jlynch | July 5, 2008Regular browsers will note that things have gone very quiet here over the past few weeks. Truth be told, I'm a little burned out with the whole blogging thing and need time to re-evaluate and decide whether this is something I want to keep doing (either here at Scienceblogs or elsewhere). Hopefully, I'll figure things out sooner rather than later.
jlynch | June 29, 2008
Happy to see that Spain beat Germany today. Better team definitely won. Perhaps the Germans should have fielded the squad seen above?
jlynch | June 26, 2008Meet Kirstie Hartle, registered Democrat, Clinton supporter, and "a Republican all the way now":
She said she doesn't like Obama's name and thinks he has a questionable background. She also said she thought Obama was deceitful when he broke from his church after it hurt his campaign, and she doesn't trust him to handle the Iraq war.
"It sounds to me like a Middle Eastern type of name and whether or not he's born here in the United States, he doesn't seem like, to me, somebody who is trustworthy ... You can't trust anybody these days, so who's to say he's not a terrorist and we just don't…
jlynch | June 24, 2008
(source; click for larger version)
So 60% of Republicans - versus 40% of Independents and 38% of Democrats - think that God created humans as is, 10,000 years ago. Let's get this clear - this isn't 60% accepting some form of "intelligent design" and allowing the archeological and fossil records to speak for themselves. This isn't some form of theistic evolution that may be compatible with some form of intelligent design (the numbers there are 32, 36 & 39% respectively). No, this is 60% of Republicans (and 44% of Americans) being abjectly ignorant and accepting a young earth creationist…
jlynch | June 22, 2008
It is sad to note that George Carlin died Sunday at the age of 71. When he was funny, he was hilarious. His distillation of the Ten Commandments into two was a classic:
Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie, and, Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.
jlynch | June 21, 2008A few months ago, I quoted George Sarton's low opinion of Plato's Timaeus. Jonathan Barnes has reviewed David Sedley's Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity and has this to say about Timaeus:
Above all, Sedley lauds the Timaeus. It is a 'uniquely rich and seminal text'. It is 'the most influential of all Plato's works, and probably the most seminal philosophical or scientific text to emerge from the whole of antiquity'. And 'it could hardly be denied that Plato had been stunningly successful in explaining the natural world as the product of craftsmanship.' Well, I deny it with both hands.…
jlynch | June 21, 2008Just finished watching the Dutch implode and get beaten 3-1 by Russia, making them the third group winner to lose.
I can now only hope that Spain beats the Italian Diving Squad tomorrow to avert any possibility of a Germany v Italy final.
Spain v Turkey would be more fun.
Thoughts?
jlynch | June 20, 2008I'm disappointed to note that both Harry Mitchell and Gabby Giffords joined the other 103 Democrats who voted for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. (Ed Pastor and Raúl Grijalva voted against.) The 105 Dems have covered themselves in shame, granting immunity to telecom companies, while basically telling the American public that their privacy is not important and that the Fourth Amendment is just something written on a "goddamned piece of paper". Every single one of them should be called to the mat by their constituents.
I'm also disappointed at Obama's statement on the vote.
jlynch | June 19, 2008
To quote the Lander: "Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" More here.
jlynch | June 19, 2008From the Wall Street Journal:
If the bans were lifted tomorrow, it would be at least seven years -- and likely as long as a decade -- before the first oil began to flow off the coasts of Florida, California and the eastern seaboard.
"Is it going to happen overnight? No," said Dan Naatz, vice president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. "Is it going to solve all of our nation's energy problems? No."
jlynch | June 16, 2008
A WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 20 nations (nearly 20,000 respondents) around the world finds that, while none of the national leaders examined inspire wide confidence, our glorious leader is one of the least trusted leaders, to such a degree as to be less trusted than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and only just beating out Pervez Musharraf. More details here. Heckofajob Bushie!
jlynch | June 16, 2008Apparently the McCain campaign sees Arizona as a "swing state" ... this despite the fact that Arizona has voted Republican in every election bar one (1996) since 1952. It says something about McCain that he can't even feel comfortable about carrying the state that he has "represented" (and I use that term loosely) for 26 years.
jlynch | June 11, 2008
Young male hippo in the surf, South Africa [source]
Courtesy of Phil Plait, I've stumbled across The Big Picture, a site run by the Boston Globe which features some wonderful photos arranged thematically. Do wander over and have a look.
jlynch | June 10, 2008Razib presents some interesting data on donations to the two main political parties by scientists. What struck me is that if you rank the professions from most Republican to most Democrat, you get the following:
Civil Engineering [0.75]
Chemical Engineering [0.79]
Geology [0.92]
Mechanical Engineering [0.96]
Electrical Engineering [1.17]
Chemistry [2.31]
Biochemistry [5.09]
Mathematics [5.44]
Physics [6.19]
Biology [10.3]
Now what I find interesting here is that if we use the Discovery Institute's 2007 list of 700 Dissenters against Darwinism, we see that the top five groups represented are (…
jlynch | June 10, 2008
My mother - who lives five miles from the center of Dublin - has a red fox Vulpes vulpes living at the end of her garden (much to the delight of her grandchildren). On the day these photos were taken, the little blighter emerged from the hedges around 9 am and stayed out sunning himself until six in the evening. According to my mother, he lets her enter the garden and walk about halfway down before he ups and leaves.
When I was in my teens I remember seeing foxes at the end of our road (where there was the River Dodder) and used to go out and watch them forage in the evening. They have only…
jlynch | June 10, 2008
It happens every two years ... a veritable orgy of high-quality soccer. In 2006 it was the World Cup, this time around it is the European Championship.
So far, the Germans look efficient, the French were underwhelming, the Italian Diving Squad choked (badly), and the Dutch ... well they just dominated the Italians in their 3-0 win yesterday.
So, any predictions on the finalists?