Policy
clock | October 16, 2009Follow me on Twitter to get these, and more, in something closer to Real Time (all my tweets are also imported into FriendFeed where they are much more easy to search and comment on, as well as into my Facebook wall where they are seen by quite a different set of people):
FIND's Filmmaker Forum 2009: Getting an Education about Film Festivals - 'Film Independent's Filmmaker Forum: Cracking the educational market & the new role of film festivals'.
'Calvin Trillin accurately and hilariously explains how Wall St. started to fail when smart people went there':Wall Street Smarts
'Is a Big Pool…
gregladen | October 15, 2009Roughly half of the people in the United States reject one or more fundamental tenets of science (most commonly evolution), while a larger percent, perhaps more than 80 percent depending on how we measure, would fail a basic science test. A strong majority of those American citizens who would claim to have strong feelings about one or more science policy issues such as climate change, stem cell research, or nuclear power either know very little about the relevant science or are so badly informed regarding the science that their knowledge is not merely insufficient, but is actually opposite…
clock | October 13, 2009Follow me on Twitter to get these, and more, in something closer to Real Time:
Blinded by the Light - ecological light pollution.
"Newsroom as cafe is not a concept but a practice in the Czech Republic" - Full Throttle to Hyperlocal News in Czech Republic
Thanks @justarikia for a re-do of my homepage. I love it!
Guardian gagged from reporting parliament and When is a secret not a secret? and Mugging the rich bastard lawyers.
J-School: The Next Generation
On the future of scientific communication - "Within the next decade, papers will be resembling press releases...", Interesting to note in…
tfk | October 13, 2009A co-worker of mine recently visited Canada for a wedding. The day she arrived in her preferred unpopulated stretch of tundra, President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was announced.
Now, my first reaction upon hearing about the award was that it was too soon, at least. Then again, it wasn't until 8 hours later that it occurred to me that our President's race might factor into the analysis.
But in Canada, the consensus was that this was a well-deserved honor. That evicting an anti-world, anti-peace, anti-liberties junta from our seats of power and restoring the United States to a path to peace and…
gregladen | October 9, 2009If you are a right wing Republican conservative Yahoo, this letter is NOT for you. If you are a moderate, progressive, liberal, centrist, or anyone associated with the legitimate (i.e., not FOX News) press, this IS for you.
Dear Disgruntled Sisters and Brothers,
Many people are beside themselves, or at least a little annoyed, or in some cases simply bemused, because Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but he "seems to have not done anything yet." There are so many misconceptions behind that sentiment that I don't know where to start.
If you are one of the people who does not…
palmd | October 9, 2009I am a patriot. This word means different things to different people, but to me it means pride in my nation, one founded by brilliant thinkers and built on the acknowledgment of basic human rights. It does not mean that I agree with everything my country does or with all of my fellow citizens. It means that I believe in our basic values enough to love this country. Patriotism also recognizes a shared fate. There can be no patriotism unless there is a shared identity and a shared fate. Because we share this space, these values, what happens to you very much matters to me. To maintain…
palmd | October 8, 2009Why am I politically liberal? Is it because liberal ideals conform to my own sense of morals about how a just society should function? According to some, that idea is laughably wrong. Let me share with you an exchange from facebook:
Me: The michigan house passed the doctor tax. Time to write and call your state senator to remind them that taxing the person providing the service you need is really freakin' stupid.
Conservative friend: You've gotta LOVE those Democrats in Lansing...just keep taxing and spending and taxing and spending....If this fucking thing passes the senate and governor…
tfk | September 30, 2009Disco. clubber Bruce Chapman, a former census director who ought to have learned something about demography and perhaps accounting along the way, writes that the Public Doesn't Know the Truth About Social Security:
â¦how many Americans (may we see a poll?) understand that â¦we really are at point (and past it for the next two years) when spending on Social Security finally exceeds income from Social Security taxes? Can a tax hike and/or benefits reductions be long away? Meanwhile, add this new item to the list of runaway Federal deficit spending.
Yes we can see a poll! This, from 2005, seems…
jdupuis | September 24, 2009Predicting the future is tricky business. Trust me, I know.
But there's two ideas I always like to keep in mind when I put my futurologist's hat on:
The future will be at least as diverse as the present, probably more so. But not likely less.
There's no guarantee that things will change for the better. There's also no guarantee that things will change for the worse. The only thing you can be sure of is that it'll be hard to get any agreement on which is which.
