Barack Obama
grrlscientist | November 4, 2008tags: Barack Obama, election2008, politics, NYC, Times Square
Image: orphaned [larger view].
One of the nice things about living in NYC is the fact that there are often fun things happening that are both spontaneous and free-of-charge. One of those events occurred last evening and continued through the wee hours of today, when I spent election eve in NYC's Times Square, along with half a million other people.
Even though I am not normally very tolerant of crowds, I do really enjoy walking around Times Square at night, and this was a pleasant evening; not too warm nor too cold, and the…
grrlscientist | November 4, 2008tags: Barack Obama, election2008, President Obama, politics, American politics
Image: Doug Mills/The New York Times [larger view].
Congratulations on your historical victory, Senator Obama. I am happy for this country.
However, I am sad for you and for your family. After all, you were chosen by the electorate to act as a janitor for George Bush, Dick Cheney and all their ultra-rich cronies as well as for all the selfish bankers, CEOs and Wall Street jackasses who have invested their lifetimes into destroying this country and others' creations as well as stealing what little money that…
grrlscientist | November 4, 2008tags: Sarah Palin, politics, satire, humor, streaming video
Sarah Palin has such a good idea to put the federal checkbook online -- it's such a good idea that Coburn (R), Obama (D) and McCain (R) already beat her to it .. in 2006. Like, duh! But I shouldn't criticize Sarah because she gives hope to all brain dead poodles that they too, may one day become vice president. [0:53]
scientificactivist | November 3, 2008If you haven't already, do it now. We have a chance today to move our country in a new much needed direction. One vote could be the difference between waking up tomorrow to a bright new future or another four/eight years of regret.
Go to voteforchange.com to find your polling location and to access detailed state-specific voter information.
scientificactivist | October 9, 2008I was excited when I saw that The New England Journal of Medicine had today published summaries by Obama and McCain of their health care plans, expecting something quite detailed to appeal to a highly critical expert audience. However, their summaries were still as general and vague as ever. Regardless, these new write-ups are still a nice resource for people interested in the two candidates' plans. You can read Obama's plan here, McCain's here, or see a pdf of both side-by-side here.
On many aspects, both plans--at least as they're presented here--are quite similar. Both stress…
scientificactivist | October 8, 2008When I think back to the presidential debate last night, one moment stands out in my mind more than any other. And, no, it wasn't McCain calling Obama "that one". It was the discussion following Tom Brokaw's question "Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?"
Health care came up several times throughout the debate, but here I thought the answers were most telling. This is in spite of the fact that I took issue with the way the question was phrased. Specifically, I felt that the third choice ("responsibility") was unnecessary and just gave the candidates an easy…
scientificactivist | October 5, 2008Recent polls have shown that voters trust Obama over McCain in addressing the economy by a margin of about 10-15%. But, what do the experts think?
The Economist conducted its own poll of economists (appropriately), and found that they agreed that Obama is the stronger candidate when it comes to the economy--but by a much wider margin. Eighty percent respondents agreed that Obama has a better grasp of economics (versus 8% for McCain), and 81% believed that Obama would pick the better economic team (versus 14% for McCain). On a scale of 1-5, respondents gave Obama's economic plan a 3.3 and…
scientificactivist | September 26, 2008Yesterday, the Obama campaign released a letter of endorsement signed by 61 Nobel Laureates (click here for a nicer looking pdf). Michael Stebbins of Scientists and Engineers for America points out that "this is the largest number of Nobel Laureates to ever endorse a candidate for office."
And, why should we be surprised? Obama's answers to a scientific questionnaire released last month were scientifically sound and indicative of good scientific advising. Then, earlier this month, we got to find out who has been behind that solid scientific advising. Wired gave a good rundown of the five-…
scientificactivist | September 1, 2008On Saturday, ScienceDebate 2008 and Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) announced that Barack Obama answered a fourteen-part questionnaire that they put together along with several other scientifically oriented organizations. Major props to ScienceDebate, SEA, and these other organizations for making this happen and to Barack Obama for thoroughly answering these fourteen questions.
I'd encourage you to check out his answers for yourself, at either of the links above. My own analysis is that his answers overall are quite satisfactory. He says all of the right things for the most part…
scientificactivist | July 23, 2008For those of my readers in the UK (or anywhere else where you have access to Sky News), I'll be appearing live on Sky News at about 10:30 11:30 BST this Friday to talk about Barack Obama's visit to the UK and his support among Americans living abroad. I'm not sure if the video will be posted online afterward, but if it is, I'll post a link to it here.
scientificactivist | June 26, 2008When my girlfriend told me that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had suggested that Barack Obama choose Chet Edwards--my former (and George W. Bush's current) congressman--as his running mate, I thought she was pulling my leg. But, she was serious, and--as usual--she was right.
