Tone Deaf

Well, almost. I scored 63.9% correct....that's low-normal performance. Only 12% of over 60,000 people tested lower than me. To be fair I don't think I quite "got" how to take the test the first few tones. Go here to see if you are tone deaf.

I did a bit better on the rhythm test 68% correct....Normal performance but just shy of very good performance.

The Citadel

I just finished watching the film adaptation of "The Citadel" by A.J. Cronin. One of my favorite books. I'm heading down to the library to pick up a copy of the book for a re-read. This book should be required reading for all biological researchers and physicians.

Academic Bill of Rights - SUNY Plattsburgh

It's nice to read that SUNY Plattsburgh faculty rejected the so-called Academic Bill of Rights.

The American Association of University Professors reject the bill.

The AAUP has sharply criticized the so-called academic bill of rights as unnecessary and almost certain to compromise academic freedom rather than defend it. At their core, its measures would place decisions about faculty appointments and the content of academic programs in the hands of political officials, thereby jeopardizing not only the independence of faculty members and their institutions but also their capacity to advance knowledge and educate our students. More here.

College professors have been shown to be largely liberal in their views. The questions are why and what effects does this have on students.

Prof. Paul Krugman attempts to answer the why.

One answer is self-selection - the same sort of self-selection that leads Republicans to outnumber Democrats four to one in the military. The sort of person who prefers an academic career to the private sector is likely to be somewhat more liberal than average, even in engineering.

I think I can tell you why most scientist tend to be liberal. We believe that evolution is a fact and that global warming has a man-made component to it. It's hard to be a conservative these days when you believe those two things.

What effect do all these liberal professors have on students. Well, it must not be a very big concern since conservative elites send their children to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Berkeley, UCLA etc rather than Bob Jones University.

Penn. State University system did a study over 5 years to determine the number of students with complaints about liberal or conservative bias in their classrooms. The result? Thirteen complaints out of 83,000 students. Over 177,000 courses were taught over that period.

To me liberalism is all about questioning everything. A judge sends jurors in to deliberate. Think carefully and formally discuss prior to making a decision. Don't be afraid to change your mind if presented with a convincing argument.

Democrats Are Tough On Terror

So says VP Dick Cheney:

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip to Pakistan on Monday to deliver what officials in Washington described as an unusually tough message to Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, warning him that the newly Democratic Congress could cut aid to his country unless his forces become far more aggressive in hunting down operatives with Al Qaeda.

It took a Democrat-controlled Congress to give Dick Cheney an excuse to get tough on Musharraf.

Poison Gas Attacks?

Attacks using chlorine gas have been used in Iraq. How soon before this happens in the USA? I wonder how chemical plant security is coming along in the USA? Read this article "You too can break into a chemical plant". We know plans to protect chemical plants from terrorist attacks have been talked about, but why aren't they in place?

Read about Mr. Philip Perry - Dick Cheney's Son-in-Law. It was his job to make sure it didn't happen.

Chickens Are Good People!

Go to Sara's blog and listen to George Carlin spout off on pro-lifers, religion and hypocrits. I laughed so hard I had to play it several times to hear hear the whole thing. Too many good lines to even remember. I did particularly like "Catholics, which I was until I reached the age of reason"....

WARNING: Definitely not work appropriate

They Hate Us for Our Freedoms

That's the conservative line about one cause of tensions between the West and Islamic nations. The problem is it's just not true. At least according to this World Public Opinion Poll. A survey of 28,000 people across 27 different countries was done. Only 29% said that tensions were due to "differences of religion/culture". 52% said tensions were due to "political power and interests".

So why do conservatives continue with the "they hate us for our freedoms" thing? Well, if Islamic nations hate us for our freedoms that means we can continue the actions that are really the cause of the tensions.

