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Universal remotes, evolution, sex, and sight

So Amanda had this TV. It had a remote. The remote sucked. It was broken. Then I moved in and with me came a universal remote. Lucky Amanda. I programmed the universal remote (a Radioshack 5 in 1) to handle the TV as well as a DVD player and a stereo. The remote handled everything. The old remotes hung around for a while occasionally being used, but then disappeared. Then we got a different DVD player and I had forgotten that the remote was a universal jobbie, so we just started using the remote for the DVD player Then we got an iPod cradle with speakers and a Roku. I purchased a…

Hallelujah! The mainstream press finally notices quackademic medicine!

I've been writing about a phenomenon that I like to refer to as "quackademic medicine," defined as the infiltration into academic medical centers and medical school of unscientific and pseudoscientific treatment modalities that are unproven or disproven. I didn't coin the term. To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Robert W. Donnell did nine years ago. However, I adopted it with a vengeance, so much so that a lot of people think I coined the term. In any case, I first began sounding the alarm about the infiltration of quackery like acupuncture, "energy medicine," naturopathy, homeopathy,…

No good deed goes unpunished in the Twitterverse

I've long been ambivalent about the merits of Twitter. Some may recall my "Why Twitter is Evil" post of a while back. That was written with one cheek mostly occupied by my tongue. It now seems clear that, whatever the original designs, the 140-character telegraph has become an invaluable network-building and maintenance tool, particularly for authors, activists trying to organize constituencies. This is all well and good. But the medium's dark side recently became all too clear following this past weekend's wonderful Science Online 2011 conference. The story begins Saturday afternoon at an…

Astrology Academy in Serbia

It's been a year since this first appeared (September 21, 2005). I wonder if the "academy" is still open or what are they studying there.... This I learned from Eric: How to become an astrologer For those few remaining stubborn hold-outs who still cannot read Serbo-Croatian, here's a quick translation: Institute for Astrological Research and Education "Johannes Kepler" recently opened in Belgrade. The goals of the Institute are to support the research in astrology, academic approach to astrology, and to aid astrologers and astrology in gaining social status. The Institute is not a part of…

Viruses and sandcastles at the beach

It's Saturday and it's summertime and Mrs. R. and I are still in the city. OK with me. I'm a city boy and find it easiest to maintain upright posture on asphalt, but my bride of 37 years likes the beach, so most summers we go off for a few weeks to the seashore (speaking littorally). It's down south where the water is warm but I still spend a lot of time inside in air conditioned splendor, listening to music and reading. Mrs. R. props herself up at the earth - water interface with her own pile of books, far from other people and the hazards of pathogenic viruses. It turns out, not really.…

Pandemic flu vaccine capacity: enough? too much? just right?

The "experts" have spoken to WHO and WHO has spoken to us: because of the march of science, there's been a large upswing in the estimates of how much vaccine the world could produce in a pandemic -- if such a vaccine existed and there was a way to deliver it. But if there was one and it could be delivered, then WHO thinks we could produce up to a 4.5 billion doses by 2010 as a result of new manufacturing technologies and techniques to make the produced antigen go farther. A lot of "ifs," to be sure, but without the ability to make the stuff the rest doesn't matter. At the moment we make a…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Just yesterday, the Obama administration announced it would take executive action to protect certain workers against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Associated Press reports that the president plans to sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against workers based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The order is estimated to protect about 14 million workers who are not currently protected against such discrimination. The administration did not say exactly when the president would sign the executive order. The Associated Press article…

Adapting-In-Place Class Starting in July!

Well, since the Rio Summit failed to save the world (again), and we're slipping back into economic crisis, and _Making Home_ my book on Adapting-in-Place comes out in August, it seems like the right time to teach my AIP class again.  It helps to renew my sense of purpose as well - there's nothing like sitting down and sorting out all the work we're doing to get ready for the world we actually are emerging into again to feel a sense of excitement and purpose about it. The class will start on American Independence Day, July 4, and we'll declare our independence from corporations and the fear…

Adapting In Place Class Coming Up

I still have space in the Adapting in Place Class that starts next week - the last one for some time, I suspect, given other projects (I have to write the book about Adapting in Place, for example ;-)). aron and I will be running our Adapting in Place Class online for six weeks beginning April 5. The class covers every element of adapting your life both for things to come and things that are now, from going inside the walls of your home or apartment to community, family and security issues, from the ordinary (laundry) to the extraordinary (handling life transitions). This is our most…

