OK, first: it’s the oneth anniversary of the Carnival of Space! It’s being hosted by the founder, Henry Cate, at Why Homeschool.
OK, second: I get email about Google Sky, and I’ve been remiss for not talking about it. But going through it is a major undertaking, and, well, I’ve got stuff to do. I really really want to sit down and spend like twenty hours just playing with it, but these blog feeds aren’t gonna read themselves! Happily, Orbiting Frog has some very cool stuff on GS, including mapping orbiting satellites. Whoa. I see several I’ve worked on! Swift, COBE, Hubble… wow. Very cool.
OK, third: remember when I ranted about NPR and the Science Channel putting up ads for that Expelled garbage? The blog NPRCheck has a lot more about this, and I have a hard time disagreeing with what’s said there. NPR really opened up a can-o-dumb with this one.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Yea, verily, even NPR. Back in the Apollo Days, I used to sit in the press room during missions since the information coming in was excellent. Going out, not so much. I saw journalists knowingly pervert, ignore, or generally change information until it was just the opposite of what really happened. The purpose of the major media is to sell advertisng at the highest rate. Not all the reporters did that, just the most highly paid, successful, and regarded ones. The worst was the New York Times. The best, The Christian Science Monitor.
Thank you bloggers for, if not totally unbiased, at least more accurate reporting than most of the regularly read media.
P.S. I was there because I made all the Manned Spacecraft Center, and later the only, Apollo mission films.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
In a touch of irony, aren’t the wingnuts pushing for ‘equal time’ for CreatIDonism the same ones who called the attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine “the Hush Rush Bill”?
(Being a long-time broadcaster, I KNOW what the FD actually mandated, and 100% of the attacks on it are totally bovine feces)
J/P=?
May 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I was actually poking around NPR this morning looking for a way to complain - loudly. Thanks for this.
I am rather upset with much of their recent change in style. Can we please have Bob Edwards back?
JC
May 1st, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Well, the NPRcheck piece was primarily about creationist-friendly news coverage on NPR, which I think is a lot more problematic than advertising, which is what the original BA post was about. (And seriously, if you’re going to compare the Expelled folks to NAMBLA and the KKK, you’re in no position to complain when they say science caused the holocaust).
The Science channel is an advertising supported business and is going to run ads if the money is right - they can hardly censor every advertisement that makes dubious claims - they wouldn’t have many left, and they’d have to figure out a way to make money from subscriptions, i.e. you’d have to pay for it.
In reality the ad was probably from a third party advertising network (the Science channel sells them the space, and they resell it to advertisers), and was context-matched by a computer algorithm based on keywords such as “evolution” or “science” appearing on the page. Most often when you’re seeing a particular ad online, no humans were involved in the decision to show it to you.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Wow, that NAMBLA and KKK meme won’t die.
What the Expelled group is trying to do is defame millions of scientists, millions, by lying and slander — comparing PZ to Nazis who gassed Jews? They’re not killing people (as the KKK used to do), but they are trying to brainwash an entire generation of children in this country, and they are trying to bypass Constitutionally-mandated doctrines. It has been shown in a court of law that ID is the same thing as creationism, and therefore unconstitutional to teach.
What they’re doing is disgusting, and it’s undermining science. So I stick with my comparison.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Personally, I’d say that what the ID folks are trying to do is WORSE than straight up killing people.
They’re trying to kill people’s minds.
Killing people at least stops the victim from killing others. If you kill someone’s mind, then they’re apt to spread the misinformation and perpetuate the mind death…thus you’ve not just killed that person’s mind, you’ve potentially killed untold numbers of others.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Do you think NPR needs to be more opinionated in its reporting? All they did was report the story from an objective journalistic stand point.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90024822
May 1st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I have to agree with stopgap. I didn’t read that story as necessarily pro or con. For the most part, it was fairly straightforward.
While I think last week’s NPR story about the teenage global warming skeptic wasn’t sufficiently incredulous, I find that on the whole the network is still fairly liberal. And as a fairly liberal person myself, I have to admit that I’d hate to see it veer into leftist propaganda. I mean, I can’t stand Rush or O’Reilly, but I’m not really a big Air America fan either. That NPR tends to walk the fence is fine with me. I prefer straightforward reporting where I can be the one to decide what to rant about.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Then again, I do read PZ, so take me for what I’m worth.