Search Content

Displaying results 65051 - 65100 of 87947

Mystery Bird: Wood Duck, Aix sponsa

tags: Wood Duck, Aix sponsa, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Wood Duck, Aix sponsa, photographed at Hermann Park, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow] Image: Joseph Kennedy, 19 January 2008 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/160s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes: What a sweet bird, friendly-looking and gentle! From near-extinction less than a century ago, this species has rebounded in its North American range to be the most abundant breeding duck…

The Louvre or a (Bird) Species?

tags: ethics, endangered species, conservation Woman with a Parrot by Gustav Courbet (1866) Oil on canvas 51 x 77 in. (129.5 x 195.6 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [larger view]. A little while ago, I received an odd question from a reader, and I was slow in responding (my bad!), but her question has bothered me ever since I first read it and responded. First, her question: You have to save the world (and I assume you also want to). You are the only one who can do so, and to do so, you have to destroy one or the other: The Louvre (with everything inside but people) or one…

That great and arbitrary abortionist in the sky

Great stuff from Majikthise, Pandagon, and Shakespeare's Sister on this fairly obvious paper (pdf) that argues that the rhythm method kills more embryos than contraceptives. It's straightforward: by avoiding sex during the prime time for ovulation and fertilization, there's a greater likelihood of fertilization occurring when the egg is past its sell-by date…it's increasing the chance of spontaneous abortion and birth defects. The paper is all speculative and philosophical about it all, but there are actually some suggestive epidemiological data that suggest it is true. A study by Jongbloet…

When it Rains, it Pours .. Mud, Lath, Plaster and Tiles

Today's view out the windows of my new neighborhood coffee shop. It's cold outside today, and, as you can see, it snowed. GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. This past week has been a real challenge because my bathroom is apparently disintegrating, which has caused the building "super" and his assistant to bang loudly on my apartment door bright and early every morning this past week, even last Monday, which was supposed to be a holiday. Worse, they hang around most of the day, so that I cannot leave my apartment during business hours so I can, you know, do things. Normally, I wake up…

ScienceDebate2008: In Search of a Science-literate Leader

tags: science, public policy, politics, federal funding, research, reality-based government, 2008 American presidential elections, ScienceDebate2008 I was disappointed, but not really surprised, when three Republican presidential candidates -- Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo and Sam Brownback (who has since dropped out) -- declared that they do not "believe in" the theory of evolution (in my opinion, the correct phrasing should have been "do you accept the theory of evolution?" rather than using the misleading and incorrect phrase believe in, which implies blind faith rather than scientifically…

All Things Reconsidered

tags: book review, nature writing, birding, bird watching, collected essays, All Things Reconsidered, Roger Tory Peterson Like most birders, I never met Roger Tory Peterson, although I do own several editions of his definitive field guides for identifying the birds of North America. However, thanks to Bill Thompson, who collected and edited 42 of RTP's best essays from his regular "Bird Watcher's Digest" column into one volume, All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures by Roger Tory Peterson (NYC: Houghton Mifflin; 2006) you will feel as though you have spent several days in RTP's…

Occupational Health News Roundup

On Monday, President Obama nominated Thomas E. Perez to be the next Secretary of Labor. He introduced Perez by saying: Like so many Americans, Tom knows what it’s like to climb the ladder of opportunity.  He is the son of Dominican immigrants.  He helped pay his way through college as a garbage collector and working at a warehouse.  He went on to become the first lawyer in his family.  So his story reminds us of this country’s promise, that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is -- you can make it if you try. And Tom has made…

Addressing veterans' mental health

It's fitting that the US dedicates a day each year to honoring veterans, but ensuring that veterans get the care and services they merit is year-round work. In recent years, we've seen the federal government increase recognition of, and resources for, the mental health conditions that many veterans suffer from. Yet, as US Representative and combat veteran Charlie Rangel points out in a USA Today column, we haven't done enough: In the United States, suicide has become the seventh leading cause of death for men and the fifteenth for women. Every year, there are nearly a million suicide attempts…

