Monthly Archives: May 2009

Your Brain Is Cool

What happens if you’re a scientist who studies the brain and you have a stroke? This talk by Jill Bolte Taylor (part of TED series) really is a must see. She had a stroke in the left side of her brain, which is the part that controls logic and reason. It’s a fascinating talk (just over 20 minutes).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU[/youtube]
She also wrote a book about the experience.

This story is both infuriating and touching, called My Lobotomy. It’s the story of Howard Dully, who was lobotomized as a 12-year-old at the behest of his stepmother. I highly recommend listening to this story, it’s about 25 minutes long. Howard Dully also has a memoir available.

If you’re really interested in the weird things your brain can do, I recomment The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (Sacks is the doctor from Awakenings). It’s a book about various neurological disorders and the strange effects they can have. The book is old (first published in 1970), so you may be surprised by some of the terminology in it.

Organizational Change

Is the top down, hero CEO, hierarchy based organization doomed? Probably not because Republicans will always be with us and they simply can;t get enough of the hero CEO model.

For the more evolved amongst us, there is little doubt that organizational change Is coming.

Here is the part that relates to blogging.

Rise of Amplified Individuals. Two years ago, Time magazine’s Person of the Year was … “You.” You, the individual, Time proclaimed, were in the driver’s seat as a creator and consumer of products, services and ideas. The story was right but only partially so. We are not talking about the powerful individual operating on his/her own. Amplified individual power derives from his connections to the collective resources and collective intelligence of multitudes of others. It is this ability to connect to their knowledge, tap into their resources and rally them when needed that amplifies individuals’ power and gives them unprecedented ability to bypass traditional organizational structures and boundaries.

Weekend Fun Video

Earlier this week, ‘bulo posted about the hiring of a “speed reader” by Henry Waxman. Rep. Barton has backed off of his threat to require reading of the whole nearly 1000-page bill, but clearly was intrigued by the concept. In the video, the speed reading clerk is asked to read an amendment.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_SB7g_Yb-0[/youtube]

Weekend Afternoon Open Thread

  • Top Ten Reasons Why Are We Leaving the Republican Party.  My favorite reason is :

    8) Constant whining about religious persecution got on our last goddamned nerve.

    Some of the additions in the comments are worthy — but I’m sure you guys can come up with more.

  • One of the few reasons I regret not having TV — Colin Powell is on Face the Nation tomorrow to answer his wingnut critics.  Please, General Powell — be sure to bring a case of 40-sized cans of whoop-ass for these fools.
  • At the risk of stepping on Bulo’s turf today, I’ve been listening to Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band — a Dub reimagining of the Beatle’s Sgt Pepper record.  This has been playing most of the day as I’ve been working around the house and it is really fun: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx7Akt3Sd58[/youtube]

The “Mad” Scientists

If you’ve been reading Delaware Liberal for the past month, you’ve probably noticed the addition of a certain scientist with an attitude. You’re probably wondering what happened to the shy, retiring scientists in white coats that you’ve come to expect. And you might wonder, why are scientists so mad? What brought this on?

Perhaps my favorite scientist with attitude is P.Z. Myers, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Morris, who blogs at Pharyngula. He’s an outspoken defender of evolutionary theory and uses ridicule to do it. He’s quite fearless. Looking through his archives, I found this post, which illustrates my point perfectly. (For the record, Ken Ham is a young earth creationist who built a creationist “museum” in Kentucky.)

Oh, dear. Earlier, I wrote about Ken Ham’s visit to the Pentagon, a soul-shuddering thought if ever there was one, and it seems Ken has read it. He has replied with a blog entry titled Biology Professor Calls Me “Wackaloon”. Ken, Ken, Ken. You act shocked at the thought that one guy publicly stated that you were Mr Flaming Nutbar, but you shouldn’t be. Millions of people, including some of the most knowledgeable biologists in the world, think just about every day that you are an airhead, an ass, a birdbrain, a blockhead, a bonehead, a boob, a bozo, a charlatan, a cheat, a chowderhead, a chump, a clod, a con artist, a crackpot, a crank, a crazy, a cretin, a dimwit, a dingbat, a dingleberry, a dipstick, a ditz, a dolt, a doofus, a dork, a dum-dum, a dumb-ass, a dumbo, a dummy, a dunce, a dunderhead, a fake, a fathead, a fraud, a fruitcake, a gonif, a halfwit, an idiot, an ignoramus, an imbecile, a jackass, a jerk, a jughead, a knucklehead, a kook, a lamebrain, a loon, a loony, a lummox, a meatball, a meathead, a moron, a mountebank, a nincompoop, a ninny, a nitwit, a numbnuts, a numbskull, a nut, a nutcase, a peabrain, a pinhead, a racketeer, a sap, a scam artist, a screwball, a sham, a simpleton, a snake oil salesman, a thickhead, a turkey, a twerp, a twit, a wacko, a woodenhead, and much, much worse.

