People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than the example of our power.—Bill Clinton

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• Yes it is too so a question for science


• YouTube - Naomi Klein on Obama


• The Satirical Political Report - An Offbeat Look at the Hot-Button Issues of the Day » Hillary Tries to Turn ‘PUMAs’ Into ‘NIKEs’


• Israel settlement surge draws Rice criticism | Reuters


• 'Perfect Pitch' In Humans Far More Prevalent Than Expected


• 14% of doctors believe insurer interference contributed to the death or serious injury of a patient | Corrente


• Uninsured pay $30 billion for health care: study | Top News | Reuters


• Just think: it's important - National - smh.com.au


• iChatImage891131384.jpg 800×406 pixels

"No Way, No How, No McCain"

Hillary was excellent. She played all the right notes, and played well, in the right order. She was right to spend a lot of time dwelling on her campaign, which so many people worked on and fought for. She knows very well that her supporters' emotional investment isn't something she can lightly hand over to someone else.

But she also hit McCain hard and gave the best pro-Obama argument of the convention. Yes, even better than Michelle's message.

People should compare this speech with the "dream will never die" speech by Kennedy at the 1980 convention, or the fight by Reagan people in the '76 GOP convention. HRC could have taken that route but she did just the opposite.— dende blogger
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Bill Maher's thoughts on the convention.

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I can't imagine her giving a better speech. It seemed to me to be pitch perfect.

And the crowd chants fuck fox news.

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• OBAMA’S CONVENTION ACCEPTANCE SPEECH: AN ADVANCE COPY (Or Not)I favor engagement – not war or isolation -- with Iran. Only war could possibly stop them from building nuclear weapons if they choose to. This would be a disastrous course of action. Even a cold war with Iran would fail. We couldn’t stop friends like Pakistan and India, so what gives us the confidence that our hostility will change their minds?

  My administration is not going to war with Iran. It is better to establish a relationship with them. It would be even more important if they develop nuclear weapons.

  Some argue that we must use force and eliminate Iran’s growing nuclear capabilities to support and protect Israel. I ask you: Since when has Israel ever needed defending? The certain knowledge that Israel would use its A bomb against Iran is deterrent enough. Deterrence worked between the former Soviet Union and us during the Cold War, and it seems to be working between Pakistan and India. Let’s leave Iran to decide its own fate.



• Electric cars, Tesla, Volt | SalonI was excited to hear that Chevy plans to debut an electric car in 2010. But then a discussion with a friend got me thinking: If the electricity used to charge up an electric car is created by burning fossil fuels, is it better to stick with a gas-powered car with good fuel economy?

  It's true that most electric cars get their electricity from the grid, which, in many states, is made up mostly of electricity from coal-fired power plants. In areas where the power comes mostly from hydro, wind or solar, your electric car would be virtually emissions-free. (Any electric-car owner can achieve this by installing a solar carport at home.)



• World's oldest joke traced back to 1900 BC - Yahoo! News


• Decoding the Kindle » Usefulness of Kindle NowNow Praised


• Gmail Account Hacking Tool | Hacking Truths


• denialism blog : Mike Leavitt to patients: "F*** you"


• Small Packages Trick People to Eat More - Yahoo! News


• Bad Science » Part two of my Radio 4 show on the placebo effect

And this week's winner is?

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This Week w/George Stephanopoulos

• A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash - NYTimes.comDavid Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote “Evolution” in the rectangle of light on the screen.

  He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.

  “If I do this wrong,” Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, “I’ll lose him.”



• Economist.com


• Writer who photographed HP Lovecraft's headstone ordered to delete her photo, heaped with abuse - Boing Boing


• Marvellous magazine ads of 1904 - Boing Boing


• Hope (tip to pedantsareus)


• O'BIDEN: Nader Hits the "MasterCard VP" Choice

  I think Hillary would have been a better choice, no surprise there, but I think the Biden choice was better than Bayh or Kaine. I had forgotten why I dismissed Biden early on, this article reminded me. I think Obama-Biden will win in November, but it will be way too close for comfort.

