Cretin of the moment

The eternally hideous Ann Coulter, for reasons PZ Myers goes into gory detail about at the provided link.

Cretin of the moment

Dr, Mehmet Oz, who seems to be making a habit of this. From the Respectful Insolence piece:

In actuality, what's going on here, I think, is more likely to be pure hubris. Dr. Oz has become so enamored with himself and his image as the iconoclast bucking the medical system, seeing beyond "Western medicine," and being just so much more damned smart than any other doctor that it never occurred to him that he could be fooled by a psychic scammer just as easily as anyone else. Add to that his need to fill the insatiable maw of his TV show with new topics and new guests, coupled with the demands of his audience, who are clearly very much into this sort of thing, and it becomes easy for him to justify having a guest like John Edward as both evidence of his intelligence and open-mindedness and giving the people what they want.

If anything, Oz deserves an extra dose of COTM derision for pulling the odious John Edward out of whatever hole he's been hiding in after the failure of Crossing Over and giving him the exact sort of platform he doesn't deserve: "medical" legitimacy. You just can't keep a career publicity-hungry kook down, I suppose.  

Tennessee: Dunn's Folly continues its march

The antievolution Tennessee House Bill 368 made it out of subcommittee recently, and (with one important exception among the yea votes) the vote was split predictably down party lines.

If you're reading this in Tennessee and want to show up at the full House Education Committee in order to become appropriate irate, contact info is included on the NCSE link I cited.

Japan: will we bother to learn a lesson from it?

Josh Rosenau points out that the most serious lesson that can be learned from the Japanese tragedy of the last few days is not what's gone wrong, but what's gone right:

The difference is that Japan has made a commitment to earthquake-safe buildings, and had the money to carry out that commitment. Haiti lacked the money to implement strict construction standards and a government capable of compelling compliance. Builders and government regulators in the United States have the power and the resources to ensure Japanese standards of construction apply here, but my sense from living in California for 3 years is that we may lack the commitment needed to do this.

He also points out that a major roadblock is in the way, and - as usual - it has everything to do with the current national political climate du jour:

"But Josh," I hear you thinking, "we haven't got a spare $140 billion for the bridges, let alone the money for building retrofits." Indeed, the focus in Congress right now is on cutting government spending, a goal shared by state legislatures. And that's a problem, because government spending, especially job-creating spending like I'm talking about here, is exactly what we need to get out of this economic crisis. And borrowing to build and repair infrastructure is probably the smartest sort of borrowing we could do. It's what most people and businesses do when they buy a home or an office or a factory. It makes sense, because the benefit of the purchase will persist for years to come, and it makes sense to spread the cost of the purchase across the time while it serves its purpose. If I'm to pass a debt on to my grandchildren, I'd like to also let them see what that money bought. I'd be proud to tell my grandkids that they're helping pay for the bridge we're driving across decades from now, and I'd hope they'll be proud of such things, too.

Politicians being politicians, though...

I don't think I really have to finish the above sentence, unfortunately. The conclusion is already buried in the premises. 

DDoS attack on ScienceBlogs originating from "Harun Yahya" sympathizers?

Although I don't have a shred of proof that the most fanatical simultaneous purveyors of creationist and antisemitic agit-prop in the Muslim world actually have anything to do with it. it seems to me that some of the information from the people who run the SB site (repeated by Orac) seems a bit...well...suspect:

Let me apologize again for the problems that many of you and your readers are experiencing. The attack is ongoing, originating from Turkey and Qatar, and until it stops, Rackspace must block IP ranges in order for the site to be accessible to anyone. 

This smells more than a bit fishy, seeing as a description of the Yahya organization's harassment tactics comes exceedingly close to instantly evoking the word "cult-like":

But with so many ideas taken up and discarded, and their leader facing jail, might the group be nearing exhaustion? True, the Science Research Foundation and the followers have initiated thousands of court cases. Three hundred alone were brought against the model and one-time sympathiser Ebru Simsek, who spoke out against Oktar after she refused his advances, and a barrage of faked naked photos of her were made public. Oktar’s followers have shot thousands of compromising videos of everyone who has come into intimate contact with the group. They have intimidated prosecutors, judges and lawyers with endless streams of complaints and faxed denunciations and printed libellous advertisements in the Islamist media, defaming their critics. They have been especially effective on the internet, setting up numerous websites to denounce their enemies, while using the Turkish courts to silence them – the Dawkins site is just one of dozens they have had banned. “They may be only a few hundred people,” one lawyer told me, “but the damage they have inflicted is considerable. Damage to the families, to the judicial system, and to Turkish politics.”

If this isn't the fault of "Yahya" or his sympathizers, someone's engaging in an admirable frame-up.

Cretin of the moment

Florida state Senator Stephen R. Wise (R-5th), for introducing yet another identikit anti-evolution bill (Senate Bill 1854) in yet another state legislature. Also, expect him to be a repeat performer as a legislative circus seal since he also introduced SB 2396 back in February 2009.