“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was [...]
Archive for June, 2009
Jay-Z becomes a man (not in a good way)
Posted in Music, Video, tagged animal farm, death of auto-tune, doa, jay-z on June 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Oscars continue to make poor decisions
Posted in Movies, tagged Academy Awards, Movies, Oscars on June 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided to increase the number of films that will receive nominations for Best Picture from 5 to 10. While this doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, it will be. And this is because I doubt the Academy is smart enough to use weighted voting. [...]
Who Madoff screwed
Posted in Economics, Idiots, News, tagged bernie madoff, madoff, maps, ponzi scheme on June 29, 2009 | 1 Comment »
With the Madoff sentencing coming down today, one should consider the people he actually screwed over. This map site “Madoff Victim Map” plots his victims and the money he stole from them. It does lead one to wonder, though, how complicit these investors were in his scheme. I mean, the money they pumped in only [...]
Vacation, again
Posted in Blog Stuff on June 23, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Yeah, it’s like we don’t actually do any real work. But as it happens, I will be visiting Stendhal tomorrow (we are rarely in the same part of the country anymore) and staying through the weekend, so posting might be infrequent for the next few days.
Translating basic research into direct medical benefits
Posted in Science, tagged cystic fibrosis, medicine, research, Science on June 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It’s really, really hard to do. The newest issue of Science magazine has a perspective over cystic fibrosis (academic subscription required). It was 20 years ago that the gene responsible for the disease was discovered. Even more exciting, a particular mutation responsible for the disease was also identified at the time. Back then, it seemed [...]
Wow… just wow…
Posted in Music, Politics, Useless Bullshit, Video, tagged conservatives, rap, republican death spiral, young con on June 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Look, are they trying to be funny? Or are they serious?
I would have guessed that this was more along the lines of Denny Blaze and “It’s Rainin’ McCain.”
But now, it looks like these guys are serious, with an appearance with Mike Huckabee. And hilarious.
Mannish Boy
Posted in Education, tagged better schools, Education, emotional development, first year teaching, mannish boy, teachers on June 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
(This is the second in a series of reflective posts about my first year teaching. The first can be found here.)
“I spell mmm, aaa child, nnn
That represents man
No B, O child, Y
That mean mannish boy”
– Muddy Waters, “Mannish Boy”
As a first year teacher straight out of college, I found myself not too far removed in [...]
Baseball + charts = nerd heaven
Posted in Baseball, Useless Bullshit, tagged Baseball, charts, flip flop fly, graphs, infographics on June 22, 2009 | 2 Comments »
If you can’t quite see the chart above, it shows the range of ticket prices of major league ballparks. (That’s the Yankees with the highest, natch.)
As a lover of infographics, I stumbled upon this site when taking a quiz on the shapes of ballparks (no peeking!), but found that the author, Craig Robinson, has a [...]
Yet more evidence for fraud
Posted in Assholes, Idiots, International Affairs, News, tagged Ahmadinejad, elections, Iran, Khamenei, stolen elections on June 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Previously, I had linked to and discussed evidence of fraud in Iran’s elections. These include precincts reporting over 100% turnout rates, an overall high turnout rate for an incumbent landslide, and inconsistent performance from the other candidates even in their home towns. From Balloon Juice, I just came across another argument to add to the [...]
They’ve already lost
Posted in Assholes, Idiots, International Affairs, News, tagged Ahmadinejad, elections, Iran, Khamenei, protests, stolen elections, theocracy, thugs on June 20, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Today has been the most violent day in Iran since the stolen elections. If you are interested in it, there are really two places to check out now, the Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan especially, as he is posting Tweets from Iran (this past week has forced me to reevaluate my thoughts on the [...]
