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Wolbachia and Sex Determination

There are two cool articles on two related topics, but the articles themselves don't deal with the area in which these topic overlap. Confused? Here's a quick description of the two articles: One article is on the change in fecundity cost of Wolbachia infections in a population of Drosophila simulans. Wolbachia are bacterial symbionts which can do all kinds of cool stuff to their hosts, including preventing infected males from mating with uninfected females (cytoplasmic incompatibility) and causing male zygotes to die before fully developing (male killing). Wolbachia can really do a number on…

A Science Laureate

Who would you nominate for Scientist Laureate, if such a position existed? That's the question they are asking us this week. And everyone is answering E.O. Wilson. This, of course, comes with the caveat that if Carl Sagan were alive today, he'd be the obvious choice. If we can't get Carl Sagan, why not go after the guy Nick Matzke calls "the new Carl Sagan"? Nick's post is in response to this article in the NYTimes about the Beyond Belief meeting -- where science, religion, and atheism were discussed. Nick thinks Neil deGrasse Tyson stood out because, instead of attacking the religious or…

Average Is Beautiful. But in a Leader?

There is lots of science to show that average is beautiful. But I have never understood why averageness was a desirable trait in a political candidate. That Bush was "an average guy" was the political battle cry manufactured by Karl Rove. I didn't understand the desirability of that statement back in 2000 and I still don't understand it now. But at least it was manufactured. After all, how can you possibly be average if your father was President? But in the case of Sarah Palin, though, I do believe she is truly average. The average person, for instance, would not necessarily know what…

The mammography wars heat up again

Unfortunately, it's grant application crunch time again over the weekend. That means something's got to give, and what happened to be the thing to give was this blog. Fortunately, all is not lost, as a "good friend" of mine has commented on a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Thursday about mammography. It may not be as "insolent" as the commentary that Orac lays down, but it's pretty darned good. I'm fully expecting that the "alternative" medicine crowd will soon jump all over this study as "proof" that mammography is useless. It's nothing of the sort, and, more importantly,…

Join a live web chat with Chicago Tribune reporter Trine Tsouderos

I wish it were otherwise, but not all that many reporters "get it" when it comes to science and quackery. Fortunately, Chicago Tribune reporter Trine Tsouderos does. She's shown it multiple times over the last year with stories about the autism "biomed" movement and Boyd Haley's trying to pass off an industrial chelator as a dietary supplement. It just so happens that she's going to be taking part in a live web chat Thursday, July 1, at noon CDT (that's Chicago time). The topic is going to be alternative treatments for autism, pegged to her story last week about OSR#1 and Haley. The chat will…

Creator gene for cerebral cortex

Discovery of 'creator' gene for cerebral cortex points to potential stem cell treatments University of California, Irvine researchers have identified a gene that is specifically responsible for generating the cerebral cortex, a finding that could lead to stem cell therapies to treat brain injuries and diseases such as stroke and Alzheimer's. Dr. Edwin Monuki, doctoral student Karla Hirokawa and their colleagues in the departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Developmental & Cell Biology found that a gene called Lhx2 serves as the long-sought cortical "creator" gene that…

The Pope is a Dope, says Rome U

Pope Benedict XVI last night called off a visit to Rome's main university in the face of hostility from some of its academics and students, who accused him of despising science and defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo. The Pope is a Dope, says Rome U The controversy was unparalleled in a country where criticism of the Roman Catholic church is normally muted. The Pope had been due to speak tomorrow during ceremonies marking the start of the academic year at Rome's largest and oldest university, La Sapienza. But the Vatican said last night it had been "considered opportune to…

Minnesotans: Would You Like to Caucus for Al?

Minnesota is, as my cousin from Colorado was telling me the other day, one of the irrelevant states in the current presidential primary process. Maybe so. But the process is not irrelevant with respect to other issues at hand. Everybody I know is tired of our senior Senator, Norm Coleman, but we also like the guy. We like the guy so much we want to send him into retirement. And replace him with Al Franken. So you should vote for Al, send money to Al, tell your friends to vote for and send money to Al. But you can do more than that, and I would suggest caucusing for Al. I have no…

