Flaming Small-Minded Stupidity
tqa | February 27, 2009
By now, you've probably heard that there's been quite a bit of controversy over a little story about bureaucrats and rescue boats that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal told during his response to President Obama's speech earlier this week:
Let me tell you a story.
During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had…
tqa | February 26, 2009
Remember that Colorado State Senator I talked about yesterday? The one that voted against the HIV testing bill because he thought it would encourage humanity? It turns out that he really, really doesn't know when to stop talking. He gave an interview to the Rocky Mountain News after the vote. Reading the things he said, I'm well and truly past appalled. This man, who currently holds elected political office, clearly does not understand the concept of what it means to be a human being.
What he said afterward:
"What I'm hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a…
tqa | February 25, 2009
I'm going to take a break from my semi-masochistic browsing of Conservapedia tonight. Instead, I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight some much more malignant views.
There have been two separate incidents of hateful speech and behavior, involving two separate Colorado State Senators, in the past week.
The first incident took place on Monday. Republican Scott Renfroe took to the floor of the State Senate to speak in opposition to a bill that would (OH NOES!) give some benefits to same-sex partners of state employees. Renfroe apparently started off by informing the crowd that Eve…
tqa | February 24, 2009
Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning has apparently found an innovative new way to get his colleagues in the National Republican Senatorial Committee to support his re-election campaign: threaten to sue.
Yes, I really am serious.
Bunning threatened to sue the committee if it supported Williams or any other challenger.
"I would have a suit against the NRSC if they did that," he said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
"Support of incumbents is the only reason for [the NRSC's] existence," Bunning added. "So if they recruited someone and supported them in a primary against me, I would be…
tqa | February 18, 2009
At their best, editorial cartoons are a wonderful way to examine politics in a slightly different light. An editorial cartoon that appeared in today's New York Post shows us just what editorial cartoons can be at their worst. Just in case the NY Post decides to try and dump this one down the memory hole, here's a copy of the cartoon:
Words simply fail. If you want to express your opinion of this particular piece of art, you can contact the New York post at (212) 930-8500, or email the Page Six editor, Richard Johnson, rjohnson@nypost.com.
Technorati Tags: politics, flaming small-minded…
tqa | February 13, 2009
No. But that's apparently not enough to keep some people from making the claim.
There's a story that's making the rounds on some right wing blogs that John Holdren said, at his confirmation hearing, that he thinks that 1 billion people will die as a result of global warming by 2020. So far, that claim has been made at The National Review Online by Chris Horner:
Just got this e-mail from someone up on the Hill, regarding John "Clearly NOT the 'Science' Guy" Holdren's confirmation hearing as (of all things) chief science advisor to the president). I do think it's fair to say we told you so…
tqa | February 11, 2009
As you may have heard, Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich) is in a bit of hot water right now. The Congressman, who is the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, posted a number of updates to his Twitter page while in Baghdad recently.
The Congressman's motivation? Apparently, his constituents' need to know outweighs mundane concerns like operational security:
The spokesman, Dave Yonkman, added: "He believes in giving people in West Michigan as much access as possible, and posting on Twitter allows him to provide real-time insight into the sights and sounds of his…
tqa | February 6, 2009TPM has a list of stimulus cuts that a group of senators led by Democrat Ben Nelson and Republican Susan Collins have proposed. The cuts are at 77.9 billion and growing, and include a great deal of the science-related spending. On the chopping block:
750 million - half the proposed increase - of funding for NASA exploration
1.4 billion - from the NSF line. That's the entire proposed increase
427 million - 1/3 of the proposal - from NOAA
218 million - almost 40% - from NIST
1 billion - 38% - from the DOE Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy line
100 million - from the DOE office of science line…
tqa | December 15, 2008
Congrats to the New York Times, for publishing one of the most trite articles on the current recession/depression yet. Lots of coverage of kids who have suffered cuts in their three-figure allowance. A subtle plea for sympathy, because competition with desperate job-seaking adults is making it harder for the kids to find work. And, of course, the article would be far from complete without the requisite piss-poor comparison:
Teenagers from working- and middle-class families are, of course, feeling similar -- if not more acute -- pressure.
And just how similar is the pressure?
Sumit Pal…
tqa | December 10, 2008
Like most people who pay attention to the news, I've been treated to several weeks of Republicans using the Detroit bailout as an excuse to bash unions. Like a broken record, it was easy to ignore for a while, but the repetitive droning of discredited canards (like $70/hr wages) is getting more and more and more annoying.
