Not so much open, but more like closed

The United States financial industry is in the greatest meltdown since the great depression, we have an historic election where a black man may be elected to the highest office in the land, we are involved in two illegal and immoral wars as we attempt to build a global hegemony, there is an important eNovel being written, so what should we talk about?

I know, Open Access publishing of scientific manuscripts.

A key foundation of science is the free exchange of ideas. The foundation of publishing is to have exclusive rights to manuscripts so that publishing companies can make money. Scientific journals can then be seen as having very different interests than the scientific community at large. For those of you who, for some strange reason, do not keep up with the ins-and-outs of the arcane world of scientific publishing, Open Access is a fairly recent movement to make scientific publications, and thus scientific knowledge available to all scientists (actually anybody) around the world. This includes the ability to freely use published figures etc. in future writing. Scientific journals are a bit expensive, on the order of $100+ for an individual and $1,000+ for an institutional subscription. While I know most of you are willing to pay out of pocket for your own copy of the International Journal of Moose Proctology, some of the less well-known journals are more expensive because of their smaller audiences. So for a library to have a decent representation of the biology journals out there, it can be >$500,000/year in expense. Most universities in the US can swing this, but as you get to poorer countries, or smaller schools, the access to information becomes more and more difficult.
Open Access journals charge the author to publish instead of the subscriber, so the information becomes available to anybody, no subscription required (they will publish your paper for free if you can't afford it). The NIH thought this was such a good idea, that they created the NIH public access policy. This policy resulted in Pubmed Central so anyone who gets NIH money for research has to deposit a copy of their manuscript to PMC within a year of it being published in any journal. Now 1 year is a long time in research for someone to have to wait, so this is really a compromise policy that allows journals to still get their money but still keeping the spirit of information exchange that is so critical to science.

Pubmed Central is a really good idea.

The much loved Representative John Conyers has recently sponsored H.R.6845 otherwise known as the `Fair Copyright in Research Works Act'. This is a crappy bill that basically bans all Federal agencies, including the NIH, from forcing people to make their work publicly available.
Why would someone take such a clearly unpopular and counterproductive stance?
Follow the money:
American Intellectual Property Law Assn $10,000 to Conyers.

What does AIPLA consider key legislation for the 110th Congress?

The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.

I am shocked.

I have colleagues in South America that already have to do some "creative" solutions to get access to the papers they need to read. Pubmed Central is a key resource for access to papers published in some lesser subscribed journals. This bill serves very narrow interests at the expense of all science.
Conyers is a total cobag for sponsoring this dreck.

Helping Jennifer

Jennifer needs some serious funny. When limericks are not strong enough, there is only one thing that will work. Dirty Halloween Pumpkins:






















Full moon
















RM/BP at Summerfest



















CALVIN!!!11!

















Have you seen my carpet?















AG's idea of a pumpkin























Not a pumpkin, but the best costume evah

















Um, Snag?

Canadian Rhinoceros Party

While Snag has laid out a convincing platform for his vice-presidential run, I have finally found the party I can fully endorse. The greatest player of all times, Bill Lee for president:

BOSTON -- Bill Lee's got it all figured out. He wants change now, and he's got a plan to get there.
So just like he did in 1988, when he ran on the Canadian Rhinoceros Party ticket, Lee says he's gearing up for another run at the Presidency of the United States. And this is a man with results on his mind.

He's talking about tackling everything, from changing the climate in Africa to opening up the borders of the North American continent to letting everyone out of prison to build cross country ski trails.

"I'll do that in my first week," Lee said. "Then I'll do like George [W.] Bush and I'm gonna go golfing."

Sorry Frank, my heart now belongs to another:

The 40-year-old Lee, now playing for a semipro team in Nova Scotia and conducting baseball clinics, is the candidate of the Rhinoceros Party, a tongue-in-cheek fixture of Canadian politics that has actually attracted thousands of votes in some elections since it was founded in 1962. Lee, who hopes to establish the party in the United States in time for next year's state primaries, is basing his campaign on the notion, popularized by Buckminster Fuller, that ''the earth is a living organism traveling through space at 1,000 miles a minute.''

Running on a platform that envisions the earth as a spaceship is certainly an appropriate undertaking for Lee, whose antics as a player earned him the nickname Spaceman. Beyond that, though, he's convinced that by putting the planet's interests ahead of those of individuals, the world can rid itself of such problems as pollution and the proliferation of nuclear arms.

That may seem heavy stuff coming from someone who once remarked that he sprinkled marijuana on his buckwheat cakes. But, in keeping with the traditions of the Rhinoceros Party, which among other things has called for repeal of the law of gravity, Lee won't limit his campaign to overly weighty matters. One of his platform planks would do away with chairs, an insidious invention, in his view, whose only function has been to ''cause lower-back pain and waistline spread.'' It's time, he says, for people to stand up - and be counted. Preferably by voting the Rhinoceros ticket.

This is just too fantastic for words.

Dare we suggest Rhinoceros/Moose Unity '08?

Without a shot fired

Palin:

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We’ve learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

Good to know the Korean War didn't happen:


















or the Vietnam War:

















We certainly didn't train this guy to fight Russians in Afghanistan:
















Which means this is not a direct result of the cold war:






















and Nicaragua certainly didn't have an ideologically driven, bloody civil war:
















Of all the stupid lies Palin has uttered, this was the most morally degenerate one, and the one not challenged by anyone. It is disgusting.

Helping Kathleen

with her political funk:

There once was a gentleman suitor
But Kathleen was unsure he would suit her
He made a big mess
As he reached for her dress
So Kathleen thought it best he get tutored

speaking in tongues

McCain for President 2000:

The political tactics of division and slander are not our values, they are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country.
Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.

McCain/Palin 2008:

Pastor Ed Kalnin, the senior pastor of Palin's former Pentecostal church, has also come under fire for his comments. In 2004, he told church members if they voted for John Kerry for president, they wouldn't get into heaven. He told them, "I question your salvation."
The Assembly of God issued a statement online in response, which said Kalnin was "joking" when he suggested "Kerry supporters would go to hell." The statement went on to say: "We do acknowledge in hindsight that it was careless, and we do apologize for that. This statement is not written as a defense, but as a clarification."

Ouch

Oh noes.


And the NFL, still a bunch of stuffed shirt assholes.