Wednesday roundup

Syria's more and more of a humanitarian disaster, but it's still a trap. Keep in mind that "all politics is local" applies to the Middle East, too.

Victoria Falls needs a Disneyland to attract visitors?

A fascinating rhetorical analysis of the I Have a Dream speech.

You've heard by now that "twerking" made it into the Oxford Dictionaries Online, but it's less interesting than other new additions, such as "badassery" and "food baby,' which Jameson hadn't heard of (Nina and I talked about it at the beach; the Russian affection for cabbage and cauliflower did not help my beach look last week).

You could get a soda at KFC in Beijing, or just save yourself the trip and drink out of your toilet.

We have to worry about salmonella in spices now?

I aspire to the level of zen where I can pass up an opportunity to point out that paleo is bullcrap.

You know how I keep calling people out for dismissing tofu as fake meat? Science has my back on that one: it's been around since at least a.d. 965.

You know how I also keep calling people out for dismissing any concern about GMOs as anti-science? Here's how prevalent and nasty that is:

It is also true that many pro-GM scientists in the field are unduly harsh—even unscientific—in their treatment of critics. GM proponents sometimes lump every scientist who raises safety questions together with activists and discredited researchers. And even Séralini, the scientist behind the study that found high cancer rates for GM-fed rats, has his defenders. Most of them are nonscientists, or retired researchers from obscure institutions, or nonbiologist scientists, but the Salk Institute's Schubert also insists the study was unfairly dismissed. He says that as someone who runs drug-safety studies, he is well versed on what constitutes a good-quality animal toxicology study and that Séralini's makes the grade. He insists that the breed of rat in the study is commonly used in respected drug studies, typically in numbers no greater than in Séralini's study; that the methodology was standard; and that the details of the data analysis are irrelevant because the results were so striking.

Schubert joins Williams as one of a handful of biologists from respected institutions who are willing to sharply challenge the GM-foods-are-safe majority. Both charge that more scientists would speak up against genetic modification if doing so did not invariably lead to being excoriated in journals and the media. These attacks, they argue, are motivated by the fear that airing doubts could lead to less funding for the field. Says Williams: “Whether it's conscious or not, it's in their interest to promote this field, and they're not objective.”
Both scientists say that after publishing comments in respected journals questioning the safety of GM foods, they became the victims of coordinated attacks on their reputations. Schubert even charges that researchers who turn up results that might raise safety questions avoid publishing their findings out of fear of repercussions. “If it doesn't come out the right way,” he says, “you're going to get trashed.”

There is evidence to support that charge. In 2009 Nature detailed the backlash to a reasonably solid study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA by researchers from Loyola University Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. The paper showed that GM corn seemed to be finding its way from farms into nearby streams and that it might pose a risk to some insects there because, according to the researchers' lab studies, caddis flies appeared to suffer on diets of pollen from GM corn. Many scientists immediately attacked the study, some of them suggesting the researchers were sloppy to the point of misconduct.

Kanye West pisses off French bakers.

The Associated Press feels the need, in announcing a newly discovered element, to give you examples of "common" ones in case you weren't sure what they're talking about... and they opt for carbon, silicon and iron. How many of you would think of silicon before, say, oxygen, calcium, or lead?


The double-standards behind the skewering of Marissa Mayer. Also--and this goes back to the feminism/vanity discussion--I'm glad someone's stating that fashion and substance are not mutually exclusive, but that's a different issue from owning one's ambition.

See also this mother-in-law who resents her daughter-in-law, who, as a strong woman who earns a high income, feels entitled to a bed-bug free environment.


Eric Wilson is not impressed (with this year's September issues).

Dudes, I'm not coming home with you until you wash your sheets. This is on top of the other preconditions. Also, in case you were wondering, um, no.

I once again (partially) agree with Kathleen Parker, with regard to the collective yawn, not the idea of permissiveness:

The grinding image of Cyrus playing nasty while sticking out her tongue at the world ultimately was mostly sad and, as Rihanna so perfectly projected, kind of boring. Provocation for the sake of provocation is rarely provocative. And sex in the hands of a Cyrus-gone-wild has all the appeal of rutting season at the zoo.

Cyndi Lauper feels the same way.