March 9, 2009
Watchmen is great. Dana's review is basically right, so consider this a "me too" and an expansion on certain themes.
As all nerds now know, the movie changes key events from the end of the graphic novels. I think that the major change was the right decision: giant psychic squid are awesome, but…
March 9, 2009
In what was widely seen as a needless politicization of science, President George W. Bush announced early in his presidency that he was forbidding federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells (with certain exceptions). This episode, and the way he sold his decision to the public, is…
March 8, 2009
There are a lot of reasons not to hold Arthur Conan Doyle up as a guide to solid scientific practice. The creator of the famously rational Sherlock Holmes was also an advocate of spiritualism and the existence of fairies, after all. Setting that aside, it would be a bad mistake to cite the work…
March 6, 2009
In the AP's coverage of OK state Rep. Thomsen's efforts to … expel … Richard Dawkins, the Disco. Inst. gets dissed. "We're all for the freedom of Richard Dawkins to speak," says an interviewee, who adds "Where is a similar high-profile person debating him?"
This person must not be aware that John…
March 6, 2009
Responding to Todd Thomsen's anti-Dawkins resolution, a livejournaler writes: "Having grown up in Oklahoma, I never thought I would be THIS glad to live in Texas."
Strong words. Few things could make Texas seem like a bastion of reason. And yet, Thomsen's HR 1015 is actually the nicer version of…
March 5, 2009
Oooooo-oh!-klahoma where the wind goes whistling 'twixt the ears!
Richard Dawkins, having visited Scibling Ed Brayton in Michigan, is on his way to Oklahoma, where Scibling ERV is skipping the event (she prefers to watch Casey Luskin and John "hard for Hitler" West, inexplicably).
And if state…
March 4, 2009
Henry Farrell offers a wingnut manifesto. The loonier corners of wingnuttia, including some sections of ABC News, have determined that the only response to the prospect of a small marginal increase on income over $250,000 is to stop working altogether. Fine. Henry suggests the following a "Go…
March 4, 2009
But symbolism matters less than simple human decency. Matt Yglesias points out the inhumane and ill-conceived treatment of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israelis:
stop and think for a minute about how this looks through the eyes of a young Palestinian. Israel has the right to decide what can and can…
March 3, 2009
If I did not read the newspaper, I would not know that gorillas are calmed not by sweet music, but by pork products:
“Haa mmm,” Mr. Serundori says, emitting a special gruntlike gorilla greeting that miraculously stops Kabirizi in midcharge. “Haa mmm.”
Fortunately, peace in the Congo means that…
March 3, 2009
An image from a protest against the economic recovery:
A sentiment I can't really disagree with, though there are details of implementation to be resolved.
Liberal writer Neal Pollack, in 2002, discussed his views on the issue:
if a man enjoys lowering his scrotum into his partner's mouth, and…
March 2, 2009
James Grimmelmann observes the Best. Comment. Ever. to a recipe at Epicurious:
I served these at my health club's solstice gathering and everyone found them quite delicious. I omitted cilantro, however, because it's arbitrary aura makes the herb quite unstable and thus unsuitable to combine with…
February 28, 2009
Following weeks of speculation, President Obama nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. She will be responsible for shepherding the president's promise of universal health care through Congress, and for carrying out his promises to reform…
February 26, 2009
Outgoing KS GOP boss Christian Morgan reacts to the response to President Obama's address to Congress:
Governor Jindal from Louisiana is fantastic.
But other conservatives aren't so sure:
David Brooks: "In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore…
February 26, 2009
I'm still confused. Did Bobby Jindal really dis volcano monitoring, of the sort that saved lives when Mt. St. Helens erupted? He really doesn't care for science, does he?
February 26, 2009
Last year, we spent a lot of time mocking the self-righteous bigotry of Martin Cothran. Cothran, who works for the Kentucky affiliate of Focus on the Family and blogs for the Disco. Inst., objects to gays having an equal right to marriage, and thinks it's hateful to call him a bigot for his anti-…
February 24, 2009
Will Bobby Jindal suggest faith healing or exorcism as solutions to our nation's challenges?
