August 2, 2007
Reposted from the old blog because it's still true over a year later.
There's nothing I hate more than people who are too stupid to realize that Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men was the bad guy. He declared himself a law unto himself, and that's not what America wants, it's not what we…
August 1, 2007
It will be a bit days before I can spend time writing anything thoughtful, so enjoy the music and reposted material for a little longer.
"Monty Got A Raw Deal" by R.E.M. from the album Automatic For The People (1992, 3:17).
"Devil In Her Heart" by The Beatles from the album With The Beatles (1963…
August 1, 2007
Reposted from the old TfK, for your enjoyment while I drive out to the NCSE.
I don't mind creationism. I know this comes as a bit of a shock, but I don't. For our purposes, creationism is the belief that a supernatural force or being created, designed or otherwise shaped the universe and life in…
July 31, 2007
Because you need some music to go with your posts from the archives:
"(Was I) In Your Dreams" by Wilco from the album Being There (1996, 3:30).
"Fingertips [21 - Darkened Corridors]" by They Might Be Giants from the album Apollo 18 (1990, 1:01).
"Red Right Ankle" by The Decemberists from the album…
July 31, 2007
It isn't Passover right now, but several people recently commented that this is one of our better posts from the old blog, so enjoy.
On all other nights, we may eat either leavened or unleavened bread; on this night, only unleavened bread.
On all other nights, we may eat any vegetable; on this…
July 30, 2007
Randomly selected from my "driving" playlist in iTunes. It's like you're in the car with me right now, as I drive across the western US.
"How to Fight Loneliness" by Wilco from the album Summerteeth (1999, 3:52).
"Fingertips 18 - The Day That Love Came to Play" by They Might Be Giants from the…
July 30, 2007
Reposted from the old TfK, while I Travel from Kansas.
Everyone is answering Seed's Question of the Week: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
I'm down with this answer:
I want people to understand that there is no law of averages. There…
July 29, 2007
That title is not an homage to Kerouac, but to Cormac McCarthy and to John Buass, who I finally met on Friday and who tried hard to convince me, Mike Silverman, and anyone else in earshot, that The Road is not that dark.
The title is also an accurate description. By the time this post publishes, I…
July 27, 2007
iTunes spins the wheels and reveals:
"Midnight Rider" by The Allman Brothers Band from the album Dreams (1989, 4:26). I'm compiling this post at midnight. Does that make me a Midnight Writer?
"Dinner Bell" by They Might Be Giants from the album Apollo 18 (1990, 2:11). Lunch yesterday: Ribs and…
July 26, 2007
Reposted because it amuses me. Right before Saddam Hussein's execution, I wrote:
As my AP English teacher told us when we read Billy Budd by Herman Melville "A criminal is hanged, a man is hung."
Yet another piece of 19th century arcana that the Bush administration has made necessary in the modern…
July 25, 2007
The Kansas Tourism Bureau should send a copy of this book to PZ Myers. Giant squidlike aliens and enmity of the gods would make great attractions.
Neatorama explains the cover of Joseph Millard's 1964 exposé of the wonders of Kansas:
THE GODS HATE KANSAS by Joseph Millard
INVASION FROM THE STARS…
July 25, 2007
Tony of Tony's Kansas City has a scoop: I am leaving Kansas.
TfK will be unchanged, or at least will continue changing in the same way it's always changed, but in honor of the move out of state, my upcoming birthday (July 26), the birthday of TfK (August 4) and the anniversary of the move here to…
July 24, 2007
The Discovery Institute promotes a podcast in a post titled:
William Dembski Addresses Forthcoming Intelligent Design Research that Advances ID and Answers Critics
How lovely to know before it happens not only that this "research" will yield answers for his critics, but that those answers will…
July 23, 2007
A pound of flesh is only ~0.5% of the average person. Would you prefer to pay a pound of (your own) flesh, or your income tax assessment as conventionally calculated.
Show your math.
Extra credit: Discuss why the pound of flesh should or should not be adjusted for inflation.
