Policy
cmooney | August 27, 2007There are inevitably plenty of typos, but after the jump I've pasted in the transcript of my Science Friday conversation with NPR's Ira Flatow about hurricanes and global warming. Callers raised several interesting questions.
Enjoy.
National Public Radio (NPR)
August 24, 2007 Friday
SHOW: Talk Of The nation: Science Friday 2:00 PM EST
Is Hurricane Dean a Sign of Storms to Come?
LENGTH: 3838 words
IRA FLATOW, FLATOW:
This is TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.
Presidents of Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula are digging out this week after Hurricane Dean. Dean was the…
purepedantry | August 27, 2007James Kirchick at Independent Gay Forum mentions the trouble he has had dating outside his politics:
"I can't date someone with a different belief system" is what he told me. I expected this answer from the guy I had been casually seeing. From early on, I suspected that our differing political bents -- his liberal, mine more conservative -- would ultimately cause a split. Once, we had a heated argument when I said offhandedly that people who could not afford to care for children should not have them (not a policy prescription, just a profession of personal ethics). After that, I tried to…
tqa | August 24, 2007
Most of yesterday's news about Iraq focused - to the extent that today's media can be said to "focus" on anything - on our President's latest inept attempt to explain why we need to keep troops in Iraq, and on the inapt historical comparisons he drew during this predictably incoherent and inarticulate "policy" address. The deaths of fourteen soldiers - ten from Hawaii and four from Ft. Lewis - in a helicopter that crashed while returning from a mission were almost lost in the shuffle, and are only considered to be noteworthy at all because the fourteen died in a single incident. The death of…
jjacquet | August 21, 2007Posted by David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org
In honor of the Congressional recess, Ocean Champions is taking a blog vacation this week. However, I can't resist following Jennifer's lead on Joan Walsh's review at Salon.com of Bai's book The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. By the way, Jennifer is correct - the article is worth a quick read.
Here is what caught my attention:
"Let me be clear: Like Bai, I would like to see more political will (the ideas are there; it's a mobilized constituency behind a few key ideas that's missing) to do…
jjacquet | August 21, 2007This is Politics Tuesday and the Ocean Champions should be by any moment. In the meanwhile, I found something politically charged and provocative over at Salon.com. Joan Walsh reviews Matt Bai's book The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, which she describes as a "heralded anatomy of Democratic disarray in the Bush years".
Bai implicates left-wing bloggers in what he sees as a two-part crime that will cripple the Democratic party: the failure to put together a big, bold social policy for the 21st century, and the "disabling hatred" of George W.…
evolvingthoughts | August 18, 2007
I do not care if a politicians visits a strip club. In fact, a politician that did it and owns up without embarassment would be a good choice to pick, because you know he's not going to pull that family values crap in the future. But a politician who visits one, owns up, and then apologises? You know he's going to try to have it both ways.
Too many Australian politicians are playing the religious card lately. Rudd is one of them. C'mon folks, we're Australians, not Americans. We should be like the French or Italians and cheer anyone who shows he's human, male and occasionally stupid. Stop…
cmooney | August 10, 2007My latest "Storm Pundit" post is up over at The Daily Green. It's entitled "Forecasts, Fulminations, and Flossie," and it gives the rundown on the latest prognostications of Atlantic hurricane activity, as well as discussing the strong (and weirdly named) tropical storm now possibly headed towards Hawaii.
Meanwhile, the website ClimateandInsurance.org, created by the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, just interviewed me about Storm World. I say stuff like this:
I wanted to tell a story that provided a chance to explore some of the knottiest questions at the interface between…
hrynyshyn | August 9, 2007The South Nahanni River defies description. It is one of the most spectacular lengths of runnable river in the world. It lies in the southwestern corner of Canada's Northwest Territories and offers one of the more accessible wilderness adventures in the Arctic. Canoeing the Nahanni should be on everyone's lifetime to-do list. The waterfalls at right are twice the height of Niagara. Today it's in the news because the Canadian government has, after years of dragging its feet, agreed to expand the park that encompasses it by 5,400 square kilometres, a move that will help protect the river from…
tsmith | August 9, 2007
Apologies for the silence; as I mentioned, August is a crazy month for me. I hope to get back to some heavier science posts some point here, but those will, unfortunately, have to wait a bit. In the meantime, I did want to say a bit about last week's science discussions at YearlyKos, featuring (L-R) Ed, Sean, and Chris; More after the jump. (All photos courtesy of Lindsay).
First, a bit about what went on. I arrived there Thursday, and the first order of events was to get ready for the Science bloggers' caucus Thursday afternoon. This was pretty much a no-holds-barred, unscripted…
mikethemadbiologist | August 8, 2007I don't mean to make this into an anti-Ignatieff blog, but there are two more great posts about his idiocy: one by ScienceBlogling and "embarrased" Canadian James Hrynyshyn, the other by David Rees.
