Politics
pharyngula | April 6, 2011The world doesn't always suck! Two tidbits to brighten your day:
Glenn Beck is leaving Fox News, in a move that is claimed to be amicable but is probably more due to the fact that his show loses money for the network.
In one of those very important elections, the race between liberal challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg and conservative ass David Prosser for the Wisconsin supreme court is currently too close to call, but Kloppenburg leads. This would have been no contest a month or so ago, but it's now widely viewed as a referendum on the union-bustin' Governor Walker.
catdynamics | April 6, 2011IXO and LISA are dead and disbanded as NASA missions.
We are looking at a very thin pipeline and few new missions for a while, unless there is drastic new direction from above and strong guidance on funding.
NASA is a mission oriented agency.
This is especially true of Astrophysics.
At any given time, there are operating missions, missions in development, and planned future missions, each at various stages of effort.
Each mission successfully launched has a nominal operating lifetime, after which it may be considered for an "extended mission", if possible.
NASA tends to have catastrophic…
pharyngula | April 6, 2011If you've been following the wars in Africa, you already know that there's at least one other powderkeg besides Libya — Côte d'Ivoire, which is struggling with a disputed succession and roving gangs of angry young men with guns. The Nation has an excellent summary of the problems in Côte d'Ivoire, and unfortunately it's all about chocolate. Also unfortunately, although American bombs have been involved in the Libyan conflict, Côte d'Ivoire has also been afflicted with American intervention — in this case, by the corporate power of agribusiness, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).
At the…
pharyngula | April 4, 2011The slimy weasels of congress are now on the case, muttering about somehow silencing the terrible people who endanger our country by inflaming the mad Muslim hordes, and Greenwald calls them out.
Harry Reid and Lindsey Graham yesterday both suggested that Congress take unspecified though formal action against the Koran-burning by Florida preacher Terry Jones, which triggered days of violence this week by angry Muslims in Afghanistan. Graham in particular -- using the "but" that is the hallmark of all enemies of the First Amendment -- said: "Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war." He…
jtoney | April 4, 2011Find out what Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has to say about the weekly Prayer Meetings taking place in Room 219 of the U.S Capital. Also, her perspective of the sacrifices and faith of our Founding Fathers is sure to stir your heart. Find out more by visiting The Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation website at www.findroom219.com.
Since the national American Chemical Society meeting last week, I've had an ongoing dialogue with Sir Harold Kroto about his insightful seminar "Science, Anti-Science and Survival." He described the "power of irrationality" as one of the greatest challenges of…
pharyngula | April 4, 2011R. Joseph Hoffmann really doesn't get it. He's written an article that is basically doing nothing but decrying blasphemy on some very strange grounds: that it's stupid and pointless and cowardly. He also compares me and the desecration of a cracker with Terry Jones and the burning of a Koran that led to riots in Afghanistan, differentiating between the two of us in that I was just a petty grandstander, while Terry Jones' intent was to purposely fire up Muslims into violence, and therefore Terry Jones "needs to be charged with and convicted of murder".
Well. I guess the trial would be only a…
pharyngula | April 3, 2011Sometimes, issues demand nuance. This is a complicated world and there are a great many subjects that simply aren't reducible to binaries — we do a disservice to the subtleties when we discard them in favor of absolutes. And often I can agree that we need depth and breadth of understanding if we're to navigate a difficult situation.
But sometimes the issues are black and white. Sometimes the answers are clear and absolute. And in those cases, attempts to bring out the watercolors and soften the story by blurring the edges do a disservice to reality. There are places where there are no…
oracknows | April 3, 2011Fetid, filthy, pus-filled cup? Your goblet of death? Green Hitler? Children of death?
Mixed metaphors, anyone?
Yes, there's a reason why the occasional Alex Jones rant amuses me. It shouldn't, but it does. On the other hand, the fact that he has quite a fan base for his short wave radio show, his websites, his Internet videos, and his podcasts is rather disturbing to me. Still, there is entertainment value to be had:
I particularly like the exceedingly pregnant dramatic pauses he uses.
You know, come to think of it, I just noticed something. Take Glenn Beck, take away his charts and turn…
pharyngula | April 1, 2011This is how to handle a depressed person:
On December 23, 2010, Shuai, a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was suffering from a major depressive disorder, attempted to take her own life. Friends found her in time and persuaded her to get help. Six days later, Shuai underwent cesarean surgery and delivered a premature newborn girl who, tragically, died four days later.
On March 14, 2011, Shuai was arrested, jailed, and charged with murder and attempted feticide.
Don't get pregnant, ladies! It means that every risk you might take becomes a criminal offense! I always thought it was a joke to…
catdynamics | April 1, 2011Word is that President Obama will be announcing a bold new initiative in the physical sciences later today, providing major sustained funding boost and significant increases in funding across the board, including new major research faciltiies, accelerated funding of ongoing projects and more money for pure "blue sky" research, as part of a coherent plan to boost the economy and provide a long term path for sustainable growth.