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• Michael Moore Dares to Ask: What's So Heroic About Being Shot Down While Bombing Innocent Civilians? | War on Iraq | AlterNet


• The Satirical Political Report - An Offbeat Look at the Hot-Button Issues of the Day » Steve Martin’s ‘Tribute’ to McCain: King Glut


• Toronto Journal - In a Cyclist-Friendly City, a Black Hole for Bikes - NYTimes.com
• blog.talkingphilosophy.com » Green thoughts in the USThere’s some good news from America concerning action on climate change. It turns out that two-thirds of adults in the USA think that their country should do something serious about climate change, regardless of what other countries do, according to a poll by TNS, ABC News, Standford University and Planet Green. It’s good news, because the thought that America should refuse to act until developing countries like China and India take action has been at the centre of US policy for some time. The Bush administration’s spoken reason for refusing to sign up to Kyoto is that the treaty fails to make demands on the developing world. Thrasymachus could not have put it better.


• t r u t h o u t | Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes
• Fish Tale Has DNA Hook - Students Find Bad Labels - NYTimes.com
• Good Math, Bad Math : Astrology and the Olympics


• Uncertain Principles: Science Outreach Through Fiction


• New Algorithm Significantly Boosts Routing Efficiency Of Networks


• Language Log » “Grammar vigilantes” brought to justice


• Language Log » Give me an F…


• The Language Guy: "Retard"


• James Fallows (August 21, 2008) - How to avoid becoming a Kindle nerd-bore (Kindle)

At least that's what the New York Times news alert I just received claims. No message from the Obama campaign on my phone yet.

update text message: Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com

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• Pew Research Center: More Americans Question Religion's Role in PoliticsSome Americans are having a change of heart about mixing religion and politics. A new survey finds a narrow majority of the public saying that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters and not express their views on day-to-day social and political matters. For a decade, majorities of Americans had voiced support for religious institutions speaking out on such issues.
  
  


• Magpies are no bird-brains, mirror test shows | Science | ReutersMagpies can recognize themselves in a mirror, highlighting the mental skills of some birds and confounding the notion that self-awareness is the exclusive preserve of humans and a few higher mammals.


• Crossword, sudoku plague threatens America! (note: I'm a puzzle person)Try this experiment at a dinner party (if you want to ruin it). Mention a frequent obsession of puzzle people, the NPR "news quiz" show, Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! (Or, as I call it, "Wait Wait ... Please Kill Me!") About half the attendees will exhibit violent, often physical reactions ranging from cringing to shuddering. Meanwhile, the other half will have sublime self-satisfied smiles. They sometimes get the answers before the guests! The show is so mentally stimulating!

  What always gets to me is the self-congratulatory assumption on the part of puzzle people that their addiction to the useless habit somehow proves they are smarter or more literate than the rest of us. Need I suggest that those who spend time doing crossword puzzles (or sudoku)—uselessly filling empty boxes (a metaphor for some emptiness in their lives?)—could be doing something else that involves words and letters? It's called reading.



• Nader predicts Obama to pick Clinton - John F. Harris - Politico.com


• t r u t h o u t | Progressives and Obama: A Clash of NarrativesBut supporting one candidate - clearly preferable to the Republican - should not require a lack of candor about the preferred candidate's defects. And progressive interests are not advanced by claiming, against the evidence, that it doesn't really matter which candidate wins.


• 'Offensive' word to be removed from Jacqueline Wilson book | Books | guardian.co.uk


• The decay of serious journalism and Rachel Maddow's new show - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com


• Authors admit falsehoods in Rushdie memoir | Books | guardian.co.uk

  Does this mean we can't call him Scruffy?



• Could We Lose Weight by Injecting Fat into Our Bellies?: Scientific American


• Editorials & Opinion | Doctor's office no place for bigotry | Seattle Times Newspaper (good news)


• Bad Science » My Placebo programme on BBC Radio 4


• Great Pictures of Readers
  
  

• AC Grayling: The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister | Comment is free | The GuardianWhen Labour cabinet members were asked about their religious allegiances last December, following Tony Blair's official conversion to Roman Catholicism, it turned out that more than half of them are not believers. The least equivocal about their atheism were the health secretary, Alan Johnson, and foreign secretary David Miliband.

  The fact that Miliband is an atheist is a matter of special interest given the likelihood that he may one day, and perhaps soon, occupy No 10. In our present uncomfortable climate of quarrels between pushy religionists and resisting secularists - or attack-dog secularists and defensive religionists: which side you are on determines how you see it - there are many reasons why it would be a great advantage to everyone to have an atheist prime minister.



