Politics
pontiff | February 19, 2008There are days when I wish quantum cryptography was a mature, installed, technology. Today is one of those days. Why? You might think its because I'm a quantum obsessed physicist whose daily sustenance depends on the future of quantum information science. But no. Today I wish quantum cryptography were installed because today the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the Bush administration's domestic spying program;
The Supreme Court rejected a challenge Tuesday to the Bush administration's domestic spying program.
The justices' decision, issued without comment, is the latest setback to…
clock | February 19, 2008While I was busy, I heard Castro resigned, Musharaff's party lost the elections, and Kosovo declared independence. Wake me up when something really important happens, e.g., Bush leaves the White House....
gregladen | February 19, 2008Fidel Castro Will Step Down SundayCuba's ailing leader Fidel Castro has announced he will not accept another term as president, ending the communist revolutionary's 49 years in power.
[Details: BBC]
grrlscientist | February 19, 2008tags: satire, parody, humor, Iraq, suicide vests, streaming video
Panelists discuss whether stringent new suicide vest laws would ensure that only responsible people blow themselves up. "It's not fair to treat people like criminals if they use a suicide vest in a responsible and proper manner" [2:24]
clock | February 18, 2008Orac: The American Academy of Pediatrics versus antivaccinationist hypocrisy
Drake Bennett: Black man vs. white woman
Sheril R. Kirshenbaum: The Presidential Science Debate That Happened TODAY In Boston! and The Boston Debate
Mike Dunford: The Role of Science in Politics: A Plea for Activism
John S. Wilkins: The 'design' mistake and, Brian Switek: No thanks, Ken; that argument is poorly designed
Ed reports on how we are messing up with future historians: I Always Wondered Where Those Things Went. How many historical artefacts and writings we believe to be true, but are not?
Paul Jones:…
pharyngula | February 18, 2008Perhaps I'm not as disappointed as Greg, but I am unimpressed with the 'presidential' debate at the AAAS. What we had was two assistants to the Clinton and Obama campaigns (the Republicans were complete no-shows) pop in to run through some canned promises. There was no debate. There was no commitment from the candidates themselves.
I think that the ScienceDebate2008 idea is a great one, and the failing is really on the part of the candidates and the parties themselves. Obama will happily leap to appease the faith-heads of an organization like Call to Renewal; Clinton thinks the Decorah First…
oracknows | February 18, 2008Three weeks ago, I wrote about some truly irresponsible antivaccination propaganda masquerading as entertainment that aired in the form of a television show called Eli Stone. This show, which portrayed its hero taking on the case of an autistic boy whose mother blamed his autism on thimerosal (going under the fictional name "mercuritol") in vaccines and scoring a $5.2 million settlement in the process. One consequence of this show was that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) was shaken out of its inaction enough to draft a letter protesting the show and urging its cancellation of the…
clock | February 17, 2008A guide to hiring women.
Obsolete technical skills (I have them all except #11!)
The social source of religion.
Charles Barkley for President!
gregladen | February 17, 2008Howard Rheingold talks about the coming world of collaboration, participatory media and collective action -- and how Wikipedia is really an outgrowth of our natural human instinct to work as a group. As he points out, humans have been banding together to work collectively since our days of hunting mastodons.
gregladen | February 17, 2008According to Newsmax, The Telegraph is outlining a scenario by which Al Gore becomes the Democratic Nominee for President.
In the unattributed report from Newsmax (meaning I can't give you a link), Gore comes into play after Clinton regains enough momentum in March to deflate Obama's current surge.
The Clinton camp reportedly believes that if Obama doesn't deliver a knock-out blow before the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, Hillary could win those races and regain the momentum, with many superdelegates uniting behind her to preserve party unity.
That could lead to bitter battles at…
gregladen | February 17, 2008This man supplied some of the weaponry used in two major college mass murders. He is eager to continue supplying these weapons in the hopes that someday a good guy will shoot a bad guy. Eric Thompson, owner of Topglock.com, is the goto guy if you need guns, especially the widely loved Glock handgun. The gentleman who killed a half-dozen people at NIU got some of his supplies at Topglock. The guy who killed all those kids at Virginia Tech last year also got some of his armaments at Topglock.com. Topglock: Your specialist in tragedy.
