Good hair turns out to be a poor science educator

The requirements to be a TV weather presenter are fairly slack: an undergraduate degree with some training in meteorology is preferred, but not required, and the main skills seem to be looking presentable with nice hair, being able to dance with a green screen, and being glib and cheerful. So I guess it’s not surprising that the “scientists” leading the charge against global warming are climate-denier TV weathermen. That link takes you to a long list of quotes from various television weather personalities — including a couple from Minneapolis — who all deny reality and use their position as frontmen pretending to be scientists to delude the public. Take a look and see if your local television station has a conspiracy nut doing the weather.

Another interesting aside in that article is that all of the current Republican candidates for president are climate change deniers. Every single one. Huntsman was the only exception, and he’s out.

That prompted me to look at the two front-runners positions on evolution.

Mitt Romney, the conservative establishment candidate, is a theistic evolutionist. He argues that evolution was the tool god used to create humans (“How?” I always wonder — evolution isn’t a railroad track in which you can put a car at one end and expect it to arrive at the other). He also opposed teaching intelligent design creationism while governor of Massachusetts, which is good news — I wonder if it’ll be used in attack ads against him? So on this one narrow issue, Romney is tolerable. On everything else the corporate plastic robot would never get my vote.

Newt Gingrich is the crackpot tea party candidate and is getting progressively wackier as the campaign goes on. While he made more vaguely moderate statements about evolution a few years ago, now that he’s courting the ignorant wackaloon vote, he’s sounding more like a member of the Insane Clown Posse.

I think we can safely say that no Republican should be allowed anywhere near the reins of government. They’re anti-science through and through.

(Also on Sb)

Elsevier = evil

Along with SOPA and PIPA, our government is contemplating another acronym with deplorable consequences for the free dissemination of information: RWA, the Research Works Act. This is a bill to, it says, “ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector”, where the important phrase is “private sector” — it’s purpose is to guarantee that for-profit corporations retain control over the publication of scientific information. Here are the restrictions it would impose:

No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that–

(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or

(2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.

This is a blatant attempt to invalidate the NIH’s requirement that taxpayer-funded research be made publicly available. The internet was initially developed to allow researchers to easily share information…and that’s precisely the function this bill is intended to cripple.

Who could possibly support such a bill? Not the scientists, that’s for sure; and definitely not the public, unless we keep them as ignorant as possible. The corporations who love this bill are the commercial publishers who profit mightily from scientists’ work. And first among these is Elsevier, the gouging publisher scientists love to hate.

If passed, the Research Works Act (RWA) would prohibit the NIH’s public access policy and anything similar enacted by other federal agencies, locking publicly funded research behind paywalls. The result would be an ethical disaster: preventable deaths in developing countries, and an incalculable loss for science in the USA and worldwide. The only winners would be publishing corporations such as Elsevier (£724m profits on revenues of £2b in 2010 – an astounding 36% of revenue taken as profit).

Since Elsevier’s obscene additional profits would be drained from America to the company’s base in the Netherlands if this bill were enacted, what kind of American politician would support it? The RWA is co-sponsored by Darrell Issa (Republican, California) and Carolyn B. Maloney (Democrat, New York). In the 2012 election cycle, Elsevier and its senior executives made 31 donations to representatives: of these, two went to Issa and 12 to Maloney, including the largest individual contribution.

So Elsevier bought a couple of politicians to get their way. It’s typical unscrupulous behavior from this company; at least they stopped organizing arms trade fairs a few years ago, so we know their evil can be checked by sufficiently loud public opinion.

Tell your representatives to kill RWA. It’s another bill to benefit corporations that will harm science.

(Also on Sb)

Well, aren’t we an optimistic bunch?

First we had Steven Pinker writing about The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, with the thesis that we’re getting more peaceful over time.

Now John Horgan has declared the potential for The End of War — that we have the ability to stop fighting and cooperate.

Horgan makes the point that human nature requires us to fight, and that many people make this fatalistic assumption that it cannot end. It’s a reflection of the usual argument for futility that claims the status quo is thus because it must be so.

It’s also the argument that is made to defend the inevitability of religious belief.

(Also on FtB)

Meddling bishops

Catholic-affiliated universities are often very good academically — I can think of a couple of estimable Catholic universities in my area. But I would never recommend that anyone attend one, for this reason.

Bishop Bambera of the Diocese of Scranton has recently requested that the University of Scranton – a Catholic and Jesuit university in Pennsylvania – withdraw its invitation to a women’s rights activist and former United States House of Representatives member, Majorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, who is scheduled to be the keynote speaker for a January 28 event at the University of Scranton encouraging women to become active in politics and learn more about the political system.

Why would anyone want to get an education under the thumbs of superstitious medieval clowns in gilt robes? Especially when they’re prone to silencing dissent? (I remember MMM well — she was my representative when I lived in Pennsylvania, until she was defeated by that Gingrichian wave. She’s good. She’s also pro-choice, so of course the Catholic Church hates her.)

They’re eating their own!

Holy crap. Watch this anti-Romney campaign ad.

It’s from Newt Gingrich. We have a Rethuglican paying to push a progressive liberal political message on television.

When Romney wins the Republican nomination, can Obama just borrow these ads and run them for his campaign? Or won’t it work because Obama has benefited so much from Wall Street donations?

(via Salon.)

New Hampshire has some world-class lunatics

Too bad they’re in the legislature. The latest wacky idea from a trio of Republicans is to require that all new bills reference the Magna Carta.

