A specter is haunting the United States. A specter, who this weekend, planted its cloudy feet on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Followed by droves of Americans whose ears along with the thousands of cameras stood ready to absorb and spread a message of deception and false promises. A message that carried with it all the elements of a master propagandist. A religious tirade that hijacked the words “faith,” “hope,” and “charity,” as a way to convince the public that in order to “restore America’s honor [...]

My last couple of entries I have tackled ridiculousness pertaining to issues that have massive scope. Issues such as energy independence, climate change, the fate of our current geo-political system; ridiculousness that we hear about everyday on television, in newspapers, and across the blogosphere. However today, while riding the subway, I was reminded that ridiculousness comes in all shapes and sizes. And in this case, ridiculousness came in the form of a book title.

On April 18, 1977, President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation with the first ever-proposed federal energy policy. In this speech, he stressed above all the vital imperative to conserve our dwindling oil resources and move towards alternative and renewable sources of energy. Carter warned that “the alternative may be a national catastrophe,” a national catastrophe like the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Greetings Dear Reader,
Today is Earth Day, one of the few holidays I actually take seriously. Yet at the same time, it is also a holiday that I find is ridiculous that we need have in the first place. Everything comes from the Earth. Everyday we pillage for its resources, not just for our survival, but mainly to support our lifestyle, a lifestyle of excess and consumption. A lifestyle that is nothing more than a perversion of the American Dream and by consequence inhibits the survival of others and sucks the …

Greetings Dear Readers,

I understand that this is a funny headline for a science blog. But unfortunately we live in very politically volatile times. Although ideally science should be kept far, far, far away from the soap opera with a trillion dollar budget that is American politics, the reality is that politics and science are very much intertwined. Without the votes of our elected officials, there would be no funding for important and revolutionary projects like RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, …

Greetings Dear Readers,
If you live anywhere within continental United States, you are no doubt informed of the rippling snowstorm spreading across the country. Some citizens even experiencing snow for the first time, like many Texas residents who had the pleasure of receiving a whole foot of the stuff dumped on to their unsuspecting roads and houses. In Washington, DC, where I live the majority of the year, we experienced the worst snowstorm in 200 years. A storm powerful enough to shut down the roads, metro, schools and even the United …

Greetings, Dear Readers.
Now, I understand given this is talkingscience.org, so there is an argument to be made that this blog post could be deemed “inappropriate” or “off topic.”  However,  recent events in the circus that is the American political world have injected me with what can only be described as an adrenaline rush equivalent of ridiculousness. So, given the thousands of universities that now offer political science as a major as my justification, as well as the fact that the Democrats are pro-science, I will now analyze for you the …

Greetings, Dear Readers.
I write to you from the tight confine that is the window seat of a Bolt Bus. My legs, holding in place a duffel bag filled with clothes, are practically stuck for the next four hours, a torture barely offset by the fact that Bolt offers Wi-Fi. As the sky slowly begins to grow darker and the driver steers the bus south down the highway, I can feel my much-needed winter break slowly draw to a close and the pressure and anticipation of the start of a new …

Greetings, Dear Readers.
If you are lucky enough to catch this post, then you will have stumbled upon the first of many entries in my new weekly blog: Jesse Battles Ridiculousness. Herein will lie one of the few places left in this vast world of ours where TalkingScience and Science Friday lovers alike can seek refuge and enjoy the sanctuary of a land (or Web page) where only facts, evidence and logic reign supreme and are the necessary cornerstones to every argument presented.
That is not to say that this is an …