July 23, 2007
As French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde tells the National Assembly and the French people "Enough thinking, already," and calling on them to work harder, not smarter, we find the American anti-intellectual party warming up. Mitt Romney told a crowd:
Senator Obama is wrong if he thinks science…
July 21, 2007
Denyse O'Leary uses Bill Dembski's blog (and a dozen other ID blogs) to report a comment from a friend about the mission statement for Nature. The mission statement reads:
First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum…
July 20, 2007
This post is copyrighted. If you read this on a KU network, or any other copyrighted material, you just forfeited your network access. At least, that's how I read the new policy the University of Kansas announced:
A brief notice on the University of Kansas ResNet site explains the university's…
July 20, 2007
"Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen from the album Born In The U.S.A. (1984, 4:18).
"Angel Dream (No. 4)" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers from the album She's the One (1996, 2:27).
"A Conta Do Samba" by Tita Lima from the album 11:11 (2006, 5:30).
"A magazine called sunset" by Wilco from the…
July 20, 2007
The blogosphere is shocked (shocked!) that the Politico would obsess over petty crap like how much Mitt Romney would spend on makeup ($300).
After breaking the story that John Edwards pays non-trivial amounts of money for haircuts, and then beating that story 'til more people knew that fact than…
July 20, 2007
So what do you think of the snazzy new banner?
July 19, 2007
Reposted from the old TfK in honor of this story at BoingBoing.
Botflies are disgusting. Horrible, horrible little things. We get their larvae on the white-footed mice we trap here in Kansas. The picture to the right is a white-footed mouse botfly that I caught here in Kansas.
These are fairly…
July 19, 2007
I got my lovely Olympus C4040-Z in 2002, and got it second-hand. It works beautifully, and I've never needed to take it in for servicing. Olympus isn't paying me to say that, and I don't consider it terribly exceptional. I do find it surprising that Canon would say this about the camera which…
July 19, 2007
Everyone admires hurricanes, however grudgingly. When I hear someone described as "a force of nature," I envision a hurricane's hundred mile winds and waves whipped to such a frenzy that they merge with the air. The calm at the eye of the storm, the destructive potential, and the courage of the…
July 18, 2007
Secretary of State, and former National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice explains:
I'm a terrible long-term planner.
In late 2000, National Security Advisor-designate Rice published an article describing the many ways in which US foreign policy would have to deal with China in the new…
July 18, 2007
The KC Star explains:
“In the interests of harmony I decided we’ll just take it off,” said Kline spokesman Brian Burgess, who maintains the taxpayer-funded site for the district attorney’s office. “But I won’t rule out putting something there again.
“Going forward,” Burgess said, “I will try to be…
July 18, 2007
Via Cosmic Variance, we learn of the complex statistical analysis presented here, originally from the Wall Street Journal and based on work from the American Enterprise Institute.
The curve labeled the "Laffer curve" is not meant to make you "laff," it is actually an example of the psychological…
July 16, 2007
A White House spokesman explained that the president will veto a proposal in Congress because it "would dramatically expand the Children's Health Insurance Program, ... encouraging many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program."
One can see why the President would not…
July 13, 2007
"Love hides" by The Doors from the album Absolutely Live (1970, 1:48).
"Tonight's The Night" by Neil Young from the album Live Rust (1979, 7:12).
“One Too Many Mornings” by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash from an unreleased album (1969, 4:05).
"So Cruel" by U2 from the album Achtung Baby (1991, 5:48…
July 12, 2007
"Clothes Of Sand" by Nick Drake from the album Made To Love Magic (2004, 2:31).
"Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Variation 17 a 2 Clavier" by Glenn Gould from the album The Goldberg Variations - Glenn Gould Plays Bach (1981, 1:21). Do you prefer the 1955 album?
"Mardi Gras In New Orleans" by…
July 11, 2007
The Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita announced the birth of a 60 pound baby girl rhino. She will be named by the winner of an auction in September.
The unnamed rhino was born to Bibi, the second Eastern Black Rhinoceros in the US obtained from a Japanese zoo. A survey in 2001 found fewer than 500…
