written prior to the November 4th election. The future editions of the Carnival of the Blue will be very interesting to watch. With the new political landscape will optimism reign supreme? Will there be more blog coverage on proposed solutions to problems pertaining to our ocean's health? More analysis of an administration's plans to…

Best Of The Intersection: Welcome to the New Intersection

originally published January 11, 2006 by Chris C. Mooney Well, here I am, now officially blogging at scienceblogs.com, with its whizzbang technical features and its awesome collection of other science bloggers. I have little doubt that this site will become a dominant--if not the dominant--locus for science blogging on the web. Just check out the folks who are joining me here: Tara Smith, Tim Lambert, Ed Brayton, PZ Myers, and John Lynch, just to name a few. It's exciting to be writing in this new location, though I certainly won't be getting rid of chriscmooney.com completely. For now, the…

This vileness has been going on for a long, long time

When I visited Australia last year, the media was all gaga over the idea of an Australian saint — the Catholic church was going to canonize Mary MacKillop (the people I hung out with while I was there, though, didn't give a good goddamn for the nonsense). Well, now there's some ironic news going around: during her lifetime, Mary MacKillop had been temporarily banished from the Catholic church and thrown out on the street. What had she done, you might ask. Go ahead, guess. A hint: she had complained about and reported some priests in the church. Can you guess what they had done? Sure you can.…

Is Our Children Learning? (maybe not)

I spent much of Sunday examining the education system in this country and came across NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 report. Most alarming is the scientific literacy section based on data from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. Moreover, if the examination methods were reasonable, I'm extremely troubled by the ladies' overall performance. Therefore, I plan to spend this week exploring the disparity that leaves me speechless. So kicking off Monday, let's it started... Correct answers to scientific literacy questions, by sex: 2006 (by percent) The…

Finding Nemo Beyond 2048?

Little over a year ago, scientists warned the world's fish and seafood populations may collapse by 2048. But wait one second... If they're serious, what's a seafood lover like me to do 40 years from now? Okay, while we may be headed for trouble - let's remember fishing can be done responsibly and sustainably. My post at Correlations is now up examining what's going on just beneath the surface with this ominous prediction. We humans long believed oceans must be so enormous, the abundance of resources in the marine realm had to be limitless. We're funny about holding onto notions like that…

Check out the X-Change Files

For some scientists, "blog" is one of the worst four letter words there is. Aren't science blogs pits of ill-formed opinions where the ignorant can post anything they like without fear of peer-review? Of course not, but unfortunately there are many professional scientists who consider blogging a dangerous thing. That's why I am glad to say that the National Academy of Sciences has started up a blog of their own, The X-Change Files, as part of their Science and Entertainment Exchange. The X-Change files is a blog well-worth checking out, and they already have quite a few heavy hitters (like…

He's talking about you

A couple of days ago, I showed you that video of a proud Catholic theocrat who believes that democracy is bad for us, and ought to be replaced with a benevolent dictatorship. Zeno has discovered that he noticed all the attention he was given, and his latest video is all about…us! First, a correction: he didn't really mean that he wanted a dictatorship…he wants the American republic replaced with a Catholic monarchy, instead. Huge difference, I'm sure. But almost all of his "dialogue" (that's what he calls this, a "dialogue" in quotes) is a whine about how rudely atheists, that is, us,…

The only thing that might make be break my boycott of the HuffPo is…

…is an article by Vic Stenger. He addresses that weird old canard that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", which has always struck me as bogus. Of course it is! It is just evidence of variable strength, from laughably weak (I have no evidence of a teapot in orbit around the sun, which isn't a very strong case since no one has looked for an orbiting teapot, and it's a tiny target in a vast volume anyway) to extremely strong (there are no dragons in my backyard; I have looked, and there are no large firebreathing reptiles gnawing on virgins back there). I wonder if the source of…

The Mike Tidwell Dilemma, Part II

Last week I published a detailed critique of Maryland-based climate activist and writer Mike Tidwell's book The Ravaging Tide. This week, I have followed up with Part II: My explanation of why it is that I'm going after Tidwell even though he's on my own "team," so to speak. An excerpt: In my view, what we need on global warming is not merely to energize the base of people who already agree with us, but to reach across the aisle and move conservatives as well. But the way that Tidwell frames the issue won't do that. To Tidwell, global warming is repeatedly depicted as a "Pandora's Box," set…

A Girl To Watch

Emmy Rossum's first album Inside Out drops today. You may remember her from Phantom of the Opera. And what, you may be wondering, does this possibly have to do with The Intersection? We live in a world where girls are hugely influenced everyday by media images of who and what we are expected to be. We're bombarded so many poor examples of pop icons to emulate making front page news. Therefore, it's worth pointing out a role model of substance. As a young woman trying to keep up while the world seems to be spinning so quickly around me, I relate to this particular song and video more…

Major Endorsement for Framing Science Thesis

Listen up, y'all: Nisbet has just teamed up with Dietram Scheufele, a colleague from UW-Madison, to pen a lengthy cover story for The Scientist that fleshes out the now uncontroversial framing science argument. Furthermore, Scientist editor Richard Gallagher strongly endorses the argument in his accompanying editorial: Those opposed to framing, in addition to a wistful longing to have science truly understood, also hold a sincere concern. They fear that framing taints science, that it is spin, rhetoric, or propaganda, and that the discussion of science has to stand above such base activity.…

NASA to track the Beagle

Now this is some pretty cool news. The HMS Beagle Project announced yesterday that NASA has agreed to track the progress of the reconstructed HMS Beagle as she makes her way around the globe. According to a press release issued about the joint venture, this partnership will not only benefit the scientific mission of those on board the ship, but also help students all around the world keep track of the ship's journey; Using satellite link-ups, students in classrooms and laboratories will be able to follow the voyage, and interact with scientists as they apply the tools and techniques of modern…

Craptastical!

An Australian travel writer catalogs a few of the world's most craptastical tourist attractions, and one of them, naturally, is Ken Ham's Creation "Museum". Here, true believers can learn about how the Earth was formed by the big man upstairs, who manages to explain away such potential roadblocks as dinosaurs, billion-year-old fossils, and that whole science thing with room after room of ultra-religious tackiness. Notice, though, that here is an Australian travel writer commenting on American kitsch, and failing to mention that it is the brainchild of one of his compatriots. It made me…

Romney's Bid For Michigan

Romney thinks he has a winning strategy, but he's wrong. href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071013/UPDATE/710130417/1020/NATION">Presidential hopeful Romney vows to help pull Michigan out of economic slump Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau Saturday, October 13, 2007 GRAND RAPIDS -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney promised on Saturday to help raise his native state out of its economic crisis and defended himself against accusations from John McCain that he failed in the past to support Republican policies and candidates.…