Politics
illconsidered | April 8, 2010One more reason Barack Obama should change his slogan from "Change you can believe in" to "Token gestures and nice words so you can shut up for a while."
Sorry, but he is a monumental and tragic disappointment who has squandered a truly historic oportunity.
IMO
illconsidered | April 8, 2010Here is a fascinating exchange between George Monbiot and Steve Easterbrook exploring the larger issues behind the recent Swifthacking of CRU email (aka ClimateGate).
Steve makes an excellent presentation of the case for what happens to be my personal view on this mess, namely that the media has failed in a major and tragic way and that this is a tale of a successful propaganda campaign not scientific corruption. In my opinion, Monbiot seems to understand Steve's points but still does not get the real story.
Have a read:
The computer scientist Steve Easterbrook wrote an interesting critique…
jstemwedel | April 7, 2010
(Click to embiggen)
Tomorrow, April 8, 2010, Pro-Test for Science will be holding its second rally in Los Angeles in support of humanely conducted, ethical animal research and the people who conduct it. Their first rally last April drew approximately 700 people to the streets to support the scientific research that offers hope to patients (both human and veterinary) and their families.
Speaking of Research has details on tomorrow's rally:
This rally, on the UCLA campus seeks to:
Communicate a better understanding of animal research to the public, its importance to medical progress, and…
clock | April 7, 2010Our April Science Café (description below) will be held on Tuesday 4/20 at the Irregardless Cafe on Morgan Street. Our café speaker for that night is Rogelio Sullivan, Associate Director of the Advanced Transportation Energy Center and also of the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management Systems Center (FREEDM) at NCSU. Come and learn how our country is dealing with our ever-increasing energy consumption, and of ways that we may be able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil using a combination of innovative alternative energy cars and changes in our daily transportation…
goodmath | April 7, 2010(Unfortunately, this post has been linked to by a white supremacist site. Instead of providing a forum for their foulness, I'm shutting down comments on this post.)
Unfortunately, I lost the link that inspired this. But I recently saw a post by a conservative about "reclaiming" the word racist. It went on to list a collection of reasons why he was a racist. The gist of it was that all of us dirty liberals were the real racists - because there's no possible reason for us to support things like affirmative action, welfare, etc., unless we really, deep down, believe that minorities -…
pharyngula | April 7, 2010Baltimore has a very sensible ordinance that requires pregnancy counseling centers to plainly state what services they provide.
The ordinance requires that a "limited-service pregnancy center" post an easily readable sign, written in English and Spanish, stating that the center does not provide or make referrals for abortion or birth-control services. A center failing to comply within 10 days of being cited could be fined up to $150 a day.
That's perfectly reasonable, even if the center is directly opposed to abortion — they could cheerfully put up a sign bragging that they do not abort…
pharyngula | April 7, 2010It's true — here in Minnesota, we're always talking about them dingbats next door in Wisconsin, and they are — we live in a place where all our children are above average, dontchaknow, and the only way that is statistically possible is if some place nearby is all below average. So we love to rag on them. Until they mention Michele Bachmann and then we have to hang our head in shame and slink away.
Anyway, the latest news from our neighbor to the east is that some cheesehead named Scott Southworth is trying to strongarm teachers into not following the sex education guidelines, threatening them…
oracknows | April 7, 2010Beware, North Carolina. Beware. Your law has become quack-friendly to the point where doctors can do almost anything.
Why, you may reasonably wonder, am I saying this? The answer is what appears to be the end of a long and painful story of cancer quackery and anti-vaccine celebrity that has tainted North Carolina for years now. Do you remember Dr. Rashid Buttar? Regular readers know who he is, as he's been a recurring character on this blog since the very beginning. Most recently, he figured prominently in the case of Desiree Jennings, the young woman who claimed that the flu vaccine caused a…
pharyngula | April 5, 2010Here is why we need Wikileaks — because when our soldiers carry out Collateral Murder, we should know about it. Good journalism should be exposing this stuff for us.
This is a video shot from an American helicopter gunship in Iraq. It shows real human beings being shot to death. I wish I could unwatch seeing it now, so be advised before you click on that play button…it is horrific.
A couple of Iraqi journalists working for Reuters are slaughtered in the above clip, gunned down from a distance by American troops who claim their cameras are weapons, that they're walking around with AK-47s and…
clock | April 5, 2010Long-time observers of the progressive blogopshere are likely aware of Barbara O' Brien and her blogging at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, AlterNet, and elsewhere. She was a panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC.
