Policy
gregladen | November 5, 2010Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) shamed the cable station MSNBC for indefinitely suspending its liberal host Keith Olbermann for making political donations.
Sanders, an independent who aligns himself with Democrats, called MSNBC's decision to suspend Olbermann, who admitted to making donations to several Democratic candidates this cycle, "outrageous."
source
Olberman had been suspended after Politico, the blog, narked on him for making three donations to Democratic candidates. My source on that is politico but it is the policy of this blog to not link to other blogs that being with the letter "p…
illconsidered | November 5, 2010Judith Curry has become quite a blog sensation, and did so long before starting her own. I have expressed my frustration with her in the past for a seemingly reckless affinity for "hit and run" postings. I will appreciatively grant that she comments alot, and engages many conversants extensively, but she has posted many very inflammatory or technically flawed diatribes in the past, the kind sorely needing defending or ammending, and left the clear and substantive rebuttals unanswered or inadequately answered. Frequently interested readers were left with only vague promises of "more on that…
oracknows | November 5, 2010As Vaccine Awareness Week, originally proclaimed by Joe Mercola and Barbara Loe Fisher to spread pseudoscience about vaccines far and wide and then coopted by me and several other bloggers to counter that pseudoscience, draws to a close, I was wondering what to write about. After all, from my perspective, on the anti-vaccine side Vaccine Awareness Week had been a major fizzle. Joe Mercola had posted a series of nonsensical articles about vaccines, as expected, but Barbara Loe Fisher appeared to have sat this one out, having posted nothing. Well, not quite. More like almost nothing. I noticed…
tfk | November 3, 2010Marshall Ganz is a legendary organizer, and one of the architects of President Obama's remarkable grassroots campaign of 2008. When I was doing Camp Obama, the trainers were rightly in awe of him. Which makes his diagnosis of where the President has gone astray especially important:
This dramatic reversal is not the result of bad policy as such; the president made some real policy gains. It is not a consequence of a president who is too liberal, too conservative or too centrist. And it is not the doing of an administration ignorant of Washington's ways. Nor can we honestly blame the system…
kbonham | November 1, 2010I was there! Not that it was easy. We decided to park in VA (in the parking garage of the National Science foundation - totally by accident) and take the metro in, but evidently the entire world had the same idea; the metro was about a 2 hour wait, and the bus stop had like 3 buses worth of people, and only two buses scheduled in the next hour. So we decided to walk the 6 miles to the National Mall, with less than an hour before the thing started. I was at Obama's inauguration two years ago, and there were screens and speakers all the way to the Lincoln Memorial, but apparently Comedy Central…
mikethemadbiologist | October 20, 2010I've never been one for long-distance psychoanalysis, especially of political figures. I don't know them, and, besides, I'm not really competent to make a clinical judgment. Instead, I follow Paul Krugman's simple rule of punditry:
Long ago -- basically when I started writing for the Times -- I decided that I would judge the character of politicians by what they say about policy, not how they come across in person. This led me to conclude that George W. Bush was dishonest and dangerous back when everyone was talking about how charming and reasonable he was. It led me to conclude that Colin…
kcollins | October 19, 2010
Anthony Livingston
Entry: Why Science is Cool- Where is Your Science Lab?
What is your age? 17
Where do you go to school?
High Tech High North County, San Marcos, CA
What do you plan to study in college?
Neuro Science and Political Science
What is your favorite subject?
It is a tie between Biology and US History!
Can you tell us what inspired you to make this video?
Many students are intimidated by science because they think it is too hard or that they will never use it. My goal was to show people we are all scientists and that science is part of everyday living.
Understanding science helps…
mikethemadbiologist | October 14, 2010Lotsa links. Science:
Can't we all just get long: evolution of altruism edition
The Failed Promise of Genomics
Natural selection in our time
Toxic algae rapidly kills coral
Other:
Unanticipating The Great Depression and the Great Recession
La vida en los Estados Unidos
Why Foreclosure Fraud Is So Dangerous to Property Rights
T inspector surprised to learn bus 100 feet away from him seemed about to burst into flames
America's dish detergent wars: The fuss over phosphate bans provides an object lesson in the paranoid politics of the Tea Party's anti-liberal backlash
Why printing money makes…
tfk | October 13, 2010Jason Rosenhouse has a long post up claiming I missed the point in my post a few days ago about the lessons communication science can teach us about the accommodationism spat. The two things I came away from his post thinking were: 1) wow, did he miss my point! and 2) we're talking about very different things.
First, to the question of whether I "missed the point," the question posed by Jerry Coyne was not about how to promote atheism. The question I was answering was about whether emphasizing spirituality could help more people accept evolution. At least, that's what I take Coyne's "come…
aardvarchaeology | October 10, 2010Recently I wrote about some policies advocated by the Swedish anti-immigration party (SD) regarding public funding of the arts. I remarked that the party's suggestions show that their members do not have much education regarding the arts or public debates in the field during the past decades. "They are after all a party for the blue-eyed, blue-collar, disappointed, rural, jobless man."
