Ever heard of the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique? They've got themselves some neato merit badges, for amusement and "By the grace of all that is good about science." For the propagation of an ideal where science communicators can meet firstly, for drinks; secondly, for communicating; and ultimately, for networking.

Now that a few days have passed since the initial cyber-attacks on US and South Korean Web sites, folks in the security community have managed to collect more information about what is going on, and have obtained and analyzed copies of the attack software.

A blogger in a different part of the NYC blogging universe looked at Bloomberg's education campaign literature. It is glossy. It has bulleted points. It has Catholic school kids dressed up to look like public school kids. What? Bloomberg's not comfortable with real public school kids?

Having been trained as a scientist, and having done some teaching and tutoring in the physical sciences, I am not very impressed with the average level of science education that I've encountered, particularly at the secondary-school level. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on learning a collection of facts, but not nearly enough on what science really is.

Ben Myers recently posted a confession about stealing books that made me chuckle, but my own book vice is of a different sort. I've never stolen a book, but I've marked up more than a few library copies in my day.

Perhaps something we have learned from the few years Republicans had total control in Washington is that when one party controls the agenda, the backlash from the public can be quick and severe. When it comes to the trust factor, the latest Rasmussen poll has Americans trusting the GOP more on 8 out of 10 different issues.

Like many, I recently received a nasty letter from Chase informing me that my minimum credit card payment would go from 2% of my balance to 5% with no chance to opt out by closing the account. It seems that in recent years their actuaries were not as smart as they were paid to be as customers sent large balances their way at low rates and were paying them flawlessly over long periods.

I am employed by an Auto Supplier which employs approximately 500 people and has locations all over the country and does business with many of the large manufacturers. True, this means that my perspective is not of all the Auto Bailout process, but it is one that not many have access to. The first indications of trouble started early last year when contacts at the big three were slowly dropping off the grid.

The BBC News site has a report today that the British Royal Family has can now be followed on Twitter, the popular "micro-blogging" service: The Twitter account @BritishMonarchy has just gone live, following several weeks of testing.

Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) is one of the few antiviral drugs available for treatment of influenza. Use of the drug has increased substantially because of the emergence of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain, against which no vaccine is yet available. A recent study has shown that low levels of oseltamivir can be detected in the aquatic environment. This finding raises the possibility that aquatic birds which harbor influenza virus could be exposed to the antiviral, leading to selection of drug resistant viruses.

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