tqa | March 16, 2009
A couple of weeks ago, Interior Secretary Ken "Cowboy Hat" Salazar went ahead with a decision to remove endangered species protections from grey wolves in several western states. The decision in question was first proposed by the Bush Administration, and was extremely controversial. Needless to say, there are quite a few people who are unhappy with Salazar's decision to approve the delisting.
To be honest, I'm not thrilled with it myself. I looked at the issue last year, and there certainly seemed to be some very good reasons to think that the delisting is not a good idea. Salazar's…
tqa | March 15, 2009
I'm the top three results for this Google search. It looks like they've definitely managed to pin down just how credible I really am.
tqa | March 14, 2009
If you hadn't figured it out by now, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) is not my favorite member of Congress. If asked for my personal ranking of Senators, I'd probably place him somewhere in the bottom 2%. That said, I really can't claim that he's always wrong. Every now and then, he proposes something that is completely reasonable - even if his motives aren't all that pure.
Last week, he proposed an amendment to the big spending bill that would have eliminated the automatic cost-of-living pay increase that Congress gives itself every year. The amendment was shot down, ostensibly because it…
tqa | March 14, 2009
The Center For American Progress recently released the results of a political positions survey. They asked respondents to rate their level of agreement with 40 questions on a scale of 0-10, with 0 at the 'disagree' end of the spectrum. They converted each person's responses into a numerical value (that they call a 'composite ideology measure') between 0 and 400.
They've also put the online version of the survey up on their website. I came in as "extremely progressive" (although I still swear I'm a moderate), with a score of 315/400. If you take the survey, I'd be very interested to hear…
tqa | March 13, 2009
(Fair warning: I usually keep the language clean in this blog, but I didn't manage it this time. Below the fold may be NSFW.)
OK, I admit it. I've still got last night's Jon Stewart CNBC Massacre (with full orchestration and five part harmony) stuck in my mind. I think that's going to be the case for at least a little longer, because I'm still trying to wrap my mind around some of the things I've learned over the course of the whole mess.
One of the (several) things I keep coming back to is just what some of the criticism of last nights production demonstrates. Some critics follow the…
tqa | March 13, 2009
Sam: Toby, do you really think it's a good idea to invite people to dinner and then tell them exactly what they're doing wrong with their lives?
Toby: Absolutely. Otherwise it's just a waste of food.
The West WingSeason 1, Episode 7, The State Dinner
Jon Stewart understands better than anyone - except possibly Steven Colbert - the tremendous opportunity that a comedian has when it comes to speaking truth to power. He's been making the most of that opportunity over the past week or so, with the "weeklong feud of the century". If you've missed it, you've probably been in a coma, but it's…
tqa | March 12, 2009
The New York Times has just reported that the Senate Commerce Committee held a closed-door, unannounced markup earlier today. During the markup, the Committee unanimously approved both John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, and both nominations are expected to move to the floor.
According to the Times, both John Rockefeller (the Committee Chair) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (the ranking Republican) say that all holds that they know of have been released, and that the nominees should be confirmed sometime this week.
I'll keep an eye on this story, and let you know if there are any changes. I'd like…
tqa | March 12, 2009
UPDATE - 17:35 CDT: According to the New York Times, all holds are gone as of this afternoon, the Commerce Committee has unanimously approved the two nominees, and they're expected to be confirmed by unanimous consent early next week.
But that's because the holds are still going. And going. And going.
And there's really nothing new to report. So, instead, I'm going to speculate. But business before pleasure:
Please, please, continue to apply pressure to your own Senators and to Majority Leader Harry Reid. I realize that this is getting really old by now. It's probably starting to feel…
tqa | March 12, 2009
A moderately large piece of space debris has only recently been identified as a threat to the International Space Station - too recently for the station to be moved out of the way. The object is now projected to pass close enough to the ISS to put it into the high threat category. As a result, the astronauts onboard the ISS will be moving from the station into the Soyuz escape capsule as a safety precaution.
The closest approach is predicted to occur at 11:39 CDT - about 20 minutes from now. The crew is currently preparing to board the Soyuz. If all goes well, they'll be in the Soyuz from…
tqa | March 12, 2009
Several news agencies are reporting that a massive academic fraud case has surfaced. A single researcher apparently fabricated data used in the publication of at least 21 journal articles published over a 12-year period.