The Right to Know Nothing

By Les Leopold  If you need a quick snooze, read a US Government Accountability Office report with its carefully parsed prose. But lost in the holiday rush was a December GAO report that could keep you awake as it bashes the Bush administrationâs effort to water down the community Right to Know regulations that provide us with potentially life-saving information about the use, storage and release of toxic substances.  These regulations require that companies make detailed reports which form the Toxics Release Inventory â an accessible public database on the quantity of toxic chemicals on…

Eastern Equine Encephalitis: The Mosquito that bit the Snake

Guest post by Hillary Craddock Last week a new study regarding Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) was published online (Bingham et.al.). EEE is a mosquito-borne virus that can cause serious, and sometimes deadly, disease in humans and equines. In warmer parts of North America, the virus is spread year-round, but in areas where mosquitoes get killed off in the winter it has been something of a mystery as to how the virus makes it from year to year. Humans and equines are both dead-end hosts, which means that a mosquito can not be infected from biting an infected person or horse. Researchers in…

Can we please just establish this one principle?

Prayer doesn't work. Enshrine it in the law — prayer is not a helpful action, but rather a neglectful one. Teach it in the schools — when the health class instructs students in how to make a tourniquet or do CPR, also explain that prayer is not an option. Faith in prayer kills people. The Wisconsin parents who allowed their daughter to die in a diabetic coma because they believed prayer was sufficient aid have been charged with second degree reckless manslaughter. That seems about right to me. Read this account of the progression of their daughter's disease, and ask yourself at what point you…

Now THIS is Open Science!!!

Dinosaur fossils have been dug out for a couple of centuries now. They have been cleaned up and mounted in museums and described in papers and monographs. The way this is all done has evolved over time - the early techniques were pretty crude compared to what palaeontologists do today. One of the important techniques is actually quite simple: making measurements of bones. And yes, many such bones have been measured and the measurements reported in the literature. And that literature is scattered all over the place in many different formats in many different journals. Nobody has put all the…

Expelled gets more bad press

The New York Times has taken notice of the promotional tactics being used for the creationist propaganda flick, Expelled. As you all know, they are trying to filter screenings, allowing only ideologically friendly people to see it, and keeping out the serious critics who might actually evaluate it on its merits, rather than as a media echo of what the viewers want to hear. There were nondisclosure agreements to sign that day, but Mr. Moore did not, and proceeded to write perhaps the harshest review "Expelled" has received thus far. The film will open April 18, but has been screened several…

Thursday Eratosthenes Blogging: Measuring Latitude and Longitude with a Sundial

As I keep saying in various posts, I'm teaching a class on timekeeping this term, which has included discussion of really primitive timekeeping devices like sundials, as well as a discussion of the importance of timekeeping for navigation. To give students an idea of how this works, I arranged an experimental demonstration, coordinated with Rhett at Dot Physics. We've been trying to do this literally for months, but the weather wouldn't cooperate. Until this past weekend, when we finally managed to make measurements that allow us to do some cutting-edge science. For 200 BC, anyway... So, what…

Hanging up my blogging shoes

You might have guessed this was coming. My blogging frequency has dropped off dramatically this year, particularly this semester. I keep writing "yep, I haven't died yet - I'll tell you all about what I'm doing sometime, really" posts, and not ever following up. Other signs have included.... I hardly participated in Donors' Choose even though it is a really worthwhile organization. (By the way, today I donated $377 as a 10% contribution of our final donation number. Thanks so much to everyone who donated anything at all!!) I hardly even read blogs anymore, let alone write. And this wasn'…

Perhaps if more of us were "that guy"

DrDrA at BlueLabCoats has returned with an outstanding post, entitled, "I want you to hear me, I don't care what you see...," that she wrote out longhand during her recent travels: In my absence I picked up a whiff of a lot of chatter about what women scientists wear to work... or talk/write about wearing .... going on in the blogosphere. . . You see- the struggle I'm in daily in my own life and career is not about appearances, and it is not about symbolism or femininity- and it is not about who I am as a person, my likes and dislikes etc. It is a struggle to be heard and taken seriously…

