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The Big Winner in the Second POTUS Debate: Climate Change!

Climate change is a settled issue. It is now widely and recognized as real, and as one of the top, if not THE top, existential problems the world faces today. Americans want climate change stopped, and they want the next version of the US Government, the one that starts in January, 2017, to work hard to reduce the human release of greenhouse gas as rapidly as possible. How do we know this? Because no one mentioned a thing about it during last night's debate! A few months ago, I would have expected presidential debates to have included climate change pretty much in every iteration. It…

Climate Change Items

A few climate change related items I know you will be interested in, especially since you will want to be very current for the big event Tuesday. There is now a new profession: Extreme Weather Architect. (Hat tip: Paul Douglas) You may hear again and again that climate change is over, that warming has stopped. This is wrong in many many ways, and I've written about that here. Dana Nuccitelli has this important piece as well: We haven't hit the global warming pause button. Also, see this brand new item for a detailed discussion of how surface warming varies across time. You've heard of the…

Leak reveals Rex Tillerson was director of Bahamas-based US-Russian oil firm?

The latest in a long line of Exxon related drivel, this one from the Graun. It isn't drivel because it is wrong - that Rex Tillerson is a director of Exxon Neftegas is entirely true - it is drivel because it has long been public knowledge, and so the "leak" is irrelevant. The very first version of the wiki "Rex Tillerson" article from 2006 says In 1998, he became a vice president of Exxon Ventures (CIS) and president of Exxon Neftegas Limited with responsibility for Exxon's holdings in Russia and the Caspian Sea. That information has been there continuously since then to the present day. So…

U.S. Needs a Robust Carbon Tax, not an Exxon Carbon Tax?

Via email spam, I end up pointed at U.S. Needs a Robust Carbon Tax, not an Exxon Carbon Tax. It is more Exxon stuff, fashionable again now that Rex Tillerson is confirmed as Trump's pick for Sec of State (if you want to see exactly the kind of stuff you'd expect - so much so that I hardly see why they bothered write it, it is so drearily predictable - see the Graun of course). Anyway, after a bit of #exxonknew drivel they try desperately to explain why their wheel carbon tax is so much better than Exxon's wheel carbon tax. Because when you're both supporting the same thing, and yet clearly…

Michigan Civil Rights Commission: Insurance Parity for Oral Contraceptives

The href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060821/UPDATE/608210400">Michigan Civil Rights Commission ruled recently that small insurance companies that cover prescription drugs must also cover the cost of href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_contraceptives" rel="tag">oral contraceptives.   Firms with more than 15 employees are already under the jurisdiction of federal law, so the ruling affects only small companies.  But the ruling will have a wide impact: 60% of firms in Michigan are affected. This ruling is consistent with recommendations from major…

Comments of the Week #168: from saving the Earth to escaping a black hole

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” -Abraham Lincoln As you've come to expect, it's been another fantastic week of science here on Starts With A Bang!? There's a chance I'll be in Las Vegas next month for the official Star Trek convention, and in addition to all we're doing, there's a chance that there will be a new YouTube video series coming out that features me and the fusion of sci-fi/fantasy with science. Sounds fun? You bet it does! Also, for those of you in and around Portland, OR, join me at 2 PM at the Oregon Historical Society today to catch my…

Resist Protest Event in Minnesota Draws Huge Crowd, Ignored By Press

Last night, I went to an event, apparently organized by an indivisible group, in Plymouth Mass. Plymouth is in Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District, and is represented by Congressman Erik Paulsen. Paulsen took over, years ago, from a "reasonable Republican" that even Democrats in CD03 remember fondly. But Paulsen has quietly and without fanfare served as a Tea Party Republican since being elected. During the time that he and Michele Bachmann served in the same Congress, in physically adjoining districts, Paulsen and Bachmann voted the same way on almost every bill, and the few…

Links for 2009-12-29

Why your boss is incompetent - life - 17 December 2009 - New Scientist "The "Peter principle" undoubtedly appeals to the cynic in all of us. It is also quite possibly true, if subsequent academic studies are to be believed. The longer a person stays at a particular level in an organisation, the more most measures of their performance fall - including subjective evaluations and the frequency and size of pay rises and bonuses. It is a finding entirely consistent with the idea that people eventually become bogged down by their own incompetence." (tags: business psychology social-science jobs…

US Debt Ceiling and $2 Million Per Hour Hedge Fund Managers

With heated discussion about raising the debt ceiling for the U.S., this is a good time for some perspective about America's top earners and for some ideas of how their enormous earnings could lead to public good. No, they can't solve our spending problem, tax system or get us out of debt, but they do have some options unavailable to the average citizen. Public indignation over huge bonuses for bankers is old news, but a recent report that the top 25 hedge fund managers averaged $1 billion per year is a bit much. Even more striking is the top ten list, with David Tepper (Appaloosa…

Dear Republican, time to make the change, because this is now you.

