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tqa | July 27, 2006A brief conversation in the car today:
Me: I don't know why, but for some reason grusome threats work with kids. They believe them less the more grusome they get, but they listen a lot more.
My mom: Yeah, I remember when you were little, I used to threaten to boil you in oil or hang you from the fire escape by your toes.
#2 Offspring: Do it, Nana!
stcynic | July 27, 2006St. Paul police cited the 81-year-old father of Sen. Norm Coleman and a female companion after officers reported seeing them engaged in a sex act in the parking lot of a popular pizzeria.
A person passing Red Savoy's Pizza at 421 E. Seventh St. called police about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and said two people were "having sex in a vehicle," a police report said.
Officers issued citations to Norman B. Coleman Sr. and Patrizia M. Schrag, 38, for lewd and disorderly conduct. Schrag told police Coleman Sr. is her boyfriend. (link)
If only Clinton was still in office, the old man might be in line for a…
neurotopia | July 27, 2006http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060726/ap_on_go_ot/top_problems_ap_poll;_y…--
stcynic | July 27, 2006Someone named Greg Scott, writing at the famously misnamed Intellectual Conservative site, is up in arms about a New York Times report about the increasing number of neo-nazis and skinhead racists in the US military. That article was based on a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which cited Defense Department officials on the record about their ongoing investigations. Scott's critique of the Times' article is riddled with factual errors, distortions and exaggerations. Predictably, he's making the "they're insulting the whole military" argument, which is the standard reply from the…
purepedantry | July 27, 2006The WHO reports that the Sun kills as many as 60,000:
As many as 60,000 people a year die from too much sun, mostly from malignant skin cancer, the World Health Organization has reported.
It found that 48,000 deaths every year are caused by malignant melanomas, and 12,000 by other kinds of skin cancer. About 90 percent of such cancers are caused by ultraviolet light from the sun.
Radiation from the sun also causes often serious sunburn, skin aging, eye cataracts, pterygium -- a fleshy growth on the surface of the eye, cold sores and other ills, according to the report, the first to detail…
stcynic | July 27, 2006I'll be out of town all morning on business, but I've got lots of bloggy goodness lined up and scheduled to post this morning. Enjoy.
mikethemadbiologist | July 26, 2006I've discussed before how former Bush supporters and loyalists suffering from buyer's remorse are now frantically trying to revise history and offer (lame) excuses for why they were so foolish. driftglass brings up another tactic that we'll hear often: everybody went along with Bush. driftglass, who takes Chris Matthews to task over this rhetorical strategy, has a stereotypical calm, collected, restrained response to Matthews:
Uh, no Chris. "We" didn't elect him, and "we" never thought having a halfwit sock puppet as the leader of the free world was a particularly good idea....
Uh, no.…
stcynic | July 26, 2006Folks, we might be witness to an earth-shattering event: the Worldnutdaily actually printed a column that makes sense. I know, I know, it doesn't seem possible. But it's true. Read this column by Walter Williams, which bashes Congress for passing a bill to ban internet gambling (only the House has passed it so far, actually). Forget about the ongoing violence in the Middle East, this may well be the opening of the seventh seal and the start of armageddon.
stcynic | July 26, 2006(Ex-)Judge Roy Moore is joining the Worldnutdaily as a columnist. Is it bad that I'm positively giddy at the news?
stcynic | July 25, 2006With the change in color scheme for Science Blogs, I thought a change in the banner to better match the new scheme was in order. Jeff Hebert, who designed the original banner, was once again kind enough to do several rounds of modifications for me until we got one that I really liked. So thanks to Jeff, as always, for his time and effort.
stcynic | July 25, 2006Josh Claybourn has quite a month coming up. Today he begins the Indiana bar exam. When he's finished with that, he's flying to Africa for 24 days where he will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, going on safaris in the Serengeti and relaxing at the beach. I want to wish him good luck on the bar exam and even better luck in his travels.
tqa | July 25, 2006Over at Pharyngula, PZ highlights a recent comment by Rick Santorum, the best-dressed man in the Senate, regarding Santorum's opinion on scientists and morality:
Most scientists unfortunately, those that certainly are advocating for this [embryonic stem cell research], and many others feel very little moral compulsion. It's a utilitarian, materialistic view of doing whatever they can do to pursue their desired goals.
After following the links back and watching the video clip of Santorum's comment, I discovered something that was almost shocking: he actually said other things in response to…
purepedantry | July 24, 2006The Chronicle of Higher Education is running a symposium on the benefits of academic blogging. This symposium addresses ostensibly the failure of Juan Cole, a prominent Middle East scholar and proprietor of the blog Informed Comment, to recieve tenure at Yale University. Many have attributed that failure to his publishing his views on the Internet, though Yale has thus far refused to comment.
Many of the contributors to the symposium also talk in depth about the benefits of academic blogging. Here are some choice morsels:
Brad De Long:
The hope of all of us who blog is that we will…
tqa | July 24, 2006Joseph responded to my last post with a thought-provoking comment on my blog, and added a brief post to his own noting the exchange and wondering if there is any neutral third party who might want to weigh in on our exchange. I'd like to second that request. Of course, since I'm incapable of just letting things rest where they are without further, I'd also like to address a few of the things that Joseph brought up in his comment.
Regarding the question of whether we should stay in Iraq, he writes:
Just looking at the situation in Iraq, I would say that I used to hold the same view as you: we…
stcynic | July 24, 2006David Darlington has a post at In the Agora about the ongoing situation in Philadelphia over an English-only requirement at one of its famous cheesesteak establishments. As David notes, the two most famous places to get authentic cheesesteak sandwiches in Philly are Geno's and Pat's, which are located across the street from each other. And Geno's is now in trouble with the city because he put up a sign that says "this is America, please order in English". The city is actually taking legal action against the restaurant for this, which is absurd. But even worse, perhaps, is this:
Vento has done…
tqa | July 24, 2006On Saturday, a post appeared over at The Corpus Callosum discussing an article that appeared in the Guardian concerning the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. The main point behind the Guardian article is that the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan is very worried about the situation there, calling it "close to anarchy." The point to the Corpus Callosum article was a bit harder for me to grasp, and I might have misunderstood it, but it seemed to be that the problems in Afghanistan somehow provide a reason that we should pull out of Iraq - the logic seemed to be that we know…
neurotopia | July 23, 2006This one is a really simple, quick treat that's virtually fat-free. Can't vouch for carbs though.
14 oz can Fat Free Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 1/2 cups Jasmine or Basmati rice
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, or Seeds from 6 cardamom pods, ground
1-2 teaspoons Rosewater
Directions:
Empty Condensed milk into saucepan. Add 3 additional cans of water. Heat and stir, add the rice, cardamom, and rosewater. Cover and simmer until desired consistency, about 1/2 an hour. Tends to form lots of bubbles and bubble over even if only barely boiling; if this is a problem then crack the lid and keep…
stcynic | July 23, 2006Here's a new science blog someone gave me a link to, Defending Science, Scientists and Non-Scientists. The author, silkworm, is in Kansas and actively involved in the fight for science education there. It's good work, including recordings of Kansas IDer John Calvert giving talks around the state.
neurotopia | July 23, 2006I'm not a fan of conservative ideologies. I see them as regressive and stifling. Too often there is a quasi-religious adherence to "free market" as the solution to all life's problems, usually accompanied by the corollary "lower taxes". Whether or not one agrees that these principles are bad policy, we can look at the current conservative-minded political parties and see how they employ various tactics.
On one hand we have the modern Republican party, which is supposedly conservative. On the other, the Libertarians, who are also conservative. (A smattering of other conservative parties…