Something Someone Else Said

"There is a growing anti-science streak on the American right that could have tangible societal and political impacts on many fronts — including regulation of environmental and other issues and stem-cell research. Take the surprise ousting last week of Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent Republican senator for Alaska, by political unknown Joe Miller in the Republican primary for the 2 November midterm congressional elections. Miller, who is backed by the conservative ‘Tea Party movement’, called his opponent’s acknowledgement of the reality of global warming “exhibit ‘A’ for why she needs to go”.

The right-wing populism that is flourishing in the current climate of economic insecurity echoes many traditional conservative themes, such as opposition to taxes, regulation and immigration. But the Tea Party and its cheerleaders, who include Limbaugh, Fox News television host Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (who famously decried fruitfly research as a waste of public money), are also tapping an age-old US political impulse — a suspicion of elites and expertise.

Denialism over global warming has become a scientific cause célèbre within the movement. Limbaugh, for instance, who has told his listeners that “science has become a home for displaced socialists and communists”, has called climate-change science “the biggest scam in the history of the world”. The Tea Party’s leanings encompass religious opposition to Darwinian evolution and to stem-cell and embryo research — which Beck has equated with eugenics. The movement is also averse to science-based regulation, which it sees as an excuse for intrusive government. Under the administration of George W. Bush, science in policy had already taken knocks from both neglect and ideology. Yet President Barack Obama’s promise to “restore science to its rightful place” seems to have linked science to liberal politics, making it even more of a target of the right," -editorial in the journal Nature.

There are some things that should exist outside of politics and I believe that science is one of them. Data is data; facts are facts. They're not up for debate and can't be shaped by focus groups. Government should obviously encourage scientific progress but the interpretations of that progress should be left to scientists and experts, not politicians and bureaucrats. It's extremely important that the intellectually dishonest not be allowed to pervert science or hijack the discipline to suit their political agenda. There's already enough superstition and ignorance in the world. America should be better than that.

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127 Hours Trailer

The amazing story of Aron Ralston, a man of more grit, determination and badassery than you and I will ever possess:


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Picture Of The Day

Yes! How many of these things do you think you've thrown out without ever opening them over the years? At this point they just go directly into my recycling bin. Can you imagine the colossal waste if news organizations permanently and inefficiently printed out their product on tree pulp in this manner? Oh wait...

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Something Someone Else Tweeted

"Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man's efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle," -Sarah Palin.

Well, at least she's doing something constructive...

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Picture Of The Day

This is really starting to depress me. Might even drive a man to drink.

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Something Someone Else Said

"BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean." -Jimmy Fallon, Late Night.

I find the recent Republican attempts to label the Gulf oil spill "Obama's Katrina" to be both desperate and laughable. The Bush administration had an entire agency in place expressly charged with responding to Katrina-like disasters but because they decided that FEMA wasn't very important that response came all too late and was far too incompetent. That same administration decided that government regulation of private industry wasn't very important either, thus allowing companies like BP to take the risks and cut the corners that have led to this current disaster.

As far as I can tell President Obama has done everything he could have done to remedy this situation thus far, which unfortunately is realistically very little. I find it a bit ironic that the same critics who decried his partial takeover of the banking and auto industries as "socialism" are now screaming for him to take over BP, as if that company doesn't have ample incentive to fix the leak as quickly as possible themselves. One of the differences between this situation and Katrina is that the government is neither equipped to nor capable of stopping this disaster and no amount of management or "owning the spill" on Obama's part could have changed that. The federal government is not in the business of drilling for oil a mile beneath the ocean's surface or fixing any leaks caused by that drilling, and nor should it be. What it should be in the business of doing is regulating the private companies that are and that is where it failed.

The oil spill in the Gulf is BP's mess: they own it and they are going to have to clean it up. Enabling the spill should have been the Bush administration's mess but now, as with so many others, they've left it for Obama to clean up instead. I would imagine that he's getting pretty tired of this shit by now; I know I am.

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Picture Of The Day

I was reading about this story on my iPhone yesterday and I thought that this was totally Photoshopped but it's actually real:

This sinkhole appeared yesterday, May 30, in a street intersection located in Zone 2 of Ciudad de Guatemala.

A sinkhole is a natural depression caused by the removal of underground soil by water. This process can happen slowly, but sometimes the land just cracks open. In this case, it happened suddenly. The cause: Massive underground water torrents created by tropical storm Agatha.

Some people are calling it the Gate to Hell. I think it looks more like it was carved out by a space-based laser, a la Alien vs Predator.

