Visits By Friends

I've had various family members come to DC and hang out, but this time it was some friends. Allan and I have been friends since Jr. High and still keep up with each other (he's part of the online DnD campaign I'm currently involved with), and his lovely wife Haylee has become my default "science nerd" friend. They were in town last week for their second anniversary and I got to play tour guide. Luckily, I have an awesome girlfriend who is a bona fide local, so we got to do some other fun things than just regular touristy stuff, like go hunting for fossilized shark teeth in the Chesapeake. Haylee was also a champ being 6 months pregnant with their first child and walking around so much.

Being Tourists:



Evidence That Haylee is My Science Nerd Friend:


Susan demonstrating proper Sharktooth Hunting Technique using her mother's colanders.


Haylee found a shark tooth!


Happy 2 Years, Allan and Haylee! Was fun to have you out here.

Great Father's Day Talk

Despite all its failings, FMH still remains my favorite LDS-themed blog. I listened to an interview with Lisa Butterworth, the FMH founder, at the Mormon Stories podcast and found it most enjoyable, particularly part 1 where she discusses the formation of the blog and the necessity of having an outlet for non-culturally-orthodox-mormons. Anyway, browsed it today and found this entry by one of the permabloggers on the site, Reese Dixon: My Father's Day Sermon.

I particularly liked the line where she, in pouring her heart out to God over her not-positive-influencing father receives the following response:

You have a Father. I am your Father. And I was your Father first.

This talk made me grateful once again for all the blessings my Father in Heaven has given me, and that includes my wonderful earthly parents. I know that's not everybody's situation and that some people's situations are far from perfect (Reese mentions this again in comment #35), but I think this is a wonderful talk because it points us to Him who will never fail us.

I'm Becoming More and More Cynical Every Day

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We need to elect someone like Frodo. Actually, I think we need to elect Samwise Gamgee. I endorsed Obama over McCain precisely because of his campaign talk on these issues.

These are things that should NOT be legitimized by the rotation of power. Habeas corpus should be a basic human right. Nobody should be thrown in prison without a way to challenge the detention. We shouldn't send prisoners to third party nations, some of which torture their detainees. We should not allow the government to spy on us without warrants. And we most certainly should not order the assassination of american citizens anywhere, anytime, anyplace. Even if they're a world-class jerk. Why are we even having this discussion?

Farewell to Steve Ward

When I moved to DC almost 2 years ago, I had two roommates, Russ Bowers the Jolly Giant (by the way, welcome back to DC, Russ!), and Steve Ward the amazing. And when I say amazing, I'm not kidding. This kid was an opera singing, former Lion House baker, cook extraordinaire who was working for the NRC while working on a Master's degree in Nuclear Engineering who was also the kindest most gentle and generous soul I have ever met (he would do people's taxes with them). And he wears pink shirts, and makes them look good.

Sadly, Steve has moved on to greener pastures, namely a stint at the National Labs in Los Alamos, New Mexico, soon to be followed up by an internship in Vienna, Austria with a group that works with the IAEA. He finished moving out this last weekend. We were both very sad.

Good times, Steve.

I'll never forget how kind you always were. Here's you setting up for our huge snowmageddon slumber party, donating your inflatable mattresses for the ladies.


I'll never forget watching NCIS with you while you played on your iPhone.


I'll never forget how, whenever we had a party over here you were always just walking around, talking to people, making them feel welcome.



Or just playing games.


I'll never forget the freezer of meat. 'Nuff said.



And yes, I just checked, and there's still some meat in there.

And of course, the FOOD! Who could forget the food? Cooking school. Thanksgiving. Man stew. The fact that I can actually make a great pumpkin pie! Training the ladies of the ward as your cooking minions. Good times!





And I'll never forget your way with the ladies.





But Steve has moved on, to be replaced by David Baker, who seems to have one of two facial expressions in every picture I have of him.






Oddly enough, Ciara also has the same facial expressions in those last two pictures. Interesting.

