Here's an excellent argument for NASA to get out of the way.

Ahhhhh......Fall is in the air! And so is circumcision.

From the Meming of Life:

It was originally a religious ceremony, a (quite strange, if you think about it) symbol of faithfulness to God. But interestingly, circumcision was not common outside of Jewish and Muslim practice until the 1890s, when a few religious enthusiasts, including the strange character JH Kellogg, recommended it as a cure for “masturbatory insanity.” Kellogg spent much of his professional effort combating the sexual impulse and helping others to do the same, claiming a plague of masturbation-related deaths in which “a victim literally dies by his own hand” and offering circumcision as a vital defense. “Neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as this pernicious habit,” warned a Dr. Alan Clarke (referring to masturbation, not circumcision).

Given these jeremiads by well-titled professionals, the attitudes of American parents in the 1890s turned overnight from horror at the barbarity of this “un-Christian” practice to immediate conviction that it would save their boys from short and insane lives. It was even reverse-engineered as a symbol of Christian fidelity and membership in the church.

(Isn’t it a relief that we’ve left this kind of mass gullibility so very far behind?)

The supposed health benefits and other red herrings were created after the fact, in the early 20th century, to undergird sexual repression with a firm foundation of pseudoscience.

More here.

The answer is here.

An excellent article about my home town from Pop Sci that I just couldn't resist.
From PopSci.com:

This spring the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation released the draft environmental impact statement for the Fresh Kills Park Project, their plan to turn the Fresh Kills landfill—hitherto best known as a smelly Staten Island mountain—into a world class public park. The statement will be discussed at an open public hearing on September 4th, 2008, and work begins next year on the project's first small section—wrapping around the landfill's north mound and reaching down to the waterfront. This sliver should be finished within a few years, though the park in its entirety is expected to take around 30 years to complete, with $198 million in initial funding, but much more needed along the line.

Is climate change, or global warming or whatever you want to call it, real?
I think that the cyclical nature of weather and climate make global "warming" inevitable. But, I also think that the notion that humanity is to blame for climate change is simplistic and for the most part untested.

I will gladly jump on the global warming band wagon if it can be proven (objectively) with out a shadow of a doubt that global warming is caused by humans.

But here's the rub; I don't want to be forced at figurative gun point to blindly accept that global warming is: a) a crisis of immense magnitude, and b) caused solely by human activity. It goes against the very principles of persuasion and scientific observation.

With that said here's an interesting piece by Charles Krauthammer over @ Townhall.com


*Note: The story I've linked to is a little old but points out some good points about environmentalism and it's parallels to communism.

I just finished reading Little Brother by BoingBoing.net's very own Cory Doctorow, and I must say I was floored by the by the scope of this "young adult" book.

This is some of the best near-future sci-fi I've read in a very long time. The political tone of the book and the ideas about how technology enriches the lives of those who use it and transparency in government are extremely thought provoking.

I would recommend to anyone, even those over 25 (wink,wink), to go out right now and buy the book.

Believe me, you will not be disappointed.

Would vegetarians refuse to eat meat if that meat came from a test tube rather than from a dead cow? Apparently not.

From wired.com:

In a measure to protect animals by any means necessary, PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the first scientist who can produce lab-grown meat in bulk.

For me, this is way better than the Ansari X Prize: Why visit space when you can just as easily take a trip to heaven with some cantaloupe wrapped in high-tech prosciutto? As a vegetarian and a biological scientist, I'm thrilled by yesterday's announcement and eager to start loading my plate with tissue-engineered bacon.

More here.

Mmmmmmm.......Test tube bacon.........

And, just for the record, I think PETA sucks. They use brute force and bullying to get their point across instead of using logic and persuasion to foster real debate.

From Cosmos:

Nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gases, but it has many drawbacks. Now a radical new technology based on thorium promises what uranium never delivered: abundant, safe and clean energy - and a way to burn up old radioactive waste.

More here.

Now there are no excuses to fear and/or hate nuclear energy, you eco-nuts, i mean environmentalists.

More from TED here.

More from TED here.

Via Bill Blogins @ Wicked Theory (via TED)

For those of you who are sick and tired of having a singular view of global warming (or climate change I think it's now called) shoved down your throat; There is an excellent website called Climate Debate Daily that I think you would all enjoy.