We're having a motto contest for Topglock.com. Here'…
evolvingthoughts | February 16, 2008
A real journalist reviews a media conference held for the new pro-ID film Expelled:
Freedom of expression is unseemly at an Expelled press conference. There was no give-and-take, no open marketplace of ideas, in fact, scarcely any questions at all. Ruloff and Stein batted one softball after another out of the park from those posed by Paul Lauer, a representative of the film's public relations firm. Questions from non-employees had to be submitted by email. Lauer (or somebody at his firm) screened them.
I'm not sure whether Thomas Aquinas handled media inquiries this way. I'll have my…
clock | February 14, 2008The elephants in the room: How the GOP lost its way by Hal Crowther
Kafkaesque Bureaucracies Impede Import of Scientific Goods in Brazil by Mauro Rebelo
Open Science and the developing world: Good intentions, bad implementation? by Cameron Neylon
Alternative Agriculture in Cuba (pdf) by Sara Oppenheim
razib | February 14, 2008I did the Project Implicit Presidential Candidate IAT. Results below the fold....
clock | February 13, 2008Mythbusting Canadian Healthcare, Part II: Debunking the Free Marketeers by Sara Robinson
Scientific Careerism 101: Yes, grad students and postdocs it IS your fault by DrugMonkey
The project of being a grown-up scientist (part 2) by Janet D. Stemwedel
The Well Dressed Professor... by Thomas Levenson
Your massive credit card debt means you're doing great! by Amanda Marcotte
Barack Obama's Achilles Heel by Jon Swift
The Cult of Obama by Sara Robinson
gregladen | February 13, 2008Paul Abramson founded and runs "creationism.org" ... a creation science web site. It is one of those sites that provides parents and students material to use in harassing their life science teachers and generally making an obnoxious nuisance of themselves.
Paul is now seeking the Republican Party's nominiation for congress, with which he hopes to challenge sitting congressman Brad Ellsworth (Democrat).
[source]
gregladen | February 13, 2008And good luck to them, they will probably do a pretty good job!
This missive from Birders United comes to us via 10,000 birds.
In November 2008, birders, united in a voting bloc, can determine who will be the next president of the United States.
There are 15 million or more voting age Americans who have a serious interest in the welfare of birds. United as a voting bloc, birders could have a major say in who is our next president. Politicians in Britain think twice about opposing positions advocated by the million-member Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In this country, birders…
tqa | February 13, 2008
There were three more Presidential primaries yesterday - Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC. Turnout in all three of them was high yesterday, at least on the Democratic side. The numbers for all three areas are good, but I'm most excited by the Maryland numbers.
In 2004, Democratic candidates received a combined total of 481,476 votes in the Maryland presidential primary. As of right now, Barack Obama has 457,053 votes. That's the figure with 96% of precincts reporting. It doesn't include the absentee ballots, and it doesn't include the provisional ballots that were cast during the…
evolvingthoughts | February 12, 2008
Language Log recently took apart the speech and interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the media are, inaccurately, reporting as advocating the introduction of Sharia law into British and by implication other common law jurisdictions. Its conclusion was that Abp Rowan Williams did not advocate Sharia law, but instead suggested that secular law should not have a monopoly on regulating human behavior.
As someone once said, of course they would say that. Williams is a religious leader, and wants to have a role in regulating his adherents' behaviour. Tu quoque, he must accept the same…
mixingmemory | February 12, 2008Looks like a couple of my fellow SBers have managed to get a date and location for their presidential debate on science, and have invited the candidates (Clinton, Obama, Huckabee, and McCain). I still think this is an absolutely terrible idea on so many levels, but I'm comforted by the thought that it's extremely unlikely that McCain would risk offending the conservative base that he's trying so hard to court by debating an avowed creationist on scientific topics when he's already got the nomination wrapped up, and equally unlikely that the Democrats would choose to debate on a single topic…