Daily Archives: 04 Oct 2010

KNOW Your Member of the Family Sciuridae

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For years, Andrea and I have been arguing about the difference between squirrels and chipmunks. She is always right—and not just in that “it makes my life easier to say so” way. Always willing to use her artistic talents for Evil, she created the following:

KNOW Your Member of the Family Sciuridae

This is all very nice, but what I did not realize at the time is that the family Sciuridae is the Squirrel Family! In fact, chipmunks are even part of the same tribe as the ground squirrel. This is the most telling fact, because the Sciuridae Family is large (278 species). It includes both ground and tree squirrels, woodchucks—regardless of how much wood they can chuck, flying squirrels—except those belonging to the family Sciuridae Cartoonus (particular of the subfamily Sciurinae Bullwinkle Showoctus), and prairie dogs.

All the information you need to keep you safe is contained in Andrea’s paste-up. However, for a more scholarly approach, you might check out the Tree of Life web project. And for a good old fashioned “check out all this cool stuff I found out about because I love this subject” page, check out the Chipmunk page on Creagrus at Montery Bay.

Politics: 4 October 2010

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Physics and Economics

Paul Krugman writes in Math, Models, and Mystification about economists who consider the likes of Brad DeLong and him ignorant of modern macroeconomic theory. Krugman’s theory about these people is that they understand the math of their models, but not the theory that underlies them. This rings true to me. When I used to teach physics, students commonly complained that they understood the concept, just not the math. But when I removed the math, I found they understood neither. Higher-level students tend to understand the math. The concepts are the hard part of physics. This seems at least as true of economics.

Glenn Beck: Making “Wingnut” Normal

Are we Surprised by James O’Keefe?

I don’t even understand this. What is this about? I know that James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart are worse than liars. But what exactly dose this attempt to get sex video of CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau have to do with furthering the conservative cause? I think it is telling. Maybe this means that there really is nothing behind conservative ideology other than bile and hatred.

Libertarian Fire Control

I got this via DailyKOS:

This is a typically libertarian argument: insurance, insurance, insurance! The obvious problem here, and the reason that the $75 yearly payment should be mandatory is that Cranicks may be perfect libertarian rights-responsibilities examples: they had the right not to pay and the responsibility of keeping their own home from burning. But their next-door neighbors are what? Perfect examples of the other side of libertarianism: lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits? Their fields would never have burned if the fire department had responded to the Cranicks’ fire. Now what do they do? Sue the Cranicks, who probably have very little money (liquid and non-liquid)? What do they do if the Cranicks have to file for bankruptcy? They just lose. So much for the libertarian utopia.