tqa

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Mike Dunford

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April 4, 2009
Nothing too serious today - I pulled this one from my old blog when I was looking for things to repost: "Try to get it near the center, daddy. That's the good spot." -my daughter [then age 8], in all seriousness, as I'm playing darts.
April 4, 2009
Brown Pelican (Pelicanus occidentalis)
April 4, 2009
Since I'm currently out of town, original content is going to be in short supply for a few days. Fortunately, there are a few things I've written over the years that I think people might still enjoy (or at least tolerate). Since they didn't get read much when I first posted them, I thought I'd…
April 3, 2009
"The trouble with you, Ibid", he said, "is that you think you're the biggest bloody authority on everything."Terry PratchettPyramids
April 3, 2009
I'm heading out of town today, so original content is going to be in short supply for a few days. Fortunately (for me) there are a few things I've written over the years that I think people might still enjoy (or at least tolerate). Since they didn't get read much when I first posted them, I…
April 3, 2009
This is just a picture I took someplace. Where should be easy to guess. True geeks will also be able to identify each of the prominent man-made structures on the horizon, and determine which direction I was facing when I took the picture. As always, you can click the picture for a larger version…
April 2, 2009
The article ends with Vanity Fair astrologer Michael Lutin saying that he will consider the newcomers, but remains skeptical of their influence over our daily affairs due to their location at the outer reaches of the solar system: "UB313 is never going to tell you whether Wednesday is good for…
April 2, 2009
The wackier inhabitants of WingNutDaily are apparently thrilled by the news that some nutjob in Georgia scoured his home state until he found 24 other people nuttier than himself, swore them in as a "Citizen Grand Jury", took "sworn testimony" from various birther loons, and "indicted" President…
April 2, 2009
A new life: Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) with very recently hatched chick.Ka'ena Point, Oahu29 January 2006
April 2, 2009
Politico's Manu Raju wrote an interesting article on the Energizer Bunny Election in Minnesota yesterday. His analysis of the situation focused on the political bind that Minnesota's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty seems likely to find himself in within the next month or two: if and when the…
April 1, 2009
Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind. Charles DarwinLetter to Charles Lyell10 Jan 1860
April 1, 2009
We've reached the point where reality has become so completely absurd that sheer absurdity is no longer a reliable indicator that a news item or blog post is actually an April Fools gag. I don't know whether I should laugh, cry, or crawl into a hole and hide. Think I'm kidding? Here are a few of…
March 31, 2009
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this. Thomas Henry…
March 31, 2009
With all precincts reporting, Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 65 votes (77,344 to 77,279). It looks like this one might not be finalized for a while. According to the AP, there are 6000 absentee ballots to count, and ballots will be coming in until 13 April. So I wouldn't sit…
March 31, 2009
Just a quick programming note: Starting tomorrow, and running through at least all of April, I'm going to try something new. Every day, I'm going to post one quote and one picture. The pictures will all be my own, the quotes obviously will not be. In some cases (like tomorrow's), the quote and…
March 31, 2009
Your sink is leaking all over your bathroom floor. Whose advice do you take on how to fix it - your plumber's or your accountant's? I suspect that the sane among us would typically go to the plumber. If we were suspicious about the first plumber's advice, we'd probably call another plumber.…
March 30, 2009
Last night, Matt Nisbet posted a section from the first draft of a new book chapter he's working on. In this particular chapter, he says he's trying to "lay out a detailed ethical framework" for science communications. At least in theory, that's an interesting concept. Are there ethical…
March 27, 2009
The New York Times has recently taken some flack as the result of Nicholas Dawidoff's New York Times Magazine profile of Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson. Times science blogger Andrew Revkin has also received some less than favorable reviews of a post he wrote about the article. The bulk of the…
March 27, 2009
It looks like there are quite a few police officers in Germany with egg on their face right now. They spent several years, thousands of man-hours, and over $14 million trying to track down a criminal mastermind, only to discover that they were chasing lab contamination. Sadly, I am serious about…
March 26, 2009
Like many people, I was amused by the "budget" that the Republicans in Congress unveiled today. If you count both the front and back covers, it's 19 pages long - but even that's a generous estimate. Three of the pages are cover pages for sections of the document. Random figures with little to no…
March 26, 2009
As many of you probably know by now, Alaska's Redoubt volcano has been erupting for several days now. If you're interested in the details, head over to new SciBling Erik Klemetti's Eruptions blog. If you're interested in the latest in really cool pictures, here's one for you: (Source. Click…
March 26, 2009
Some of you might be familiar with the work of Walter ReMine. He's been around the fringes of the online creation-evolution thing for quite a while now. His typical schtick involves the relentless self-promotion of his self-published book The Biotic Message, which he claims represents a…
March 25, 2009
The Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch is one of the only reality shows I can watch without rooting for the painful demise of 2/3 of the cast, preferably before the first commercial break. I genuinely enjoy the show, not just because it looks at an interesting job, but because it seems to…
March 25, 2009
Yesterday, I went off a little on David Dobbs. He wrote an article on PTSD in Scientific American that I was somewhat less than impressed with, and I made my displeasure fairly clear. There were points raised by Dobbs that I do agree with, and which I think deserve much more discussion than they'…
March 24, 2009
Author (and fellow ScienceBlogger) David Dobbs has an article on PTSD in the latest Scientific American, and has several related posts on his blog here at Sb. Dobbs' primary argument seems to be that PTSD is being widely overdiagnosed, in part because the condition itself is poorly defined, and in…
March 23, 2009
Back in 2005 and 2006, I wrote a few posts about the insanely arbitrary decision making process that the FDA was pretending to use to justify its obviously pre-determined conclusion to restrict the availability of the Plan B "morning after" pill as much as they thought they could get away with.…
March 23, 2009
Tonight's entry in Conservapedia Foolishness is my favorite kind of entry to write - one where someone else did all of the work. Over at Religion, Sets, and Politics, Josh Zelinsky has a fantastic - and amusing - look at a Conservapedia discussion thread where Andy Schlafly apparently redefines…
March 22, 2009
Reeve 078948-36, originally uploaded by otisarchives1. Another picture from the Walter Reed collection. This one comes from a series of really cheesy military issue anti-VD posters.
March 21, 2009
If you're looking for a good read this morning, I suggest you pop over to the Washington Post's Opinion pages. Scibling Chris Mooney has an excellent op-ed in there today, in response to George Will's recent climate change denial escapades.
March 20, 2009
Casey Luskin is once again hard at work in the Discovery Institute quote mines. In his latest effort, he tries to make the case that a recent review article by Kevin Padian and the Panda's Thumb's own Nick Matzke contains "veiled threats" designed to intimidate cdesign proponentsists. Casey dives…