Fucking Morons
mikethemadbiologist | March 19, 2007
Yum. Theological conservative tastes GOOOODDD!
Full disclosure: I have never bought into the belief of the Compulsive Centrists that John McCain is a moderate. A detailed look at his voting record shows that he is often very conservative, with the occasional moment of lucidity (e.g., recognizing that global warming is actually happening). But it is truly pathetic to watch a man who clearly doesn't agree with the theological conservatives twist himself into a pretzel in an effort to placate them. He's done it with evolution. Now, he is 'confused' about condoms:
The unthinkable has…
mikethemadbiologist | March 16, 2007
Hear the Mighty Roar of the Peter Pan Conservatives: those conservatives who think that policy failures are not due to strategic, tactical, or logistical flaws but solely due to to a lack of will. It appears that this way of thinking has completely permeated Little Lord Pontchartrain's brain. Neocon Irwin Stelzer had a luncheon meeting with the president. His description is chilling.
Stelzer describes four 'lessons' that were discussed. Here's the second lesson:
Second lesson: Will trumps wealth. The Romans, the tsars, and other rich world powers fell to poorer ones because they lacked…
mikethemadbiologist | March 15, 2007
To prevent brain damage, the Surgeon General recommends that statements by Michael Egnor be read using approved devices such as the StupidView9000
Orac bravely dives deeper into the Discovery Institute's creationist drivel, and reports on the continuing ignorant idiocy of Michael Egnor. I don't know what's worse: Egnor's willful ignorance, or his pseudo-victimization complex. Let's deal with the ignorance first.
In an interview with Casey Luskin, Egnor states (italics mine):
EGNOR: Well, it's a pretty funny claim on the part of Darwinists. It's sort of like Al Gore claiming that he…
mikethemadbiologist | March 13, 2007...missing circuits in your head. James Carroll, in House of War, describes the bumpy road that nuclear hawk Paul Nitze, who advocated nuclear first strikes during the Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis, had during his Senate confirmation hearings (p. 281-2; italics and bold mine):
And then an odd thing happened. The Senate confirmation of the nomination should have been routine, but a conservative young Republican congressman from Illinois, looking to make a mark by embarrassing the Kennedy administration, attacked Nitze from out of nowhere. The congressman charged him with having…
mikethemadbiologist | March 12, 2007I haven't been able to respond to Michael Egnor's idiocy about evolution because I've been recovering from a meeting, but fortunately my fellow ScienceBloglings have. But I'll add my two cents anyway. Here's the really stupid part from Egnor (italics mine):
Doctors don't study evolution. Doctors never study it in medical school, and they never use evolutionary biology in their practice. There are no courses in medical school on evolution. There are no 'professors of evolution' in medical schools. There are no departments of evolutionary biology in medical schools.
The evolution--not the…
mikethemadbiologist | March 11, 2007Here's a topical Senate speech for you; see if you can guess who said this:
Every senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 3,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land - young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes.
There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about cutting and running, or national honor or courage. It does not take any…
mikethemadbiologist | March 5, 2007...high levels of resistance to cephalosporins and beta-lactam antibiotics are sure to follow. Sunday, the Washington Post covered the FDA approval of the use of cefquinome in cattle to treat respiratory pneumonia. The article provides a pretty good synopsis of what happened, so I won't summarize the whole thing, but this decision represents a complete corruption of the regulatory process by industry. It's that simple.
Here's why cefquinome use in agriculture is really stupid: bacteria that evolve resistance to cefquinome, also become resistant to cefepime, a vital drug in the treatment…
mikethemadbiologist | March 3, 2007Seeing the Forest wonders how the ridiculous post-Oscar smear of Al Gore was pulled off by a no-name organization with assets of $100,000:
...no one should have been surprised when Al Gore was attacked for the positive press he and his movie received last weekend. An Inconvenient Truth was sure to win an Oscar. Gore would then speak to a billion people about the problem of global warming. The well-funded global warming denial industry would respond, and $mearing people is their standard method of attack. They destroy our leaders.
And yet, there was surprise and a lack of preparation to fight…
mikethemadbiologist | February 27, 2007
Beta test version of Conservapedia graphical interface. Isn't he reassuring?
What happens when you take Science Blogs "basic concepts" and add it to Conservapedia, the information website for fucking morons? You get more fun than a barrel of monkeys (which, of course, are not related to humans...). Here's what the Stupid People have to say about genes (this is the entire definition):
A section of DNA that codes for the production of a protein or a portion of a protein. The gene is the fundamental unit of heredity. Although the gene is the fundamental unit of heredity, changes in genes (so…
mikethemadbiologist | February 26, 2007When I heard that Republican Senator and presidential candidate John McCain spoke at the Discovery Institute, I was disappointed but not surprised. In March, there's going to be a report released about antibiotic resistance in bacteria. A major finding of the report: roughly 40,000 people die every year from hospital-acquired antibiotic resistant bacterial infections.
The problem of antibiotic resistance is, fundamentally, a problem of evolutionary biology. Species of bacteria which had very few resistant strains (or none at all) now contain high frequencies of resistance strains (e.g…
mikethemadbiologist | February 26, 2007...the man who helped bring you Iran-Contra, you know you've gone too far. Seymour Hersh has a new article in the New Yorker about the Bush Administration's Middle East 'strategy.' It's more ridiculous than Iran-Contra.
