The Biosphere, Now.

The New Fuelist

2010-09-17T17:20:00.001-07:00

Check out my energy and environment news curation site!

This is my brain on journalism.

2009-10-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't abandoned this ship, I have just been away learning to be a journalist, and contemplating the role of a blogger who is also a journalist. No conclusions yet, but I'm happy to report that Josh Marshall finally inspired me to post another block quote. Not surprisingly, it's about journalism. (emphasis mine)

If you actually watch Fox News with any regularity it's hard to see any point to discussing the fact that the station operates more or less openly as a wing of the GOP. The more interesting question is whether and (I would say) how news organizations with strong editorial viewpoints can maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity, fairness and reportorial excellence. That's the critical question for journalism today because in many ways that is the direction much if not all reportage is going. But it's a conversation Fox isn't even a part of except as the paradigmatic example of how it's not done.

That's called hitting the nail on the head.

Clean Energy, G.D.P., and Baseball, Oh My!

2009-09-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

Much of the domestic and geopolitical climate-change and energy policy debate is an argument about money. Ambitious emissions targets would require nations to invest heavily in clean energy, and opponents to such targets believe they would be too much of an obstacle to economic growth.

But what is economic growth? Earlier this month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a group of economists, including American Nobelist (and Columbia University Professor) Joseph Stiglitz, called for a re-evaluation of gross domestic product--broadly considered the most telling indicator of a nation's advancement. G.D.P. should be more comprehensive, they said, by accounting for things like personal well-being and sustainability of a nation's economy. According to Financial Times, Dr. Stiglitz stated,

"What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong measures, we will strive for the wrong things."

Stiglitz's statement reminds me of Bill James, who in the late 1970s began to challenge the entrenched use of certain indicators to assess a baseball player's worth. Among many other things, James is credited with shifting the focus from batting average and RBIs to a more comprehensive measure of a player's overall contribution to runs scored, which accounts for things like walks and total bases. He also ushered in an entire new world of baseball statistical analysis, and revolutionized the front-office position of general manager, as Michael Lewis described in Moneyball (Amazon link).

Global policy-making is obviously much more complicated than baseball. But the point here is that there is value in re-assessing the usefulness of heavily-relied-upon indicators. Why isn't some measure of economic sustainability included in G.D.P.? If it was, the merits of investing in clean energy would probably be much harder to ignore.

So Are The Days Of Our Lives.

2009-09-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Katie Couric strikes again!

Watch CBS Videos Online

This Just In

2009-09-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

My favorite middle linebacker donates his brain to science. (Seattle Times)

Does that nicotine patch itch? Some researchers think they know why. (Reuters)

Gordon Brown: Codebreaker Alan Turing "deserved so much better."

And last but not least: John Boehner valiantly continues his quest to win the "Most Ironic Rhetoric" award at The House of Representatives end-of-the-session awards banquet. (Talking Points Memo)

Swine Flu As A Case Study

2009-08-25T18:27:00.001-07:00

Ezra Klein makes a lot of good points--in general and specifically in this post about Swine Flu and the fractured public health infrastructure in the US.

We have a tendency to judge the health-care system primarily by its capacity to deliver extremely sophisticated and advanced care for traumatic injuries and catastrophic illnesses. The sort of stuff you see on "House," say. But we think much less about its role as a public health infrastructure — its ability to deliver flu shots, and make sure that all of the country's inhabitants have a trusted medical professional they can see if they're sick.

On those measures, our system performs terribly. It's simply too fractured to do anything different. Almost 50 million Americans have no insurance. Many more are underinsured. Many don't have a particular doctor or even medical center where they feel comfortable receiving care. Many are uncertain about what is and isn't covered in their health plan. Many have recently been uninsured, and so have no regular contact with the medical system and haven't established an obvious way to begin having some.

The backstop to all this chaos is that you can go to an emergency room when things get really bad. That's fine for a car accident. It's not good for preventing the spread of the flu. You don't go to the emergency room when you're a bit sick. You go when you've become really ill. Which not only increases the likelihood that you wait until you get really sick, but with the flu, that you infect many others along the way. That in turn gives the flu more opportunities to mutate into something much worse. And let's not even talk about our insistence on keeping the illegal immigrants who prepare our food and clean our homes from seeing the doctor, as if H1N1 can't be transmitted by people who don't have a green card.

...

Got intellectual dishonesty?

Series of Accidents

2009-08-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

Matt Yglesias has range like Ozzie Smith. If necessary, he will even dive straight into the metaphysical weeds for a correlation (emphasis mine):

But in general it seems to me that we pay extraordinarily little attention to the giant role played by luck and happenstance in determining who becomes a super-successful businessman. Bill Gates, for example, clearly knows something about software and something about business. But there are lots of people who fit that bill. There’s only one Gates because it’s in the nature of things that only one firm gets to write the operating system that, thanks to strong network effects, becomes dominant and lets you start reaping monopoly profits. Nothing wrong with it, that’s life. But in general, as a society we tend to treat successful businessmen as if they were omniscient central planners who’d gotten rich through their powers of clairvoyance. In fact, the whole point of having businessmen instead of central planners is that nobody’s that omniscient—we let some flowers bloom and some chips fall and life moves on. But there’s no particular reason to believe that the ex post winners have enormous insights. If you hang around a casino, on any given night someone’s going to make money playing roulette, but that doesn’t mean you should ask him about his roulette strategy and it certainly doesn’t mean you should ask his opinion about public policy issues far outside his area of focus.

Armey: Medicare is tyranny!

Delusions and Entitlement

2009-08-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

Bruce Bartlett's Daily Beast bio describes "one of the original supply-siders" who was a "leading Republican economist from the 1980's and 90's." His point in this well-researched piece is simple: Conservatives delude themselves when they buy the claim that in recent history the GOP has practiced what it preaches about fiscal responsibility. Just look at the data:

In January, the Congressional Budget Office projected a deficit this year of $1.2 trillion before Obama took office, with no estimate for actions he might take. To a large extent, the CBO’s estimate simply represented the $482 billion deficit projected by the Bush administration in last summer’s budget review, plus the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which George W. Bush rammed through Congress in September over strenuous conservative objections. Thus the vast bulk of this year’s currently estimated $1.8 trillion deficit was determined by Bush’s policies, not Obama’s.
...
[C]onservatives have an absurdly unjustified view that Republicans have a better record on federal finances. It is well-known that Clinton left office with a budget surplus and Bush left with the largest deficit in history. Less well-known is Clinton’s cutting of spending on his watch, reducing federal outlays from 22.1 percent of GDP to 18.4 percent of GDP. Bush, by contrast, increased spending to 20.9 percent of GDP. Clinton abolished a federal entitlement program, Welfare, for the first time in American history, while Bush established a new one for prescription drugs.

Regarding the current moment in our national politics, the Fox News/Drudge Report/elected Republican spin begs a reasonable question: Where was the passionate stand against government spending, expansion, and "meddling with our health care" when George W. Bush passed the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan in 2003?

Montana!

Inflection Point

2009-08-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

When all is said and done, I think the former Governor of Alaska's "death panel" remark will be viewed as a turning point, similar to the "lipstick on a pig" moment during the Presidential campaign.

Speaking of the campaign, TPM reader JM makes a good point. The need to fix our health care delivery and reimbursement system was as self-evident then as it is now, which inspired BOTH candidates to campaign on plans for government intervention.

If you watch the MSM on health care you'd think McCain never even ran for President in 2008 and never even suggested taxing employer based health benefits, or never suggested a "federally supported Guaranteed Access Plan" for people denied due to preexisting conditions, or never proposed cost containment measures including coordinated care and moving away from fee-for-service, or cutting Medicare Part D subsidies for Big Pharma. One can argue whether these were good or bad ideas but Mccain did in fact have ideas to reform health care.

Default = Inertia

2009-08-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

For better or for worse, Frank Rich is right.

The best political news for the president remains the Republicans. It’s a measure of how out of touch G.O.P. leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are that they keep trying to scare voters by calling Obama a socialist. They have it backward. The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy. If anything, the most unexpected — and challenging — event that could rock the White House this August would be if the opposition actually woke up.

Bass-Ackwards

2009-08-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

If conservatives "win" the healthcare battle, I have a hard time understanding how that will help them politically, given reality. David Frum ponders the all-to-real hypothetical, and draws this refreshingly sensible conclusion. (emphasis mine)

The problem is that if we do that… we’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and thus immense pressure for future tax increases, (3) small businesses and self-employed individuals priced out of the insurance market, and (4) a lot of uninsured or underinsured people imposing costs on hospitals and local governments.

We’ll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican party exists to champion.

Update: Former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd agrees.

