Mike Dunford
tqa
Posts by this author
January 12, 2009
There are certain organisms that you hear about a lot in evolutionary biology. In some cases, like Drosophila flies or E. coli bacteria, that's because the organisms are easy to use in experimental studies. Other organisms, like Hawaiian silversword plants or Galapagos finches, come up frequently…
January 7, 2009
There's been no shortage of right wing pundits saying really dumb things since the election, but the opening of Michael Gerson's latest column is so insanely delusional that it nearly sent coffee out my nose:
Barack Obama was elected, in part, as the antidote to ambition. Unlike John F. Kennedy…
January 7, 2009
There are widespread reports out right now suggesting that President-Elect Obama has selected CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has selected to be the new Surgeon General. The reaction to this seems to be mixed. PZ, Orac, Chris, Paul Krugman and Dr. Val are variously unimpressed and/or…
December 19, 2008
Unless you're in a coma, you've probably heard that President-Elect Obama invited megachurch pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration. You've probably also heard that this decision has royally ticked off quite a few members of Obama's base.
I'm not going to get into the…
December 16, 2008
Discussing responsibility at a Chicago school:
"You know, if they do their business, if they've got some poop -- you got to make sure that you're not just leaving it there," Obama said.
I don't suppose there's any way we could take up a collection to get that chiseled into the walls at the…
December 15, 2008
President Bush has been widely reported as referring to yesterday's shoe-throwing incident as the kind of thing that happens in a free society. It's not clear whether the President was referring to the act of the shoes being thrown, the thrower being promptly beaten to a pulp by local security,…
December 15, 2008
Congrats to the New York Times, for publishing one of the most trite articles on the current recession/depression yet. Lots of coverage of kids who have suffered cuts in their three-figure allowance. A subtle plea for sympathy, because competition with desperate job-seaking adults is making it…
December 12, 2008
There's a very interesting article over at Uncommon Descent about beavers, and the things that they do. I'm not entirely sure why they posted the article - Barry seems to be trying to make the point that because Beavers clearly can commit criminal acts but just as clearly can't form criminal…
December 11, 2008
I picked up my copy of this book when it came out last year. My wife read it - and loved it - immediately. It matched what she saw whenever she went to the CASH on her base in Afghanistan. I've picked up the book any number of times since then, but I could never quite bring myself to read it. I…
December 11, 2008
Apparently, NASA administrator Mike Griffin is a complete bonehead. There's really no other way to describe his recent interactions with the Obama transition team. From an Orlando Sentinel report:
NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama's transition…
December 10, 2008
But I really don't know who it could possibly be.
If the latest set of transition leaks are as accurate as the previous few have been, President-Elect Obama will announce the nomination of Steven Chu for Energy Secretary.
And. The. Crowd. Goes. Wild.
Chu's background is a bit light on the…
December 10, 2008
Like most people who pay attention to the news, I've been treated to several weeks of Republicans using the Detroit bailout as an excuse to bash unions. Like a broken record, it was easy to ignore for a while, but the repetitive droning of discredited canards (like $70/hr wages) is getting more…
December 9, 2008
I've been dealing with creationists for a long time now, and I thought that I'd gotten over being surprised by dishonest behavior in their ranks. In fact, I thought I'd gotten over it even when I'm on the receiving end of the false witness, and when the person dishing it out is someone who really…
December 8, 2008
You could call this a follow-up to the recent stories about CNN's spectacularly stupid decision to kill its science and technology unit, I suppose. I'm watching MSNBC right now, watching them cover the crash of a Marine FA-18 Hornet in a residential neighborhood in the Miramar, California area.…
December 2, 2008
Blame Henry. He just twisted an old meme a little bit, and it's hard for me to resist doing the same. There's a meme that's been wandering around facebook for a while now - take the first book you see, open it to page fifty-six, transcribe the fifth sentence, and pass the meme along. Henry did…
November 29, 2008
(another own goal, of course.)
There he goes again. Creationist neurosurgeon Michael Egnor's latest post over at the Discovery Institute's Why's Everybody Always Picking On Me blog may have actually reached a new standard for missing the point. And, as both my loyal regular readers know, that's…
November 18, 2008
Every now and then, it feels like I'm living in a Bill Cosby skit.
I'm wandering around the house, talking on the phone, when our cat Pounce decides to make his need for attention and affection known by walking up and swatting me in the back of the leg.
Before I go any farther, I should…
November 18, 2008
I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the role that the Community Reinvestment Act played (or, rather, did not play) in causing the current global financial meltdown. I was planning to get out of the issue there, but a really nice article by Devilstower over at Daily Kos sucked me back in. During…
November 17, 2008
...or at least I should be.
I'm a white man, on the low side of the 30-44 age bracket, with very strong military ties. I'm not a movement conservative, but I don't consider myself to be a movement progressive or liberal either. I don't think government is always the problem, but I also don't…
November 6, 2008
It's been almost 36 hours since the networks called the election for Obama. That's enough of a honeymoon. There's work to be done.
There are widespread reports that President-elect Obama is seriously considering appointing Robert Kennedy Jr. as head of the EPA. The appointment does seem to have…
October 31, 2008
I didn't get a chance to post about Rules for Radicals this week - the time that would have been spent on that went to knocking on doors and making phone calls for the Get Out The Vote effort here in the Florida Panhandle instead. It will happen next week, after the election. I promise.
I might…
October 29, 2008
I just watched the Obama "infomercial", and I was blown away. Never mind the production values that Chris Matthews is nattering on about. The real story is about the message: this campaign is about us. It's about what we need, and what we can do to get it.
The entire half hour was - well, it's…
October 28, 2008
In today's Atlanta Journal Constitution, Army spouse Elisabeth Kadlec writes:
When we married our spouses, I am sure that none of us were signing up to be single parents. But in essence that is what we become. Many people I know, like my husband, have already been deployed more than three times…
October 21, 2008
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.Saul AlinskyRules for Radicals
This is the…
October 20, 2008
I've got to admit that when I heard that Colin Powell was planning on endorsing a candidate for president yesterday, I was unimpressed. I figured that whichever candidate he chose would be on the receiving end of a lukewarm endorsement that would be easy to dismiss and would fade from the news…
October 17, 2008
There's something truly amazing about Uncommon Descent's DaveScot. He misrepresents data in a stupid way, gets caught, gets embarrassed, and then he does it again. And again. And again. It's like he expects it to work this time - and never mind the fact that it hasn't in any of the last 37…
October 16, 2008
What a difference a day makes. Last night, the picture of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (aka Joe the Plumber) we all had was the one John McCain painted for us: a hardworking plumber with serious plans to buy the plumbing business he's worked for for "all these years", who won't be able to do so if…
October 15, 2008
A little spat that John McCain is having with YouTube has gotten a bit of press lately. Basically, he's not happy because YouTube has been taking his videos down whenever they get a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice from a copyright holder. Apparently, this has happened to McCain…
October 5, 2008
...keep an eye on the left sidebar of this blog. There's a listing there of the times and dates when the prize announcements will be made. If all goes well, the list will be automatically updated with the names of the winners, as soon as the announcements are made.
The first announcement, for the…
September 30, 2008
Just so you know, I haven't forgotten about this blog. My laptop suffered a major hard drive failure a few days ago, and my internet access has been limited by the need to share the desktop with my wife and my daughter, both of whom need to use the computer for educational purposes.
Things should…