Mitt Romney seemed proud, proud I say, that he paid “about 13% in taxes”. We have no way to know if that’s true or not, nor is it clear what taxes on what income he is referring to. Does that mean income taxes, did he include state taxes, was sales tax somehow factored in, perhaps he …
Monthly Archive: August 2012
Aug 17 2012
Curiosity has a secret
Mars Curiosity is quite a machine, a lander, rover, mobile chemical laboratory and robot geologist. But its designers were human, so hidden in the wheels is a geeky tech-y joke. What is it?
Aug 17 2012
Hey Kentuckians, are those students a’lern’n evolushun?
I was born in Lexington, but moved to Austin decades ago as a kid with the first wave of IBM immigrants traveling from blue grass to lone stars. Austin’s great, but Kentucky to Texas is not exactly a political improvement for a budding rational atheist. Because sadly, in many ways they’re the same, including creationism:
Aug 16 2012
Hallelujah and amen-eh, atheism rising fast in the US
With all the religious babble coming from DC in the middle of an election year, it might be surprising to hear that religiosity is declining and atheism rising in the US. But that’s what a new poll says (.pdf) and the change over the last few years is quite promising:
Aug 16 2012
Mars fakery in full swing
Michael Shermer once noted in the book Why People Believe Weird Things that science is not always kryptonite to pseudoscience, rather pseudoscience raises and falls in tandem with the real stuff. So it is with Mars fakery. The better images and data we get the more the alien conspiracy buffs and NASA cover-uppers come out of the wood …
Aug 15 2012
Polls tighten, the race is on
There’ll be much relief and fanfare in wingnuttia this week. Polls showing Obama with a slight edge in critical swing states two weeks ago now show the race tied. It’s a reasonable inference this represents conservatives coming home for Ryan. That was the whole point in picking the granny starver. From here on out it’s We …
Aug 15 2012
Well, it’s no Titanaboa
A Burmese python five full meters long and weighing as much as a full-grown person was found wandering the Florida Everglades, apparently feeling right at home. So right at home she was loaded with 87 eggs to make cue little baby Burmese pythons.
Aug 15 2012
Bain to the soon to be ousourced: So long and xièxie for all the fish
If you work hard you will succeed. That’s been the clarion call for Mittens et al, often wielded against Obama in hope of stirring up working class resentment. But in the nit and grit of Ryan-Romney’s real America, coming soon to a community near you if they win in November, hard-working lifetime employees at an electronics factory have …
Aug 14 2012
Saving liar Ryan
It’s been a pile on Paul Ryan ever since news of Romney’s VP pick was released on news dump Friday and announced publicly on the day of closing ceremonies for the Olympics. Odd timing to say the least. But the pile on, it’s both good to see and seems to have taken the GOP by …
Aug 14 2012
The end of cursioity
Don’t worry, Mars Curiosity the rover is alive and well and on the verge of beginning the mission it was so ably designed to do! There’s every reason to expect Curiosity will perform brilliantly, and that’s good, because there’s nothing much slated for Mars after it. When Curiosity finally seizes up, likely frozen in place, starved for …
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