"I think the Republicans soon have to be careful of something," Dowd said. "I know Republicans are all patting themselves on the back and saying, "We've got the Democrats on the run, Obama on the run.' I don't think it's necessarily a good political place to be in by November if you've defeated any health care reform."

Politics of Hate?

2009-08-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

If Nothing Else...

2009-08-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

At least the the democratic push to reform the kingdom of health care delivery and reimbursement has been illustrative. It's a dark picture of greedy industry royalty and their mercenaries in Congress. It has always been there, but if nothing else at least we are talking about it for a few minutes.

Not all talk is useful though, especially when it is parroted versions of false correlations designed to reinforce "infantile denial." (link)

The big lie that Medicare isn't, nor ever should be, financed and regulated by the government, is a nice illustration of Slate founder Michael Kinsley's hypothesis, articulated in his 1995 book Big Babies, that infantile denial lies at the heart of much contemporary political disaffection. The American people, Kinsley wrote, "make flagrantly incompatible demands—cut my taxes, preserve my benefits, balance the budget—then explode in self-righteous outrage when the politicians fail to deliver." Although Kinsley conceded that big babyism had been enabled by both conservative and liberal politics, he wrote: "It is conservatives, more than liberals, who stoke the fires of resentment and encourage vast swaths of the electorate to indulge in fantasies of victimization by others." This is perhaps 1,000 times more true today than it was 14 years ago.

The Lamp

2009-08-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall is correct.

Politics, as they say, ain't bean bag. And more than that, real political engagement is not and should not be a debating exercise. There's organizing and rough-and-tumble. That's not an unfortunate concession. That's how people with strong beliefs peacefully hash out their differences in a democratic society. But, c'mon, showing up as a mob and shouting people down is showing up as a mob and shouting people down.

Update: Even Michael Steele agrees. Doesn't he? (emphasis mine)

"… I'm not telling people to go out and be disruptive, because there's no upside to doing that. We want to have a legitimate debate…there's no upside for us in starting a fight with the Democratic Party, or with elected officials that we disagree with."

Sad State?

2009-08-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

Just like he knew all along that Roger Federer would beat Andy Roddick in the Wimbledon Final, Matt Taibbi wasn't surprised by the news that the Senate Finance Committee's health care bill would not contain the public insurance option.

This whole business, it was a litmus test for whether or not we even have a functioning government. Here we had a political majority in congress and a popular president armed with oodles of political capital and backed by the overwhelming sentiment of perhaps 150 million Americans, and this government could not bring itself to offend ten thousand insurance men in order to pass a bill that addresses an urgent emergency. What’s left? Third-party politics?

Say What You Will

2009-08-04T12:11:00.001-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

News is Good

2009-08-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

I have to agree with this assessment by Yglesias. (Emphasis mine)

The nature of the 20th Century market for news happened to incentivize a certain kind of staid inoffensiveness. This style of covering things has some virtues, but other styles have virtues too. Because such an overwhelming preponderance of the profession was squeezed, for basically economic reasons, into that style a habit developed of labeling the virtues of that style the virtues of journalism. But they’re not. There’s a lot that’s nerve-wracking about the current moment in media, but the stylistic diversity and openness to new ways of doing things should be viewed as exciting.

Provoking Thoughts

2009-07-31T12:26:00.000-07:00

I continue to be fascinated by the (at times direct) interplay between the rising forces of "New Media" and the established "Old Media" forces, particularly when it comes to political analysis. A couple weeks ago, there occurred a very interesting discussion between Glenn Greenwald and NBC's Chuck Todd. (Transcript)

Greenwald originally called out Todd for being a "spokesman" for the Obama Administration when he went on MSNBC and characterized hypothetical torture investigations/prosecutions as a "distraction from what matters." Todd's statement was an example of the all-to-typical behavior of "media stars," Greenwald argued, behavior that helps create an environment in which politicians can break the law with little fear of investigations or prosecution. Todd responded by agreeing to a debate.

A particularly compelling point in the discussion was when Greenwald conceded that it's unrealistic to expect presidential administrations to relinquish powers grabbed by their predecessors--even if, as Todd pointed out, they campaigned against those very expansions of Executive power. Is that true?

I think this was the key exchange:

CT: And the problem is, there is a department, and you can't, whether this, you can sit here and say, you know what, that's exactly what's wrong with the Beltway. But there has been this fatigue about it because the use of prosecutions has been too politicized, to the point where I think it has made it where it's just unfortunately too easy to dismiss an investigation.

GG: And as a result, powerful politicians know that they can break the law and get away it.

CT: I don't disagree with your conclusion here.

GG: Politicians know that they can break the law and get away it because there is that quote-unquote 'fatigue', that dislike, that contempt for holding political officials accountable in Washington, because these are the people you go to work and see every day, and it's unpleasant when they're having to respond to subpoenas--

CT: That's not--

GG: ... and go to court and be accused of criminal wrongdoing. And that's why the political class typically insists that politicians not be subjected to the criminal process. And they know that they can break the law and get away with it for exactly that reason. And I think that's a huge problem.

CT: Well, look, I think the problem, though, sits not with the media in this respect. And this is what frustrates me a little bit, is that the problem, the people we should be upset with are the folks on the Hill, folks in the White House, folks at the Justice Department. Those are the ones who have the power of the subpoena, and the power to do these things, not the media. And I know we get beaten up about it. But the power does lie in Congress. And the power does lie in the Justice Department.

GG: Agreed. And that's why I think that's the appropriate place for these investigations and prosecutions to take place, is in the Justice Department. That's why I'm in favor of what Eric Holder's about to do.

A couple questions: In listening the the whole conversation, do you think Greenwald is naive to discount the significance of the "political reality?" Conversely, does Todd put too much stock in its significance?

Good Question, Roy Blunt!

2009-07-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

"Our bill is never going to get to the floor, so why confuse the focus?" Blunt said yesterday. "We clearly have principles; we could have language, but why start diverting attention from this really bad piece of work (the Democrats have) got to whatever we’re offering right now?"

--Representative Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) (link)

Here's another question: What problem is the House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, of which Rep. Blunt is chairman, working to solve?

Eff-22

2009-07-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

The Senate killed the F-22 today with a 58-40 vote. President Obama had threatened to veto a defense policy bill that funded the program. And Defense Secretary Robert Gates had his back in a speech last week in Chicago:

Some might ask: Why threaten a veto and risk a confrontation over a couple billion dollars for a dozen or so planes?

The grim reality is that with regard to the budget we have entered a zero-sum game. Every defense dollar diverted to fund excess or unneeded capacity – whether for more F-22s or anything else – is a dollar that will be unavailable to take care of our people, to win the wars we are in, to deter potential adversaries, and to improve capabilities in areas where America is underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk that I will not take and one that I cannot accept.

And, with regard to something like the F-22, irrespective of whether the number of aircraft at issue is 12 planes or 200, if we can’t bring ourselves to make this tough but straightforward decision – reflecting the judgment of two very different presidents, two different secretaries of defense, two chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, and the current Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff, where do we draw the line? And if not now, when? If we can’t get this right – what on earth can we get right? It is time to draw the line on doing Defense business as usual. The President has drawn that line. And that red line with regard to a veto is real.

John McCain agreed, arguing on the floor of the Senate that the F-22 was "no longer needed beyond where it stands today" and represented "the military-industrial complex at work."

The President, The Secretary of Defense, and John McCain couldn't convince more than 58 Senators that we need to spend our defense budget more intelligently? Better yet, how did it even make it out of committee? Matt Yglesias was right in this post from three weeks ago.

(It's) an illustration of America’s desperately dysfunctional institutional structure. One basic problem of democratic governance relates to concentrated interests versus diffuse ones. Organizing broad groups of people to advance the public interest in the face of entrenched opposition is difficult. And the committee structure is like it was designed to make this problem as bad as possible. The upshot of the way congress does business is that agriculture policy is made by a special minority of legislators who represent the interests of agricultural producers. And energy policy is made by legislators who represent the interests of energy producers. And defense policy is made by legislators who represent the interests of defense contractors. If you just announced an unexpected swap and had the Armed Services Committee set farm policy and the Agriculture Committee do procurement, you could get better results.

Linkage

2009-07-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

Gates: Wasteful Defense Spending Must Stop
Senators May Stand In Way of Ratification of Nuke Agreement
Air Force Releases Report Outlining Vision for Drone Future
WATCH: Tiger Moths Avert Bat Attack By Jamming Sonar
Dragonfly Migration Route Revealed as Longest Insect Route
Exxon Bets Up to $600 Million on Craig Venter's Algae Project
Much-Hyped "Pickens Plan" Put On Hold
AMA Endorses House Healthcare Reform Bill
Will Saletan Ponders Study Linking Cancer Deaths and Race
LISTEN: Glenn Beck Reveals Inner Petulant Child To Caller

How Much For That Life?