Religious Mother Murders Children

They were possessed by the devil. She claims the demons did the killing but authorities may not be buying it. Banita Jacks, 33, is charged with three counts of felony murder and one count of first-degree murder while armed. The victims, who range in age from 5 to 17 years, are thought to be her daughters. ... Jacks told police that her daughters were possessed by demons and that each died in her sleep during a seven- to 10-day period, court documents said. Aja died first, she told police, then N'kiah, Tatianna and Brittany. "She said that as the first three younger children died, she…

WOC Update: Wiccans Advance in Green Bay

The uneasy alliance between Atheists and Wiccans in the War on Christmas paid off this week as a skirmish unfolded in Green Pay, Wisconsin. A Wiccan symbol now stands alongside the Christmas manger scene above Green Bay City Hall's northwest entrance. The new display is an evergreen wreath, about 3 feet in diameter, around a five-pointed star. It's called a pentacle, and it is a symbol in the Wiccan religion, which is associated with witchcraft. Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons. The wreath and star are mounted on an easel…

Regeneration

Planarian worms can regenerate new body parts (well, I know they don't look like "parts" but you get what I mean). How do they do this? No one was quite sure until now. An MIT research team led by Peter Reddien has discovered a gene that apparently produces a product that facilitates this sort of regeneration. "Evolution has selected for mechanisms that allow organisms to accomplish incredible feats of regeneration," and planaria offer a dramatic example, Reddien said. "By developing this model system to explore the molecular underpinnings of regeneration, we now have a better…

Two New Species of Mammal Discovered

The Foja Mountains have been the subject of investigation for a couple of years now, and new species are being found there on a regular basis. The lastest, from last June, is the discovery of a possum and a rat. The Foja Mountains are in Paupa, Indonesia, and form part of the norther ridge of the central mountain range on this large island. There are no records of visitors to this remote area prior to the late 1970s. In december, 2005, a joint international team of scientists bean documenting plants and animals in the area, and subsequently there have been reports of at lease one new bird…

Review of Tiny Cheap Green PC PC

The green politically correct PC which is ironically on sale at WalMart (which is not a politically correct store unless you are ... oh never mind, if I have to tell you, you won't get it...) has been reviewed here. From the manufacturer: Hardware Specifications 1.5GHz, VIA C7®-D Processor, 512MB DDR2 533MHz, SDRAM, 80GB Hard Disk Drive, DVD-ROM/CD-RW Optical Drive, VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics, Realtek 6-Channel Audio, (1) 10/100 Ethernet Port, (1) DB 15-Pin VGA Port, (6) USB 2.0 Ports, (1) RJ-11 Port, (1) Headphone/Line-Out Port, (2) Microphone/Line-In Ports, (1) Serial Port, (1)…

Blame, Jail, and Torture The Victim

This is the kind of story that makes it difficult to remain culturally relativistic. it also makes it hard to look at women who are in purdah walking around in a "free" country like the US and not, in part blame them for compliance. A woman was gang raped in Saudi Arabia. Fourteen times. Seven men are now in jail, convicted of rape and serving sentences up to five years. In Saudi Arabia, I think five years is a lot for violently raping a woman. The woman who was raped, however, was sentenced to be tortured for being in the car of a "strange man." In this case, the torture would…

Cyclone Sidr is now a Category Five

The situation, as predicted by, it seems, very few people, has worsened in the Indian Ocean. Cyclone Sidr is heading straight north, expected to strike land east of Calcutta, on the coast of Bangledesh, in several hours from now. This is a low-lying area that will undoubtedly be flooded very badly. This may be the worst case scenario for hurricanes on this planet. The storm is moving slowly, thus picking up considerable energy over very warm water. I think the water it has yet to cross is even warmer. Gusts are now way over category 5 strength. Form the joint hurricane prediction…

Dr. Frank Arguello doesn't much like science-based criticism of his atavistic chemotherapy

As I happened to be out last night at a function for my department, I didn’t have the time necessary to lay out a 2,000 word bit of Insolence. I did, however, have time to note that yet another practitioner unhappy with being criticized over his scientifically questionable treatment, in this case, Dr. Frank Arguello, has expressed grave, grave unhappiness with science-based criticism over his atavistic chemotherapy, so much so that he’s threatening to sue over it even though he really has no case. In fact, this guy is a bit more—shall we say?—over the top than the average subject of criticism…

Crap! PZ Myers is giving a talk this Thursday in Minneapolis!