Here's the video from Newsweek (although you can watch commercial-free and get the code to embed it in your blog at Brightcove):
Specifically, Pelosi says "I think anyone that Barack Obama wants is my choice for vice president. But, I do think in the list of considerations there should be somebody from the House of…
scientificactivist | June 23, 2008I've been pretty open here about my support of Barack Obama's bid for the presidency, but one issue I certainly disagree with him on is his support of corn ethanol subsidies. Unfortunately, it looks like that this is one issue he's unlikely to improve on, as The New York Times reports today that ties to the corn ethanol industry permeate the highest levels of the Obama campaign:
Mr. Obama is running as a reformer who is seeking to reduce the influence of special interests. But like any other politician, he has powerful constituencies that help shape his views. And when it comes to domestic…
grrlscientist | June 16, 2008tags: Barack Obama, religion, politics, streaming video
In this video, Barack Obama talks downright lucidly about religion and politics. To all the idiots claiming the US was founded on christianity, he suggests that they read the words of John Adams because "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..." He also states that "the United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Muslim nation." Obama suggests that all these so-called christians and other religious wingnuts actually READ THEIR BIBLES -- wow, how radical…
scientificactivist | June 4, 2008Last night was a historic night, with Barack Obama finally effectively clinching the Democratic nomination by surpassing the "magic number" of required delegates. Barring any last-minute fight over delegate rules from Hillary Clinton's campaign (something that I think is not likely to happen), Barack Obama in the Democrats' nominee. Of course, we knew from the beginning that 2008 was going to be a trailblazing election--we just didn't know which way it would swing. Although it's been pretty clear since Obama's string of victories in February that he would eventually be the nominee, now it'…
scientificactivist | May 14, 2008This just in: John Edwards has officially endorsed Barack Obama for president. It's a little late (since Obama has had the nomination all but wrapped up for a couple of months now), and I'm not sure what kind of an impact this will have, but I still find this exciting.
Although I've been an Obama supporter for a while, John Edwards was still one of the most exciting candidates in the race this year (and that's saying a lot, considering how groundbreaking this presidential race has already become). I find him to be honest and genuine, particularly in his dedication to tackling poverty. He…
scientificactivist | May 4, 2008As the media circus over Jeremiah Wright continues, it should give us pause that the media hasn't decided to focus on John McCain and his embrace of a wide range of religious bigots. Although McCain once called these men "agents of intolerance" in 2000, he has since done a total flip-flop and openly embraced them in the 2008 campaign. Compare this to Barack Obama, who has now fully renounced his former pastor--as he rightfully should have. Whether this slanted coverage is due to racial bias, or just to the fact that these outrageous conservative white religious figures are so ingrained in…
scientificactivist | May 3, 2008This morning, I had to wake up to another article about John McCain's and Hillary Clinton's proposal to temporarily waive the gas tax this summer. That's it. I'm just going to have to come out and say it: this is a really, really, really stupid idea. Period.
I'm not an economist--far from it--but you don't have to be one to see the flaws in this plan. I'm not going to go into the details too much here, but for more check out this article from the Washington Post or this op-ed from Thomas Friedman. Also, Jake has a nice summary at Pure Pedantry. The intended purpose of this gas tax…
scientificactivist | March 5, 2008Back when I was at Texas A&M University, I knew plenty of Democrats who would vote in the Republican primary instead of the Democratic one. Although I refrained from such activity, their rationale was totally reasonable: in such a conservative area, the real contest was almost always the Republican primary. By the time the general election came around, the winner was already a foregone conclusion: it would be whichever candidate had the "R" beside his name. These crossover voters preferred a moderate Republican to a right-wing extremist. Fair enough. And, they probably helped keep…
scientificactivist | February 25, 2008It's difficult to find too many substantive policy differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (especially considering the much larger gulf that exists between them and the Republican candidates), but one area that's brought up time and time again is health care. In light of this, it's worth taking a look at how much the two agree and disagree here, especially since health care policy is purportedly one of Clinton's selling points.
To look at the actual plans from each of the candidates, you can click here for Obama's and here for Clinton's. The most thorough--but still accessible…
cevans | February 25, 2008As a blogger, I usually willfully delineate a giant chasm of non-communication between myself and political issues, preferring to dabble in the absolute: time, space, theoretical technological infrastructures, and, recently, aliens. I wrote one very reticent entry in 2005 about chimeric research, prefacing it with the pronouncement that "this blog will rarely concern iself with Pressing Science Ethics Issues," a statement that has proven in the intervening years to be true.
However, I can't deny that my love of the sciences has blossomed under the steely wing of one of the most anti-science…