2009-07-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

The business of healthcare is one big bioethical conundrum, and central to the age-old healthcare reform policy debate is a bioethically complex question: How much, in dollars, is human life worth?

Luckily for non-bioethicists, Princeton's Peter Singer recently addressed that very question in the NY Times. It's a must read. An important point to remember when analyzing the political posturing around this issue is that politicians who recklessly warn that proposed legislation will lead to healthcare "rationing" have already completely missed the point. The reality is that medical care is already rationed:

Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.

(emphasis mine)
...

Speaking of assigning a quantitative value to human life, what about non-human life? Are some non-human lifeforms more valuable than others?

The answer to these questions, of course, depends on who you are. Few neuroscientists, for example, would disagree that certain organisms contain inherent value because of what their brains could teach us about our brains. Great apes are usually the first examples that come to mind (Don't think they have complex social brains? Watch a gorilla exchanging symbolic language with Mr. Rogers). Birds have illuminating brains too.

But I want to talk about whales. The use of military sonar has been shown to very harmful, even lethal, to whale populations. Last November, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a California appellate court which had ruled, in the interest of whale preservation, to heavily restrict the Navy’s use of sonar devices in its training exercises. This aptly titled story adds important context:

In the end, the Supreme Court dispute over the use of sonar can be viewed as a turning point in our fraught relationship with whales — a moment when new insights into the behavior of our long-inscrutable, seabound mammalian counterparts began forcing us to reconsider and renegotiate what once seemed to be a distinct boundary between our world and theirs. Scientists have now documented behaviors like tool use and cooperative hunting strategies among whales. Orcas, or killer whales, have been found to mourn their own dead. Just three years ago, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York discovered, in the brains of a number of whale species, highly specialized neurons that are linked to, among other things, the use of language and were once thought to be the exclusive property of humans and a few other primates. Indeed, marine biologists are now revealing not only the dizzying variety of vocalizations among a number of whale species but also complex societal structures and cultures.

(Read more from Wired on whale culture.)

Along with sonar, whale hunting also quickly depletes whale populations (even though a recent report found that whale watching holds more profit-potential than whale hunting). Last month, the International Whaling Commission failed to broker a compromise between whaling opponents and people that have killed over 40,000 whales since 1985. As a result, international calls are being made for better whale policy.

Caption Contest

2009-07-16T21:16:00.001-07:00

(Photo from Whitehouse Flickr stream)

Remember, creativity and ingenuity at all times.

Good Point, Glenn Greenwald

2009-07-14T18:43:00.000-07:00

Read his blog a few times and you will come to understand at least one thing about Glenn Greenwald: He's on a mission.

The mission is multifaceted, and his approach is educated by his experience as a constitutional law and civil rights litigator. And he has little patience for weak intellectual arguments and/or scurrilous revision of history.

Over the past two days, Greenwald had a Twitter moment covering the confirmation hearing for Sonia Sotomayor. But the good point that earned him this post was actually a question--a question about a question on which GOP Senators are currently (and urgently) fixated.

Two weeks ago, Alito cast the deciding vote in Ricci v. DeStefano, an intensely contested affirmative action case. He did so by ruling in favor of the Italian-American firefighters, finding that they were unlawfully discriminated against, even though the district court judge who heard all the evidence and the three-judge appellate panel ruled against them and dismissed their case. Notably, the majority Supreme Court opinion Alito joined (.pdf) began by highlighting not the relevant legal doctrine, but rather, the emotional factors that made the Italian-American-plaintiffs empathetic.

Did Alito's Italian-American ethnic background cause him to cast his vote in favor of the Italian-American plaintiffs? Has anyone raised that question? Given that he himself said that he "do[es] take that into account" -- and given that Sonia Sotomayor spent 6 straight hours today being accused by GOP Senators and Fox News commentators of allowing her Puerto Rican heritage to lead her to discriminate against white litigants -- why isn't that question being asked about Alito's vote in Ricci?

Lance is Back

2009-07-13T22:25:00.000-07:00

Stage 10 of the Tour de France is Tuesday. I usually casually observe (mainly via sports news-tickers), but then Sports Illustrated's Twitter Santa left this gift under my tree. After reading I became much more intrigued.

International sporting events are like test tubes. Competitors could then be like unique elements or compounds that mix and/or react. For example, professional cyclists from Europe are of a wholly different chemical makeup than American pros.

Bike racing in Europe is what boxing is in the States -- a poor kid's way out. A chimney sweep won the first Tour de France, and since then honors have gone to carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, welders, baker's apprentices and metalworking trainees. (One of the greatest, Italy's Fausto Coppi, wasn't even a butcher, but an errand boy for a butcher, which is how he learned his way with a bike.) The European peloton is a clan with a code, a sweatshop on wheels that doubles as a testing lab for designer doping products. Fans make the biggest heroes of those who suffer most; the founder of the Tour, Henri Desgranges, believed that the ideal race would be one survived by a single rider. If these hero-sufferers take drugs, goes the continental line of thinking, it's because no one can be expected to survive such an ordeal without palliatives, and besides, cheating has been woven into the Tour since its second staging in 1904, when the winner of the first, that chimney sweep, hopped a train for part of the route.

While:

In the U.S., bike racing is a way out too -- a way out of high school hell for geeky middle-class boys blown off by the jocks and cheerleaders. They take up cycling for the romance, for "breaking away," as that Indiana italophile, Dave the Cutter, did in the 1979 movie of the same name. Otherwise a bicycle is either a child's toy or an affluent middle-aged adult's means to health and fitness. In 1981 the first American to ride the Tour, Jonathan Boyer, traveled with a Bible, a blender, and a cache of nuts and dates. California's Bob Roll, who was living in a tent in Switzerland when the U.S. 7-Eleven team picked him up to ride the 1985 Tour of Italy, would inscribe his sidewheels with poetry.

Lance Armstrong, meanwhile, has successfully and consistently maintained his yellow-bracelet reputation in America while also holding his own with the European peloton.

Armstrong has long broadcast on two frequencies -- one to the European peloton, another to cycling-innocent followers in the States. A perfect example took place several months ago, after an out-of-competition tester from France's state-run anti-doping lab doorstepped him on the Riviera, and Armstrong, just back from a training ride, disappeared for 20 minutes to take a shower. Europeans know that the one thing a cyclist may not do under any circumstances is leave a tester's sight before providing a sample. They can recount the sport's colorful history of doping-control subterfuge, from hastily swallowed diuretics and blood-thinners, to stand-in urine delivered through concealed rubber tubing. When this departure from protocol briefly looked like it might lead to his suspension, Armstrong tweeted indignantly, Was winning the Tour seven times that offensive?!? That in turn cued up reactions Stateside of the "Of course they wouldn't let him take a shower -- they don't believe in showers!" variety. Not that Armstrong necessarily had something to hide; given his relationship with the French, he may have simply been up for a game of chicken, to dare them to expel from their great race its biggest name. The point is, he took them on and won, again.

Linkage

2009-07-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

Developing Nations At Odds With G8 Over Emissions Targets
But "Meaningful" Temp Rise "Ceiling" Agreed Upon
Is It Up To Obama To Catalyze Global Climate Agreement?
Brazilian President Expresses Optimism for December Deal
DNA of Endangered Species To Be Stored At NYC Museum
17% of Americans Rank American Science Best in World
New NIH Head A Respected Scientist and Evangelical Christian
Obama Promises Benedict He'll Work To Reduce Abortions
Pentagon Considers U.S. Military Tobacco Ban
NY Times Considers $5/Month Web Access Fee

Creativity and Ingenuity (At All Times)

2009-07-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

This deserves an award for heroism:

Whereas Einstein's Intelligence was Biological...

2009-07-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

Speaking of theories, Einstein had a few too, including but not by any means limited to this one.

In fairly unrelated news: Is that you, Professor Einstein? (Read more about the video below)

This Is What Keeps Me Up At Night

2009-07-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

A new study of 2,000 members of the public and 2,500 scientists tells us what we already should know: The degree of scientific illiteracy in this country is downright alarming.

The most frightening part about the thick language barrier that exists between scientists and nonscientists (even well-educated ones!) is that most nonscientists aren't even aware that it exists. Consequently, they buy the "it's only a theory" attack line without a second thought. Sure, Glenn Beck has theories just like Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton did. The big difference is that Glenn Beck's theories aren't based in rigorously replicated experimental data, they aren't disqualified when proven wrong, and they do not adjust to new facts.

Thus, we are left with this situation:

Almost a third say human beings have existed in their current form since the beginning of time, a view held by only 2 percent of the scientists. Only about half agree that people are behind climate change, and 11 percent do not believe there is any warming at all.

