Attention Conservation Notice:[1] Today’s post is self-indulgent, political, and contains no science. And it’s about stupidity. So you know.
What prompts anyone to get back on the horse, even a trickless pony such as one’s own blog? In my case, it was a column in the Denver Post by David Harsanyi.
Titled “What if Palin [...]
Wow, that’s some echo. There must be a lot of space back here, but I can’t see a damn thing … let’s prop that door open there, unh, OK that’s better. Bring the shop light over, yeah, over there, shine it in the corner. FFFFFHHHHHAWW, man it’s dusty, this is worse than Bérubé’s place when [...]
The usual barrage of comment spam, as relentless and (ordinarily) unnoticed as cosmic rays, seems to be slipping more than usual through Akismet’s filter. Until I get it figured out, all comments will go to moderation. Sincerest apologies to both my readers.
Update, 17 Oct.: Akismet seems to be catching them again, so I [...]
Eric Prince, the famously secretive CEO of Blackwater USA, has emerged from an unspecified location to testify before a House committee, and delivered a vigorous defense of his company’s performance in Iraq. Despite Blackwater’s vigorous defense, no casualties were reported among House members, staff or press, so the hearing was deemed a great success. [...]
A few months ago, on a tip from Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata, I paid a visit to some of this planet’s senior residents — the bristlecone pines of Windy Ridge, near Alma, Colorado. These magnificent trees stand at the very edge of treeline, in a landscape barren of anything much larger than a tuft [...]
On June 2nd, 1972, William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, issued an order effectively ending the agricultural use of DDT in the US.
Thirty-five years later, that order is still the subject of fierce controversy.
One claim often made by proponents of renewed DDT use is that Ruckelshaus’ decision was capricious and unsupported by [...]
(Joint post with John Cross)
In recent polls, the question most often asked by both of this blog’s readers has been
What are Zbigniew Jaworowski’s chances of repeating his stunning 2005 performance in this year’s Golden Horseshoes?
It is our unfortunate duty to inform you that good ol’ Z, as he is affectionately referred to here at Boojum [...]
Blogging is remarkable in how well it suits the needs of the lazy and the compulsively productive alike. Have a need to be heard every day? Pump out those posts! Just don’t feel the muse’s tickle? Let ‘em sit!
Never a posting dynamo, I have (obviously) been even less motivated than usual for the [...]
While I’m reporting news that shouldn’t surprise anybody … this just in!
An alert reader[1] reports that Steven Milloy has discovered Zbigniew Jaworowski!
Startlingly, Milloy concludes that Jaworowski casts doubt on anthropogenic global warming!
But that’s not all. Are you sitting down?
Fox News got the scoop!
Enough of that; my sarcasmic [...]
I will say this for US Sen. James Inhofe (R-Exxon): his relentlessly ideological view of science isolates him from the world, but at least that isolation is so robust and seamless that there’s not much risk of reality intruding and causing him to frighten the horses by saying something rational. Even his moments of most [...]
To those who have asked me (or would have, if you’d thought of it), your eyes filled with hope and voices cracking ever so slightly, “Jim Bob Boy, will you ever post again on climate change?” I can only say, “Soon, dear hearts, soon.”
In the meantime, we have another shameless detour, this time compounding the [...]
God, I love Boulder!
As if it were not enough that this place is blessed with a perfect climate, heart-filling scenery, a lifetime’s worth of outdoor activities, an educated and tolerant populace, a great university and the NCAR library (happiest place on earth), we also enjoy the highest density of wacky beliefs per capita in the [...]
This is about something I learned nine years ago, and about how different the Web has made the world since then.
In 1996, I was introduced to a product known as Blue-Green Algae. BGA, as I’ll call it, was presented as the nutritional supplement that would fix all the damage caused by our modern, nutrient-poor diet. [...]
A recent comment by Skeptico in response to my earlier post on Oscillococcinum has forced me to re-think the whole homeopathy[1] thing:
Of course, by doing nothing at all they would still “enjoy all the benefits of homoeopathy”. With the added advantage that the fees would also be reduced to a homeopathic magnitude.
Well, yeah, but … [...]
I promised myself when I started this blog that I would not post unless I thought I could add some value to some discussion somewhere.
Of course, the inevitable result is that this blog sees a new post only slightly more often than we see a new Pope.
So, now we will break with tradition and introduce [...]
I was driving to work this morning, and heard a wonderful piece on the radio by Brigitte Mars, host of the herbal healing show Naturally. I was inspired to write her the following letter:
Dear Ms. Mars,
As a regular listener to KGNU, I have often enjoyed Naturally on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
Your segment this morning [...]
I am the very model of a modern Christian President,
My sanctified advisers are both transient and resident,
I know our planet’s history in milestones theological,
From Genesis to Malachi (but nothing geological).
I’m very well acquainted too with matters exegetical,
I parse the scientific into holy and heretical,
In embryonic stem cells, I see Satan’s plan to capture us,
But space-based [...]
In a display of the rapid response for which they are justly famous, the Bush team has mobilized to shield the administration from the political consequences of Hurricane Katrina. In parallel with the official effort to shift blame to local authorities, we are now receiving a pitch-perfect chorus of talking points from [...]
One of my objectives in self-improvement is to stop correcting people who misuse the phrase “begs the question.”
As has been said about teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
But even if we feel awkward telling people “that’s not what ‘begging the question’ means”, we still need an example of [...]
Thanks to John Quiggin and Tim Lambert, we have pointers to yet another uninformed anti-environmentalist loyally repeating the party line that DDT has been banned for use against malaria, and that the ban has cost millions of lives. This is a crock, as a quick visit to the Malaria Foundation will confirm.[1]
While flogging this [...]