3 topics from sci-blogs

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: The Non-Apology Apology Strikes Again:

One of the most absurd aspects of our culture these days is the non-apology apology. Here's a perfect example of one. A member of the Florida state Republican committee sent out an email to 8 people that said this:

From: Carol Carter Friday, January 30, 9:30 AM Subject: FW: Amazing!

I'm confused

How can 2,000,000 blacks get into Washington, DC in 1 day in sub zero temps when 200,000 couldn't get out of New Orleans in 85 degree temps with four days notice?

Carol Carter

Crude. Stupid. Racist. Yep, she's 3 for 3. Someone it was mailed to was rightly offended by it and sent it along to someone who apparently had some authority, which led to this classic non-apology:

From: Carol Carter January 30, 5:54 PM Subject: Earlier e-mail

I have been asked to send this apology for my earlier e-mail. I am sorry that it was received in a negative manner. I do hope that we are going to be allowed to keep our sense of humor.

As you can now see, it went to very few people. I did add Todd Marks in this apology, as he is in the mix now. I am also sorry to learn that some of these persons are not real team players. There really was no reason for this to go beyond those that I e-mailed (8 people). This was not an e-mail blast as I do not have that capability.

Carol

There is nothing even remotely resembling an apology here. Sure, she says "I am sorry" but the only thing she's sorry for is that it was received badly, not that it deserved to be so received. Everything after that is excuses, not remorse.

Mike the Mad Biologist : State Aid Is as 'Shovel Ready' as It Gets...:

...so why did the Blue Dog Democrats and conservative Republicans cut it? According to the latest about the Recovery and Reinvestment Act (funny how everyone's forgetting about the reinvestment part), the Blue Dogs and 'moderate' Republicans cut in half the proposed funds to supplement state budgets. This defeats the whole purpose of a stimulus.

Hardly a day goes by in any state where there aren't newspaper stories about state and local budget cuts. For the most part, these aren't scaling back future projects, but cuts in ongoing, existing projects, such as education. Yet the Blue Dogs fail to recognize that increasing spending at the federal level, if offset by cuts at the state and local levels, doesn't do anything. It's very simple: spending is stimulus.

What's all the more ridiculous is that giving the states money to rescind budget cuts is about as 'shovel ready' as can be: you're simply restoring funding to existing levels. There's no waiting to hire people, or waiting for projects to begin (e.g., construction). All that needs to happen is to not lay people off, not freeze salaries, and not cancel ongoing contracts with private businesses.

In Boston, for instance, all municipal employees will have a pay freeze (that'll help stimulate the economy), and the school budget is still $32 million in the hole*, which means that local businesses, such as repairmen, won't get contracts.

[...]

And it's not just Nevada or Boston that are having to lay off teachers.

Viriginia is another of those states that have plenty of projects already started but won't be finished thanks to budget cuts.  I drive past 3 of them on 28 every morning, and then there's the whole Dulles Rail project that's been effectively derailed.

Respectful Insolence: When the economy tanks, psychics prosper:

I should have seen this one coming.

After all, the economy's been in the crapper for several months now. Things are bad and getting worse, with the bottom not yet in sight. So who could prosper in this environment, except for repo men and liquor stores?

Psychics, of course:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The housing crisis will deepen, the country could fall into a depression and laid-off workers may need to start their own business.

New York psychic Roxanne Usleman says the bad economy had been good for her business.

[...]

On the other hand, given how badly these guys' decisions have turned out and how the Wall Street class, through their shortsightedness and greed have managed to plunge the world into the worst recession since World War II, the wag in me can't resist wondering if their following the advice of a psychic could be any worse. I do, however, have to acknowledge one person quoted in the story as an early frontrunner for the award of Understatement of the Year:

Financial adviser Ryan Mack says adding the cost of a psychic reading into an already stretched budget is not a good investment.

"Regardless of what the stars say, regardless of what the map says in terms of -- if Pluto is lined up with Mars," says Mack. "You have the ability within yourself to save, to plan and to be diligent."

Yep. Of course, I can't resist asking: If Usleman is such a good psychic, why didn't she see the economic disaster we find ourselves in coming?

crazy local news highlights...

1. the VA House actually passed the smoking in restaurants ban, carried mostly by northern virginia and hampton roads area.  the south, the west, and richmond all voted no.  We'll see how the Senate does, since that's supposed to equalize the regions a bit more and weaken NoVA's influence.
2. the senate passed a ban on teenagers driving with cell phones.  the AP doesn't say whether or not hands-free is permitted.
   