Salmonella in Alamosa water supply - "I still love 'Salamosa'"

Alamosa is a town of 8,500 residents on the west side of the Rockies in southern Colorado, equidistant to Denver and Albuquerque. You may sometimes hear of Alamosa described by Al Roker or other morning weather reporters as the "nation's icebox" in setting the low temperature of the lower 48 US states, a title for which it fights with Fraser, Colorado (home of Winter Park ski resort). Alamosa is also a strikingly beautiful place in the middle of some unique geological features, including the nearby Great Sand Dunes National Monument, a massive group of dunes several hundred feet high…

The Friday Fermentable: Samichlaus, Liquid Love

Yesterday, 6 December was the feast day of Saint Nicholas and that can only mean one thing: the newest batch was Samichlaus bier was brewed in Austria. Samichlaus - Swiss-German for 'Santa Claus' - is recognized widely as one of the world's rarest, finest, and strongest bottom-fermented, or lager, beers. Indeed, it weighs in at a heroic 14% alcohol by volume (ABV). But the special attributes of the beer come from how it is brewed. The selection you are viewing here was brewed on 6 December 2006 and bottled in October (that's tea in my mug, not Sami, as this picture was taken this morning…

Climate Scientists as Pastors and Skeptics as Peer-Reviewers?

Last week I called attention to the emerging "science audit" movement, a network of engaged citizens who combine their own professional expertise with online communication strategies to demand a greater level of transparency in scientific research and data. Most prominent on climate change, this movement is likely to grow to include any issue where scientific evidence is claimed as the central criteria driving policy decision-making. Demands for a second-level of inclusive and participatory review of research in areas ranging from nanotechnology to biomedical research to vaccine safety…

THE DISCOVERY: What It Means for Framing & News Coverage

Conservatives are promoting Bush as the biomedical Atticus Finch. Shown here posing with a "snowflake" baby, adopted and born from left over in vitro clinic embryos. Some collected thoughts on what the stem cell discovery means for the framing of the debate, trends in news coverage and public opinion: ---->As I wrote yesterday, perhaps the biggest impact on the framing of the stem cell debate is to inject a booster shot of resonance to conservative claims that pursuing embryonic stem cell research is not necessary and that we can gain everything we need from morally unproblematic adult…

PSP Pre-Conference: The Culture of Free: Publishing in an Era of Changing Expectations (part 2)

These are a continuation of my notes. This portion has been transcribed from my scribble - I was sitting on stage for the second half of the day so live blogging didn't really seem appropriate :( If there is something wrong, not malicious, just bad handwriting.   Diane Harley, Senior Researcher and Director, Higher Education in the Digital Age Project She's an anthropologist who has long studied the issues around new technology for scholarship and teaching. She's not an advocate for any particular type of approach for integrating new technology. She looks at value systems and faculty…

LY2140023: Progress in Schizophrenia Treatment?

In the 1950's, a new class of antipsychotic drugs was discovered: the antipsychotics.   href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpromazine" rel="tag">Chlorpromazine (Thorazine®) was the first. By the 1970's, several related compounds had been discovered.  In 1976, it was learned that there is a direct linear relationship between the strength with with the compounds bind at the dopamine D2 receptor, and the clinical potency of the drug. face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">[Figure from Seeman, Molecular Psychiatry (1998)3, 123-124] The discovery of this direct relationship was…

Gender Differences In Planning?

We all know that there are gender differences in neuroanatomy, as well as in some cognitive tasks (females tend to do better on memory and verbal tasks, men on spatial tasks) and both cognitive and emotional development, though it's not clear how the cognitive/behavioral/developmental differences relate to the differences in neuroanatomy. Research on gender differences is often plagued by confounding variables such as sociological factors that are damn near impossible to control for. Jumping into the gender-differences game takes a lot of guts, or extreme naivete, then, because not only is…

Goodbye ScienceBlogs

Craig is away at a workshop but emailed me this message to relay. Remember to visit and bookmark our new site! ------------------------------------------------------- When I was much, much younger, I joined Jacques Cousteau's Calypso Club (named affectionately after his beloved ship). Was anyone else club members? Is there still a Calypso Club? The rights and privileges of this elite club were endless. Entry was limited to any child with a few bucks to their name and a few cereal box tops. My membership packet came in with all kinds of information, patches, stickers, and certificates.…

#scio10 aftermath: my tweets from "Science and Entertainment: Beyond Blogging".