Malpractice lawsuits not a driver in skyrocketing healthcare costs

A few weeks ago, the editors of my local Austin American-Statesman admitted they were wrong.  In "Tort reform's slight impact no shock," the editors recalled their support for a 2003 proposition on the Texas ballot to put a $750,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.  The measure passed by a 51 to 49 percent margin, with strong support by the Texas Medical Association. "We tepidly supported the proposition. After all, voters were being asked to limit their legal rights should they fall victim to medical error.  Still, reservations noted, we crossed our fingers in the…

Money can't buy love, but it can buy better health and a longer life

by Kim Krisberg A recent report again confirms what comes as no surprise to public health practitioners: that income and education are inextricably tied to the opportunities for better health and longevity. In mid-May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its yearly report on Americans' health, "Health, United States, 2011." This year's report included a special section examining the links between socioeconomic status and health. It's another reminder that good health is as much — or even more — tied to what goes on outside a doctor's office rather than what goes on inside…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Although the news of a shopper using pepper spray was disturbing, I was glad that Black Friday 2011 passed without the kind of tragedy that happened in 2008, when 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was killed by a stampede of shoppers at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, Long Island. OSHA cited Wal-Mart for a serious violation of the General Duty clause, and Chief Administrative Law Judge Covette Rooney upheld the citation and $7,000 penalty (which Wal-Mart challenged at an estimated cost of $2 million), issuing her decision on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Since Damour's…

Floods in Thailand spark fears of disease outbreaks

Thailand is experiencing its worst flooding since 1942, and millions of people are affected. The death toll has reached 533, due mostly to drowning but also to electrocutions. CNN reports that more than 113,000 people have arrived at 1,700 government shelters set up across the country, and Bangkok officials have warned residents of interruptions to electricity and tap water. In addition to immediate dangers like drowning, the potential for widespread disease outbreaks is worrisome. Citing concerns about water-borne diseases spreading through contaminated floodwater, UNICEF announced that it…

Mark Bittman & Others Fasting to Preserve Budget for Food Assistance

New York Times columnist Mark Bittman (famous for his writing on food) reported on Tuesday that he was joining more than 4,000 others who've been fasting to call attention to House legislation's proposed cuts to programs for the poor and hungry. He explains: [The poor] are -- once again -- under attack, this time in the House budget bill, H.R. 1. The budget proposes cuts in the WIC program (which supports women, infants and children), in international food and health aid (18 million people would be immediately cut off from a much-needed food stream, and 4 million would lose access to malaria…

When Public Health Budgets are Cut, Someone Still Pays

We're hearing a lot of rhetoric about the need to slash government spending, so it's a good time to remind everyone that there's no such thing as a free lunch - and if you think you're getting a free lunch, it might be loaded with pathogens. Maryn McKenna, writing at Superbug about a New England Journal of Medicine study, has an illustrative example: the Great Tomato Scare of 2008. Between May and August of 2008, 1,499 people (and probably many more) fell ill from the Saintpaul strain of Salmonella, and two people died. The Food and Drug Administration initially thought tomatoes were to…

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Combines Reporting and Epidemiology in Air Pollution Series

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is running a fascinating in-depth series on air pollution in Western Pennsylvania. While it's got a local focus, I'm sure people from other regions can identify with some of the problems it highlights, like the difficulties in regulating pollution that easily crosses state lines and the frustration of seeing inadequate Clean Air Act enforcement. The series also delves into issues of epidemiology. In the introductory article, Region at risk: Can higher rates of death be linked to air pollution?, Don Hopey and Devid Templeton explain that the Post-Gazette analyzed…

Health advocates threaten lawsuit against firm importing asbestos to U.S.

[This post is dedicated to Doug Larkin. Doug was the co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. He suffered in recent years with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and passed away yesterday.]  Dallas-based OxyChem imports about 300,000 pounds of asbestos each year. Yes, asbestos. The deadly mineral that most Americans think is banned (it's not) and responsible for about 15,000 U.S. cancer deaths annually. OxyChem is likely the largest asbestos importer in the U.S. The company is required under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to report its asbestos imports to the EPA.…

Study documents links between sexual trauma, suicide among veterans

In the first large-scale study of its kind, researchers report that sexual trauma is indeed a risk factor for suicide among military veterans and are calling on veteran health providers to continue including such trauma in suicide prevention strategies. Published in June in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study is the first large-scale, population-based investigation into whether military sexual trauma is a risk factor in suicide-related mortality. To conduct the study, researchers with the Veterans Affairs system analyzed data on millions of veterans who received outpatient…

