The Occasional Post on National Politics
thusspakezuska | January 28, 2009Perhaps you have noticed our newly redesigned front page, and on that page, a link to the Rightful Place Project. In his inaugural address, President Obama promised to restore science to its "rightful place". Seed Media Group is starting a dialog in response, asking the question "What is science's rightful place?", through Seed Magazine and ScienceBlogs. Our benevolent overlordz have asked us to offer our thoughts in response to this question.
You'll see at the Rightful Place page that you can submit your own thoughts on this question, and there is a link to the Rightful Place blog to…
thusspakezuska | January 20, 2009I'm watching the inauguration on tv...all the bigwigs are walking in...and here comes Malia and Sasha. Could those girls possibly be any cuter?
Every time they show a shot of the sea of humanity on the Mall I am just overwhelmed.
I've never had a sense of living through anything so momentous before.*
Yay for us! The Bush years are over!
*except the election, of course. Well, and 9/11. But that was a very different sense of momentous.
UPDATE: Feinstein just gave her speech and tears are rolling down my cheeks. That line about the dream begun at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial…
thusspakezuska | November 3, 2008Who needs sophisticated tracking polls when you've got...cookies!
A local bakery not far from where I live makes presidential candidate cookies for every presidential election. This year they added vice-presidential cookies. You can buy an Obama, McCain, Biden, or Palin cookie - and help predict the winner of the election in the process!
Since the 1984 election, Weinrich's in Willow Grove has been icing its round red, white and blue cookies with the names and, this year, the faces of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.
And in every election but one, the sale of cookies…
thusspakezuska | April 5, 2008I'm watching "The Night James Brown Saved Boston" on VH1. It is an excellent program.
I was 5 years old on April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated. I don't have personal memories of what he did for America, but I grew up revering him. JFK, RFK, and MLK were equal in sainthood in my house growing up. I think I gained most of this sensibility from my mother.
One of the commenters on this program - I think it was the Rev. Al Sharpton but I'm not sure - remarked that James Brown was not a crossover artist to white America, but the artist who brought white America over…
thusspakezuska | February 11, 2008Here's the word, from Sheril at The Intersection - and the word is exciting!
For months everyone has been asking us, when will there be an invitation sent to candidates...a date... a venue...
Well it's finally happened! It's official. Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Barack Obama have been invited to ScienceDebate2008.
The location? Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, named after one of our nation's greatest scientists (and greatest patriots). The date? April 18, days before the Pennsylvania Primary.
We're so close to seeing this through and now more than ever, we need you're…
thusspakezuska | December 11, 2007Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney, over at the Intersection, have organized a call for a presidential debate on science and technology issues.
Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we, the undersigned, call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Medicine and Health, and…
thusspakezuska | October 17, 2007Washington Post reports on the appointment of Susan Orr:
The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of
family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services
who has been critical of contraception.
Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. She will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.
In a 2001 article in The…
thusspakezuska | September 6, 2007It's almost September 17th, and you know what that means - Constitution Day! Do you have your festivities all planned out yet? No? Don't you remember there's a federal law mandating that all schools which receive federal funds have got to put on a program about the constitution for their students on September 17 every year? And federal employees in the executive branch have to receive some training on the constitution on Constitution Day? I suppose Dick Cheney would naturally be exempt, not being part of the executive branch of government and all.
Which brings me to this handy article…
thusspakezuska | August 9, 2007I read this article in the LA Times about Russians racing to claim the seabed under the Arctic ice as their territory, other nations fussing that it's really theirs, and everybody ignoring that the only way they can even have this argument is because the damn ice is melting away. Only it's even worse than I realized. Because it isn't just the ice melting away.
Now the permafrost is thawing on land and along the seabeds. If it occurs in the presence of oxygen on land, the decomposing of organic matter leads to the production of CO2. If the permafrost thaws along lake shelves, in the…
thusspakezuska | August 9, 2007It's called "social desirability bias". And the voting public suffers from it.
It leads likely voters to "underestimate their own prejudices when talking to survey takers", says Dalton Conley in the Chronicle Review.
We know we are supposed to treat all candidates the same, regardless of race or gender. So that's what we say when they ask us. But when we go to the polls, something happens. It's not that people walk into the voting booth and say "no way I'm voting for a woman!" No, they think "national security is really important to me" and they somehow convince themselves that the…