May 16, 2007
The sanctimonious blowhard lived a life of noisy desperation, hunting constantly for a way to divide America and the world. In response to everything from Katrina to the Dover creationism decision to 9/11, he knew that the way to get on television was to declare judgment in God's name. Job's…
May 11, 2007
In honor of the local paper's attempt to get an in-depth look at events around Lawrence for 24 hours, I spent a little time outside city limits with a bug net and a camera. While a bug-on-the-street interview is less traditional than other coverage the day generated, I think that a look at the…
May 10, 2007
An LA Times report on a study of the HPV vaccine summarizes it by saying "Overall, the new results indicate that the vaccine is not living up to its initial prospects." But is that true? Here's what the reporter said mere paragraphs earlier about the findings:
Among women who had not previously…
May 10, 2007
Fulfilling the hopes of many, the Board of Education named Alexa Posny to be the Commissioner of Education. Dr. Posny will replace Bob Corkins, the woefully unqualified commish installed by the previous Board. This undoes the last of the major damage done by the previous Board.
Posny was the…
May 9, 2007
Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet will kick off their Speaking Science tour tomorrow in Kansas City, in the Stowers Institute auditorium at 4 pm. It should be a fun event and a good chance for science advocates to start a discussion about how to communicate science to nonscientists.
Nisbet and Mooney…
May 9, 2007
The Lawrence Journal-Worlld is putting together a project called 24 Hours in Lawrence. Tomorrow, they'll send out reporters throughout the community, the Watkins Community Museum will be set up to take oral histories, and you can submit your own content. They'll pull all the material together in…
May 8, 2007
Barack Obama Otold the Detroit Economic Club that "the auto industry is on a path that is unacceptable and unsustainable" because of its fuel inefficiency and the high costs of health care for employees and retirees. He proposed to let the government take on some of those costs if the industry…
May 8, 2007
In addition to its flawed standards on science education, the previous Board of Education's major achievements involved hired an unqualified Commissioner of Education and imposing abstinence-only standards on sex ed classes. The new Board reversed the science standards debacle, is currently…
May 8, 2007
The Senate is considering a bill that would have allowed the reimportation of drugs from Canada. This is a measure that overwhelming majorities support, and that many people have already supported with their wallets. Some states have even explored reimporting drugs.
Of course, a popular idea that…
May 7, 2007
Someone turned me on to a new journal – Secular Culture & Ideas – covering cultural (secular) Judaism. There's an interview with science journalist Natalie Angier, an essay on secular thought in American politics, and several articles on Jewish feminism. Douglas Rushkoff's essay on how…
May 7, 2007
Within days of a tornado that destroyed 90% of Greensburg, KS, at least 7 people have been arrested for looting the town:
Four soldiers and a reserve police officer were arrested Sunday on suspicion of looting cigarettes and alcohol from a store in this tornado-ravaged town, state officials said.…
May 7, 2007
How evil are you?
As if you, dear reader, would have thought otherwise.
May 6, 2007
Drew Ryun, Jim Ryun's baby boy and former Evangelical Outreach director for the RNC, thinks Mormonism is weird. He defends that claim by encouraging people bothered by that statement to read up on Mormon theology. He then defends his own views, writing:
if you're weirded out by orthodox…
May 5, 2007
Steve, formerly the Whole Wheat Blogger, is confused. He reads an article about people in Austria trying to get a chimpanzee declared to be a person for legal purposes, and wonders:
On pondering this, I was wondering what possible reason these people could have for doing this. Do they desire…
May 5, 2007
Last night, a tornado ranging between one and two miles wide swept through Greensburg, Kansas, destroying 90% of the town.
The town is most famous for the World's Largest Hand-Dug Well. That tourist attraction, as well as a 1,000 meteorite displayed nearby, is the envy of neighboring towns, as…
May 4, 2007
A smart question asked and unanswered in last night's Republican Presidential debate was "What do you like least about America?"
Blue Tide Rising summarizes Mitt Romney's non-answer, and poses a followup:
If the GOP and it's candidates can't identify the problems, how can we reasonably expect them…
May 3, 2007
Less than a third of Republican candidates for President reject evolution. That's how far out of the mainstream those three whackos are.
Only McCain and Giuliani said they'd back stem cell research, despite growing national majorities in favor of it.
I didn't watch it, so I don't know anything but…
May 3, 2007
Slacktivist wonders "is Lou Sheldon dumb enough to believe his own slippery silliness, or is he just being dishonest to further his political agenda? Hard to say. But any question that begins with 'is Lou Sheldon dumb enough ...' I'm inclined to answer yes."
The question of Lou Sheldon's stupidity…
May 3, 2007
The legislation, which is identical to a bill working its way through the Senate, would allow federal prosecutors to pursue charges against people who were exercising a federal right and were attacked based on sexuality, sex or physical disability. As it stands, the prosecutors can only step in…
May 3, 2007
Boing Boing informs us that:
The Houston Museum of Natural Science will pay $0.25 each for the first 1,000 living cockroaches brought in by the public at specific times over the next two weeks. The roaches will be part of an exhibit on the "'sanitary' engineers of the insect world'" within the new…
May 3, 2007
Max Blumenthal reviews Christopher Hitchens and his latest book:
"God Is Not Great" represents little more than the disingenous posturings of a certified fraudmeister who has openly cavorted with the most reactionary elements of the Christian right. If Hitchens had any principles at all -- if he…
May 2, 2007
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner polled 1000 Americans and got some encouraging results. Three in ten respondents chose stopping global warming by reducing dependence on fossil fuels as the most important threat, above student performance, business competitiveness and retirement security. Only reducing…
May 2, 2007
Yes or No. Do you believe in evolution?
Should the President have power to imprison U.S. citizens without charging them with a crime and without providing them a judicial forum in which they can contest the accusations against them, as the Bush administration did to American Jose Padilla?
Do you…
May 2, 2007
Reed Cartwright found out that a vital ecological research facility may be closed. The Savannah River Ecological Laboratory is operated by University of Georgia on land owned by the US Department of Energy. The DoE had a plutonium processing facility there, which is now closed. The unpopulated…
May 1, 2007
May 7 at 7:30, Randy Olson will be screening Flock of Dodos and then discussing it with a panel at Wichita State University.
Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet, both Sciencebloggers, will be speaking at KC's Stowers Institute on May 10 at 4 pm in the auditorium at 1000 E. 50th Street, KCMO.
Be there or…
May 1, 2007
Following his promise to veto funding for the occupation of Iraq, President Bush sent the Iraq supplemental back to the Hill. While majorities of citizens and members of Congress increasingly feel that the continued presence of the United States makes no sense, the President expressed other…
May 1, 2007
The civil engineer who saw fit to rewrite the conclusions of Interior Department scientists, and who sent confidential documents to a virtual friend on an online role-playing game, has resigned. This was part of her clever ploy to escape Congressional questioning. They can't over see her work if…
May 1, 2007
SCOTUSblog explains the excellent unanimous decision in KSR v. Teleflex. The Court overturned a lower court and invalidated a patent, strongly reaffirming the principle that patents must cover inventions that would not be obvious to a practitioner in the field based on existing inventions ("prior…
May 1, 2007
ThinkProgress reports that a pump bid for New Orleans may have been rigged:
When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, "it copied the specifications — typos and all — from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract."
The…
April 30, 2007
The Lawrence City Commission will be considering a proposal to maintain a registry of domestic partnerships. The state attorney general has reviewed the proposal, and feels it's probably legal.
All the registry would do is provide a place for people (possibly restricted to Lawrence residents) to…