ScienceBlogling James writes:
There real reason why so many academics, from the hard sciences and the social field, opposed the war is it was a stupid idea, one that could only serve to strengthen the enemies of democracy and reason. It's the same thing when it comes to scientific issues like climate change, or evolution or stem cells, or abstinence-only sex education. The Bush administration isn'…
ianhart | August 7, 2007Something else is bothering me about yesterday's USA Today article Science vs. politics gets down and dirty. It's the implication that scientists are speaking out because of political bent.
Science policy professor Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State University in Tempe says: "I think the opportunity to use science as a political tool against Bush has been irresistible -- but it is very dangerous for science, and for politics. You can expect to see similar accusations of the political use of science in the next regime." [...] And because polls show that scientists tend to be Democrats, Sarewitz…
mikethemadbiologist | August 6, 2007For the political articles only, I swear. What I can't figure out is how
a writer for Esquire can see through all the bullsht that the supposedly Very Serious People can't. Here's what was the most trechant part for me (italics mine):
On May 15, Mike Huckabee, a greasy Rotarian gasbag from Arkansas, made a funny. Speaking at a debate with the other Republican presidential contenders, Huckabee said of the Congress that it had "spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop." This nasty little bit solicited gales of laughter from the studio audience and almost unalloyed approval from the…
mikethemadbiologist | August 6, 2007Former Iraq War supporter Michael Ignatieff wrote a mea culpa of sorts in the NY Times magazine this Sunday. Since that's more than most former war supporters have done, he should get some credit for that. But two things were really troubling about the article.
First, Ignatieff viewed Iraq as another policy debate:
The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true. Politicians live by ideas just as much as professional thinkers do, but they can't afford the luxury of…
ianhart | August 6, 2007This morning, hotel guests across the country this morning woke up to a chronicle of the divide between science and poltics in USA Today's "Science vs. politics gets down and dirty." There's no need to hit the complimentary continental breakfast for a second cup of coffee when your morning news starts
The relationship (between the Bush administration and the nation's scientific community) hit a new low last month when Richard Carmona, surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, lashed out at his former colleagues in testimony before a House committee.
Normally, I'd think the nation's most circulated…
tqa | August 5, 2007
Right wing blogs of various types are beating drums on behalf of an as-yet-unidentified US Army soldier who got into a bit of a confrontation with the moderator at a YearlyKos panel discussion. The soldier was a sergeant in uniform; the moderator was (or is, I'm not sure which) a reserve officer. The moderator took exception to the soldier appearing in uniform, and the right is spinning this as a soldier getting "shouted down" at Kos.
Right now, there are two videos of the incident. Neither paints a complete picture of the scene. In the official video, the soldier's comments are almost…
denialism | August 3, 2007Slate has a story by John Dickerson about how Obama has rejected the weasel tactic invented, or at least perfected, by Bush for avoiding questions.
To hide the fact that they're hiding something, candidates elevate their refusal to a virtue. "One of the jobs of a president is being very reasoned in approaching these issues," Hillary Clinton said to a hypothetical question about sending ground troops to Darfur. "And I don't think it's useful to be talking in these kinds of abstract hypothetical terms." Two days later, Mitt Romney cried hypothetical when asked in a debate whether, in…
nisbetmc | August 3, 2007
In the 2004 election, the great majority of voters didn't deliberate the specific policy positions of the candidates and then make an informed choice. Instead, in order to make up their minds, the miserly public relied heavily on "low information signals" such as likability and perceived character.
In their analysis of the election, James Carville and Paul Begala conclude that the Bush team correctly realized that a few themes could frame the election in their favor. The central themes went something like this:
If he doesn't live your life, share your values, or is someone you would want to…
sb admin | August 3, 2007Thereâs lots of pre-recess activity in Congress right now, and bloggers provide news and commentary:
Joe at Climate Progress has been following CAFE standards in the House (here, here, and here) and has the latest on Senate climate legislation.
Van Jones at Gristmill highlights the Green Jobs Act of 2007, which the media has largely overlooked.
Ed Silverman at Pharmalot updates us on whatâs happening with prescription drug legislation.
Aimee Witteman at Gristmill and Amanda at Enviroblog urge improvements to the Farm Bill. (The House has already finished with its version, but David…
j7uy5 | July 31, 2007
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/images/Carmona-CTAGlobalHealthdraft.pdf">This
report (PDF 260KB file) is what set off the controversy over
the former Surgeon General of the United States. It is a
draft report, entitled The Surgeon General’s Call
to Action on Global Health 2006. It was written by
the former Surgeon General, Dr.
href="http://www.hhs.gov/about/bios/sg.html">Richard Carmona.
In this post, I will review the history of Dr. Carmona's service as
Surgeon General, outline the controversy, and end with a discussion of
of some recent criticism of the controversy…
revere | July 30, 2007When it comes to controversial reports, one that said it would be good to include combatting widespead disease as an element in foreign policy would hardly seem to qualify. And ordinary person might be forgiven for thinking that was already something that was considered. You'd think. But then you'd think a lot of things that wouldn't be true, for example, that if you were going to start a major war you'd have thought it through pretty carefully. Back to global health:
The draft report itself, in language linking public health problems with violence and other social ills, says "we cannot…