Dark Buzz | |||
Natura non facit saltus Debunking the Paradigm Shifters Links Dark Buzz RSS feed Singular Values (unframed) About these blogs
Archives
Jan 2003 Feb 2003 Mar 2003 Apr 2003 May 2003 Jun 2003 Jul 2003 Aug 2003 Sep 2003 Oct 2003 Nov 2003 Dec 2003 Jan 2004 Feb 2004 Mar 2004 Apr 2004 May 2004 Jun 2004 Jul 2004 Aug 2004 Sep 2004 Oct 2004 Nov 2004 Dec 2004 Jan 2005 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 Apr 2005 May 2005 Jun 2005 Jul 2005 Aug 2005 Sep 2005 Oct 2005 Nov 2005 Dec 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 Mar 2007 Apr 2007 May 2007 Jun 2007 Jul 2007 Aug 2007 Sep 2007 Oct 2007 Nov 2007 Dec 2007 Jan 2008 Feb 2008 Mar 2008 Apr 2008 May 2008 Jun 2008 Jul 2008 Aug 2008 Sep 2008 Oct 2008 Nov 2008 Dec 2008 Jan 2009 Feb 2009 Mar 2009 Apr 2009 May 2009 Jun 2009 Jul 2009 Aug 2009 Sep 2009 Oct 2009 Nov 2009 Dec 2009 Jan 2010 Feb 2010 Mar 2010 Apr 2010 May 2010 Jun 2010 Jul 2010 Aug 2010 Sep 2010 Oct 2010 Nov 2010 Dec 2010 Jan 2011 Feb 2011 Mar 2011 Apr 2011 May 2011 Current page Powered by RogBlog
| Thursday, Mar 30, 2006
A Feminine Mystique All Her Own NY Times article: A political organizer and syndicated columnist who campaigned against the equal rights amendment, Phyllis Schlafly is still at war with the feminist agenda. ...No, the biography is impersonal because it is about her political life and influence. Accusations of hypocrisy in conservatives in almost always rooted in a misunderstanding of someone's position. Saturday, Mar 25, 2006
Powers of Courts Curbed Over School Funding The NY Sun reports: ALBANY - In the latest twist in the legally tangled New York City schools funding case, the order handed down yesterday by a state appeals court means that it is ultimately the governor of New York and legislators, not the judicial branch, that will determine how much money is needed to ensure that the city's students are offered a proper education.Yes, the legislature and governor should be the ones to tax and spend school money. The courts have been infiltrated by judicial supremacists who want to run the schools. Thursday, Mar 23, 2006
New Dino Fossil Scientific American reports on a 151 myr old dinosaur fossil: In a paper describing the fossil, published today in Nature, Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and Ursula Gohlich of the University of Munich classify Juravenator as an early member of the coelurosauria family that eventually evolved into birds, but one that lived later than some of the early feathered representatives. In fact, the discovery of feathers in a wide variety of coelurosaurs had led experts to posit that the entire clade had the downy covering. But Juravenator's skin impressions--seen in the middle of its tail and on its hind legs--show only scales.Funny how feather evolution theory can be completed by a find that doesn't make any sense. Wednesday, Mar 22, 2006
Rejecting earthquake insurance John sends this Seattle story: Californians have built vast metropolises atop seismic faults, but 86 percent of the state's homeowners have no quake insurance, a proportion that has crept upward as memories of past quakes fade. The number of uninsured was about 65 percent in 1996.Earthquake insurance is a lousy deal. If you have 15% equity in your home, and your policy has a 15% deductible, then you are really just insuring your mortgage company. Tuesday, Mar 21, 2006
Patenting ideas Tony Mauro of Legal Times writes about the Supreme Court patent case: But Jonathan Franklin, lawyer for LabCorp, which challenged the patent, said that if Metabolite’s patent is upheld, then “Einstein could have patented E equals mc squared.” By patenting the correlation that makes the vitamin-deficiency test work, Franklin said, Metabolite has “pre-emptive sweep” over all other tests, past and future, that draw conclusions from blood tests. Physicians who draw similar correlations in their work would also be infringers, Franklin suggested.John says that Roberts recused himself from (potentially) the most important patent case in 25 years. I think that lawyer needs some better arguments. It is not so obviously bad if Einstein had been able to patent E=mc2. Suppose it were really true that anyone who thinks of a new formula for generating energy could get a US patent on it, and collect royalties on the energy generated for the next 17 to 20 years. Then Einstein would have had the exclusive rights to nuclear bombs and power plants from 1905 to 1922. Nuclear power didn't even start to become feasible until 1945. What exactly would have been the harm? Einstein did not foresee the practical utility of his formula, so he would not have been eligible for a patent even if the Metabolite patent is approved. The first one to figure out that the formula could be used in a fission chain reaction to generate energy was Leo Szilard and he did patent it. If the patent system provided him with an incentive to figure out a new energy source, then why is that a bad thing? I am not saying that I agree with the Metabolite patent claim. I think that it ought to be rejected. But the Einstein analogy is a stupid legal argument. Banker conviction overturned Court news: A federal appeals court yesterday overturned the obstruction-of-justice conviction of Frank P. Quattrone, the investment banker who rose to prominence in the 1990's technology boom, and granted him a new trial.Gary Kennedy, a computer software CEO, just proved his innocense after a long battle with federal prosecutors. Quattrone seems to be another victim of the "coverup is worse than the crime" mentality. The feds couldn't find anything he did wrong, except that he once sent a short email suggesting that others follow standard document destruction policies. The documents hadn't been subpoenaed, but the feds said that he had reason to believe that the feds would want them preserved. The biggest problems for Quattrone in his first 2 trials were that he made a fortune during the dot-com boom, and when he testified in his own defense, he appeared to know less about criminal prosecutor prosecutors than the average juror who watches the TV show Law And Order. There are legitimate business reasons for deleting documents, and Quattrone may well have not known how criminal grand juries work. I am impressed by the determination of Kennedy and Quattrone to prove their innocense. Sunday, Mar 19, 2006
