CNN’s Jack Cafferty has his own Joe Wilson moment: "Another lie" Mr. Obama

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CNN's longtime crumudgeon commentator one year ago (via Newsbusters):

"I like him a lot. I think he's a bright guy...

...I'm pulling for the guy. I like him. I think he's terrific."

Jack Cafferty today (also from NB), commenting on Obama's decision not to allow C-SPAN cameras to cover the behind closed doors health care deliberations:

"President Obama hasn’t even made a token effort to keep his campaign promises of more openness and transparency in government. It was all just another lie..."

[I hope] "the voters remember some of this crap when the midterm elections roll around later this year."

Ironically, Cafferty ranted against the "decline of civil discourse in this country," back in September when Congressman Joe Wilson shouted out "You lie," to Obama during a Presidential address in the House chambers, on health care.

Wrote Cafferty in a Cafferty File column, Sept. 10:

A Republican congressman from South Carolina made a complete fool of himself during a presidential address to a joint session of Congress last night, and in the process confirmed a lot of what the American public can't stand about politicians...this was pretty low - even with our reduced expectations for our lawmakers.

Though, Cafferty did concede that Wilson might have had a point on coverage for illegal aliens.

CONFIRMED! Libertarian Party beats Democrat Party in Texas Election filings 2010

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Battle for Number Two Spot pits Liberty forces vs. Liberty foes

From Eric Dondero:

We reported on Tuesday, that it appeared that the Libertarian Party may actually have more candidates on the ballot for state legislature in Texas than the State's Number Two Party, the Democrats. We even asked, could the Libertarian Party replace the Democrats as the Number Two Party in the Nation's Number Two Biggest State?

Results for legislature are still not in. But there's a pretty good indication that the LP is beating the Dems on two other highly important fronts: Congress and Statewide offices.

Just breaking late last night from Texas's Number One political blog (which is stridently Pro-Democrat), Burnt Orange:

Texas has always been a strong state for the Libertarian Party and this year they are proving that there is no stopping their growth in the Lone Star State, filing a record breaking 193 candidates for office. While the Libertarians do not have primaries (they have nominating conventions), they have filed candidates for every single statewide office and every single congressional district. That's something the Democratic Party has failed to accomplish for multiple cycles now, including this year where it skipped the Comptrollers office, a couple statewide judicial seats, and over a half dozen congressional seats.

Another Democrat blog, Booman Tribune wimpered:

The filing date closed for federal offices in Texas yesterday and the Democrats left seven Republican-held house seats uncontested. That is no good... We should not be seeing things like this.

Of course, Republicans may not rejoice at the prospect of all these 3rd party candidates taking away potential votes from the GOP. However, the other consideration is the momentum lost by the Democrats knowing that they're starting to show signs of sinking below a minor party in Texas.

Five Democrats switch to Republican in one small County in Texas

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Obama's Hard Left Agenda in DC pushes them over

From Eric Dondero:

Cherokee County is located deep in the heart of East Texas. It is a County full of a rich history, from the original Texas pioneers to America's Civil War. The population is roughly 46,000. The County seat is Jacksonville, but also includes the towns of Rusk and Gallatin, and is considered suburban Tyler.

The County is part of a growing trend of rural southern Democrats who have ties to that Party dating back to the Civil War, bolting to the Republican Party.

From the Jacksonville Daily Progress, Jan. 6:

Five Cherokee County politicians have changed parties in the last 60 days.

And all five are incumbents seeking to once again win their government positions.

From the local state representative to county-level seats, they have left behind the Obama-led Democrats and joined the Republican side of the aisle.

“It’s never happened in Cherokee County,” said Cherokee County Republican Chair Josie Schoolcraft. She said in her 12 years of involvement in county politics, there has never been such a high number of political party defectors.

“I attribute it to what’s going on in Washington, D.C.,” Schoolcraft said of the exodus of Dems to the GOP. “East Texas has always been conservative. From what they (the people who switched parties) tell me, the Democratic Party went off and left them because of their liberal agenda. The Democratic Party isn’t a conservative party at all anymore.”

Texas Democrats... "a series of setbacks..."

Some of the Switchers cited Property Rights, Gun Control, Death Penalty and Illegal Immigration as some of the reasons for their Switch.

One of the Switchers, Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Brenda Dominy, specifically mentioned Obama as the cause of her leaving the Democrats.