Contrary to what Congressional Republicans might want you to believe, scientists are not a band of socialists with hidden political agendas. In fact, most steer clear of politics. It's not their game. Their game is to discover, and, along the way, to prove each other wrong. Their only tool is a method so useful at uncovering truth that the period in which it was created is known as The Enlightenment.

Still, too many nonscientists take the word of desperate politicians who have manufactured "debates" only because they see re-election as paramount to the truth:

According to the survey, about a third of Americans think there is lively scientific debate on both topics; in fact, there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution and there is little doubt that human activity is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere in ways that threaten global climate.

Scientists are not free of the blame for this mess. In their communication with the public, they must to find ways to compensate for widespread illiteracy. They can't just cite scientific consensus. Too many people don't even get what scientific consensus is--how could they begin to appreciate its significance?

In a telephone news conference announcing the survey, Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), said scientists must find new ways to engage with the public. “One cannot just exhort ’we all agree you should agree with us,’ ” he said. “It’s a much more interactive process that’s involved. It’s time consuming and can be tedious. But it’s very important.”

This is the brutal truth. And this is what keeps me up at night. Hence The Biosphere, Now.

Obama, Medvedev Move To Heal The World of Nukes

2009-07-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Somewhat lost in the sea of MJ rememberance was yesterday's news that a nuclear nonproliferation agreement was struck in Moscow between President Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia. The deal is not insignificant:

The two presidents issued a "joint understanding" that commits the two countries to reducing strategic warheads to a range of 1,500 to 1,675 – down from the current ceiling of 2,200 – and to a maximum of 1,600 launch vehicles. The goal is to reach an agreement in time to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires on Dec. 5.
...
Arms-control analysts who support Obama's determination to conclude a new START agreement say that the stated reductions are significant because they are realistic enough to receive the legislative-branch ratification required in both countries, yet ambitious enough to act as a first step toward Obama's vision of a world eventually free of nuclear arsenals.

ABC's Whitehouse Correspondant Jake Tapper talked to the President about the economy, Iran, nuclear nonproliferation, and (of course) MJ:

“You know, this is part of American culture,” the president said. “Michael Jackson, like Elvis, like Sinatra, when somebody whose captivated the imagination of the country for that long passes away, people pay attention. And I assume at some point people will start focusing again on things like nuclear weapons.”

Brain Melodies

2009-07-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Science and art can't help but collide sometimes. Let's pursue that.

Linkage

2009-07-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

Hawking: Humans Entering Phase of "Self-Designed Evolution"
Japan, Canada (not US!) Obstruct Global Climate Change Deal
Vatican Hopes Not To Make Another Gallileo-esque Misjudgment
Chinese, Indian Officials Concerned About Tariffs In Energy Bill
Virginia T.V. Station Refuses To Air Inaccurate NRCC Ad
Obama Scolds Groups Targeting Moderate Dems on Healthcare
Newly Discovered Global Ant Mega-Colony Dominates World
Researchers Find Key to Limb Regeneration in Salamanders

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah...

2009-07-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

Several things bothered me about Ross Douthat's latest column, but it was this oversimplification in particular that caused me the most frustration:

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

Matthew Yglesias calmed me down by precisely articulating my objection. Emphasis mine.

Meanwhile, I think it’s telling that Douthat’s idea of a counterpoint to Obama’s Ivy pedigree is Palin rather than, say, Joe Biden of the University of Delaware and the Syracuse University College of Law. Biden strikes me as an excellent example of the fact that a person can attend some not-so-fancy universities and yet be both enormously successful and widely acknowledged to be a smart person with a command of the issues. Palin, by contrast, is someone who Douthat acknowledges needs more time “to bone up on the issues.”

And that is the key to people’s complaint with Palin; not that she attended North Idaho College but that she ran for Vice President and spoke out on a range of issues without seeming to understand any of them. That’s a big deal, and it’s not mere snobbery to point out that it’s a big deal.

Time To Get Your Talking Head Checked

2009-07-03T13:26:00.001-07:00

Jon Stewart remarks on perhaps the most absurd segment on the Fox version of Glenn Beck, Truth Teller to date.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Osama bin Laden Needs to Attack America

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jason Jones in Iran

It's About Time

2009-07-03T12:00:00.001-07:00

What is time? It depends on who you ask.

Unhealthy Skepticism

2009-07-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

A daily 15 minute dose of Fox News will give one a fairly good idea of the day's talking points. At the moment, this one is an extremely hot potato. While Sen. Inhofe (R-Okla) wants a criminal investigation, at least Foxnews.com has provided some honest reporting about the "supressed report" author's qualifications, or basic lack thereof.

An EPA official told FOXNews.com on Monday that Carlin, who is an economist -- not a scientist -- included "no original research" in his report. The official said that Carlin "has not been muzzled in the agency at all," but stressed that his report was entirely "unsolicited."

"It was something that he did on his own," the official said. "Though he was not qualified, his manager indulged him and allowed him on agency time to draft up ... a set of comments."

He's No Chump

2009-06-30T12:24:00.001-07:00

He still has much to learn about politics (as we saw again last Friday, science and politics often don't play well together), but new U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu knows his physical science, right down to the fundamental units (link):

Chu's pre-DOE curriculum vitae is filled with accounts of solving borderline-unsolvable scientific problems. Like all Nobel Prize winners, Chu wrote an autobiographical essay when he received the award that traces his history. This portrait of the scientist as a young man follows his growth from a Long Island boyhood spent tinkering with an erector set on a living-room floor, through the decades he dedicated to figuring out a method of cooling atoms so much (specifically, to 240 millionths of a degree above absolute zero) that they could be trapped, observed, and put to work. He was instrumental in creating a six-beam laser trap, from which atoms cannot escape and inside of which they lose so much energy that atoms, which at room temperature move at essentially unobservable speeds, slow to centimeters per second. The discovery has had all manner of applications, including improving the accuracy of the atomic clock maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology by more than tenfold.

Given that he was so busy experimenting with and learning about the properties of atoms, I wonder how he found time for the vast left-wing climate-change conspiracy.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

2009-06-29T16:02:00.001-07:00

TPM's Zack Roth highlights and expands on a report based on analysis of AMA data:

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as "highly concentrated," according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

As Roth notes in his article title, the healthcare market is "characterized by consolidation, not competition," and this is why it is spiraling out of control. The optimist would logically conclude that this bodes well for legislation that would create a public option and end the monopolization. But Washington's power center sees it differently.

That's because insurers who control large swathes of a given market stand to see their bottom lines particularly threatened by the introduction of a lower-cost public option. So, in turn, they'll be particularly aggressive in pulling out all the stops to pressure lawmakers to oppose the plan. Given the healthy amount of campaign dollars that some wavering members take in from the major insurers, that's hardly encouraging.

Waxman-Markey Opponents: Political Climate More Important Than Real Climate

2009-06-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

Say what you want about climate change, greenhouse gases, over-consumption, the need for a better plan for energy production and use, the "fear-mongering" EXPERTS who rely on the scientific method, wars over oil, and politicians who pick and choose the times they want to exploit the phrase "scientific uncertainty." And say what you want about Paul Krugman (I sure as hell don't always agree with him) and his latest column. But if you are having difficulty piecing together the truth from the political chaos that emanates from the climate bill "debate," start with this:

(I)f you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

"Simplistic and Misleading"

2009-06-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

A co-author of a study that has been repeatedly "cited" by political opponents of Waxman-Markey takes issue with the extremely popular "this bill amounts to a tax of $3100/household" talking point (employed several times during Friday's House vote), which he states is "nearly 10 times the correct estimate." (emphasis mine) He went so far as to send a letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner outlining his concerns.

Via factcheck.org:

In a letter sent to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on April 1, John Reilly, associate director for research at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said that the study he coauthored had "been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee." He said the GOP's calculation fails to account for Obama's stated intent to provide rebates to consumers to cushion the effect of increased prices: "[M]any of the proposals currently being considered by Congress and as proposed by the Administration have been designed to offset the energy cost impacts on middle and lower income households and so it is simplistic and misleading to only look at the impact on energy prices of these proposals as a measure of their impact on the average household."

The Whole Spectrum

2009-06-26T18:52:00.000-07:00

Laugh and/or cry about this.

A Long, Complicated Game

2009-06-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

I still have a lot to learn about legislative process. Luckily, I have Ezra Klein, who reminds us that healthcare reform legislations's journey is far from over. There are many twists and turns to come. It's kind of like Week 7 in the NFL.

Health reform, remember, is a long game. The Senate Finance Committee will not write the health reform bill. They will just write their version of it. Then it will merge with the HELP Committee's version. Then it will be amended on the floor of the Senate. Then it will be merged with the House's health reform bill in a process called "conference committee." Then that bill will return for a final vote.

