Fucking Morons
mikethemadbiologist | January 2, 2007So Michael Fumento has issued a challenge to put 'odds' on avian influenza, thinking that somehow I've stated that an avian influenza pandemic is likely (he's also accused me, a scientist, of being "anti-scientist" and "alarmist"). Well, I'm not putting odds down because I've never said that a pandemic is likely. Then again, one should hardly be surprised when a professional conservative completely distorts what one says.
In fact, in the post, I wrote:
We can argue about public health priorities (avian flu isn't my top priority personally).
One would think that was clear, but I made the…
mikethemadbiologist | December 31, 2006According to an AP-AOL poll, 25% of Americans think Jesus will return next year. Not 'soon', but within the next 365 days. Twenty-five percent. That's higher than the nineteen percent who think that we will discover extra-terrestrial life next year...
mikethemadbiologist | December 30, 2006You might not know this, but, due to pressure from Republicans beholden to batshit lunatic creationists theological conservatives, park rangers at the Grand Canyon are not allowed to discuss how old the Grand Canyon is. Really. I'm not making this up. From PEER:
Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than…
mikethemadbiologist | December 28, 2006
My grandmother used to say that if you didn't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. She did not say, "You should lie and make stuff up." Which leads us to one of David Broder's most inexplicable columns yet. Broder, in his column about recently deceased former President Gerald Ford, writes:
Many of those alumni who first exercised real power under Ford remained active in government. For all that he has borrowed from Ronald Reagan, President Bush owes the greatest debt to three stalwarts of economic and national security policy inherited from Ford -- Vice President…
mikethemadbiologist | December 22, 2006Pam at Pandagon describes two workers in Texas "who were fired after praying over another staff member's cubicle and anointing it with olive oil." Where had I heard about similar lunacy before? The Alito hearings. From the archives, where it was titled "At Least It's Not Crisco...:
...or K-Y jelly. From the Wall Street Journal via Salon:
The Wall Street Journal has just reported that three Christian ministers claim to have snuck into a Senate hearing room in order to anoint the chairs that will be used for Samuel Alito's confirmation hearing next week.
"We did adequately apply oil to all…
mikethemadbiologist | December 21, 2006Revere, over at Effect Measure, has a solid critique of Michael Fumento's opinion piece about avian flu. What the piece shows is just how ignorant of public health Fumento really is:
1) Many of the necessary steps involved in preparing for a flu pandemic, such as surge production capacity, can be used to produce 'ordinary' flu vaccines.
2) Once a surveillance system is developed, it can be 'repurposed' for other threats as needed. This has happened several times, in different countries.
3) As Revere notes, Fumento's real target is government spending. When will we see Fumento's column…
mikethemadbiologist | December 14, 2006One is from Nicholas Kristof and one is from batshit lunatic Ron Moore (the former judge who placed a Ten Commandments megalith in the Alabama Supreme Court). First, Kristof:
Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let's hope that the Atheist Left doesn't revive them. We've suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance.
Now Christopath Roy Moore:
Enough evidence exists for Congress to question [Muslim Keith] Ellison's qualifications to be a member of Congress as well as his commitment to the…
mikethemadbiologist | December 12, 2006
Congressman Walter Jones, at a press conference calling for displays of nativity scenes on public property (because that is the most important issue facing the Republic):
There is no future for America unless the Judeo-Christian foundation of America is protected.
Nativity scenes aren't exactly, well, Judeo. I should know: I'm a Judeoist.
mikethemadbiologist | December 10, 2006Because said officials are even more ignorant than the Pundits of the Potomac. A few months ago, Jeff Stein published an op-ed about the many officials who are charged with anti-terrorism and who also know nothing about the Middle East--to the point where they don't know if Hezbollah is Sunni or Shiite. Stein has followed up with an interview with incoming House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes.
As far as I can tell, Reyes is marginally more informed than his Republican predecessors, which is damning with faint praise. Shakes and Ezra Klein both pile on Reyes, so I won't do that here…
mikethemadbiologist | December 9, 2006Here's the picture:
(from here)
That's right: C.G.B Spender. Well, that is, if the loons responding to this post by Orac about 9/11 woo are to be believed. Fucking morons.
mikethemadbiologist | December 7, 2006I know with a war on, the using of the Constitution for toilet paper, and so on, this concern of mine is trivial, but it is so very symbolic. By way of digby, we find out that the White House sells hand soap. And, you guessed it, it contains triclosan. Really. Why don't they just put cadmium in it? It would be so much faster. What morons.
mikethemadbiologist | December 7, 2006A colleague looking to buy Christmas gifts went to the Discovery Channel store page and noticed that boys and girls had two different pages. It's nice to see that a company supposedly dedicated to scientific inquiry has decided that girls don't like or want science.