These two ideas are closely connected in my mind, compelling me to (hopefully) think realistically and honestly, if not always…
tqa | September 18, 2009
Yesterday the House of Representatives - demonstrating a reckless disregard for the United States Constitution and the very concept of the rule of law - overwhelmingly voted to ban the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now from receiving federal funding. ACORN, you might recall, is the organization that the right-wing echo chamber turned into an all-purpose bogeyman after some temporary ACORN employees were caught submitting fictitious voter applications in poorly thought out efforts to get paid for doing no actual work. More recently, a couple of ACORN employees were caught…
gregladen | September 16, 2009A couple of weeks ago, I published a very controversial post titled "Maybe We Should Have Elected a White President After All" about the ongoing, possibly growing racism in connection with Obama's presidency. The idea that a lot of the anti-Obama, including anti-health care reform, rhetoric and action was racially motivated was understood by some and rejected by others who seem to not want to see any significant racism in the mix. This was parallel to the head in the sand reaction to my earlier post on the the arrest of Skip Gates in Cambridge Massachusetts last July.
There are those of…
gregladen | September 14, 2009It has been said that civility is an excellent conversation stopper. And it can be, because demanding civility has been a way to control or limit the voice of alterity or the unprivileged. When it comes to Joe Wilson's now-infamous shouted remark at the joint session, the question arises as to whether the tone or style of this act was the important issue, or whether the meaning or content of what he said ... the truth of his "You lie!" ... is what should be focused on. In my view, the answer is: Both, neither, and you are missing the point.
I offer the following:
1) His incivility at this…
mikethemadbiologist | September 11, 2009I've often said on this blog that everything I know about movement conservatives, I learned from watching (and opposing) creationists. One major lesson is that words have no intrinsic meaning: they are simply means to manipulate people for your own goals. Well, Margaret Thatcher, an icon of anti-Communist opposition, admitted:
...the destabilisation of Eastern Europe and the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact were also not in the West's interests. She noted the huge changes happening across Eastern Europe, but she insisted that the West would not push for its decommunisation. Nor would it do…
razib | September 10, 2009I don't usually say much about September 11th because I don't have much original to say. Bu I realized recently that to a great extent September 11th was one of the reasons I got into blogging in the spring of 2002. Obviously I don't talk much about foreign policy or politics in any substantive manner, but in the wake of those events in September the media ecosystem seemed ill-equipped to respond to the changes in the story fast enough, and so non-tech related weblogs arose to fill the vacuum. And arguably that is why you are reading this right now (I actually had a blog for 1 week in the…
sb admin | September 10, 2009President Obama's address to Congress last night on health care had its high points and low points. You can tune into your favorite spin-masters to hear those recaps. My favorite part of the President's speech was when he spoke of our "large-heartedness" and our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others to offer assistance, provide comfort and seek justice. He started by reminiscing about Senator Edward Kennedy, reminding us that this his commitment to improving our healthcare system wasÂ
"born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of…
revere | September 6, 2009If the UK invaded and occupied Massachusetts because the IRA raised money and housed some of its members in South Boston I think most people would say that was not just a mistake but wrong. Assuming for the moment that the GOP was in charge and had no interest in defending the state, I can predict with some confidence that Massachusetts's citizens would fight back (as they did once before) and make it very costly for the British to stay. Logistically how could the British leave without losing face and suffering a crushing geopolitical defeat? The answer is simple: use boats (and now) planes.…
sb admin | September 3, 2009A lot of the media coverage of the healthcare debate lately has focused on the politics, probably because journalists feel like they've already spent several months explaining the various aspects of proposed reform. But there are a few things that bear repeating, because not everyone seems to remember them.
The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has one key reminder: In the US, we already ration healthcare:
We ration. We ration without discussion, remorse or concern. We ration health care the way we ration other goods: We make it too expensive for everyone to afford.
I've used these numbers before…
oracknows | September 3, 2009As I mentioned the other day, September 1 marked the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the "official" start of World War II. I say "official' because the invasion of Poland marked the beginning of a true shooting war in Europe after a long period of escalating tensions and increasingly brazen provocations by the Nazi regime, culminating in March 1939 with its invasion of what parts of Czechoslovakia Britain and France hadn't already given it in the Munich Agreement from the prior year. Because of mutual defense pacts signed earlier, which declared that an attack on any of…
laelaps | September 1, 2009
A lone female elk in the morning fog near Grizzly Lookout. I had heard one of the Hayden Valley wolf packs in this area just a few minutes before taking this photo.
While traveling through Yellowstone National Park I was struck by the way in which the park's wilderness is being reshaped and redefined every day. Yellowstone workers and administrators have engaged in a herculean effort to restore the wildness of the nation's first national park, from the celebrated reestablishment of the bison herds to the cessation of bear feeding at park garbage dumps, but there still are tensions between…
pharyngula | August 26, 2009Sad news: another Kennedy has gone. Despite his reckless personal life, I liked the policies he stood for, and he was an excellent senator — may we have many more Massachusetts liberals to take his place.
I have to add that there is one thing I find really repellent about that NY Times obituary. It's the end, where Edward is compared to his brothers, John and Robert.
"He was the survivor," Mr. Ornstein continued. "He was not a shining star that burned brightly and faded away. He had a long, steady glow. When you survey the impact of the Kennedys on American life and politics and policy, he…