DARWIN: Evolution Of A Mad Man

I haven't been to the movies much lately so admittedly I haven't seen Sherlock Holmes (although I do plan to at some point) but I gathered enough about it from the trailers and reviews to still find this Dana Carvey spoof trailer in which biologist Charles Darwin is similarly given the action hero treatment entertaining:


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Live Tracking The BP Gulf Oil Leak

Well this is certainly depressing yet I can't help remarking about how cool it is that we can watch an ecological disaster happening a mile beneath the ocean in real time:


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Can Monkeys Talk?

It would appear that they're trying to:


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They Will Come To Town

This award winning global warming advertisement from Germany is obviously over the top but it's also quite beautiful as well (I recommend viewing it in full screen mode):


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Picture Of The Day

Well, at least we now know what we're dealing with down there:

This is what it looks like, four thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven feet down, when oil gushes into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of thousands of barrels a day. (How many thousands? That’s not clear.) It’s a striking image, but, as with the ones we saw of the non-containing containment dome being lowered onto the leak a few days ago—looking like the house from “Psycho,” as drawn by M. C. Escher—it would be more appealing if it showed the leak being stanched. As it is, it’s just appalling.

So, what do we do now?

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Breakfast

As you can see, it's just too beautiful outside for blogging today. Hope you're all enjoying your day as much as I am. Back tomorrow.

Picture Of The Day

Spill, baby, spill. Weak, dude.

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Octothief Caught On Camera

This is crazy cool:

Scuba diving near the Wahine Memorial in Wellington, New Zealand, Victor Huang ran into a camera-thieving Kraken that made off with his brand new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT2. Following a five minute chase, Victor was able to pry loose his prized possession from the mouth of the beast.

The entire ordeal was captured on film, Jacques Cousteau-style, and set to the tune of Dalmatian Rex and the Eigentones’ “Octopus I Love You.”

This would have been really embarrassing if he hadn't been able to get his camera back at the end. Check it out:


There is ample evidence that these creatures are much more intelligent than they have been popularly given credit for. I think that their otherworldly appearance and lack of cuddliness or anthropomorphism has caused them to be treated more like mysterious aliens in our everyday thinking rather than the curious beings they obviously are.

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Something Someone Else Said

"You know, a couple of days after the health care bill had been signed into law Obama ran around all over the country saying, “Hey, you know, I’m looking around. The earth hadn’t opened up. There’s no Armageddon out there. The birds are still chirping.” I think the earth has opened up. God may have replied. This volcano in Iceland has grounded more airplanes — airspace has more affected — than even after 9/11 because of this plume, because of this ash cloud over Northern and Western Europe. At the Paris airport they’re telling people to head to the train station to catch trains out of France, and when people get to the train station they’re telling people, “There aren’t any seats until at least April 22nd,” basically a week from now. It’s got everybody in a shutdown. Earth has opened up. I don’t know whether it’s a rebirth or Armageddon. Hopefully it’s a rebirth, God speaking." -Rush Limbaugh.

The de facto leader of the Republican party, ladies and gentlemen. A couple of days ago I remarked to a friend in jest that the right will try to find some way to blame the Icelandic volcano eruption and subsequent ash plume on President Obama and we had a good laugh at the absurdity of that statement. This is why I now call the right in this country caricatures of their former selves.

A New Hope: Parody vs. Reality

I was watching the original Star Wars last night when I came to this disturbing conclusion: I can't watch the original Episode IV anymore without imagining and subsequently obsessively repeating every one of the lines from the Family Guy double parody episode Blue Harvest. One of my happiest memories of childhood has been subsequently replaced by one of the most entertaining videos of my adult lifefime and I barely batted an eyelash. I'm either becoming very old or else reality seems a bit too false for me at this point.

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Apologies for the lack of posting as of late. The last few days of nice weather here in Northern California have been keeping me busy working on my yard. Despite my considerably less than green thumb I'm trying to cultivate the rose bushes that were here when I moved in and I'm also thinking of starting a vegetable/herb garden out on my back patio as well. Does this mean I'm getting old and boring? Regular posting will resume shortly.

Picture Of The Day

A closeup shot of the martian moon Phobos, snapped by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, which completed its most recent set of flybys on March 13. The photos received by the ESA as a result of these flybys represent the sharpest images to date of Mars’ largest moon. Cool.

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Camping Trip Cut Short On Account Of Rain

The camping trip to Salt Point started out really great. My buddies and I took a long hike out to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean, saw some beautiful nature along with some sea lions and whales in their natural habitat and much meat (no, not sea lion or whale) and alcohol was consumed by all. Then yesterday evening God decided that I was having just about enough fun for an atheist so he took a massive piss on our campsite. Even though we had a strong fire going at this point we decided that we wouldn't be able to cook dinner or hang out and drink so rather than spending the rest of the trip huddled alone and hungry in our respective tents we broke camp hurriedly in the dark and drove home late last night. Still, I'm glad we went. It's always nice getting away from everything that stresses me out every day and I really should make an effort to do it more often. So, what'd I miss?