What do I mean? Well, here's the first five gifts for the boys:
Discovery Whodunit? Forensics Lab
Discovery Fingerprint Lab
Discovery Speed Detector
Radio Control Equalizer Stunt Car
Discovery Remote Control Chromashift Roboreptile
Here's what the first item looks like:
Very sciency. Now for the girls:
Discovery Ultimate…
mikethemadbiologist | December 7, 2006...find anything the government does that works and break it. I really never thought that we would be debating lead standards:
The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.
Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.
A preliminary staff review released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The…
mikethemadbiologist | December 6, 2006
Snuggles McCain demonstrating his vaunted 'independence'
It seems more and more people are finally paying close attention to Mitt Romney and John McCain. While I've talked about Romney's idiocy before, The Boston Phoenix did a great job of skewering McCain, so I'll turn it over to them:
Arizona senator John McCain appears to be the nation's most popular Republican. That, at least, is what most polls show. It's not entirely clear why. He has authored little noteworthy legislation during his 20 years in the Senate and, in fact, has accomplished almost nothing beyond co-sponsoring the McCain-…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2006
For those of you just joining tonight's program, the Nazis are the bad guys
Just when you think the Peter Pan Right can't possibly get any daffier, they just manage to do so. By way of Crooked Timber comes this synopsis of a Michael Novak article in the Standard:
Josh Marshall links to a Michael Novak piece in the Standard - a piece that is surely the apotheosis of Green Lantern foreign policy (well, until next week); complete with vulnerability to the hideous yellow streak that is the MSM.
It begins ... horribly:
Today, the purpose of war is sharply political, not military; psychological…
mikethemadbiologist | December 4, 2006The NY Times had a pearl-clutching article by Daniel Glover about supposed conflicts of interest that progressive bloggers have (even though they typically identify those conflicts...), which has been rebutted all over the place, so I won't waste time doing that. I do have a simple question for Glover:
How come someone like David Sirota who, whenever he discusses anything to do with Sherrod Brown or Paul Hackett, readily admits that he has a 'conflict of interest', whereas someone like Henry Kissinger, who has received millions of dollars in fees from foreign governments, is usually not…
mikethemadbiologist | December 4, 2006The story about Kenyan religious leaders who are attempting to stifle evolutionary biology at the Kenyan National Museum is making the rounds of the progressive political blogs (interesting, how the right-wing blogs aren't covering this...). Within this story, there is a real tragedy: Kenya has a serious problem in treating certain types of bacterial dysentery due to the evolution of antibiotic resistance.
mikethemadbiologist | December 3, 2006While my theological beliefs (which have very little to do with my religious observance) tend towards that 'ol time agnostic monism, Nicholas Kristof, in one of the daffiest columns he's ever written, has decided that the Christopath Right "has largely retreated from the culture wars." Therefore, any resumption of said wars must be squarely laid at the feet of "the Atheist Left."
No, Special K, the Right didn't "retreat", they were driven off the battlefield. There is a huge difference.
Kristof's column is nothing more than Compulsive Centrist Disorder rearing its head in the culture wars…
mikethemadbiologist | December 3, 2006
Glenn Greenwald, in an excellent post about privacy in the computer database era, relates the following chillling story about the public release of his personal information (italics mine):
I had an ultimately inconsequential but nonetheless quite illustrative personal experience with this several months ago. Back in July, when right-wing blogs were obsessed with investigating my personal life, including where I spend my time, this comment was left at Wizbang, in response to a July 21 post by Wizbang's Kevin Aylward:
Kevin,
Glenn Greenwald departed the United States on June 22, 2006 and hasn'…
mikethemadbiologist | December 2, 2006A while ago, I defined Compulsive Centrist Disorder:
Complusive Centrist Disorder has always bothered me because a certain policy or view will mysteriously be labelled 'centrist' regardless of where it actually falls on the political spectrum, and suddenly it will be far more respectable than other policies. It's intellectual cowardice and laziness of a high order....
In this case, you might actually think my proposal is the best policy. However, the problem with Compulsive Centrist Disorder is that it short-circuits any discussion, since the compromise is automatically assumed to be a good…