Policy
sb admin | December 5, 2006By David Michaels
In my post Monday, I wrote that breathing diacetyl, the chemical in artificial butter flavor, is killing and crippling workers around the country. It is now more than six years since the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was first notified that workers in a popcorn plant in Missouri had developed the terrible and sometimes fatal lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans.
In response, the agency did send an inspector to the facility, but OSHA's Area Director concluded that OSHA could not issue a citation since the agency had no standards on the chemicals in…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2006
For those of you just joining tonight's program, the Nazis are the bad guys
Just when you think the Peter Pan Right can't possibly get any daffier, they just manage to do so. By way of Crooked Timber comes this synopsis of a Michael Novak article in the Standard:
Josh Marshall links to a Michael Novak piece in the Standard - a piece that is surely the apotheosis of Green Lantern foreign policy (well, until next week); complete with vulnerability to the hideous yellow streak that is the MSM.
It begins ... horribly:
Today, the purpose of war is sharply political, not military; psychological…
nisbetmc | December 5, 2006
Parita Shah from the Center for Genetics and Society has an interesting op-ed in the Mercury News reflecting on the campaign tactics used by both sides this last election cycle to argue their case on stem cell research. Here's an excerpt from the Mercury News op-ed.
Whether or not the issue factored into this year's election results, voters heard a lot about it. Typically, this would be all to the good. Stem-cell research is complex and important. Unfortunately, the campaign treatment of stem-cell research also demonstrated that such a complex issue gets simplified and distorted beyond…
jrosenhouse | December 4, 2006I was more than a little surprised when Jim Webb defeated incumbent George Allen in the recent Virginia Senate election. I voted for him happily, but didn't rate his chances very high. My confidence in him has only soared in light of recent events. Here's George Will:
Wednesday's Washington Post reported that at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, Webb “tried to avoid President Bush,” refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the president. When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, “How's your boy?” Webb replied, “I'd…
tsmith | December 4, 2006In the comments to my Republicans want to legislate when fetuses feel pain" post, David notes:
What really gets me is if they were interested in preventing abortion, the most effective way seems to be by providing people with the tools and education to not get pregnant in the first place. If they are not willing to help prevent unwanted pregnancy, they have no moral ground to stand on when it comes to abortion, because as far as I'm concerned, they are the ones responsible for many of the unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
What good timing: Evil Monkey at Neurotopia has a post up…
mikethemadbiologist | December 3, 2006Here are some good links for you. First, the science:
I have a post about the politics of cholera.
Chris Mooney has the wacky idea that judges should actually know something about global warming before ruling on it.
More about Scalia's ignorance.
"Four Nobel Laureates Walk Into a Bar..."
RPM has an interesting post on the ability to estimate evolutionary histories.
Revere at Effect Measure has an excellent post on the role assumed hypotheses play in delimiting data collection: are we really looking for H5N1 influenza in humans?
The other stuff:
Kevin Vranes has a great post about the War…
revere | December 3, 2006The Soldiers of God are on the warpath. The initial forays of the godless insurgents Dawkins, Dennett and Harris have provoked the predictable counterattack. The homosexual agenda and Islamic extremism are being displaced by insidious atheist subversion:
The Rev Campbell Paget, vicar of All Saints' Church, Brenchley, for the past eight years, believes that influential atheists in the media, commerce and politics are eroding the population's freedom by clamping down on displays of religious devotion and promoting their own politically correct agenda.
Former infantry officer Mr Paget, 52, said…
neurotopia | December 1, 2006Looks like, once again, when somebody bothers to crunch the numbers those flimsy justifications for abstinence-only programs are found lacking.
"It is remarkable that teens are becoming better contraceptors even as there are efforts afoot to reduce the information and skill-building that they receive about contraception," said Freya L. Sonenstein, a professor and director of the Center for Adolescent Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Truer words have never been spoken.
Only 14 percent of the decline in pregnancy was attributed to reductions in teens' sexual activity,…
sb admin | December 1, 2006Today is World AIDS Day, and thereâs no shortage of coverage in the blogosphere. Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake combines links to news stories with her own reflections, and Izzy at Unbossed remembers 1982, before they called it AIDS. Michael Bernstein and Nandini Oomman of Global Health Policy report from the World AIDS Day Event in Nairobi, and Christine Gorman of TIMEâs Global Health Update links to photos and stories of people living with AIDS.
On other topics:
Mike the Mad Biologist warns against focusing on water and sanitation improvement to the exclusion of cholera vaccination…
purepedantry | November 29, 2006Benjamin Zycher, fellow at the Manhattan Institute, questions of the wisdom of allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies.
Actually what I don't like about this debate is that is called "negotiating" drug prices. There is no negotiation that is going to take place. What will happen is that Medicare is going to tell the drug companies how much they are willing to pay, their opinions be damned.
