Liz's Bloglet - Wednesday 1 November 2006

Here is the Talk Origins FAQ on Evolution.

I will never again enter into climate change or evolution arguments on the internet. Instead I'll just link to these well-written and thoroughly referenced pages. These are discussion where one side is right and the other side is wrong and having the wrong side appear to win because my rhetorical skills are weak and the other side makes the weaker argument the stronger one is evil. _
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09:14:28 AM, Wednesday 1 November 2006

I am in a little coffee shop across the street from Meredith College in Raleigh, killing time--and drinking tea--before my NC State class (which is not actually at NC State but at the professor's lab in an office park by the state fairgrounds). It is one of those very best independent coffee shops with lots of complicated drinks and comfy furniture and old magazines and random music and lots and lots of young women who attend Meredith (it's a women's college). Today, they have tied to every chair an orange helium-filled balloon with something Halloweeny drawn on it in sharpie. They obviously filled them with helium this morning, because now they are in various creepy states of floating, hovering, and quivering somewhere between the ceiling and the floor. Hurray for indie coffee shops (and the only good thing in Raleigh)! _
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05:46:26 PM, Tuesday 31 October 2006

How to talk to a climate skeptic. _
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11:01:57 AM, Tuesday 31 October 2006

Amanda hits a homerun.
If you look at the difference between conservatives and liberals as hinging on some euphemism like "states' rights" or some other such nonsense, your analysis will fail every time. Conservatives aren't about less government intrusion when they're the ones tapping your phones, subpoenaing your medical records, and parking a minister at the end of your bed. If you look at the debate as one over "Who counts?", then everything becomes clear. Conservatives want a "limited government", i.e. a limited view on who counts. Conservatives want a "small government", i.e. a small number of people who count.

And liberals want the number to be all Americans and more than that, we want a worldview where all human beings count. _
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05:12:20 PM, Monday 30 October 2006

If you only click on one link today, it should be this one. I promise you will not be disappointed. _
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10:31:06 AM, Monday 30 October 2006

So what happens when former internet stars and heros to child geeks (and targets of South Park) grow up? Apparently sometimes they become Duke Biology grad students. That is just too weird. _
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01:09:48 PM, Friday 27 October 2006

I just got an email from Eli Wiggins inviting me to give a talk at this. I am very tempted to go. _
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09:11:14 AM, Friday 27 October 2006

Why don't we all get behind John Lewis for president? He is a civil rights hero, a long-time Congressman, and he supports gay marriage. As far as I know, he's never even been mentioned as a candidate, nor has he ever brought it up himself. But he should be. _
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05:48:49 PM, Wednesday 25 October 2006

I should also mention another Jewish blog I read pretty often which has a great post up today. Rabbi Rami was Remi's rabbi growing up, but he has recently been more of a traveling guru. He manages to be delightfully scandalous on a regular basis. _
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04:58:42 PM, Wednesday 25 October 2006

The Velveteen Rabbi writes a review of Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God which both appreciates the skill of the writing and the thoughtfulness of the author while also acknowledging the great discomfort that this book and others like it give many people who are not at all at ease with the story of a Jew converting to Evangelical Christianity.

As I mentioned when I discovered the existence of the book, I knew the author at summer camp many, many years ago, and I do read a lot about religion, so I picked it up mostly for those reasons. I found it well written, but it made me uncomfortable. I really wanted to read a reaction to it from a Jew, and she is an excellent blogger. _
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04:51:58 PM, Wednesday 25 October 2006

Bon Apetit, who became the SJCA food service provider while I was in school, is now committed to sustainable food. That's just weird. _
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08:48:56 AM, Tuesday 24 October 2006

Hey, Mr. Moss. Are you interested in reciprocal link exchange with a casino thematical web resource? I wish I could make this stuff up, but I really can't. _
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08:43:57 AM, Tuesday 24 October 2006

Pomposity and arrogance without end (or justification). _
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08:43:47 AM, Saturday 21 October 2006

Friday Random Ten
1) Sister--Indigo Girls
2) He Will Set Your Field On Fire--Flatt & Scruggs
3) Intercession in Late October--Lauridsen/Los Angeles Master Chorale
4) Birdhouse in Your Soul--They Might Be Giants
5) Dirty Dream Number Two--Belle and Sebastian
6) Hold On--David LaMotte
7) Dawn's Ballet--Christopher Beck/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Soundtrack
8) Do Right Woman, Do Right Man--Aretha Franklin
9) Carnival Kids--The Futureheads
10) Song for the New Breed--Bonnie "Prince" Billy

The musical magic 8 ball says it will be a good day. _
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10:04:02 AM, Friday 20 October 2006

