tqa | May 1, 2007
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has been released from the hospital 18 days after suffering a large number of fractures in a high-speed car crash. Most, if not all, of the injuries were unnecessary. Had the Governor been wearing his seatbelt, as the other two passengers in the car were, he would almost certainly not have sustained such extensive injuries.
Before heading home to the Governor's Mansion, Corzine made a brief statement to the press. In it, he expressed remorse for his actions:
"I understand that I set a very poor example for a lot of young people, a lot of people in general…
tqa | April 25, 2007
From last night's Daily Show - it's right at the end of the video embedded below the fold.
McCain: You tell any enemy when you're leaving, and they'll say, "Right, fine, we'll just wait until you leave and we'll take over."
Stewart: But that assumes that we're fighting one enemy...
McCain: That's not too complicated
Stewart: . ... they're fighting each other. It's not. We're there keeping them from killing each other. We're not surrendering to an enemy that's defeated us. We're saying, how do you quell a civil war when it's not your country?
McCain: I'm saying that we're paying a very…
tqa | April 23, 2007
My wife, it would seem, pulled a fast one on me. She was released from her unit in Iraq a few days ago, but she didn't mention that to me. Instead, she just came home. Around 2:45 this afternoon, she called me from the kids school - she had just picked them up and was wondering if I could come give her a ride home.
So, if you haven't guessed, there's a good chance that blogging is going to be a little light for the next few days.
tqa | April 23, 2007
Over the weekend, another "Egnor" post appeared on the Discovery Institute blog. This one addresses a post I wrote two weeks ago discussing the "Framing Science" article. In his "response," "Egnor" manages to completely distort pretty much everything about my article, in a way that is so ham-fistedly inept that it is simply impossible for me to continue to believe that the "Michael Egnor" articles are being written by a real person who really believes what he (or she) writes.
(For the record, I'm neither a "prominent Darwinist" nor a "prominent scientist." Also, there are only two possible…
tqa | April 23, 2007
Reality called. He's wondering if you're ever going to get back in touch.
Earlier today, the President met with Gen. Petraeus (the commander of all forces in Iraq) in the Oval Office. The media was there for the photo op, and the President took a couple of questions. His answers were nothing short of amazing - they were hysterically amusing, right up until the point when I remembered that this guy really is the President, and really does have access to launch codes. The first of the two questions covered the supplemental war funding bill, and the second covered the Attorney General's…
tqa | April 23, 2007
The theme for today is "accidental humor." In that category, we have a potential television entry later on today, a product that gives new meaning to "invigorating showers," the Kremlin trying to prove that they've got less of a grasp on reality than we do, the President upping the ante on the Kremlin twice in two questions, and an Uncommon Descent speculation on meaninglessness. Oh, and in the unfunny category we've got some helpful suggestions on how to manage pdf files.
Must-See Fox TV:
Later tonight (8 pm EST), Richard Dawkins will be appearing on Bill O'Reilly's Spin Zone show. PZ's…
tqa | April 22, 2007
This is a repost. Specifically, it's the second of four posts from my old blog about the effects of an invasive insect on an endemic tree in the Hawaiian Islands. I moved the first in the series here last week; the remaining two will follow over the next few days. Once I've moved all of the relevant posts over here, I'll be posting an update on the situation.
One of the comments that was inspired by my earlier post on the invasive gall wasps that are threatening some native Hawaiian plants raised a point that is worth responding to in detail, since it comes up fairly often both in…
tqa | April 20, 2007
John Stewart really got it right on Wednesday - this administration is really making him obsolete. There's no need for commentary anymore - if you want to get laughs, it's just a matter of figuring out which clips to show today. Yesterday's breakthrough accidental comedian was Alberto Gonzales - a man who seems to have set out to prove that he's got a bigger problem with short term memory than Drew Barrymore did in 50 First Dates.
The counts vary, but most estimates have the AG failing to recall various things - like dates, meetings, reasons for firing people - by one count, more than 70…
tqa | April 20, 2007
...the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
--William Shakespeare
Macbeth
Act 3, Scene 4
PZ just drew my attention - again - to Dinesh D'Souza. Both PZ and I were a bit annoyed by his diatribe against atheists a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, D'Souza is not a man content to drink only once from that bottomless well of stupidity - he just keeps going back for more. Paul already took a few good shots at some of the more ethically impaired aspects of Dinesh's diatribe (for someone who is savaging atheism on behalf…
tqa | April 19, 2007
Watching Keith Olbermann tonight, I learned that Karl Rove said something nauseatingly dishonest when asked about the decision to go to war in Iraq. When asked whose idea it was to launch a preemptive war in Iraq, Rove replied - and I'm not making this up - "I think it was Osama bin Laden's."