She sais President Barack Obama's leadership does cause her concern, also.

“I don’t agree with a lot of the Democrats’ views and takes on things,” she said. “I might be more conservative than I thought, but the agenda the Democrats have, I find I’m not in agreement with..." she said.

Also switching a County Commissioner, and the County Surveyor.

Concludes assistant editor Lauren LaFleur:

Although Texas Democrats have been trying to work their way back into statewide political contention for a decade (Republicans have held all statewide offices since 1999 and both chambers of the Legislature since 2003), the party has suffered a series of setbacks to their strong position on the national front.

Three libertarian-leaning Republicans for Congress given good odds at GOP pick-ups by Pro-Democrat site

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Allen West, Frank Guinta and Ryan Frazier, Tea Party Patriots likely heading to Congress

From Eric Dondero:

The rabidly Pro-Democrat news site FiredogLake by Jane Hamscher, has an unusually blunt analysis of most likely Dem losses for 2010, resulting from votes for ObamaCare. The most vulnerable Democrat identified by FiredogLake - Rep. Vic Snyder, in Arkansas 2nd District. Two Ohio seats are then identified as most likely to go Republican - Cincy area 01 with GOPer Steve Chabot, and OH 15 with Steve Shivers running on the GOP ticket. Then coming in at Number 4 is a longtime favorite of libertarian Republicans, Allen West who lost 55 to 45% in 2008.

Writes FDL:

4.FL-22 Allen West ran against Klein last time and lost decisively, but he has now turned into a good fundraiser with a national profile after this video. His ability to get himself national TV attention on Fox means he’ll probably be able to reach the district’s high percentage of seniors this time around. SCORE: 7

Next libertarian-leaner coming in at #9 is the very outspoken and sometimes even quirky Tea Party Patriot, Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta of the Live Free or Die State:

9.NH-01 Carol Shea-Porter vowed to vote against any bill that does not have a public option, so she looks to piss off both liberals AND conservatives with a “yes” vote. Frank Guinta has raised $236,164 against her, which is pretty prodigious. SCORE: 6

Finally, there's Aurora City Councilman and Tea Party Patriot Ryan Frasier. Note - Frasier was originally in the race for the US Senate seat but switched to Congress. Continuing:

19.CO-07: Perlmutter is facing libertarian Ryan Frasier, who has raised $213,857. Same top-of-ticket problem as Salazar. WILD CARD

Hamscher also lists another seat in Colorado, two in Arizona, two in California, another one in Florida, Virginia, Georgia and Texas as possible pick-ups for the GOP.

Male Cleaner Fish Punish Females Who Piss off The Boss Fish | 80beats

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cleaner-fishCleaner fish have a pretty good little business going. These select species of small underwater inhabitants set up “cleaning stations” where they eat parasites and dead tissue off larger fish. Sure, it might not be a gourmet meal, but in exchange for the service the large fish don’t eat the cleaners.

In some cases a pair of fish work in tandem, and a new study has found that males will punish their female partners if the females go overboard and eat more of the client than they should. While the research shows that fish, like people, can be aggrieved on behalf of a third party, don’t be too impressed with the males’ altruism—they get plenty out of the deal.

For a study in Science, researchers looked at the fish Labroides dimidiatus, whose females usually play by the rules of the cleaning business. But the females can sometimes be too greedy and “bite the flesh of the fish they are cleaning in a bid to get to the mucus, which is more tasty than the parasites on the surface,” researcher Redouan Bshary found. The male fishes, which are bigger in size, would then step in to chase the females away [AFP].

To simulate and examine this aquatic arrangement in the lab, Bshary’s team set out a plate that took the place of the “client” fish. It featured the options of fish flakes and prawns for the cleaner fish to eat—the flakes as a stand-in for the parasites the fish are supposed to eat, and the prawns acting as the more desirable mucus. However, the researchers took away the plate if any of the fish ate a prawn (as if the client were to swim away). They saw that the male cleaner fish — even in this unfamiliar lab setting — would punish, or chase away, the female fish if the females ate a prawn [LiveScience].

Why so serious, male fish? On the one hand, it’s just good business. If the females eat the client fish’s mucus, researchers say, it scurries off, and the cleaner fish team loses a customer. But there’s more to it than that: The males are really just cutthroat capitalists, looking out for themselves at their partners’ expense. “The male’s dinner leaves if the female cheats,” explained lead scientist Nichola Raihani from the The Zoological Society of London. “By punishing cheating females, the males are not really sticking up for the clients but are making sure that they get a decent meal” [BBC News].