(emphasis original)

Linkage

2009-06-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

House Prepared To Vote On Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill
CBO: In 2020, Bill Would Cost $245/yr For Wealthiest Americans
DoE Gives Out Big-Time Loans for Electric Car Production
"Lightbulb molecule" Inspires Clean Energy Optimism
Obama Admin Mulls Joint CIA-FBI Interrogation Teams
FDA Given Power to Regulate Tobacco
U.S. Drone Attack Kills Up to 70 At Funeral In Pakistan
Iran "Retires" 4 Green-Donning Footballers
How Important is Culture to Whales?
Do Migratory Birds Have Quantum Compasses In Their Eyes?

Healthcare Politics To The Max

2009-06-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

As the Times points out, because of the way the political cards have fallen, Sen. Max Baucus from my home state of Montana finds himself in a position of significant power regarding any healthcare reform legislation.

One thing that has bothered me about this debate is the annoyingly effective characterization, by the GOP, of the public option as more of the spendy bleeding-heart socialism that Fox News viewers have come to expect from the ultra-liberal Obama Administration and the Marxist Democratic leaders in Congress.

But the reality is that the option that (it's fairly clear) the Administration wants is very much TO THE POLITICAL RIGHT of a single payer option (much to the chagrin of many progressives), which hasn't even been discussed this time around. Why wasn't it discussed? Because Baucus ruled it out from the beginning. Now, he concedes that was a mistake.

In the interview, Mr. Baucus said he has tried to keep everyone at the table — a tactic he honed discussing tax issues in Montana. “If you don’t like something, suspend judgment for 15 minutes and let’s find a way to get to yes,” Mr. Baucus said.

He conceded that it was a mistake to rule out a fully government-run health system, or a “single-payer plan,” not because he supports it but because doing so alienated a large, vocal constituency and left Mr. Obama’s proposal of a public health plan to compete with private insurers as the most liberal position.

Daydream Believer

2009-06-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading Jonah Lehrer's incisive new book, which grabs from the freshest brain science data in attempt to help the reader better understand how he or she makes decisions.

A difficult-to-describe-or-even-really-be-conscious-of concept Lehrer hits on in the book and recently in his blog is "the constant tension in the mind between paying attention to the outside world versus our own internal thoughts." The current idea held by researchers who observe the neural circuitry related to this "tension" is that daydreaming, or "mind wandering" is an important mindstate, crucial to meeting long-term challenges and making "big-picture" decisions. It seems our deepest insights hit us as our mind wanders, whether or not we are aware that it is wandering.

In this post, he explores the link between "daydreaming" and alcohol consumption.

Carl Zimmer's column in the newest Discover Magazine takes a close look at the data concerning act of "zoning out." It tells us we spend a lot less time "focused" than we might like to think.

Depending on the experiment, people spend up to half their time not thinking about the task at hand—even when they’ve been told explicitly to pay attention...These results are shocking when you stop to think about them. Each of us has a magnificent hive of billions of neurons in our head, joined to each other by trillions of connections. The human brain is arguably the most complex organ in the natural world. And yet studies on mind wandering are showing that we find it difficult to stay focused for more than a few minutes on even the easiest tasks, despite the fact that we make mistakes whenever we drift away.

"PC" Calls Obama A Nerd, Jokes About Evolution

2009-06-20T00:00:00.001-07:00

Nerds: This video in its entirety comes highly recommended.

Linkage

2009-06-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

The "Depression Gene" is Debunked, unsurprisingly.
SciAm: Nuclear Power Way More Expensive Than Renewables
Steele: Healthcare Reform "Not that complicated." Great.
Ezra Klein On How The Senate "Hates Democracy" Seriously?
Rep. Hoekstra's Bad Iran Comparison Draws Tweetwrath. Word.
Stem-cell Technology Could Save Thousands of Innocent Labrats
Are These Really Smartfish Or is The Experiment Flawed?..But regardless, just pretend they are for a second. A thought experiment, if you will. What does it all mean?

Speaking of bias and misinformation:

2009-06-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

This is thought-provoking, at least.

Po-Tee-Weet?

2009-06-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Check out the Twitter variant of The Biosphere, Now. It's like the blog dosed with lots of caffeine + middle of the 9-5 boredom. I gaurantee it will brighten your day.

Word of the day:

2009-06-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

Crisis.

In light the most lively discussion this blog has ever seen, I agree with this opinion about ABC's planned Obama healthcare plan extravaganza next Wednesday.

This isn't an election, where America is choosing between two candidates. We don't have two presidents offering competing agendas. And regardless the merits of the RNC's argument that "President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas," the reality is that his party holds the White House and effective control of Congress. The political debate right now is about the Obama/Dem plans—yea, nay, or modify—and it isn't ABC's obligation to pretend the balance of power is otherwise.

I was surprised at how much of a freak-out Matthew Drudge pulled on this ABC stuff, but this helped me come to terms with it.

As a nation, we face a healthcare crisis. The competition structure of the health insurance industry and the nature of the product make the industry unable to right itself in the face of a steadily increasing mass of uninsured, and skyrocketing premiums for those that can afford it. The thing is: Uninsured people still get sick, and they still get care. A lot of money is still spent.

As of today, this debate is about a single plan. It is NOT about two competing plans. I think it should go without saying that this is the essential variable.

The government will eventually have to do something to restructure the broken competition model, even if they don't do it now. This is not socialism. It is crisis control.

Jon Stewart has more:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Heal or No Heal

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jason Jones in Iran

The Best Policy

2009-06-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

A new paper published in the Journal of Biogeography boldy and controversially implies that the conventional (and empircally validated) view that chimpanzees are our closest relatives is not necessarily correct. The authors are of the mind it is actually orangutans.

This view has not been well recieved, in general, by the rest of the scientific community. Most agree that the evidence doesn't justify the claim, and question the integrity of the journal for even publishing the study. But others point out that although the evidence isn't that compelling, the paper's authors do ask a few valid questions about the methods used to reach the chimpanzee conclusion.

This New Scientist editorial applauds the publication of the paper. The gist: The publication of this paper is what science (at least in theory) is all about.

Science proceeds by questioning its own assumptions and regarding every "fact" as provisional, so alternative hypotheses should be given an airing, if only to reaffirm the strength of the orthodoxy. Science that pulls up the drawbridge on new ideas risks becoming sterile. The journal recognised that and should be applauded for its decision to disseminate this challenging paper.

The scientific method is an attempt to get at intellectual honesty. New facts should necessarily freshen our worldviews. Unfortunately, our airwaves and intertubes are teeming with intellectual dishonesty. Will that ever change?

Linkage

2009-06-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

Researchers: "Pre-life" Simulated In Laboratory
Researchers Optimistic About "High-Altitude Wind Energy"
Poison Campaign To Eradicate Rats On AK Island Kills Birds Too
Fourteen-Year Old Survives Meteorite Strike
What Is the Survival Advantage of Sexual Reproduction?
Bacterium Revived After 120,000 Years Buried in Greenland Ice
CBO and HELP Comm. Miscommunicate On Healthcare Bill
Twitter, Facebook Provide Critical Info From Iran

Well Said

2009-06-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

Bill Wasik, a senior editor at Harper's, plugged his new book in a Q&A with Psychology Today. He also skillfully articulated a set of concepts that have been violently storming within my braincase for some time now:

What do you hope non-scientists will take away from the book?

I hope that people will see all the noise and distraction around them for what it is. And I hope that people will reflect on the role that novelty plays in their own lives. Because the culture will keep supplying you with novelty, if that's what you crave--new celebrities, new bands, new technologies, new ways of thinking about the world. But underneath all that, there are big problems and big forces that shape our own personal lives and also the world around us. I'd like to convince people to shut out some of the former in order to focus more on the latter.

Power Steering

2009-06-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Recently The Economist picked the brain of Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald thinks we often miss a larger point during arguments about media bias.

DIA: Do you see the media as being tilted towards the left or the right?

Mr Greenwald: The predominant bias of the media isn't really best understood as left or right as much as it is loyalty to power. Journalism ought to be the opposite: it ought to be adversarial to power. But for many reasons—the fact that media stars are now very highly-paid celebrities; they work for the largest corporations which rely on their relationship with the government; they are desperate for access to and favourable treatment from political figures; they see themselves as part of the New York/Washington power elite—they empathise with and are a part of the establishment far more than they are adverse to it.

In general, that translates into a right-wing bias, in that conservatives are generally more geared to serving and glorifying elite institutions and the power that inheres in them. And the alliance that formed in the 1990s between media stars and right-wing operatives, who single-handedly fed the Clinton/Lewinksy scandal, still persists. But I think the overwhelming media bias is far more about serving and revering political power than it is about liberalism or conservatism.