Private foundations fund another year of Colorado's successful family planning program

The Colorado Family Planning Initiative is a public-health success story. With funds from an anonymous foundation, Title X family planning clinics serving low-income women were able to offer IUDs and other highly effective forms of contraception for free. Rates of teen pregnancy and abortion both plummeted. When the foundation funding came to an end as scheduled, though, the state's legislature refused to pick up the tab for this demonstrably successful program. Now, reports Katie Kerwin McCrimmon of Health News Colorado, a group of foundations (11 are listed so far) has pledged funds to…

Crippled hands, strained bladders: OSHA cites Delaware poultry company

Will calls for humanely-treated poultry workers supersede commentaries (e.g., here, here) about mistreatment of chickens? OSHA’s action last week may help us move in that direction. The agency issued penalties to a Delaware poultry processing facility for serious safety hazards. Allen Harim Foods received citations for two harmful working conditions that I've heard poultry workers complain about most strongly: The fast-paced repetitive motion of cutting chicken parts which cripples their hands, and restrictions on using the bathroom which strains (and worse) their bladders. The…

Senators pushing TSCA reform bill that’s missing the law’s poster child

They’ve called it a failure and a broken law. That’s how the public health community, agency officials, some lawmakers and others have characterized the nearly 40 year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). When any of them are looking for a poster child to illustrate why TSCA’s a failure, they most often point to one toxic: asbestos. EPA tried in 1989 to ban most uses of asbestos. But TSCA is so convoluted that the ban didn't withstand a lawsuit which was brought by producers and users of the deadly mineral fibers. So we are stuck with a law in which one of the most well-researched, and…

PEPFAR, abstinence, and evidence

Stanford medical student Nathan Lo reportedly caused a stir at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) last week when he presented a new finding: After analyzing surveys completed by 800,000 people in 22 sub-Saharan African countries, Lo and his colleagues found "no evidence to suggest that PEPFAR funding of abstinence and faithfulness programs results in reduced high-risk sexual behavior." Using data from the US-funded Demographic and Health Survey, the Stanford researchers analyzed responses to questions about the number of sexual partners, age of first sexual…

CDC: Work to limit occupational silica exposure must continue

While silicosis-related deaths have declined, it remains a serious occupational health risk and one that requires continued public health attention, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the Feb. 13 issue of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), researchers noted that while annual silicosis deaths have dropped from 164 in 2001 to 101 in 2010, dangerous silica exposure has been newly documented in occupations related to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the installation of engineered stone countertops. Overall during the 2001-2010 time…

Samsung Sweden to Linux User: "UEFI BIOS Bug Not Our Problem"

Linux is a common operating system, not least in its Android version, and it is universally assumed that a PC (or whatever "IBM compatible" is called these days) will be able to run it. In fact, machines that can’t run Linux are extremely rare since aficionados keep porting the open-source operating system to even the most obscure and outdated machine families. One of the PC makers who sell Linux compatible computers is Samsung. That is, almost all of their machines can run Linux, and when it was discovered last January that some recent laptops cannot, it was universally seen as a bug. Nobody…

Critical Thinking Training Makes Kids Smart And Also Atheist

I'm weeks late to the party here. If you pay attention to atheist issues you've probably heard that a recent major meta-study* concludes that at the population level, atheists are a bit smarter than religious folks (mainly Protestant Americans and English in this case). Not dramatically so, but in a statistically significant way. The difference persists even if you control for gender and education level. This means that if you look only at poorly educated people, the unbelievers are a bit smarter, and likewise if you look only at highly educated people, or women, or men. Here are some…

Viking Hoards Around Stockholm

Being a prehistorian, I tend to see Stockholm as a cancerous growth. It has expanded for the past seven or eight centuries from small beginnings on an island right where Lake Mälaren debouches into the Baltic. In this process, the city and its suburbs have ruined or covered up great swaths of a pristine rural landscape and archaeology. Sitting on the border between the Medieval provinces Uppland and Södermanland, Stockholm has even managed to rearrange the country's provincial borders. A new-fangled Stockholm county now covers large chunks of the two older provinces. An expanding city is,…

