April 16, 2007
Tommy Thompson, former Bush HHS secretary and current presidential candidate, told the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism:
"I’m in the private sector and for the first time in my life I’m earning money. You know that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong…
April 16, 2007
Randy Olson's Flock of Dodos will air on Showtime in May.
April 16, 2007
Gunman killed after deadly Virginia Tech rampage:
A lone gunman is dead after police said he killed at least 21 people Monday during shootings in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech -- the deadliest school attack in U.S. history.
Government officials told The Associated Press that the death…
April 16, 2007
Hate is a strong word, it goes beyond mere distaste and disagreement.
The people who left death threats and scared Kathy Sierra out of a planned appearance didn't just hate her. They had no reason to hate a person who writes a blog about computer interfaces. Their hate is for women, and their…
April 15, 2007
Many, many moons ago, KC's bloggers would get together now and again, but the practice died out. Thankfully, there is a new blogger meet up:
The details are Tuesday, April 17th Happy Hour until ????
Harry's Country Club in the River Market,
112 Missouri Ave, Kansas City, MO 64106
(NOT Harry's in…
April 15, 2007
Space on Earth: Saving Our World by Seeking Others by Charles S. Cockell: A fascinating argument, and a book I find myself constantly thinking about. Cockell is the Chair of Microbiology at the UK's Open University, and the creator of the Earth and Space Foundation. The book argues that "the…
April 15, 2007
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris: Harris would benefit from a sense of nuance. Millions of Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Reform and Conservative Jews, Unitarians, Catholics and mainline Protestants adhere to religious teachings something like – and often more…
April 14, 2007
Mooney and Nisbet take their case for framing science from Science, to the Washington Post's Op-Ed page. PZ Myers is not happy. I agree with him that the title sucks, but I'd lay odds that it was the work of some copy editor. On the other hand, I agree with Mooney and Nisbet when they say that…
April 13, 2007
Undergrads know more about politics than pop culture:
Half of the college students and 40 percent of the non-college students could name their respective members of Congress. Nearly two-thirds of college students and more than half of the non-college students could name at least one of their two U.…
April 12, 2007
The Pope has clarified the Church's views on evolution:
Benedict defended what is known as 'theistic evolution,' the view held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches that God created life through evolution and religion and science need not clash over this.
The Discovery…
April 11, 2007
"All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies." Thus began Kurt Vonnegut's fictional Book of Bokonon, within his novel Cat's Cradle.
The novelist, who, in 1997, told the New Yorker "People are sentimental about me now. I'm not waving my hands in the air looking for…
April 11, 2007
Yesterday I pointed out that Drew Ryun, like his father, is less willing to consider the science of global warming than Newt Gingrich, of all people. He responds today without actually linking to me, a violation of 'netiquette which is unfortunate for his readers, especially since he seems to…
April 11, 2007
According to the Senate Rules Committee hearings on the governance of the Smithsonian, Dick Cheney has attended a total of 0 meetings of the Smithsonian Board of Regents. Now, I know Dick Cheney was in a secret location for a long time, but surely he could have made it to one of the 4 meetings a…
April 11, 2007
After a leveraged buyout of a Texas utility put it on a greener path, the unanimous agreement of world governments that global warming is already changing ecosystems and affecting business, and reports that a new Dust Bowl may be forming, opposition to the construction of a new coal-fired plant in…
April 10, 2007
Newt Gingrich, while debating John Kerry, rejected Inhofe's intransigence and acknowledged:
the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon-loading of the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, Drew Ryun, son of the former Congressman and current candidate…
April 9, 2007
Tom Delay explains how prosecuting him for breaking campaign finance laws is… well, let's let him explain:
It’s the same process. It’s the same criminalization of politics. it’s the same oppression of people. It’s the same destroy people in order to gain power. It may be six million Jews. it may be…
April 9, 2007
Knight Ridder reports changes since Senator Pat Roberts left the Intelligence Committee:
Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Christopher "Kit" Bond have joined forces to put the Senate Intelligence Committee back on track after a rocky few years by running it in bipartisan fashion.
The committee is holding…
April 9, 2007
Larry Moran criticizes Coturnix (and by implication Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbett) for their focus on "framing," as described in Chris and Matt's paper in Science (behind a paywall, alas):
the top three requirements for good science writing are scientific accuracy, scientific accuracy, and…
April 8, 2007
Bora asks a bunch of people why they blog. Since various and sundry other people have asked me the same question over the years, I may as well answer and be done with it.
I blog to be part of what Brad Delong calls the Invisible College:
I am greedy. I want more. I would like a larger college, an…
April 8, 2007
While working on an unrelated project, I came across two fascinating passages, the first by John Burroughs, the second by Richard Jefferies, both from the excellent Norton Book of Nature Writing. If nothing else, it is a reminder that people have been presenting sensible arguments against the…
April 8, 2007
State water board alters priorities:
A state water board on Wednesday unexpectedly pushed reducing groundwater consumption in western Kansas toward the top of a priority list of the Kansas Water Office's new five-year strategic plan.
This is partly a response to the added strain on the declining…
April 6, 2007
As the Journal World explains:
Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison said in the legal opinion that the proposed registry does not conflict with the Kansas Constitution, which bans same-sex marriage. The opinion, though, does say that the registry would need to be open only to Lawrence residents,…
April 6, 2007
OpenCongress reports Republican Reps. and Boyda Come Out Against Bush's Path to Citizenship Plan. Ninety-seven representatives signed a letter asking Speaker Pelosi not to bring any bills to the floor allowing people already living in this country a path to citizenship. As OpenCongress explains:…
April 5, 2007
Taner Edis, a physicist at Truman State University, came to KU a couple days ago to talk about his research into creationism in the Muslim world. That research most recently led to his book An Illusion of Harmony: Science And Religion in Islam.
Dr. Edis grew up and went to college in Turkey,…
April 4, 2007
Sometime today I had my 100,000th visitor at the new TfK. Thank you to all my readers for making this possible.
April 4, 2007
The New York Times summarizes the challenges facing much of the Western US:
Preparing for worst-case outcomes, the seven states that draw water from the Colorado River — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico in the upper basin and California, Arizona and Nevada in the lower basin — and the United…
April 4, 2007
In honor of MarkCC's latest effort to explain to the deeply egnorant Michael Egnor why the fact that any inferentially true set of statements – including scientific theories – can be reformulated as a tautology, I thought I'd crack open Elliot Sober's excellent Philosophy of Biology, in which he…
April 3, 2007
Mike Dever, Rob Chestnut and Boog Highberger won the city commission race. Only Boog stated his support for the domestic partnership registry, the other two were the Chamber of Commerce slate. They were also the top vote-getters in the first round of voting, so that's not a surprising result.…
April 3, 2007
Sal Cordova is a fascinating example of the danger facing anyone who ignores Pope's advice "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." Sal's latest bungling of knowledge…
April 3, 2007
There's something appropriate about having an election on the first day of our celebration of freedom.
Turnout has reportedly been light, so be sure to vote today. In Lawrence, you can figure out which candidates best match your views with the Journal-World's handy candidate selector for the…
