Elsewhere on the Interweb (1/4/08)

ScienceBlogs has a new blog entitled A Good Poop which is quite apt because it is funny as shit:

In other news, they have a disease called Bird Fancier's Lung. Or, as my good friend Frat Boy Steve calls it, That Gay Ass Bird Disease.

Nature summarizes the Presidential candidates positions on science with useful quotes. This one from Ron Paul is just lovely:

Neither party in Washington can fathom that millions and millions of Americans simply don't want their tax dollars spent on government research of any kind.

Exhibit B for why Iowa does not matter: the Giuliani campaign intends to ignore the states before Super-Tuesday. They don't think they need them, or so says a leaked memo posted Marc Ambinder. (Hat-tip: Michael Barone)

For the record, only 78 delegates will be picked prior to Florida whereas 1,039 delegates will be picked on January 29 and February 5. Additionally, it is important to note that voting HAS ALREADY STARTED in Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey and New York -- tens of thousands of people will have already cast their ballot by the time you are reading this note. And more February 5th states, including California will begin early and absentee voting soon. All of this points to the folly of over-estimating the impact of the results of Iowa and New Hampshire and the wisdom of our strategy.

Putting a high priority on spending our time and money in a proportional basis in Florida and the large delegate states voting on February 5th is clearly the right thing to do.

Jackassery has not abated in the new year (Hat-tip: Crooked Timber):

Two men trying to trace a loaded .357-caliber Magnum as a pattern for a tattoo accidentally shot themselves, the Otero County Sheriff's Department said Monday

Megan McArdle argues how economic planning -- whether through Keynesian spending or supply-side tax cuts -- doesn't really work and doesn't really matter:

The history of the various attempts to financially engineer our way to above-trend growth over the last fifty years--supply-side economics being only the most theatrical of these--seems to indicate that it doesn't matter how you finance government spending. All that matters is how much you spend, and that doesn't even matter all that much.

Read the whole thing. I pinky-swear that I will actually have science to talk about on Monday.