I hope the Democrats give up on this ridiculous idea of bipartisanship soon – all it leads to is the Republicans getting what they want while the Democrats take the flak for their bad ideas.
Teaching teenagers about healthy relationships reduces teen pregnancy. (via OPT) Unfortunately, about the only people who get a decent sex education in the US grow up on a farm.
Thamnolia vermicularis (whiteworm lichen) on Botany Photo of the Day
Obama gives the go-ahead for offshore drilling, reneging on his campaign promise in a bid to get the Republicans to vote for climate change legislation. First of all, a potential three years of oil is NOT worth that much environmental damage. But perhaps more importantly, shouldn’t you wait until you’ve got the votes to hand over the prize?
Girls are outperforming boys in school and some white guys think we should change the system because of it. Lindsay Beyerstein has a spot on analysis of the situation: “Maybe boys are acting out and underperforming because they’ve been taught from an early age that the world should change to suit them.”
A fantastic series of lectures from a Berkeley Biological Anthropology course taught by Terrence Deacon is available online (you can also get it through iTunesU). I’ve been listening to it on my walk to school in the mornings.
Nike resigned from the board of the Chamber of Commerce in protest of the chamber’s position on climate change. Other companies flat out resigned their memberships. It’s good to see companies recognizing climate change is going to start affecting their profits.
I feel like the appropriate punishment for these sorts of crimes would be to deny them modern medical care.
Second wave feminism has a bad reputation, but without it, women would still be writing songs like this:
A new spider species was recently discovered and named after David Bowie.
Heteropoda davidbowie
Warming can fundamentally change interactions in an ecosystem. This means that many of our predictions about what’s going to happen to ecosystems with climate change could be very, very wrong.
The Finance Committee killed the public option this week and then approved money for abstinence only sex-ed, which is the proven best way to up teen pregnancy and std rates. I’d like to point out that democrats Lincoln, Conrad, and Baucus voted down the public option. I suggest letting them know how you feel about their vote, especially if you come from Arkansas, Montana, or North Dakota.
Laurent is finally blogging again – I adore his silly botany posts. Here’s a great one about how purple toothwort protects its nectar.
It’s hard to imagine a good reason why, in these tight economic times, Congress would intentionally flush taxpayer dollars down the drain by spending them on disproven, ineffective abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. We are floored that they continue to ignore study after study, and the consensus of the public health community, all concluding that these programs censor vital health care information, teach gender stereotypes, discriminate against lesbian and gay teens, and in some cases promote religion in the classroom in violation of the Constitution.” (via Feministing)
A name is a label, and as soon as there is a label, the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing, and instead of living by a theme of ideas, people begin dying for labels… and the last thing the world needs is another religion. — Richard Bach
Chatter