Accidental Bloggertag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-2351552009-12-06T00:00:00-06:00Cerebral Table TalkTypePadCritical thinking may lead to misogyny! tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a7111306970b2009-12-06T00:00:00-06:002009-12-06T00:46:25-06:00Coming from a seemingly intelligent woman, the assertion that logic, rationality and empiricism may be at the root of misogyny, is a bit unsettling. Kathryn Lofton, in her post So you want to be a new atheist, over at The...RuchiraEndless War or Endgame? (Sujatha)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0128761449e2970c2009-12-04T16:43:44-06:002009-12-04T16:45:28-06:00A palpable sense of dismay crept over me as I watched President Obama's speech on Tuesday in front of Westpoint cadets so tired many almost seemed to fall asleep before it got over ( See reason for tiredness here) The...SujathaHow to write a critical reviewtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0128760d7e6d970c2009-12-04T00:00:00-06:002009-12-04T00:28:33-06:00Via Brian Leiter's blog I found this hilarious assessment of Cornel West, the man and the memoir, by Scott McLemee. Whatever your opinion of West - good, bad or none, the review is recommended reading. Rarely have I come across...RuchiraNot even a lump of coaltag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012876060b66970c2009-12-03T00:00:00-06:002009-12-03T00:46:25-06:00As is the custom around this time of the year, Houston is gearing up for the festive season. Christmas decorations are going up in private homes, city streets, public buildings and of course, retail stores. The city is even expecting...RuchiraProfessor (Mrs.) Dasgupta (*) (prasad)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6fee7f8970b2009-12-02T13:50:04-06:002009-12-02T13:50:05-06:00The Daily Princetonian has a story about percentages of female faculty, which are neither particularly high nor rising rapidly. The article doesn't do either sexism or the Larry Summers stuff, and instead focuses on the lifestyle difficulties inherent in obtaining...prasadWorld AIDS Day 2009 and the promise of an HIV vaccinetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875f628f3970c2009-12-01T00:44:55-06:002009-12-01T12:10:10-06:00More than a year ago I had highlighted my husband, Sudhir Paul's research in developing a vaccine against HIV. The HIV / AIDS epidemic which in the west was confined almost exclusively within the male gay community and IV drug...RuchiraDirect Democracy - Unintended(?) Fallouts tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875edfe77970c2009-11-30T00:00:00-06:002009-11-30T10:11:59-06:00While direct democracy is an enticing concept, it is always troubling when the fate of minorities is left to the decision of the majority - think recent voter initiatives on gay marriage in several US states. Here is another, from...RuchiraCarnival of the Liberals # 99tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6eb132a970b2009-11-29T14:53:49-06:002009-11-29T14:53:49-06:00The 99th edition of the Carnival of the Liberals had to be outsourced to England. CotL organizer Leo Lincourt explains: Well, we might all be still sleeping off our annual November turkey-induced tryptophan comas in the US, but in the...RuchiraPretty fly (prasad)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6afd03a970b2009-11-28T07:01:33-06:002009-11-28T07:01:03-06:00Visual computations tend to be generically hard and resource intensive. For example, our state-of-the-art algorithm for yaw detection in flight apparently needs Moore's Law engorged Intel Cores to do anything useful. And yet mere flies seem to manage the number-crunching...prasadHappy Thanksgiving...or Not (Sujatha)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875e124b8970c2009-11-26T19:21:18-06:002009-11-26T19:21:18-06:00It's good to be thankful on Thanksgiving, or not, per PZ Myers of Pharyngula. "This whole notion that one should have vague and aimless feelings of gratitude for the nature of one's existence is just too weird, and the bow-your-head-at-the-table...SujathaThe wonder peptide hormone (Joe)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6d4e863970b2009-11-24T23:27:42-06:002009-11-24T23:27:42-06:00Oxytocin: it's behind all prosocial behavior, and Wall Street wouldn't exist without it. I'm not quite sure capitalism was the point of the study, but still, that's what I'm choosing to to take out of it. Interesting article.JoeKerr, originalism, and the right to counsel (Joe)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875d4ca60970c2009-11-24T19:13:55-06:002009-11-24T19:13:55-06:00Orin has a post up at Volokh Conspiracy posing a thought experiment (or something) to originalists. Essentially, it's been good constitutional law for a long time that the sixth amendment right to counsel means that the state must provide an...Joe3 QD Prize in Politicstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6d03526970b2009-11-24T12:57:38-06:002009-11-24T12:57:38-06:00One of my favorite blogs, 3 Quarks Daily has announced the third of its slated competitions in best writing on blogs. This round is for the three best political blog posts published anywhere in the blogosphere during the last 12...RuchiraChasing the Paliban (Sujatha)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875c32e68970c2009-11-21T15:58:40-06:002009-11-21T15:57:41-06:00Sarah Palin made it to my corner of the woods, this Saturday afternoon. "Thousands" lined up to meet her, per the gushing report from the Washington PA Observer-Reporter (Note, the website page had been read 297 times by the time...SujathaTo Mammo or Not Mammo (Sujatha)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875bc6951970c2009-11-20T15:27:11-06:002009-11-20T21:42:48-06:00A few days ago, the headlines blared that a federally appointed Task Force of doctors and scientists recommended that the age for using mammography as a screening tool to detect breast cancer be increased from the current 40-49 years to...SujathaVisualizing Empires Declinetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6acde5b970b2009-11-18T00:06:00-06:002009-11-17T19:09:37-06:00An attractive visual time line of the disappearance of world empires. (via 3 Quarks Daily)RuchiraBow Wow! tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6acda87970b2009-11-18T00:01:00-06:002009-11-18T00:34:38-06:00For some people nothing President Obama does can pass leadership muster. