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tqa | June 1, 2007
Tom DeLay is on a Mission from God. Apparently, God talked to Tom. Surprisingly, it wasn't about the massive misuses of his (former) power, the rampant corruption charges, the criminal indictment he's under, being a Mean Person, acting like evil personified, or selling his soul to the devil. No, it seems that God is not concerned about those things. Instead, he's chosen DeLay to spearhead a new conservative movement:
"God has spoken to me," DeLay said. "I listen to God, and what I've heard is that I'm supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican party,…
grrlscientist | June 1, 2007tags: rape prevention, activism, crime, feminism
A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Hell, women shouldn't dare to get drunk at all. Instead of that bullshit, how about:
If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a woman is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman…
tqa | May 31, 2007
Yesterday, Casey Luskin posted yet another article outlining still more of the Discovery Institute's complaints about the Iowa State decision to deny tenure to DI Fellow and ID proponent Guillermo Gonzalez. This one complains about the characterization of Gonzalez as "having slowed down considerably" and "not started new things." (That characterization appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education last week.)
I have no intention of getting into a debate over the precise merits of Dr. Gonzalez's case, for a number of reasons. First of all, I'm one of those who believes that the effort that…
tqa | May 31, 2007
...odds are good that someone's breaking curfew. In which case, the pistol - though tempting - should probably take a back seat to grounding.
(via Pharyngula)
tqa | May 31, 2007
Note: This is the second of a series of posts that I wrote while on the Big Island last weekend. Due to a lack of internet access, they were not posted at that time.
We arrived at Volcano House right after sunset tonight. The best word I can come up with to describe this place right now is "quaint." It's a small hotel. The bedrooms aren't very large, and lack pretty much every modern convenience - to be honest, I was almost surprised that the phone is touch-tone. There wasn't much of an attempt made to match the furnishings in the bedroom, but the rocking chair that I'm sitting in right…
cmcclain | May 31, 2007 Over at National Geographic you can read all about Fish Trap! a great piece of equipment designed right here at MBARI.
If that is not enough for you then head over to NPR where you can catch an listen to NPR's On Point discussing Deep Ocean Ecology with Katrin Linse (part of the recent expedition to survery deep Antarctic biodiversity), Lisa Levin (a deep-sea biologist from Scripps), Tim Shank (a deep-sea biologist from Woods Hole), and Claire Nouvian (author of the The Deep).
grrlscientist | May 31, 2007tags: birds, , blog carnivals
The 50th edition of I and the Bird, is now available. This blog carnival, as its name suggests, focuses on the best recent writing about birds in the blogosphere, and I am pleased to say that they included one of my pieces in their very large collection of stories.
sb admin | May 31, 2007President Bush has nominated Dr. James W. Holsinger, Jr. to be U.S. Surgeon General. Here's the short item from the Associated Press:
President Bush has nominated a Kentucky cardiologist who is interested in fighting childhood obesity to be the next surgeon general, the White House announced. The nominee, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Kentucky, has led Kentuckyâs health care system, taught at several medical schools and served more than three decades in the Army Reserve, retiring in 1993 as a major general.
Head over to Effect Measure for…
denialism | May 31, 2007In today's NYT
It's softer than the outright denial of evolution that was assumed when he raised his hand at the debate, and certainly doesn't sound like young-earth creationism. It seems to be intelligent design creationism without explicitly mentioning intelligent design - although some keywords are present. He, of course, uses many of the classic denialist arguments.
For instance:
We have a classic divide-and-conquer tactic of asserting that because there is some dispute over different evolutionary theories, there is room for doubt. I consider this a goal-post moving argument - you can'…
petnoyer | May 31, 2007 While we wait for Craig and the crew to reboot the MBARI ROV, I should note the NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration just recently posted expedition logs for the Olympic Coast 2006 Exploration for Deep-Sea Coral Communities off the coast of Washington State.
The homepage for the expedition is here at NOAA-OE. The same expedition is presented in a somewhat different format, with more background material and more pictures, here at the National Marine Sanctuary website.
This Olympic Coast cruise was important for several reasons: 1) Large aggregations of the deep scleractinian Lophelia pertusa…
tqa | May 30, 2007
Tara and Revere have posts up today on the story of the anonymous jackass of Air France Flight 385 and Czech Air flight 104. His story has been all over the news lately - he's the idiot with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) who took two intercontinental flights after being diagnosed with the disease because he didn't want to mess up his long-planned wedding in Greece, or honeymoon in Rome.
Yesterday, he told his side of the story to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, because wanted "to make sure his side of the story was heard." Reading his side of the story, I was reminded…
cmcclain | May 30, 2007 I perhaps spoke too soon and in doing so invited Murphy's wrath.
We completed deployment of the respirometer and accomplished 3/4 of the video transects we planned. During our bottom time we saw high densities of flat fish, asteroids, and the jellyfish Benthocodon. We also spotted a rather large pom-pom anemone. The squid Histoteuthis was also seen and at one point inked the respirometer.
But then there was problem, the ROV went dead in the water, no power and no video feed to the surface. We lost contact with the ROV. Houston we have problem! At this time we are retrieving the dead ROV…
cmcclain | May 30, 2007Sometimes you just luck out. Today so far is one of those days. The bay is like glass and steaming out to the site has been smooth. We just arrived on station (8:30am) and deployed the ROV. First operation is to deploy the benthic respirometer. Wish us luck!
cmcclain | May 30, 2007 It is very early in the morning. Yes I know its only a little after 7am but I really am not a morning person. Like most mornings leaving the dock in Moss Landing it is foggy and relatively cold. I'm not whining its just cold for a southern boy. I will be on the Pt. Lobos today, affectionately referred to by some as the Pt. Puke for its high draft and odd roll but I love her anyway. We will be using the ROV Ventana to visit the ocean floor at approximately 850m.
We have an approximate 2 hour steam and subsequent 1-2 hour wait for the Ventana to reach our seafloor sampling site in…
cmcclain | May 29, 2007Tomorrow, I will be blogging from sunny Monterey Bay. Actually, I will be blogging from foggy Monterey Bay but it will still be outrageous. You can tune in here at 7:00 am (Pacific Time) tomorrow for the first post. Hopefully, halfway through the day the antenna will be working and I will beam back to shore my second post. I will check back later tomorrow evening to answer in questions (posted in the comments). You can catch a live updated video from the deck of the ship and current position throughout the day. This is a test run for an even more amazing blog session coming in June!
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007tags: blog carnivals, best writing
I was just made aware that the 244th issue of the Carnival of the Vanities is available and has been out for approximately one week now. This blog carnival links to the best blog writing available on the internet, regardless of topic, and they saw fit to include a piece that I wrote, so this makes me happy, of course!
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007Okay everyone, SEED magazine, my mothership (well, of sorts), is having a science writing contest that you all should know about. The best news about this contest is that first prize is $2500 and second prize is $1000. What do you have to do to win this tidy sum of cash?
You have to write the best 1200-word essay (yep, just like in school) on the following questions:
What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century? How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?…