After an internal reviewer raised concerns, Baystate Medical Center conducted an investigation into research conducted by Dr. Scott S. Reuben, who was - at that time - the chief of their acute pain service. As the phrase "at that time" suggests, the results of the investigation did not exonerate Dr. Reuben. Anything but, in fact. In late January, Baystate sent out a letter…
tqa | March 11, 2009
The latest entry is one of the more recent "news" articles on the main page. This particular one is more malignant than humorous:
"Dressed in black," a German 17-year-old former public school student kills 15 people.[19]Wearing all black is characteristic of anti-Christian belief systems. Our list of young mass murderers grows, and see how many were anti-Christian products of public schools.
tqa | March 11, 2009
To the best of my knowledge, there have been no significant developments in the continuing saga of "who is blocking the science nominees in the Senate". Progressive Alaska's Philip Munger noted in a comment here that Senator Mark Begich's (D-AK) office says Begich is not involved, and that he has received additional information pointing to David Vitter as the culprit. Meanwhile, Talking Points Memo's Elana Schor reports that she's received denials from both Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and John Barrasso (R-WY) - and that's in addition to the denial she received from Vitter yesterday.
In the absence…
tqa | March 10, 2009
Tonight's episode in the Conservapedia Follies comes in the form of their page on the "Religion of Barack Obama". Specifically, it comes from a section of the article that attempts to "correct" what the Conservapediots perceive to be "errors" in an article about Obama and religion that appeared in the "liberal magazine Newsweek." The whole article is, typically enough, amusingly bad, but there are two entries that are particularly enchanting:
Born to a Christian-turned-secular mother [correction: mother who abandoned Christianity] and a Muslim-turned-atheist African father [correction:…
tqa | March 10, 2009
As of this morning, the situation surrounding the Senate confirmations of John Holdren as head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Jane Lubchenco as NOAA Administrator is somewhat confused. A number of new news articles and blog posts have appeared over the last couple of days. Unfortunately, some of them seem to be presenting new information, while others are several days behind the current situation. In the interest of trying to inject a bit of clarity, I'm going to review the full chronology, not just the latest information.
20 December 2008: President-elect Obama names…
tqa | March 9, 2009
Tonight's entry isn't actually from one of Conservapedia's "encyclopedia" articles. Instead, it's from one of their "debate" pages. The topic for the debate is "Women in the Military", and the first entry on the "No" side contains an absolutely fantastic sentence:
Also, there are some jobs that by their nature are better suited to the female's mind, such as Air Traffic Controlman.
tqa | March 9, 2009
As many of you know, I've been closely following the complex situation involving President Obama's nominees for Science Advisor and NOAA Administrator. Early last week, we learned that both John Holdren (the Science Advisor designate) and Jane Lubchenco (the NOAA Administrator nominee) were stuck in Senate limbo, with no confirmation votes scheduled as a result of one or more "anonymous holds" that were placed on the nominations.
Initial reports indicated that holds had been placed by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), in an attempt to gain leverage for an unrelated issue. Later in the week,…
tqa | March 6, 2009
A few weeks ago, I read, enjoyed, and reviewed Phil Plait's Death From the Skies. After I caught my daughter looking at the book a couple of times, I managed to bribe convince her to write a review of the book. The result is the following review. I fixed the formatting a little bit, but I had absolutely no role in the development of the text.
Death From the Skies
When I got death from the skies I thought that it would be about people getting an unpleasant visit from flaming meteors, I was wrong. It was about the ways the world will end. I then got depressed and then got an unsettling…
tqa | March 5, 2009
The Catholic Church in Brazil is off its frigging rocker. I'm not talking about being a tiny bit nuts here. We're talking over-the-top sheer gibbering insanity. The kind of insanity that's indistinguishable from pure evil, and has much the same effect.
The BBC is reporting on a hideously tragic child abuse case - a nine year old girl was found to be pregnant, with twins, as the result of sexual abuse inflicted upon her by her stepfather. I know you really don't want to, but try to wrap your mind around that concept. A nine year old, reportedly raped repeatedly by this monster over a period…
tqa | March 5, 2009
I'm no Nate Silver, but I do enjoy reading polls. Most media reports give you the high points - approval numbers, disapproval numbers, that sort of thing. If take a few minutes to dig a little deeper, you'll often find things that didn't make the highlights, but are still very interesting. Case in point: the most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf).
Fourteen pages into the poll, we find the following question:
I'm going to read you some news stories regarding various people and organizations that you may have heard about over the past two to three months. Please tell me which one…
tqa | March 5, 2009
As of this morning, it appears that the nominations of both John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco (the President's picks for Science Advisor and NOAA Administrator, respectively) are still stalled in the Senate. If we don't raise more hell over this issue - and keep raising hell - it's likely that these nominees will remain stuck in limbo for quite some time, and the Administration's efforts to forge a new science and environmental policy will be hampered as a result. Do you want that to happen?
The issue is receiving relatively little attention from the traditional press, but one report…