Politics
grrlscientist | March 30, 2009tags: politics, good citizenship, humor, America, streaming video
This streaming video provides essential educational advice to Americans on how to be good citizens -- I was especially impressed with Mary's frugal meals, but seriously, she'd spend le$$ if she stopped eating meat altogether! [10:39]
Hattip: Travelgirl.
jlynch | March 29, 2009Matt Taibbi on Jake DeSantis' narcissism:
Only a person with a habitually overinflated sense of self-worth could think he deserves a $700,000 retention bonus, even if it has to be paid by taxpayers, when in reality no one "deserves" that much money. It may be that some people do get paid that much, but most people who make that much money have enough sense to realize their cushy lifestyles are an accident of fate, of birth, of class, not something that is "supported" by some unwritten natural law of compensation.
Hey Jake, it's not like you were curing cancer. You were a fucking commodities…
pharyngula | March 29, 2009You have to watch this loon making his case for how harmless global warming is in testimony with Lord Christopher Monckton (thanks, England…really, we have enough wacky ideologues without you sending yours over here). Monckton dismisses the problem of CO2 by claiming that CO2 levels were much higher in the pre-Cambrian, and that the stuff is just "plant food".
It's plant food ... So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people…
gregladen | March 28, 2009Well, I suppose we could go get guns and knives and bludgeons and just go KILL HER. That certainly would be a kind of ironic justice. But since we are all peace loving non violent types, I suppose we are going to have to make sure she does not win the next election. Whatever. But clearly, one way or another, we have to figure out a way to
REPLACE MICHELE BACHMANN!!!!
Which is what the Replace Michele Bachmann Web Carnival is all about. The new, revived edition of this carnival is up and it is known as:
Revenge of Daughter of the Replace Michele Bachmann Blog Carnival
Submit your posts…
grrlscientist | March 28, 2009tags: sesame street explains madoff scandal, politics, satire, , humorstreaming video
In this video, Ernie and Cookie Monster explain the Bernie Madoff scandal .. so even kids can understand it [1:18]
razib | March 27, 2009Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, has a post up where he notes how bad political "experts" are. Nevertheless, I'm a little confused, isn't the whole point of political pundits & stock pickers to be entertaining, as opposed to expert? It seems that the premise that the public is rationally consuming expertise is just false.
jstemwedel | March 27, 2009When, speaking to journalists about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, you make a claim that the epidemic is:
a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem
those listening who assume you are committed to honesty (because of that commandment about not bearing false witness) and that you are well-informed about the current state of our epidemiological knowledge (because, as the Pope, you have many advisors, and owing to your importance as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, leading scientists…
oracknows | March 27, 2009Since its very inception, the Huffington Post has been a hotbed of antivaccine lunacy. Shortly after that, antivaccine woo-meisters like David Kirby, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kimg Stagliano, and, apparently, one of the editors (Special Projects Editor Rachel Sklar) were joined by all-purpose woo-meisters like Deepak Chopra. True, for a brief period of time there appeared to be an occasional voice for vaccines on HuffPo, but they never lasted. After all, RFK, Jr.'s been there nearly four years now and David Kirby almost as long, while pro-vaccine commentary pops up briefly, gets shouted down by…
amillikan | March 26, 2009Over the past three days, the Texas State Board of Education has heard over 50 testimonies debating a proposed amendment to reinstate the requirement of teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of evolution in the statewide science curriculum. The proposed regulation, which has provided creationism a place in the classroom in the past, alarmed scientists not only for its potential repercussions in Texas, but because of the state's large textbook market as well, which forces textbook authors to bend to the state's curricula. To their relief, the bill failed this morning in a…
clock | March 26, 2009How should students learn about evolution?
On Thursday morning's Takeaway (at about 6:30 a.m. or 8:30 a.m.
Eastern), we're talking with Don McLeroy, chair of the Texas State
Board of Education. He's believes that students should have the
opportunity to question evolution (and that God created the Earth a
few thousand years ago). Texas is expected to vote this week on new
science standards that could influence textbooks and how more states
treat this controversial issue.
"Evolution and education with Texas State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy"
The Texas Board of Education is in the midst…
evolvingthoughts | March 25, 2009Some links and issues I have come across lately.