And I say "Crap" because this is, for once, going to be a science talk and that would be really interesting, BUT Stephanie Zvan, Mike Haubrich and I will be busy making a TV show at the same time. (Our new sitcom!) But YOU can go to the talk. Here are the details: The talk is hosted by the Minnesota C.A.S.H. Thursday, December 3rd, at 7:30 Molecular Cell Biology Building 3-120 420 Washington Avenue SE East Bank Campus of the University of Minnesota. PZ Myers, biologist, renowned science blogger, and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, will be giving us a talk on…

Book Note: The Great Dinosaur Discoveries

Sbling Darren Naish has a book out! It's called Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries. Publisher's notes: This elegantly illustrated volume is a journey through more than two centuries of remarkable discovery. Books on dinosaurs are usually arranged by classification or epoch, but this unique work tells the story chronologically, in order of the key finds that shaped our understanding and brought these creatures to life for the public. From the fragmentary remains of giant extinct animals found in the early 1800s to the dinosaur wars in the American West to the amazing near-complete…

The persistence of memory

The must-read post of the day comes from Mark Crislip of the (in)famous Quackcast and was posted over at the Science-Based Medicine blog. It's about two things primarily: How evidence and science result in physicians practicing science- and evidence-based medicine to change their practice and why that seems disturbing to those who don't understand how science works and would prefer unchanging certainty and how this changeability of practice based on the lastest evidence is in marked contrast to most so called "complementary and alternative" medicine, the vast majority of which is based on…

Open Data Guide @ OKF

Open Knowledge Foundation have released a short guide to open data as part of the open data commons project. I have my philosophical disagreements with OKF on some issues - and they with me! - but they're the kind of disagreements that come from people on the same side of the fence. We all want open data, and we want it now. Moments like this are good to step back and focus on our agreements. We agree that data is a little weird, and that we need more research on how to best treat the law around the data. We agree that public sector information needs to be free - in fact, Rufus Pollock has…

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

I recently read an interesting article about why doing scientific research makes a person feel stupid and why this may actually be a good thing. The article is written by Martin A. Schwartz, a professor at the University of Virginia and is published in the April 2008 edition of Journal of Cell Science. Schwartz writes: I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major…

Tidbits, 1 February 2010

Happy Groundhog's Day Eve! Or something. Jennifer Rohn discusses how suboptimal data management makes downstream tasks such as submitting papers to journals a bit harder. The bit about proprietary image formats is particularly cringe-inducing. Why Cameron Neylon is disappointed with Nature Communications. Nature is a leader among journals; the rest of us need it to get open access right. And speaking of Cameron, Hope Leman does an absolutely brilliant interview with him. The Research Information Network's new research officer asks pertinent questions about data-quality standards in UK data…

Octopus smarts caught on video...and I only thought they could open jars

It seems that octopuses are even smarter, and more fearless, than previously thought. It has been known for some time that they can be trained to open jars to obtain treats as shown in the promotional video for "Aliens of the Deep Sea" shown below: There are even stories of them purposefully escaping their own tank to snack on fish in a tank nearby. More recently, the animals have been discovered planning other complex activities. This video actually shows the animals collecting coconut shells, tucking them under their bodies and walking around with them to use for future defense against…

Fish Using Tools Caught on Video!

This video, captured by University of California Santa Cruz professor Giacomo Bernardi, shows an orange-dotted tuskfish (Choerodon anchorago) cracking open a clam by throwing it against a rock. Other fish from the wrasse family have also been observed using similar techniques to crack open clams. These include the blackspot tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii), yellowhead wrasse (Halichoeres garnoti), and a sixbar wrasse (Thalassoma hardwicke). Tool use among fish is not well-studied. For a fish to plan such an elaborate scheme (digging up the clam, finding a suitable rock to use as an anvil,…

Whale Sharks

Image: Brian Skerry, Smithsonian Magazine. Check out the world's largest fish, the whale shark, which can reach lengths of more than 45 feet! These fish were featured in a recent article from Smithsonian Magazine. You would think the diver would be afraid of being eaten by the "shark", but it turns out these filter-feeders prefer zooplankton, which is how they got their name. Look, no teeth: How is it the largest animals seem to thrive off the smallest creatures? By eating all day. In fact, a recent study of these animals shows that they spend 7.5 hours per day feeding on the tiny creatures…