Altruistic or not, it’s hard to fault the males for keeping up appearances. A Nature study back in 2006 suggested that client fish are choosy shoppers, spying on cleaner fish to see who runs the best service. With all the cheating going on, they’d be fools not to. Not only do cleaners cheat their clients and go for the mucus, but there are also impostor cleaners—fish that mimic the appearance of cleaners to capitalize on that whole “not getting eaten” thing.

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Image: Richard Smith


The Humane Way to Kill Invasive Cane Toads: Skull Smashing? | Discoblog

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cane-toad-webAustralia has a cane toad problem. The little leapers are devastating the Aussie ecosystem (Australia has no native toads). They’re gobbling up native insects and poising any animal that attempts to prey on them. One group thought they had a humane way to stop the toads’ spread—suffocate captured toads by putting them in bags filled with carbon dioxide. But now government officials are saying “not so fast,” and have declared that kill method inhumane. From The Scientist:

The Kimberley Toad Busters (KTB) have been using carbon dioxide exposure to euthanize the toads for five years, successfully eliminating more than half a million pests. But last year, after the cane toad populations made their way into Western Australia (WA), the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) — a department of the WA government — announced that they would not support the use of CO2 until further trials had been done, leaving the KTB nearly weaponless against the rapidly spreading invasion just as the first major wet season rains are starting to fall.

So what does the DEC suggest as a humane way to kill the invasive toads? The agency requests that the Toad Busters use blunt trauma for brain destruction.

Guess it’s time for the Toad Busters to break out their whacking sticks.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Some Animals Need to be More Endangered
Discoblog: Crocs Chow Down on Invasive Toads, Instantly Regret It
Discoblog: To Fight Croc-Killing Toads, Australians Turn to “Cane Toad Golf”

Image: flickr / Sam Fraser-Smith


I have arrived as a skeptic, part 2 | Bad Astronomy

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sgu_logoThe Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe is one of my favorite podcasts. It’s funny, informative, goofy, but most importantly goes right to the heart of a lot of issues important to the critical thinker.

I’ve done a lot of interviews with them, and sometimes they call me at the last minute when there’s some breaking astronomy news. So a couple of weeks ago I wasn’t too surprised when Steve Novella sent me a note asking if I could record with them that evening for their annual year-end wrapup episode.

What did surprise me is why they wanted me on: the SGU listeners had voted for me as Skeptic of the Year!

Well, wow! I was really floored when they told me this during the interview. It was totally unexpected, and quite an honor. I made some jokes about it in the interview, but now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I want to reiterate how honored I am. It was a great year for skepticism and skeptics themselves, with Simon Singh publicly defending himself from craven chiropractors who tried to sue him into silence, Amy Wallace writing about antivaxxers in Wired magazine, the Australian Skeptics heroically taking on (and being attacked by) the awful antivax guru Meryl Dorey, Randi publicly fighting his cancer with medical science, and so many more.

In that company, I stand paradoxically humbled and proud. My sincere thanks to everyone who cast their vote my way on the SGU forums.

I always really like the SGU year-end wrapup; it’s fun to listen in on the rogues reminiscing on the past year. This one in particular is a great episode. Here’s a direct link to the MP3 of the show, and if you don’t already subscribe to SGU, then go do it now!


NASA Supports President’s Summer Of Innovation

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President Barack Obama annouces the Summer of Innovation at the White House on Jan. 06, 2010NASA has launched an initiative to use its out-of-this-world missions and technology programs to boost summer learning, particularly for underrepresented students across the nation. NASA's Summer of Innovation supports President Obama's Educate to Innovate campaign for excellence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education.
› Transcript: President Obama's Remarks?

The Summer of Innovation program will work with thousands of middle school teachers and students during multi-week programs in the summer of 2010 to engage students in stimulating math and science-based education programs. NASA's goal is to increase the number of future scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, with an emphasis on broadening participation of low-income, minority students.

