If I Had a Side Blog (#5)

I've got most of the week off, but haven't felt like doing much blogging. So here is some stuff to chew on for the time being.

1. Did Jesus have long hair?

2. Why energy journalism is so bad.

3. Do facts exist anymore? And can they be checked?

4. Although this is about Gingrich, it speaks to a larger issue: underappreciation of the importance of public health infrastructure.

5. We are apparently to the point where imaginary objects are security threats.

6. Kevin Drum about sums it up:

Climate change is the public policy problem from hell. If you were inventing a problem that would be virtually impossible to solve, you'd give it all the characteristics of climate change: it's largely invisibile, it's slow moving, it's expensive to fix, it requires global coordination, and its effects will be disproportionately borne by poor countries that nobody cares about.

7. I have some serious career envy.

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If I Had a Side Blog (#4)

1. How does the drought in Texas stack up against over one hundred years of history? The Texas state climatologist explains, and it's worth reading. He also explains what he thinks it has to do with global warming.

2. This mormon butterfly was half-female, half-male. What was its spirit?

3. Naming and shaming: The Dr. Oz Show claimed that apple juice it tested contained unsafe levels of arsenic. The FDA says that Oz is wrong, in no uncertain terms.

4. And while we're at it, there's no evidence that antioxidants are good for you. In fact they may even be bad.

5. By the way, did you know that Senator Orrin Hatch helped exempt the supplement industry from the oversight given to other drugs and health products?

6. It was 20 years ago this month:

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If I Had a Side Blog

1. A fitting summary of Glenn Beck's time at Fox News.

A low-lights reel of Beck’s worst moments on Fox would take hours to watch, but it would offer a useful seminar on the politics of incitement and near-mainstreaming of conspiracy theories in the Obama era. A talented broadcaster, Beck used his perch to echo old narratives straight out of the paranoid style in American politics—sinister plots to impose one-world government, the intentional subversion of the Constitution, the oppression of the faithful at the hands of a secular socialist elite hell-bent on replacing the American experiment with tyranny. “The Glenn Beck Show” is the closest the John Birch Society has ever come to having their own national program, reaching millions and poisoning political debate in the process.

2. When ground-breaking scientists go bad: Lynn Margulis edition.

3. Tennessee leads the nation in trying to get creationism back into schools. Texas and Florida follow close behind.

4. A skeptic of climate science finds that the experts may have been right all along; tells Congress.

5. Food for thought: "The rise of the Tea Party and its anti-intellectual, anti-establishment, anti-elite worldview has brought both a mainstreaming and a radicalization of antiscientific thought."

6. If you like popping zits, you'll love this. [Not for the easily disgusted.]

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If I Had a Side Blog

Odds and ends that may be of interest:

1. There's a new blog dedicated to the Word of Wisdom - Word of Wisdom Living. I'm not sure what to think of it yet, but check it out. It probably can't make you less healthy.

2. You don't have to be a liberal democrat to recognize climate change as an important issue. Examples here and here.

3. Salon.com: "We've removed an explosive 2005 report by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about autism and vaccines. Here's why."

4. Steve Peck ate puffer fish and luckily lived to tell the tale.

5. ESP makes it into a respected psychology journal. Controversy ensues.

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If I Had a Side Blog

What to do with things I come across that don't seem to warrant a dedicated post? Some blogs have side blogs, but that doesn't seem to be an option in Blogger. Yeah, maybe there's a third-party gadget out there, but I don't feel like messing with it. So until I decide on something I like better, I'll collect items of interest and occasionally post them under this title. So let's kick it off.

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1. Rumors of the demise of the incandescent light bulb have been greatly exaggerated.

2. Creationists often deny the existence of vestigial structures, but they can be found within creationist-defined "kinds."

3. Speaking of creationism, an analysis of fruit fly genes delivers another smack to Intelligent Design.

4. The Eternal Universe explains why funding basic research into things of no practical application is important for getting practical applications.

5. FOX News slanting coverage of climate science? Say it ain't so!

6. Send this lady on a mission!

7. If you've seen one temperature data set, you've pretty much seen them all (here, too).

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