Politics
denialism | February 19, 2012Many bloggers and commentators have expressed outrage over the decision by Virginia to require ultrasound examination, possibly transvaginal ultrasound, prior to women obtaining an abortion. From Bill Maher to Dahlia Lithwick people are outraged and have even suggested that it should be considered rape to force women to undergo vaginal examination by ultrasound prior to receiving abortion. Worse, it's clear from statements like this one by delegate Todd Gilbert, that there isn't a medical concern related to this intervention. It's simply designed to humiliate women and interfere with the…
sa smith | February 15, 2012As much crap as Oklahomans get for being backwards hicks, Oklahoma is a state of many faces. Slowly but surely, the faces of the politicians are starting to represent the diversity of Oklahoma (not just middle-upper-class 'straight' Evangelical white male Oklahomans).
To counter the insane, homophobic rhetoric of Sally Kern, we have an openly, happily transgender Brittany Novotny giving the witch a run for her money.
To counter the current Republican fad of 'personhood amendments', now taking its turn in Oklahoma, we have Constance Johnson making a political statement by adding an amendment…
jdupuis | February 15, 2012We have here what is sometimes known as a wicked problem.
On the one side, communities would like to be able to pool the resources of their members to acquire digital content that may then be shared and consumed by everyone in that community.
On the other, content creators and publishers would like to maximize their revenue from the content they produce and distribute.
Libraries want to pay the least amount possible but still have the maximum rights to share it among their communities.
Publishers want to make sure every possible reading transaction is monetized, so as a result want to…
catdynamics | February 14, 2012for astronomers:
Discovery and Depth
"...the current situation calls for bold leadership and tough decisions and not merely the proverbial rearrangement of the chairs in the dining hall of the Costa Concordia as it approached the Isola del Giglio."14 Kulkarni (2011)
jdupuis | February 13, 2012I was really angry riding home on the bus last Friday night. Not angry because the transit system here in Toronto is royally fudged in general or that transit to York University is fudged in particular.
No, it wasn't that particular aspect of the public sphere that had me upset.
It was the growing tendency of publishers of all sorts to try and take their works out of the public cultural commons and place them exclusively behind pay walls. It's their desire to monetize every reading transaction that had me hot under the collar.
Here's what I tweeted standing on the bus, altered a bit for…
denialism | February 12, 2012Many are linking to this story around the blogosphere and I encourage everyone to read it. In it, a Ob/Gyn describes her emergency care of a woman who arrived in her ED in hemorrhagic shock from a botched illegal abortion. Though clearly it was touch and go and there was some panicky action, our heroine thought fast and saved a life. My mother once worked in a labor and delivery ward to put herself through medschool in the days before Roe v Wade and this type of situation was common.
This is a great story because it illustrates two points. One, the war on abortion by the right wing is…
denialism | February 12, 2012Lot's of blogging hay was made over the conservatives = stupid and racist article two weeks ago, but it seems like since that was published they're going out of their way to provide supporting evidence. Between reincarnating a 40 year old dead argument about whether or not women should be able to have birth control, and pretty unbelievably racist stunts at CPAC, even the wingers at little green footballs are shaking their heads and asking, what the hell is going on. For instance, some white republicans thought it would be a good idea to put on a rap show and throw around the N-word. No, I'…
denialism | February 12, 2012One of the characteristics of defective thinking, particularly of cranks (see theHOWTO) that we've discussed on scienceblogs is their poor ability to process information that is contradictory. Last week there were some interesting reports on a study which suggested those who believe in conspiracy theories can hold two seemingly contradictory pieces of information in their heads and not see the conflict. For instance:
"The more people were likely to endorse the idea Princess Diana was murdered, the more they were likely to believe that Princess Diana is alive," explained Douglas. People who…
pharyngula | February 12, 2012Have you ever walked around an 19th century (or earlier) graveyard? It gives you a depressing snapshot of the old reality: so many young women dead in childbirth, so many children reaped by diseases. We've been fortunate, we residents of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, that so many of those lethal conditions are treatable, and we're mostly able to live without fear of our children dying in our arms. But here in the United States, we may have been living in a brief window of time in which treatments are both available and affordable, and are moving into an era where they're available,…
jrosenhouse | February 10, 2012Over the last few days, there has been no shortage of crazed invective on the contraception issue from certain religious folks. For them, the notion that religious institutions providing public services ought to play by the same rules as everyone else constitutes tyranny. So we have Rick Santorum, for example, casually invoking images of the guillotine and the French Revolution.