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, "If Barack Obama walks on water, some will criticize him for not knowing how to swim." Okay, okay, so Obama bowed a bit too deeply...RuchiraThe Recession As Racial Equalizer (Dean)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875ad59e5970c2009-11-17T11:26:07-06:002009-11-17T11:26:07-06:00What's going on here? It's a bittersweet human interest tale with some facts and figures mixed in, not too cloying. Blacks and whites have encountered one another in increasing numbers recently in the crowded waiting rooms of the welfare office...Dean RowanThe Fort Hood Massacretag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875a65a39970c2009-11-16T15:22:40-06:002009-11-16T15:31:18-06:00Two views on why it happened: Charles Krauthammer's "call it like it is" excoriation of political correctness. What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a...RuchiraSunday Cyber-Sermon (Sujatha)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875a4ce4a970c2009-11-15T12:11:57-06:002009-11-15T12:11:57-06:00Here are the suggestions of Sujatha, the humble not-so-uber-geeky blogger, on C&Ping from webpages when composing blog posts: 1. Focus on Tested Websites, not obscurities. (Psalm 345:1-3) Notice how Sujatha extols Google first. Then, in comparison to Google, she has...SujathaOba Maotag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875a2db72970c2009-11-15T00:12:55-06:002009-11-15T00:14:28-06:00The Chinese enthusiastically await President Obama. He is by far the most popular foreign leader in China. To commemorate the visit artists have created the likeness of Obama in Chinese Red Guard uniform on t-shirts and other paraphernalia (not for...RuchiraA man, a bird and a million dollar automobiletag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0128759f1b3a970c2009-11-14T00:00:00-06:002009-11-14T09:05:58-06:00Actually, this is all about the automobile. Normally, given the same circumstances - on an interstate feeder road near a hurricane levee between Houston and Galveston, a car veers off into 3 feet of water and no one is hurt,...RuchiraHiroshima - Nagasaki: Places to Avoid tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef01287594d0c4970c2009-11-13T00:02:26-06:002009-11-13T00:07:10-06:00No sitting US president has ever visited the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only major urban centers on earth that bear testimony to the effects of nuclear warfare. President Jimmy Carter went to Hiroshima as an ex-president. Nancy Pelosi...RuchiraUneasy Alliancestag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef012875794937970c2009-11-12T00:01:00-06:002009-11-11T23:20:54-06:00Since Ronald Reagan first began flirting with the religious right, the ultra conservative base of the Republican Party has become steadily more empowered. Although for both Reagan and Bush Sr. lip service to the far right wing was political expediency,...RuchiraThe AMA questions US government policies towards gaystag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0128758781a0970c2009-11-12T00:00:00-06:002009-11-11T23:18:45-06:00The American Medical Association (AMA) has just concluded its bi-annual policy conference in Houston during which the organization addressed public health policies including the cost and management of medical care in America. This year the AMA has come out in...RuchiraAll Sujatha wants for Christmas is a book by Malcom Gladwelltag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a676edf6970b2009-11-11T00:01:00-06:002009-11-10T22:16:48-06:00Here is why.RuchiraMaddy wants patient choice!tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a676de6d970b2009-11-11T00:00:00-06:002009-11-11T01:05:31-06:00Babies and cute animals sell products. Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona set out to take that marketing ploy a bit too far, in fact nauseatingly so. During last Saturday's debate on health care reform, he used an infant like a...RuchiraWho Is a Jew in England? (Joe)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a66b4ce5970b2009-11-09T17:24:56-06:002009-11-09T17:24:56-06:00Potentially misleading subject adapted from the headline of this NYT article. An Orthodox Jewish high school in London is refusing to admit a Jewish student who is not, by Orthodox standards, Jewish, because he is not Jewish. Predictably, there's a...JoeHealth Care Reform -the Cliffs Notes Edition (Sujatha)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a6625dd8970b2009-11-08T11:00:00-06:002009-11-08T07:53:53-06:00The bill passed yesterday that Pres.Obama was ecstatic enough to personally email me about it at 1:03 am. And here I thought that only Hillary Clinton got 3 am calls. Here is the section by section summary link of the...SujathaAnsel Adams in Colortag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c575d53ef0120a69ff16a970b2009-11-08T00:21:00-06:002009-11-14T19:21:37-06:00During our childhood, for many years and even more hours, my sister and I used to pore over a book of photography that our father had brought home when I was probably six or seven years old and my sister...Ruchira