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stcynic | February 4, 2006As if we needed more evidence of the absolute lunacy of Islamic fundamentalism, here's the latest:
Furious Syrians set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies on Saturday as protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad showed no signs of abating despite calls for calm...
Chanting "God is Greatest," thousands of protesters stormed the Danish embassy, burned the Danish flag and replaced it with a flag reading "No God but Allah, Mohammad is His Prophet." They set fires which badly damaged the building before being put out...
Demonstrators also set the Norwegian embassy ablaze. It was…
stcynic | February 3, 2006Since I found out that ScienceBlogs has a very cool feature built in for uploading images, I thought I'd go ahead and post all of the caricatures of Mohammed that were published in the Danish newspaper. Keep in mind what prompted the newspaper to publish them. A scholar was writing a book on Mohammed and could not find an illustrator who was willing to do the drawings for the book for fear of reprisal because Muslims believe that any drawing of Mohammed is forbidden. So the newspaper invited a bunch of artists to submit illustrations on the subject to test the extent of self-censorship going…
stcynic | February 3, 2006
Enough said. And that's from a demonstration in London, not Pakistan. Here's one from France:
No. You go to hell.
stcynic | February 3, 2006A commenter pointed me to this article about how our state department has reacted to the controversy surrounding the Mohammed caricatures in a Danish newspaper:
The United States condemned the cartoons on Friday, siding with Muslims who are outraged that newspapers put press freedom over respect for religion.
"We ... respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable," said State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper.
An incredibly irresponsible quote that sends precisely the wrong…
stcynic | February 3, 2006My pal DarkSyde continues his interviews with science bloggers with yet another ScienceBlogs contributor, this time Tara Smith. Tara is an epidemiologist who does research on infectious diseases. She's also a Panda's Thumb contributor and the founder of Iowa Citizens for Science.
grrlscientist | February 2, 2006
Male Purple Martin, Progne subis.
Photo by my friend, Kevin Li.
A friend of mine who works at JetBlue (my favorite air carrier) has given me a round trip flight to Seattle so I can attend a memorial service tomorrow for yet another friend of mine, Kevin Li [interview; mp3], who died suddenly this week (this has been one of the worst weeks of my life!). This means that Birds in the News will be postponed because I am flying across the country as you read this. Please accept my apologies, those three of you, dear readers, who actually read it.
Update (Friday morning, 3 February): Kevin's…
stcynic | February 2, 2006Here's an "I have some good news and some bad news" scenario for you regarding the now-infamous caricatures of Mohammed that have Muslims around the world throwing a temper tantrum. A French newspaper reprinted the caricatures and took a stand for freedom of the press:
France-Soir reprinted 12 caricatures of Muhammad and proclaimed on its front page: "Yes, we have the right to caricature God".
It also showed a new cartoon of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim gods floating on a cloud over Earth.
"Don't grumble Muhammad ... we have all been caricatured here," a smiling Christian God tells…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2006In honor of my birdday, I decided to do something that was absolutely, completely inexplicable, especially considering my current state of er, employment: I spent money on a frivolous item. As if I don't already have enough pets already, with one click of my mouse, I added more 25 animals to my growing menagerie.
Yes, my peeps, I bought an ant farm!
But wait, this isn't just any ant farm, it's a NASA-inspired ant farm! The prototype for this ant farm actually orbited the earth in one of the shuttles in 2003 and was used to study how ants adapt to microgravity. As you can see in the picture…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2006Did anyone play this game last night while listening to Bush's State of the Union Address? If so, have you recovered from your hangover yet? The rules are so complicated that it can easily qualify as a sobriety test.
Several favorites of mine include; you are supposed to drink a double shot of something green every time he says the word "environment"; locate the nearest Texan and mess with him/her, then drink for every time he says "Don't mess with Texas!"; and you are supposed to drink until your liver cries every time he mentions "Ted Kennedy".
Don't forget to check out the Democratic…
stcynic | February 1, 2006Eugene Volokh had a couple of posts a few days ago about anti-religious speech and a movement to regulate it around the world. It begins with the UN Commission on Human Rights urging nations to "take resolute action to prohibit the dissemination through political institutions and organizations of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers" that might lead to harrassment, discrimination or hostility. Volokh notes that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, has publicly condemned a Danish newspaper for publishing a dozen caricatures of…
grrlscientist | January 31, 2006I was nominated for a 2005 Koufax award for the "Best Post" category. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order so you'll find a link to my essay somewhere close the top of the (incredibly long) list. (I was nominated as "GrrlScientist" for this category). There are 222 or more nominees, including some of my fellow ScienceBloggers so get ready for a lot of great reading as you work your way through this list.