Session description: Over the past several years, the Internet has tangibly changed the way that movies and TV shows are produced and marketed. Blogs will call out ridiculous scientific errors found in stories and the critique can go viral very quickly; therefore, science advising is on the rise in an attempt to add some semblance of plausibility to your favorite flicks. As tools on the web continue to evolve, filmmakers and television creators are finding new ways to connect with and market to their viewers. For some shows, this has meant tapping into the science featured in their content,…

Friday Sprog Blogging: biodiversity, I choose you!

Longtime readers of this blog may recall that the elder Free-Ride offspring has a fondness (occasionally verging on obsession) for Pokemon cards. This means I had no choice but to involve my offspring in Dave Ng's Phylomon project: [W]hat can we do to get kids engaged with the wonderful creatures that are all around them? They obviously have the ability and the passion to care about such things, but it appears misplaced - they'll spend a ton of resources and time tracking down fictional things, when they could easily do the same with the very wildlife around them. As a bonus, if they do…

Useless on-line survey of climate scientists

In a report on a climate change seminar, Bernd Ströher and Benny Peiser write: Particularly revealing were the almost sensational results of a survey conducted by Prof. Bray among some 500 German and European climate researchers. The results show impressively that the much-repeated claim of a "scientific consensus" on anthropogenic global warming is a carefully constructed piece of fiction: According to the survey results, some 25% of European climate researchers who took part in the survey still doubt whether most of the moderate warming during the last 150 years can be attributed to human…

Slender yield from fat gene studies

Willer et al. (2008). Six new loci associated with body mass index highlight a neuronal influence on body weight regulation Nature Genetics DOI: 10.1038/ng.287 Thorleifsson et al. (2008). Genome-wide association yields new sequence variants at seven loci that associate with measures of obesity Nature Genetics DOI: 10.1038/ng.274 There are two massive studies now online in Nature Genetics looking at the genetic architecture of body mass index (BMI). Body mass index is a widely-used measure of body fat levels, calculated by dividing a subject's weight (in kg) by the sqare of their height (in…

A good protest should draw a crowd

Some of you may recall that I got rather cranky with some sensitive Catholics who wanted to cancel a play — "The Pope and the Witch", currently playing on the Twin Cities campus. Unfortunately, although we'd hope to go, we had this succession of snowstorms that made traveling impractical this past week (I may still go at the end of this coming week, since the last day of the play coincides with the last day of classes before spring break and my birthday). Anyway, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press picked up on it. I put the article below the fold to preserve the fact that they quoted me, and to…

Dancing with the snake

The Evil One recently talked to Paul Bloom, one of my favorite cognitive psychologists. Here is something I found of interest: ...and I brought up the issue that many researchers -- David Sloan Wilson being one that springs to mind -- have argued that religion is evolutionary but that it is also evolutionarily beneficial. David Sloan Wilson has proposed the idea that religion arose from group selection because religion promotes in-group cohesiveness. This would differ from Dr. Bloom's ideas because Bloom is essentially arguing that religion is neutral to selection and secondary to larger…

Journalism Needs a Reformation, Not a Revolution

Part of me sympathizes with ScienceBlogling Bora when he writes about the publishing bidness: I am excited about the way the Web is transforming society and all they care is how to save their jobs! I get it - they should care. The new media ecosystem can support a much smaller number of professional journalists than the old one. So many (though not all) will lose their jobs. I don't have an interest in that aspect of the media business at all. If they have any other expertise besides scribbling, they will find other jobs once their media houses lock the doors. If not, tough. But I am really…

Music Monday: Year's Best Jazz Album Lists!