Why do I say that? Because we're backing indirectly Sunni groups in Lebanon opposed to Hizbollah that are linked to Al-Queda.
Let's replay that last sentence:
Because we're backing indirectly Sunni groups in Lebanon opposed to Hizbollah that are linked to Al-Queda.
[sound of jaw hitting floor]
I swear to the Intelligent Designer, these guys are dumber than Conservapedia.…
mikethemadbiologist | February 23, 2007
Beta test version of Conservapedia graphical interface. Isn't he reassuring?
I feel bad for John Stewart and Stephen Colbert because when idiots unintentionally parody themselves, their gigs will be up. Conservapedia is going to be the gift that giving...for bloggers anyway. Here's what it says about the Holocaust (and, yes, this is the entire entry):
The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi[s] are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is…
mikethemadbiologist | February 22, 2007Some of my fellow ScienceBloglings have written about Conservapedia's treatment of evolution. What has always puzzled me about creationists is the rather frequent denial of mutation. For example, in the section on macroevolution, titled "Is the theory of macroevolution true?"*--which should tell you what's to come right away, the entry reads:
2. Differences between organisms can be explained by known mechanisms of genetic mutation.
* Counter: There has not been enough time for mutation to generate existing biological diversity.
* Counter: There has been enough time enough…
mikethemadbiologist | February 22, 2007...we might want to issue them rifles. From the NY Times:
"We're behind the power curve, and we can't piddle around," Maj. Gen. Harry M. Wyatt III, commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, said in an interview. He added that one-third of his soldiers lacked the M-4 rifles preferred by active-duty soldiers and that there were also shortfalls in night vision goggles and other equipment. If his unit is going to be sent to Iraq next year, he said, "We expect the Army to resource the Guard at the same level as active-duty units."
...Capt. Christopher Heathscott, a spokesman for the Arkansas…
mikethemadbiologist | February 21, 2007
Can someone explain to me why the Nevada Democrats want to host a primary presidential debate on Fox News?
I guess the Nevada Dems are rewarding Fox News for its fair and unbiased portrayal of Democratic...aw, fuck it. This is so stupid, you can't even mock it with sarcasm. I had thought that after the 2006, the establishment Democrats had removed the giant "Kick Me" sign welded to their collective posterior.
Oh, and here's a description of the hatchet job Fox News did to the Democrats the last time Fox News hosted a Democratic debate:
For an example of how disrespectful and…
mikethemadbiologist | February 17, 2007Someone should tell Republican Congresscritter Don Young that if you're going to accuse Democrats of treason and call for their hanging, it would help if your own party does not accept campaign funds from backers of Afghan terrorists. From CBS News:
CBS News has confirmed that Alishtari is a donor to the Republican Party, as he claims on his curriculum vitae. Alishtari gave $15,500 to the National Republican Campaign Committee between 2002 and 2004, according to Federal Election Commission records. That amount includes $13,000 in 2003, a year when he claims to have been named NRCC New York…
mikethemadbiologist | February 16, 2007...and William Donohue of the Catholic League says nothing. The Family Research Council is a rightwing faith-tank and advocacy group. And at least one board member and blogger thinks it is also very Protestant. Here's what FRC board member Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote:
Nevertheless, the office he holds is an unbiblical institution based in a monarchial ministry that is incompatible with the New Testament's vision of the church. Furthermore, he claims also to be a head of state -- a situation that adds untold layers of additional confusion…
mikethemadbiologist | February 14, 2007I know, I know: dog bites man. Anyway, I received this note from a colleague who attended a Seattle screening of Randy Olson's Flock of Dodos:
...There were lots of ID folk in the audience, since the Discovery Institute is here in Seattle. So we had some pretty antagonistic questions. But what was really amazing is that Discovery Institute folks secretly tape recorded the whole event and posted a podcast with edited segments to their website, taking Randy's comments out of context and making it look as if he was retracting the claims in his film.
Talk about slimy tactics! I've never…
mikethemadbiologist | February 7, 2007I hate being right, but I knew the Mighty Conservative Wurlitzer was going to slime Amanda and Shakes. Before I get to a detailed discussion of the NY Times article about the whole blogger kerfuffle, I have a very simple question.
What if Amanda and Shakes, rather than being campaign bloggers, had taken important administrative, behind-the-scenes jobs with the Edwards campaign?
Seriously, both parties have had all sorts of people as campaign workers. So why are bloggers a big deal? If they were doing a bad job, then they should be fired because of their shoddy work. But many campaign…
mikethemadbiologist | February 5, 2007Never doubt the prognostication of the Mad Biology. A couple of days ago, I wondered if the Mighty Conservative Wurlitzer would unleash its awesome fury against the Edwards campaign bloggers. Turned out I was right. First, there was some hardhitting investigative reporting from the National Review bloggysphere that yielded...nothing. But then Michele Malkin got in on the act.
For those of you who don't who Michele Malkin is, one of her claims to fame is authoring a book that defends the racially-motivated interment of Japanese-Americans during World War II (because if it's ok when FDR did…