My current model (subject to change) puts Arizona in the Clinton Column. This is the prediction that has resulted in the most head scratching from those observing this, but it turns out that the Clinton Campaign seems to agree. Clinton surrogates, including Chelsea, Michele Obama, and Bernie Sanders will be in the state over the next few days. Frankly, I worry about good people going to Arizona stumping for a Liberal Democrat. Perhaps that is because of my own experience living there for several weeks. During that time a local desperado was arrested and made a court appearance, and his…

Aww, his feelings are hurt

Poor little Ken Ham gets no respect. He sets up this fancy museum, he keeps pushing his silly ideas, and what happens? Smart people like Daniel Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, calls him a moron. Deservedly. I don't need to say much, though. The scathing excoriation of Ham has already been done: You said that unicorns are real. You claim that the Beowulf story is evidence of human cohabitation with dinosaurs. You say that sometimes religious genocide is OK. You think that the government is training people to talk to aliens. You believe that evolution is a random…

New paper on Ebola--no primate-to-primate transmission seen

By the same lead author that published the pig Ebola transmission paper comes a new publication examining airborne transmission among primates. In these, Ebola did *not* spread between non-human primates (NHPs) via air. I sent an email to the PI to comment; will update the post if he responds, but in the meantime, some money quotes directly from the publication: "One experiment reported contact free transmission between infected NHPs to one uninfected NHP although cross-contamination due to husbandry practices could not be ruled out with certainty26. Interestingly, EBOV infected swine…

Work for an agency? Have something to leak?

As a former government employee, I know that presidential transition periods can be stressful and filled with uncertainty. I've been trying to imagine what it's like for federal employees who find themselves now part of the Trump Administration. Some of what I remember experiencing was simple frustration. We'd ask each other and our bosses, "Should I still work on this? Are we still doing that?" Often the answer was "just hold off on it for now." But some of what you witness may have you saywonder "this seems like a really bad idea."  Or it may make you question whether its legal or contrary…

Climate Science Removed From EPA Site: WaPo

The EPA has removed climate science from its site in order that the site contents better reflect Donald Trump's perspective. From Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin at the Washington Post: The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday evening that its website would be “undergoing changes” to better represent the new direction the agency is taking, triggering the removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information. One of the websites that appeared to be gone had been cited to challenge statements made by the EPA’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt…

The Republican Trump Health Insurance Plan Is Not Well Supported

In a current poll, 61% of Americans want to retain Obamacare, and improve this already implemented and existing program. A mere 37% want to "repeal and replace" it. About 69% of American want the Republicans, including the Republican President, to to do some combination of working with Congressional Democrats or a combination of Democrats and Republicans to improve the plan. The preference for having the Democrats do this as opposed to a combination is about 2:1. People have apparently observed that the Republicans are not capable of coming up with a usable plan. The Republicans, including…

They came for the Muslims ...

They are coming for the Muslims, and they will not stop there. Registries exist and we have no problem with some of them. Sex offenders, known bad guys, that sort of thing. They really aren't even registries, but records governed by due process. Then there are some others that we allow in our post 9/11 world, but that never would have been allowed in a former, less frightened, less ignorant version of our society, such as the "No Fly List." That list may actually be a good idea, but there is no known due process involved, so it ends up constituting one small step in the direction that Germany…

Sorry, Donald Trump, It Can't Be Infinity (Synopsis)

“There are two infinities that confuse me: the one in my soul devours me; the one around me will crush me” -Gustave Flaubert Last week, Donald Trump restored the National Space Council, promising to take America and the world to new heights in space. He also made some statements claiming that this is infinity here, and that we don’t know, but it could be infinity. In both cases, the statements don’t quite match the facts, as the funding cuts proposed by the President are inconsistent with increased exploration efforts, and, more to the point, we know we’ll never access infinity. Looking back…

