Category: seriously

How many times does the Bush administration get to work America over before we get tired of the sham? We have to be there by now, don’t we?

update: Michelle says I shouldn’t use “that word” here.

I was thumbing through the Yakima paper yesterday and found this advertisement for a youth t-shirt from K-mart. The image is of a man giving a hysterical woman a stiff arm out of the comic frame. What a bad message to print on a kid’s shirt. I suppose they’re aren’t kidding about it being a graphic tee.

It’s been a while since I took a CPR certification class, and I came across this awesome website while looking for classes. It has both videos and diagrams for babies, kids, adults and pets.

Learn CPR

I clicked on a link from Fark regarding the top-ten Junk Science issues of the last decade and felt a growing unease about the quality of the article. It was Fox news, but I figured “science is science… that’s universal, right?”

Well, wrong. Luckily, it appears that the Fark community caught the utter tripe for what it was. This is one of the first times I’ve gone to bed with a better feeling about humanity. If we can pick out misleading propaganda like this, we’re doing something right. Right?

Did you know we’re up to 20 impeachable offenses?

That’s a lot. I almost needed to reboot during the counting.

Well, it looks like another unqualified Bush appointee is resigning. Turns out he didn’t actually graduate from Texas A&M like he implied in his records. This seems to be a theme among this administration; taking credit for work you didn’t do.

My local paper has been reporting on some frightening revelations in the science community this week. First, there has been the attempt by some OSU faculty to delay the publishing of a study that contradicts the administration’s basis for salvage logging. Where to begin? This is one small, specific study that contradicts some previous work by the school, but it’s only the start of a larger area of research that when open to criticism, may help determine future policy. Assuming contradictory work is allowed to be published.

Secondly, NASA’s James Hansen reports that he’s under pressure from the administration to, well, shut up about climate change. Sadly, this is the same type of news we’ve been hearing for several years now. Scientist A from the Department of B finds that their work has been fundamentally changed between the writing and the publishing.

Thirdly, there’s a piece in the paper “Surrounded by Lies” that is mostly about some stupid book whose author pissed off Oprah, but the rest is about the lies told to us by politicians and companies and how we’re ignoring it all.

In an absolutely delicious twist in the cultural worm that is Intelligent Design, the University of Kansas is going to be offering a class on religious mythologies like Creationism and Intelligent Design. Take that misguided boards of education.

I’m convinced there needs to be a moratorium on the word “Fact.” The word has become so misused that I assume people are trying to mislead me when they say it.

Further, there should be a fine imposed on the use of it until sufficient time has passed that it can be used to full efficacy. Just like the 10 cents when you forgot to buckle your seat belt, you’re going to have to drop a quarter if you use the word fact. A whole dollar if you use it with something that isn’t factual.

Here’s a great piece from the BBC’s new site (my fav) about the bastardization of science by political interests in the US.

Yes, I realize I complain about this a lot. But it’s important. A service economy only works when there are people that can afford your services.