On The Trail of Physiology across America: Visiting Tennessee

Next stop: Tennessee, where the Tennessee Physiological Society held their annual meeting on October 14-15, 2010 at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Dr. Polly Hofmann, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center kicked off the meeting with a presentation on myocardial ischemia, which is when the blood supply to the heart muscle is reduced. Dr. Tom Ecay from East Tennessee State University then presented his research on the importance of calcium during embryonic development. Dr. Kevin Currie at Vanderbilt University Medical Center then presented his research on how…

Death and the Powers is here

The innovative new opera by Tod Machover, Death and the Powers, opens this Friday for its world premiere in Monte Carlo at Opéra Garnier de Monte-Carlo. Machover gave Festival-goers a sneak peak of this hugely ambitious work earlier this summer at the 2010 World Science Festival, which included a thought-provoking conversation with AI legend Marvin Minsky. The opera—a brainchild of Machover's Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab in co-production with American Repertory Theatre—explores transhumanist and existential territory, such as mortality and theory of mind, as well as…

A little help, please

Next week I'm going to be giving a talk at the 2010 Great Lakes Homeland Security Training Conference & Expo. The title of the talk will be "Medical Blogs: An Under-Recognized Resource for Public Health Awareness and Communication", but I'll probably speak more broadly about web 2.0. In preparation for the talk, I'd like you to help me with an exercise. One possible ways to enlist blogs and social media in disaster response is to direct people to a specific link where official information can be found. As an experiment, I'd like use this post to see how disaster information might be…

Good news/Bad news: long lines for swine flu shots

My county health department released 10K doses of H1N1 vaccine yesterday and opened up two distribution centers for them. With all the anti-vaccination craziness out there, I was worried no one would show. Turns out, no need to worry. My friend went yesterday and waited for four hours with thousands of other people. From a public health perspective, perhaps it would have been better to have multiple smaller centers to avoid exposure, but people did not wait inside in crowded rooms, but outside in the wind. That's probably better, but who knows. At a time when mass vaccination is needed,…

Another writer's block rant and open thread

The "summer without summer" continues with fall blowing in early. Sitting outside with the kiddo yesterday we found a garter snake sunning itself (and it was pretty big for a garter snake!). Despite the strong north wind, we hopped on the bike and rode up to the school where she'll be starting kindergarten in a couple of weeks. This isn't a hilly part of the country, but when you're a bit out of shape and pulling seventy pounds of nearly dead weight, even a little rise slows you down. PalKid had plenty of questions about why I was going so slow (annoying) and about what the gears do (not…

BMI week whatever update

So, my exercise has fallen off a bit, but I think I'm getting back to it. I rode a bit this weekend but the heat drove me inside. I tend to let myself eat just about whatever on weekends---turns out I don't like to eat that much. I get nauseated (not that it always stops me). Saturday morning I had my morning Irish oatmeal, but at the clinic everyone had brought snacks (including my DrPal's Yummy Salsa Fresca (TM)). I nibbled all day, then went out with friends to a big, Italian dinner. Sunday I had cereal, and ate a healthy but somewhat too big lunch, and had folks over for burgers and…

WWJE (What would Jenny McCarthy eat?)

Apparently not much. From her new Oprah-fied blog: If I can really do it I will officially have a diet that looks like this... No wheat No dairy No refined sugar No caffeine No alcohol No smoking No yeast I can forgive simple category errors, like putting smoking in the diet column. I'm certainly curious why she feels the need to eliminate the rest of these things. Here are possible justifications: Wheat: gluten, mostly in wheat products, must be avoided if you have celiac disease. Dairy: best to avoid if you have lactose intolerance. Rare instances of severe milk-protein allergies.…

All Hail Xenu: Parker and Stone on Comedy Central's refusal to air a repeat of their episode lampooning Scientology

As many have pointed out, Isaac Hayes, who happens to be a Scientologist, quit his role as Chef on South Park last week, unhappy that the show had produced an episode that made fun of Scientology. Apparently, it's OK with him if South Park makes fun of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but say anything derogatory about his religion, and Hayes is suddenly not so open-minded. Now, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have released this statement through their lawyer in response to Comedy Central's recent pulling of a repeat showing of the episode in question in response to pressure by Tom Cruise on…

