Surreptitious Opinionation

Yesterday, a group of scientists got together to form an organization to lobby on behalf of science.

Today a group of scientists and concerned citizens launch a new organization, Scientists and Engineers for America, dedicated to electing public officials who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.

They mention particular concern about political pressure to rewrite reports on global warming, vetoing stem cell research, promoting intelligent design in science classes, and government disseminatoin of inaccurate scientific information.

The organization’s website is http://www.sefora.org/. They were hoping to get 1000 people to sign on to their group by Friday. Keep in mind they launched on Wednesday. And they made that goal within 28 hours. The new goal is 5000 by Monday.

They have a proposed Scientists’ Bill of Rights, a set of Key Issues, and a Blog.

I’m sad that it’s necessary, but glad it exists.

Not sure which I need more to hit the gym: Motivation or a schedule.

Holy shit, just a week and a half ’til I’m in the bay area. Time to start making plans, I suppose… =)

Sometimes I worry that I’m assimilating too much, caving in to the man, as it were. So, I took heart at my outraged reaction to the article in the NYT on sex assignment surgery for new borns. Some fraction of a percent of kids are born intersex. But rather than risk them feeling a little weird, or letting them figure themselves out, or, you know, fucking being honest with them as adults, the standard plan is to surgerize their genitalia to ‘make it look right’ and forget that there was ever anything unusual about this. It used to be things like removing their phalus (by which I mean an ambiguous clitoris/penis). This totally screws up their sex life later. Nowadays, they supposedly have less drastic interventions, though they still involve slicing and dicing. And the tiny amount of scientific evidence that can be gathered on the subject suggests that maybe the kids who don’t get cut grow up happier. But the new improved standard does discourage them from rushing to surgery. Doesn’t say “don’t do it” just sit down and think first.

Okay, now here’s the kicker. Most parents seem to think carving their kids privates into a more socially accepted shape is the best solution to this ‘disastrous’ outcome. I have no words for how much this idea pisses me off.

Thanks to for passing this along. This 10 minute video on male restroom etiquette is totally worth the time to watch.

In a focus on issues of emissions, California has mandated that automobiles emit no more than a certain quantity of CO2 per mile traveled (at the tailpipe. I think electric cars still count as ‘zero emission’ vehicles, regardless of how the electricity is generated). The federal government has some not-so-successful legislation, the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standard. This means that no state is allowed to regulate fuel efficiency. There is an argument that the CO2 standard is a backdoor means of regulating fuel economy. And there is a very convincing argument to be made on that point. Particularly if CA isn’t regulating CO2 from other sources.

But, as often happens when I’m behind the wheel, it occurred to me yesterday, as I was driving a very heavy, fuel inefficient vehicle, that this only addresses one of the problems with excessive driving. Maybe two. Fuel consumption and vehicle emissions in particular. And it’s kinda iffy on those two. See, if fuel efficiency rises, it costs less to drive a mile, so people may drive more miles (in aggregate), counterbalancing gains in those two categories.

But there are several other problems with excessive driving. Congestion related delays, accidents, and scarcity of parking rank high among the problems.

In addressing the accident problem, half the popularity of SUVs is their purported safety for families. They never say what happens in case of a collision between a massive vehicle and a less massive vehicle, but “squish” says it pretty succintly. Now, a major part of this is an arms race. If I get a more massive hummer, then you want a hummer that weighs more than mine so that if I’m driving drunk on the wrong side of the road (oh-so-likely scenario here, if we change the identity of the actors), you and yours aren’t wiped out in one fell swoop.

So, to kill the arms race, a state could try to regulate car mass. No more than 1 ton or whatever. This might be considered a backdoor to fuel efficiency, but it is far less direct. Obviously this would only apply to non-commercial vehicles. This could kill the Minivan and SUV while resurrecting the station wagon. One could only hope. Even so, this would not address congestion or parking. A massive fuel tax would go a long way in all categories by getting people to mode switch and travel less. And no one’s saying that states couldn’t do that.

I also had a driving related thought at work. I work on the 7th floor of my building. We have two banks of elevators, one serving floors 1-14 and another serving the first floor and floors 15 and up. There are 6 elevators in our bank. To understand the problem with single commuters, do a little thought experiment. Pretend that the elevators would each take only one person at a time. imagine what a disaster it would be. Think about the relationship here.