Genes, Environment, Depression, and the Free Will Squabble

This week's post at Mind Matters, the Scientific American blog I edit, looks at an intriguing study of gene-environment interactions in abused children. Charles Glatt, who wrote the review, outlines the rather encouraging results of this study, which suggest -- with all the usual caveats about wider applicability and replication of results -- that some reliable nurturing can often override even a triple-whammy of two "bad" genes and an abusive home. Some readers objected, however, to Glatt's assertion that the study argues well for the idea of free will. One reader wrote: I see no impact…

Embryo screening should be mandatory

Over at Opposing Views, bioethicist Jacob Appel argues that pre-implantation genetic screening for severe disease mutations should be compulsory for parents undergoing IVF. Appell dodges one obvious criticism of this suggestion - that it unacceptably limits parental autonomy - by pointing out that "Western societies have long acknowledged that parental authority cannot undermine the medical interests of a child". As examples, Appell cites the facts that Jehovah's Witnesses cannot deny their own children blood transfusions, however strong their religious opposition, and that "American courts…

House passes bills that will make it harder for EPA to protect public health

The House of Representatives has passed two bills that, if they clear the Senate and are signed by President Trump, will make it much harder for EPA to do the important work of analyzing, warning about, and regulating health threats in the environment. The HONEST Act, introduced by House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Texas), would severely limit the research findings EPA could use in creating a wide range of communications, standards, and regulations. The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, introduced by Representative Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma), would…

Contrary to impressions (and Donald Trump's antivaccine views) most Americans support vaccine mandates

Being as involved as I have been refuting antivaccine pseudoscience as I've been over the last 12 years, I frequently forget that antivaccine views are not the mainstream. It's an easy thing to do. If you were to immerse yourself in the antivaccine echo chamber as much as I do, you too would start to think that enormous swaths of the country, if not an outright majority, think that vaccines cause autism, sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, a wide variety of neurological disorders, and basically every autoimmune disease under the sun. I know that that's not true, but often it doesn't feel…

Rebecca Otto: by far the strongest and most progressive candidate for Minnesota Governor in 2018

Here’s why: All the available data strongly indicates that Otto will beat all the other contenders across state in the upcoming Governor's race. Democrats have two major problems to face in 2018 and beyond. First, how do we win elections? Second, how do we remain true to our progressive and liberal roots? For Democrats, 2018 is a must-win election, and Minnesotans have a lot at stake. Will the state remain the shining star of the North, or will it go the way of Wisconsin, and sink into a Republican dark age of union busting, environment polluting, professor bashing, service slashing, and…

Jill Stein and left wing antivaccine dog whistles

During the political battle last year over the recently implemented California law SB 277, which eliminates nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates and then later during the campaign for the Republican nomination for President, I used a term regarding antivaccine views. That term was “antivaccine dog whistle.” In politics, as you probably now, a “dog whistle” is a term for coded messages that sound like advocating principles with broad acceptance but to a certain subgroup are recognized as code for something else. The analogy is obvious. Just as humans can’t hear much of a dog…

Labor Secretary talks nominations, safe jobs at Senate hearing

I had one ear tuned this morning to the webcast of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta’s appearance before a subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee on his Department’s FY 2018 budget request. You never know what bumble bee might be in a lawmaker’s bonnet or how they might use their time to gush about Department-funded pet project in their home State. That's why I tuned in. Two moments during the hearing were most memorable to me. The first involved Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) who expressed dissatisfaction with the Administration’s slow pace of nominating individuals for top jobs at…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At Eater, Elizabeth Grossman reports that Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation that would protect undocumented agricultural workers from deportation and provide them and their families with a path to long-term residence and citizenship. The bill proposes that farmworkers who can prove at least 100 days of agricultural work in the last two years could apply for a “blue card” that grants temporary residency and the ability to work. Farmworkers with a blue card and who work for 100 days a year for five years or 150 days a year for three years would then be eligible for a green card…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At The New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Jennifer Medina report on Trump’s pick to head up the U.S. Department of Labor, fast food CEO Andrew Puzder, an outspoken critic of labor laws that benefit hourly workers. Puzder is expected to face tough questioning during his confirmation hearings, especially as his company’s restaurants have been accused of multiple labor law violations. The article explores Puzder’s entry into the fast food world, his work as a lawyer, and interviews current and former workers at one of the chains that Puzder runs, Carl’s Jr. Kantor and Medina write: In interviews…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At Stat, Eric Boodman reports on whether a Trump administration might deprive miners of compensation for disabilities related to black lung disease. In particular, Boodman examines a little-known provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that shifted the burden of proof from miners and onto mining companies. In other words, if miners had spent at least 15 years underground and can prove a respiratory disability, it’s assumed to be an occupational illness. However, if the ACA is repealed in full — as candidate Trump promised on the campaign trail — that provision would go away as well, making…

