romunov’s blog et al

You hear politicians talk ALL the time how science is important in our state of affairs, with all the global warming hype and other problems pestering our society, but you rarely see them do anything about it. I’ve found another piece of inaction showing the State is subject to lobbying and nothing more. I have gotten the feeling there is no long term plan for anything other than how to transfer money from taxpayers to a few already loaded coffers.

If you look at the budget for 2009 of Slovenia (only in Slovenian) you will notice that there is little (ok, no) mention of scholarships for natural sciences by responsible Ministries. There are, however, predicted 50.732,00 € for scholarships for study of law by the Faculty of law. I fail to see how we need to encourage study of law, given that this faculty receives a lion’s share of new souls each year.
Then there’s the Ministry for culture giving whooping 667 k € for scholarships. I can’t find any other scholarships by specific Ministries financing students for natural sciences specifically. There are predicted scholarships for gifted and poor people, but that’s it.

Had a few minutes and I went photohunting. I have a bush of Philadelphus coronarius next to my garden and this is what I managed to capture on a photo cell.

Above mentioned bush in full bloom.

Hopefully Maarten will be able to chip in the species. I still don’t have a dissection microscope and haven’t been able to ID it. It’s a hoverfly (Syrphidae).

Possibly a muscid (Muscidae).

Another muscid-like fly.

“Rainbow child spider” (Araniella sp., det.: M. Gregorič).

I must admit, I wasn’t surprised when I learned that Merck started a phony journal with support from Elsevier. This is also why we must promote Open Access journals to exclude the greedy corporations from tinkering in the machine named Science.

I did not know that Islamic banking does (did?) not allow charging interest. This article gives some basic information. Basically, in the West, if you want to buy a car, you go to a bank, agree to a loan (with interest) upon which you receive your share of worthless papers (or electronically). In Islamic banking, the bank buys the car and sells it to the customer at a higher price but without interest. That way, the bank takes the risk as well. I see this as a more or less predatory lending proof system.

Here we go… again.

Israeli president has agreed to discuss the creation of the Palestinian state.

Mr Netanyahu, who leads a coalition government dominated by Right-wing parties, faces a new US effort to broker a Middle East settlement.

In the next four to five weeks, President Barack Obama’s administration is expected to publish an outline peace plan.

The crux of this proposal will be the creation of a Palestinian state - something that Mr Netanyahu and most of his coalition partners oppose. (link)

As you might have noticed, the government coalition opposes the creation of such state.

It would come with no surprise if during or just before the talks, a muslim-nazi-commie-hippie radicals launched two rockets towards Israel which would yield a response from IDF and end the talks rather abruptly. I will return to this post as soon as anything new over this happens.

I guess you can’t wait more than a few years and some scandals before another outbreak of deadly (insert factor) erupts. The last one was Avian flu virus and before that, BSE. People are panicking and it’s not all their fault. Large burden is upon the WHO and media outlets who faithfully reprint their statements. And it’s sad to see state and federal officials do their bidding without trying to do real hard science and base their decisions on those findings. I bet you didn’t know that in the last scare, Tamiflu was the preferred “cure” of choice, but scientific community has expressed what they hold reservations regarding this product (see here and follow links).

We’re witnessing another scare. Tamiflu manufacturer has announced a prediction of 500% in increase of sales of the product. The media is spilling out mass death scenario regardless that the WHO has corrected its 150 dead figure to 7. This is hardly the mortality you would expect from a deadly virus that was rampant in 1918 and killed about 50 million people. This is not even as strong as the “regular” flu that kills several factors of magnitude more people a year.

While this may turn out to be a genuine pandemic with devastating effects, there is still little evidence to insinuate in that direction. Perhaps when pigs fly.