Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that it loses itself early and does not find itself any more. --Mark Twain
I spent the last few days at the 5th Netroots Nation, in Las Vegas. As always, the conference has been a whirlwind of political geekery and good, clean fun. This year featured a video address by the President, and Q&A sessions with the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate, not to mention two panels on the use of snark in politics.
My obligations here finished early. I'd been involved with three panel submissions, of which two were approved: one about politicized sciences and the other on politicized education. My colleague Steve Newton took over on the latter panel, organized by Texas Freedom Network and featuring two candidates for Texas State Board of Education as well as TFN's Dan Quinn and the incomparably Michael Bérubé. Both panels went off on Thursday, leaving the rest of the meeting to schmooze.
My panel was the first session of the conference, and featured DailyKos's DemfromCT, aka Greg Dworkin, a doctor who has spent the last few years trying to increase public preparedness around pandemic flu as well as vaccination more generally. He's got a nice post summarizing his talk up at DailyKos, connecting flu preparedness, the importance of the internet and bloggers in reaching out to the public, and the whooping cough epidemic in California being driven by anti-science anti-vaccine beliefs. I spoke about the usual thing, as you can see in the video above. And I was followed by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, co-authors of Merchants of Doubt, a great history of the global warming denial movement. Hopefully the video of the full conversation will be posted soon.
I'd asked the panelists to present a somewhat positive account at least of the science, if not the politics of the issue, on the assumption that we'd have plenty of time in the discussion to cover the bad stuff, and I think that worked out well. During a discussion of the balance between the need for expertise and transparency in communicating science, I managed to work in a mention of #sbFAIL and Pepsiblog, pointing out that they had legitimate experts, but lacked the openness that makes real blogs effective in science communications.
We also talked about science journalism, and about the common theme of all these forms of science denial: a rejection of the value of expertise. Alas that I couldn't show Don McLeroy's famous "Someone has to stand up to experts" rant. Check out good summaries of the panel at Northwest Progressive Institute, ClimateScienceWatch,and Delaware Liberal.
Hopefully I'll figure out how to get my Keynote slides into Slideshare soon, so you can see them in better quality than the video above could capture.
Now I'm off to another conference, and am sending this from the free wireless network at the Las Vegas airport.
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Bill Clinton spoke to the Netroots Nation conference last night. It's an inspired speech, done without notes and with extemporaneous digressions based on a heckler's call.
Before he s [..] Read complete article
Published 14-Aug-2009 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 19 times. More hits in
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Have you registered to attend Netroots Nation yet? It's going to be pretty awesome. There will be dozens of panels, touching on political process and political practice, science, civil liberties, climate change, healthcare, and future of just about any topic you care about. And it won't be out of touch pundits taking on these topics. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's right hand, will be th [..] Read complete article
Published 25-Jul-2009 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 25 times. More hits in
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
I know it's been a week since I got back from Netroots Nation, so this is a rather belated report, but I have a good excuse. I was on the road for 4 weeks before NrN, and it's taken me a little while to get caught up again.
Netroots Nation was awesome. It'll be in Las Vegas next year, and should be even better. It'll be the 5th year, returning to the scene of the first convention, ba [..] Read complete article
Published 24-Aug-2009 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 28 times. More hits in
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Have you registered to attend Netroots Nation yet? It's going to be pretty awesome. There will be dozens of panels, touching on political process and political practice, science, civil liberties, climate change, healthcare, and future of just about any topic you care about. And it won't be out of touch pundits taking on these topics. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's right hand, will be th [..] Read complete article
Published 25-Jul-2009 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 23 times. More hits in
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Arriving at the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, I was on the escalator behind Duncan Black. David Neiwert introduced us in the registration line.
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com is explaining polling to us now, as Charlie Cook (dean of the polling community), Pollster.com authors Max Blumenthal and Charles Franklin, and Greg Dworkin (DemFromCT) nod in agreement. Sho [..] Read complete article
Published 13-Aug-2009 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 23 times. More hits in
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Governor Mayor Gavin Newsom (I slipped up and made that verbal premonition yesterday) is sitting here in the airport with me. I may chat with him in a moment.
