cmooney
Posts by this author
August 1, 2006
My namesake tropical cyclone is kicking it east of the Leeward Islands, having developed from a much-watched tropical wave in the past 24 hours, and may be heading towards Puerto Rico. But the system might not last long; Jeff Masters already puts it this way:
Chris could become a hurricane late in…
July 31, 2006
Well I've just returned from the UK, and am currently writing from a coffee shop in Queens. I'll head back to D.C. this afternoon or tonight. The flight was easy, no hassle; the only disappointment was that although we flew very close to Greenland, if not over it, there were too many clouds for me…
July 30, 2006
Check it out here. In my view, the piece is kinda all over the place. It argues that left and right are both bad when it comes to the treatment of science, but really the only case study adduced on the leftwing side of things is the attack on E.O. Wilson and sociobiology from way back when. I too…
July 27, 2006
On my last weekday here in England, I'm heading to the UK Met Office to interview some of their scientists. Then, I head back to the US Monday morning. I doubt I will blog again before then, although I suppose it's possible. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit deSmogBlog, which broke the…
July 27, 2006
I've just noted that over in the comments at Prometheus, Roger Pielke Jr. has taunted myself and numerous others for not blogging about the recently released statement by a number of hurricane experts, on both sides of the hurricane-climate divide, saying that whether storms are intensifying or not…
July 25, 2006
What a great quote from Morgan Spurlock in the latest issue of Time magazine. In a sense, with these words Spurlock articulates a key aspect of what I've found Seed magazine to be all about. I encourage you to check out the whole interview with Spurlock, and then watch season two of 30 Days,…
July 24, 2006
Recently Jeff Masters noted of Hurricane Daniel--which attained Cat 4 strength over the East Pacific recently--that it was his "favorite type of hurricane--a huge, spectacular Category 4 (almost 5) storm that is no threat to land." Actually, albeit in a weakened state, Daniel may hit Hawaii, so…
July 24, 2006
...three copies of the hardcover edition, anyway. I'm not sure when new hardcovers will be in stock. But in any case, this is as good a time as any to make another mention that the new paperback version, due out in roughly a month, is available now for preorder. It's an updated version of the…
July 24, 2006
From the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan:
During the past week's heat wave--it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday--I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world's greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from…
July 23, 2006
In my book, The Republican War on Science, I noted that James Inhofe in a 2003 speech had included a "harsh attack on science blogger and journalist David Appell." The phrase "sheer lunacy" was used. You can see for yourself here. (Why I'm defending Appell I don't know, as he hasn't been…
July 19, 2006
Ha! Now those linguists and etymologists at the National Hurricane Center are backtracking! To wit:
REGARDING THE PRONUNCIATION OF BERYL...A REVIEW OF SEVERAL DICTIONARIES SHOWS THAT BOTH BER'-IL AND BURL ARE ACCEPTED PRONUNCIATIONS...AND IN FACT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DIRECTIVE SPECIFIES THE…
July 19, 2006
Bush's stem cell veto is going to have big, big political repercussions. The stem cell issue will certainly feature prominently in multiple congressional races this fall. So now the pressing political question becomes, which members of Congress who are up for re-election, and who support Bush on…
July 19, 2006
Art Caplan has an extremely powerful piece denouncing Bush's latest action. And indeed, it's truly unbelievable: Bush misleads us about the extent to which his stem cell policy will support research, never apologizes, and then blocks the expansion of that policy once it has become entirely clear…
July 19, 2006
In a recent post, before we officially had Tropical Storm Beryl, I wrote that I could "hardly Beryl the suspense." Alas, this pun turns on "Beryl" being pronounced like "barrel." But now comes NHC forecaster Stacy Stewart telling me I'm wrong:
THE LAST RECON PASS THROUGH THE CENTER OF BERYL THIS…
July 19, 2006
Judging from the stem cell vote, it looks like the Republican right is still predominant, even if there has been some erosion on this issue and a lot of Republicans shifting positions:
In the Senate, 43 Democrats, 19 Republicans and one independent voted to expand federally funded embryonic stem…
July 18, 2006
Well, we appear to have a second TC for this season--though it has not yet been officially named Beryl. Right now it's just Tropical Depression TWO. The storm is hanging out off the coast of the Carolinas, and a tropical storm watch has been issued. Jeff Masters is tracking this proto-Beryl, which…
July 17, 2006
Dude, I fricken love that Chuck Darwin is on the ten pound note.