February 23, 2009
At the AAAS meetings in Chicago two weeks ago, I was privileged to be on a panel with such luminaries as Olivia Judson, David Deamer, Neil Shubin, and this year's winner of the AAAS Award for the Public Understanding of Science, Ken Miller. It was a great occasion, and afterward I got to shake…
February 23, 2009
DaveScot, at ID creationist Bill Dembski's place, is on a climate change denial binge. Dave writes:
that antarctic sea ice is at a record high (at least since 1980 when measurement started). The new high is REALLY high. It’s 50% greater than the old record set in 1995. In case anyone is laboring…
February 20, 2009
Disco. Inst. honcho Bruce Chapman is upset at The Weakness at the Center of the Conservative Coalition. Shorter Bruce Chapman:
No one wants to have anything to do with social conservatives. Waaaaah! We'll take our ball and go home.
Yesterday, Chapman was going ape about … well, it's hard to be…
February 19, 2009
More here, via Glenn Branch.
February 10, 2009
Blogging is slow this week. I've got a talk at AAAS in Chicago to prepare, an abstract for a conference in Montreal to prepare, and a dissertation to complete.
So let it be known that creationism still sucks, that I'm glad a bill forcing evolution disclaimers into Mississippi textbooks failed,…
February 3, 2009
I'm up in Michigan, so blogging will be light. I just did an event discussing NOVA's Judgment Day at a Unitarian Church. It was a good evening, and I got to meet Wesley Elsberry and several other lovely MSU folks.
Tomorrow (or today, by the time you're probably reading this), I speak to the…
February 2, 2009
And if you're a Californian, so do you. Dave Neiwert catches this bit of wingnuttery:
Beck: OK, there's something driving me to the edge of insanity, makes blood shoot right out my eyes, and that is California.
California today, they voted against offshore drilling. Not on their land, or their…
February 2, 2009
ScienceBlog reports: Ouch! Transplant surgeons remove healthy kidney through donor's vagina:
In what is believed to be a first-ever procedure, surgeons at Johns Hopkins have successfully removed a healthy donor kidney through a small incision in the back of the donor’s vagina.
This reminds me of a…
February 2, 2009
Via Brad Delong, an epigraph I may have to use in my dissertation:
The time has come, [my] doctrines have been verified, the sufferings [of the people] have taken place; and, therefore, here is the book. The scoffings, the scornings, the abuse, the reviling, the horrible calumnies and the base…
January 29, 2009
Headline: BART eyes higher fares, reduced service.
This is very, very dumb. Higher fares will reduce ridership at exactly the time BART is weaning people off of their addiction to driving. That's bad policy, and it's bad for BART revenue.
While shifting from trains every 15 minutes to a 20…
January 29, 2009
DaveScot, the semiliterate sycophant who used to administer Bill Dembski's ID blog, is in a tizzy. In addition to being an evolution denier, DS is a climate change denier and a promoter of medical woo, you see, and he thinks there's evidence that "[James] Hansen’s former boss at NASA declares…
January 29, 2009
The endlessly entertaining Zero out of Five collects catastrophically wrong test answers.
This one got 0 points, but I think that a recently passed law in Louisiana (and similar laws introduced in Oklahoma and elsewhere this year) might make that grade illegal:
I think that illustration was copied…
January 29, 2009
Tough economic times are squeezing university budgets in Europe, creating tension between sceintists and their governments.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is unhappy with French scientists. In a recent speech
Sarkozy lambasted the [French] research system as "infantilizing and paralyzing,"…
January 28, 2009
I suspect that when history remembers my Mayor, I expect they'll just quote Chip Johnson's summary of his state of the city address:
To say the least, if Dellums had a theme, it was lost in the chaos that converged around him.
I gotta say, focusing on crime was not the best move for Ron Dellums.…
