Politics
pharyngula | May 3, 2008Sometimes, I am extremely annoyed with the principle of separation of church and state — it leads to absurdities, like this recent court decision that a gay student support group was was using unconstitutional tactics — it was using materials that mentioned that some religions are more tolerant of homosexuality than others. This is, apparently, an endorsement of particular religions and therefore violates church-state separation.
Well, yeah, it is — for specific subjects, like gay rights, science education, and pacifism, some religions clearly are better than others — yet because we have to…
hrynyshyn | May 3, 2008It wasn't easy keeping my 18-month-old son out of trouble in the crowd that had gathered yesterday to hear Hillary Clinton speak. But it was worth it, if for no other reason than the opportunities to hear presidential candidates deliver their message unfiltered and unedited are rare out here in western North Carolina. Of course, I was disappointed with what I heard on Hendersonville's Main Street. But the little guy didn't do any damage to himself or anyone else, or anyone else's dog, and I did come away with something to think about.
I was disappointed because I'm one of those tree-hugging…
oracknows | May 2, 2008Over the last few years, depressingly, we've witnessed a rise in antivaccinationist activism. Beginning with the highly unethical activities of Andrew Wakefield and his bogus study in 1998 that set off a scare over the MMR vaccine supposedly causing autism that led to declining vaccination rates and skyrocketing measles and mumps rates in the U.K., it metastasized to the U.S. with hyped up concerns that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal used in most vaccines until 2001 was a cause of autism. Over the last year or so, it's been helped along by useful celebrity idiots like Jenny…
drorzel | May 2, 2008I'm going to be busy all day (more or less) at the Steinmetz Symposium, listening to talks about the fantastic things our students have been doing with their research projects. So it's going to be a "talk among yourselves" day here at Uncertain Principles, for the most part.
For this one, I'll crib from Popdose, as seen in the links dump:
Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?
For extra credit: Stephen Douglas or Frederick Douglass?
jlynch | May 1, 2008
I forgot to mention that yesterday (technically still today here in Arizona) was National Mission Accomplished Day. Nice job, Bushie.
j7uy5 | May 1, 2008In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it was noticed that
there were cuts in the budget to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The rationale was that we needed to shift more funds to the
global and perpetual war on terror.
At the time, I said that "the terrorists" won't have to bother trying
to poison us. Our own companies would do it for them.
Yup.
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-epa-official-resigns_webmay02,0,4655733.story">TRIBUNE
EXCLUSIVE: EPA's top Midwest regulator forced out
Mary Gade, based in Chicago, says Bush…
gregladen | May 1, 2008May Day is the day that we traditionally get our military hardware out and parade it around Moscow and Havana. It is also International Worker's Day and International Labor Day. As with all holidays, there are spooky ancient origins as well. May Day is the half way point between Solstice and Equinox, so it is a good day for a blood sacrifice, ritual sex, or repainting the temple. Whatever suits your particular "world view."
For instance, in America, it is the day the President of the United States pretends to fly a Fighter Jet on to an Aircraft Carrier where he declaires:
Mission…
terrasig | May 1, 2008I've been away from the computer the last few days and have had to rely on my morning newspaper reading as my sole source of information. So please be sure to let me know if I've been missing anything important.
Yesterday, I came across a very insightful column by Bob Herbert at the New York Times where he muses about what might be going through the mind of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. My local fishwrapper chose to highlight this sentence, one that we may all have on our minds regardless of whether we support Obama, Clinton, or McCain:
The question that cries out for an answer from Mr. Wright is…
tlambert | April 30, 2008Via Sadly No!, we find out the latest from the SF authors who helped bring us Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative
Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation.
The group has the ear of Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen, head of the science and technology directorate, who has said he likes their unconventional thinking. Members of the group recently offered a…
oracknows | April 30, 2008
I may have joked a bit about certain surgeons whom, because they say such dumb, pseudoscientific things with alarming regularity, I consider embarrassments to the noble profession that is surgery. Usually, it's been surgeons who reveal an astonishing ignorance of the science of evolution as they parrot long discredited and debunked canards about evolution while spouting creationist nonsense. You know about whom I speak: surgeons like neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor and general surgeon Dr. Henry Jordan. But, as mind-numbingly dumb as some of the things that, for example, Dr. Egnor has said…
drorzel | April 30, 2008The Mad Biologist, like 80% of ScienceBlogs, is mad at Chris Mooney:
Here's the problem: you keep coming to evolutionary biologists with a problem (the perception of evolutionary biology), and you don't have a solution. Do you think there's a single evolutionary biologist who is happy with public opinion regarding evolution and creationism? But you're not giving us concrete solutions.