Also, I saw a fox this morning while jogging in Hyde Park. And these birds: Greylag Goose, Grey Heron, Blackbird, Black-headed Gull, Carrion Crow (probably), Tufted Duck (I think), Great Crested Grebe, Lesser Black Backed Gull (…
July 17, 2006
While in Albany, I sat down with Greg Dahlman of this radio station to talk about global warming and media coverage. I sound reasonably lucid (although I could have done much better), so I thought I'd provide a link for you. Listen here, starting at minute 7:45 or thereabouts and continuing through…
July 17, 2006
This CNN story is quite representative of an obnoxious genre: Stories about Bush's failed stem cell policy which pretend that the President's "more than 60" lines claim was only undermined by the passage of considerable time, rather than almost immediately. In fact, as I detail in The Republican…
July 17, 2006
Is anyone else as sick as I am of repeated attacks on the "hockey stick" reconstruction of past temperatures? Joe Barton and cronies are at it again. Just when one would have hoped that the National Academy of Sciences report on this topic would provide some modicum of closure, the "skeptics" have…
July 16, 2006
Well, here I am in London....blogging about events from before I left. Better late than never.
First of all, the just-finished "Politics and Bioethics" conference--including my own talk--is covered in detail this piece from the Albany Times-Union. I arrived late at the conference Thursday, and so…
July 15, 2006
As many of you folks will have noticed, I travel and speak a lot. So much so, in fact, that this new lifestyle has made it tough at times for me to get enough writing done. However, oddly enough, I also have become addicted to traveling. In fact, I find that getting out of Washington and holing…
July 13, 2006
Turns out he had a big article on this subject in the neoconservative New Atlantis fairly recently. As we've done before--very successfully--I'm going to pull out three numbered quotes and invite you to respond:
1. "It is true that Alzheimer's is not a promising candidate for stem cell therapies,"…
July 13, 2006
Haven't posted today as I've been on the road, and then had to catch up on sleep. As a result, while I arrived four hours ago in Albany at the "Politics and Bioethics" conference, I but have not yet even gone down to check out the scene. But it really sounds like this conference is going to break…
July 12, 2006
Just kidding...I'm not debating him, but I am appearing on a panel with the famous deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, this Friday at the "Bioethics and Politics" conference in Albany, New York. The panel set-up could lead to…
July 12, 2006
Today right in my backyard, at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel in DC, the Center for American Progress's campus branch is having its 2006 National Student Conference. I'm pleased to say that the event will include a panel on the "war on science" from 2:45 to 4:00 pm, and I'll be on that panel.…
July 11, 2006
For those in DC, I'm appearing on a panel tonight about new media and the future of science reporting, held at the wonderful Koshland Museum of the National Academy of Sciences. It starts at 6 pm; more details here. As a kind of warm up, I'd love to hear any thoughts from you folks as to how…
July 10, 2006
As Matt Nisbet has already noted, the flagship journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences has a very important editorial in its latest issue about the importance of scientists learning framing devices. The piece appears to have been inspired by a joint presentation that Nisbet and I…
July 9, 2006
I thought he was a real football hero. Guess I was wrong.
Every team I have rooted for during this World Cup--USA, Netherlands, England, Germany, and finally France--has gone down almost as soon as I switched to supporting them. I have no good record of picking winners.
Still, thanks to Zidane, I…
July 6, 2006
I never thought I'd find myself recommending, as reading to you folks, something put out by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. But it turns out that, while I find its conclusions a bit biased, this lengthy 1997 study (PDF) by Robert Balling nevertheless gives quite a thorough overview of how the…