"This is an incredible opportunity for our administration to come together to address our nation's critical science, technology, engineering and math education needs," said NASA Administrator and former astronaut Charles F. Bolden. "Through Summer of Innovation, NASA is calling on our financial and human resources to align with federal, state, and local governments, nonprofit partners, universities and teachers to expand the opportunity for more of our young people to aspire to and engage in the future prosperity of our nation."

Through competitive cooperative agreements to states, and partnerships with companies and nonprofits, NASA will use its substantial STEM assets -- including the agency's scientists and engineers -- to create multi-week summer learning programs.

"NASA's Summer of Innovation will increase the scope and scale of the agency's commitment to a robust program of STEM education opportunities," said Joyce Winterton, assistant administrator for education at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

President Barack Obama helps a student with a science experiment in Summer 2009The Summer of Innovation pilot will infuse NASA content and products into existing, evidence-based summer learning programs at the state level coupled with design competitions and events open to students and teachers nationwide. The program will culminate in a national event, in partnership with other departments and agencies.

NASA will use the Summer of Innovation as a catalyst to expand, align, and strengthen existing state-based networks. Awardees will be expected to implement the Summer of Innovation program and services during 2010 through the strategic infusion of NASA content and products into existing, evidence-based summer learning programs. The pilot program will seek to improve STEM performance for a diverse population of students, placing them on a trajectory to pursue further studies in STEM fields throughout their education.

Contingent upon the availability of funding, NASA intends to competitively select district partnerships in up to seven states to pilot the Summer of Innovation during 2010. Awards will have a period of performance of 36 months. Local programs will be required to develop ways to keep students and teachers engaged during the school year and to track student participants' performance through 2012. Awardees will be encouraged to leverage the unique capabilities and resources of program partners to ensure a sustainable effort following the period of performance.

NASA will use the agency's National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program to implement the Summer of Innovation pilot. The Space Grant national network includes more than 850 affiliates from universities, colleges, industry, museums, science centers, and state and local agencies supporting and enhancing science and engineering education, research and public outreach efforts for NASA's aeronautics and space projects. These affiliates belong to one of 52 consortia in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Space Grant applications will be selected based on alignment with Summer of Innovation goals and objectives. Accordingly, NASA has determined that submitters for this opportunity must be Space Grant Lead Institutions, and only one proposal per state will be accepted.

The Summer of Innovation Notice of Intent will be available online at 3 p.m. EST at http://nspires.nasaprs.com and http://www.grants.gov.

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Galaxy History Revealed in Colorful Hubble View

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Hubble mosaic image of thousands of galaxies NASA, ESA, R. Windhorst, S. Cohen, and M. Mechtley (Arizona State University, Tempe), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), P. McCarthy (Carnegie Observatories), N. Hathi (University of California, Riverside), R. Ryan (University of California, Davis), and H. Yan (Ohio State University). Photo No. STScI-PRC10-01
 › Larger image

More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly.

This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, was made from mosaics taken in September and October 2009 with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and in 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The view covers a portion of the southern field of a large galaxy census called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), a deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the evolution of galaxies.

The final image combines a broad range of colors, from the ultraviolet, through visible light, and into the near-infrared. Such a detailed multi-color view of the universe has never before been assembled at such a level of clarity, accuracy, and depth.

Hubble's sharp resolution and new color versatility, produced by combining data from the two cameras, is allowing astronomers to sort out the various stages of galaxy formation. The image reveals galaxy shapes that appear increasingly chaotic at each earlier epoch, as galaxies grew through accretion, collisions, and mergers. The galaxies range from the mature spirals and ellipticals in the foreground, to smaller, fainter, irregularly shaped galaxies, most of which are farther away, and therefore existed farther back in time. These smaller galaxies are considered the building blocks of the larger galaxies we see today.

Astronomers are using this multi-color panorama to trace many details of galaxy evolution over cosmic time, including the star-formation rate in galaxies, the rate of mergers among galaxies, and the abundance of weak active galactic nuclei.

The image shows a rich tapestry of 7,500 galaxies stretching back through most of the universe's history. The closest galaxies seen in the foreground emitted their observed light about a billion years ago. The farthest galaxies, a few of the very faint red specks, are seen as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago, or roughly 650 million years after the Big Bang. This mosaic spans a slice of space that is equal to about a third of the diameter of the full Moon (10 arc minutes).

