Sunday, October 25, 2015

Not good. Not good.

Without a trace of embarrassment, a spokeswoman for the Scottish Nationalist Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, admitted that the first minister’s science adviser had not been consulted because the decision “wasn’t based on scientific evidence.”

The scientific community is facing a new European reality. Last November, the European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, chose not to reappoint Prof. Anne Glover as his science adviser after lobbying by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

“We hope that you as the incoming Commission president will decide not to nominate a chief scientific adviser,” they wrote.

Never mind that Professor Glover’s advice on G.M.O. safety reflected the scientific consensus. Mr. Juncker, hoping to make his political life easier, complied with their demand. Europe now has no chief scientific adviser.

Yep, GMO foods. And again, I find myself in the awkward position. I'm not a fierce advocate, and I have my own occasional worries about possible unforeseen environmental consequences, but I hate when My Side is acting like wingnuts.

[Added] From the links at the bottom of the piece (last link above): An Ecomodernist Manifesto and "Is eco-modernism the third way on climate change? seem like good further reading.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Your moment of unsurprising news

And you thought eBay was no fun anymore.

Sports Business Daily found that over the first half of this year’s Major League Baseball season, 91 percent of player profits in daily fantasy sports were won by just 1.3 percent of the players. In fact, the top 11 players on average paid $2 million in entry fees and made $135,000 in profit while accounting for 17 percent of all entry fees.

Many of the professionals use automated processes that let them change hundreds, if not thousands, of lineups in seconds, a decided advantage when last-minute changes are made in the lineups of real football, basketball or baseball teams.

I never have understood why American English has not embraced the term punters. Denial, I suspect.

Anyway, the FBI has expressed interest, and I gotta say, I'm snickering, just a bit.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Deep thought

How do you pluralize iPhone 6s?

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