July | 2006 | Frank's Pandora

Books on science and religion

By Frank ⋅ July 26, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Cornelia Dean of the New York Times reviewed a whopping total of seven books that have been published recently about science and religion. My own opinion is very much in line with the ones published by Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, viewing religion as a disease. Cornelia Dean has a slightly different view, which she [...]

Let’s veto vetoes

By Frank ⋅ July 19, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Bush uses veto on stem cell bill President Bush vetoes a bill for the first time since taking office as he blocks more embryonic cell research. This disturbing decision was made today, president Bush has decided to veto progress in medical science and a chance for people with terrible diseases to get a chance for [...]

The “anniversary” of the 7/7 attacks

By Frank ⋅ July 8, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

The British writer and influential intellectual Timothy Garton Ash has written a really interesting opinion article for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. You can read the article here, but unfortunately it’s only available in Dutch. What the article is about is best described by the lead: How is it possible that the United States, that [...]

Broadcast politics

By Frank ⋅ July 8, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Jimmy Wales, the founder of the great open source encyclopaedia Wikipedia, has a new hobby. Much to his dismay, he notices that more and more countries are ruled not by the elected politicians but by the broadcast media. He writes on his new open source platform Campaigns Wikia: For more than 50 years now, we have [...]

What’s an economist?

By Frank ⋅ July 7, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

“An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.” – Laurence J. Peter

Writer’s block

By Frank ⋅ July 6, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

If you get distracted easily, like I do, but still have to make a deadline, read these ten tips on how to concentrate on writing. They seem pretty obvious, but when you stick to them they might actually help you get the job done.

Top scientist bloggers

By Frank ⋅ July 5, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Who said scientists are not of this world? They are out there connecting with the rest of us, through their blogs! Nature has searched the Technorati site that indexes blogs, and discovered that some scientists write blogs for quite a large following. Check out the top five of scientist bloggers, and also Nature’s similarly composed [...]

Diplomatic monkey

By Frank ⋅ July 5, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Diplomats implicated in illegal wildlife trade Concern mounts as a UN peacekeeper leaving Sierra Leone is caught with a live chimp in his baggage – he claims diplomatic immunity Did the chimp claim immunity or the UN diplomat? Seriously, because one of the great dangers of illegally exporting wildlife is the huge amount of pathogens [...]

The gene pool

By Frank ⋅ July 2, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

The moment feared most by two lovers involved in a growing relationship is meeting the future inlaws. Swimming in your partner’s gene pool can be a chilling experience at the very least, judging from the large volume of jokes on the matter. Most first dips leave a lukewarm to an icy sensation. So I was [...]

The dodgy diplomat