Anyway, he compares the formulary in the Medicare system with the formulary in the VA system (the VA system is allowed to negotiate prices). He finds that the VA system has…
purepedantry | November 27, 2006I have a bunch of articles on politics here that I have been perusing.
Free Exchange has a post on the moral benefits of growth. One of them is that it is prerequisite to the creation of jobs that allow women to be equal. They also have a post from a bit back about Europe's emerging demographic issues with respect to paying for the welfare state.
Ronald Bailey from Reason argues that the alternative energy proposals other than solar are fine and good, but they will be insufficient to meet our energy needs of the next 100 years. Plenty of cheap solar is going to be necessary.
Roger Pielke…
apalazzo | November 27, 2006I woke up from a nice restful weekend (the first in a while), to read this crap in today's NY Times. In reference to Dawkins', Dennet's and Harris' books, Richard A. Shweder writes:
...the current counterattack on religion cloaks a renewed and intense anxiety within secular society that it is not the story of religion but rather the story of the Enlightenment that may be more illusory than real.
...
Unfortunately, as a theory of history, that story has had a predictive utility of approximately zero. At the turn of the millennium it was pretty hard not to notice that the 20th century was…
drorzel | November 25, 2006The articles in question are more than a year old, but I didn't see them when they were first posted, so James Nicoll's link to Monte Davis's "Thinking Clearly About Space" series (part one, part two, part three, part four) was very welcome.
Obviously, you should go read the whole thing (the parts aren't that long), but here are some choice quotes. On the politics of space:
So let's stop wondering who took away Humanity's birthright after Apollo 17. Let's assume that political leaders, who have the strongest possible motivation to assess what the public wants and will pay for, were doing just…
clock | November 22, 2006Al Gore's big issue is the environment. He says he is not running for President. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that the environment is Gore's passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for it. His passion is what drives so many people to push him to run for office again.
John Edwards' big issue is poverty. He is likely to run for President again. Maybe he will win, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that eradication of poverty is Edwards' passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for…
clock | November 21, 2006Two years ago, there was quite a brouhaha in the media when Serbian minister for education decided to kick Darwin out of schools. The whole affair lasted only a few days - the public outrage was swift and loud and the minister was forced to resign immediately. I blogged about it profusely back then and below the fold are those old posts:
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I Take This Personally (September 09, 2004)
Serbia takes a bold step back into the Middle Ages
Serbia strikes blow against evolution Creationism put on equal footing with Darwinism
Serbia vs…
grrlscientist | November 19, 2006Recycling has not been especially successful, even in Seattle, which seems to be the city that is most friendly to recycling in the country from my experience (although I might be wrong about this). So, in an effort to encourage recycling throughout the nation, what would you say about imposing extra taxes on disposable items, such as cameras, razors, and nonrechargable batteries? Below the fold is a story about how well this very program has been working in Europe, but I think they missed some very important items in their campaign; cell phones, ipods and computers, many of which are simply…
mikethemadbiologist | November 17, 2006CNN describes Nancy Pelosi as "damaged goods", and she hasn't even had her chance to screw up the country yet. Digby sums it up nicely:
There are no honeymoons for Democrats. Remember that. And "moral authority" is about haircuts and Hollywood, not torture and illegal wars. It is not merely a fight against the Republicans or a fight over politics and policy. It is a non-stop battle with the press to cover events with seriousness and responsiblity. For some reason, when Democrats are in power the press corps immediately goes from being merely shallow to insufferable, sophomoric assholes....…
tfk | November 17, 2006Presidential wannabe McCain took a swing at the White House and the leadership of NOAA:
"They're simply not complying with the law. It's incredible."
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) raised eyebrows yesterday with that comment regarding the Bush administration, made before a crowd of several hundred at a Washington, D.C. event.
At issue is a report on climate change that Congress requires every ten years. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is responsible for producing the document, last filed a report in 2000. A new report -- the first to be filed by the Bush…
mikethemadbiologist | November 16, 2006For you younguns, in the 80s, the USDA decided to define ketchup as a serving of vegetables so it could skimp on subsidized meals for needy schoolchildren. Well, the USDA has decided to stop using the word "hunger" and replace it with "very low food security." Here's some statistics on "very low food security":
Some are not happy with the Orwellian double speak:
Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and…
revere | November 16, 2006Why do all Bush Administration policies have Orwellian titles like the polluter written Clear Skies Act? Or this one: The AIDS Leadership Act. Of course it doesn't say what direction it is leading AIDS policies. You decide. If you are a non-profit and want government funding for anything, you have to pledge to oppose commercial sex work. Abridgement of your rights of free speech? At least two Federal Courts have said so, but the Bushies are appealing the decisions.
Commercial sex workers (aka prostitutes, a rather imprecise term, as Congress and the Bush Administration are full of prostitutes…