Politics
clock | June 30, 2007Edwards aside, this is an excellent look at the current political landscape in the USA:
John Edwards and Dominant Media's Selective Skewering of Populist Hypocrisy by Paul Street:
sb admin | June 30, 2007Every day, reading the newspapers or listen to the radio, we are barraged with reminders of how screwed up our society, our country is. We see these things, and have a realization that there is little to no hope that they will change any time soon.
I can only take so much despair. I can only take so much reminder of just how screwed up things are. I have stopped listening to the radio on my way driving in to work in the morning, because too often the stories are about places in the world where horrible things are going on. Too often, that place is Baghdad, a place that was screwed up and…
mixingmemory | June 29, 2007I know I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again. Anyone who reads the fundamentalist atheist blogs (you know, like the biggest blog on ScienceBlogs) knows that these people have a lot of passion and energy. They use it to write 50 posts a week pummeling creationists and telling us how evil religion is. Can you imagine what they might accomplish if they redirected that energy towards really important progressive issues like, say, health care, or poverty, or reproductive freedom, or AIDS in African American youth, or ending the war, or you know, pretty much anything else?
Sometimes…
clock | June 29, 2007July 1st through July 4th. Here are the detailed instructions how to participate.
drorzel | June 29, 2007I'm still looking for charity suggestions to help prove that atheists aren't just cynical misers. Again, I'm offering to donate $200 to worthy non-religious charities suggested in comments. I've gotten some good suggestions already, but more are always welcome.
On a less serious note, nobody has yet taken me up on my offer to endorse any candidate who will play me one-on-one in basketball. I'm coming off a knee injury that sidelined me for a couple of weeks, so now's the time to act. I'll even sweeten the pot-- if you beat me (game to fifteen, make-it-take-it), I'll contribute to your…
voltagegate | June 28, 2007The tropical dry forests of Madagascar are notoriously fragile. The plants and animals inhabiting these areas are highly endemic; 48% of the genera of plants in southern Madagascar are unique to the island. Clear cutting of these forests has escalated with the expansion of agriculture since 1970.
But to what extent? According to this paper recently published in PLoS One, recent literature on the subject has shown a less dramatic model of deforestation in the area. The researchers broaden the scope of analysis to include rates of stability and regeneration in these forests, as well as the…
pharyngula | June 27, 2007What an attractively symmetrical graph:
People who don't go to church mostly disagree with GW Bush; people who do go to church regularly mostly agree with GW Bush. Unfortunately, these results are from a poll taken in 2005, so it may have lost some of that symmetry since—I certainly hope it has, and that all of the bars in "agree for the most part" category have since gotten smaller.
clock | June 27, 2007Finally someone is standing up to the lunatics!
First shot was firm but polite.
The second was uncompromising - yes, they really are "crazies" and that is how we should call them. And it is high time someone stood up to them and called them on their calculated craziness and hate-speech.
pharyngula | June 27, 2007OK, Blue Gal, you're weirding me out a little bit. I agree that Kucinich is a progressive candidate, and that Glen Beck is a smarmy, disgusting little creep who made deeply offensive remarks about Kucinich's sex appeal, but…
…well, maybe he is looking a little bit cute and adorable.
clock | June 27, 2007Here is some chemistry of bisphenol A, but what is really interesting is this article about Fred vom Saal. It is quite revealing about the way industry produces bad science in order to protect its financial interests:
"The moment we published something on bisphenol A, the chemical industry went out and hired a number of corporate laboratories to replicate our research. What was stunning about what they did . . . was they hired people who had no idea how to do the work."
Several of my grad school buddies worked on some aspect or other of neuroendocrinology, including environmental endocrine…
drorzel | June 27, 2007Not long before the Matthew Nisbet post about uncharitable atheists crossed my RSS feeds, I had marked a Fred Clark post about mission trips that has some really good thoughts about the mechanics of charity:
But the point of these mission trips is not only to get [a rural school in Haiti] built. That's part of it, but it's not the only goal. The mission trip is also designed to give the American youth group a tangible, visceral stake in the fate of the Haitian community. This is vital for the people in Haiti too. The problem with the calculus above is that it presumes that the total level of…
clock | June 26, 2007The Union of Concerned Scientists has picked the 12 finalists in their cartoon contest and it is now your turn to vote for the best one.
While I personally prefer the TomTomorrowesque #9, I think that the simpler cartoons, e.g., #2 and #10, may 'frame' the issue the best (i.e., making it simple and not limiting itself to just one or two topics, e.g., global warming). You take your own pick...
pharyngula | June 26, 2007The Union of Concerned Scientists has a poll right now — pick your favorite cartoon about the politicization of science. You've got 12 to choose from.
drorzel | June 26, 2007Ethan Zuckerman has an interesting addition to the discussion of class and networking, offering a description of a talk by danah boyd (whose name I have been capitalizing, which apparently isn't right) about the history and usage of MySpace and Facebook. What's particularly striking is the opening:
danah began her discussion with two quotes, one from über-blogger Kathy Sierra's 16-year old daughter Skyler, who observed, "If you're not on MySpace, you don't exist." The other quote, from a 16-year old named Amy, explains the appeal of these spaces for some American teens: "My mom doesn't let…
evolvingthoughts | June 25, 2007
The Register is reporting that the UK government has ruled that intelligent design is not acceptable in science classes. [via Slashdot]
clock | June 25, 2007For information, check my older posts here and here. The most recent e-mail is copied+pasted under the fold.
Forgive me if you've already received this email. This is a very important moment as our Senators decide whether or not they will stand with the People of Colorado and the U.S. House of Representatives.
PCEOC / Not 1 More Acre! / Grassland Trust
Action Alert - Continue calls
June 25, 2007
Please continue calling and activate your email lists, blogs and phone trees today to encourage people to PHONE Senators Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard TODAY AND EVERY DAY THIS WEEK .
The Senators…
oracknows | June 24, 2007From The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, specifically the chapter The Shadow of the Past, in which Gandalf responds to Frodo's statement that Gollum is an enemy who deserves death:
Deserves it? I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.
I sometimes wonder if reading that quote as a youth was a seed that ultimately lead to my changing my mind…