Now, Barbara has a new project - Mesothelioma Blog - where she is dissecting the Health Care Bill, the public concern of health care, and related issues in health care in the United States. The topics include health reform, public health, and asbestos contamination.. Check out Mesothelioma Blog…
grrlscientist | April 4, 2010tags: Shroud of Turin, christianity,catholics, religion, cults, History Channel, streaming video
This video is a clip from the History Channel, where they report on the face that is imprinted onto the Shroud of Turin (rumored to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ). Ho-hum.
grrlscientist | April 3, 2010tags: Vatican Easter Speech 2009, Pope Ratzinger, catholicism, religion, cults, satire, parody, funny, humor, fucking hilarious, streaming video
Just in time for Easter Sunday! Here is an except from the Vatican Easter speech (translated into English, of course). He does forget to mention the hundreds of thousands of children who were raped in His Holy Name (amen), but he does manage to talk about nearly everyone else in the world.
pharyngula | April 3, 2010Let's hope Tarryl Clark can pull it off: she's the Democratic candidate running against Michele Bachmann. She has a fairly sensible, centrist agenda so maybe it will work…but then, they could pull a mangy muskrat out of the Mississippi and run it against Bachmann, and it would be an improvement.
She doesn't have a catchy campaign slogan yet, though. May I suggest "Tarryl Clark: Not Crazy" as a possibility?
illconsidered | April 2, 2010One thing the blogosphere is good for is spirited discussion and fast dissemination of news stories. One thing it is not good for is the old addage "where there's smoke, there's fire".
The recent "swifthacking" of CRU email (aka "climategate") is a great example of tremendous amounts of smoke being created out of something statistically indistinguishable from bupkus.
The UK's House of Commons has released a report after weeks of careful investigation into the details and implications of the illegally obtained and distributed emails to and from a handful of East Anglia University climate…
oracknows | April 1, 2010I was wrong.
I know it doesn't happen that often, but I'm forced to admit it. I was wrong. I predicted that Simon Singh would likely lose his appeal against an astonishing illiberal ruling on his libel case by Sir David Eady. Singh, as you may recall, is the British science writer who wrote a now infamous article about chiropractic, in particular, Singh labeled claims that chiropractic could treat colic, sleeping and feeding problems, ear infections, asthma, and prolonged crying as "bogus." Specifically, he wrote that the British Chiropractic Association "happily promotes bogus therapies."…
oracknows | April 1, 2010One of the most persistent and prevalent examples of a modern myth that will not die is the story of Area 51. So ingrained in our culture has it become that nearly everyone (at least in the U.S.) knows what you are talking about when you refer to it. It's been featured in movies as diverse as Independence Day (one of my favorite big budget, brain-meltingly silly end-of-the-world movies about alien invasion) and, of course, Area 51. Forests of trees have been slain in order to publish books on the subject, and cable TV channels serve up near constant stream of documentaries either about Area…
pharyngula | March 31, 2010I'll be visiting the family in the Pacific Northwest later this summer, and I'm going to be very, very careful on the road. The police are authorized to torture you for traffic violations; the courts have recently decided that a case of a pregnant woman who was tasered for refusing to sign a traffic ticket was a fair use of force.
The woman was driving her 12-year-old to the African American Academy in Seattle when she was pulled over on suspicion of speeding in 2004. The child left the car for school and a verbal spat with the police resulted in the woman receiving three, 50,000-volt shocks…
pharyngula | March 31, 2010This is classic wingnuttia. The Tea-partiers are complaining bitterly that Democrats are making unfounded accusations of racism.
"These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there," Mr. Robertson said. "They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never seen any racial slurs."
The post has a terrific punchline. It's a picture of Mr Robertson.
I suppose his quote could have been honest. After all, he was standing behind the sign.
oracknows | March 31, 2010...is simple. Not only was he the original Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek (which if full of WIN to any long time Star Trek geek like myself), but he taped this PSA for the 2010 census:
This is so much better than that commercial for Sharp Electronics Quattron quad pixel technology that's been on TV lately.
pharyngula | March 31, 2010That recent episode in which hackers broke into computers at East Anglia University and extracted private email from climate researchers was the subject of much triumphal rejoicing by the climate change deniers. The UK set a parliamentary Science and Technology Committee to review the affair and see if there was any substance to the claims of the denialists, and the report of the inquiry has been released.
On the much cited phrases in the leaked e-mails—"trick" and "hiding the decline"—the Committee considers that they were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence…