January 23, 2007
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert M. Kimmitt tries to explain Why Job Churn Is Good:
More than 55 million Americans, or four out of every 10 workers, left their jobs in 2005. And this is good news, because there were over 57 million new hires that same year.
Those workers spent an average of…
January 23, 2007
On this Blogging for Choice Day, we are asked to tell why we are pro-choice.
For me, the answer is simple: women are people, and as such deserve to have control of their own bodies. Like Lindsay, I find this claim remarkable only in that others find it remarkable.
That's why I'm pro-choice, and…
January 22, 2007
Here is your Tuesday assignment. Read this post and this article in today's Times:
Psychologists and anthropologists have typically turned to faith healers, tribal cultures or New Age spiritualists to study the underpinnings of belief in superstition or magical powers. Yet they could just as well…
January 22, 2007
The DI answers some questions:
Question (2): "Has DI taken a stand on the enforcement of the 'church / state establishment' rules banning from public schools and colleges the teaching of evolution if it is being taught as a religion?"
We do not believe that teaching evolution is necessarily…
January 22, 2007
Brownback starts 'yellow brick road' presidential campaign:
My family and I are taking the first steps on the yellow brick road to the White House. It's a great journey," Brownback said, returning to his home state to declare his intention to seek his party's nomination in 2008.
Whether he will be…
January 22, 2007
There's little doubt that we need to move America off of its addiction to rapidly depleting fossil fuels. The challenge is that our current energy infrastructure is heavily dependent on there being a common currency of energy; cars and trucks all run on different formulations of the same product,…
January 21, 2007
Few heed Operation Rescue’s call for abortion protest:
Kansas’ largest city braced Friday for a possible repeat of massive abortion protests in the wake of Operation Rescue’s nationwide call for demonstrations.
But while abortion opponents dubbed the four-day event a “cry for justice,” that cry…
January 21, 2007
At the core of my disagreement with Sam Harris (and with our own Jason Rosenhouse) is the role of religion in making religious authoritarianism bad. I argue that authoritarianism (and extremism in general) is the issue, while others think that religion should be the focus. To bolster my argument…
January 21, 2007
At Billy Dembski's place, GilDodgen quotes Denyse O'Leary:
Bear with a simple lay hack here a moment: Why must we know a designer’s intentions in order to detect design?
If the fire marshall’s office suspects arson, do the investigators worry much about WHY?
Surely they investigate, confirm their…
January 21, 2007
The BEAST lists all 50 "Most Loathsome People in America. There are some obvious choices, but these are some unexpected or particularly well-phrased entries:
47. Michael Musto
Charges: A friendly bacteria in America’s bloated entertainment entrails, giving vicarious life to that big brown…
January 20, 2007
In testimony before a joint session of committees covering stem cell policy and the NIH, the interim chair of the NIH's stem cell policy task force told the senators that Bush's stem cell policy is hampering research:
The National Institutes of Health official overseeing the implementation of…
January 19, 2007
I wish their whole site weren't built around Flash, but EDGE has put together a great package highlighting a range of species that are unique and disappearing around the world.
The solenodon, for instance, is a possible relative of Madagascar's tenrecs, separated by Africa and the Atlantic. The…
January 19, 2007
Jason Rosenhouse replies to Josh Rosenau. Skimmers are likely to get confused. I replied in his comments, and he replied again, and we'll probably both reply a lot.
January 18, 2007
While Presidential gamesmanship is all the rage, with even Kansas trying to move its primaries earlier to get a bite of that apple, major moves are under way lower down on the ballot.
Perhaps most significantly for Scienceblogs readers, Bill Wagnon, current chairman of the Kansas Board of Education…
January 18, 2007
Local radio host Steve Forman quotes the World Nut Daily:
In the wake of reports of unidentified objects flying over Chicago's O'Hare Airport, a retired Air Force pilot has his own mystery with a rash of bright, colorful lights he photographed hovering in skies over western Arkansas last week.