House Bill 1580 is the product of such a brainstorming session this summer between three freshman House Republicans: Bob Kingsbury of Laconia, Tim Twombly of Nashua and Lucien Vita of Middleton. The eyebrow-raiser, set to be introduced when the Legislature reconvenes next month, requires legislation to find its origin in an English document crafted in 1215.

“All members of the general court proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived,” is the bill’s one sentence.

You might be wondering why the Magna Carta…I think the three stooges should be wondering that, too.

Vita admitted he needs to "bone up" on the content of the charter

In other words, he has no idea what’s in the Magna Carta. I’m guessing he’s also a Christian of the type that has a similar reverence for the contents of a document they’ve never read.

Santorum will tell you how and when you can have sex

He’s a very creepy man. His wife had an abortion to save her life, but he wants to criminalize your abortion. And that’s not all: sex is supposed to be procreative, so he wants to criminalize contraception. In this long painful video, he preaches against gay sex, against contraception, and says we ought to be urging families to have many more children, and thinks a tax deduction of $20,000 per child is reasonable.

So “contraception is a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to the way things are supposed to be”. Woo hoo! I love that license! I don’t think I want to vote for a guy who’d take it away.

Bonus! Santorum also thinks most scientists are amoral.

I have to say, he’s doing a terrible job of campaigning for my vote.

Iowa caucus results

The Republican scores in Iowa are 25, 25, 21, 13, 10, 5, and 1. For an in-depth discussion of these remarkable numbers, we turn to our political analyst, Bob.

Thanks, Bob. These are very good numbers. 25 is clearly the winner, but the other 25 is very, very close. 21 is less than 25, but it’s still a good number, and I’m sure 21 is very pleased…although, of course, a bigger number would be even better. 13 and 10 are even smaller numbers.

5 and 1 are the littlest numbers. They are going to have to try much harder to get bigger if they want to stay in this race!

Excellent analysis, Bob. What does it mean that we have two 25s though?

It means that the election is very exciting so far, Bob, and that now more people will turn on our show to find out which one gets a bigger number. Compare it to the Democratic caucuses, where one person got 100. Boring, Bob, very boring.

So this means we get to keep our jobs, Bob?

Yes, Bob, and that is very good news indeed.

Now turning to our field reporter, Bob, we have an interview with one of the candidates.

“Sir, how do you feel about your number?”

“Well, Bob, it’s not a bad number, it could have been bigger, but it’s about where our polls predicted it would be. So we feel very good about our number.”

“Back to you, Bob.”

Thanks, Bob. And coming up after this commercial break, our chief political analyst Bob will explain these results to you with dazzling computer graphics.

<BUY OUR INSURANCE BEFORE YOU DIE. OUR DRUG WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY (side effects include dizziness, vomiting, wasting, exploding bowels, death, ennui, lack of ambition, impotence, and suicidal feelings.) HAPPY! ASK YOUR DOCTOR. THIS CAR IS VERY LARGE AND MANLY. STOCKPILE GOLD NOW. BUY OUR ALARM SYSTEM OR THIS VERY SCARY MAN WILL BREAK INTO YOUR HOUSE.>

Here is Bob, who will make these results meaningful by making them very bright and shiny and dynamic.

Thanks, Bob. We have created an animated chart of these results. Big numbers are shown as this very large, erect penis, much like yours if you got an offer to do a nude interview with Katy Perry, and small numbers are shown as this tiny little nubbin, like you’d see in a cold locker room after losing the big game. What this shows…

Bob, wait a minute. Isn’t one of the candidates a woman?

Ha ha, yes, Bob, but no clitoris is ever going to get as big as this magnificent purple monster, so it hardly matters, right?

Ha ha, of course. Go on.

As I was saying, Bob, we’ve illustrated all the candidates here, as you can see, and, well, they’re all pretty flaccid so far. None of them are even at half-mast yet, but the top candidates have clearly gotten a little tickle from Iowa and are beginning to stir.

Our job here on the Political Show in the next few months is to flatter and cajole these dicks until one is so aroused that he intimidates all the others into slinking away. We’ll be here every day, reporting on their relative turgidity until one is the biggest.

The power of the press, Bob. By the way, do you have a chart of the Democratic results?

We do, Bob, but the office here is pretty white and we found it too frightening to contemplate. Don’t worry, though, we’re ready, once the Republicans have sorted out who has the biggest number, to do what the media does best, and in the run up to the election we’ll be right here, fairly and objectively reporting the two penis sizes right down to the millimeter, right up to election day.

Good work, Bob. And may the biggest number win.

And that’s all from the election desk. Stay tuned as we bring in a series of pundits to talk about these numbers all day long.

Slow news day, I guess

Good god, media, I DON’T CARE ABOUT IOWA ANY MORE. It’s a freakish little local contest dominated by hardcore fanatics, and the only reason the results will mean anything is that the media will do its best to pump up the outcome into a portent of things to come. So when I saw this headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune at the coffee shop today, I just set it aside, disgusted, disinterested, and disenchanted.

Bachmann isn’t going to win. Even if she did, she’s one lunatic among a field of demented dwarfs.

What headline next, Strib? “SARAH PALIN: STILL IRRELEVANT”? How about “JOHN MCCAIN AIN’T DEAD YET” or “SASQUATCH PROBABLY WON’T WIN REPUBLICAN NOMINATION”?

I’m ready to call for a return of party bosses in smoke-filled rooms; this obsession with turning politics into a horse race, with every news source fussing over percentage points, is making a joke of democracy.

The only “points” we should be discussing are the substance of their policies.