The new Hubble view highlights a wide variety of stages in the galaxy assembly process. Ultraviolet light taken by WFC3 shows the blue glow of hot, young stars in galaxies teeming with star birth. The orange light reveals the final buildup of massive galaxies about 8 to 10 billion years ago. The near-infrared light displays the red glow of very distant galaxies -- in a few cases as far as 12 billion to 13 billion light-years away-whose light has been stretched, like a toy Slinky, from ultraviolet light to longer -- wavelength infrared light due to the expansion of the universe.

In this ambitious use of Hubble's observing time, astronomers used 100 Hubble orbits to make the ACS optical observations of this slice of the GOODS field and 104 orbits to make the WFC3 ultraviolet and near-infrared exposures. WFC3 peered deeper into the universe in this study than comparable near-infrared observations from ground-based telescopes. This set of unique new Hubble observations reveals galaxies to about 27th magnitude in brightness.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. in Washington.

Related Link

› Related images and information from Hubblesite.org

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Planets Can Form Around Hefty Stars

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This artist's conception shows a Jupiter-sized planet forming from a disk of dust and gas surrounding a young, massive star.
This artist's conception shows a Jupiter-sized planet forming from a disk of dust and gas surrounding a young, massive star. The planet's gravity has cleared a gap in the disk. Of more than 500 stars examined in the W5 star-forming region, 15 show evidence of central clearing that may be due to forming planets.
Most searches for planets around other stars, also known as exoplanets, focus on sun-like stars. Those searches have proven successful, turning up more than 400 alien worlds. However, sun-like stars aren't the only potential homes for planets. New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All-Sky Survey confirms that planet formation is a natural by-product of star formation, even around stars much heftier than the sun.

For more details, please go to http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2010/pr201001.html .

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NASA’s WISE Eye Spies First Glimpse of the Starry Sky

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Infrared snapshot of a region in the constellation Carina near the Milky Way taken shortly after NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) ejected its cover.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has captured its first look at the starry sky that it will soon begin surveying in infrared light.

Launched on Dec. 14, WISE will scan the entire sky for millions of hidden objects, including asteroids, "failed" stars and powerful galaxies. WISE data will serve as navigation charts for other missions, such as NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, pointing them to the most interesting targets the mission finds.

A new WISE infrared image was taken shortly after the space telescope's cover was removed, exposing the instrument's detectors to starlight for the first time. The picture shows about 3,000 stars in the Carina constellation and can be viewed online at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/wise20100106.html .

The image covers a patch of sky about three times larger than the full moon, and was presented today at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington. The patch was selected because it does not contain any unusually bright objects, which could damage instrument detectors if observed for too long. The picture was taken while the spacecraft was staring at a fixed patch of sky and is being used to calibrate the spacecraft's pointing system.

When the WISE survey begins, the spacecraft will scan the sky continuously as it circles the globe, while an internal scan mirror counteracts its motion. This allows WISE to take "freeze-frame" snapshots every 11 seconds, resulting in millions of images of the entire sky.

"Right now, we are busy matching the rate of the scan mirror to the rate of the spacecraft, so we will capture sharp pictures as our telescope sweeps across the sky," said William Irace, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

To sense the infrared glow of stars and galaxies, the WISE spacecraft cannot give off any detectable infrared light of its own. This is accomplished by chilling the telescope and detectors to ultra-cold temperatures. The coldest of WISE's detectors will operate at less than 8 Kelvin, or minus 445 degrees Fahrenheit.

The first sky survey will be complete in six months, followed by a second scan of one-half of the sky lasting three months. The mission ends when the frozen hydrogen that keeps the instrument cold evaporates away, an event expected to occur in October 2010.

Preliminary survey images are expected to be released six months later, in April 2011, with the final atlas and catalog coming 11 months later, in March 2012. Selected images will be released to the public beginning in February 2010.

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program, managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu.

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Who Says Being Snowed in Is No Fun? There’s Always Online Adultery | Discoblog

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snowedInIt snowed and snowed and snowed in Britain this week, enough that many people in the country got stuck at home. But some of those people still had a good time. A Web site intended to help restless married people meet one another called IllicitEncounters.com reports a surge in new members over the last few days—more than 2,500 in the last six days—particularly from areas hit hard by the wintry weather, like Hampshire and Berkshire. From Reuters:

“In light of these figures, I’d be interested to see how much work those ‘working from home’ have actually done,” IlicitEncounters.com spokeswoman Sara Hartley said in a statement.