Krugmanofwar

2009-06-12T00:36:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman goes ahead and says it, even if somewhat awkwardly. The beauty of this opinion-crafter is that he doesn't care who you are. If you need lecturing--you need lecturing.

I want to know what people think (I'm assuming you do).

Healthcare Wars

2009-06-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Ezra Klein, healthcare policy wonk extraordinaire, fleshes out the policy debate and political reality of "the public option" for healthcare. Those opposed to including a public option in the final legislation will presumably employ a simple and effective strategy: Tie the term to vague, alarming terms like "big government bureauracy" and "socialized medicine." In reality:

It doesn't replace the insurance individuals already rely on. But it provides an alternative. It lets them make the decision. It's the health care equivalent of being pro-choice. And it thus serves two purposes. The first is to act as a public insurer. To use market share to bargain down the prices of services, much as Medicare does. To lower administrative costs. To operate outside the need for profit, and quarterly results. The Commonwealth Fund estimated that this would result in savings of 20%-30% over traditional private insurance.

The endgoal here--to reduce costs while increasing quality--will be exceedingly difficult (perhaps impossible) to reach. But we won't go anywhere at all unless health insurance market is recalibrated. How will that happen? By introducing a different type of competitor to the game. The theory:

If the public plan works, then private insurance will work better as well. In this telling, the simple existence of the public plan forces a more honest insurance market: Private insurers need to offer premiums closer to their marginal cost, and they have to cut administrative costs, and they have to work on their reputation for cruelty and capriciousness. The existence of another option changes the market. Individuals will have access to private insurers, but they'll no longer be stuck with them.

Linkage

2009-06-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

Remains of Prehistoric Whale Discovered In Sweden
China's Space Program Preps For First Robotic Mars Mission
Study: Bats Can Recognize Individual Bat Voices
Inflatable Tower Could Climb Into Space, Save Rocket Launches
DARPA, "Programmable Matter," and "Shapeshifting"
Pirate Party Wins EU Parliament Seat

Apology Speech? "I do not agree with that."

2009-06-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, steers clear of the Limbaugh/Drudge/Fox News/John Boehner talking point.

Could We Really Model The Global Marketplace?

2009-06-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

Several groups of economists, modelers, and social and physical scientists in the US and Europe think it's a possiblity, given a sufficient combination of interdisciplinary knowledge, know-how, and coordination.

With growing computing capacity and greater understanding of complex systems, they suggest it should be possible within a decade to have functioning models of the global economy to which policy-makers could look for sound insights with which to penetrate the overwhelming complexity of today's markets.

Word Power

2009-06-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, Olbermann used the phrase "the philosophy of opinion."

Politics is everything. Politics is perception. Perception is everything. But it is truth--not perception--that is the difference between survival and death of the individual or the group. This creates enormous responsibility for the makers and sellers of opinion.

In my opinion, it is to the survival advantage of humans to listen to Elie Wiesel.

This Video Is Beyond Description

2009-06-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

Earth Gets A Billion (extra) Years To Live!

2009-06-05T18:30:00.001-07:00

I think Vonnegut is basically correct:

"The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is."

But I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is good news.

Linkage

2009-06-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Same-sex Penguin Couple Adopts Chick in German Zoo
The Vatican Endorses Genetically Modified Crops
Were there Globe-trotting Dinosaurs?
Robotic Farmhand Technology Closer to A Reality
Developing Nations Could Be Paid To Go With Nuclear Power
Big Unit Reaches 300-win Milestone
AP: Israel: Settlement Policy Will Not Change After Speech
Study Finds Antidepressant Ineffective Against Autism

The Art of Mediation

2009-06-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

If you didn't/don't have the time to watch the President's speech in its entirety, I strongly recommend you take a look at TPM's 4 and a half minute "Cliff Notes." To the extent that you find it physically possible, remove your national partisan presidential political hat for about five minutes. When shit gets geopolitical, we're all playin' for Team USA.

Tickle Tickle

2009-06-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

Apes can't contain themselves either.

Scientists have known that great apes vocalize when tickled at least since Charles Darwin’s time. But it was unclear whether these sounds were actually related to human laughter. Now, researchers at the University of Hannover in Germany have concluded that laughter has been evolving in primates over the last 10 to 16 million years, since at least the last common ancestor of humans and modern great apes.

Rest In Peace

2009-06-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

Dr. Thomas Berry, 94.

Dr. Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent glorying in itself and despoiling the world, was poised to embrace its role as a vital part of the larger, interdependent “communion of subjects” in the cosmos. The result, he wrote, would be a new era, which he called the Ecozoic, following 65 million years of the Cenozoic era.

Inspiring, to say the least.

Takin' One For The Team

2009-06-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

While those who ask and attempt to answer questions about evolution remain flummoxed by the evolutionary origin of altruism, a new hypothesis may be emerging: Perhaps it was selected for because of the survival advantage it gave to stone age combat groups.

A computer model of cultural evolution and between-group competition primed with data taken from studies of mankind’s hyper-violent early years suggests a bloody origin for a celebrated modern behavior.

Netherlandfall

2009-06-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

This dude probably feels like he lives in Magic-land right now.

They Don't Have A Second Thought

2009-05-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

The best description of the reaction to the President's Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor by the right side of the political spectrum(elected or not) comes from The Lamp:

All told, there's a chorus from the right that Sotomayor is a scary Mexican, understood in the sense of 'Mexican' as anybody with a Spanish last name who isn't actively working to keep the Cuban embargo in place.

Marshall also throws in the analogy of the day:

And to the extent that there's political calculation at work it seems more likely that it's the realization that any Latina nominee would bring out the rightwing crazies like moths to a flame. They simply can't help it.

Finally, as in clockwork, Greenwald is automatic regarding the caricature of Sotomayor as a bleeding-heart, overly-emotional reverse-racist:

As happens virtually always, the facts are now starting to be examined and they reveal just how deliberately false are these right-wing smears. They just make things up without having any idea if they're true. Not only is that caricature of Sotomayor false, the opposite is true: if anything, Sotomayor's flaw is that she is excessively legalistic in her approach. And the assumption -- from both sides -- that she is some sort of pure, doctrinaire liberal seems quite dubious at best.

I for one am entertained. That is the point, right? Entertainment?

Linkage

2009-05-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

Transgenic Mouse Could Shed Light on Evolution of Language
Can One Be A Christian And Subscribe To Evolution?
Study: 1,000 Bacteria Species Colonize The Human Body
Synchronized, High Frequency Brainwaves May Cue Focus
Bioluminescent Monkey Hailed As Triumph For Genetic Research
Obama, Netanyahu Still At Odds About Settlemants

Dear David Stern:

2009-05-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've watched only two full NBA games this year.

The main reason is that you and your OK city cronies STOLE the Supersonics from Seattle. I don't care what anybody says--the difference between your rhetoric and the truth of this matter was nothing less than an abyss. But I was on my way out long before your grand theft storied franchise. I began packing my things as I watched your boys in stripes hand Dwyane Wade a ring.

Mr Stern, above and beyond the fact that you are a thief of cherished memories sits the fact that your league is sick. It has not just lost touch--it is pathologically focused on the wrong things. Yes, "amazing" still occasionally happens (luckily one of the two games I watched this year was won by Lebron as time expired), but it would be dishonest for you to take credit for that.

The people tune in to your games to watch players make amazing plays, not to watch referees make amazingly influential calls in order to blatantly prop up your jersey-selling superstars.

Bill Simmons offers diagnoses and potential therapeutic options for your league's maladies. I'd suggest you read up.

Linkage

2009-05-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Selective Pressure of Fisheries Induces "Turbo-Evolution"
Anti-Trust Laws Stand In Way of Cooperative Healthcare Reform
Evolutionary Anthropologists: Martyrs Essential To Religion
Engineered Marmoset Passes On Jellyfish Gene To Baby
Sotomayor Experienced In Cyberlaw Decisions
Astronauts See Bizarre Ice Circles In World's Deepest Lake
Check Out 10 Strange Species Discovered In 2008
Check Out Artists Deptictions of Futuristic Cities
2009 Bike Sales in U.S. Higher Than Car Sales

Very Dangerous Side Effects

2009-05-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

Will Saletan reflects on a British pharma company's move to produce a standard "cannabinoid pharmaceutical product," specifically the company's position that "most patients are able to separate the thresholds for symptom relief and intoxication."

In your wildest dreams, did you imagine that a recreational drug could be so thoroughly, piously sterilized? But here it is. First came Cesamet (a "synthetic cannabinoid"), then Marinol (also synthetic). Only one pesky side effect has remained: Cesamet produces "euphoria in the recommended dosage range," and Marinol causes "easy laughing" and "elation." We can't have that. So the quest to "separate the thresholds for symptom relief and intoxication" continues.

