Crazy People

Via Kevin Drum, here are some links talking about people who are trying to bring about the end times. And in case you think I’m exaggerating:
When addressing audiences receptive to Scriptural prophecy, however, Hagee welcomes the coming confrontation. He argues that a strike against Iran will cause Arab nations to unite under Russia’s leadership, as [...]

Same Sex Classrooms

The New York Times Magazine has a long article on single sex classrooms (it will be in this Sunday’s paper). I find it to be not as good as this article in the Boston Globe last fall (which I talk about here). The basic idea is that differences have been found between the sexes in learning in [...]

Antidepressants and Placebos

I’m a little slow about this, but I was looking at this post by Kevin Drum where he looks at the study that finds antidepressants such as Prozac are about the same as placebos for most patients (you can see info here and here, or for the report here). The study confirms that one of [...]

Wait, What Was That Noise?

I know what you’re going to say, why is that truck heading straight for me, but focus for a second. Oh, never mind.
Here’s some songs with a link or two to a video;
I Don’t Want To Wait Paula Cole
Over Your Shoulder Concrete Blonde
Thugs The Tragically Hip
The Handshake Bad Religion (live)
The Guns of Brixton The Clash
Stranger In The House Elvis Costello
Pay It [...]

Bush Stuff

Well things seem to be moving in the House, with Pelosi asking the Justice department to investigate Hariet Miers for ignoring a subpoena from the House and Josh Bolten for the refusal to turn over documents to the House. The best part is this:

She gave Attorney General Michael Mukasey one week to respond and said [...]

Kenya and Turkey

Ok, now it seems that it might get better in Kenya with the signing of an agreement for power sharing between the main rivals. We will still have to wait and see if the agreement can work in practice, but it looks like all parties are ok with this and that should go a long way.

I’m sure [...]

Discrimination

Yup, I don’t see any discrimination anymore:

a boy in eight grade was killed soon after he declared he was gay

a Delaware school district has settled in the suit over the widespread use of Christian prayers in school activities. What happened to the Jewish families who objected to statements like a ‘minister’s prayer proclaiming Jesus as [...]

McCain

Looking ahead a bit, let me say why I will not vote for McCain (even though he is far better than the other Republicans who ran–most of the info is from his website):

he wants more tax cuts.  Since he says he is for fiscal discipline, he must have a way to cut the budget. Here’s [...]

Comcast Blocks Bittorrent and People

Let’s see Comcast had a policy of slowing down bittorrent without telling their customers that they did, so a hearing was held about this in Cambridge. So what did Comcast do? They hired people to go to the meeting so that not as many people who were going to speak out against them would be [...]

Obama and Lieberman

Another in a line of posts showing Obama is similar to Clinton.
Via Tom Tomorrow:
Some at Thursday’s dinner said that while they were pleased with Lieberman’s success in bringing Obama to Connecticut, they still consider Lieberman uncomfortably tolerant of the Bush administration.
Obama wasted little time getting to that point, calling it the “elephant in the room” [...]

Oceans

I had already heard about the study on the human impact on the oceans:
About 40 percent of ocean areas are strongly affected, and just 4 percent pristine, according to the review.
but I hadn’t heard this:
The most widespread human fingerprint is a slow drop in the pH of surface waters around the world as a portion [...]

Obama: I’m Not Liberal

What’s up with politicians? Obama now says he is not liberal:
“Oh, he’s liberal, he’s liberal,” Obama said, mimicking his critics. “Let me tell you something. There’s nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics. That is common sense. There’s nothing liberal about wanting to make sure [our soldiers] are treated properly when they come [...]

Take Your Microbes To Lunch Day

Hmm, I knew that we had a lot of microbes in our body but this much:
Scientists estimate that 90 percent of the cells contained in the human body belong to nonhuman organisms – mostly bacteria, but also a smattering of fungi and other eensy entities. Some 100 trillion microbes nestle in niches from our teeth [...]

CIA Murders

Well, it seems there would have been at least one more CIA sponsored assasination except for one person:
Larry Devlin is 85 now, suffering from emphysema and tethered to an oxygen tank, his Central Intelligence Agency career long behind him. But he recalls with sunlit clarity the day in Congo nearly half a century ago when [...]

Venus and Mars Pictures

Here is a picture from Mars (with a story here, credit for picture: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University):

and here’s a picture of Venus (credit: ESA/ MPS/DLR/IDA–that’s the European Union):

Expectations and Outcome

I have already talked about this, but an article in the Boston Globe goes into more details:
The subjects consistently reported that the more expensive wines tasted better, even when they were actually identical to cheaper wines.
The experiment was even more unusual because it was conducted inside a scanner – the drinks were sipped via a [...]

Uganda

There’s good news from Uganda where the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army have signed a cease fire and it looks like the rebellion is over. You’ll notice that the fact that the leader of the LRA, Kony, believes he is a spokesperson for God and believes he leads a Christian rebellion isn’t mentioned. This is [...]

Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands

There were more low key primaries this weekend. They were all Republican and McCain won all the delegates: 20 in Puerto Rico, 9 in American Samoa, 9 in the Northern Mariana Islands. I’m finding it difficult to find the votes–the closest is one that says Huckabee and Paul both got 5% in Puerto Rico which [...]

Obama and Mandates

If you are a liberal or progressive you are probably for a single-payer system, but, like me, you might think that it will take a while to get there given our current system. Given that you might compromise by going for a system that can become single-payer. I think such a system would need:

a public [...]

Bank of America: We Don’t Want To Pay Taxes, But Help Us Anyway

There are a couple of interestingly placed articles in the Boston Globe today:

In the first, there is talk of a US government buyout of bad loans:

The proposal warns that up to $739 billion in mortgages are at “moderate to high risk” of defaulting over the next five years and that millions of families could lose [...]