Politics
grrlscientist | June 12, 2010tags: Atheism: In Your Own Words, The Thinking Atheist, atheism, humanism, rationalism, religion, cults, self delusion, fantasy life, wishful thinking, streaming video
Realizing that you are an atheist is a profound, personal experience. This video records the stories (in their own words) of some people who came to the realization that they are atheists.
drorzel | June 11, 2010This was supposed to go up earlier, but it turns out that thinking you selected "Scheduled" in the MT back end is not, in fact, enough to schedule the post to appear. So this is showing up after games have already begun, but nothing of consequence has happened yet, so it's no biggie.
Anyway, the soccer World Cup has begun, making this one of the rare summers with sporting events worth watching on television. And time for the quadrennial spectacle of Americans pretending to know/care about soccer.
So, anyway, there's a big tournament going on, and it seems only fair to offer space to discuss…
aardvarchaeology | June 11, 2010
Back in August of 2006 I wrote about an absurd plan to relocate the Israeli embassy in Stockholm temporarily to vacant office space in the Museum of National Antiquities. This plan became reality. But the Israelis are having trouble with the building they're headed for on a more permanent basis, and so the embassy is still there, over three years down the line.
The Israelis have had one or two rockets too many fired at them from the Gaza strip, and so are doing their best to cut off supplies to the area. Pro-Palestinian groups have responded by organising aid flotillas. Recently Israeli…
grrlscientist | June 10, 2010tags: Who You Gonna Call?, NYPL, NYC, New York City, prank, humor, funny, comedy, satire, parody, Ghostbusters, Improv Everywhere, streaming video
For years, as an unemployed scientist, I depended daily upon the New York Public Library (NYPL) to remain in touch with my world, to earn money and to research and write my blog and freelance pieces -- mostly due to the free internet access they provide in addition to a clean, safe workspace. So it always tears at my heart when I hear that NYPL is in dire financial straits. This time, Improv Everywhere is helping NYPL retain its funding by pranking…
gregladen | June 10, 2010It seems that the Republican Candidate running for the Fifth Congressional District seat in Minnesota has one main political objective: To replace the sitting Democratic member of congress, Keith Ellison, explicitly because he, Ellison, is a "Moslem." The purpose of this candidacy is, explicitly, an effort to "take back" America (from the "Moslems") and "bring her to her knees" as a Christian Nation.
Also, and again, explicitly, this candidate has no specific policy positions because he expects God to place those policy positions in his mouth at the appropriate times, as per Matthew 10:…
grrlscientist | June 10, 2010tags: How Poachers became Caretakers, Namibia, conservation biology, endangered species, wildlife, poachers, John Kasaona, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video
In his home of Namibia, John Kasaona is working on an innovative way to protect endangered animal species: giving nearby villagers (including former poachers) responsibility for caring for the animals. And it's working.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al…
drorzel | June 9, 2010I'm not in the general habit of endorsing candidates for state office in districts where I don't live, but I think I can make an exception in this case:
In a unanimous vote, the Broome County Democratic Committee approved of Town of Triangle Councilman John Orzel to run for the state's 52nd district, currently represented by Republican Sen. Thomas W. Libous.
John Orzel is my uncle, and my 10th and 12th grade Social Studies teacher back in the day. Libous is a career politician in the most negative sense of the phrase, and was one of the Republicans who orchestrated last summer's farcical…
pharyngula | June 9, 2010Guess who has been the recipient of state funds for their superstition scam? Michele Bachmann and her husband!
Bachmann and Associates, Inc., a counseling center that receives state funds and is owned by Rep. Michele Bachmann and her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, uses counseling methods steeped in fundamentalist Christianity, raising questions about its use of taxpayer money.
Founded in 2003, Bachmann's clinic has taken in nearly $30,000 in state funds since 2007. Dr. Bachmann has said publicly that God heals people at his clinic and that Jesus Christ is the "Almighty Counselor."
"We are…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2010tags: ecology, marine biology, conservation biology, endangered species, habitat preferences, Northern Bluefin Tuna, Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, Yellowfin Tuna, Thunnus albacares, fisheries, PLoS ONE, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, journal club
An adult Atlantic (Northern) Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus.
A recently published study, intended to provide data to commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico so they maximize their catch of Yellowfin Tuna, Thunnus albacares, whilst avoiding bycatch of critically endangered Atlantic (Northern) Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus…
sa smith | June 9, 2010Read on my GoogleNews today:
Taliban Reportedly Adding HIV-Infected Needles to Explosive Devices
Hypodermic syringes are reportedly hidden below the surface of explosive devices, pointing upwards to prick bomb squad experts as they hunt for devices.