Between teaching and research, along with all of service obligations expected of us (including public outreach), we have too much to do. When we are then told that we need to somehow organize a pro-…
drorzel | April 30, 2008Randy Olson's movie A Flock of Dodos comes up again and again in the course of arguments about public communication of science, but I had never gotten around to seeing it. I finally put it on the Netflix queue, and ended up watching it last night.
For those who have been living in caves and haven't seen this blogged a thousand times, A Flock of Dodos is a documentary about the "intelligent design" fight, primarily in Kansas, where Olson is from. Using the school board debate over science standards as a frame, Olson sets out to learn about "intelligent design," its promoters, and why we're…
evolvingthoughts | April 29, 2008
The Australian government, still in the period of meeting its election promises, has legitimised the relations between homosexual couples so that they now have the same rights as defacto couples, which is long overdue. But they didn't quite get it right. Why not?
They didn't allow gays to get married. The reason is that, as the attorney general, Robert McLelland, said, "the government regards marriage as being between a man and a woman and we don't support any measures that seek to mimic that process."
Why not? Where is it said that marriage must be heterosexual? Answer: only in a…
terrasig | April 29, 2008Offer extended through Friday! Friday! Friday! 2 May!!!!
Submit entries to tarheeltavern.abel at gmail.
For the first time since I've lived here, the NC primary will actually matter especially given that Clinton and Obama appear to now be running neck-and-neck in PA.
The Tar Heel Tavern was an early blog carnival, with contributions on numerous topics from the unusually dense NC blogging community. The first THT was hosted by Bora Zivkovic at his old blog, Science and Politics, back on 27 February 2005.
I've offered to resurrect the carnival in time for the NC primary with the topic, "What…
oracknows | April 29, 2008One of the most contentious and difficult aspects of trying to improve medical care in this country is enforcing a minimal "standard of care." Optimally, this standard of care should be based on science- and evidence-based medicine and act swiftly when a practitioner practices medicine that doesn't meet even a minimal requirement for scientific studies and clinical trials to support it. At the same time, going too far in the other direction risks stifling innovation and the ability to individualize treatments to a patient's unique situation--or even to use treatments that have only scientific…
grrlscientist | April 29, 2008tags: John McCain, testicles, humor, satire, politics, streaming video
This amusing streaming video is an interview with John McCain's urologist, who shows us a really nice graph revealing the size of his testicles. But his urologist refuses to confirm whether McCain is a real badass, saying that we have to interview his proctologist to learn if that's true [2:10].
laelaps | April 28, 2008As I've said elsewhere, I think that the idea that creationists are master communicators is a myth; they are successful because they are tapping into a religious majority that is feeling antagonized and marginalized by secular culture. Even though most of the population of this country would identify themselves as Christians, some members of the faithful feel like they are continuously under attack by scientists, liberals, homosexuals, etc., their desire to "reclaim the country for Christ" being hindered by a minority of secular elitists.
Indeed, the film Expelled is little more than an…
drorzel | April 28, 2008Lawrence Watt-Evans is reposting some old Usenet essays on the subject of class, which regular readers will recognize as a hot-button issues for me. So far, he's up to part four of six. The list:
Defining Terms
Who I Am
Attitudes & Money
On the Job
It's excellent stuff. A sample, from Part 4:
Work -- what's it good for?
For the lower class, work is one way of getting money and keeping the Man from hassling you. It's not necessarily the best way, but it works. Taking pride in one's work is not likely. Jobs are transitory. Work is an option. Your job is no part of your identity.…
gregladen | April 27, 2008Inequality in mortality is the most poignant reminder of persistent, often multi-generational differences in socioeconomic status (SES). Poor people are more likely to get sick and die than rich people. As a society develops over time, one would hope that this disparity would be reduced, but in fact, it often increases. Recent research published in PLoS Medicine heralds this bad news.
This study is fairly unique in that it examines life expectancy across counties, which are the smallest demographic unit for which the appropriate kind of data are collected. The study examines death rates…