One of the comments to this intrigued me. Said Robert Pearse,
As opposed to the consciously multi-ethnic, university-educated, self-satisfied, city-dwelling, rich?
My, I haven't seen such a display of elitism…
tlambert | October 9, 2010Dan Vergano in USA Today reports:
Officials at George Mason University confirmed Thursday that they are investigating plagiarism and misconduct charges made against a noted climate science critic.
"I'm very well aware of the report, but I have been asked by the university not to comment until all the issues have been settled," Wegman says, by phone. "Some litigation is underway." Walsch confirms that the university has asked Wegman not to comment.
"Clearly, text was just lifted verbatim from my book and placed in the (Wegman) report," says Bradley, who is also one of the authors of the 1999…
sastyk | October 7, 2010Can a movement with the truth on its side abandon dry numbers for truthiness?
by guest blogger Molly Davis
**Hi guys! Sorry, this isn't much of an intro, but I hope you like the blog!**
Today's ASPO-USA conference in Washington, DC, is by far populated with people who support the idea that oil and gas supplies (or at least our ability to access them without serious environmental impacts) are peaking and that the results will prove both economically and socially disruptive.
But among this group, almost all of the messaging experts say the movement's narrative has failed to influence…
tfk | September 24, 2010Ed Yong has a great blog post up asking Should science journalists take sides? He rightly answers: yes, "a commitment to the view from nowhere has many problems." Among those problems, this opinions-on-shape-of-earth-differ style is "a disservice to journalism," reflective of "laziness" and "a poor understanding of one's audience," and a sign of "naiveté" among journalists who adopt the pose. It can force writers to make "ethical breaches." Lastly, he notes that it derives from â and more importantly contributes to â a "failure to understand the nature of science."
Other bloggers have…
tlambert | September 23, 2010Heartland already had one of their Climate Change conferences this year, but they are holding another one in Sydney on Friday October 1st and it's FREE.
Speakers and topics:
Chris de Freitas: Developments in Climate Science: Potential Drivers of Emissions Policy Beyond 2012
Robert Carter: The Reconstruction of Past Sea-Level Change: Policy Implications
Senator Cory Bernardi: The Political State of Play of Climate Change Policy in Australia
David Evans: Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?
Alan Moran: Lower CO2 Levels: Costs, Benefits and Possibilities
Barun S. Mitra: How Domestic…
mikethemadbiologist | September 6, 2010I'm no great fan of DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, but I'm on his side over his calling his book about movement conservatives "American Taliban." According to progressives such as Matt Yglesias, this title is unwarranted hyperbole*. Tristero explains to boychick Yglesias why the title works:
Matt has described a dismaying number of ways in which the right wing sounds terribly Taliban-ish. Rhetorically speaking, simply by engaging the notion that radical Islamists can be compared to the right wing GOP, the creepy similarities between their worldviews and values simply can't be…
stoat | September 5, 2010So, I didn't like the IAC prescription for the IPCC. So I need my own. And I forgot that I already had one. PK said it well in the comments:
How many IPCC reports does it take to screw in a light bulb? The bureaucratic solution for inefficient bureaucracy always seems to be more bureaucracy. If the purpose of the IPCC is to inform governments on climate change and its possible impacts, the job is pretty much done. If the purpose is to provide a rationale for global taxation and control of CO2, we'll be arguing over the results of AR15.
but it bears repeating and expanding. No number of IPCC…
oracknows | September 3, 2010One of the most frustrating aspects of taking care of cancer patients is that in general, with a handful of specific exceptions, we do not have good curative therapies for patients with stage IV cancer, particularly solid tumors. Consequently, we are forced to view patients with stage IV cancer as "incurable" because, the vast majority of the time, they are incurable. Over the years, we have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at patients with stage IV disease, largely with dissapointing results. That's not to say that the few specific exceptions to which I alluded are not a reason for…
mikethemadbiologist | September 1, 2010There's something that has puzzled me about the recent stem cell decision that led to an injunction that prevents the NIH from spending any funds on research involving human embryonic stem cells. I've read the decision (pdf), and it appears to be incredibly broad and damaging to NIH funding in general.
I could understand an injunction based on a finding that the policy violated federal law: I think that's stupid, but I get it. What I don't understand is the finding that NIH policy causes harm to the plaintiffs (the researchers who brought the suit):
Plaintiffs are researchers who work…
mikethemadbiologist | August 31, 2010Links for you. Science:
Estimate Lowered of Typical Flu Toll
Don't Just Sit There! How bathroom posture affects your health.
Other:
Failure To Rise
SMART POLICY, SMART POLITICS....
The Confederate Party has always been about 'Honor'
MOVEMENTS ARE ABOUT SOMETHING REAL....
75 years of unqualified success
sastyk | August 24, 2010The realities of climate change and energy depletion mean that at some point, we will encounter situations where there is not enough of an energy resource or one of the things it enables - whether food or transport or whatever, to go around. In fact, eventually we will enounter many of these shortages. Whether they arise initially from a situation in which there are actual shortages or whether the shortages are structural problems of transport or caused by inequity and dishonesty almost doesn't matter - we are going to run bang up against problems of access to resources.
When that happens,…