I got paid! Thank you nameless federal agency for giving me the money you owed me from 2 months ago (and having so much respect for the work grad students do that you didn't think it would inconvenience me at all to go two months without getting paid). _
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09:32:40 AM, Thursday 19 October 2006

Oh no!!!!1!!1! _
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09:16:59 AM, Thursday 19 October 2006

Hillary is us. She's not worse than other politicians, but I hoped she would be better. Salon article, if you want to read it without watching an ad, you can follow the link from Feministing. _
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05:07:27 PM, Wednesday 18 October 2006

Mexico is currently providing health coverage to 1/4 of their people and will have universal coverage by 2010. Mexico. They're targeting malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and child mortality. Take away the malaria, and we have all of those problems, and we're targeting nothing in particular and whining about how expensive it would be to provide universal healthcare. Mexico. Just think about that. _
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08:59:56 AM, Wednesday 18 October 2006

Can you tell a Sunni from a Shiite? No, really, most elected and appointed officials in charge of this so-called war on so-called terror are pretty uninformed about the stuff they're supposedly obsessed with. _
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10:15:02 AM, Tuesday 17 October 2006

Oh my. _
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09:15:37 AM, Saturday 14 October 2006

This is a pretty cool sounding job at the University of Ottawa. I had no idea it was a bilingual university. Remi was like "You could totally teach in two languages" and I was like "Remi, I can't even pronounce the French word for water properly and in fact my mispronounciation of it gave Mr. Allanbrook endless fits." _
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04:22:35 PM, Thursday 12 October 2006

Artemis would like everyone to know that the calico cat is The Official State Cat of Maryland. _
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11:59:18 AM, Thursday 12 October 2006

Activate your DNA. Sort of Time Cube for your insides. _
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01:17:58 PM, Tuesday 10 October 2006

A really nice story about American Muslims. Because we need these. _
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10:25:59 AM, Monday 9 October 2006

I had an audioscrobbler/lastfm account. I had just forgotten the user name. Now I have two. It is a mess. _
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09:54:00 AM, Monday 9 October 2006

Dr. Frank Golley died yesterday. He was a scientist, philosopher, mentor, and a champion for grad students. Gene Odum was the big brain that got the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia going, but Frank Golley was the heart.

Dr. Golley's Obituary. _
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09:09:22 AM, Monday 9 October 2006

I awoke this morning to this. We are a good 30 miles away, but my brother and his family live between Pittsboro and Apex. So far they are out of the evacuation zone, but it was not a pleasant thing to wake up to. Chlorine gas is horrible, as is being evacuated in the middle of the night. _
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07:00:50 AM, Friday 6 October 2006

I downloaded the newest versions of iTunes and audioscrobbler/lastfm/whatever we're calling it now, and added my music to the sidebar.

Yes, I have a lot of reading to do--why do you ask? _
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11:55:03 AM, Tuesday 3 October 2006

They were killed because they were female. They were killed because they were female. They were killed because they were female. They were killed because they were female. They were killed because they were female.

This is what comes of defining female as other, as alien, as different, as lesser, as wrong. This is the patriarchy. _
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08:42:14 AM, Tuesday 3 October 2006

In non-doom news, while Tuxedo stops purring right before he bites, Artemis is perfectly capable of purring sweetly while biting me as hard as she can on the nose. _
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08:39:52 AM, Saturday 30 September 2006

I am an enemy combatant _
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08:38:48 AM, Saturday 30 September 2006

Sometimes some random dude on the internet gets it right:
The outcome of the November elections is going to tell the world a whole lot about America.

The Bush government has done the political equivalent of flying airplanes into the twin towers of the Constitution and tbe Bill of Rights. You know how the WTC was such a huge symbol of Western Achievement? The Constitution and Bill of Rights were kinda the same thing. Not necessarily the best, just as WTC wasn't the tallest, but truly iconic and � we thought � immortal.

The terrorists will win if America votes to keep its crooks and liars in office. _
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07:45:55 AM, Saturday 30 September 2006

Senate wins fight to lower allowable amperage levels on detainees' testicles. I weep for my country when The Onion is this right and nobody seems to care. _
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12:12:43 PM, Friday 29 September 2006

I'm not a feminist, but... _
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08:59:48 AM, Friday 29 September 2006

Language Log blasts neuroscience in the service of sexual stereotypes

This graph is typical of graphs of the vast difference between the average man and the average woman on any given variable. _
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10:03:20 AM, Wednesday 27 September 2006

My friend Laura and her husband Dan never fail to make their impending baby announcments amusing. _
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08:23:06 PM, Tuesday 26 September 2006

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