Confidential sources at NaSA tell me the President will make space science the cornerstone of the new policy:
"Obama is sick of hundreds of billions of dollars being…
oracknows | March 31, 2011I realize this is two weeks old, but I had this hanging around, making it still worthwhile to discuss, because it's been bothering me, and last week Coulter wrote a blisteringly stupid followup to her blisteringly ignorant column from two weeks ago entitled A Glowing Report on Radiation. She wrote this article in the wake of the fears arising in Japan and around the world of nuclear catastrophe due to the damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused by the earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan on March 11. Coulter was subsequently interviewed by Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly on…
pharyngula | March 31, 2011I don't think I do — her history of policies in the state just screams racist. But she has suddenly become a concerned egalitarian, signing a law to protect minorities and women. She says. The law is actually designed to increase control of the reproductive rights of women and minorities — it criminalizes abortion if it is done for certain reasons.
Under the new Arizona statute, doctors and other medical professionals would face felony charges if they could be shown to have performed abortions for the purposes of helping parents select their offspring on the basis of gender or race.
First,…
pharyngula | March 30, 2011This email from Tea Party Nation clearly shows their true egalitarian nature.
What is keeping America's fertility rate up are immigrants - both legal and illegal. There are those in America who are continuously attacking the family, bent on redefining marriage and have established anti-family government programs. This has led to downward pressure on our national total fertility rate. All of these actions are done in the name of various causes such as: reducing unwanted pregnancies, delaying child bearing to further career goals and even promoting childlessness and promoting adoption as a…
pharyngula | March 30, 2011The animal rights kooks were crowing about their 'victory' in intimidating one student, but that's no victory at all. Alena Rodriguez is a real person who was targeted with an intense campaign of harassment and threats, and who was made to fear for her life; all they accomplished, though, was to reveal their hand and show what kind of contemptible terrorist tactics they will use. They've engaged in a little consciousness-raising of their own, but it's all going to work against them.
Speaking of Research has a new article on their opponents' recently invigorated embrace of terrorism, and all…
catdynamics | March 29, 2011After the Cronon affair, more Freedom of Information Act requests targeting faculty at public universities.
Clearly Walkers in Wisconsin in Labor are of interest to Republicans who Protest Democratic conspiracies against Governors and nothing makes the Maddow than Moore nonsense about injunctions and organized astroturf lawmaking.
"The squid has eaten the squirrel!"
These important matters should be emailed to everywhere in the .edu domain.
Hey, if I am served, does that mean some paralegal will sort my inbox for me...?
Win!
pharyngula | March 28, 2011Newt Gingrich is thinking about running for president, and has predicted the future:
I have two grandchildren: Maggie is 11; Robert is 9. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.
The next election is going to be hilarious, except for the painful face-palming.
catdynamics | March 26, 2011Savage article on JWST history and funding from Ron Cowen at Science News.
""It's a game of you lie and I'll swear to it," says Michael Griffin, NASA's administrator from April 2005 to January 2009. "The whole community talks itself into unrealistic cost estimates.... Everyone knows it's wrong. Every engineer knows it's utterly without foundation, but engineers aren't making the decisions.""
If only an experienced engineer had headed NASA at the critical time, ensuring realistic cost estimates and funding profiles with guidance from HQ...
This is going back to the Casani report on JWST -…
pharyngula | March 26, 2011William Cronon is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and he recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that placed the recent labor troubles in Wisconsin in historical context — he explained how many of the progressive policies in that state were actually the product of Republican lawmakers, that the state has long been a battleground between the progressive and conservative wings of the Republican party, and that a good part of the liberalism in the state is due to a reaction against the autocratic hand of Joe McCarthy, who violated the traditions of the…
stoat | March 24, 2011 To a debate on the Alternative Vote, organised by Cambridge Labour party. I talked about AV a bit before when I was unenthusiastic. I'm still unenthusiastic (which is part of the Tories cunning trick I think) but certainly in favour.
The two debaters were John Denham MP (in favour) and Gavin Shuker MP (against). Both Labour. Neither presented a particularly strong logical argument for their view - in the case of the anti, presumably because there is no such argument. They tossed a coin for who went first (GS), had their 10 mins each, then 2 mins replies, then questions from the floor. I had…
catdynamics | March 23, 2011NISA has a concise summary of the status of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi (pdf)
Includes temperatures on reactor vessel surface where available.
They show reactor 2 as cold and unpressured, the rise in temperature in reactor 1 - so something in there is generating heat at a significant rate, but at least the rector vessel is pressurized; and reactor 3 is a mess, warm core and unpressured.