The politics edition

I find myself unable to resist the calls to comment on the surprise calling of an UK election. But while here I'll comment on Trump, too. Theresa May seeks snap election to take UK through Brexit Says everyone, including the FT, which adds things like The pound rose on expectations that Mrs May would win a much increased Commons majority, allowing her to sideline implacable Eurosceptics in her Conservative party and ensure a phased Brexit concluding with a UK/EU free-trade deal. Polls predict a heavy defeat for the opposition Labour party, which has been in disarray under the leadership of…

Saturday Sermon: Editing Obama on Civil Liberties

Last week, Glenn Greenwald annotated a campaign speech by Obama about civil liberties and the rule of law (boldface mine): We know it's time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd's candidacy, and I share his passion for restoring the balance between the security we demand and the civil liberties that we cherish. The American people must be able to trust that their president values principle over politics, and justice over unchecked power. I've been proud to stand with Senator Dodd in his fight against retroactive…

A very confused pharmacist

I've written often about the ethics of doctors and pharmacists imposing their own morals on their patients and customers. Our Sb pharmacologist has as well. And even though all of our legitimate professional organizations recognize this line, Bush's Department of Health and Human Services has jumped into the ring to join a fight that should never have started. And just to demonstrate how single-mindedly idiotic an evangelical (small "e") mindset can be when applied to medicine, PZ Myers, uber-atheist, received an interesting solicitation (please, don't quote-mine that). To remind you of…

April Pieces Of My Mind #1

"If I blow my top -- will you let it go to your head?" W.F. Gibbons Hit jackpot on the car radio riding with Jrette and her buddy today. First some Tuvan throat singing. Then a fat version of the Marseillaise with orchestra, choir and a solo soprano who sounded like Piaf. It's important that you outweird young people regularly to prepare them for life. My soft tissue now has a distinctly later radiocarbon date than the dentine in my front teeth. Over half a thousand people congratulated me on my birthday. Made me feel cherished, like through Facebook and in other ways I'm a small but…

Links for 2011-04-08

How Much is a Dragon Worth? - Michael Noer - Backslash - Forbes "To silence the skepticism and to give fans of the list some idea of just how deep the rabbit hole goes, I've decided to flash a little bit of imaginary ankle and walk through a typical Fictional 15 investigation, in this case of Smaug, the fire-breathing dragon from J.R.R. Tolkein's novel The Hobbit and the forthcoming Warner Bros. movies. Certainly Smaug is depicted as being very rich in the novel.  At one point, Bilbo Baggins, the book's hero, addresses him as "O Smaug, unassessably wealthy" and his gold is described as…

Swiss Auto Graveyard

From Aard regular CCBC, a heritage management conundrum to ponder. This is a curious situation that I heard about on metafilter.com. I have included some of the links. Near Kaufdorf, Switzerland there is an auto junkyard that was in use from the 1930s to 1970. It has become overgrown with various forest flora and people have found it an interesting place to take photos. Recently, the Swiss government has decreed the place an environmental hazard and says that it must be cleared and paved to prevent fluids from seeping into the ground. Many people have protested on the grounds that: This is…

Ruse States it Plain

Here's an interesting essay from Michael Ruse, published in the Georgia newspaper the Rome News-Tribune: So why should we take the idea seriously? Why should we ever think that it could ever be much more than a “theory,” meaning an iffy hypothesis like speculations on the Kennedy assassination? Why should we ever agree that evolution is a “fact”? Darwin realized full well that often we don't have direct evidence, but that doesn't stop us from talking about facts. Indirect evidence can be overwhelming. It can trump direct evidence even! Take a murder, or some other crime against the person.…

