(Via Gawker

Earlier this week -and without much fanfare-a city council candidate for this year's elections, went up with a brand new website; that candidate was yours truly. Although the site is a perpetual work in progress, and will be frequently modified and updated until I am fully satisified with it, viewers can still get a comprehensive look at my personal history, my political activism, my record of public service/community involvement, and also my political vision.

I hope many of you will go up and take a look at my positions on some of the many issues facing this city -and also the district in which I seek public office (again).

Stay tuned-in folks.

[Ed. note: The site itself is here]

Via Kos:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her Wasilla home Friday morning.

There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Sitting governors run for President all the time. Something's up, and there's more to this story.

[Update]: There's video. Oh my God.

h/t Daily Kos TV

[Update 2]: And it's a Friday PM news dump, too. The speech was a shambles, there was no national media, not even a press release. There's more to this story.

While on vacation in California, I was having a discussion with my wife (an atmospheric scientist), and a friend (an archaeologist). I am a Developmental Geneticist. So we were three scientists from three very disparate fields. I have been a scientist for 20 years. My wife for much shorter time and my friend for much, much longer. So we come at it from different chronological perspectives.

And one thing we each have encountered is the huge lack in science of the reporting of negative results. There is a perception in science that one must prove your hypothesis correct or it is not worth reporting. So when someone posits a hypothesis and DISPROVES it (which is common and healthy in science) they cannot publish it until it can be paired with related positive data. That often doesn't happen for years and sometimes is never published if the work goes in a different direction. This, of course, leads to many people repeating the same negative data over and over because they are unaware that it has already been disproven already by many other researchers.

This can be quite a waste of time and resources.  read more »

A friend of mine emails over this Monty Python YouTube, claiming it could just as soon be treated as commentary on the Democrats' anguish over losong their Senate majority. I think that's a little unfair, what with them winning the actual election and all that, but the sketch is nothing short of brilliant. Take a look.