“Perhaps these wives and husbands have just been waiting for a time when they could join, away from the eyes of their work colleagues and, most importantly, their partners…”

Hartley reports that IlicitEncounters.com has taken on extra workers to meet the rush. Apparently, adultery is about the only thing driving job growth anymore.

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Image: flickr / spratmackrel


Welcome to 2010

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So if there is one thing I have learned it is that the future doesn’t just come. It has to be built, dream by dream, gadget by gadget, conversation by conversation.

I got over the disappointment of 2000, the 2000 I had been waiting for since I was about 8. No flying cars, no exclusively silver wardrobes, no weekend trips to space. But what I took away was a resolve to get everyone excited not just about The Future but about being part of the group of people who are building the future. That is who we are. Never forget that. We are the music makers and the dreamers of dreams. We are the architects of a future for our species that inspires us. We build because we can, because it is our favorite game. It is not a better game than the players of the sports games, or the money game or even the video game. It is merely the one that we find the most fun. (So let’s play!)

So it seems the way to win is not only to build the most outrageous, the most exciting, the most impactful, the most inspiring future, but also to make sure that we are having fun doing it. After all that is why we picked this game- it was more fun for us than race car driving, or organic farming, or brain surgery. So the next time you are discouraged by bureaucracy, or frustrated by people who ‘don’t get it’, or at your wits end with your own seeming lack of progress. Remember, we picked this because it was fun and let the challenges and the struggles and the set backs be part of the game, just like you would in Super Mario Brothers, or Zelda, or Guitar Hero. After all if you just went back a level and got the magic sword, you probably could beat the dragon this time…and that would be fun wouldn’t it?

So this 1st week of the new shiny year, think of your life as a video game that you just took out of the package. Play it with vigor, play it with valor and with creativity, but most importantly make sure you are having fun.

I have arrived as a skeptic | Bad Astronomy

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I’ve been a skeptic a long time, maybe 25 years or more now. It didn’t happen all at once, though there have been sudden world-shift moments for me. I’ve been an active skeptic — outspoken, that is, willing to talk about this stuff — for about 10 years now.

But now, finally, I feel that I have arrived at the Holy Grail of skepticism: a goofball antiscience promoter has quote mined me.

Quote mining is a tradition among the antireality crowd: they find something a scientist has said, and then leave out certain words, or edit out the context, making it look like the quote is the opposite of what the actual intention was. Creationists are notorious for this, but others do it as well.

On a bulletin board site called Christian Forums, there is a user who goes by the name "Agonaces of Susa", and this person has the usual antiscience CV stocked with creationism and such, but also, apparently, is a supporter of Velikovsky’s ridiculous and long-ago-debunked claims about astronomy.

For those of you who are happily unaware, Immanuel Velikovsky wrote a series of books decades ago saying that the events in the Bible were literally true, and caused by various astronomical things like planets careening around the solar system like billiard balls, interacting in impossible ways, and doing many impossible things. He’d have been better off just saying those were all miracles of God, but still, a lot of people swallowed his nonsense whole. It’s mostly dead now, with just a few reality-denying holdouts. I wrote a chapter in my first book, Bad Astronomy, dealing with the Velikovsky affair.

In this post on the forums, AoS says this little gem:

You trust the pseudoscientist Phil Plait that, these are his words, “Magnetism is…a joke in astronomy”?

Wow! That makes it seem like astronomers are idiots, doesn’t it? As if we don’t believe in magnetism at all, and that we think it has no role in astophysics. But wait! Look at what he wrote. It has the magic wand of quote mining pseudoscience: the ellipsis! That means he left something out of what I said. And so what was it he left out?

Magnetism is a very important topic in astrophysics (despite some pseudoscientists lying and saying this force is ignored), but it’s not well-understood. It’s fiendishly complex, so much so that it’s a joke in astronomy: when giving a colloquium about an astronomical object’s weird features, saying it’s due to magnetism will always get a chuckle out of an audience. And it’s a standard joke that if you want to derail a talk, ask the speaker about the effects of magnetism. In three dimensions, magnetism is ferociously difficult to model.

