Science Wednesday

Paleontology and Creationism Meet but Don’t Mesh
The New York Times, as part of their Punishing the Intelligent series, decided to take seventy evolution lovers from the North American Paleontological Convention and take them to Kentucky's own Creation Museum.The article is good, but not without flaws. The two biggest being the inability to see the face of the scientists as each new creationist horror is revealed and there is not meter or 10-point rating system for what seem like a litany of sarcastic comments the scientists make throughout the article. I need to know just how cutting and spiteful there guys were. Frankly this whole process needs to be a documentary. One where they take experts in various fields who have spent lifetimes trying to find answers and prove ideas.....and then show them what their field has been reduced to inside the Museum. I'd bet there'd be more than a few tears and complete mental breakdowns. Some filmmaker needs to get on it.

The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care
Atul Gawande drops what is probably one of the best articles you'll ever read on health cares, costs, coverage, and the general state of American medicine. It's been quoted and referenced by the President and several Senators during the current health care "debate". Which is funny in and of itself when the article seems to so heavily and smartly show where we are, what we need to do, data that needs to be gathered, and mindsets that need to be changed that it's hard to believe that the very lawmakers that are dicking around, weakening proposals, unable to even choose to base a policy around the smartest plans that their colleagues have written, and seem to be willing to give up the most basic change that needs to be made to move forward (a public plan) in the service of some milquetoast, "bipartisan" "consensus" even read the thing. If you read one thing today other than this sentence telling you to read this article, read this article.

With Something for Everyone, Climate Bill Passed
Want to know all the ways in which one of the first comprehensive energy and climate change bills, Waxman-Markey, got watered down, weakened and made stupid? At a certain point "pass something effective" got turned into "pass anything" and then the most important aspects, like cap-and-trade, got so gutted as to almost negate the entire purpose of doing them. The best part? They had to do all this to get it out of the House. It hasn't even gotten to the Senate, where all laws go to be made worse. Remember this after it goes through that meat grinder of dumb and then everyone pretends its a great bill that does anything of real value.