No More Non-Binding Resolutions on Iraq War

The Democrats have a new strategy. Supercede the 2002Iraq War Authorization resolution with one that will start withdrawing troops in March 2008, the date recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study group. American troops would remain in Iraq to help secure their borders, as a counter-terrorism force and to train Iraqi forces. That seems like a good place to start in my opinion. More here.

IDEX - 2007 EXCELLENT!

The Middle East's premier defense exhibition and convention ongoing in Abu Dhabi, UAE. It appears that business will be good because of the tensions between USA, Iraq and Iran. It's high time for the oil rich states to update their weapons capacity.

Those countries want to protect critical sites such as oil installations, ports -- and U.S. military bases that house tens of thousands of American troops. Of those five nations, only Saudi Arabia has no American bases.

Helicopters and electronic warning sensors are expected to be hot sellers. For example, seaborne early warning radar can can detect rogue vessels approaching ports or oil terminals, said Robin Hughes, a Mideast military analyst at the London-based agency Jane's, a sponsor of the show.

Saudis want updated helicopters and Europe is only too happy to provide Tiger Helicopters (for a price of course). That bad boy has a 30 mm canon, 68 mm rockets and air to air missiles.

The Emirates want ship to ship missiles and Iran want air defense systems.

Plenty of German, British and French warships will be on display. Business is good.

Good-Bye Chief Illiniwek

Students really want to keep the mascot:

One Facebook group that attracted over 110 members is titled “If They Get Rid of the Chief I’m Becoming a Racist.” One of its postings reads, “[W]hat they don’t realize is that there was never a racist problem before ... but now I hate redskins and hope all those drunk casino owning bums die."

or:

Another post states that one of the leaders of the movement to remove Chief Illiniwek is of Sioux descent. “I say we throw a tomohawk [sic] into her face.”

Some think it will affect the University financially:

Edwards predicted that many alumni will stop giving. “I think the impact will be financial. There are people who honest to goodness believe that they will not give again,” she said.

But the evidence shows otherwise:

according to officials at Stanford and institutions that made similar decisions, is for the noise and anger to quickly subside, except for very small groups of alumni. Richard Little, a Miami University spokesman who organized a mascot switch in 1996 (from Redskins to Redhawks), noted in a 2005 interview that the university sells more clothing now than it did with the old name, notwithstanding those fans who were upset about the change

Links here, here, and here.

NASCAR Goes Nippon

Fans will be leaving the NASCAR tracks in droves. Why? Because Toyota will be racing a Japanese built car. Yeah, it's ok to race "American" cars that are built in Mexico and Germany but we sure don't want those Nip cars racing on our beloved NASCAR tracks. What to hell is wrong with people?

The anti-Toyota fans even have their own website.

Many of us are angered by Toyota and their flood of money into out sport. I remember when less than 50,000 people attended a NASCAR race at MIS. Where was Toyota then? It’s a shame that old washed up drivers had to sell out their name to a foreign manufacture because they could never own a team on their own. On top of that, Toyota could never have race teams if they had to just build one like Jack Roush or Richard Childress did with hard work and honest sweat. Some say we have no right to our opinion well to them I say when you look at the American flag remember, unlike Japan, here in the good old USA anyone can speak their mind.

Ummm, Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. Let's face it, this is an example of Nationalism on the part of American fans.

The real problem is that if Toyota starts winning NASCAR races, even with cars driven by Americans, this hits a certain group right in the gut. Another example of the USA not being #1 in their weak minds.

After the Snow

SNOW

I shoveled 8 inches of snow off the entire driveway in the morning. This is the way it looked by 8:30 PM. Yes, I had to call the "Plow Guy". I'm guessing 22-23 inches total.



The deck was pretty much clear of snow before yesterday.

House and the Fish Tapeworm

Anybody watch Dr. House pull that nice long cestode out of the girls abdomen last night? As soon as I heard them mention vitamin B12 I thought of diphyllobothriasis. It also seems that they really like parasitic diseases on that show. Diphyllobothriasis is a disease that is caused by infection with the fish tapeworm Diphyllobothrium latum and you get it by eating poorly cooked fish. These tapeworms live in the small intestine and get to be up to 10 meters long.