• Catholic church decides sluts deserve cancer


• Television - Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America? - NYTimes.com


• Lessig on McCain’s Internet Technology Position » Listics


• Some Friendly Advice For Obama » Mad Kane's Political Madness


• I'm Not Praying
  Unlike Julie Burchill, after centuries of female oppression in the name of religion, I know God won't deliver women's rights
  Judging by the response to her Comment is free piece last week, I'm obviously not the only one who was stunned by Julie Burchill's assertion that in her latest incarnation as a "Christian Zionist, a Christian feminist, and a Christian socialist," she now believes "literally, in the God of the Old Testament". As dozens of posters pointed out, the term "Christian feminist" is an oxymoron; it's a glaring contradiction in terms on a par with "compassionate conservative" and "pro-life anti-abortionist".(tip to James)
  


• Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain: Scientific AmericanMany scientists and philosophers are convinced that free will doesn’t exist at all. According to these skeptics, everything that happens is determined by what happened before—our actions are inevitable consequences of the events leading up to the action—and this fact makes it impossible for anyone to do anything that is truly free. This kind of anti-free will stance stretches back to 18th century philosophy, but the idea has recently been getting much more exposure through popular science books and magazine articles. Should we worry? If people come to believe that they don’t have free will, what will the consequences be for moral responsibility?
  


• MyDD :: Obama Launches Character Attack Against McCain...Finally


• Lawsuit Seeks EPA Pesticide Data | CommonDreams.org


• US: Wanted: people to sign books for lazy authors | World news | The Guardian


• False Memories Affect Behavior
• Kathleen Parker - Pastor Rick's Test - washingtonpost.comAt the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong.(tip to Peter)


• Dogs have a sense of right and wrong - Telegraph


• Fallacy Files Weblog Archive: August, 2008
  
  "Naturally Sweetened with Sugar"
  
  


• BAGnewsNotes: Is Bush Hitting The Sauce ... And Does The Distinction Really Matter At This Point?


• George W. Bush: Bush Looking Drunk At The Olympics


• The Washington MonthlyTHE AMAZING RISE OF HIGH SCHOOL MATH


• Think Progress » Petraeus draws criticism for saying Christian book ‘should be in every rucksack.’


• What If the Kindle Succeeds? | Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Scientists Create Blood From Stem Cells | Wired Science from Wired.comScientists have used embryonic stem cells to generate blood -- a feat that could eventually lead to endless supplies of type O-negative blood, a rare blood type prized by doctors for its versatility.

  "We literally generated whole tubes in the lab, from scratch," said Robert Lanza, chief science officer at Advanced Cell Technologies.

  People usually require blood transfusions that match their own blood type: A mismatch can be fatal. Type O-negative can be safely transferred into anyone, but is only possessed by about 7 percent of the population, leaving supplies perpetually short.

  The new technique, devised by Lanza and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic and University of Illinois, is still preliminary. Its safety hasn't yet been proved in animals, much less humans.



• A Strangely Elegant, Convex-shaped Writing Machine—By Wyatt Mason (Harper's Magazine)In its name is the essay’s difference: where other literary modes–novel, poem, play–succeed or fail, the essay, by definition, tries. Too short to be definitive on any topic, the essay can’t manage the comprehensive. It aspires to adequacy, fluency. An essay can argue well, to be sure, but usually argues best for itself and for it’s writer’s best self. “I am myself the matter of my own book,” the namer of the essay said at the beginning of his book of 107 attempts, better and worse, at defining the form.
• Basics - The Furcifer Labordi Chameleon Has a Short Life and an Interesting Life History - NYTimes.comSure, Michael Phelps may have snapped a string of Olympic records like so many Rice Krispies in milk, but what was this child of Poseidon up against, anyway? Elite human athletes from 250 countries.

  A small, speckled, asparagus-green chameleon of Madagascar, by contrast, holds a world speed record among just about all of the nearly 30,000 different animals equipped with four limbs and a backbone.



• Click to translate - The Boston GlobeMillions of people are deciphering vintage texts without knowing it - and forging a new path for computing.


• McCain staffer slams Dungeons and Dragons players - Boing Boing


• Editorial - Risking the Galápagos - Editorial - NYTimes.comIt’s hard to imagine an ecosystem better protected by nature — and man — than the Galápagos Islands. They lie some 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Most of the land is included in a national park, and the waters surrounding the islands form one of the largest marine protected areas in the world. The Galápagos Islands have often been portrayed as an evolutionary laboratory, which is how Darwin came to understand them after stopping there in 1835. But in recent years, the islands have become a laboratory for conservation — an ongoing experiment in how to preserve a nearly intact ecosystem while still making it available to tourists.