Policy and Politics
tfk | October 1, 2006Canada.com reports the firing of a government scientist because he wouldn't refer to the government as "Canada's New Government."
We could also file this as just another battle in the war on plain language.
The scientist was fired from an unpaid emeritus position, and is appealing his dismissal.
Update: And he was reinstated.
tfk | September 29, 2006Unholy Moses' Obituary for America is too good not to reprint:
Washington — America, United States of, died Sept. 28, 2006, after a six year illness. The family states that is was, in fact, the domestic foes, not foreign, that finally took their toll.
Born in 1776 in Philadelphia, America grew up in an age of reason, matured during industrial expansion, and spent its final years basking in a glow of technology. Her parents were Checks and Balances, while her second set of parents were Habeas Corpus and Due Process. Admittedly a complex family, they enjoyed more than two centuries of success…
tfk | September 29, 2006Chris Mooney expresses concern at his blog and in Seed magazine about the possibility that Scientists and Engineers for Change (SEforA) will be too partisan. The races they expect to target include (according to the Times) "Senate race in Virginia between George Allen, the incumbent Republican, and James Webb, a Democrat; a stem cell ballot issue in Missouri; the question of intelligent design in Ohio; and Congressional races in Washington State."
On the conference call announcing the group's kick-off, retiring Republican Representative Sherwood Boehlert was the only politician mentioned by…
tfk | September 28, 2006The Times gets it wrong in criticizing the torture bill that the House passed yesterday. We aren't Rushing Off a Cliff, we're strolling, carefully and deliberately. Other than that, the editorial is dead on:
Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing…
tfk | September 28, 2006I hate, hate, hate the phrase "citizen journalist." I don't know what it means. Someone is a journalist or isn't, and a given bit of writing is or isn't journalism. Would a "citizen journalist" be like a "citizen soldier," doing journalism a few weekends every year? Are members of the Journalist Reserve held to a lower standard than regular journalists? If we are to set such standards, does Fox News still get to be considered journalism? What about People magazine?
I dig what Gone Mild says about Blogging and Journalism:
Bloggers who take themselves seriously and consider themselves "…
tfk | September 28, 2006Apparently Bob Corkins gave away $32,000 to whoever asked for it. The money came from federal funds for charter schools. Commissioner of Education Corkins solicited proposals from people who would help create charter schools. "I have not been able to find any connection between these people and a school district," said Board of Ed member Sue Gamble.
Two of the grant recipients are at the same address in Georgia. According to Gamble "These are just apparently individuals who walked off the street and said, 'We like charter schools, can you give us some money?'"
tfk | September 27, 2006Journal World's Congressional Briefing points out an Atlantic article about Hillary Clinton, and how Sam Brownback made peace with her. Brownback came to the Senate prayer group planning to talk about a cancer scare, but seeing new Senator Clinton at the meeting:
confessed to having hated Clinton and having said derogatory things about her. Through God, he now recognized his sin. Then he turned to her and asked, “Mrs. Clinton, will you forgive me?” Clinton replied that she would, and that she appreciated the apology. “It was an extraordinary moment,” the member told me.
Brownback's…
tfk | September 27, 2006Americans "need leaders to protect the integrity of science," according to Neal Lane, Bill Clinton's science advisor from 1998-2001, and before that the director of the NSF. He said that in announcing the kick-off of Scientists and Engineers for America, a new 527 that will be fighting to protect scientific integrity.
Lane explained that the group will not be partisan, because people will "lose confidence in science if it is used to advance a political agenda." The goal is to encourage lawmakers to take scientific advice seriously and to respond seriously to issues that arise. The goal is…
tfk | September 27, 2006There have been some reports that the Ahner campaign (he likes to emphasize the "Ah") has been putting out a push poll. The Mystery Pollster defines a push poll as follows:
We can usually identify a true push poll by a few characteristics that serve as evidence of that intent. "Push pollsters" (and MP hates that term) aim to reach as many voters as possible, so they typically make tens or even hundreds of thousands of calls. Real surveys usually attempt to interview only a few hundred or perhaps a few thousand respondents (though not always). Push polls typically ask just a question or two,…
tfk | September 26, 2006Judge John E. Jones III, the presiding judge in the case that kicked ID out of classrooms, came to the University of Kansas to take part on the Difficult Dialogues at The Commons, a series of lectures that is bringing some big names for big discussions.
Jones set as a precondition of his visit that he wouldn't discuss the contents of his ruling nor the process of the trial. His ruling is comprehensive, and he clearly doesn't think there's much to add. He instead wants to take advantage of his fame to clarify how judges do their work.