Good day and safe surfing.

Nothing, aside from the panic that most older adults have that the Internet is turning their brains into gray goo.

From Salon.com:

The other week was only the latest takedown of what has become a fashionable segment of the population to bash: the American teenager. A phone (land line!) survey of 1,200 17-year-olds, conducted by the research organization Common Core and released Feb. 26, found our young people to be living in "stunning ignorance" of history and literature.

This furthered the report that the National Endowment for the Arts came out with at the end of 2007, lamenting "the diminished role of voluntary reading in American life," particularly among 13-to-17-year-olds, and Doris Lessing's condemnation, in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature, of "a fragmenting culture" in which "young men and women ... have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers."

More here.

From CrunchGear:

Remember the X-ray technology from Total Recall? A British company has developed what it calls “ThruVision” — a similar technology that “uses what it calls ‘passive imaging technology’ to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays — known as Terahertz or T-rays — that they emit,” according to Reuters. “Depending on the material, the signature of the wave is different, so that explosives can be distinguished from a block of clay and cocaine is different from a bag of flour.”

More here.

From People of the Web:

Walter Lewin is not merely dangling at the bottom of a 15-foot pendulum. He is swinging high and wide, his rapt audience of 300 counting off each cycle.

At 71, he's likely missed his window for a shot at Cirque du Soleil, but the Netherlands-born MIT physics professor seems happy with his own high wire act -- revealing to students, in the most unorthodox ways, the beauty of science.

More here.

We have a new weekly segment here @ the Professor Politico Show which will focus on one subject each episode.

And here's our first subject:

Global Warming/Climate Change

From Cosmic Variance:

The widely accepted Global Warming Theory, is a pseudo science and must be abandoned. Here I explain what it is and why it is totally wrong.

The Global Warming Theory (GWT) believes that human activity considerably increased the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. As a result it leads to considerable warming up of the arth's surface. As a consequence it could leads to the melting of polar ice and cause raising sea level, and other catastrophies that would eventually render the planet earth un-inhabitable to human. Some GWT doomers even believe that we have passed a point of no return. i.e., the global warming cause by human is already so high it releases the methane gas frozen in the polar ice, and methane, being a more effective green house gas, causes more global warming, and it leads to to more green house gas being release and so it leads to run off global warming that destroys all life on earth.

More here.

And from Biology Cabinet:

Global Warming is not pseudoscience because it has always occurred cyclically in nature since the Earth was formed. However, the idea of an anthropogenic global warming is a pseudoscience. There is not convincing scientific support that human discharge of CO2, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the projected future, cause disastrous warming of the Earth's atmosphere and disturbance or change of the Earth's climate. There is considerable evidence that the current warming is entirely natural and obeys the periodical changes in the planetary system. The attribution of global warming to the CO2 generated from human activity is a fallacy.

More here.

Remember kids believe half of what you read and none of what you hear, especially when it comes to the mainstream media.

From MetaFilter.com:

Would you like a latte while I print that up for you? The Espresso Book Machine that was in the New York Public Library has just moved to the Northshire Bookstore in Vermont. The beta versions of this portable book-making machine are pumping out paperbacks around a book a minute at the Open Content Alliance, The Library of Alexandria, The New Orleans Public Library, and the University of Alberta. The mass produced commercial version of the machine is scheduled to roll off the assembly line within the year and will be priced between $50,000 and $20,000. Combined with one of these, publishing as we know it may never be the same.

From Wired.com:

Fred Krupp is not your typical tree hugger. Chided by radicals for wooing corporate partners, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund is revered in Silicon Valley for championing a capitalist approach to clean energy. His new book, Earth: The Sequel (with Miriam Horn), spotlights the most promising climate solutions, from nanotech to flying windmills. Wired asked Krupp how these technologies can compete.

More here.

From Wired's Threat Level Blog:

A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he worked for the carrier in late 2003.

"What I thought was alarming is how this carrier ended up essentially allowing a third party outside their organization to have unfettered access to their environment," Babak Pasdar, now CEO of New York-based Bat Blue told THREAT LEVEL. "I wanted to put some access controls around it; they vehemently denied it. And when I wanted to put some logging around it, they denied that."

More here and here. (via boingboing.net and wired.com)