The malign Nature effect, again

All the blogosphere is abuzz with Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector. I don't have much to say that JA hasn't already said. But that isn't going to stop me saying it. Firstly they've done something very odd with the reference model data in fig 4. The std IPCC projections would be right on their obs verification (which stops in 1998 for some bizarre reason) and their "forecast" would be even more obviously an outlier. I assume that the black line on fig 4 must be their own model. Looking again, I'm really rather baffled how this can possibly be anything…

Roman Mask Find Causes Legal Conundrum

As noted before here on Aard, last winter a man handed in a 2nd century Roman cavalry parade mask to the authorities on Gotland, an island province of Sweden in the Baltic Sea. He says it was found illicitly in the 1980s by a recently deceased metal detectorist. The old man in question was a known nighthawk, and seems to have stuck a spade right through the mask when digging it out. Yet the mask has an excellent find context. The owner pointed to a Late Roman / Migration Period house foundation, my Visby colleagues excavated part of it this past summer, and they found a mixed metalwork hoard…

ADF on Prayer in Public Schools

This post on the ADF blog has a rundown of what is and isn't allowed in terms of prayer in public schools. Most of it is accurate, saying that prayer groups and Bible clubs are allowed to form and that students are allowed to pray individually and collectively during non-instructional time. But there's one statement in it that I think is, at the very least, exaggerated: Considering the decline in the moral values of America's youth, teen pregnancy, and school violence, SYATP is seen by many as a refreshing and much needed injection of religion and faith in an increasingly dark sector of our…

Silly Accusations Against Judge Taylor

Judicial Watch, the group founded by legendary nutjob Larry Klayman whose goal appears to be to sue every human being in the western hemisphere by the year 2050, is making a big deal out of an alleged conflict of interest by Judge Taylor. Naturally, STACLU is jumping on board, as is much of the media. It's all a bunch of nonsense. Here's the accusation: According to her 2003 and 2004 financial disclosure statements, Judge Diggs Taylor served as Secretary and Trustee for the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan (CFSEM). She was reelected to this position in June 2005. The official…

Australian Free Speech Problems

It looks like Australia has a similar situation to Germany and many of our other allies when it comes to laws against criticizing religions, at least in one province. Victoria has something called the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act that prohibits "inciting hatred against a person or class of persons", and that act has been used to prosecute two Christian ministers who criticized Islam at a seminar a couple years ago. In December 2004, VCAT judge Michael Higgins ruled that Nalliah and Scot had incited "hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of" Muslims, both…

Anti-Gay Bigotry in Action

This is an unbelievable story. Just when you start to think that maybe there is sanity in the world, you see a story like this. For J.R. and Robin knight, owning a bed and breakfast is everything they've always wanted. "We came here in search of our dreams, my wife always wanted a bed and breakfast and I always wanted a restaurant," says California native J.R. Knight. But recently their dream has turned into a nightmare, all because of a flag they're flying outside. "It's a rainbow flag - to some people it means friendship to some people it means gay pride," says Knight. But for knight, it…

Here I go, driving away readership again

I sometimes say things that outrage people and get me volumes of angry mail. This will be one of those times. I saw the latest Harry Potter movie tonight, and I must confess: I wasn't a fan, nor am I particularly interested in the whole series. My kids liked them, and I read the first couple, but after the first, the rest just seemed like the same old story — didn't I read this one before? Let me guess; he goes to school, faces a growing dread of a bad guy, plays a game of Quidditch, discovers that someone who should be on the side of goodness is actually very, very naughty, poof, there's a…

More Ten Commandments Nonsense

From Greg Laurie in the Worldnutdaily comes this little tidbit of absurdity: It is my belief that one of the reasons for the great success of the United States of America over our 200-plus years can be found in our origins, the fact that our Founding Fathers built this country on a belief in Scripture and in the Ten Commandments. What makes this so ridiculous is that his intellectual forebears, at the time of the Constitution, were making the exact opposite argument. From pulpits all around America, in pamphlets distributed in all of the original 13 states, and in newspaper editorials as well…