3. Gee, Marion Barry's in legal trouble again over his taxes, where he's accused of not filing his taxes for several more years after his last probation agreement required him to do so.  unrepentant bastard, it seems, and that's what jail is for.
4. more metro construction on v-day weekend - check wtop for details if your plans including heading into town
   
5. MD is considering raising the alcohol tax.  i say go for it.  in this economy, nobody would even try to notice.
6. Loudoun's talking layoffs for staff
7. fairfax is still mulling the idea of moving the high school start time.  i'm of mixed minds here
• i'm one of those whose 8am classes were consistently poorer performing than any other, BUT
• I'm also a band guy who knows that marching band REALLY needs the time after school to practice and will lose it

and in other news...

...i have now crossed the line into being utterly sick of Octuplet Mom.

You know, Miss "I've no money and no husband but that'll make me a better mom", the money from these cheap interviews the networks are giving you now is going to run out, and nobody's going to offer you a reality tv show...

oh.  wait a minute.  they probably will...

i'm gonna go back into hiding from the tv now.

btw, you know this kinda crap is new when Octuplet and Septuplet are NOT in my spell-check dictionary, even though Sextuplet and Quintuplet are (and oddly, were offered as alternative spellings to those other two...).

you pay for it, THEY own it, if this idiot has his way...

Conyers reintroduces bill to kill NIH Public Access Policy:

John Conyers (D-MI) has reintroduced his publisher-backed “Fair Copyright Act” which would effectively end the NIH Public Access Policy by eliminating the government’s right to impose conditions on grants that would give the government the right to distribute works arising from federally funded research.

As many have pointed out, the whole premise of the bill is absurd. Publishers are arguing that the NIH has taken their copyright. But, of course, if that were true, they would already have protection under federal copyright law, and they would be suing the government. Instead, they are pushing legislation that would actually remove the governments right to distribute work it funds, thereby clearly demonstrating that they believe the government’s action is perfectly legal under copyright law.

What is particularly galling is that Conyers held hearings on this bill last year, in which a LOT of important issues were raised about the bill, and there were many on the committee who were skeptical about it. So, what does Conyers do with all that useful feedback? He ignores it, and introduces exactly the same bill in the new Congress. One hopes such an ill-conceived piece of public policy would have no hope when Congress has many more important things on its hands, but one never knows. Let’s hope it dies in committee. But just to be safe, let the members know how you feel.

Why Darwin?

Pharyngula: Darwin is already dead, and we know it:

Respect for Darwin is as much for the disciplined and scientific way he addressed the problem as it is for the discovery itself. When we celebrate Darwin, we are not cheering for a man who got lucky one day, but for someone who represents many of what we consider scientific virtues: curiousity, rigor, discipline, meticulous observation, experiment, and intellectual courage.

Pharyngula: Darwin is already dead, and we know it:

Safina's third complaint is that we've discovered so much more since Darwin, that "Almost everything we understand about evolution came after Darwin, not from him". This is trivially obvious. We could say similar things about Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Dalton, Lavoisier, Dalton, Mendel, any scientist of the past you can name. Mendel, for example, is a fellow I spend a week discussin in my genetics course to explain the simplistic basics…and then I spend the rest of the semester explaining that all of his postulates are so loaded with exceptions that they are often completely false in many real-world genetic situations. Yet at the same time his principles represent a powerful starting point for deciphering the complexities of genetics. Shall we throw Mendel out of the history books because 143 years of progress have reduced his seminal work to a relatively tiny blip in the volumes of evidence since?

One could say the same about any number of topics that are introduced in the younger grades, including

• chemistry - "yellow and blue make green? no, yellow and blue make little white pills via colloid chemistry"
• math - 1+1=2 is fine, but try irrational numbers, imaginary numbers, and the infinite varieties of infinity out there, nevermind proving things without numbers at all
  
• physics - newton is easily outclassed by the greater einstein, but you can't understand einstein without knowing where in newton it all came from (and why it looks like newton was right in slow speeds here on earth)
  
  
• and hell, the English language!  we learn a handful of phonics and spelling rules in the first 2 grades, and then spend an entire lifetime learning the exceptions to them...and still never get it right.  The great curse of the English language: ə

It is a very sad comment on our society that so many people think either

1. that the "basics" we learn in the early grades is enough for any topic and we can restrict our children from learning more advanced stuff just because we can't deal with it (or with made up philosophical consequences when the knowledge is misapplied beyond its realm)
2. that some think we should throw the basics out and go straight to the accurate detailed truth of it all when the child has no mental capacity or frame of reference for understanding any of it.

education has worked for centuries since the enlightenment.  why do so many insist on screwing it up, in either direction, just because they themselves became closed-minded gits?

