Kid’s plate works!

I’ve now eaten a few meals using the kid’s plate, and I have to say that it really works—and it’s enormously satisfying to use. I load up the big compartment with veggies (tonight a slaw made of purple cabbage, carrots, and apples with lime-cumin dressing), one small compartment with protein (a piece of roasted boneless leg of lamb from TJ’s, cut to fit the compartment), and the other with carbs (tonight a tasty orzo salad).

The plate then is completely full, but the portion sizes actually are not large—it’s a kid’s plate, after all. So I eat my fill, get the proper balance of macronutrients, and enjoy watching my blood glucose levels get better and my weight decrease.

Life is good.

(The photo is of my actual plate. I would, of course, prefer the same plate in bunnies, but this one works fine.)

The top 50 popular-science blogs

Via ThinkProgress, this list of the top 50 popular-science blogs. And, via the top-rated of those blogs, even more science blogs.

Maureen McGovern: what a superb chanteuse!

I’m listening to Maureen McGovern‘s album Naughty Baby: Maureen McGovern Sings Gershwin, and it’s just excellent—and what a voice she has! The Wikipedia article has a lot of info, but the best thing is just to get several of her CDs and listen…

Her Web site quotes Mel Tormé:

Maureen McGovern is, quite simply, the most glorious singer to come down the pike in several months of Sundays. Possessed of one of the finest vocal instruments in the world, a range that hasn’t been matched since Yma Sumac stunned us all decades ago, and the ability to softly breathe into a lyric or “read” the words in a clear, strong voice, perfectly in tune, she is positively daunting to the parade of soubrettes who wish they could sing like Maureen McGovern. Add the fact that she is the loveliest of them all in form and face, and it is easy to understand why she is a world-class performer.

Excellent reponse to marijuana “scare” article

I blogged earlier about the Nevada initiative to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. Naturally enough, those opposed to the initiative are writing articles. What is not so natural, though, is that those articles are filled with lies and misrepresentations. Here’s an excellent response to one such article. The newspaper is to be commended for runnning it. The response:

The Nevada Appeal printed a downright nasty opinion piece about the marijuana initiative on Sunday. Author Guy Farmer says we are “East Coast potheads” who will make marijuana available to kids at corner stores and want to increase methamphetamine addiction in Nevada. Isn’t that considerate? He sprinkled some personal attacks in with the outright lies.

We have a simple response for Mr. Farmer: Our marijuana laws aren’t working. Anyone who wants to use marijuana can get it, and the thriving criminal market for marijuana is funneling profits to violent gangs and drug dealers. What’s the solution? Tax and regulate marijuana. Take it out of the criminal market, gain control over how it is bought and sold, and take money out of the hands of criminals.

Now a few specific comments that we would like to address …

The Database of Intentions

Alert Reader points out a fascinating article in the NY Times:

A few years back, a technology writer named John Battelle began talking about how the Internet had made it possible to predict the future. When people went to the home page of Google or Yahoo and entered a few words into a search engine, what they were really doing, he realized, was announcing their intentions.

They typed in “Alaskan cruise” because they were thinking about taking one or “baby names” because they were planning on needing one. If somebody were to add up all this information, it would produce a pretty good notion of where the world was headed, of what was about to get hot and what was going out of style.

Mr. Battelle, a founder of Wired magazine and the Industry Standard, wasn’t the first person to figure this out. But he did find a way to describe the digital crystal ball better than anyone else had. He called it “the database of intentions.”

The collective history of Web searches, he wrote on his blog in late 2003, was “a place holder for the intentions of humankind — a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, subpoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends.”

Now Google allows you to peek at what this database might be telling you by offering Google Trends.

The lying never stops

What accounts for the propensity of right-wing columnists (and politicians) to so readily resort to lying? Take the Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson, for example. Today he writes:

The real truth is that we don’t know enough to relieve global warming, and — barring major technological breakthroughs — we can’t do much about it. This was obvious nine years ago; it’s still obvious.

To support this contention, he refers to a new report from the International Energy Agency. But that report, as ThinkProgress points out, comes to the opposite conclusion:

[B]y employing technologies that already exist or are under development, the world could be brought onto a much more sustainable energy path. The scenarios show how energy-related C02 emissions can be returned to their current levels by 2050.

As they point out, Samuelson mentions five scenarios in the report but “doesn’t bother to mention a sixth scenario where greenhouse emissions decrease by 16%.” Why not? Because that scenario unfortunately contradicts the conclusion he’s determined to draw.

This kind of dishonesty cheapens and undermines public discourse. It’s irresponsible and it’s ugly. You can complain to ombudsman@washpost.com.

Wednesday cat-blogging: Megs looking back

Megs, looking back—actually, looking out the window, which is behind her as she sits on the tunnel. She’ll also sleep inside the tunnel from time to time.