Books for the Fall 2007 semester

It's that time of the summer again, when classes loom all too near, and enthusiastic students start asking for the reading ahead of time so that they can both find the books from a cheaper source than our bookstore and get a jump on the material. So to handle all those requests at once, here is a list of my fall term classes: If you're an incoming freshman biology major, you'll be taking Biology 1111, Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development (FunGenEvoDevo, for short), either in the fall or the spring term. This course is primarily a qualitative introduction to the basic…

The Boy Scouts Case

As I've mentioned recently, there is a case going on right now in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Winkler v. Rumsfeld, involving the question of whether the Federal government can fund events and activities of the Boy Scouts of America in light of their discrimination against atheists and agnostics. I've been doing a little research on it, including reading several of the briefs filed on both sides. One of the interesting things about the case that I did not know is that there is an actual act of Congress from 1972, called the Jamboree Statute, that authorizes the Secretary of Defense to…

You Are Not Lloyd Dobler

Over at Cocktail Party Physics, Jennifer Ouellette offers dating advice for the geek set. Mostly, this reminds me again how happy I am to be married, and not worrying about this stuff any more, but her advice seems reasonably sound, save for one point: There's nothing sexier than a man who's confident and comfortable in his own skin, and therefore isn't afraid to show a little affection and emotion at opportune moments. To paraphrase a famous line in the classic film, Say Anything: don't be a Guy. The world is full of Guys. Be a Man. Come to think of it, rent Say Anything for your date, and…

Politics and Academics

The esteemed Dr. Free-Ride has a post about politics responding to Sean Carroll's recap of Yearly Kos. Both of them say things about the practice of politics that nicely encapsulate why I'm not a political activist-- I'm too much of an academic: Sean: Deep down, though, I learned once again that an environment of political activism is not for me. I've volunteered and been active politically in very minor ways in the past, and I am always reminded that I should go back to academia where I belong. Of necessity, political action feeds on fervent commitment to the cause and a deep-seated…

Class Implications of the Brain Drain

Over at Gene Expression, Razib responds to my brain drain comments in a way that provokes some twinges of Liberal Guilt: Second, Chad like many others points to the issue of foreign scientists allowing us (Americans) to be complacent about nourishing home grown talent. I don't totally dismiss this, there are probably many doctors and lawyers out there who could be scientists if the incentives were right (Ph.D. scientists are one of the least compensated groups in relation to how much education they have). But, I would frankly rather focus on tightening labor supply on the low end of the…

Too stupid even for WUWT, eventually

An interesting little saga. WUWT had a post up as An interesting issue with ice core data. That's a link to the webcitation, beacuse as of now the post has been removed from WUWT, on the grounds that it was utter drivel. Which is correct - it was. Pretty well the whole thing was error, but for outstanding stupidity it doesn't get much better than: Prior to the Little Ice Age, most of the areas where today’s core samples are taken, were not covered with ice. The ice that scientists have stated is hundreds of thousands of years old can be no more than a maximum of 650 years in age... [Even the…

You believe your lies and we will believe ours?

From a comment at Forbes, found by R. I found it hard to believe that anyone would say such, but indeed its true: Mr. Zwick you believe your lies and we will believe ours. The sun controls the climate not man. Our earth was more polluted back when there were very few humans roaming the earth that it is today. And that is fact. When the day comes that everyone of your believers gives up their cars, their mansions, shuts off all electricity and ceases all the dirty destructive habits you claim humans impart on the earth is the day many of us might take you seriously. Really. How can we believe…

The greenhouse effect is not the effect that warms greenhouses

Every now and again, people get a little bit confused when they realise that the thing we all call the "greenhouse effect" is not the mechanism that warms greenhouses. This is nothing new; R. W. Wood: Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse pointed it out in 1909. The wikipedia [[Greenhouse effect]] page states this explicitly (because I added it. I had a very long edit war with some bozo who didn't believe it). Sometimes septics - or simply the badly confused - get very excited, because they think it tells you something useful about the actual greenhouse effect - usually, they think it proves…

Yet more clearing

'Rigour and honesty' of scientists not in doubt but Sir Muir Russell says UEA's Climatic Research Unit was not sufficiently open. I'd quibble the latter but we have to take what we can get; probably they needed a sop for the ranters. Here is the thing itself and here are some quotes (bold in the original): 13. Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt. 14…

