Thursday, February 17, 2011

Political Cheese Fondue

There are extraordinary events in Wisconsin politics this week. Our new Governor's anti-union legislation has ignited an amazing response, turning normally placid Cheeseheads into a melting pot of political turmoil.  Here is a sampling:

Daily Kos: Scott Walker's Pants Spontaneously Combust!

The Political Environment: Republicans in Madison are Flailing Fleeing, Failing

Brew City BrawlerPackers, Catholic Church denounce Walker union busting

Live Twitter updates from the Capitol Rotunda, via @RecallWakerNow

Illusory Tennant: Scott Walker receives 8,000 emails

The Corner TavernWisconsin’s Diabolical Plot to Make Me Support the Packers


Saturday, February 12, 2011

Happy Darwin Day!

Something a little different for Darwin Day (Charles Darwin's 202th Birthday!); I'd like to introduce my new co-blogger, Darwin the Cockatiel.


Darwin likes to assist me by landing on the keyboard while I am typing and supervising my fingers. This supervision consists of nipping at my fingers if he feels are not moving in an appropriate manner. By his definition, "appropriate" means they ought to be scritching his head instead of pecking at the keys.

Darwin came to us as as a "found" bird while we were searching for our own escaped bird. Some other people contacted us about a bird they found. It wasn't our bird, but we agreed to take care of him and help look for the original owner - which we did, but no takers. He's a delightful creature though and we are happy to keep him. Despite considerable effort we never did find our own bird, but for a short time we were fostering two Cockatiels. Apparently finding a bird that belongs to someone else is much easier than finding a bird that belongs to you. Maybe there are a lot of bird owners that don't want to be bird owners. No matter, we thing Darwin is a keeper!

The name was suggested by my wife, because we both admire Charles Darwin's contribution to science,  and when the bird puffs up the feathers around his beak, there is a striking resemblance.
com
Image found here, source unknown
Darwin can be contacted at Darwin dot The dot Cockatiel at Gmail dot Com

Friday, February 11, 2011

Science Fail #4

Fail #4 refers to an editorial published in the Idaho Press-Tribune. It is copyrighted, so you will need to follow the link to the article, or you can just take my word that it is some amazingly stupid stuff. Much of it refers to old arguments that even Creationist are embarrassed to have even supported.


[Via Greg Laden's Blog]


Bonus Section:

The award for the most unexpectedly non-sequitur comment in response to a a science article goes to ...
Morp: I observed an inverse reaction .When pigs call loudly for food you can silence them instantly and for a while by blowing a trumpet   [Found on SCIAM]
Um ... OK ... I don't doubt it ... but ... you play the trumpet to pigs???

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

And now for our next musical number!

And now for our next musical number!

 [Found on Pharyngula]

edit - forgot a title! Silly me.
edit = forgot the video! Doh!!
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Saturday, January 8, 2011

How to tell the difference between a theoretical statistician and an applied statistician

How to tell the difference between a theoretical statistician and an applied statistician?
A theoretical statistician knows all about measure theory but has never seen a measurement whereas the actual use of measure theory by the applied statistician is a set of measure zero.
--- Stephen Senn
Found on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Science Fail #3

This is a second-hand fail, but still a winner loser. This was posted by RetiredSciGuy in the comments on the Sensuous Curmudgeon post: Theocratic Terror in the Classroom. The Curmudgeon is always a good read. Now prepare for failure!

RetiredSciGuy writes ...

I didn’t have any aggressively ignorant students trying to bait me into a science vs. religion discussion while I was teaching. Had some interesting conversations with a few parents during parent-teacher conferences, though. One that particularly stands out was a mom who said, “We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we don’t believe in glaciers.”
Now that's what I call denial of the cold hard facts.

In an unrelated matter, if you read through the comments of another recent Curmudgeon post, you will learn that I have been appointed as Lord of the Outer Planets. Definitely the coolest thing to happen to me all week!

I haven't posted much lately - not quitting, just busy - and I refuse to be one of those silly bloggers that posts apologies for not posting.
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