Policy and Politics
tfk | March 31, 2010A parliamentary inquiry found no wrongdoing by scientists at the University of East Anglia. At issue were emails stolen from the university and offered as evidence of improper behavior by climate scientists:
The committee's report entitled The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, said the focus on Jones and the CRU in the row about the hacked emails had been "largely misplaced" and that "on accusations relating to freedom of information, we consider that much of the responsibility should lie with UEA, not CRU". In evidence to the…
tfk | March 29, 2010Shorter Bruce Chapman, Disco. 'tute bossman: Church Suffers for Past Appeasement:
For 40 years, the Catholic Church has covered up rape by priests, with responsibility for the coverup reaching Cardinal Ratzinger â now Pope Benedict XVI. If only the licentious '60s and its culture of psychotherapy hadn't stopped people from taking responsibility, and prevented the few bad apples from spoiling the reputation of all the priests who never raped any children. But the real victim is Pope Ratzinger, who is being wrongly being held responsible for the actions he and the godly men he supervises…
tfk | March 29, 2010In a monumental step towards bringing sanity to biotech patents, a court ruled that a patent granted for the sequence of a gene associated with breast cancer was invalid. Basically, Myriad Genetics held a patent on the use of the sequence of BRCA1 and BRCA2, genes with alleles associated with high risk of breast cancer. Thanks to its patent, Myriad was the only company able to make tests for these alleles, and medical societies like the Association for Molecular Pathology, the American College of Medical Genetics, the American Society for Clinical Pathology, and the College of American…
tfk | March 29, 2010First, who knew that the Boston Herald would run a story about the New York archbishop? And if they did, that the story would involve the archbishop defending the pope against the sex abuse furor:
New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan was greeted with applause after ⦠defending Pope Benedict XVI against suggestions he aided coverups of reports of child abuse. â¦
The leader of the nationâs second-largest diocese urged his congregation to pray for the pope, saying he was suffering some of the same unjust accusations once faced by Jesus.
Who knew that Jesus hid reports of his apostles raping young…
tfk | March 29, 2010The New York Times issues an Apology for suggesting that political dynasties are political dynasties:
In 1994, Philip Bowring, a contributor to the International Herald Tribuneâs op-ed page, agreed as part of an undertaking with the leaders of the government of Singapore that he would not say or imply that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had attained his position through nepotism practiced by his father Lee Kuan Yew. In a February 15, 2010, article, Mr. Bowring nonetheless included these two men in a list of Asian political dynasties, which may have been understood by readers to infer that the…
tfk | March 25, 2010When the Senate can operate as the Founders meant â allowing simple majorities to pass legislation â things move tolerably fast. The House passed Affordable Care late on Sunday, the Senate passed the reconciliation sidecar (with small amendments) on Wednesday, and the House just passed the amended sidecar. This makes Affordable Care more affordable, strips out some bad deals inserted to secure Senate passage, and â as a bonus â reforms the inequitable student loan system so that less money goes to banks and more stays in the pockets of students and their families.
Pretty good work for a…
tfk | March 25, 2010This morning the Templeton Foundation announced the winner of the Templeton Prize: Francisco Ayala, a former priest and current biologist who testified against creation science in the '80s and now continues to demolish "intelligent design" â the madness that creation science became. In the comments to PZ's grudging acknowledgment of the wisdom of the choice, Bill Farrell anticipates the creationist response:
Ohhhhhh, Ayala has been "mean" to Stephen Meyer over "Signature."
Send in the attack gerbil, Disco Tute!
And while Casey himself has yet to reply, David Klinghoffer has sallied forth to…
tfk | March 24, 2010Republicans in the U.S. Senate continue their campaign to make you poor and sick:
âThey got health care,â [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell [R-KY] told POLITICO with a mischievous glint in his eye. âWeâll see whether thatâs a gift worth receiving.â
Here's the thing about McConnell. Since graduating law school (from a state-funded university, naturally), he's always been a government employee, getting free medical coverage from taxpayers. First, his abortive military career (he washed out because of a medical problem, treated on your dime). Then his time as a Capitol Hill intern and…
tfk | March 22, 2010Casey Luskin, Disco. DJ and legal eagle sparrow asks "When Is it Appropriate to Challenge the [scientific] 'Consensus'?"
Simple answer: When you can make a convincing scientific argument.
Casey disagrees, joining Jay Richards â Prodigal Son of the Disco. 'Tute â in arguing that:
we must carefully examine the scientific, sociological, rhetorical, and political dynamics of a debate to determine if the consensus deserves our assent, or our skepticism.
