Ministry of Science and Culture
thusspakezuska | April 30, 2009What's a good citizen to do if he or she thinks that cough and sneeze is swine flu? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends:
Stay home if you get sick. CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.
This afternoon I've been reading Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich - which is ever so more relevant now, if that were possible, than when it was originally released. Near the end she notes:
It is common, among the nonpoor, to think of poverty as a sustainable condition -…
thusspakezuska | January 28, 2009Perhaps you have noticed our newly redesigned front page, and on that page, a link to the Rightful Place Project. In his inaugural address, President Obama promised to restore science to its "rightful place". Seed Media Group is starting a dialog in response, asking the question "What is science's rightful place?", through Seed Magazine and ScienceBlogs. Our benevolent overlordz have asked us to offer our thoughts in response to this question.
You'll see at the Rightful Place page that you can submit your own thoughts on this question, and there is a link to the Rightful Place blog to…
thusspakezuska | December 27, 2008I wasn't able to blog this when I first saw it in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Dec. 19, but it annoyed me so much I hung onto the paper and saved it for a time when I could.
The typical traffic light is roughly the size of a large table fan.
The hardware necessary to switch a signal from green to amber to red in a fail-safe way can probably fit into the space of an old desktop computer.
So why does Philadelphia need to install control boxes as big as refrigerators to operate its traffic lights?
Thank you, Department of Homeland Security. Requirements for specific kinds of surveillance…
thusspakezuska | October 17, 2007Washington Post reports on the appointment of Susan Orr:
The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of
family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services
who has been critical of contraception.
Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. She will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.
In a 2001 article in The…
thusspakezuska | October 12, 2007By now you've no doubt heard that Al Gore and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I must confess that this announcement gives me no small degree of schadenfreude when I think of how the denizens of the White House must be feeling about this.
The LA Times notes:
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to an environmental concern is regarded by many as a symbolic rebuke of the Bush administration's reluctance to join a U.N.-led process to reduce global greenhouse gases. The prize often reflects the aspirations of the Nobel committee as much…
thusspakezuska | August 19, 2007Have you read the Nature editorial? Have you read my earlier post about it? Maybe what you are wanting is a deeper textual analysis of the editorial itself. You've come to the right place.
Men [sick]
Our 1869 mission statement is out of date.
That's what the bitchy, complaining women are making us say.
It was 1833 when the English polymath William Whewell first coined the word 'scientist'. Over subsequent decades, the word gradually replaced such commonly used terms as 'natural philosophers' and 'men of science.
Scientist, you see , actually means "men of science". So even if we changed…
thusspakezuska | February 5, 2007Low on cash? Need to repay student loans? Not bothered by morals or respect for reality? Then the American Enterprise Institute has a deal for you!
... according to an article in The Guardian, a British newspaper [the AEI], a right-leaning think tank that has received more than $1.6-million from Exxon Mobil, wrote letters to scientists asking for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs," The Guardian reported.
All you have to do is write a "critical review" of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Serve up a little truthiness and $10,000…
thusspakezuska | January 16, 2007Most of you are no doubt aware of this, but it's been ages since I've had to submit a government grant proposal (one of the perks of unemployment). But I just read in the Jan. 12 Chronicle of Higher Education a First Person article by Carol Kolmerten about the exciting new world of Grants.gov.
Recently, I tried to help a faculty member at my college submit a grant proposal to a National Institutes of Health competition. I soon discovered that one can no longer submit a grant to NIH directly. One has to submit it through Grants.gov. I estimate that it took me more than 25 hours to try to…
thusspakezuska | December 13, 2006Today marks the debut of guest-blogger Cynthia Burack at TSZ. A professor at the Ohio State University, Cynthia is a political scientist who tools are feminist political theory and political psychology. We have worked together in the past on several projects, including work on group dynamics and resistance to diversity (see sidebar, NWSA Journal article) and on evaluating STEM department websites for diversity. What follows, however, is entirely Cynthia's work. I am grateful that she has allowed me to present it here. I think it is very important for all scientists to hear.
Zuska has…
thusspakezuska | December 11, 2006The Chronicle of Higher Education published a little tongue-in-cheek holiday gift guide in the December 8 issue. I really liked this item: the Scientific Integrity Calendar, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists and available at their website.
In the summer of 2006, creative minds throughout America had the opportunity to show off their artistic and comedic talents in support of independent science by entering Science Idol: the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest. Artists of all skill levels submitted hundreds of entries dealing with political interference in science,…
thusspakezuska | November 17, 2006Yay! Finally! The good guys - that's us - are finally getting their/our own Discovery Institute! Only ours will actually promote real science and science policy as opposed to God-told-me-so science and science policy. Ed Brayton over at Dispatches From the Culture Wars has a post on the nifty new think tank with a link to a Washington Post article about it. Go over to Ed's pad and read the quote he excerpted from the Post article. It is soooooooo good.
thusspakezuska | November 3, 2006What's the most important local political race to you this year (as a citizen, as a scientist)?...
Dear god, please save me from Rick Santorum...oh wait. Is that a bit strange, to be praying for relief from Mr. RightWingChristianFundamentalist? Mr. EvolutionIsEvilNaziPropaganda? Mr. WomenShouldBeInTheHomeAndPregnant? Mr. ILiveInVirginiaButIWantPennsylvaniaToPayForMyKidsEducation?
Last year I moved from Kansas and thought with great relief, "No more Sam Brownback as my senator!!!" Of course, coming to Pennsylvania, I just exchanged him for Rick Santorum.
However, there is the very real…
thusspakezuska | August 28, 2006Last Tuesday's the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that evolutionary biology, you will recall, had been left off a list of eligible science majors for students applying for federal SMART grants.
A Department of Education spokeswoman had assured us this was only due to a "clerical consolidation" and not any nefarious intent of minions from the Ministry of Science and Culture.
But the prayers of the science community have been answered, the Chronicle reports today.
For on the third day, which was last Friday, the Department of Education announced that evolutionary biology had…
thusspakezuska | August 23, 2006From the August 22, 2006 Chronicle of Higher Education daily news update:
Educators Question Absence of Evolution From List of Majors Eligible for New Grants
Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed to reward students majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain foreign languages.
That absence apparently indicates that students in the evolutionary sciences do not qualify for the grants, and some observers are wondering whether the…