(OK, Music Monday one day late...) Science books are an abiding, long term passion, one which has been reflected here on the blog by my compulsive listing of the Best Science Books of the year, 2015 included. This year I'm expanding the obsessive listing franchise to include another abiding passion, jazz music. But I won't be listing individual jazz albums, just other people's year end lists. As for my own year-end list of best jazz album, I'm afraid I don't really buy enough new ones every year to make a list practical. Here goes. These lists are as at mid-day December 22, 2015. I'm mostly…

Report: Treating workers fairly, maintaining safe workplaces good for the bottom line

Fair working standards for construction workers and financial profit for developers aren't incompatible, according to a new report from Texas' Workers Defense Project. In fact, consumers are actually willing to pay more to live in places built on principles of safety, economic justice and dignity. Released this week in collaboration with the University of Texas' Center for Sustainable Development, "Green Jobs for Downtown Austin: Exploring the Consumer Market for Sustainable Buildings" studied consumer attitudes toward sustainable construction jobs and explored the market for certification…

So You Want To Be An Astrophysicist? Part 1.5: thinking about grad school, redux

So, now you’re at university, and you’re thinking about heading for grad school … A seasonal revisit of some old rumblings* *NB: this discussion should not be construed to be anything but hypothetical ramblings, they do not reflect in any way the official position of any academic institution, department or graduate program, especially not the one I am part of! So You Want To Be An Astrophysicist? Part 1.5: thinking about grad school Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on January 16, 2012 (2) Share on email More » So, now you’re at university, and you’re thinking about heading for grad school … More…

On the Merits of Postponing Your Alcoholism

The New York Times has a interesting article about the long term consequences to adolescent brains of early drinking. To whit: In experiments conducted by the Duke team, the reformed rat drinkers learned mazes normally when they were sober. But after the equivalent of only a couple of drinks, their performance declined significantly more than did that of rats that had never tippled before they became adults. The study was published in 2000 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Other research has found that while drunken adolescent rats become more sensitive to memory…

New book on the psychology and engineering of traffic

Two summers ago in Paris, I was astounded at the volume of traffic that somehow managed to negotiate the traffic circle at the Arc de Triomphe without incident. Here's the (poor quality) video I made to document traffic flow there: I learned to drive in my 20s in New York City. Like Paris, New York has a traffic rhythm all its own, where lane markings are mere suggestions. In New York, parking is tolerated nearly anywhere, as long as traffic isn't unduly impeded. I've seen people double-parked, triple-parked, parked on corners, on sidewalks, you name it. Driving into Manhattan several times…

May 28 : a Dark Day for Science and for Christianity as the "Creation Museum" Opens

Today's the day that Answers In Genesis' museum of ignorance, their "looks like, acts like, smells like, and pretends to be, but decidedly is not a science museum," the Creation Museum opens. I'm horrified about this on many levels. As a scientist, I'm horrified about it just like every other scientist who is writing about this. We've got a slickly presented museum that looks like a science museum presenting carefully crafted lies (there is no other word for it) designed to comfort people in their scientific ignorance, designed to deeply instill scientific ignorance in children of a certain…

The $14,615 Head-Spinning Workout

Every now and then I come a cross an advertisement that makes me say "What the #&$!?" I have seen the ad for the ROM machine in the back of Scientific American for some time but I never bothered to read it. Until yesterday. Then I went to their website. Yeow. My head is still spinning. The ROM (Range Of Motion) machine promises a complete workout in only four minutes per day. Yep. Four, count 'em, four minutes per day. It's a bizarre looking device with a central seat, pedals, handles, chrome tubing and what appears to be a large flywheel or friction wheel, all for the amazing price of…

My Open Science presentation at the Subtle Technologies Festival

Faithful readers of this blog may recall that back in March I posted a set of slides I had prepared for a presentation to a class of undergraduate computer science majors, basically outlining what open science is and challenging them to use their talents to make science work better. Usually I don't post the presentation slides I use for my everyday work as a librarian, when I appear in classrooms to talk about how to find and evaluate sources in science or when I talk about science communication. But in this case I spent a fair amount of time preparing and revising this particular iteration…

Trust and Language

Last year, at ScienceOnline09, it appears that the overarching theme of the meeting emerged, and it was Power, in various meanings of the word. This year, looking at the titles and descriptions of the sessions on the Program, the keyword of the meeting will be Trust. Again, in various meanings of that word: how do you know who to trust (e.g., journalists, scientists and press officers), and how do you behave online in order to be trusted. The debate over recent hacking of e-mails concerning climate change also hinges on the trust and how language affects the perception of who is trustworthy.…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Male Reindeer Inflate Their Air Sac To Make Sexually Enticing Hoarse Rutting Calls: A group of European scientists have determined that a male reindeer's air sac, influencing vocal sound and neck contour, may contribute to his sexual prowess and reproductive success. The results of this research have recently been published in Journal of Anatomy. Laying Sleeping Sickness To Rest: The parasite that leads to sleeping sickness can be lulled to sleep itself using a newly discovered pathway, according to research published online in EMBO reports (http://www.nature.com/embor/). Trypanosoma brucei…

