Mon, 31 Jan 2005 06:01:03 GMT

Before and after glacier photos. Xeni Jardin:

A series of “before and after” methamphetamine addict photos are making the rounds on various blogs. But this “before and after” series is disturbing in a different sense. Photos of glaciers that shrink over time show clear evidence of global warming.
Link (thanks, xtop) [Boing Boing]“QB

Anyone looking at this can easily see what has happened to glaciers in just 60 years. Another 60 and there may not be any at all. While we not be the total cause, we are contributing and need to work to find ways to stop.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 23:49:18 GMT

“”MGM” (United Artists with another name) will have to pay millions to consumers because ITS WIDESCREEN DVD MOVIES WEREN’T WIDESCREEN!!!!!” [Daypop Top 40]

Wow. I’ll have to check my collection.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 22:43:44 GMT

Mutants Today and In Days Gone By. Thanks to the many people who left comments on my recent post about some recent work on the intersection of stem cells and human evolution. I noticed that several people expressed variations on the same theme, one which deserves a… [The Loom]

Fun to watch creationist claptrap be so efforlessly shot down by hard science. The Alu sequences discussed here are some of the best evidence for common descent around. Becasue they copy themselves and move around so much but are very stable once inserted. it is pretty easy to construct a ‘tree’ that portrays the simplest progression, though our species and through other mammals. And when you do, you get a tree that fits very closely to trees constructed by other means. So independent ‘trees’ produce similar results, with common descent being the simplest explanation.

If someone wants to postulate some ‘Force’ that did this through some magical process, then why not simply say that this ‘Force’ created everything last Tuesday and just wanted it to appear that things had been in existence for millions of years to test us? Why can’t my theory of life’s origins be taught in schools? BECAUSE IT IS NOT SCIENCE AND LEADS TO NO NEW KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE NATURAL WORLD!

And that is what creationism does also.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 22:28:19 GMT

The case against the Shuffle. I was at Nokia in Helsinki on Tuesday running a workshop on the Long Tail. I was impressed by how much brainpower they had in house, and how much they were inviting in. Just in the past week I’d been… [The Long Tail]

He does not get it. The iPod shuffle does not have to just put any of your tunes on it, such as the bad ones. You can load ANY playlist and have it shuffle. You can have it only load your highest-rated songs. So you do not have to listen to junk while you run. You can have a group of 250 songs fro working out, another for running. And it will shuffle each one. All for less than $100 dollars.

Besides, I have been listening to everything I have on my big iPod in shuffle mode for quite some time. Even my iTunes is set up that way. It is like listening to the best radio station around.(Why waste disk space with music you hate or never want to listen to again?) The shuffle will change again how people listen to music because the price point is so small, the amount of music is so large and the flexibility is great.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 22:15:27 GMT

Seymour Hersh on the Ruling Cult.

Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! interviews Seymour Hersh provides a number of well worded insights on the BushCo cult.

“These are punitive people. One of the ways — one of the things that you could say is, the amazing thing is we are been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. Just how and why and how they did it so efficiently, will have to wait for much later historians and better documentation than we have now, but they managed to overcome the bureaucracy and the Congress, and the press, with the greatest of ease. It does say something about how fragile our Democracy is.”

[Change for America -]

Chilling words from the reporter who broke My Lai and Abu Ghraib. War against Iran by Summer. A fragile democracy, intead.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:51:12 GMT

Unexpected general readership for OA scholarship.

Heather Morrison and Michael McIntosh wrote a review of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for the January issue of The Charleston Advisor
(already blogged here). Yesterday the Advisor published their letter to the editor, updating their review. Excerpt: ‘With respect to the lack of general articles, SEP editor Ed Zalta provided an interesting explanation. When SEP was first written, it was designed for professional scholars. it came as a surprise to find how many others were interested in using this open access tool – high school students, undergrads, and the general public. It is primarily this new, unintended audience which is most likely to want to read the general articles. There may be a lesson here for the open access movement as a whole. Perhaps the reasons many have not sought out this kind of resource in the past is not lack of interest, but rather lack of access. This underscores the authors’ belief that this resource is useful for libraries of all types, and it would make sense for all to participate in the funding effort.’

By noemail@noemail.org (Peter Suber). [Open Access News]

A nice example of what happens with open access. Anyone can learn about it, not just those who can afford it. Information is dispersed more widely and a larger group of people gain knowledge about the field. Ignorance is reduced. Power is dispersed, which frightens people/groups that have power now.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:13:25 GMT

On dressing for the occasion.

