Conservatives
mikethemadbiologist | July 13, 2007Sometimes a giant transforming robot isn't a Republican, it's just a giant transforming robot. A few years back, when Star Trek was all the rage, someone wrote a literary criticism of Star Trek, "The Literary Galaxy of Star Trek: An Analysis of References And Themes in the Television Series." It was interesting, but often wrong.
I remember two distinct errors. First, there was the claim that the transporters represented...hell, something. In fact, the reason the transporters were developed wasn't an attempt to make a subtle point, but because the original show couldn't afford the cost of…
mikethemadbiologist | July 12, 2007Or actually visitors who cite Galt. Jane Galt responds to calls for adopting a French-like system:
In the United States, government at its various levels now accounts for roughly 45% of health care spending. (And by "now", I mean 2004, the latest year for which OECD data are available. In 2004, of course, the government provided little prescription drug coverage. Remember that fact; it will become important later.) The United States spends about 15.3% of total GDP on healthcare. That means, for those following along at home, that government spending on health care consumes about 7.7% of GDP…
mikethemadbiologist | July 9, 2007There have been several calls for Democrats to be more welcoming of 'people of faith.' Typically, these have been admonitions that Democrats need to stop acting like Democrats and more like conservative evangelicals (e.g., Mara Vanderslice; also here). However, it has never occurred to most of these 'people of faith' that perhaps they have a little house cleaning to do on their side of things. Well, one faithy person recognizes this (italics mine):
Sometime after Operation Iraqi Freedom began, I made a remarkable discovery. I had gone to one of my local Christian bookstores to find a…
mikethemadbiologist | July 8, 2007Consider this the Fouad Ajami edition. Some of you may have read that Ajami compared Scooter Libby to fallen U.S. soldiers in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Recently, Ajami tried to defend his statements on MSNBC's Hardball. Before you click away for the video, several meta-observations (since Ajami's claim is offensive, ludicrous, and not worth refuting):
1) This is the first time I can remember that a conservative columnist got dogpiled enough to actually shift the 'debate.' They didn't bring Ajami on the show to defend Libby, but to defend himself (not that the dumb summabitch doesn't…
mikethemadbiologist | July 7, 2007Susan Madrak is dead on target: if the rightwing is willing to give its wingnuts cushy jobs (also known as 'wingnut welfare'), why can't the left provide its own moonbat welfare for leftwing moonbats? As Madrak writes:
Someone from either the Democratic party or some liberal organization showed up a few years back at the Philadelphia chapter of Drinking Liberally to ask the question, "What do bloggers want? How can we help?" She had, of course, already answered the question: Free Lexis-Nexis access! One account to be shared by I don't know how many bloggers!
I looked at her. I cleared my…
mikethemadbiologist | July 7, 2007I'm all for more efficient bureaucracy, but, like it or not, governance requires bureaucracy, something those conservatives opposed to universal healthcare don't seem to get. From From the Archives:
In this climate, with this cabal leading our country, you somehow look around you and decide that what scares you, the real threat to our democracy is a bunch of civil servants? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WE DO?
I am dead serious. What do you think we DO? We sit here, thousands of us, infiltrating the entire nation. Every day we come to work and do something that is scarier than making a mockery…
mikethemadbiologist | July 6, 2007...and the Mad Biologist attempts to give a serious answer. In response to this post about adopting a French-like healthcare system, a reader writes:
I know this may sound contradictory to many of you, but I am a staunch Republican who has always believed in the need for universal health care in our country. I am so glad that Michael Moore and all of the Democratic candidates for President in 2008 are raising the level of discussion once more about this need.
I would very much like to join a group of fellow Republicans who support the need for univeral[sic] health care, however, I have been…
mikethemadbiologist | July 5, 2007The FTC has released a report calling for the end of net neutrality (FTC's pdf report here*). What does that mean? Well:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.
The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.
This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net…
mikethemadbiologist | July 3, 2007...and are you in any way, shape, or form surprised? Has anything in the last six years suggested to anyone in the Coalition of the Sane that the Bush/Cheney Administration has any sense of shame or propriety? Of course not.
It should be clear that this administration will do anything and everything it can get away with. Bush now appears to have 'accepted' his 28% approval ratings, and won't try to do anything to raise them.
The group that I'm truly disappointed in is the Democrats. They still seem to think that if they point out El Jefe Maximo's outrageous and illegal behavior that the…
mikethemadbiologist | June 28, 2007Jonathan Hari of TNR bravely went undercover and joined a cruise hosted by the National Review. That is a heroic sacrifice on behalf of the Coalition of the Sane, and no amount of satire could do that lunacy justice. But Norman "the blood of GIs is better than Viagra" Podhoretz brought up that tired canard of the Delusional Right (italics mine):
"Aren't you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?" Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. "No," Podhoretz replies…
mikethemadbiologist | June 24, 2007Scott LeMieux exposes the illogic of Melinda Henneberger's NY Times op-ed about abortion and Democrats. What I can't figure out is what does Henneberger want?