Add this nomination to another for Scientific Life, "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition."
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tags: blog awards
stcynic | January 31, 2006I am having an extended debate with Jimmy G in the comments on this thread over the nature of the 9th amendment. Jimmy's argument is that the 9th amendment must be read as a federalism provision and that the "unenumerated rights" mentioned in it are limited to those rights found in state constitutions at the time of the ratification. I thought I'd move it up top and explore it in a bit more detail. His position is what Randy Barnett calls the "rights-powers conception" of the 9th amendment in an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. But as Barnett points out, this reading…
stcynic | January 31, 2006I'm glad to hear that Orac, surgeon/scientist and great blogger, is moving his blog, Respectful Innocence, to the ScienceBlogs domain soon. Welcome to the neighborhood, Orac. You get to those the first cookout when it warms up.
OOPS. I meant to say Respectful Insolence, of course. I did not intend to sully Orac's hard earned reputation with suggestions of innocence.
grrlscientist | January 31, 2006
Your Birthdate: January 31
You're a pretty traditional person. If it's lasted, it's probably good.
You seek stability - both in your career and your romantic relationship.
In return, you're very loyal and predictable. Which is usually a good thing.
Without a partner, you feel lost. Being with someone is very important to you.
Your strength: Your dependability
Your weakness: You hate being alone
Your power color: Midnight blue
Your power symbol: Shell
Your power month: April
What Does Your Birth Date Mean?
Another stupid internet quiz. It's good for a laugh, but it is absolutely…
stcynic | January 31, 2006A friend sent me a link to this article in Newsweek about Jerry Falwell's Liberty University being the #1 debate team in the nation, knowing that I know the debate world pretty well and would find it interesting. My response to the article is: uh, no. Not even close. I'd love to know how this article came about; I suspect Falwell's people actively tried to get the story in there. But in fact, it's far from the truth and is actually a good example of how statistical rankings can be quite deceptive.The article says:
The Liberty team is currently ranked No. 1 in the country, above Harvard (14th…
stcynic | January 29, 2006Like most Americans, I remember quite vividly watching the Challenger disaster on television. I don't think I watched it live, but of course it was on every channel within minutes of the explosion. I had two connections to this event, one from the past and one in the future. 8 months before the Challenger disaster, during spring break in my senior year in high school, I was at the Kennedy Space Center and got to watch the shuttle Discovery launch into space. It was an incredible thing to watch, and I'd been prepared for it by a song.
One of my all time favorite bands, Rush, has a song on the…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2006
Mt. Rainier, Washington State.
Photograph by Pastoret.
Do not stand at my grave and forever weep.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and forever cry.
I am not there. I did not die.
-- Anonymous
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tags: poetry
grrlscientist | January 28, 2006tags: blogosphere, meme, 23-5 meme
I was tagged with a meme by my good friend, Philaelaethes, author of Bouphonia. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Phila is the man who single-handedly puts together the world-famous Friday Nudi Blogs, which recently began incorporating poetry (an especially fine touch, in my opinion). The meme goes like this;
1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.
Despite…
stcynic | January 28, 2006The Scienceblogs techies have fixed something I asked them to fix regarding how to quote what someone else wrote when answering it in a comment. You can now use the blockquote tag in your responses and I think this is the best way to organize a comment to make clear what is being responded to. To do this, you simply put tags around the quoted text. It's standard HTML code, for those familiar with it. You would write this:
{blockquote}quoted text you are replying to{/blockquote}
but replace the { with angle brackets < and >. That will slightly indent the text and add a vertical line in…
stcynic | January 28, 2006DarkSyde continues his interviews with pro-science advocates at DailyKos, this time with my good friend Wesley Elsberry being the victim. Very much worth reading, and worth following his advice and joining organizations like the National Center for Science Education. The NCSE's budget is dwarfed by that of the Discovery Institute and even dwarfed by traditional young earth creationist groups like the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. It's only $30 a year to join, a small price to pay to keep science education from being weakened further.