Sockpuppet envy

I'm feeling a bit envious right now. Kevin Leitch has something I haven't. He's acquired his very own blog sockpuppet: Someone (and it's really not hard to guess who) has created a little sockpuppet site for me. Whomever (ahem) it is has also started sprinkling the blogosphere with spicy comments from 'me'. How cool is this? Someone (ahem) is worried enough about what I say to start a whole new blog to sockpuppet me! I could get annoyed about such a thing but really, we have to look at it this way - I must be making a much bigger impression on someone (ahem) then I thought I was. Enough for…

Blogging Alzheimer's

How annoying. I had the perfect dubious medical test that I had wanted to write about from a skeptical viewpoint. It was a test that looked at many different blood tests and biomarkers and claimed to be far more sensitive at detecting cancer and a wide variety of diseases. It was obvious to me that its claims were without basis, and, as I settled down to watch the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, my laptop at the ready, I was all set to write yet another brilliant takedown of such nonsense. And then an annoying thing happened. I couldn't for the life of me locate the link to the nonsense to…

Grogblogging

Darp and Jess organized a get together of bloggers in Sydney last Friday. I wandered along and, well, there were a lot of people there. Despite having been to two previous such gatherings, the only bloggers I had met before were Jason Soon and c8to. I'm too lazy to link to everybody so I'm going to reward TimT's shameless link whoring by suggesting you go to his post and follow the links from there to all the photos and descriptions and more importantly, a whole bunch of interesting blogs you might not have seen before. One anecdote: That evening, at dinner…

Don't forget: NECSS 2013 is fast approaching...

Time really flies. It's hard to believe that the first national skeptical conference of the season is NECSS 2013 (The Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism), hosted by the New York City Skeptics and the New England Skeptical Society, is fast approaching. In fact, it's only a little more than two months away. The conference will be held in New York City on April 5-7. Sadly, that conflicts with the American Association for Cancer Research meeting, meaning that I'll be in Washington, DC that weekend and can't go. (As an aside, maybe anyone from the DC area who also can't go to NECSS and…

Climbing Catfish Found, Named

Though scientists have actually known about a strange climbing catfish from the jungles of Venezuela for 20 years, it took them until last month to capture live specimens and officially name the creatures. The catfish, dubbed the Lithogenes wahari were found clinging to rocks in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas. Interesting side note, the Venzuelan government named this province after Cirque Du Soleil's latest Vegas production. Nice legs... The Lithogenes wahari has some incredible adaptations for living in the fast moving water. It possesses a set of highly developed pelvic fins that…

Allied to Invertebrates

What is Frazier to Cheers? What is Laverne and Shirley to Happy Days? Like one situation comedy spins off another, DSN pinch hitter Kevin Zelnio spins up a new blog over at blogspot called The Other 95%. Kevin's title refers to the invertebrate phyla, which make up 95% of the animal kingdom, but receive less than 10% of the attention they deserve. They're mini-monsters, for gosh sakes. How can anyone NOT be fascinated by the spineless? Type "other 95" into google and then press "I'm feeling lucky". You've arrived at the new Desk of Zelnio. If that's not enough to drain your coffee mug, and…

New Sharks

From The Daily Review... It is amazing what you find lying around the bottom of the ocean, as St. Mary's College professor Douglas Long has discovered. Long was part of a team of researchers who this year identified two new species of deep-sea fishes, unusual-looking sharks that broke off on their own evolutionary path more than 320 million years ago. The creatures -- named the Galapagos and whitespot ghost sharks -- were found more than 1,200 feet underwater near the Galapagos Islands in 1995, sucked through a vacuum tube into a research submarine. Long and his team spent more than a decade…

Craig Is Moving to Dubai!

I love being out to sea, 2 months on a research vessel is heaven. I eagerly read about projects like Freedom Ship and Trilobis and await the days I can shed my terrestrial dwelling. I tried to convince my wife that we should live in an houseboat...we still live on land. With forward politics and Hydropolis and I may be moving to the middle east. From the industrious Prince of Dubai, who brought the eighth wonder of the world-the Palm Jumeirah, comes the world's first underwater luxury hotel. The key here is luxury...this is no rennovated research shack like the Jules Underwater Hotel.…

Link love - RNA Nobels Edition

Well this year was a big year again for RNA at the Nobels. Both prizes were essentially given to RNA dependent processes. In the case of Telomerase, an RNA molecule, Telomerase RNA (hTR or TERC), acts as the template strand to help Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (TERT) elongate the end of the telomere. Here's a great vid explaining the whole process: In the case of the Ribosome - well it is only the granddaddy of all ribozymes. To illustrate this point, here's a great video from the Steitz Lab with an incredible soundtrack: (HT: Sunil) Links to essay's on this year's Medicine &…

