Politics
oracknows | January 3, 2009I can only guess that being voted Age of Autism's "Reporter of the Year" went to David Kirby's head. Of course, the only real competition was Dan Olmsted, who apparently couldn't find the Clinic for Special Children in Amish country (or, more likely, didn't bother to look for it) yet bravely claims there are no autistic Amish (which probably explains why he no longer works for UPI); Steve Wilson of WXYZ News in Detroit, who trotted out long-discredited canards about mercury in vaccines to produce a dishonest, fear mongering report and then showed up in the comments of a blog to make a fool of…
evolvingthoughts | January 2, 2009I's an ego thing, sure, but it's also a handy way of seeing what one did this past year. Here are what I think of as the substantial posts of Evolving Thoughts from 2008. Sorry for the lateness - it's a longish list. I (and my guest blogger) have been real busy this year...
Religion and Creationism
Desecration, blasphemy in public, and manners
Why are there still monkeys?
Can a Christian accept natural selection as true?
Does religion evolve?
The heat of religion
The religious we have always with us
Agriculture and the rise of religion
The origins of agriculture now extended
Darwin, God and…
jrosenhouse | January 2, 2009Over at The New Republic, Jonathan Chait states a central truth regarding the situation in Gaza. He was replying to this standard bit of lazy moral relativism from Ezra Klein:
The point is simple: You can argue, as Israel is arguing, that their air strikes are a response to Hamas's missiles. But to the Palestinians, Hamas's missiles were a response to the blockade (under international law, a blockade is indeed an act of war). Israel, of course, would argue that the blockade was a response to Hamas's past attacks. And Hamas would argue that past attacks were a response to Israel's unceasing…
pharyngula | January 2, 2009I have just returned from my last long drive of the season, finally and regretfully shuttling the last beloved member of the Myers clan off to the distant Minneapolis transportation hub. Now, at last, I can relax, shed of my patriarchal obligations (speaking of which, the hair is getting a bit long and wild, and the beard is looking a bit ferocious…I may have to do something to tame them). I've also feeling the fatigue of waging the war on Christmas — my trigger finger is all calloused, and the recoil bruises on my shoulder would make you weep to see them — so it's nice to have a little…
gregladen | January 2, 2009I live in Minnesota, and our team is the Vikings. So I know something about losing, and from this perspective, I can explain to you what Norm Coleman is doing.
First, the context. Tomorrow, Saturday, the canvassing board will open and count absentee ballots and add that to the mix. As I demonstrated to you mathematically it is highly unlikely that this will change the current situation, in which Al Franken is ahead. To be more exact, the Worst Case Scenario estimate that I made predicts that with 650 or so ballots to open, there is a better than 75% chance that the count will not change…
gregladen | January 1, 2009The current situation is this: We are waiting for a final decision next week on the outcome of the race, and most likely this outcome will start numerically with Franken's current 49 vote lead and be adjusted by the addition of several hundred absentee ballots. The exact number of these ballots to consider is still being fought out.
Following the board's decision next week, probably Wednesday, one of the candidates will be declared the winner (this is the job of the canvassing board .... to declare the winner) and sent to Washington. There may well be further court fights over this, but…
oracknows | December 31, 2008Happy New Year, everyone! Here's hoping that 2009 is better than 2008 was, which, quite frankly (at least for me) sucked big time.
In any case, I'm taking the day off. In the meantime, enjoy Jib Jab's 2008 Year in Review:
Not Jib Jab's best, but still amusing enough. Perhaps it's appropriate for the year that was 2008.
pharyngula | December 31, 2008Get out there and vote on this recommendation to Obama to create nationally required science standards. This is your last chance; it needs to be bumped up to 3rd place to make it into the next round. All it needs is a few hundred more votes!
catdynamics | December 31, 2008That Bank is My Bank
Lew Rockwell compiles a comprehensive list of US Banks' Texas Ratio
In rank order.
Anyone over 100 is near collapse. Any over 50 are in trouble.
I count just over 100 banks with TR > 100.
More between 50 and 100.
oracknows | December 31, 2008I know, I know, I've criticized P.Z. Myer's poll-crashing proclivities as being childish and pointless. However, so few people seem to agree with my take on it that I'm wondering whether, if I can't beat 'em I should join 'em. So let's try it out.