Linkage

2009-05-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Why Do We Stare?
"Cocaine" Found In German Red Bull
Why Ida Fossil IS NOT The Missing Link
"Space Storm" In Earth's Atmosphere Observed For First Time
Military CAT Scans Fallen Soldiers To Create Wound Database
Emerging Data Shows How Meditation Changes The Brain
Rooks Can Use Tools Too
Russia Drastically Shifts Climate Policy
Sotomayor On Religious Liberty:
Obama Picks First African-American NASA Head
Steganographers Use Fake Traffic To Hide Online Communication

"I am a Commentator! I Commentate on Life."

2009-05-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

Oh, ok then, I forgive you.

If not for HuffPo, I might have to resort to TiVo-ing The View every time a Fox News Flunkie bites the bullet and makes an appearance. A quarter funny, half sad, and the final quarter vindictively gratifying--in other words, GREAT TV.

Linkage

2009-05-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

Is There a Link Between Diabetes and Selenium?
Mars May Have Been Life-Friendly In The Past
Will Neuroscience Research Reveal How To Make Super-Soldiers?
Earth May Have a Seismic Pulse
Science Journalists Attempt To Tackle "Ida" News
Look For Yourself: Pakistan's Expanding Nuclear Facilities
Graphene Could Replace Silicon on Computing Horizon
Limbaugh "Resigns" From I'm Not Quite Sure What
Pawlenty Under Pressure To Seat Al Franken
Hardin, MT: Send Detainees Our Way
Mike Vick To "Work" With Humane Society

"Non-Overlapping Magisteria"

2009-05-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

This opinion piece, inspired by the release of this book, takes a look at the political implications of evolutionary theory as seen through the eyes of prolific biologist/paleontologist and writer Stephen Jay Gould. Gould had complex opinions regarding the interrelationship of science and politics, particularly within the realm of religion--and they remain relevant today.

On religion, Gould used science to bash creationist propaganda and all efforts to have religion taught as science in America's public schools. At the same time, he attempted to defuse the conflict between science and religion, famously claiming that they occupy "non-overlapping magisteria." Science addresses the natural world, he said, and religion the moral world.

I think Gould is right in that while many of today's neuroscientists and primatologists might make arguments that science does address the "moral world," it fails to explain it to same degree that it can explain the natural world, regardless of data.

Linkage

2009-05-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

English Court Decision Makes It Tough On Science Writers
City Mockingbirds Recognize Individual Passers-By
Israeli West Bank Settlers Not Amused By Obama's Directive
GOP Fails, Even When They Jest
Twitter to Launch Business Tools By End of Year
Non-Native Parasitic Fly Used to Turn Fire Ants Into "Zombies"
Robotic Rescue Party Dispatched To Aid Mars Rover
New Rover Design Better Equipped To Stay Mobile
Batteries That "Breathe" Could Be On The Tech Horizon
Ted Kennedy's Cancer Is In Remission

I'll See Your Superpositioned Particles, and Raise You Two Entangled Photons

2009-05-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

This look in The New Scientist is focused on the same findings--quantum entanglement and quantum superposition--from which some minds infer biocentrism. But this article is about the implications of these phenomena on game theory. Specifically, Portland State University Mathematician Steve Bleiler (also a professional poker player) is exploring what will happen to online poker, "where the referee is a computer program that deals the cards, mediates the players' actions and spits back the results," once today's personal computers are superceded by those that employ quantum computing technology.

Bleiler's calculations suggest that when the game of poker is played by the rules of the quantum world, it undergoes a radical transformation. New strategies open up that simply didn't exist before and any gamers ready to exploit them stand to make a tidy profit - at the expense of those who are not. Players with quantum computers but with no access to "quantised strategies" will be at a terminal disadvantage, he says. "I can't wait."

These startling predictions come from recasting poker within the framework of a branch of mathematics called quantum game theory. The most basic version of game theory arose in the 1920s as a way to evaluate the different strategies available to the players in any kind of competitive game, from poker to military campaigns.

When the playing pieces in your game are everyday-scale objects that obey the laws of classical physics, this is relatively straightforward. But at the scale of subatomic particles, physics is governed by the counter-intuitive rules of quantum theory.

Quantum particles do bizarre things, like being in different positions at the same time, a phenomenon called quantum superposition. They can also stay connected to other particles even when they are separated by vast distances, a property known as entanglement.

This means that when you play games in the quantum realm, actions like betting or not betting are suddenly replaced by complex superpositions of the two. This opens up new strategies by allowing players to both bet and not bet, and to do so in varying proportions simultaneously. Not only that, but thanks to entanglement, the decisions you take instantly affect your competitors' options.

Linkage

2009-05-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

Is a Soon-To-Be-Unveiled Fossil The Missing Link?
Did Early Humans Eat Neanderthals?
Glaxo Says It Will Soon Begin Work On Swine Flu Vaccine
Liberals Wonder if Baucus is Their Man For Healthcare Reform
"Puberty Gene" Appears To Set Our Sexual Clocks
Is Spiteful Behavior A Survival Advantage?
In Australia, Deforestation Has Contributed to 11-year Drought
Study Suggests Air Pollution Can Change DNA in 3 Days
Bald Eagle Population Booms, Threatens Cormorant Population
Poll: Only 31% of Israelies Think Obama is "Pro-Israel"
US-India Civilian Nuclear Deal Influences Indian Elections

If A Tree Falls...

2009-05-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Short Circuit, that is exactly what my neurons did when I infused them with this excerpt from this book, by way of Discovery Magazine. Biocentrism is the idea that the universe exists, and can be observed, only because of the existence of the observer. The author cites findings in the field of quantum physics--particularly the (observed) behavior of photons--as reasons we should be seriously considering the possibility that the universe is a product of consciousness, not necessarily the other way around. Perhaps that which is observed is actually part of the observer.

This, of course, would have profound implications for our notions of time, space, and science:

Biocentrism should unlock the cages in which Western science has unwittingly confined itself. Allowing the observer into the equation should open new approaches to understanding cognition, from unraveling the nature of consciousness to developing thinking machines that experience the world the same way we do. Biocentrism should also provide stronger bases for solving problems associated with quantum physics and the Big Bang. Accepting space and time as forms of animal sense perception (that is, as biological), rather than as external physical objects, offers a new way of understanding everything from the microworld (for instance, the reason for strange results in the two-slit experiment) to the forces, constants, and laws that shape the universe. At a minimum, it should help halt such dead-end efforts as string theory.

Linkage

2009-05-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

Man Arrested in Guatemala For Twitter Message
Uruguay Lifts Ban On Gay Soldiers
Check Out the Photo of The Shuttle Against the Sun!
More Than Half Of Raindrops Fall Faster Than Thought Possible
Sex-specific Abortions in Vietnam Precipitate Boy Boom
TV Naturalist Attenborough: Earth is Overcrowded
WHO Rejects Notion That Swine Flue Escaped From Lab
San Diego To Be First US Metropolis With Desalinated Tapwater
ALCU Challenges the Patenting of Human Genes
Rick Perry Still Has Teabags On The Brain

Johnny 5?

2009-05-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

Linkage

2009-05-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Emotional Speech Leaves "Signature" On Your Brain
Jealous Female Gorillas Solicit "Unproductive" Sex
What is Sen. Ben Nelson's Deal?
Rabbis Lobby The Defector On Employee Free Choice Act
GOP to "Rename" Dems "Democratic Socialist Party"
Belgian City To Encourage Veggie-Only Days
Farmer: Irresonsible Farming, Not Meat, Is the Problem
Oldest Known Sculpture Might Signify Human Brain Boom
Researchers Skeptical Of New Stem Cell Rules
New Data Casts Doubt On Sea-Level Predictions
Many Bird Species Added To Critically Endangered List
***PHOTOS

The Dark Side Indeed

2009-05-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

This makes a little too much sense for comfort.

Linkage

2009-05-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

Obama Wants To Block Release of Hundreds of Detainee Photos
But He May Be On Shaky Legal Ground
Robot Crosses City w/o GPS--Just Asks For Directions
Travis The Chimp Was on Xanax When He Freaked
Should We Tax Vices To Pay For Healthcare?
Drug Czar Turns The Page on The "War on Drugs"
Scientists Synthesize Building Blocks of RNA In Laboratory
Can The Grid Handle Renewables?

Darth Dick

2009-05-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

I'm with Josh Marshall, who is "on the side of heartened" by Vice President Cheney's pro-"enhanced interrogation" media tour because Cheney is "(as is his puppet daughter) showing and can't help but show more and more about who he is." Take a look.