William Crenshaw and Erskine College

I think I like this guy. Science is the litmus test on the validity of the educational enterprise. If a school teaches real science, it's a pretty safe bet that all other departments are sound. If it teaches bogus science, everything else is suspect.... I want a real college, not one that rejects facts, knowledge, and understanding because they conflict with a narrow religious belief. Any college that lets theology trump fact is not a college; it is an institution of indoctrination. It teaches lies. Colleges do not teach lies. Period. That's from William Crenshaw, who was an English…

The Skeptical Environmentalist vs. Al Gore: Danish "Muslim Cartoon" Newspaper Springs Media Trap on Former VP

Something's rotten in Denmark. Conservatives once again have sprung a media trap on Al Gore, but this time overseas. At the Wall Street Journal , "skeptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg and Danish journalist Flemming Rose complain that Gore, while touring Denmark, backed out of a scheduled interview. According to the duo, the newspaper Jyllands-Posten set up an "investigative interview" between Gore and culture editor Rose. To maximize conflict, the paper invited Lomborg to participate. Rose and Lomborg claim that Gore agreed to the terms of the interview, but then pulled out at the…

Life lessons

I've just spent a hilarious few minutes reading this guy's accounts of the many ways one can injure oneself. It bothers me that I have done so many of them myself (especially the exploding incinerator), and a few he didn't think of (the rocket fuel on a petrie dish that my friend ignited in the chem lab). Anyway, he summarises them all: Fire is not necessarily your friend. Neither are dogs. Things with lit fuses should not be held onto. Beware the savage croquet ball. If it is -30 out, put on a coat before you leave the house. Just because the snow keeps you from seeing other objects the…

Santa Claus Makes Green Decisions (Just in Time for Christmas)

Student Post by Wayneho Kam and Waynekid Kam If Santa Claus came out with a "naughty or nice" list based on how well people treated the environment, who will be on the "nice" list? Who will be on the "naughty"? Have you ever wondered? You can count on Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be up there on the "nice" list this year. As the Nobel Foundation puts it, IPCC and Gore both did a phenomenal job regarding "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change." Perhaps Bill Clinton will see his name on the "nice" list as…

Diversity and Problem-Solving

There are so many reasons to despair about human diversity. There's Iraq, Kenya, the immigration debate, the research of Robert Putnam. It seems that, in tragic example after tragic example, humans react to diversity by splintering into tribalisms, regressing to an Us vs. Them mentality. So that's why The Difference, a new science book by Scott Page, is so uplifting. The basic premise of the book is simple: when it comes to group achievement, diversity often trumps ability. To prove his point, Page draws on a variety of data, from the anecdotal to the experimental. But much of the book is…

In which I am compared to Donald Trump by a pro-quackademic medicine activist

A little over a month ago, I wrote about how proponents of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), now more frequently called "integrative medicine," go to great lengths to claim nonpharmacological treatments for, well, just about anything as somehow being CAM or "integrative." The example I used was a systematic review article published by several of the bigwigs at that government font of pseudoscience, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) about CAM approaches for the management of chronic pain. You can read my whole post for yourself if you want the…

What a conspiracy theorist president means Part 2 - Amanda Marcotte interviews me for Salon

Amanda Marcotte, who I've enjoyed reading since her days at Pandagon, was curious about what having a CT president might mean. For some crazy reason, she thought she should ask me about it. Briefly, I tried to summarize the patterns of thought conspiracy theorists engage in, their willingness to accept any belief if confirmatory of their guiding ideology, and their tendency to project their own darkest behaviors onto others. Overall, I thought she provided a great summary of the problem. My only critique would be it's not all doom and gloom. One thing we talked about that didn't make it…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At the Toronto Star, reporter Sara Mojtehedzadeh went undercover as a temp worker at Fiera Foods, an industrial bakery, to investigate why temp workers are more likely to get hurt on the job. Earlier this year, Canadian occupational health and safety officials brought charges against the company, whose clients include Dunkin’ Donuts, Costco and Walmart, for the death of 23-year-old Amina Diaby, who was strangled to death after her hijab got caught in a machine. Mojtehedzadeh, along with Brendan Kennedy, write: I get about five minutes of training in a factory packed with industrial equipment…

The Russians are Hacking Us Again

I remember like it was yesterday, the anti Hillary rhetoric flying around during those final weeks of the election. People were making statements that seemed to be based on actual sources, though the sources themselves were not crossing my path. The attitude of those repeating the stories was very similar across the board. Breathless, gut-punch angry, visceral, mean. They were talking almost as though Hillary Clinton had stepped on their baby's heads. That kind of thing. And it turns out that this was the Russians. The people doing this were not the Russians. Rather, the Russians, either…

The cost of commemorating 9/11 exceeds the benefit. Bin Laden, dead, continues to win.