Warner should f'in' know better...

Jim Hilll : “Incredibles” sequel is stalled until Bird can get “1906” off the ground:

Based on James Dalessandro’s 2004 best seller, “1906” is nothing if not ambitious. It’s this romantic mystery set in and around San Francisco just prior to the earthquake & fire that basically flattened Baghdad-by-the-Bay back in 1906. And – yes – Brad wants to recreate all of that carnage as part of his big screen epic.

The only problem is … A movie of this size & scale is going to be hugely expensive. Which is why Warner Bros. and Disney / Pixar are teaming up to co-produce “1906.” Which means that – instead of having to please just one studio head (i.e. John Lasseter at Pixar Animation Studios) – Bird (who is not only directing “1906” but also rewriting the screenplay that Dalessandro himself wrote for this project) has to make three separate sets of Suits happy before production can then begin on his film. This is why – even though Brad originally signed his “1906” contract back in March of last year – this project still doesn’t have a start date.

[...]

And while the folks at Warners Bros. and Disney / Pixar clearly saw “1906” ‘s enormous box office potential (Virtually every Studio official that I spoke with while researching today’s story had the exact same thing to say. That – if Brad can actually deliver the goods here, deliver a truly romantic disaster film – this could be “Titanic” all over again. The sort of movie that makes billions of dollars worldwide) ... But given that Bird had never directed a live-action film before. Never mind a motion picture of this size … Even with three separate companies coming together to shoulder “1906” ‘s projected $200-million-plus price tag, the financial risks involved here were deemed to be too high.

[...]

So wish Brad Bird luck, folks. Because today’s Hollywood likes safe, pre-sold properties like the Smurfs, Yogi Bear and Tom & Jerry. Even Walt Disney Pictures’ big release for next month – “Race to Witch Mountain” -- falls into this same category. That sort of movie where the Studio isn’t forced to waste any of its marketing money on trying to explain what this picture is actually about. That sort of film where the audience walks into the theater already knowing what they’re going to see.

Which (you’d think) would work in “1906” ‘s favor. After all, this would be the big screen version of a best-selling book. A romantic movie mystery set in and around one of America’s greatest tragedies.

The only problem is … The market research that Warner Bros. and Disney officials have done to date suggest that the 15-to-25-year-olds that the Studios will be heavily relying on to come out and support this $200-million-plus co-production reportedly have little or no knowledge of the Great San Francisco Earthquake. That – to be blunt – this historic tragedy just doesn’t have that same sort of resonance / name recognition with young adults that the sinking of the Titanic enjoys.

Warner brothers, after LotR and other big hits, should know better.  A summer blockbuster makes a decent run by getting the 15-25 year olds to show up once each, maybe twice (and even Twilight couldn't manage that in spite of the opening week hype-up).  That's what gets X-Men, Spiderman, Matrix, Shrek, and the current Batman going as high as they do.  But it also is the reason they get no higher.

To get the BIG hit, the surprise know one could have forseen, takes something more.  It takes getting that same 15-25 audience to show up at least once, AND it takes getting even more 25-45 year olds to show up than 15-25ers.  THAT is what it took for Lord of the Rings, Titanic, Pirates 1, Superman 1, Batman 1, ET, Raiders, and the original Star Wars and Star Trek films.

These films treated their audiences differently from just being numbers of popcorn boxes sold.  They gave the audience something to think about and talk about and, God forbid, actually got parents talking to their teenage children about the movies and sharing the experiences of the ride, the books, or real history, much as the great historical epics and golden musicals of the past did.  And much as Pixar has overwhelmingly managed to do for all ages.  They close the age and generation gap.

So dammit, Warner, get your heads out of your asses, give Bird the money, and get the hell out of the way.  Let Lassiter do his job, which he's done better than anybody else in history: keep his team on track to making a great movie that appeals to everybody.  There's a way to close the age gap and get us old farts in to the theaters, and Lassiter and his team know what it is, even if you don't believe them.