Occupational Health News Roundup

For the Christian Science Monitor, Marilyn Gardner writes about pregnant women who stay on the job until the day their babies are due (or even until the minute they go into labor) and start working again soon after their babies' births, because they're unable to take more time off. The Family Medical Leave Act allows new parents 12 weeks of leave - but it's unpaid leave, and the requirement only applies to companies with 50 or more employees. Gardner explains: Call it the American way of maternity. Eighty percent of pregnant women who work remained on the job until one month or less before…

A New Regulatory Czar?

OMB Watch is reporting that the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Chaired by Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) will soon hold a confirmation hearing on Susan E. Dudley. nominated to be Administrator of the White Houseâs Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). The office, part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), oversees all of the Administrationâs regulatory (or anti-regulatory) activities. There's lot's more information on Ms. Dudley, and on OMB's latest shenanigans, at OMB Watch's website Dudley Watch. Genevieve Smith, at the American Prospect…

Esoteric Order of Sherman

I've written before about the prolific and many-talented Norm Sherman: a podcaster, multi-instrumentalist, song writer, singer and comedian with a truly unique voice. Several unique voices actually, thanks to his ear for accents. He occupies a position in geek-orientated on-line music and podcasting similar to that of George Hrab, another one of my favourites. But while Hrab has six albums to his name, the younger Sherman has two so far: his eponymous 2007 début and now the new The Esoteric Order of Sherman. Both of Sherman's albums are musical comedy, but where the first one is mostly…

Catching up with Rabett Run

As with In It for the Gold, Eli Rabbet's Rabbet Run is another quality blog that can't be just marked as read. So I have no other option but to settle down for a bit of focused reading and catch up on Eli's latest 19 posts! (Eli, if you are reading this, you might want to update my entry in your blogroll to the new ScienceBlogs address!) His latest is about the recent reports of a decline in oceanic absorbtion of airborne CO2 emissions. I am planning an article about that too, it is important news, so will leave it at that for now. Next, is a rather graphic examination of his toilet (no…

Lets just cure/prevent deafness while we are at it.

Lets play a game. Think of a human disease.  Any disease.  Viral, bacterial, genetic, acquired, anything. Im pretty sure that no matter what disease you just thought of, there is a scientist, somewhere, trying to use a virus to cure/treat that disease. As I was doing my rounds on PubMed, looking for cool new research, I stumbled upon this paper: Canalostomy as a Surgical Approach for Cochlear Gene Therapy in the Rat. I couldnt find this article online, so I searched PubMed for more info on using GMO viruses to treat deafness. NOH MAH GAWD.  There are SO MANY papers!  A handful: Cochlear…

Brussels Declaration

Should the future Constitution of the European Union make reference to Christian values? The Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel among others thinks so. Or should it be founded on secular liberal principles? I among others think so. To that end, I have just signed the Brussels Declaration on-line. We, the people of Europe, hereby affirm our common values. They are based not on a single culture or tradition but are founded in all of the cultures that make up modern Europe. We affirm the worth, dignity and autonomy of every individual, and the right of everyone to the greatest possible freedom…

Greatest Hits

John over at Stranger Fruit had a post recently on his most popular entries. Summing up, he found that controversial issues in science and religion drew the most attention. I've had a look at my Google Analytics as well, checking out the data for my old site since the present one has been on-line for less than a month so far. In order to get anything interesting out of the exercise, I had to disregard two hugely popular entry categories: a) blog carnival hostings, b) entries with sex-related words in them. As I've mentioned before repeatedly, any post mentioning words relating to sex, porn or…

The Patriot Act and Political Posturing

The Patriot Act, the most misnamed legislation in history, was used last year to levy a $10 million fine on Paypal, owned by Ebay, for allowing their clients to use the service to send funds to online gambling sites. What does this have to do with stopping terrorism? Not a goddamn thing. But it's yet another reason why this law should be repealed, and why we should throw out of office everyone who voted for it - which would be virtually everyone in Congress. In the Senate, only one Senator, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against the bill. And yes, that includes John Kerry, who is now…