Wiki politics

There is an interesting (if you like that sort of thing) insight into some wiki-politics available from a recent RFA (which stands for [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]]. Not to be confused, obviously, with RFA which stands for [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests]]). Admins are the folks who do exciting things like blocking vandals (well, and other. My own log is here if you're interested), deleting pages, and a pile of ill-defined miscellaneous tasks. Once upon a time adminship was handed out to anyone who wanted it and who wasn't obviously mad; there is still a token pretence that adminship…

Kinsley on Foley

My cute little house looked a lot better before my meager possessions were strewn aimlessly across every flat surface. It didn't help that this was an unusually busy week at work. I did, however, manage to catch this spot-on essay from Michael Kinsley, at Slate. He writes: Here in Washington, we're all competing to see who can be more po-faced about Mark Foley and the congressional pages. Who can deplore Foley's behavior the most? Democrats, sensing a deeply wounded Republican Party, are going in for the kill. It's the final evidence that the GOP is terminally corrupt: A congressman was…

Hitchens on the Pope

When Christopher Hitchens writes about religion, he is always reliable. Over at Slate he offers his thoughts on the Pope's recent dust-up with the Muslim community: Attempting to revive his moribund church on a visit to Germany, where the Roman congregations are increasingly sparse, Joseph Ratzinger (as I shall always think of him) has managed to do a moderate amount of harm--and absolutely no good--to the very tense and distraught discussion now in progress between Europe and Islam. I strongly recommend that you read the full text of his lecture at the University of Regensburg last Tuesday…

Songs vs. Performance Pieces

At dinner the other night, Kate mentioned this podcast, which excerpts a bit of a Jon Brion interview from 2006 where he makes a distinction between "songs" and "performance pieces." As an example of the latter, he uses Led Zeppelin, saying that their recordings, as great as they are, are about those specific people in that specific time, and nobody is all that excited to hear reworked Led Zep covers. It's an interesting claim, but I don't really agree (influenced in part by the fact that I don't especially care for the examples he uses as "songs"). I had a hard time coming up with a…

Some Notes on Gender Bias in Elementary School Math

I've seen a lot of reshares of this report about the long-term effect of gender bias in elementary math, which comes from an NBER working paper about a study of Israeli schools. The usual presentation highlights one specific result, namely that on a math test graded by teachers who knew the names of the students, boys outscored girls, but a blinded test saw girls outscore boys. This sounds pretty damning, but also kind of puzzling-- is there really that much room for partial credit in elementary school math? Looking at the actual paper (which you can get emailed to you if you have a .edu…

Rocks remember, and so do we

"Geologists have a saying: rocks remember." -Neil Armstrong Looming up above us, hundreds of thousands of miles away, is the largest moon in the inner solar system: our Moon. Image credit: © 2004 by Ulli and Christian 'Pete' Lotzmann. One of the greatest achievements in the history of our planet culminated on July 20th, 1969, when the first creatures from our world set foot on the Moon, becoming -- as far as we know -- the first creatures to ever willingly leave their own world and land on another. Image credit: NASA, of Neil Armstrong's descent towards the lunar surface. The honor of the…

Why is FOX News Anti-American?

It is a fiction that the right wing, and the Republican party, and their primary philosophical guru (Rush Limbaugh) and mouthpiece (FOX News) are more American, more security-savvy, and more patriotic than Liberals, Progressives, and Democrats. This fiction is part of a common bully tactic you already know about because you were either bothered by the bullies, or you were a bully, in middle school. The bully takes his nefarious trait and projects it on his victim. And now, we see yet another piece of evidence for this, one among many. FOX News has attacked President Obama for his…

How Bad is the Minnesota Turkey Epidemic?

Unless you are living in a chicken coop, you have probably heard about the Turkey Crisis in Minnesota and surrounding upper plains/midwestern states. Every few days we hear more news: Millions of farmed turkeys are being put down in one turkey farm after another, because the farm's turkeys are infested with the H5N2 bird flu. I should say right away, that according to the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association, there is no significant risk of a turkey shortage. While it is always bad to count your chickens before they hatch, apparently this is not a big problem with the larger fowl. See also…