OK. I wish that I had made that one up, but I can't honestly say that it really surprised me. Rove has revealed, time after time, that he has absolutely no scruples when it comes to pushing his point of view. It's clear to even the most casual of observers that Rove has at most a passing acquaintance…
tqa | April 18, 2007
A word of advice for White House staffers: when John Stewart has to take a second or two to tell viewers that he's not making things up, you might have a serious problem:
Stewart: "So far, at least five four-star generals have declined the position, some citing that this administration -- and this is true -- doesn't appear to know what it's doing. To address this...." [audience laughter and applause] "...The generals said that. That's the generals saying that, and you know I never go against my commanders in the field."
When he has to do it twice in a single monologue, things are…
tqa | April 18, 2007
A minute or two ago, I posted this with some commentary, but I just decided to pull my own comments from this - it's so surreal that there's really nothing that can be said.
I received the email quoted in full below from the Family Readiness Group for my wife's unit. They got it through the military channels, along with a message to widely distribute word of the change outlined in the message.
The Acting Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff, Army have emphasized that Army Families are a key component of our readiness. Army Families shoulder a great burden of sacrifice, supporting…
tqa | April 18, 2007
PZ Myers has an article up calling attention to a recent article by "conservative scholar" and Hoover Institution fellow Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza, in his opinion piece, wonders where the atheists go when bad things happen. As "evidence" for the missing atheists, D'Souza points out that Richard Dawkins has not been asked to speak at any of the memorial services. To describe that particular argument as asinine would be an understatement of truly monumental proportions; to call D'Souza a "ghoul," as Myers does, is an insult to the mindless undead. Their vitality-impaired condition may have…
tqa | April 18, 2007
This is a repost: Unlike some of the folks here, there really aren't that many of my articles over at the old blog that I thought were worth bringing over here. This is one of the exceptions. It's the first post in a series about the effects of a new invasive insect species on an endemic tree found in Hawaii. I'll be bringing the remaining posts in the series over here over the course of the next week or so. Once I've moved them all over here, I'll post an update on the entire situation.
This article was originally posted on the old blog on 16 August, 2005. I have not updated this post in…
tqa | April 18, 2007
I took a break from doing the morning roundup yesterday, but everybody's favorite least-read morning "things that I don't have time to really blog about so I'm going to blog about in one fell swoop" post returns today. Today's load is actually on the light side. There are a couple more consequences of climate change to talk about, a question about disability access to labs, and a little more on framing. Iraq and the Virginia Tech shooting are also in the news, but I'm not going to talk about them here.
Climate Change Goodies:
The more we think about climate change, the more potential…
tqa | April 17, 2007
(I'm not totally sure that he's right, either.)
Yesterday, after looking at the first few posts that discussed things like gun control following the VT shootings, Chad put up a post that semi-politely suggested that this might be a really good time for people to sit down and shut up. I thought he was wrong, and semi-politely said so. Chad didn't like that response, and not so politely told me what I can do with it. His post is worth a read.
He makes some good points there. I don't think he's right about a lot of them, but I'm not sure that he's wrong, either. Right now, I'm not really in…
tqa | April 16, 2007
One of my favorite teaching tools has always been the "compare and contrast" assignment. If you've gone through enough school to be able to read this post, you know what I'm talking about. Take two books, or essays, or sets of facts, compare them to each other, and talk about what's the same, what's different, and what the similarities and differences mean. It's a great assignment, because it forces you to not only examine a set of facts, but to look at them in the context of other data.
Today, I found myself doing a compare and contrast between an old Presidential address and some recent…
tqa | April 16, 2007
Today, in Virginia, there was a massive tragedy. Dozens of promising lives have come to an abrupt and unnecessary end. Dozens - hundreds - more lives have been changed forever. All of this has happened because of a single person and his weapons.
There are those in this country who believe that we need to do more to keep weapons out of the wrong hands. Some have chosen to speak up now. There are those in this country who believe that we must be careful not to allow our emotions, after an event like this, to lead us to restrict the basic rights of Americans. Some have chosen to speak up now…
tqa | April 16, 2007
Rob Knop just wrote an article arguing against new gun control laws. He did this hours after someone went nuts at Virginia Tech and shot a whole lot of people. He did so in the full knowledge that many people would find this to be an incredibly insensitive time to make such an argument. He was right that it is an insensitive time to make the argument, and he was also right in his belief that it is at times like this that it is most important to make such arguments.
Rob's basic point is that we - both as people and as a society - tend to react to tragedies like this by demanding that the…
tqa | April 16, 2007
I'm back after taking (unforgivably, I know) another full weekend off from blogging, and as always there's quite a bit to catch up on. In the news since the weekend, we've got some interesting new research on sleep problems related to PTSD, a truly superb Bill Maher piece on "elitism," Rob Knop on gun control, the White House attempt to redefine "partisan" to exclude themselves, and a brief lesson on the problems that can arise -particularly in the bathroom- when water is too closely associated with electricity.
Count fewer sheep:
Anyone who has ever had - or lived with someone who has…