McCain made a surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his VP. The first thing that jumps into my mind: she's an ID supporter, thinks it should be taught along with evolution in public school science classrooms. She's also relatively anti-gay. Supporters will point to the fact that she vetoed a bill that would have done away with partnership benefits for gay state employees, but she did that only after the Alaska Supreme Court ...

One of America's strengths was that people looked up to the US. In WWII soldiers would give up to the US on purpose, because they knew that they would be treated fairly. How do I know this - my grandfather who fought for the Italians was one of them. Imagine that power. You are so highly regarded that your enemies would rather give up to you than fight you. But we've squandered that. In the ...

From a 2006 debate: Next, [moderator] Carey asked about teaching alternatives to evolution - such as creationism and intelligent design - in public schools. … PALIN: “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. “Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And, you know, I say this, too, as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and ...

According to the BBC: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

When you pick as a VP candidate someone who is inexperienced and unfamiliar with national politics, you don't know what you are going to get. Above, a look back at Dan Quayle's VP announcement speech in 1988 and then subsequent campaign gaffes. Read the comments on this post...

Sarah Palin is McCain's running mate. As I wrote yesterday, with less than two years in office, her nomination undercuts his central criticism of his opponent -- that Obama is too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief. As a relatively young woman, she may draw a necessary demographic and conservatives will be pleased she is opposed to abortion rights. As Nate points out, Palin may run into gender politics taboos and be unable to draw Clinton voters. ...

Over at Island of Doubt James Hrynyshyn says: As far as I can tell, North Carolina's no different from the rest of America when it comes to religion. About a tenth of the population is free of religious conviction.... Well, I was pretty sure that there is a statistically significant difference between most Southern states and the rest of the country in regards to these things, so I decided to check out the data in ...

Again here's a simple graph that says it all. And they say that Democrats are fiscally irresponsible. Read the comments on this post...

Imaginative but effective ads from the Buenos Aires Zoo. Via Toxel and thanks once again to Kevin Z. "Get Much More for Less" Ads "The Kangaroos Have Arrived" Ads Many more below the fold Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Interesting post (based on one of my favourite books which may warrant a re-reading after many years - Adler's "How to Read a Book" but adapted to online reading) How to Read by Brian Clark: We know that people don't read well online. They ruthlessly scan for interesting chunks of information rather than digesting the whole, and they want to be entertained in the process. This is the reality that online publishers deal with, so ...

I've been sarcastically "thanking" Jenny McCarthy for bringing the U.S. the gift of measles through her tireless efforts on behalf of Generation Rescue and other antivaccine groups and will continue to do so whenever I deem it appropriate. But Jenny isn't the only one who deserves our "thanks" (no, I'm not going to thank Andrew Wakefield again). Let's not forget all those religions who, either because they think vaccines are messing with God's will or ...

Cells In Eye Could Help Control Sleep: A set of nerve cells in the eye control our levels of sleepiness according to the brightness of our surroundings, Oxford University researchers have discovered. The cells directly regulate the activity of sleep centres in the brain, providing a new target for the development of drugs to control sleep and alertness. New Evidence Debunks 'Stupid' Neanderthal Myth: Research by UK and American scientists has struck another blow to ...

I normally don't care when I miss television documentaries, but I'm going to have to find some way to see this when it airs in three weeks; So... freakin'... cool... And remember some of those exclusive clips (which are not associated with the Discovery Channel program) that I told you about a while ago? The Houston Museum of Natural Science has been kind enough to upload some of them to the web. Here's Bob Bakker ...

Stroke can be extremely debilitating, but if the damage is not too severe, and appropriate rehabilitation is administered, the brain can reorganize itself to compensate for the loss of function. This reorganization can occur because the brain remains 'plastic' throughout life; it leads to recovery, but can also have unexpected consequences.Something very unexpected happened to Ken Walters, a 51-year-old former engineer from Lancashire, following his cerebrovascular accident. According to the Daily Mail, Walters suffered a ...

A few weeks ago I was in a local restaurant, eating by myself and reading a newspaper. At the table next to me were two couples talking loudly and in an animated manner about this big pentecostal revival going on in Lakeland, Florida. The revival meetings, which have drawn hundreds of thousands of people, are put on by Todd Bentley and Fresh Fire Ministries and have been going on since April. Well guess what? Bentley ...

Over at Mind Matters, we've got an interesting article on how believing in free will can affect our ethical behavior: In a clever new study, psychologists Kathleen Vohs at the University of Minnesota and Jonathan Schooler at the University of California at Santa Barbara tested this question by giving participants passages from The Astonishing Hypothesis, a popular science book by Francis Crick, a biochemist and Nobel laureate (as co-discoverer, with James Watson, of the DNA ...

On August 21, 1863 William C. Quantrill and a band of 450 proslavery yahoos raided Lawrence, Kansas and butchered 182 individuals, including children. Quantrill and his men staged numerous raids into Kansas during the early part of the Civil War. He was quickly labeled an outlaw by the Union for his attacks on pro Union forces. He was involved in several skirmishes with Jayhawkers (pro Union guerilla bands) and eventually was made a Captain in ...

Just in case you thought you were having a good day, here is a graph from the Fed that shows how much money the banks have: Don't panic. The final number is from 1 July 2008. I'm sure they've fixed the problem by now. HT: London Banker, on Roubini's Global EconoMonitor (RGE Monitor). Read the comments on this post...

I somehow missed this line when I posted about Orson Scott Card's astonishingly idiotic screed about gay marriage, but Andrew Sullivan noticed it. How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and ...

The Linutop is a tiny Linux computer that you stick onto the back of your flat screen monitor (and hook it to the monitor, obviously), plug in, and go. It makes no noise, produces very little heat, uses hardly any electricity (eight watts) and seems to be reasonably powered. It cost about 300 bucks. There are things it won't do. The system is solid state, which means it is totally secure but upgrading would not ...