December 31, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
This is old news, but the National Review is worried about Star Trek: I have over the past couple of months been watching DVDs of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show I missed completely in its run of 1987 to 1994; and I confess myself amazed that so many conservatives are fond of it. In fairness, there are many reasons why one might not like Star Trek, or TNG in particular. Maybe it's a sane explanation… Its messages are unabashedly liberal ones of the early post-Cold War era…Ah, OK. So he's objecting perhaps to the fact that Star Trek...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:25 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 27, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Discovery Institute boss Bruce Chapman considers healthcare reform, and wonders Is it Constitutional? The answer is: Yes. This has been a simple answer to a stupid question....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:13 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 26, 2009
Category: Culture Wars
ID-blog Telic Thoughts, between efforts at debunking 9/11 and denying the last few decades worth of climate research, has time for A Christmas Story. Shorter version: For Jack Bauer so loved the world that he sent his only daughter out into it, then died in her arms after she was brutally raped by drug-selling white slavers. And that's why Christians celebrate Christmas.Personally, I think it's nice to celebrate the notion of peace on earth and good will toward all more than vigilante fantasies, but whatever nogs your egg, I guess....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 8:55 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 22, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Washington Post, 12/22/2009 – Obama rejects criticism on health-care reform legislation: "Nowhere has there been a bigger gap between the perceptions of compromise and the realities of compromise than in the health-care bill," Obama said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Post about his legislative record this year. "Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill." … He said the Senate legislation accomplishes "95 percent" of what he called for during his 2008 presidential campaign and in his September speech to a joint session of Congress on the need for health-care reform. … Obama said...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:23 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 21, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
We knew that the Discovery Institute was wrong about evolution. They recently set out to prove to the world how wrong they are about global warming, having also shown how poorly they grasp the difference between weather and climate, how little they understand about tsarist Russia, about Social Security and foreign affairs, advanced medical directives, fiscal policy, and indeed about human genetics. Now Bruce Chapman, former Director of the Census for Ronald Reagan and head DJ of the Disco. 'Tute, shows how little he knows about current events: Sen. John McCain could have been Barack Obama's most effective buddy in...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:43 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
Kevin Drum reproduces the following graphic (from here via here) under the title "The Aging of Science." The problem is that this isn't about the Aging of Science. First, most scientists don't seek NIH grants, so this would, at best, show the aging of medical research. But really, it represents an intentional and ill-considered policy at NIH of pushing for larger grants to a smaller fraction of applicants. Before you give researchers millions of dollars, they need to have encouraging results, so they need to have established research programs with solid results. So NIH funds older researchers, usually as part...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:05 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
Steve Benen reminds me about the GOP effort to block a defense spending bill to delay health-care reform: Senate Republicans said Thursday that they would try to filibuster a massive Pentagon bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an unusual move that several acknowledged was an effort to delay President Obama's health-care legislation. … "I don't want health care," Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) said in explaining his support of a filibuster. He is a member of the Appropriations Committee, which crafted the Pentagon funding bill. Brownback is running for Governor of Kansas next year, where one can hope...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:05 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 18, 2009
Via Tyler Longpine, a report finds that health insurance reform would significantly reduce the number of uninsured in Kansas: About 228,000 uninsured people in Kansas would gain coverage by 2019 under the Senate health reform bill, according to a new report by Families USA, a national group advocating for health reform. Without comprehensive reform, an additional 59,000 people in Kansas will lose health care coverage by 2019, according to the report, increasing the number of uninsured Kansans from about 338,000 to 397,000. Nationally, the number of uninsured is projected to increase to 54 million in 10 years. This is basically...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:38 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
Jason Rosenhouse replies to my post yesterday about health insurance. You'll recall that I took progressive opponents of the current Senate bill to task for complaining about a mandate that people buy health insurance as if we didn't have parallel examples to see how insurance mandates work. Jason objects: For one thing, the moral case for requiring car insurance is a lot stronger than it is for health insurance. Why should you have to buy car insurance? Because other drivers need to be protected from you. Simple as that. You can do a lot of harm with a car, and...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:26 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 17, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
I don't say this often, but Atrios isn't talking sense: I feel like those more supportive of this bill are attacking anti-mandate strawmen. The reason for thinking that without a public option or similar mandates are going to be a disaster is that without competition or sufficient affordability (due to not quite generous enough subsidies), you're forcing people to buy shitty insurance that they can't afford. Mandates aren't bad in and of themselves, but they're bad if they aren't part of a comprehensive plan which is... good!The issue is that the health insurance reform bill in Congress right now requires...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:44 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at 