As he noted, a lot of the commentary, whether before,…
tfk | September 26, 2006On August 1, voters rejected Connie Morris's bid to return for another 4 years on the Kansas Board of Education. Apparently her abuse of state funds on a partisan newsletter, wasteful spending on a needless trip to Florida, and blowing out money on out of state "experts" on IDC didn't sit well in western Kansas. Not taking the hint, she requested and received approval to travel on our dime to Washington, DC and to Minnesota this winter.
The Topeka Crapital-Journal's Ric Anderson offers some new Christmas carols in honor of Connie Morris's taxpayer funded vacation:
The Little Drummer Boy…
tfk | September 26, 2006As the Supreme Court begins to emerge from its summer hibernation, lots of stories are coming out previewing impending cases and controversies. The ACS blog takes a look at Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 05-1120 a case about whether the EPA is obliged by law to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars.
The Clean Air Act either requires or permits the EPA to regulate any “air pollutant” that “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” Since it's fairly clear that climate change will endanger public health and welfare, that…
tfk | September 26, 2006As the wiretap bill moves closer to passage it becomes increasingly unclear why any new law is necessary. The new additions to the law make clear that court review of the program would not give blanket authorization for the surveillance, and would require procedures to prevent the surveillance from targetting American citizens without a warrant. The problem is that we have a law that does those things already. FISA provides these same protections, and is less "murky" in the words of former FBI and CIA director William H. Webster, former FBI director William Sessions, and 12 other former…
tfk | September 25, 2006Gallup/USAToday asked:
Just your best guess -- Do you think the Bush Administration has deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections, or do you think the recent decline in the price of gasoline has not been due to any manipulation by the Bush Administration?
42% said "deliberately manipulated." Astounding.
tfk | September 25, 2006Former GOP chairman Dennis Jones endorsed Democrat Paul Morrison for AG.
This follows a debate in which Kline claimed that Paul Morrison let crooks out of prison early, while Morrison discussed the meetings that Phill Kline held with the creationists on the Board of Education. Saying that the meetings violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the law, Morrison described the incident, in which Kline offered to defend the Board if it required warning labels on science textbooks, as part of a "scandal that has followed Mr. Kline during his short three and half years as attorney general."
The…
tfk | September 25, 2006The Hill reports that the NRCC is making Republican representatives kick in more money than last year. But Kansas' Jim Ryun won't make his target:
"I've got a race back home I've got to finish," said Rep. Jim Ryun (R-Kan.), who won in 2004 with 56 percent of the vote.
Ryun admitted he has not given as much as he would like to the program.
"You do the best you can: if you make it, great, if you don't maybe it was a little high but you do the best you can," he said.
For someone who claims that there's no competition, he sure acts scared. And it shows the weakness of the NRCC, too. They are…
tfk | September 25, 2006The Journal World sent both candidates for governor a group of questions about schools. QJim Barnett, asked for two or three things he'd want to change in the schools, couldn't think of any educational issues:
"Students today spend more time at school than ever before. At the same time, childhood obesity is increasing at an alarming rate. I will lead the fight to develop a unified approach to provide healthier foods in our schools. We must also look a possible ways to restructure the school day to increase physical activity to deal with childhood obesity among young Kansans."
Governor…
tfk | September 24, 2006In SurveyUSA's latest poll of presidential approval in all 50 states, there are only 5 states where a majority backs him, and only 7 where a plurality approves. Kansas is moving back to the president, up to -4% net approval, the tenth most supportive state and a shift of 15%. That move was largely among Republicans, who went from 31% net approval to 55%. Democratic net approval ticked up 8%, while independent approval dropped 10%.
Conservative approval returned to levels found two months ago, moderate approval held perfectly still. Liberal approval dropped 6%.
Meanwhile, Governor Sebelius…
tfk | September 24, 2006Gulag historian Kate Brown tells Harpers:
Perhaps the domestic installation of wartime technologies and military surveillance in civilian settings has become acceptable to us because we have become accustomed, as Soviet citizens did during the endless Stalinist purges, to open-ended wars--wars with no opening salvo and no concluding treaty. Whether or not one agrees that American detention centers and secret prisons are the "Gulag of our time," the comparison deserves serious consideration. It might help us shine a torch into the dark corners of repression, where the totalitarian qualities of…
tfk | September 23, 2006A report from the Department of Education's Inspector General says the government broke the law in how it promoted particular programs through its Reading First program. The director of that program:
repeatedly used his influence to steer money toward states that used a reading approach he favored, called Direct Instruction, or DI. In one case, the report says, he was told a review panel was stacked with people who backed that program.
"That's the funniest part _ yes!" he responded in e-mail dating to 2002. "You know the line from Casablanca, 'I am SHOCKED that there is gambling going on in…