Good thing it’s an easy one. I was up way too late last night with all those young people in the Twin Cities, so I can’t think too hard right now.
Should New Jersey legislators legalize same-sex marriages?
Yes 50%
No 50%
Not sure 0%
I suspect we can tip this one way or the other rather easily.
Sign this petition to protect a valuable dinosaur trackway quarry in New Jersey — it’s going to be bulldozed and built over with condos if you don’t. It might even if you do, but make a little effort to bring this deplorable waste of a scientific resource to people’s attention, anyway.
This is pretty cool: Scienceblogs and National Geographic have joined forces to create a mighty partnership to conquer the interwebs. I think. I’m not sure on what exactly we’ll gain just yet, but the people with vision at the top have hinted at some juicy things.
Here’s the press release:
National Geographic Digital Media (NGDM) and ScienceBlogs.com today announced that they have formed a strategic partnership spanning technology, advertising, business and content development. Through this partnership, Nationalgeographic.com and ScienceBlogs.com will create and exchange content through connected social media features, as well as work together to create new multimedia programming for both sites. ScienceBlogs.com will feature content from National Geographic bloggers and National Geographic explorers. The site also will have access to National Geographic’s news resources and will significantly increase its exposure through NGDM’s worldwide audience. NGDM in turn will feature content from ScienceBlogs.com and renowned SB bloggers on its award-winning site Nationalgeographic.com.
In addition, NGDM will lead advertising sales — headed by Jim Hoos, VP of Digital Media Sales — on ScienceBlogs.com, adding a vibrant social media platform to the portfolio and giving advertisers access to an audience of more than 2 million young, educated and digitally savvy readers. Under the terms of the agreement, NGDM will acquire a minority stake in ScienceBlogs, LLC, parent company of ScienceBlogs.com.
“ScienceBlogs.com shares our mission to create a fully comprehensive Web destination that allows users to explore, engage and exchange,” said John Caldwell, NGDM president. “This partnership not only allows National Geographic to strengthen its leadership in the science and technology space, but it also allows NG.com to reach an extensive community of young and engaged users who are deeply immersed within it.”
“We are thrilled to be teaming up with National Geographic, a brand we greatly admire and an organization that shares the values of the ScienceBlogs community. This partnership highlights SB’s standing in social media and lays the foundation for growth and greater reach and recognition in the future,” said Adam Bly, chairman of ScienceBlogs, LLC.
NGDM and ScienceBlogs.com’s initial rollout will feature blog content and applications that highlight green, science and technology subject matter.
I’m going to be speaking at the U of M tonight. I actually have to leave soon for this, because we had a light snowfall yesterday, and last I checked, the roads were slick as shellacked snot. I’m giving myself lots of extra driving time to improve my odds of actually getting there intact and with a still functional vehicle.
Also, some of us will be meeting at the campus club in Coffman Union sometime before the 7:30 talk. Feel free to stop by and say hello!
Skatje and I are here — the roads were good and we made it plenty early. Stop by the Campus Club (4th floor of Coffman Union) any time before 7:30. If you take too long, all the salmon will be gone, I warn you.
I hate these annoying cliffhangers.
A study that tried to analyze how pornography affected men’s views ran into an unfortunate problem: no control group. It seems there does not exist a population of males that doesn’t see some porn regularly. Still, they went ahead and at least got some shaky numbers on porn viewing habits.
Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.
The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.
I found this rather disturbing — personally, I’m way, way down below the average. Was there something wrong with me? But then I had to wonder how they defined “pornography”. I occasionally watch R rated movies — does that count? I personally feel that what constitutes pornography is often something I find offensive or distasteful, so I don’t watch it…but if it is inoffensive or tasteful, it can’t be porn.
If I search for movies of squid mating, am I looking for porn? It matches my image of sexuality, after all. And why are they only looking at men? Don’t women ever look at what some might define as pornography?
Now I’m very confused. I don’t think there is a normal level, so papers that try to measure one seem to miss the mark.
Oh, when will we learn? Michael Shermer and Donald Prothero duked it out with a pair of Discovery Institute charlatans recently, to predictable results: the creationists cried victory afterwards. It simply doesn’t matter that they had no evidence.
Anyway, a couple of things struck me as too typical in these affairs.
The creationists changed the topic the morning of the debate, from the general “Origins of life” to the “Adequacy of Neo-Darwinian natural selection and mutation to explain the origin of life”, which already skews the subject. It’s amazing how common it is for creationists to pull this tactic of shifting the goalposts the day of the game. It’s also surprising how often we let them get away with it.
Despite their change of topic, the creationists ignored it! One guy yammered on about “information,” despite not understanding it; the other made the impossibility of whale evolution the centerpiece of his argument. Whale evolution is cool, but it’s a fact…and note that there were no whales around at the time of the origin of life.
As usual, our side is all about the evidence. Their side is all about rhetoric and appeals to biases. Guess which side fares best in the debate format? It’s even true in their books: note that Meyer’s book is subtitled, DNA and the Evidence of Intelligent Design, and he couldn’t gasp out any evidence at all for their theory, which they cannot even state.
Oh, well. We’re game, at least, and willing to charge into their playing field no matter how much they have to stack the odds against us. Now if only they would try to do likewise…but of course, they can’t. They’ve got nothin’.
It’s another of those cases where people unfit to be parents abuse their children. Samuel McGehee is accused of murdering his youngest son, suffocating him to death because he wouldn’t take a nap. That’s horrible, but the next question I have to ask is why this guy was allowed in the same room with small children after what he did last year.
A detective testified that in March 2008, McGehee, concerned about the family’s financial state, decided to circumcise his other son at home, using a filet knife.
“There was severe damage to the shaft of the penis,” Detective Shawn Jenkins said. “There was a lot of skin removed.”
The 3-month-old’s scrotum was also lacerated during the procedure, Jenkins said. The child has subsequently endured extensive reconstructive surgeries, and more are expected.
What is it with these religious kooks and their children’s penises? I’m the father of two boys, and aside from assistance with basic hygiene when they were very small, I pretty much left their business alone…and the idea of taking a knife to them was unthinkable. I really wonder what crazy fundagelical church this man went to that made circumcision such a priority.
If the law had taken this lunatic aside when he’d committed such a stupid crime and told him that his parenting rights were immediately suspended, there’s another little boy who might still be alive today.
He takes on our country’s curious attitude towards patent inanity.
We are edging into an Election Season where strange beliefs will get an unusual airing. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee are up front in their disdain for Darwinism and their embrace of one degree or another of Creationism. Obama and most Democrats, and many Republicans have no problem at all with Darwinism, but will be wise to keep that out of their basic stump speech. Palin can draw applause by affirming she doesn’t believe mankind shared a common ancestor with oran utans, but Obama will prudently refrain from revealing his belief in the quite provable fact that we do.
It will be a fascinating aspect of the coverage of the approaching campaigns to watch how mainstream news organizations tread on this thin ice. There was an outcry in some circles when most news outlets were slow to simply state that George Bush was wrong about Brownie doin a great job, and Palin was wrong about the Bridge to Nowhere. They were wrong, but few in the MSM said they were, and even fewer, perhaps none, of those outlets will say that Palin or Huckabee are just plain wrong, wrong, wrong about Creationism. Not since Flat Earthers has there been a public dispute in which one side (Darwinism) has so throughly and merciless demolished the other (Creationism). Yet at most the MSM might venture to mention a “debate” or “controversy” between Darwinism and Creationism. News at 10: The debate about the theory of gravity.
He doesn’t just target the right-wing follies, either: the lefties get a skewering for their promotion of New Agey Nonsense. It’s a good read.