Once again, we have a Democratic concern troll who fails to see even the basic contours of the landscape:
Do you want abortion to be legal and safe, or illegal and unsafe?
That is the issue. Unfortunately, there is no real compromise to be had*, and even if there were, it wouldn't matter to these 'moderate' [*cough*bullshit*cough*] voters. Sympathetic noises or compromises will not satisfy those voters Henneberger describes as…
mikethemadbiologist | June 20, 2007Having been encouraged by ScienceBlogling John Wilkins, I'm going to follow up on my post about science journalism, and, no doubt, get myself into further trouble. First, though, I want to clarify some points.
Without going into specific detail, I work for a non-profit organization that deals with infectious disease. My primary job--and the one that pays my bills and keeps the lights on--is to conduct and develop research projects. However, I'm also the primary person who deals with questions about the 'science' of our issue (we also have clinical and economic experts). An average day is…
mikethemadbiologist | June 14, 2007While this particular program on behalf of a religious organization is not nearly as bad as the government-sanctioned anti-Semitism run out of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives*, it still is yet another example of why government and religion require a strict separation:
While all earmarks are troublesome to critics like Mr. Ellis, who called the Canvasback gift an "utter indictment of earmarks," those made for faith-based groups involve special questions about the constitutional borders between church and state.
The Coast Guard ships were given to Canvasback for a secular…
mikethemadbiologist | June 13, 2007I'm not the only one bothered by Mudcat Saunders' article about the Metropolitan Opera Wing of the Democratic Party; maha is too. That post is worth a read, but at the end of the post she makes a very good point about preserving culture (italics mine):
Mudcat has slandered opera fans by implying they are elitist snobs. The fiercest opera fans I have ever met have been regular working-class folks -- construction workers, plumbers, clerks. I used to know a lady who worked the counter in a Paramus, New Jersey, department store and who saw every production at the Met. It was her religion. She…
mikethemadbiologist | June 11, 2007I used to think that Democratic politicians were trying to be too clever by half, and consequently screwed things up. Then I started to think that many are actually quite conservative, so they're just reverting to form--most of them don't have a tiny liberal inside of them, struggling to be free. After reading this exchange with a Democratic canvasser (something I used to do), I think the party has been taken over (or at least seriously infiltrated) by fucking morons (italics mine):
When I explained my stance and rationale [for not donating to the national party] to the woman on the phone,…
mikethemadbiologist | June 8, 2007When you do 'faith-based' science, you have problems when you don't follow the tenets of that 'faith.' From the AP:
The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.
After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.
"We are currently investigating the veracity of these serious claims of his participation in projects that don't align with the…
mikethemadbiologist | June 7, 2007I like much of Matt Yglesias' writing. But he still doesn't appreciate how science and evolution affect public policy issues. As many of you know, three out of ten Republican presidential candidates stated that they don't believe in evolution at one of the presidential debates. Yglesias comments on Huckabee's response:
I see that Jamie Kirchick didn't care for the reply at all: "Sorry, but if someone believes in fairy tales, I think that's pretty relevant to their qualifications as president." But why? The core of Huckabee's answer is here:
It's interesting that that question would even…
mikethemadbiologist | June 1, 2007And in other news, dog bites man. Would the NY Times have printed an op-ed allowing a flat-earther to explain why he believes the earth is flat? Because that's what they did when they ran Brownback's defense of intelligent design creationism. And there's nothing original in Brownback's op-ed either.
First, Brownback makes this declarative statement:
The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature…
mikethemadbiologist | May 31, 2007Matt Stoller makes a very interesting observation about Senator Obama, although I think it could apply to most of the presidential candidates in both parties. Stoller writes:
But I think a lot of this kind of nonsense has to do with a basic lack of responsibility among citizens. Last week, I spoke to a friend who graduated from Harvard Law and just got done clerking for a high level judge. He's smart and highly credentialled, and he supports Obama because he thinks Obama doesn't believe in American exceptionalism and will decolonize our foreign policy. I walked him through the rhetoric…
mikethemadbiologist | May 31, 2007MarkH notes that Luskin is upset about what they perceive as academic discrimination against the proponents of intelligent design creationism. So he asks Luskin a question:
Mr. Luskin, is it the considered opinion of the DI, UD etc., that it is never acceptable to discriminate against a professor in a tenure decision based on their ideas?
Actually, I would rephrase the question:
Mr. Luskin, is it the considered opinion of the DI, UD etc., that intellectual affirmative action is acceptable?
Given the strong conservative affiliations of the ID movement, it would be great fun to watch them…