You’re a clueless schmuck who knows nothing about science and has arrogantly built a big fat fake museum to promote medieval bullshit — you should not be surprised to learn that you are held in very low esteem by the community of scholars and scientists, and by the even larger community of lay people who have made the effort to learn more about science than you have (admittedly, though, you have set the bar very, very low on that, and there are 5 year old children who have a better grasp of the principles of science as well as more mastery of details of evolution than you do.)

Continue reading →

Signs of Economic Recovery: State Unemployment

The latest regional unemployment numbers are out and the news is decidedly better:

Twenty-one states recorded over-the-month unemployment rate decreases, 18 states and the District of Columbia registered rate increases, and 11 states had no rate change, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.

The overall unemployment rate rose from 8.5% to 8.9%.

In April, Michigan reported the highest jobless rate, 12.9 percent. The states with the next highest rates were Oregon, 12.0 percent; South Carolina, 11.5 percent; Rhode Island, 11.1 percent; California, 11.0 percent; North Carolina, 10.8 percent; Nevada, 10.6 percent; and Ohio, 10.2 percent.

The worst unemployment appears to be in housing bubble states and states highly dependent on auto manufacturing.

North Dakota again registered the lowest state unemployment rate, 4.0 percent in April. The states with the next lowest rates were Nebraska, 4.4 percent; Wyoming, 4.5 percent; and South Dakota, 4.8 percent. Overall, 29 states had significantly lower jobless rates than the U.S.

These are primarily states with low populations.

Delaware’s unemployment rate is 7.5% in April 2009, an improvement from 7.7% in March 2009. (Yay us!) That’s still significantly worse than the 4.2% of April 2008.

Things are still bad out there, but this is a significant improvement. In March 2009 report, 46 states saw unemployment increases. I think this improved employment data fits with the improved right track/wrong track numbers we’ve seen in surveys recently.

So, Republicans, if you have a back-up plan to hoping Obama gets blamed for the economic crisis it’s probably time to dust it off.

‘Bulo’s Music For the Masses: ‘Only One Way to Kick Off Summer’ Edition

The Beach Boys. Brian Wilson. And Teenage Symphonies to God.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-HYiswly4I[/youtube]

‘Keep An Eye On Summer’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6jOMn_KPCU&feature=related[/youtube]

‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1LiKpv-VfE[/youtube]

‘Little Deuce Coupe’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_TcWUslfvE&feature=related[/youtube]

‘Warmth of the Sun’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCEUOfiZsnA[/youtube]

‘Wendy’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Hbd0c24gI&feature=related[/youtube]

‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’ 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC_UILNwWrc[/youtube]

‘God Only Knows’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffA9Hjg0Pv4[/youtube]

‘The Girls On the Beach’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Hryc5t2wQ&feature=related[/youtube]

‘All Summer Long’


What to Make of This?

From Political Wire:

Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-DE) is known for keeping a list of several hundred birthdays of current and former colleagues, staffers and others and for dialing them on that day to wish them well.

This is at once very endearing and somewhat disturbing. I will go with endearing.

Bestseller in the Making!

From an email correspondent:

Gov. Palin is reported to have signed a contract to write a book about her life, including her experiences as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate last year. In recent efforts to rehabilitate her image, she has talked about her love of reading and mentioned that one of her favorite authors is C.S. Lewis. There is, so far, no confirmation to the rumor that her new book will be entitled, “The Lyin’, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

ouchie!

Evening Open Thread

Here’s a couple of topics to get started with:

  • Representative Alan Grayson proves to be one of the most interesting House Members — he has introduced a bill to make paid vacation from work a requirement.
  • Banks use Life Insurance (on their employees, without their permission mostly) to Fund Bonuses.

What’s on your mind?  Drop us links of stuff you are interested in in the comments or just chat about the day’s news.