I went into Boston yesterday to audition for a part time gig while I continue looking for my next opportunity. My preparatory instructions said, “Treat this like a job interview, because it is one.” Okay, I said, and put on the suit I normally wear for first interviews. It wasn’t the smartest move, because I ended up having to walk eight slushy blocks when the Red Line slowed to a crawl two stops before Park Street, but when I got into the room I felt like a million bucks—and like I was intimidating the other people who were there. It was kind of cool.

Then there’s our vice president, who decided that the appropriate way to dress to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz was to dress like he was going to clean the streets I walked down last night in Boston:

Sources: Washington Post, Dick Cheney, Dressing Down; Oliver Willis, Vice President Disgrace; Tin Man; Wonkette, In Defense of Cheney.

[Jarrett House North]

yep, he wore a jacket with his name on it and a knit ski-cap tha said “Staff 2001.” I guess he was planning on using the old snow blower after the event. Talk about an inappropriate wardrobe.But then, I guess they just do not really care about showing respect for others.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:09:17 GMT

The Coming Military Draft, Vol. 9327. Yet another analysis of the facts sans fantasies and lies.  (Thanks to Jason Walta for the pointer.)… [Leiter Reports]

A nice article detailing just how messed up our Armed Forces are becoming because of this Administration’s botched efforts. We are stretched so thin that any type of event may require a draft. This could be just what they wanted since they could reinstitute a draft but claim that events forced them to do it. The fact that they have been discussing this for over 2 years would be kept from the ingnorant. Let’s start a draft for a war that has no end point, that alows the President to use his Commander-in-Chief role to ignore ANY laws passed by Congress (our Attorney General-to-be says that this is an explicit power of the President). During a war, the President can do ANYTHING he wants and it is not illegal. And anyone following the President’s orders is free from any sort of prosecution. I guess we will beack to a monarchy in all but name.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 19:32:00 GMT

The Horowitz Attack on Academic Freedom Arrives in Ohio. The bill introduced in the state legislature is here.  (Thanks to Joshua Smith for the pointer.)  As one news story (for which I could not locate a URL) stated, the bill would regulate what professors can say in class, and… [Leiter Reports]

So Ohio wants ignorant people, ones whose faulty view of evolution cause them grief in class,for instance, to be protected from the awful professors. It wants to protect students with consrvative views from contaminating liberal views. Let’s just keep them ignorant. If this passes, Ohio will have a hard time recutiing any professor who is worth a damn. Who would want to put up with the hassle? Academic life is hard enough, without adding another layer of absurdity to it. Ohio, Georgia and Mississippi are making it really easy for California to recruit the best professors. Idiots.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 19:24:16 GMT

I am in a real ranting mood today but I am just sick of reading about the increasing encroachment by ignoramuses into things that directly affect me and the life I have chosen to lead. The glories of the Enlightenment are beyond many of these people. The thrill that comes from understanding a little of the complex world around us strikes fear into these idiots. Even if I just limited myself to that attempt to direct science, when they know absolutely knowlthing about it, I would be ranting every day. If there is one group that should be discriminated against it is self-righteous idiots. But, today, they are running things.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 19:20:57 GMT

NYPress.  It’s The Pipelines, Stupid.  “A handful of small attacks made against Saudi infrastructure will push oil well over $100 a barrel,” says John Robb, an independent analyst and author of the forthcoming book Global Guerrillas. “Twenty or so a month will keep it there. We are about to see the rise of a shadow OPEC. The control of oil doesn’t rest in the hands of the governments. It is in the hands of the guerrillas that can stop the flow.” [John Robb's Weblog]

What will be our response? I canbet that this Administration’s response will not be helpful nor geared toward any really successful solution.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 19:02:34 GMT

Now, I am not saying that everyone who supports Bush is stupid. Many support him for very personal reasons. He keeps them wealthy. He makes them feel safer. He seems like a nice guy. But, at heart, his world is one of shallowness and lack of knowledge. He prides himself on not knwing a lot of facts but having a good moral compass. These days, his moral compass can only be as strong as he maintinas by being ignrant of many things. Knowledge is just too uncomfortble is a world that is changing as fast as ours is. This is what truly scares the conservatives and why they are racing so fast back to the 1900s. You can not put knowledge back in the bottle. They can try and may succeed for a short time in scuttling our advance. But, if America does not care any longer in leading, then some other country will. And you can bet that the resulting conflict with a powerful but stupid America could be horrible. It is sad seeing the US descend int being a big, stupid bully but we are well on the way there, because of this group of cultists leading us.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:57:00 GMT

“BQ:Cats Lie Down With Dogs!. Falafel Bill admits he was wrong.

