Critical Exponent

Bush has activated many National Guard units for his war in Iraq. That means over 6000 Guard units are unavailable to deal with Hurricane Katrina. To make matters worse, he also dispatched amphibious vehicles to the desert– where they may have contributed to troop deaths.

But at least now, Bush is cutting his vacation short. Never mind that it’s a few days after what was expected and proved to be one of the nation’s worst natural disasters struck.

How patriotic of him.

Yesterday, I stopped by Best Buy to look at optical mice. I got distracted seeing the wireless mice and keyboards available. It’s very tempting, but nowhere did I see anything about encryption: anyone can pick up the radio waves and figure out the passwords or sensitive information being typed.

Today, I was browsing through a computer catalog I got in the mail. The latest rage seems to be biometric sensors to read fingerprints, ensuring security while eliminating the need for one to type in a password.

I would not be surprised that some people use both a biometric sensor and wireless peripherals. Granted, Joe Blow probably doesn’t carry around a radio receiver to sniff out everyone’s passwords. Still, it seems to me that if one is concerned enough about security to get a biometric reader, it is just plain silly to have a wireless keyboard.

Daniel C. Dennet offers an excellent critique of “Intelligent Design.”. Not only does he describe how evolution could indeed come up with the observable complexity in the biological world around us, but he also hits the nail right on the head as to why ID claims are not science:

To formulate a competing hypothesis, you have to get down in the trenches and offer details that have testable implications. So far, intelligent design proponents have conveniently sidestepped that requirement, claiming that they have no specifics in mind about who or what the intelligent designer might be.

Ever since reading that dark roofs lead to higher cooling costs in the summer, I’ve thought that the most eco-friendly roof would be one that was planted in such a way that the surface exposed to the sun is the same as it would be if the land were pristine rather than built up. That way we at least mitigate some of the costs of development.

Now, finally, I come across an article on such green roofs. They make environmental sense; the only issue now is convincing urban planners and consumers that they make sense at the bottom line as well.

The Air Force issued guidelines encouraging non-endorsement of religion. A good first step, perhaps, but they remain just guidelines with no real teeth.

The Washington Post reports on the rising number of evangelical preachers who pray in a non-inclusive way. They see pluralism as a bad thing.

Does the military really need chaplains? If so, how should they fairly serve all the faiths that make up America?

Bikes not Bombs is looking for a new location.

What if we secular physicists were wrong?

I got this from Pharyngula, which seems to contain interesting biology-related posts.

Lee Spector talks about genetic programming and how complexity can arise from simple ingredients.

Marcelo Geiser of Dartmouth College speaks out about “Intelligent Design.”