Right to confront witnesses Tomorrow SCOTUS will hear argument in two separate cases in which a man was convicted of domestic violence on the basis of out-of-court statements of a woman who never appeared in court to be cross examined.I agree. These cases will be crucial tests of how faithful Roberts and Alito will be to the Constitution. The issue seems clear-cut to me. Suppose someone calls 911, accuses you of a crime, and fails to testify at trial. Should the state be able to convict you based on the 911 tape? This seems clearly contrary to your 6A right to confront witnesses against you. I don't even see any other argument. Bill Gates lobbies for cheap labor David Broder writes: [Msft CEO Bill Gates] decided to add his personal voice to his Washington office's lobbying effort to expand the number of foreign-born computer scientists allowed to work in this country under a special program known as H-1B visas.John writes: Congress should force Microsoft to publish a list of every H-1B visa they have ever used, with job description, salary history, where the employee came from and what happened when the visa expired.Gates's comments are revealing. The American construction, agriculture, and other industries also have Mexicans sitting on the border wanting jobs, but that does not justify unlimited immigration. Gates really wants to hire smart college graduates who have taken several courses in computer science. He is not looking for the sort of people who have special experience and skills that have always been used to justify the H-1B program. The supply of college graduates in a given field rises and falls corresponding to demand. There is never a shortage, as students are keenly aware of their job prospects. Msft prefers foreigners because they can be hired more cheaply, and because they are less likely to jump to another company if their visas requires Msft employment. Saturday, Mar 18, 2006
FCC censorship Someone insisted that I watch the PBS News Hour to get the facts on FCC censorship. I did, but it didn't actually show the teenage orgy scene that drew the recent FCC fines. To get the real story, I had to watch Fox News. I get 150 satellite channels. 5 of them are subject to the FCC rules forbidding sex scenes and the 7 dirty words. The big majority of the other 145 channels won't say the 7 dirty words either, for other reasons. If you want to hear the 7 dirty words, buy some rap music. If you want to see sex scenes, porno videos are easily available. You can also get cable and satellite channel with pornography. I think that complaints about FCC censorship are pretty silly. The teenage orgy scene was clearly inappropriate and against the rules. No one has any trouble getting porn if he want it. The PBS show kept referring incorrectly to FCC regulation of over-the-air broadcasts of radio and TV programs. But the satellite radio and TV is broadcast over-the-air, and is not regulated for indecent content. Thursday, Mar 16, 2006
Testing IQ in babies The Freakonomics economist looked at IQ testing data on babies less than one year old, and found no evidence of average racial differences. Other studies found differences in kids as young as three. I don't know how significant this is. It would be more interesting if someone actually found a way of reliably measuring intelligence in a baby. The above study would rate a baby as smart if it babbled a lot, but babbling may not be the best measure. A lot of smart kids were not babbling babies. Sunday, Mar 12, 2006
Abolish the Lemon test A reader writes: Somewhere this week, I think in Michigan, I ran into a guy who worked at Discovery Institute. He knew absolutely everything about the Dover case. I said, WHY did you guys oppose what the board did, since the statement they ordered to be read to the students was completely innocuous.The Lemon test ought to be abolished. Under current court precedents, religious folks holding public office have to conceal their beliefs or their actions become unconstitutional. More people believing in evolution Nicholas Wade writes: Some geneticists believe the variations they are seeing in the human genome are so recent that they may help explain historical processes. "Since it looks like there has been significant evolutionary change over historical time, we're going to have to rewrite every history book ever written," said Gregory Cochran, a population geneticist at the University of Utah. "The distribution of genes influencing relevant psychological traits must have been different in Rome than it is today," he added. "The past is not just another country but an entirely different kind of people."Perhaps evolutionists are coming around to admitting that humans are still evolving. Quantum critical phase transitions George Chapline theorizes that dark matter and dark energy might be explained by stars having shells undergoing a quantum critical phase transitions that make them look like black holes. I don't know whether his theory can explain dark buzz. Saturday, Mar 11, 2006
When deleting a file is a federal crime Computer crime news: What: International Airport Centers sues former employee, claiming use of a secure file deletion utility violated federal hacking laws.Weird. Posner is supposed to be a smart judge, so he should understand that using a secure deletion program is a normal and preferred practice whenever returning a laptop computer. Posner just invented a new federal crime based solely on the notion that an employee ought to go out of his way to let his employer spy on him. Thursday, Mar 09, 2006