Those who read this and my other blog know that I am deeply opposed to internet censorship. Recently, Wikileaks put up a leaked list supposed to be the list being used in Australian trials of what will be a mandatory blacklist of URLs. First the minister said it wasn't the list, then he said it had some similarities, and now he says it's substantially the right list but there have been edits, but that's not my point. Now, in Germany, a Wikileaks host has been raided at the behest of a German minister. It's even possible that the Australian…
clock | March 25, 2009I first posted this on June 24, 2004 on the www.jregrassroots.org forums, then republished on August 23, 2004 on Science And Politics, then a couple of times on this blog.
Why did I decide to re-post it today?
Because I have been thinking and reading about the current state and potential future of journalism, including science journalism, and writing (still in my head) a post about it. So, I am forcing myself to go through my evolution of thinking about the topic, digging through my categories on the Media, Science Reporting, Blogging, Open Science, onlin Technology, etc. and this essay was…
pontiff | March 25, 2009A press release from Caltech about Steve Koonin, who was the boss of my bosses during a SURF project and was a student of my undergraduate advisor at Caltech (and also responsible for severe drops in GPAs for many of the physicist students I knew at Caltech :)):
Steven Koonin, visiting associate in physics and former provost of Caltech, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as Undersecretary for Science in the U.S. Department of Energy. The position requires Senate confirmation. Koonin is currently chief scientist for BP, where he is responsible for guiding the company's long-range…
gregladen | March 25, 2009"The Bachmann Effect" is now officially a phenomenon.
Danny Thomas made the spit take famous, in his TV show Make Room for Daddy. He's always be drinking a cup of coffee when someone would say something to which he would react with such great and sudden incredulity as to suffer a visceral reaction making it impossible for him to do anything other than spit the coffee out in an impressive atomized spray. An excellent example of a spit take is in the following video, which is a promo form the re-make of Make Room for Daddy, called Make Room for Granddaddy. It's at 30 to 32 seconds, and it is…
ddobbs | March 24, 2009Skip this post if you don't want to read a writer responding point by point to a self-indulgent, insubstantial attack by a major academic.
I should say right off that I've long admired the more measured critiques that J. Douglas Bremner, a PTSD researcher and professor of radiology and psychiatry at Emory University, has offered about the pharmaceutical industry's exploitation of the neurochemical model of depression. My regard for this work made his critique of attack on my article about PTSD, "The Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome," all the more disappointing.
I'm not disappointed because…
stoat | March 24, 2009Hearing about the Obama plan on BBC R4, my first reaction was but this is an obvious disaster for the tax-payer; a give-away to those who invest in it. If I had spare cash and lived in the USA, I'd certainly buy in. I would blog it, but the obvious suspects have already done so and said what I would have more lucidly and with greater credibility, so I won't bother.
gregladen | March 24, 2009Back before the election in November, Stephanie Zvan and I had dinner to discuss the idea of forming a community of like minded bloggers to exchange resources and information. Mike Haurbrich was part of that conversation as well, but not at dinner that particular evening, which was at The Blue Nile. During that conversation, and in subsequent email conversations and over a pizza here and a Martguerita there, two projects developed, neither one of which was the blogger community resource that we had envisioned.
One of those projects was our joint blog, Quiche Moraine, which has been goin…
gregladen | March 24, 2009In conversation with reporters earlier today Coleman noted that he does not anticipate this case going to the US Supreme Court, though he did apparently say this in his usual smarmy way so he can change his mind later. He did indicate that he DOES anticipate bringing the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court if the judicial panel now considering the case rules against his claim.
source
gregladen | March 24, 2009I live next to this crazy person's congressional district and I do not want the yahoos who live there pouring over the border of My Fair City with their guns and rabid dogs, mullets and swastika-bearing pickups. Michele Bachmann barely makes it to Winged Monkey level, and this is well demonstrated here:
More details here.
More details and important request below the fold:
Should Bachmann Be Censured for Her Recent Remarks?
Politico: Bachmann urges "armed" revolt over climate plan.
At Political Animal
I recommend writing your representative in congress and asking that Bachmann be…
gregladen | March 24, 2009As long as we understand exactly what it really is...
Debbitage has an excellent post responding to a piece in Higher Ed about critique v. objectivity in the classroom. The comparison is between "Objectivist" teaching and "Criticism Based" teaching...
An important aspect of criticism-based teaching is that if done right, it is able to correct the teacher's own flaws. Objectivist teaching depends on the teacher to correctly draw the fact-opinion border, and to select the correct facts to teach. A criticism-based approach, done correctly, enables students (particularly those coming from a…