jlynch | October 21, 2006
HowManyOfMe.com
There are:2,216people with the name John Lynch in the U.S.A.
How many have your name?
Apparently, there are just shy of 135,000 Lynchs and there are 23 Charles Darwins.
HT to Joseph.
jlynch | October 21, 2006Keith says:
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere -- anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.
And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria... ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.
And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not…
jlynch | October 20, 2006Sometimes I despair:
[E]ight lifelike lion statues across from what soon will be Arizona's largest cineplex apparently are a bit too lifelike for some tastes.
Guarding the entrances of a children's water fountain park at a high-profile West Valley retail project, the concrete beasts are depicted raising their rumps in the air, each with a terror-stricken ram trapped under its body in what some perceive as a sexually suggestive pose. And as work crews point out, the lions' tails are swished to the side, leaving their, er, pride in plain view.
Glendale Councilwoman Joyce Clark hasn't seen…
jlynch | October 20, 2006From Kevin Tillman, Army Ranger and brother of Pat:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting…
jlynch | October 20, 2006the Filter? Media to help you, help others, "get" science. David Ng has more details here.
The site features a pic that I used to gross out humanities students (in the mid-90's):
Ah, good times.
jlynch | October 20, 2006
Seed asks "What's the best science TV show of all time?" As I grew up in Ireland in the 70's & 80's, my answer obviously features British science shows. Bora has already mentioned Don't Ask Me with the wonderful Magnus Pyke. I'll add "Tomorrow's World" (more of a future tech show) and "Life on Earth" with David Attenborough. The latter - in 1979 - sealed the deal for me ... I was destined to be a biologist. Never got to sit among Mountain Gorillas though ...
jlynch | October 19, 2006
Lizards And Snakes
On the summer road that ran by our front porchLizards and snakes came out to sun.It was hot as a stove out there, enough to scorchA buzzard's foot. Still, it was funTo lie in the dust and spy on them. Near but remote,They snoozed in the carriage ruts, a smileIn the set of the jaw, a fierce pulse in the throatWorking away like Jack Doyle's after he'd run the mile.
Aunt Martha had an unfair prejudiceAgainst them (as well as being coldToward bats.) She was pretty inflexible in this,Being a spinster and all, and old.So we used to slip them into her knitting box.In the evening…
jlynch | October 18, 2006
I've been waiting for this for a while. The Darwin Online project is now live and ready for customers - your one-stop-shop for scans and transcriptions of not only Darwin's published works (and reviews thereof) but also his notebooks, lesser known papers, and other materials. Props to the good folks at Cambridge University, especially John van Whye, for making this valuable resource available to the history of science community.
jlynch | October 16, 2006It appears that now, even the Joyce scholars think they know biology. From the recent edition of The New York Review:
If we turn now to Darwinian theory itself, which purports to explain these discoveries and which is taught in most schools and colleges in the developed world, we find that it is based on, as Darwin puts it, "the unguided processes of random variation and natural selection." Take the first part: random variation. By random is meant, presumably, accidental, and clearly accidents do happen, but there is no scientific evidence to the effect that the transformations that took…
jlynch | October 15, 2006From the Telegraph:
The new five-year study of more than 2,200 adults claims to have found a link between obesity and the decline in a person's cognitive function. The research, conducted by French scientists, which is published in this month's Neurology journal, involved men and women aged between 32 and 62 taking four mental ability tests that were then repeated five years later.
The researchers found that people with a Body Mass Index - a measure of body fat - of 20 or less could recall 56 per cent of words in a vocabulary test, while those who were obese, with a BMI of 30 or higher, could…
jlynch | October 15, 2006Jake, Evil Monkey, and Shelly are at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. Jake has this to say about the state of research:
There are the researchers of breathtaking sophistication who hide tiny details in the fine print of their poster that are more interesting than my entire thesis. But for each one of them there are fifty "We removed left hemisphere of rat. Rat was sad." and at least a hundred "While subject was in fMRI, we showed them a Marx brothers video as opposed to a documentary on the meadow vole. Activity was different. We don't know why."
That made me laugh. I don't know…
jlynch | October 15, 2006
Yesterday's Miami versus Florida International game "featured" a bench-clearing brawl that should result in more than just a few token one-game suspensions. The NCAA needs to get involved and I agree with Kevin that scholarships should be lost. Miami seem to be a little out of control, what with brawling in the tunnel with LSU at the Peach Bowl or classlessly stomping on the Cardinal at Louisville last month.
jlynch | October 14, 2006Detroit sweeps Oakland 4-0 with a 6-3 comeback today in the Motor City ... as an honorary Michigander by marriage, I approve of this.
jlynch | October 14, 2006ASU are playing #3 USC this evening. The game last year was a classic, although ASU lost 38-28 after leading 21-3 at the half. Here is what I wrote last year. I have my doubts that today's game will be quite as close.
Update #1: End of the first half and ASU are down 21-7. Once again, ASU have no passing game (Carpenter is 6 for 11 and 86 yards), Ryan Torain has been practically the only Sun Devil playing (12 rushes for 34 yards and one TD; 2 receptions for 40 yards), and Zach Miller is unused except as a (very effective) blocker. Dumb unforced errors as always are hurting.
Update #2: Well…
jlynch | October 14, 2006Mike S. Adams writes (and Denyse O'Leary concurs):
In the famous 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial, Clarence Darrow stated: "For God's sake, let the children have their minds kept open - close no doors to their knowledge; shut no door from them. Make a distinction between theology and science. Let them have both. Let them be taught. Let them both live." Have you ever met a 21st Century liberal who believes that both evolution and creation should be taught in schools?
Problem is, Darrow never said this. It was Dudley Malone answering William Jennings Bryan. An unlikely choice for the Scopes case,…
jlynch | October 14, 2006What is the "one institution free society is dependent upon for its survival"?
Why it is "heterosexual marriage" of course. Or at least says self-proclaimed "muscle head" Kevin McCullough. Free society depends on heterosexual marriage. Silly liberals, everyone knows that.
jlynch | October 14, 2006Over at Effect Measure, Revere gives an update on the Tripoli Six (see my earlier post). Some readers may have noticed that the New York Times devoted an editorial to the case today and the editors of Nature also weighed in [pdf]:
Most readers of Nature take it for granted that they can travel to work each day, free to enquire, express opinions and criticize government policy, without fear of intimidation or reprisals -- let alone imprisonment or torture. Sadly, these freedoms can only be dreamt of in many countries of the world, where academics must live with, and often suffer directly,…