Anyway, you were a great roommate Steve. Godspeed, my friend.

Oh, and in case those of you who don't know Steve personally aren't yet convinced Steve is awesome:

Use Your Noggin!

I think I finally figured out why I’m more inclined to believe that global warming exists than not. Basically, it’s because the people who rails against it existing are the same people who deny evolution, or don’t vaccinate their kids. In short, why on earth am I going to believe their science?

The vaccination thing really gets my gander. Apparently there are a whole truckload of people, led here in America largely by Jenny McCarthy, who think that vaccinations are bad for children. The worst part is that they’re being successful. I watched a heartbreaking story (sadly no longer up that I can find) up of Dana MacCaffery who died at the young age of 4 weeks from whooping cough. Simply put, she was too young to be vaccinated, and the vaccination rates in the area she lived in were too low to provide herd immunity.

So she died. Australian news ran a report on it, and that’s the video I can no longer find, but here’s a write-up of the “debate” it featured and a follow-up report.

The problem here in America is that those who are pushing for it are backed by such large, popular and influential names as Oprah Winfrey. In fact, last year Newsweek ran a cover story about Oprah and her promotion of pseudoscience quackery. She tried to rebut it, but her “rebuttal” was mostly “I believe that my viewers are intelligent enough to make decisions for themselves.”

Sorry. No. You need to be more responsible than that.

What really worries me is that this is a case where other people’s stupidity could actually affect me. God willing, if I ever have kids, I’m going to vaccinate them according to the best science available and the recommendation of my kids’ pediatrician. I am not going to listen to ex-playboy models, health gurus with no degrees, or people who think they know what they’re talking about just because they read it in a book, have an anecdote, or maybe even wrote a book. But part of how vaccinations work is that they produce herd immunity—the kids who can get vaccinated are. That way they are won’t get the disease and pass it on to kids who cannot be vaccinated for whatever reason-compromised immune system, recent surgery, whatever. If my kid is the one who can’t get vaccinated, and you don’t vaccinate, then my kid could die!

I’m actually going to listen to the experts. The people who participate in double-blind studies, the people who spend years learning in reputed, organized, and certified medical schools, and who know what the devil they’re talking about. When that Australian news channel went to have a follow-up debate, they only asked people with actual science training to come on and—surprise!—couldn’t find anybody for the “anti-vaccination” side of the debate. Some anti-vaccination folks cite studies that prove that vaccines cause autism, even though it's just the one study (that involved taking samples from kids at a birthday party) which has been retracted by the journal, not reproduced in any way, and the major author has actually been barred from practicing medicine because of that study.

I did, in fact, find one doctor who doesn’t vaccinate their patients, but I found it through this article that rips his arguments for not doing so into little pieces. Why do we listen to people like Jenny McCarthy instead of actual doctors? She even gets space in Time magazine.

I don’t know, but it is funny how this never happens in the seriously hard sciences. Nobody ever questions NASA, but for some reason we think we can question the medical professionals.

The final article, the one that finally made me print this up, was this one that suggests science needs to do better PR.

No, what we need are less stupid people. (Some language in this clip, and I don't agree with all of it.)

I don’t want my kids to die.

So vaccinate yours. And since my kids aren't around yet, vaccinate yours to protect my nephews!


P.S. Talkback for this one will be moderated. You start calling out scientists, I will mock you mercilessly, because I do not abide pure stupidity. I know science doesn’t have all the answers. But it knows that. If it had all the answers it would stop. And if you are going to call scientists out, read all the links in this post.

P.P.S. Even if vaccines are dangerous in some circumstances, you’re still looking at something like these numbers.
1) No vaccines. Measles kills 1/10 kids.
2) Vaccines. 1 in 100 kids is negatively affected by the vaccination.
So sure there might be a risk (there is not one that has been proven at all, ever, by any reputable study in any peer-reviewed scientific journal) but you’re an idiot for taking the wrong risk.