Cheney's conceit is that he's tough enough, perhaps best to say, icy enough to make the trip to what he calls 'the dark side' to protect America. But the picture emerging even from his own comments is very different. It's of a small and paranoid man, a half-comic character off the pages of mid-20th century anti-totalitarian fiction, with a seemingly inordinate protectiveness for torture practices that seem to have been only marginally effective at best. And yet here he is with the classified memo he keeps in a special folder in his desk making the case for his torture policies. Here he is at another moment metaphorically tightening the screws on this or that detainee trying to get confessions about the fairytale al Qaida-Iraq link, though it's worth wondering whether he's really sure it's there or is open to getting false confessions that can then be leaked to this or that journo at the Washington Times or, sad to say, The New York Times.

Of Seashells and Neural Networks

2009-05-12T20:44:00.000-07:00

(via Seed)

Mollusk "seashell" construction is orchestrated by a network of nerves that interact with the environment in order to complete a progressive task. Researchers focused on the mechanism hypothesize that the mantle--the tongue-like protrusion responsible for shell construction--is constantly recording a pigment pattern "diary" that serves as a set of instructions for future shell-building.

UC Berkely biophysicist George Oster sees potential understanding of the human brain in his seashell neural network, and in other relatively simple neural processes that occur throughout the animal kingdom.

Just as pioneering experiments with oversize squid neurons in the 1940s and 50s established much of the foundation for modern neuroscience, Oster believes that modeling simple neural processes may have much broader implications for the field. For example, the primitive form of “memory” observed in mollusk neural networks might help researchers to decipher how far more sophisticated networks in the human brain enable us to use prior experience to build a picture of our world.

Linkage

2009-05-12T12:00:00.001-07:00

Congress Weighs Soda Tax To Pay for Healthcare Reform
Blue Whales Make Resurgence
Neuroscientists Hope To Gain Understanding of "Fog of War"
Mars Rover Remains Trapped in Sand
Pelosi Claims She Couldn't Object in '03
Did Bush Break a Law to Keep Her in the Dark?
Google Street View Banned in Greece
After Resisting Satan, Miss Cali Now Chillin' With Michael Phelps
Obama To Hold Poetry Slam at Whitehouse
Scientists: Brain Problem-Solves While Daydreaming
Australian Researcher Says Swine Flue Might be Human-Caused

Linkage

2009-05-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

Shuttle Atlantis Embarks On Last Hubble Mission
Europeans Launch Planck Satellite To Measure Space-Time
In The Maldives, Islanders Prepare for Sea-Level Catastrophe
Gates Changes Commanders in Afghanistan
Charlie Crist to Run For Senate
GOP Sees Pelosi As Asset On Torture Issue
Obama Praises Healthcare Industry's Pledge To Cost Costs
U.S Journalist Freed From Iranian Prison
Pope, In Israel, Calls For 2-State Solution
U.S. Soldier Kills 5-Fellow G.I.s In Iraq
French Territory in S. Pacific Has Most Biodiversity on Earth

No Joke

2009-05-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

All 10 minutes of this is worth a look, but if you only have a minute, start around 4:55 and watch till satisfied.

Einstein

2009-05-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity... Never lose a holy curiosity."

But what does he know?

Linkage

2009-05-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

Are brainier men healthier men?
"Hopping Robots" may be deployed soon by U.S. Military
Obama to address Muslim world from Egypt next month
Obama Admin sticks with Bush on Polar Bear protection law
Bush EPA kept coal ash cancer risk hush hush
Tuscon company pitches high-speed Solar Train idea
Obama orders review of NASA's human space travel program
Bioelectricity the next big thing?
How much did Nancy know about "enhanced interrogation?"
US Gov't drops funding of fuel cell research

"Accelerating Returns"

2009-05-08T12:04:00.001-07:00

The prolific "futurist" Ray Kurzweil, most famous for his fervent support for the hypothesis that desribes an impending "technological singularity"--a theoretical point in time when biological intelligence merges completely with artificial intelligence to create a superintelligence (he also invented the flatbed scanner), recently sat for a Q and A with The New Scientist. Take a look.

Can we outrun our current environmental problems to reach 2045?

Yes. The resources are much greater than they appear. We only have to capture 1 part in 10,000 of the sunlight to get all the energy we need. Nanotechnology is being applied to solar energy collection technology and that is scaling up at an exponential rate. Such new technologies are ultimately very inexpensive because they are subject to the law of accelerating returns.

What do you mean by the law of accelerating returns?

The power of ideas to change the world is accelerating and few people grasp the implications of that fully. People don't think exponentially, yet exponential change applies to anything that involves measuring information content. Take genetic sequencing. When the human genome project was announced in 1990, sceptics said: "No way you're going to do this in 15 years." Halfway through the project the skeptics were still going strong, saying you've only finished 1 per cent of the project. But that's actually right on schedule: by the time you get to 1 per cent you're only seven doublings away.

Talk about glass half-full. Let's hope he's right.

Linkage

2009-05-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

Antoxidants not all they're cracked up to be?
Artificial ovary matures human eggs
Nuclear fuel for spacecraft to run out by 2018, says report
Cheney says it's a bad idea for GOP to "moderate"
Meghan McCain says Bristol Palin exemplifies GOP's ineptitude
50-game suspension for Manny Ramirez after drug violation
Obama bans federal funding for needle exchanges
J.T. Plumber quits Republican Party
Teacher who smacktalked creationism violated students' rights
"Wave power" technology could be cheaper than wind power
AP: US, Russia looking past their differences

Sci-(Non)Fi Transplants Abound

2009-05-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today's face transplant news definitely made more waves than the bilateral hand transplant news, but both are incredible.

Alien Arlen

2009-05-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

The Defector remains eerily monotone after learning that the Senate, by voice vote, stripped him of his seniority.

“Sen. Reid assured me that I would keep my committee assignments and that I would have the same seniority as if I had been elected as a Democrat in 1980,” Specter said. “It was understood that the issue of subcommittee chairmanships would not be decided until after the 2010 election. Some members of the caucus have raised concerns about my seniority, so the caucus will vote on my seniority at the same time subcommittee chairmanships are confirmed after the 2010 election. I am confident my seniority will be maintained under the arrangement I worked out with Sen. Reid.”

But, Senator: What if you don't win?

Linkage

2009-05-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

House Democrats at Odds Over Climate Bill
Waxman May Push for Bill to Go Straight to Full Committee
Gay Marriage Legalized in Maine
Elsevier and Merck Outed for Producing Fake Medical Journal
642 New Swine Flu Cases in U.S
"New" Flu Strain May Complicate Things
Democrats Divided on Healthcare Reform
The Governator Open to Legalization "Debate"
Biofuel Makers Try to Settle "Cars vs. Cows" Debate
Amazon Hopes to Shake Up Journalism and Textbook Publishing
GOP Pollster: Attacking Obama on National Security Makes Us Look Irrelevant

UPDATE: Waxman Forced to Back Off Prior Threat To Skip Subcommittee w/ Climate Bill

Robert Reich on Obama, Leadership, and Morality

2009-05-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Take a look.

"To be sure, all Presidents want to be seen as political centrists. They dare not proclaim themselves 'Right' or 'Left,' or even 'conservative' or 'liberal,' on an ideological spectrum that’s become ever more highly polarized. It is politically safer – yes, even pragmatic – to describe one’s values as 'commonsensical' or 'middle of the road.' But even this description minimizes and distorts a president’s capacity for leadership. A true leader does not take the public to where the public happens to be, because the public is already there. A leader takes the public to where the public should be, according to that leader’s view of the society’s highest ideals – ideals that the public shares but which have not yet been realized.

Obama did this several times during the presidential campaign, most notably in his courageous speech on race. He took America to a higher place by explaining what we all knew and felt but giving it a larger and nobler frame. He educated us in the best sense of the word. Doing so may have been politically pragmatic but his goal was not solely to get elected. Nor was it simply to demonstrate to us the leadership of which he is capable, although the speech did that. His goal was also to make us more aware about how race is used divisively. In doing so he drew on what in retrospect seem 'commonsensical' positions and 'middle of the road' values. But that’s not how the speech struck most of us then. We were transformed by the power of his thinking and the values that underlay it – values that we share but had not thought through."

"This anti-science thing is a little bit weak."

2009-05-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

You said it, Representative Pence, not me.

More TV evolution discussion! This exchange between Chris Matthews and Indiana Congressman Mike Pence also makes brief swerves into the politics of stem-cells, and of climate change.

I think this type of dialogue is healthy, espcially for the eyes and ears of cable news viewers. But the term "believe" is still too often uttered along with the term "evolution" in mainstream debates. What biologists believe is that evolution is the best explanation of the repeatedly-verified data. They don't believe in evolution. That being said, you've got to hand it to Chris Matthews every once in a while. He gets especially charged up beginning around the 2:40 mark.