I bolded the part that was quote mined, and as you can see, AoS completely took out of context what I was saying. He also misinterprets what I said about Velikovsky. While I did say that Velikovsky was wrong about everything, I meant that he was wrong about his science. Sure, he said Venus would be hot, but the reason he said it would be hot was completely wrong (Velikovsky claimed it was ejected whole from Jupiter, which is about the wrongest wrong you can ever wrongly wrongify). Even if you drop a shotgun you might have one pellet hit the target, but that ain’t skill.

That thread on the forum goes on and on, and AoS is joined by others who appear to willfully misunderstand what I’m saying, or at least pick and choose from what I’ve said to make it look like I’m wrong. That might work for the flock (or the Simpsons), but the rest of the world sees right through them.

But will these people listen? Of course not! Because this is their arguing tactic:

lalalala_beavercanthearyou

Still, it’s an honor to have been quote mined. Thank you, gentlemen, for reminding me just why I fight this fight every single day.


Tiny Gateway EC Series Ultraportables Find Room For An Optical Drive [Ultraportables]

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Ultraportables and netbooks with an optical drive are a rare breed. But Gateway did manage to cram a DVD drive into their 11.6-inch EC14D while keeping the overall weight at about 3.5 pounds.

Beside the optical drive, the EC14D features a 1.3GHz Intel Ultra Low Voltage processor, 320GB HDD, up to 8GB of RAM, HDMI port, webcam, card reader and Windows 7 Home Premium for $630. It's not as cheap and small as a netbook, but I think ultraportables like this one offer a better balance of functionality and portability. Expect to see it on store shelves starting this month.

Gateway EC Series of Ultraportables Gets New Model with Integrated DVD

Stylish and Slim, the Gateway EC14D is an Ultraportable Entertainer; New Gateway EC58 Models Are Sleek and Slim with an Impressive 15.6-inch Display

IRVINE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—The new Gateway EC Series ultraportable notebook PC line is expanded today with new EC14D configurations that include an integrated DVD drive – a feature that is rarely found on compact notebooks with an 11.6-inch widescreen display.

"The integrated DVD drive in such a compact device will be a huge benefit for customers who want the flexibility to enjoy and share different movies, music, photos and more stored on a DVD or CD."

The addition of an integrated DVD drive makes the popular EC14D line even more feature-rich for students, families and anyone on the go. Designed to be the ultimate line for mobile enthusiasts, the new ultraportable line comes in a very portable form factor that weighs only 3.55 pounds so it's easy to take on the go in a book bag or backpack.

"Customers understand how convenient it is to have a notebook PC that is portable enough to take nearly anywhere to stay connected and have fun – and the new EC14 brings a new element of entertainment to customers with the ability to watch DVD movies, play games on CD and DVD and more," said John Nguyen, product marketing manager for Acer America. "The integrated DVD drive in such a compact device will be a huge benefit for customers who want the flexibility to enjoy and share different movies, music, photos and more stored on a DVD or CD."

The 8X Super Multi double-layer DVD drive lets customers read all types of DVD and CD media, so they can enjoy popular movies and games while on the go, as well as have access to music files and photos for downloading and sharing on websites.

Optimized for Mobile Connectivity

Savvy mobile PC users will appreciate that the new Gateway EC14D ultraportable was designed from the ground up to deliver the maximum battery life for on-the-go computing. Available with a 6-cell battery, the Gateway EC14D notebook line provides battery life of up to eight hours, so customers can use it nearly all day to stay in touch.(1) As a result, customers reduce their energy consumption since they go longer without having to recharge.

Poised to take advantage of this extra battery uptime, the Gateway EC14D notebooks come with the latest in connectivity – a reliable and far-reaching 802.11 b/g/N Wi-Fi connection. With it, customers can access hot spots at restaurants, coffee shops, hotels and at airports in order to browse the news, check weather, reply to email and stay connected.

Abundant Features and Technology Packed into a Compact Design

Small business owners and professionals who want to remain productive on-the-go will find the Gateway EC14 ultraportable notebook the ideal choice for them. The large 11.6-inch HD TFT LCD display delivers a 1366x768 resolution for crisp and clear visuals. Its large size relative to the form factor gives plenty of room for viewing multiple applications and documents while also making room for a full-sized keyboard for typing with ease.

Customers can use the built-in webcam to record video and photos and post them to video and photo sharing sites, blogs and social networks like Facebook and YouTube. Customers can also stay in touch via video chat, while enjoying excellent voice quality with reduced background noise through the built-in digital microphone.