115th Dream - Bob Dylan

As Kevin Zelnio mentions below, its National Poetry Month, but little did the man know its Copycat Day in Corpus Christi, too. Isn't it great when the stars align? Kevin and I must have been riding the same bow wave because cephalopods and great poets were on our mind. I heard this yesterday from the great American poet Bob Dylan, just one of a few thousand recently acquired to my (gotta love) ITunes. 115th Dream - Bob Dylan I was riding on the Mayflower When I thought I spied some land I yelled for Captain Arab I have yuh understand Who came running to the deck Said, "Boys, forget the whale…

Friday Deep-Sea Picture: Elevators to the Deep

Sometimes the sub just can't carry enough or you want to get more work done than you really have time to. Thats why some brilliant deep-sea scientist invented the elevator! The yellow balls at the top are for floatation, which keeps the elevator neutrally bouyant. You can put all sorts of things on the basket of the elevator, including thermal insulated boxes for keeping animals cold on the ride up. How does the elevator work? Well, we put weights on the bottom and hoist it overboard with a transponder. It sinks, hopefully close to where we want it to end up. When we arrive in the sub to do…

Psychotropic Walls

Via Technovelgy - Where Science Meets Fiction, here's an article on a wild display surface upon which small panels move with precision and "ripple," creating strange, almost biologically protoplasmic motion: HypoSurface Walls Are Full of Life. Bill Christensen, the author of the Technovelgy article on HypoSurface notes that this technology is a close approximation of science fiction writer J.G. Ballard's warped domiciles: HypoSurface is a pretty good implementation of the plastex walls in J.G. Ballard's psychotropic houses from his 1960's Vermillion Sands stories: It was a beautiful room all…

Imaginary evidence never stopped them before, why should it now?

This is a remarkable bit of news about the magical Ark Encounter in Kentucky. You know that feasibility study, the one written by Ken Ham's good buddy and co-author, the one that justified the them park because it would bring in 900 good jobs and swarms of tourists? The governor never saw it. Nobody in the Kentucky government has seen it. The state never received a copy to file. They refuse to show it to the press, even. The report is reportedly 10,000 pages long, with just the executive summary being 200 pages long, and apparently the only people who have seen it are Ham and his cronies, and…

Another "sovereign state" affected by Wikileaks

This time, it's the Vatican. Wikileaks has released documents related to the Irish priest scandals. Pope Benedict refused to allow Vatican officials to testify in an investigation by an Irish commission into alleged child sex abuse by priests, according to U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, The Guardian newspaper reported. Benedict was also reportedly furious when Vatican officials were called upon in Rome, The Guardian reported Saturday. The Murphy Commission of Inquiry into sexual and physical abuse "offended many in the Vatican," according to a cable dated February 26, 2010…

Even Their McDonald's Is Nicer

McDonald's is everywhere, of course. But it's not completely cookie cutter; only about 99.9% so. For example, the McDonald's at the Heidelberg train station I used to frequent when I felt unbearably homesick in Germany had beer on tap - something you don't see in the U.S! Most McDonald's I've ever been in, though, feature incredibly dispiriting physical environments. You aren't really encouraged to linger and enjoy yourself. It's fast food, after all. It's not like it's your quaint neighborhood Starbucks. But as we knew all along, the very rich are different from you and I, and so is…

Kline to run for Johnson County DA

The KS GOP Insider and the Star both confirm that outgoing pantysniffer Attorney General Phill Kline is working for votes to take the job of the guy who took his job. Paul Morrison has been the Johnson County DA for a long time, serving as a Republican. He switched parties and booted Kline out of office. A few days ago, Kline switched his voter registration to a Kansans for Life apartment in Johnson County, which fueled speculation that he was going to make a bid for Morrison's old job. The way this works, is that Morrison had to step down as DA. That means that the party he was elected…

Poor babies

Administration Officials Brace for Departures: Important Bush Administration officials are ready to leave the government rather than undergo two years of hell from Democratic committee chairmen in Congress. Leading the exodus are officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fearing investigation by two chairmen, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI). Apparently they really believed all the noise about creating a permanent Republican majority, and acted as if there would never be a demand for accountability. So the poor babies are doing what they always do,…