This morning, he introduced the capstone speech by Van Jones. Let it be said that Van Jones Rocks, and his Ella Baker Center is just down the street from NCSE's offices, and I c [..] Read complete article
Published 21-Jul-2008 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 25 times. More hits in
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Netroots Nation is rolling out their panels for the next meeting (August 13-16, Pittsburgh, PA). It's an interesting mix, with more than any one person can handle. If my experience last year is any guide, it'll be a struggle just to keep up, and there will be lots of times when I'll have two or more simultaneous panels I want to attend. I just hope my panel isn't scheduled opposite anything r [..] Read complete article
Published 18-Jun-2009 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 17 times. More hits in
Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that
Martin Cothran, the perpetually benighted Disco. Inst. blogger, considers the tussle over Blagojevich's Senate appointment and sees it as a fight, The Democrats vs. the states:
Whether Burris serves as Senator from Illinois is a matter for the people of Illinois to decide, not the U. S. Senate. Reid and the rest of the Senate need to keep their greedy hands off of Illinois's S [..] Read complete article
Published 31-Dec-2008 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 24 times. More hits in
Adding zombies to your game is like putting a lowercase "i" in front of your product name. Marketing types think people just go for the one called "the iBlanket" or the racing game with zombies. While that might h [..] Read complete article
Published 02-Jul-2010 by Chris Buffa in Dead-Natione3-2010Housemarqueplaystationps3PSNSCEA Read 17 times. More hits in
Dear PlayStation,
It has come to my attention that you intend to launch a new downloadable PlayStation 3 game, dubbed "Dead Nation," on Tuesday, November 30 in North America (and December 1 in Europe). Based on what I have [..] Read complete article
Published 15-Nov-2010 by Ludwig Kietzmann in BEANdead-nationhousemarqueplaystationps3psnq3-2010release-date Read 10 times. More hits in
Since the iPhone 3G was released over a year ago, AT&T customers in many regions have experienced the slow and painful decay of what had once been an incredibly solid 3G network. The bottom line is that AT&T?s network is now so congested in many populated regions that it?s become a sick, laughable joke. Now, [...] [..] Read complete article
Published 22-Jul-2009 by Zach Epstein in AT&THSDPAHSUPANetworksUMTS3GcongestionHSPAiPhoneiphone 3giPhone 3GSNetwork Read 13 times. More hits in
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Bill Clinton spoke to the Netroots Nation conference last night. It's an inspired speech, done without notes and with extemporaneous digressions based on a heckler's call.
Before he s [..] ![Click here to read Voltron Movie Goes Back To The Drawing Board - Voltron Movie Goes Back To The Drawing Board [Hollywood]](http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/04/160x120_voltron.jpg)
Have you registered to attend Netroots Nation yet? It's going to be pretty awesome. There will be dozens of panels, touching on political process and political practice, science, civil liberties, climate change, healthcare, and future of just about any topic you care about. And it won't be out of touch pundits taking on these topics. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's right hand, will be th [..] 
Have you registered to attend Netroots Nation yet? It's going to be pretty awesome. There will be dozens of panels, touching on political process and political practice, science, civil liberties, climate change, healthcare, and future of just about any topic you care about. And it won't be out of touch pundits taking on these topics. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's right hand, will be th [..] ![Click here to read Victorious Torchlight Creators Like The Idea Of Torchlight 2 - Victorious Torchlight Creators Like The Idea Of Torchlight 2 [Gdc]](http://cache-04.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/03/160x120_4c99dcb21f1be1c1c4.jpg)
Martin Cothran, the perpetually benighted Disco. Inst. blogger, considers the tussle over Blagojevich's Senate appointment and sees it as a fight, The Democrats vs. the states:
Whether Burris serves as Senator from Illinois is a matter for the people of Illinois to decide, not the U. S. Senate. Reid and the rest of the Senate need to keep their greedy hands off of Illinois's S [..] 
Adding zombies to your game is like putting a lowercase "i" in front of your product name. Marketing types think people just go for the one called "the iBlanket" or the racing game with zombies. While that might h [..] 
Since the iPhone 3G was released over a year ago, AT&T customers in many regions have experienced the slow and painful decay of what had once been an incredibly solid 3G network. The bottom line is that AT&T?s network is now so congested in many populated regions that it?s become a sick, laughable joke. Now, [...] [..] 