Powered by an Intel® Ultra Low Voltage Pentium® Dual Core processor, the Gateway EC14D line is ready to take on web browsing, movie viewing and running everyday applications. Also, the notebooks come with a 320GB hard drive, a multi-in-1 media card reader and 4GB of memory that may be upgraded to 8GB (requires two 4GB modules).

The sleek, modern design captures the essence of mobile computing, while details such as rounded edges, engraved logo and silver trim make the design even more eye-catching. The textured palm rest provides a comfortable hand rest for consumers.

Gateway EC14D models come with Windows 7 Home Premium, which makes mobile computing more reliable and responsive, enhancing the user experience. In addition, the Gateway EC notebook line is Energy Star qualified.

Configurations, Pricing and Availability

The Gateway EC14D will be available later this month at leading retailers starting at a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $629.99.

Gateway EC14D07u:

* Intel® Pentium® ULV Processor SU4100 (1.3GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB)
* Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
* 11.6-inch HD Widescreen Ultrabright LED-backlit TFT LCD (1366 x 768 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio)
* Mobile Intel®GS45 Express Chipset
* Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
* 4096MB DDR2 Dual-Channel 667MHz memory upgradeable to 8GB
* 320GB(2) 5400RPM SATA hard drive
* Integrated 8X Super-Multi DVD player
* Integrated webcam
* Multi-in-1 digital media card reader
* Intel® Wi-Fi Link 1000 802.11b/g/Draft-N WiFi CERTIFIED® featuring MIMO technology
* Gigabit Ethernet LAN
* Three USB 2.0 ports
* HDMI port
* Multi-Gesture Touchpad
* Standard 6-cell Li-ion (5600 mAh) Battery
* 3.55 lbs.
* 11.49" (W) x 1.12" to 1.18" (H) x 8.33" (D)

Full Productivity and Entertainment in a Lightweight Design and Large 15.6-inch Display

In addition to the new Gateway EC14D with integrated DVD drive, Gateway is offering new models in the rest of its EC Series notebook lines. The larger Gateway EC58 notebooks are thin and light enough to take anywhere with a slim one-inch profile, yet they have a large 15.6-inch LED-backlit display that features a 16:9 aspect ratio and 1366 x 768 (WXGA) pixel resolution.

Like all the EC Series notebooks, the EC58 provide outstanding battery life and communications. The high-capacity 6-cell Li-ion battery on these models gives users up to eight hours of uptime,(1) while integrated 802.11b/g Draft-N wireless provides a reliable untethered connection to hotspots and wireless networks. Further enhancing battery life and providing excellent performance, the EC58 notebooks use ultra-low voltage Intel® Core™ 2 Duo and Pentium® Dual-Core processors.

The new Gateway EC58 models will be available later this month at a manufacturer's suggested retail price starting at $649.99.

Gateway Limited Warranty, Service and Support

The Gateway EC Series notebook PCs are backed by a one year warranty.(3) Gateway's commitment to quality and reliability is evident in its award-winning line of PCs as well as in its exceptional service and support programs. In addition to the company's standard limited warranty options, its extensive online support center helps customers maximize their PC investment; it gives them easy access to customer support representatives and information on important issues such as warranties, technical issues and upgrading.(4)

About Gateway

Since its founding in 1985, Irvine, Calif.-based Gateway has been a technology pioneer, offering award-winning products and world-class service to customers worldwide. Gateway is a wholly owned subsidiary of Acer Inc., the world's third-largest PC company. See http://www.gateway.com for more information.

All offers subject to change without notice or obligation and may not be available through all sales channels. Prices listed are manufacturer suggested retail prices and may vary by retail location. Applicable taxes extra. ©2008 Gateway, Inc. Gateway Terms & Conditions of Sale apply. Trademarks used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Gateway, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Intel and Core are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
(1) Your computer's battery life may vary depending on product specifications, computer settings, and applications or features launched. Gateway Power Save button must be enabled to achieve the 8+ hours. All batteries' maximum capacity diminishes with time and use.
(2) Accessible capacity varies; MB = 1 million bytes; GB = 1 billion bytes.
(3) Service methods subject to change without notice or obligation.
(4) Limited warranties and service agreements apply; visit gateway.com or call 1-800-846-2000 for a free copy. Service agreements are issued and performed by third parties. May not be available in all locations. Availability varies. Other conditions apply.

[Engadget]



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