This is all just election-year grandstanding, of course. It is this year's Ground Zero Mosque. If this were February 2013, or if a Repeublican were President, we would not be hearing the usual bleats and howls…
drorzel | February 10, 2012Prompted by a number of people using the phrase "vast majority" recently, I wonder where the line between "majority" and "vast majority" is. Thus, a poll:
What is the minimum level of support that constitutes a "vast majority"
Assume for the sake of argument that the issue in question is a simple yes-or-no question, with only a small "no response/ don't know" fraction.
If there are other classes of "majority" that you recognize, feel free to define them in the comments. The poll is just about the term "vast," though.
denialism | February 9, 2012 The states in Green have gone for Rick Santorum, who besides having a a Google problem also believes in one of the wackiest conspiracy theories there is - the climate change hoax. That is, the belief that there is a shady group of Illuminati that have power over thousands of climate scientists from all over the world, and in their greed for sweet sweet grant money scientists uniformly falsify all their data to serve this power-hungry cabal. Is that an exaggeration? Nope, that's what people who believe in the "hoax" ascribe to (see skeptical science's thorough debunking of Evans here).…
catdynamics | February 9, 2012There are several signs o'doom for NASA bubbling up out there
GALEX is going into standby mode in preparation for shut down.
It is working fine, but past its design lifetime, as so many NASA satellites do nowadays, and there is no more money for mission operation and data analysis.
There is a rumour that Caltech hustled for some private money to extend MODA, but they may not be able to do it anyway, because of liability and ownership issues.
So it goes.
At the same time there is SenseOfImpendingDoom at NASA - lot of 2011-12 programs appear effectively suspended pending the 2012-13 budget, to…
denialism | February 7, 2012You heard me. There is a shocking conspiracy, directly from the nefarious leaders of the one world government at the UN and their pawn, Barack Obama to add more public transportation and green space to your neighborhood.
Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
...
In Maine…
denialism | February 6, 2012Eisen writes
Thus, people joining in the new boycott have no excuses not to follow through. There are plenty of viable OA options and it is simply unacceptable for any scientist who decries Elsevier's actions and believes that the subscription based model is no longer serving science to send a single additional paper to journals that do not provide full OA to every paper they publish. So, come on people! If we do this now, paywalls will crumble, and we all be better off. So, come on! Let's do it!
This sounds great. If you remember we were similarly disgusted since Eisen brought the…
jdupuis | February 6, 2012Note: this post is superseded by: Around the Web: Research Works Act, Elsevier boycott & FRPAA.
This post has superseded my previous post which focused solely on the Research Works Act. I have added some coverage of the Elsevier boycott which at least partially grew out of opposition to the RWA. I'm not attempting to be as comprehensive in coverage for the boycott as for the RWA.
Some relevant resources:
The Cost of Knowledge: Researchers taking a stand against Elsevier (Boycott declaration site)
Notes on the Research Works Act a wiki maintained by Peter Suber, hosted by the Berkman…
jtoney | February 6, 2012
NY Giants net wins 2011 season (source.)
Everybody loves an underdog winning the day.
Congratulations to this year's Super Bowl Champions! Will the US economy follow suit?
Source: BarackObama.com
denialism | February 5, 2012No one likes occupiers. They're like fish and houseguests, they start to stink after a short period of time. And I worry that as time goes on the movement will only have a more and more destructive impact on progressive politics and political discourse. This isn't to say they can't be effective, or haven't been effective at at least one goal, that is bringing the topic of economic inequality back into the spotlight. However, as time goes on their leaderless, agenda-less actions are becoming more random, and less likely to result in a good outcome in the coming political fight. In fact,…
jrosenhouse | February 2, 2012Here's Alabama state senator Shadrack McGill explaining why it's a bad idea to raise teachers's salaries:
If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.
To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, OK?
And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn't…