Few believe scientific theory New poll: WASHINGTON: A Gallup Poll released Wednesday suggests about 53 percent of Americans reject the theory of evolution as the explanation for the origin of humans.There's the problem with teaching evolution. The evolutionists want to teach something that only 1% of the public believes. Meanwhile, evolutionists have been puzzling over this for many years: Humans and chimpanzees have in common more than 98 percent of DNA and 99 percent of genes. Yet, in looks and behavior we are very different from them.These statistics are frequently used by evolutionists to argue that humans are just animals who are not much different from chimps. Now it turns out that some of those genes are expressed differently, and have different effects in humans. No word yet on whether God has a part in it. Wednesday, Mar 08, 2006
Lawyers promote homosexual agenda Christopher Arriola writes, as the local Bar Assn president: The Santa Clara County Bar Association is dismayed at the Los Altos City Council's exclusionary actions against gay students at Los Altos High School. ...No, the Los Altos mission is not to promote homosexuality. It is absurd for the Bar Assn to claim that the US Constitution requires "Gay Pride" days. Paris Hilton restrained Celebrity news: LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A court commissioner has signed off on an unusual restraining order against celebutante Paris Hilton, ordering her to stay at least 100 yards away from an event producer who claimed she threatened him -- unless they're at a party together.Usually men are the targets of these silly orders. Judges hand these out without paying much attention to the rights of the parties. The girlrobot blog thinks that I am infatuated with Paris Hilton. No, that's backwards. I am just preparing to get a restraining order in case Paris insists on visiting me too often. <g> Tuesday, Mar 07, 2006
California Supreme Court rules on oral sex California news: Sacramento (AP) - California's justices overturned state law requiring adults 21 years or older who are convicted of having oral sex with 16- and 17-year-olds to automatically register as a sex offender for life.The case is People v Hofsheier 3/6/06 SC, and was from Santa Cruz. The court was unable to see a rational basis for distinguishing between voluntary oral copulation with a minor and voluntary sexual intercourse with a minor. The case is strange. Of course there are rational distinctions. The California legislature deliberately made a distinction. The court should have followed the statute. George writes: Are you endorsing lifetime registration for such a petty offense? Maybe the judges were looking to avoid such a drastic penalty in this case.No. This particular defendant will probably still get lifetime registration, as the trial judge can still order it. He is a sexual predator of underage girls, so he may deserve it as much as others who have to register. My complaint is with the court overriding the legislature based on its own opinion about oral sex. Ashley Cole If you Google Ashley Cole, the British soccer player, you get a special section for links where he denies that he is gay. I don't know what Google is trying to do here, but it looks like it is just trying to promote false rumors. As usual, Google argues that the alternative search terms were generated automatically. Google is not being completely honest. It employs 100s of people who monitor user searches and manually enter data that guides searches like this one. Somebody decided that pages with gay rumors justify a separate section. More humans evolving NY Times reports: Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years.Politically correct evolutionists have been refusing to acknowledge that humans have been evolving, especially when people mention skin color and brain function. Meanwhile, London scientists have discovered an unevolved Turkish family called The Family That Walks On All Fours. Monday, Mar 06, 2006
Parental notification laws This pro-abortion NY Times article says: For all the passions they generate, laws that require minors to notify their parents or get permission to have an abortion do not appear to have produced the sharp drop in teenage abortion rates that some advocates hoped for, an analysis by The New York Times shows.The Court did not recognize any states' rights to restrict abortion. It requires a constitutional right to abortion throughout the entire 9 months, just as it ruled in 1973. The purpose of those laws is not to reduce abortion, but to allow parents to exercise their traditional role in directing the upbringing of their children. The opposition has come from radical pro-abortionists who tell wacky stories of how these laws are going to have all sorts of dire consequences. The NYT analysis shows that there have been no such dire consequences. Sunday, Mar 05, 2006
Evolving blonds Most evolutionists are in denial about whether humans are evolving. When they do comment on human evolution, they say wacky things. For example, The London Times reports: The study argues that blond hair originated in the region because of food shortages 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Until then, humans had the dark brown hair and dark eyes that still dominate in the rest of the world. Almost the only sustenance in Northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses. Finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men.It seems to me that blonds are still popular for breeding. Update: Snopes says that I was fooled by an urban legend, and that WHO never predicted blond extinction. |