And it's particularly annoying because the vast bulk of the union-bashing is coming from the alleged free-market conservatives. What the hell is so conservative about beating up on unions, anyway. Unions are the quintessential model of a market based solution to a problem…
tqa | November 18, 2008
I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the role that the Community Reinvestment Act played (or, rather, did not play) in causing the current global financial meltdown. I was planning to get out of the issue there, but a really nice article by Devilstower over at Daily Kos sucked me back in. During the time when I wasn't paying any attention to the issue, the right wing noise machine added a new villain to their attempts to blame Wall Street's mess on the left: ACORN.
In 1977 Democratic President Jimmy Carter passed the Community Reinvestment Act to provide housing to poor people. In the…
tqa | October 17, 2008
There's something truly amazing about Uncommon Descent's DaveScot. He misrepresents data in a stupid way, gets caught, gets embarrassed, and then he does it again. And again. And again. It's like he expects it to work this time - and never mind the fact that it hasn't in any of the last 37 attempts. It's entirely possible that he has the same ability to learn from experience as a badly concussed pigeon.
Today's shining example involves a post of his entitled "Voter Preference by Education Level". In this post, he provides a set of statistics involving education level and current choice of…
tqa | October 16, 2008
What a difference a day makes. Last night, the picture of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (aka Joe the Plumber) we all had was the one John McCain painted for us: a hardworking plumber with serious plans to buy the plumbing business he's worked for for "all these years", who won't be able to do so if Obama wins because Obama will raise Joe's taxes. Today, after reality has had a chance to be heard, the picture is very, very different.
Let's start with the basics: Joe isn't going to see a tax increase under Obama's plan. He's going to see a tax cut. If he buys the business, he might see an…
tqa | September 19, 2008
Apparently undeterred by last week's marijuana misadventure, DaveScot just decided to add another topic to the growing list of things he has absolutely no understanding of but writes about anyway. In today's installment, he joins the growing list of right-wingers who have decided to blame the current subprime mortgage crisis on the Democrats who passed the Community Reinvestment Act of 1975. Predictably enough, it doesn't take much effort or research to figure out that this claim has very, very little resemblance to the truth.
The basis behind the claim that the CRA caused the subprime…
tqa | August 23, 2008
I know I'm far from the first to go off on this commercial, but...
No, vehix.com commercial lady, you cannot go online and "literally take a test drive". It doesn't work that way. The tubes that connect your computer to the interwebs aren't big enough. The wheels get stuck every damn time. So stop saying that. Or at least learn to stop overacting first.
And lose the hat. It makes you look like a moron.
tqa | August 13, 2008
I used to have a hard time explaining the anger, resentment, and hostility that many scientists feel toward the big academic publishing houses. It's been getting easier, though. Recent events have, unfortunately, provided people with an experience that makes it easier to relate to what the academic community has been going through.
Gas prices are going up. You've been combining trips, cutting your milage as much as you can, driving a more efficient vehicle, and your fuel costs are still going up. You drive home from work, stopping along the way to put $30+ dollars worth of gas into the 10…
tqa | August 12, 2008
Update: 13 Aug. I've added a new post that I think provides a clearer explanation for the reason that this sort of behavior is such an irritant when it comes from a company like Elsevier.
Like most bloggers, I have an ego. I'm not mentioning that by way of apology, but as an explanation for why I was browsing through my sitemeter statistics last Friday. Every now and then, I head over to sitemeter, call up the view that lets me see what websites referred people to my page. If I see a link that's coming from a source I don't recognize, I browse over and look to see what people are saying…
tqa | July 10, 2008
I don't know what it is, but there's clearly something about the G8 conference that interferes with George Bush's ability to restrain his inner frat brat. At the G8 two years ago, you might recall, the Commander-in-Chief grabbed international headlines when he gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel an impromptu (and uninvited and unwelcome) neck rub during a meeting. Apparently, disgracing his office and nation once at the G8 wasn't enough of a legacy for the man.
Various news sources in the United Kingdom are reporting that the President decided to unleash his inner frat brat on the global…
tqa | April 7, 2008
The anticipation of reading is almost always wonderful, but the actual reading is often frustrating. You can spend hours enjoying the wonderful indecision of the bookstore before you walk away with the comforting weight of a new release hardcover in your hand. The book can sit on the coffee table for days, weeks, or months before you finally find the time to sit down with it. At some point, you finally find time some quiet evening to pick up the book, sit yourself down with a nice glass of the beverage of your choice, and open the cover. And by page six, you're wondering what on earth the…
tqa | March 20, 2008
PZ Myers got expelled from the line to see the movie Expelled tonight, apparently for the crime of actually being PZ Myers. That's definitely ironic, and possibly hypocritical. His family and his guest were allowed to go in and watch the movie. His guest was Richard Dawkins. Yes, that Richard Dawkins. That particular move was so amazingly stupid that they're gonna need to come up with a new word for it.
No, I'm not kidding. No, this isn't a premature April Fools joke. No, it's not an attempt at satire.
It's just creationists managing to shoot an own-goal hat trick.