Gracelessly, of course.

[First Draft]

Another organization that feeds ignorance, and O’Relly is right at the top. Even when shown to be wrong, he still spots idiocy. It is not surprising that those who watch the most Fox News are the most ignorant of facts. Its maiin purpose is to spread ignorance so as to maintain the powerful. As efferson said:

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

This government does not trust the people, so it wants them gnorant. And its media puppies do the same thing. If we allow them to continue, it will be our downfall, because the coming Society will be built on knowledge and information. Ignorance will put us irrevocally behind. If we stand up to ignorance and embrace knowledge, then our current leaders will fall, because they only survive by keeping people ignorant.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:46:59 GMT

PBS Wusses Out. What a gutless bunch of bastards PBS is these days:

This week, the new US secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, denounced PBS for spending public funds to tape an episode of a children’s program that features Pike, a lesbian, her partner, Gillian Pieper, and their 11-year-old daughter, Emma. The installment of ”Postcards From Buster,” which is produced locally at WGBH-TV (Channel 2) and which had been scheduled to air March 23, was promptly dropped by PBS, which is refusing to distribute the footage to its 349 member stations.

”It makes me sick,” said Pike, a 42-year-old photographer in Hinesburg, Vt., who united with Pieper in a civil union in 2001. ”I’m actually aghast at the hatred stemming from such an important person in our government. . . . Her first official act was to denounce my family, and to denounce PBS for putting on a program that shows my family as loving, moral, and committed.”

I’ve ranted before about the conservative aversion to seeing anything they don’t like, much less (gasp!) paying for anything they don’t like, but really I think out of all the annoying traits of the modern conservative, it’s the one that makes me the craziest.

These are real people, with real families and issues and ways of living, and they deserve to see their way of life depicted on our public broadcasting system just as much as the average nuclear family does.

I want to work up a lot of righteous anger right now, and maybe it’s the hangover, but honestly, it’s just sad. Sad that some people are so insecure in their own ways of living and loving that they can’t spend an hour in the company of an imaginary rabbit telling them about some people somewhere to who do things another way.

A.

[First Draft]

Nice to see that our Sec. of Education is such an ignorant bigot. This program was developed to show the diversity of our population. Spellings, like so many people, seems to feel that real people, living real lives are dangerous. Gays are only supposed to be portrayed as evil, I guess, like the priests that assault young boys. Any attempt to show that they are pretty much like me or you is wrong and must be suppressed.

This inability to understand how the world really works is not only stuid but very dangerous. It spreads ignorance, making it much easier to portray the ‘other’ as dangerous. Spelling does not want the people to be educated about gays, just afraid of them. It is ignorant, stupid and really pisses me off. Education is about learning, and having the courage to attempt to understand things that are uncomfortable but true. Margaret Spelling, as so many in this Administration, believes in ignorance. Becasue for these guys, ignorance is power. To paraphrase Sy Hersh, we are being led by cultists. They will hurt us much more than we can know. It appears that everyone one now believes that only by keeping people stupid can they keep power. Intimidation of any dissenting views is harsh. In 20 years, assuming we are still a viable country, people will just not believe how this country could have been led by such as these.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:34:57 GMT

Equal time for creationism bill introduced. January 13, 2005: A bill calling for “balanced treatment to the theory of scientific creationism and the theory of evolution” was introduced in the Mississippi Senate and referred to the Committee on Education on January 10, 2005. Introduced by Senator Gary Jackson, who represents the 15th Senate District, SB 2286 defines “scientific creationism” as “the belief, … [National Center for Science Education]

Mississippi folllowd Georgia. Religious fundamentalists in the Deep South certainly seem similar to fundamentalists in the Middle East by trying to make their version if faith the law of the land. And they actually do it in a way that bring opprobrium to their religion. Any religion that ignores facts and reality will only find itself populated by psycotics and sociopaths. These are the same types of people that lead to Galileo’s forced denunciation of the motion of the planets. Ignorance in the wrong hands is fatal and the states of Georgia and Mississippi seem to have leaders who are grossly igorant and want others to remain so. It is not surprising to me that states that permit such ignorance are also very poor and lack good education systems. Ignorant people distrust knowledge. Ignorance permits some people to maintain power.