The eggs of this cestode are easy to identify. They have a "hatch" or operculum at the top and a knob at the bottom of the egg (not easy to see in this picture).



The proglottids (segments) have a characteristically shaped uterus and the segments are wider than they are long.

The most important pathological effect of diphyllobothriasis is anemia caused by the competitive uptake of vitamin B12 by the worm. D. latum absorbs 80-100% of radioactive B12 added to an infected persons diet.

The plerocercoid larvae in fish are killed by freezing, even if frozen for only 15 min.

The Catholic League

I'm not a very good Catholic although I attended 12 years of Catholic school. But this really gets my goat. The Catholic League meddling in presidential election politics.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue called on John Edwards to fire Melissa McEwan today:

“It is not enough that one foul-mouthed anti-Christian bigot, Amanda Marcotte, has quit. Melissa McEwan must go as well. Either Edwards shows her the door or she bolts on her own. There is no third choice—the Catholic League will see to it that this issue won’t go away.

“The Edwards campaign is in total disarray and the meltdown will continue unless McEwan is removed from his staff. The fact that Marcotte had to quit suggests that Edwards doesn’t have the guts to do what is morally right. He has one more chance—fire McEwan now.”

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League, wouldn't know Catholic values if the Pope whispered them into his ear. Donohue, BTW, is the guy going around defending and making excuses for the clerical pedophiles. You see it was the boy's fault that they got molested. Mr. Donohue was also kind enough to point out that ONLY .02% of catholic priests were involved in molesting children in 2005. Shouldn't it be 0%?

Bill Donohue is a big, fat, slob and if there is a hell he will probably rot there.

War with Iran?

It sure looks like excuses for war with Iran are being sought. Sort of another "Gulf of Tonkin" to rile up the American populace. The sad thing is, I doubt the current members of Congress have the cohones to stop any "preventive action" that the "Decider" might take against Iran.

Will the American people fall for Bush's "you better be scared" tactics again? Bush once said "Fool me once shame on ...." well anyway he screwed that one up too. But he was wrong when he said fool me twice can't get fooled again. I think there is a segment of the US Congress and the American public that can easily be fooled again. We fight them over there or we fight them on our shores. The same kind of talk we heard during the Vietnam War. Nothing has changed.

Is Iran the only country supplying aid to Iraq? I doubt it. Iran is made up of Shia muslums and obviously has an interest in helping the Shias. Saudi Arabia is likely helping the Sunnis, at least with financial backing because the Saudis are Sunni. US arms are ending up in the hands of militants also.

The scare talk about Iran has been going on for years. "Cherry picked" intelligence is now starting to arrive and the Carrier Stike groups are in place.

We have at least two Carrier Strike groups in the region right now. Each strike group consists of an aircraft carrier with its complement of ~90 aircraft and at least one crusier, two destroyers and one attack sub. Each cruiser carries about 125 vertically launched missles, each destroyer about 90 missiles. That's over 600 missiles total and that doesn't count the 60 or so attack aircraft available to drop bombs.

Unfortunately, Congress seems reluctant to reign in the "Decider". It might hurt someones chances of being re-elected.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin (and Maureen)

Born 198 years ago today. Charles Darwin not Maureen.

Winter Carnival Pictures

I don't have any. Yes, I went to the parade with every intention of taking lots of pictures. But we decided to stop and get a warm drink. We went into the Meet n' Eat Grill which sits separated from the street by only the sidewalk. We were amazed to find that the table at their front window was empty. So we had lunch and watched the parade in comfort.

The Meet n'Eat Grill opened late last August. It's highly recommended that you eat there. The chef John Vargo is experienced and really good. The menu is eclectic. The food is delicious. It's also a small market.