The needles are feared to be contaminated with hepatitis and HIV. And if the bomb goes off, the needles become deadly flying shrapnel.
Some viruses/bacteria can live a long time outside of the human body. Bacteria sporulate so that can survive in harsh conditions (think anthrax spores), and some viruses can survive outside of a host okay (polio,…
stoat | June 9, 2010On the recent oil spill issue (possible disclaimer: I'm wondering about buying I bought some BP shares).
I'm thinking about headlines like Obama Says He Would Fire BP CEO, Wants to Know 'Whose Ass to Kick'.
[Update: both TB and H point out that this quote is taken well out of context; see the comments or http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/06/kicking-ass-white-house. So I have to partially retract my outrage. But only partially, because the main point still stands (who to blame?) as does the quote below -W]
The real story here isn't hard to see: Obama is desperate not to get blamed for…
catdynamics | June 8, 2010Who is Responsible?
found on facebook
- I gather the fb site is either being pranked or couldn't handle the love
so link is to a blog that hijakced it first posted it - turns out it is from Rachel Maddow blog.
read it and weep
pharyngula | June 8, 2010British Petroleum isn't so awful after all — it turns out that they have an almost 600 page long emergency response plan to deal with blowouts on their offshore oil wells. All the answers are in there, and I'm sure that they'll soon be implemented. You can read those plans yourself and feel the warm glow of confidence that all is in good hands.
Lists "Sea Lions, Seals, Sea Otters [and] Walruses" as "Sensitive Biological Resources" in the Gulf, suggesting that portions were cribbed from previous Arctic exploratory planning;
Gives a web site for a Japanese home shopping site as the link to…
jstemwedel | June 8, 2010The title of John Tierney's recent column in the New York Times, "Daring to Discuss Women's Potential in Science", suggests that Tierney thinks there's something dangerous about even raising the subject:
The House of Representatives has passed what I like to think of as Larry's Law. The official title of this legislation is "Fulfilling the potential of women in academic science and engineering," but nothing did more to empower its advocates than the controversy over a speech by Lawrence H. Summers when he was president of Harvard.
This proposed law, if passed by the Senate, would require the…
pharyngula | June 8, 2010
An LA Times story brings up the troubling possibility — nay, near-certainty— that we aren't the global good guys our right wing brethren keep telling us we are. I know, it's hard to believe, since we are so obviously the good guys in all that we do, but sometimes, there are trivial little incidents that make a fellow worry. Like when we have doctors doing experiments in torture. That's the sort of Ming-the-Merciless kind of thing that baddies do.
A prominent human rights group accused the CIA of conducting illegal human experiments and unethical medical research during interrogations of…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2010tags: Care for Some Crude With Your Sushi?, toro sushi, maguro sushi, Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, Gulf of Mexico, pollution, oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, BP, British Petroleum, overfishing, endangered species, conservation, marine biology, streaming video
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the worst environmental disaster the US has faced. Toxic oil from the Deepwater Horizon well threatens the region's sensitive shorelines and the nesting birds along the Louisiana coast. But there's another species at serious risk: the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus. This disturbing video…
pharyngula | June 7, 2010Peter Singer has a lovely idea: The Life You Can Save, a plan to reduce poverty worldwide.
I do have one objection. This is basically a plan for wealth redistribution, which I think is a reasonable objective. However, the only people who are going to be helping others are those willing to participate voluntarily — the selfish greedy bastards won't feel a thing. Shouldn't there be, like, a policy of progressive taxation that makes the excessively wealthy contribute more to easing poverty? That seems fairer to me.
gregladen | June 7, 2010Remember Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh Killings Video? Remember how Wikileaks is a major security threat?
Well, now, there's this: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe:
Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.
SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by…
pharyngula | June 7, 2010Last week, Glenn Beck was full of praise for a book he had claimed to have read overnight, which he regarded as a valuable source documenting the perfidy of commies. It was titled The Red Network, by Elizabeth Dilling. This morning, he is having a little trouble remembering the title and is claiming to be getting falsely tarred with accusations of being a "Jew loving Nazi sympathizer" by the Left (it's always the Left, because as we all know, there are no Jews on the Left). His lapse of memory is amusing because it has been revealed that Dilling was a fanatical anti-Semite who conspired with…