"I…
January 18, 2007
Thanks to Framing Science for pointing me to a debate between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan about religion and religious moderation.
Shorter Sam Harris: If only religious people understood religion as well as atheists do, they'd be atheists like I am.
Honestly, Harris writes "Moderate doubt—which…
January 17, 2007
After a year of stalling, and a year of insisting that the secret FISA court couldn't provide warrants for the monitoring of all of the citizens whose phones they wanted to tap, the Justice Department announced that the secret court is to govern wiretapping plan.
When the program was revealed a…
January 16, 2007
Dr. Myers doesn't like that Darren Naish doesn't like Darwin's beard. Why? Because "men can grow beards in their 20s, and having a beard doesn't necessarily mean you're a wizened old fuddy-duddy."
Maybe someone needs to tell grandpa over there that men can grow beards in their teens, and having a…
January 16, 2007
In the Daily Kos Straw Poll thus far. John Edwards is in the lead, with Barack Obama and Wes Clark in a close 2nd and 3rd. Richardson edges out Kucinich, and Hillary trails the pack of contenders.
I consider Richardson's lead over Hillary more of a headline than the fact that Dennis Kucinich…
January 16, 2007
According to a report by the National Academies of science Cutbacks Impede Climate Studies:
The government's ability to understand and predict hurricanes, drought and climate changes of all kinds is in danger because of deep cuts facing many Earth satellite programs and major delays in launching…
January 16, 2007
The National Research Council rejected proposed rules on assessing chemical risk:
Echoing concerns raised by scientists, consumer groups and agency heads, the council -- part of the congressionally chartered National Academies -- told the OMB to limit itself to outlining guiding principles and…
January 16, 2007
Bora of A Blog Around the Clock is the hardest working man in science blogging. He put together a Science Blogging Conference that I'll be sorry to miss, he posts a bajillion times a day, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the blogosphere, and organized and produced the first annual Science Blogging…
January 15, 2007
It's the time of year yet again when you nominate your favorite lefty blogs for the Koufax awards.
I would appreciate being in the running for the "Best Local and State Blog" category, and the new "Best Consonant Level Blog" looks like it'll be a good category for me also.
All you have to do is…
January 15, 2007
Beyond Vietnam, by Martin Luther King, Jr. Delivered at Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967. How little do times change. Dr. King was careful to show that his comments were directed not at the Vietcong nor China or Russia, but to the people of this nation:
I come to this magnificent house…
January 15, 2007
Since the thing to do seems to be to quote great writing of the era, I thought I'd contribute Phil Och's great song "Too many Martyrs." Medgar Evers was shot and killed in 1963, 5 years before Dr. King's assassination.
In the state of Mississippi, many years ago,
A boy of 14 years got a taste of…
January 15, 2007
Lawrence has made an important step towards true equality by taking up the possibility of a local registry of domestic partnerships. This would allow a centralized place where companies that choose to provide partnership benefits to check the status of their employees, and would allow hospitals…
January 15, 2007
When the President declared that he didn't intend to be bound by FISA, and would tap anyone's phone he wanted with or without a warrant, that was a problem. Congress had passed a law specifically forbidding such behavior because it had been abused before. Those abuses had been secret, so the…
January 13, 2007
Belle summarizes it as: "You know, although I’d listened to the Black Sabbath song ‘War Pigs’ many times before, I felt now as if only now I were hearing it for the first time."
I would go with "Why, oh why?, didn't we listen to the hippies?"
Or at least I would have gone with Dylan's "Masters of…
January 13, 2007
Billy Dembski writes:
We are often told that “there is no ID research published in peer reviewed journals“. I receive Nature E-Alerts in a number of biological research fields. Almost every time I read the abstracts and even the titles, or spend more time delving into the detail, I hear “…
January 12, 2007
List the countries and states you've visited. Also, let me know if these maps show up for you.
This application is created by interactive maps.You can also have your visited countries map on your site.If you see this message, you need to upgrade your flash player.
Make your visited…