On the Obama Transition Team website, Generation Rescue has put up this question (just type in the search term "Generation Rescue" to find the question:
Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey were named 2008 Couple of the Year (www.ageofautism.com) due to their advocacy work for Generation Rescue. Why hasn't the Transistion Team made autism a top priority…
grrlscientist | December 31, 2008tags: politics, the year in review, JibJab, humor, streaming video
This amusing little video quickly summarizes 2008 -- a rather sad and scary year, if you ask me [2:13]
pharyngula | December 31, 2008They have a vision. They have a dream. They know what shape they want America to take. And they have formed an "organization inspired by the principles of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the Evangelical and Christian Reconstruction movements". And completely oblivious to the irony, with no hint that they understand the associations it will inspire, they have named this organization…the PALIBAN.
2012 is going to be so much fun.
And by "fun", I mean "loaded with despair and exasperation and disappointment in my fellow citizens."
(Read their blog and you might suspect a Poe, though. It's just a…
catdynamics | December 30, 2008a wise commenter over on Calculated Risk noted that the economic crisis will not be over until music has turned to anger again
see, this is how it goes:
this is where we are.
Insufferably cheerful and phoney, but with a kinda snappy dancable beat...
Don't believe me?
This is AOL's "best music of 2008".
I'd almost rather take "Russia's Greatest Love Machine".
We need to start here:
maybe it has already started somewhere, unnoticed.
Then you really get going, like so:
or like this:
Irony comes, with all its temptation and cynicism:
they never did mention "genetic engineer" or "web…
gregladen | December 30, 2008Who?
Yes, the Who too!
So, I'm watching a bit of the Kennedy Center's annual super duper awards. Morgan Freeman won an award. Did you know he was discovered as the driver in Driving Miss Daisy, though he had a long and undistinguished career before that? Did you know that B.B. King has gotten really huge and apparently can't stand up any more, but can still crank it out on Lucille? (Lucille is the name of the guitar.)
Twyla Tharp also got an award. I've always been impressed with her. I've seen her live numerous times. In case you don't know who Twyla Tharp is: Have you seen Michale…
clock | December 30, 2008
And what Joe says in response? He claims that he got his information from NYTimes and Washington Post, not realizing that those two publications are just as superficial as he is. Yes, Joe, throw those out and call Zbig if you want to get educated, not that he does not have his own agenda and his own perspective, but it's a start, the first baby-steps from just not knowing anything yet saying it on TV with smug self-adoration....
jstemwedel | December 30, 2008While we're speaking about revolutions and such, Hilzoy on the ongoing violence in Gaza:
I imagine what people on both sides are thinking is something more like: do you expect us to just sit here and take it? Do you expect us to do nothing? To which my answer is: no, I expect you to try to figure out what has some prospect of actually making things better. Killing people out of anger, frustration, and the sense that you have to do something is just wrong. For both sides.
I'm inclined to think there are generalizable lessons here.
And, that the same responses to bad stuff lead to more bad…
gregladen | December 30, 2008The next few days will be the most interesting, potentially, in the Franken Coleman recount.
Notice that I do not use any words like "Debacle, Fiasco, Circus, Swampmire" and so on when speaking of the recount. This is because this is a democratic (as in America! The Greatest Democracy in the World Love it or Leave It" and all that democratic) process and I am a patriot and I refuse to malign our great nation and its constitutional government. The simple truth is that an election is a kind of adversarial process and when a recount is mandated by the processes, the adversarial parts keep…
grrlscientist | December 30, 2008tags: farewell GW, John Sherffius, politics, humor, comedy
Image: John Sherffius, 28 December 2008 [larger view].
Read the fine print, if you can (and you really aren't expected to be able to read it), then tell me what you think of the current resident of the White House.
drorzel | December 30, 2008Inside Higher Ed has an article on athletics and admissions based on an investigative report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The report compares the SAT scores of football and basketball players to those of other students, but what it really highlights is the difference between science and journalism.
The basis of the report is pretty simple: the paper got the test score reports for 55 major colleges and universities, from data that they are required to file with the NCAA. They compared the average scores for football and basketball players to the scores of other athletes and students…
catdynamics | December 29, 2008so I am out of touch for a few days, and yet again some damn fool goes and starts a war...
I don't want to rehash the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I realised 25 years ago that resolving it was beyond me (though one of my cousins still might...); and I don't particularly care "who started it" for the current round...
What I do not understand is Israel's strategy here?
The airstrikes, while heavy and targeted, in as much as they can be, are not enough to destroy or decapitate Hamas.
They can damage Hamas infrastructure and command&control, but if Hamas is half as competent as Hezbollah…