This is a preface to the preface to a piece I wrote in 2011. I have only this to add: First as an aside, I suspected Trump could win the presidency, most people simply said it was impossible. But nonetheless, I was just as shocked as anyone else. Here's the thing. American culture reacted to 9/11 in ways that are mostly harmful. Various aspects of culture tend to reside in specific, though often vaguely defined, entities, such as classes taught in schools, crap kids say to each other on playgrounds, religious ceremony, TV shows, etc. Sometimes parts of culture tend to hold, brew, evolve…

Scientists against science denialism and pseudoscience

I wasn’t always a skeptic. Maybe I should rephrase that. I’ve probably always been a skeptic since a young age. It’s just that I didn’t start self-identifying as one until around 1998 or so. Oddly enough, my “gateway drug” into more organized skepticism was refuting Holocaust denial. I’ve told the tale on multiple occasions before, the first time on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (nearly 12 years ago now), about how I first discovered Holocaust denial. I always encourage new readers to read the whole thing, but the CliffsNotes version is I encountered the…

Supreme Court lets criminal conviction stand against coal executive Blankenship

The U.S. Supreme Court is not interested in hearing former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's claim that he didn't get a fair trial. On October 10, the court denied Blankenship's petition to review his criminal conviction. (here (see page 3)) In December 2015 a jury found Blankenship guilty of conspiring to violate mine safety standards. Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine was the site of the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years when 29 miners were killed by a massive coal dust explosion. Blankenship micromanaged his coal mines so much so that he demanded production reports every hour.…

Single largest award in whistleblower case investigated by OSHA: a breath of fresh air

In a news release issued today by OSHA, the agency announced an award of $5.4 million for a former Wells Fargo manager who was terminated after alerting superiors to potential fraud. The individual was dismissed from his job in 2010. He filed his complaint with OSHA in 2011 --- justice is not often swift. The case was handled out of OSHA's regional office in San Francisco. I spoke to the top official in that office, Barbara Goto, who confirmed the award is the "single largest individual award" in OSHA history for a whistleblower case. The anti-retaliation protections for this individual are…

Wisdom From Drum

Prior to Donald Trump's latest expectoration, which has proven to be a bit much even for hard-core conservatives, the Republicans were worked up over a pressing question of semantics. In their telling, if you describe the threat we face as coming from “Jihadism,” then you are a politically correct pussy who just doesn't get it. The proper term, they are quick to tell us, is “Radical Islam.” I was planning on writing a post about how silly this was, but then Kevin Drum went and said everything I was thinking. And since he said it better than I would have, I recommend just following the…

Not a lobotomy pact, either

As the Senate makes Bush's torture bill walk the plank, the New York Times reviews Not a Suicide Pact by Richard A. Posner: the positions he takes in this volume will not only fuel his own controversial reputation but also underscore just how negotiable constitutional rights have become in the eyes of administration proponents, who argue that the dangers of terrorism trump civil liberties. The very language Judge Posner uses in this shrilly titled volume conveys his impatience with constitutional rights…. He … declares that the absence of an Official Secrets Act — which could be used to…

Neil Gorsuch: to the right of Scalia?

Neil Gorsuch is a significant and meaningful choice for SCOTUS. The image above is not fake, it really is his Harvard Law yearbook photo. If he was a Democratic pick, that one image would end him. Since he is a Republican pick, democrats have a Big Tent instead of a spine, and Republicans have no ethical floor to avoid crashing into, he will be confirmed. Judge Neil Gorsuch speaks, after US President Donald Trump nominated him for the Supreme Court, at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2017.President Donald Trump on nominated federal appellate judge Neil Gorsuch as his…