Finally, a link has been shown between pesticides and colony collapse disorder.
It’s been hypothesized that pesticides are the source of the global collapse of bee populations, but there had been no controlled experiments demonstrating correlation. A French government group performed just such an experiment and found that, indeed, colonies exposed to low levels of imidacloprid (a common, Bayer-developed insecticide) failed to thrive. They were 100–200% more [...]
This isn’t how medical privacy is supposed to work.
Pennsylvania is in love with fracking, and they don’t care who knows it. Their legislature passed a bill last month that makes it a secret what awful chemicals that energy companies are injecting into the ground in order to extract natural gas. It’s such a secret, in fact, that if somebody is poisoned by some [...]
There is no correlation between domestic drilling and fuel prices.
The Associated Press analyzed 36 years of gasoline prices and domestic oil production and found absolutely no correlation. Increases in domestic production (it’s up 15% from three years ago) do not result in decreases in price. Based on this model, if we increased domestic oil production by 50%, best-case we’d see a 10% reduction in [...]
Freshman House Republicans aren’t the voting bloc that they’re presented as.
A New York Times analysis of voting behavior of House members shows that freshman Republican aren’t the voting bloc that they’re presented as. A far better predictor of voting behavior is membership in the Republican Study Committee. →
Why must we insist that Bales “snapped” before murdering Afghan civilians?
Robert Fisk examines the near-universal insistence that Staff Sgt. Robert Bales must have “snapped” before he killed sixteen civilians—mostly women and children—near Kandahar. If an Afghan had done the same thing, killing civilian workers in Afghanistan, he’d be labelled a terrorist. But since he’s on our side, we interpret his actions in the kindest possible [...]
Scotts Miracle-Gro has pleaded guilty to selling poisoned bird seed.
They knowingly, deliberately put an insecticide in their bird seed that would kill birds, and then covered it up from the government by faking documentation. →
This American Life has retracted their story about Apple.
In January, the always-excellent “This American Life” had a really stunning episode turned over almost entirely to an excerpt of a monologue by Mike Daisey, about working conditions at Foxconn, the Chinese company that manufactures products for Apple, among other companies. Daisey actually went to China, to the factory, and interviewed people about what it [...]
jQuery.dotdotdot.
I’m impressed by this jQuery plugin that will trim text to fit within a container, concluding with an elipsis and, optionally, a “Read More” link. It’s a small thing, but a nicety that I look forward to putting to work myself. The only catch is that the elipsis should have non-breaking thin spaces between the [...]
AP calls out White House officials for anonymized press conference.
From the AP: “The White House organized a conference call with two senior administration officials to preview an announcement by President Barack Obama about an important China trade issue but told reporters that no one could be quoted by name. The officials were U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and the deputy national security adviser for [...]
Introducing Virginia Decoded.
Since it’s Sunshine Week, I figured I should stop obsessively polishing Virginia Decoded and just make it public. So here it is. What is it? Think Richmond Sunlight, but for the whole Code of Virginia, rather than just the bills proposed each year. So why not use the official website for the code? Look at [...]
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s inglorious defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court of Virginia was surely not how he envisioned the conclusion of his UVA fishing expedition. Without any cause for suspicion, or the slightest evidence of malfeasance, Cuccinelli went after Michael Mann and the University of Virginia. In the multi-year saga, he couldn’t [...]
PPP’s survey of likely Republican voters in Mississippi and Alabama is really something.
Forget the presidential race—the other responses are pretty amazing. Only 14% believe that the presidentis is Christian (45% believe he’s Muslim, 41% don’t know). Just 26% believe in evolution. One in five believe that interracial marriage should be a crime, with just 67% supporting its legality. It’s little wonder that these two states generally show [...]
That little waving cat sculpture in Chinese restaurants is called a “Maneki Neko.”
The “beckoning cat” turns out to be Japanese, not Chinese, and is properly rendered as a ceramic sculpture, rather than shiny, gold plastic. It’s beckoning passersby to enter the establishment, although the gesture doesn’t really translate, since in the West, that’s how we wave hello and goodbye. They appear to date to the 1870s. →
Announcing Ethics.gov.
This is what I did for the White House from November–February—create Ethics.gov. I’ll have to write a lot more about that whole adventure, now that the site is public. In short, though, A++++ WOULD WORK THERE AGAIN. →
Peanut allergies are fantastically rare, even among people who ostensibly have peanut allergies.
It’s been known for some years now that very few people who believe that they have peanut allergies actually have peanut allergies, but the precise number hasn’t been known. The University of Manchester tested this by giving peanuts to a bunch of kids with peanut allergies (a bold move, to be sure) and found that [...]
CBS News calling a spade a spade.
Further to this happy trend of media outlets pointing out when the subject of their coverage is lying comes a piece by Lucy Madison, writing for CBS News, regarding Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke: “In her testimony, Fluke largely discussed the high cost of contraception and the important medical benefits it can offer women. She [...]
The final vote on 2008′s budget bill (SB30).
Remember in 2008, when every Republican senator in the General Assembly voted against the the budget bill, how they were labelled “obstructionists”? Yeah, me neither. →
The Virginia Supreme Court has ruled against Cuccinelli in climate case, with prejudice.
Another round in court, another loss for Ken Cuccinelli. The attorney general issued, famously, a civil investigative demand to the University of Virginia, insisting that they turn over all records pertaining to and generated by climatologist Michael Mann. UVA refused to comply with the demand. Now the Supreme Court of Virginia has ruled against Cuccinelli, [...]
An archive of reports issued to the General Assembly.
The state legislature routinely puts together commissions that conclude by issuing a report about its assigned topic. Dozens of reports have been published this year, on topics as varied as “Management of State-owned Bottomlands on the Seaside of the Eastern Shore” and “Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors in Virginia.” Although most of the older [...]
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Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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