Mike Dunford
tqa
Posts by this author
September 1, 2006
Over at Pharyngula, PZ is beating up Starbucks over one of the quotes on their cups. The quote is by Discovery Institute fellow Wesley Smith, and it reads:The morality of the 21st century will depend on how we respond to this simple but profound question: Does every human life have equal moral…
August 30, 2006
Via a National Geographic research team, we learn that there is still a thriving market for ivory - protection laws and biodiversity be damned. The pictures below the fold, taken from the National Geographic website, are for any of you who might be considering buying something made of ivory in the…
August 30, 2006
This week's Ask a Scienceblogger Question involves an article in The National Review Online that was clearly written by a complete bloody moron. The question is this:I read this article in the NRO, and the author actually made some interesting arguments. 'Basically,' he said, 'I am questioning the…
August 29, 2006
It would seem that we had a little bit of an earthquake last night. The quake is listed as having a magnitude of 3.7 by the USGS, and was felt on the islands of Oahu and Molokai. My first person account of the experience is below the fold.
I didn't notice a damn thing.
My daughter did, though,…
August 28, 2006
The paperback edition of SciBling Chris Mooney's book The Republican War on Science comes out today. I read it a while back, and I'm looking forward to going through it again.
This is one of those books that everyone should read. Chris does a fantastic job of documenting case after case after case…
August 25, 2006
You are teaching the introductory "How to use the microscope" lab. Your students have done a cheek swab, made a slide, and are looking at it under the scope. A young woman in the class flags you down, and asks you to help her identify something on the slide. The object in question is smaller than…
August 25, 2006
It's been a while since I've done one of these, so here goes.
This one looks a little more eclecitc than usual.
1: Flags of Freedom Neil Young
2: Begin the Begin REM
3: The Philosopher's Drinking Song Monty Python
4: For…
August 24, 2006
For those of us who have been wondering why the FDA concluded that Plan B can safely be used by 17-year-olds, but should only be sold to those 18 and over, there is finally an answer: the FDA is afraid that pharmacists and pharmacy cashiers cannot correctly subtract. If you go to the FDA's latest…
August 24, 2006
Plan B has been approved, and the right-to-lifers are screaming bloody murder and threatening to sue, but they aren't the ones who lost. We are. We, in this case, means anyone who has an interest in good healthcare. We, in this case, means anyone who thinks that politics should not be involved in…
August 23, 2006
Good rule of thumb for graduate classes:
If discussing a paper that you have not actually managed to finish (or possibly start) reading, quickly flip about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way into it, read a paragraph, and come up with a question/discussion point.
August 23, 2006
Two quick things every registered Connecticut Democrat should know:
1: Lieberman has shown his true colors by naming his party "Connecticut for Lieberman." Remember that. You're for him, not the other way around.
2: Republicans have essentially pulled their support from their own candidate, now…
August 23, 2006
Over at Retrospectacle, Shelly has a question for all of us:"Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?"
Personally, I am more or less opposed to the…
August 21, 2006
Dear Senator Kerry:
Last week, I received your letter requesting donations to support the campaigns of Ned Lamont, Bob Menendez, and Dan Akaka. I am gratified to note that you are taking a stand in support of Lamont, and I think that supporting Menendez is also a good idea. I do, however, have a…
August 17, 2006
Janet tagged everybody, so here goes:
The rules: "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."
1) What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
2) In every country, we should…
August 17, 2006
Ed Brayton, over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, has some excellent commentary on the court finding that the warrentless wiretapping of international phone calls (referred to by the White House as the Terrorist Surveillance Program) is massively illegal and unconstitutional. Ed focuses on the…
August 14, 2006
I was sitting and thinking earlier today - it's a dangerous hobby, and I try not to do it too often, but sometimes I can't resist - and found my thoughts drifting toward the topic of Pascal's Wager. As some of you probably know, Pascal suggested that it is always a better bet to believe in God than…
August 8, 2006
I just walk in from the airport, turn on the television, and what do I see before me but Ned Lamont giving his victory speech. He's come from nowhere and defeated a once popular senator for his party's (former party's, I should say) nomination. The fight between Lieberman and Lamont isn't over,…
August 8, 2006
we turn to the Veteran's Administration, which has somehow or another managed to lose another laptop containing the personal information of thousands of veterans. OK, this one contained a couple of orders of magnitude less data, and was lost by a contractor instead of the agency per se, but still...
August 7, 2006
The Conneticut primary is tomorrow, and it's starting to look like Joe Lieberman will need some sort of last second miracle if he is to run as a Democrat for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Recent polls have him trailing Ned Lamont by over ten points. A nearly constant stream of major Democratic…
August 2, 2006
After re-reading my post on the latest Plan B foolishness, I think I might have been too angry to make my point clearly. I'm still pretty damn pissed off, but I'm going to give it another shot. There's little about this thing that doesn't make me mad, but right now I'm angriest about the FDA's…
August 1, 2006
This morning, I find posts at both Terra Sigillata and Pharyngula discussing the FDA's announcement that they are planning to reopen discussions with Barr Labs, the maker of the Plan B morning after contraceptive, regarding Barr Labs efforts to gain permission from the FDA to sell Plan B over the…
July 31, 2006
Last week, I wrote two posts on the differences between nation building and nation rebuilding. Toward the end of the second, I said this:I think that a large portion of the problem here is not that we don't have the capability to do enough, but that we have not organized our capabilities in a way…
July 28, 2006
...and he is us.
Once again, it apears that someone in the service has used the incredibly stupid "don't ask, don't tell" policy as a weapon against another service memeber, resulting in the army forcing out someone that they need. In this instance, the victim was a gay military intelligence [feel…
July 27, 2006
A brief conversation in the car today:
Me: I don't know why, but for some reason grusome threats work with kids. They believe them less the more grusome they get, but they listen a lot more.
My mom: Yeah, I remember when you were little, I used to threaten to boil you in oil or hang you from the…
July 25, 2006
Over at Pharyngula, PZ highlights a recent comment by Rick Santorum, the best-dressed man in the Senate, regarding Santorum's opinion on scientists and morality:Most scientists unfortunately, those that certainly are advocating for this [embryonic stem cell research], and many others feel very…
July 24, 2006
Joseph responded to my last post with a thought-provoking comment on my blog, and added a brief post to his own noting the exchange and wondering if there is any neutral third party who might want to weigh in on our exchange. I'd like to second that request. Of course, since I'm incapable of just…
July 24, 2006
On Saturday, a post appeared over at The Corpus Callosum discussing an article that appeared in the Guardian concerning the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. The main point behind the Guardian article is that the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan is very worried about the situation…
July 21, 2006
Take a look at this post over at Stranger Fruit. The Santorum quote is good, but the outfit Santorum is wearing in the picture is better. He looks like a refugee from a bad 80s Televangelism special.
July 21, 2006
It's been said that an army may travel on its stomach, but it moves through a morass of paperwork. There's a form for everything, and nothing gets done until the proper form gets filled out. I wouldn't be surprised if some soldiers are happy to finally get on the plane to head into the combat zone…
July 20, 2006
Over at The Loom, Carl Zimmer tells us that a group of academics and a Conneticut biotech company are about to begin sequencing the Neandertal genome. Sequencing the Neandertal genome gets them all of the possible "Damn, that's cool!" points, but it's also got the potential to greatly increase our…