This actually combines several errors. First, one can be skeptical of something which deserves assent, and indeed to which one does assent.…
tfk | March 22, 2010
It's like he's been reading my mind. He's even nearly re-derived Intelligent Falling. But upside down!
tfk | March 22, 2010Ari Fleischer had to resign as Tiger Woods PR advisor when it became clear that Fleischer is still less trusted than the massively dishonest Woods. Apparently people are quicker to forgive overwhelming infidelity than shilling for George Bush's invasions of various nations and of our own civil liberties.
tfk | March 21, 2010Just watched the House pass the Health Care Reform bill. It's history at work, an achievement on the scale of Social Security and Medicare, a civil rights bill of a sort we haven't seen since the 1960s. President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and indeed Majority Leader Reid all deserve to take a bow.
Even without the reconciliation sidecar, this is a massive improvement for millions of Americans â those with health insurance and those who wish they had it. And when the Senate takes up the reconciliation bill, it'll be an even bigger improvement.
This isn't just a tribute to the President and the…
tfk | March 18, 2010Shorter Richard Sternberg: Beginning to Decipher the SINE Signal:
If science fiction weren't fiction, ID would be really good science.
In responding tangentially to our earlier criticism of him for employing arguments of a paranoid schizophrenic nature which treated movies as if they were evidence of how science works, Sternberg pens an essay in which we're to pretend that we find monoliths on Earth's two moons and they send us crazy signals that make our computers suddenly intelligent.
He quotes a hypothetical critic replying:
We think youâre a nice guy, but your arguments are insane.…
tfk | March 18, 2010I don't care for North Korea. It's a repressive Stalinist cult, walled off from reality. But sometimes they find a nut:
A government official in North Korea blamed for the nation's currency devaluation has been executed by the state. "Pak Nam-gi, who was reportedly sacked in January as chief of the planning and finance department of the ruling Workers' Party, was executed at a shooting range in Pyongyang."
Maybe if we stood a few of the banksters in front of a firing squad, we wouldn't have to fix their mess again.
tfk | March 17, 2010Kevin Drum surveys California politics:
It's like living in a Lewis Carroll novel, except with real people. Assuming you still consider California Republicans to be real people, that is.
The inspiration?
In order to tackle a massive deficit, Democrats were willing to cut a billion dollars out of transit funding â a traditional Democratic priority â and Schwarzenegger vetoes it because they didn't also include a tax cut. As a way of tackling a massive deficit. And the California Republican caucus cheers.
It's time for a goddam constitutional convention.
tfk | March 15, 2010Shorter Ginni Thomas in WaPo: Wife of Justice Thomas starts group for 'citizen activists':
Caesar's wife was a pussy.
Actual spokeswoman for Mrs. Thomas, who recently started a teabagging group using corporate funds as permitted by her husband's vote on Citizens United:
"She did not give up her First Amendment rights when her husband became a Supreme Court judge."
Words fail. Sure, she didn't give up her right to speak freely, but that doesn't mean she should profiteer using her husband's decisions. Any corporation donating to her group which doesn't think it's buying access to Justice…
tfk | March 13, 2010One of my colleagues from Scienceblogs.com.br contacted me a week or so ago to talk about creationists and global warming deniers, and I just checked and his story for Brazil's largest paper is online. Frankly, I think I gave him one of my juicier quotes:
"Dos negacionistas do aquecimento global, a maioria é motivada principalmente pelos negócios e pela polÃtica. Um número chocante de pessoas parece se opor à ideia porque não gostam de Al Gore. Muitos trabalham em empresas petrolÃferas ou pertencem a indústrias que teriam de pagar pela mitigação do aquecimento", diz Rosenau. "Então…
tfk | March 11, 2010Attention conservation notice: A couple thousand words of reply to questions about why I think NCSE does what it does, delivered in my capacity as a random blogger not as an NCSE staffer. People who don't care about accommodationism or about how I read the NCSE website should probably just go back to pondering diehard scientists.
In comments at Larry Moran's blog, I noted what I regard as a serious error in his description of NCSE's position about science and religion. He initially claimed "As you know, it's the official position of the National Center for Science Education" that "science…
tfk | March 11, 2010Today's Washington Times covers the nexus between global warming denial and creationism, quoting from my ScienceProgress piece to show that:
diehard scientists are striking back.
Yipee-kay-yay muppethuggers!
tfk | March 10, 2010Upchucky award runner-up and Disco. 'Tute staffer Casey Luskin is upset. Last fall, we were on a panel together, and I mocked his defense of the neo-creationist "orchard model" described in Explore Evolution as claiming that life "poofed" into existence. In the course of one of Casey's regularly scheduled bouts of logorrhea, he decides to respond to this claim:
I presented some of this information discussed below at the St. Thomas conference last fall, and NCSE staff member Josh Rosenau repeatedly alleged that I was making a âpoofâ hypothesis for the origin of monkeys.
No. That is not what…