Policy and Politics
tfk | March 8, 2009There are a lot of reasons not to hold Arthur Conan Doyle up as a guide to solid scientific practice. The creator of the famously rational Sherlock Holmes was also an advocate of spiritualism and the existence of fairies, after all. Setting that aside, it would be a bad mistake to cite the work of fictional characters to justify claims about successful scientific practice, at least without copious clarification of the relationship between fictional scientists like The Lost World's Professor Challenger and scientists in the real world.
I might have had to deploy any and all of these…
tfk | March 6, 2009In the AP's coverage of OK state Rep. Thomsen's efforts to … expel … Richard Dawkins, the Disco. Inst. gets dissed. "We're all for the freedom of Richard Dawkins to speak," says an interviewee, who adds "Where is a similar high-profile person debating him?"
This person must not be aware that John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and Casey Luskin, who is decidedly not a fainting dachshund, also of the Discovery Institute were both at the University of Oklahoma recently, presenting a view decidedly contrary to Dawkins'. What're they, chopped liver? Who would dare…
Oh, wait,…
tfk | March 6, 2009Responding to Todd Thomsen's anti-Dawkins resolution, a livejournaler writes: "Having grown up in Oklahoma, I never thought I would be THIS glad to live in Texas."
Strong words. Few things could make Texas seem like a bastion of reason. And yet, Thomsen's HR 1015 is actually the nicer version of the resolution. Thomsen started with the much harsher HR 1014 (RTF link), before toning down his disapprobation in HR 1015:
WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and…
tfk | March 5, 2009Oooooo-oh!-klahoma where the wind goes whistling 'twixt the ears!
Richard Dawkins, having visited Scibling Ed Brayton in Michigan, is on his way to Oklahoma, where Scibling ERV is skipping the event (she prefers to watch Casey Luskin and John "hard for Hitler" West, inexplicably).
And if state Representative Thomsen has his way, no one would get to hear Dawkins. Yesterday, Thomsen filed a resolution decrying Dawkins and calling for the University of Oklahoma to withdraw his invitation (RTF link):
WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all…
tfk | March 4, 2009Henry Farrell offers a wingnut manifesto. The loonier corners of wingnuttia, including some sections of ABC News, have determined that the only response to the prospect of a small marginal increase on income over $250,000 is to stop working altogether. Fine. Henry suggests the following a "Go Galt, Go!" manifesto:
We proudly salute “Dr. Helen,” Glenn Reynolds, and Michelle Malkin, for identifying the only possible response to Barack Obama’s victory – ‘going Galt.’ By withdrawing their creative and intellectual achievements from the economy and stopping tipping waitstaff, the schmibertarian…
tfk | March 4, 2009But symbolism matters less than simple human decency. Matt Yglesias points out the inhumane and ill-conceived treatment of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israelis:
stop and think for a minute about how this looks through the eyes of a young Palestinian. Israel has the right to decide what can and can't be sent to Gaza. Yesterday, pasta couldn't be. Today it can. But what about dried beans? Cornmeal? What if I should want to send a box of Sour Patch Kids to Gaza–well, I probably couldn't. That's not bona fide humanitarian aid, and Gaza is under blockade. An act of war that targets the entire…
tfk | March 3, 2009If I did not read the newspaper, I would not know that gorillas are calmed not by sweet music, but by pork products:
“Haa mmm,” Mr. Serundori says, emitting a special gruntlike gorilla greeting that miraculously stops Kabirizi in midcharge. “Haa mmm.”
Fortunately, peace in the Congo means that these gentle porcophiles are on the road to recovery.
tfk | March 3, 2009An image from a protest against the economic recovery:
A sentiment I can't really disagree with, though there are details of implementation to be resolved.
Liberal writer Neal Pollack, in 2002, discussed his views on the issue:
if a man enjoys lowering his scrotum into his partner's mouth, and enjoys having his partner suck on one testicle, then the other, and then, if possible, both testicles at once, followed by a judicious application of the tongue to the base of the scrotum, sometimes accompanied by a gentle stroking of the penis, then I say that man should be granted his fun, and should…
tfk | February 28, 2009
Following weeks of speculation, President Obama nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. She will be responsible for shepherding the president's promise of universal health care through Congress, and for carrying out his promises to reform health care in America.
In last week's address to Congress, Obama stated:
we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold.
[Our budget] includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for…
tfk | February 26, 2009Outgoing KS GOP boss Christian Morgan reacts to the response to President Obama's address to Congress:
Governor Jindal from Louisiana is fantastic.
But other conservatives aren't so sure:
David Brooks: "In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say ‘government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending,’ it’s just a form of nihilism. It’s just not where the country is, it’s not where the future of the country is."
Kathryn Jean Lopez: "E-mails I’m getting are from disappointed conservatives. They wanted a full…
tfk | February 26, 2009I'm still confused. Did Bobby Jindal really dis volcano monitoring, of the sort that saved lives when Mt. St. Helens erupted? He really doesn't care for science, does he?
tfk | February 26, 2009Last year, we spent a lot of time mocking the self-righteous bigotry of Martin Cothran. Cothran, who works for the Kentucky affiliate of Focus on the Family and blogs for the Disco. Inst., objects to gays having an equal right to marriage, and thinks it's hateful to call him a bigot for his anti-gay bigotry. Ah, well.
I mention all of this as preface to his latest round of bigotry. Today, he's complaining about gays having equal access to adoption, and especially to a discussion on a local newspaper's blog, in which he feel's it's been misunderstood:
that I was somehow referring to…
tfk | February 24, 2009Will Bobby Jindal suggest faith healing or exorcism as solutions to our nation's challenges?
tfk | February 23, 2009DaveScot, at ID creationist Bill Dembski's place, is on a climate change denial binge. Dave writes:
that antarctic sea ice is at a record high (at least since 1980 when measurement started). The new high is REALLY high. It’s 50% greater than the old record set in 1995. In case anyone is laboring under the misapprehension that antarctic sea is retreating, it ain’t. The 30-year trend is up 2.5% per decade.
He seems to take this to mean that:
As the northern hemisphere warmed the southern hemisphere cooled.
But no!
Temperature is rising globally, it's rising in the Northern hemisphere, and it'…
tfk | February 20, 2009Disco. Inst. honcho Bruce Chapman is upset at The Weakness at the Center of the Conservative Coalition. Shorter Bruce Chapman:
No one wants to have anything to do with social conservatives. Waaaaah! We'll take our ball and go home.
Yesterday, Chapman was going ape about … well, it's hard to be sure. Shorter Bruce Chapman:
Apes aren't people because apes sometimes injure people. After all, no one would keep a tiger as a pet, claim it was like a child, and be shocked when it attacked him. Oh, um, even though he did, it is surely be the fault of Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins.…
tfk | February 10, 2009Blogging is slow this week. I've got a talk at AAAS in Chicago to prepare, an abstract for a conference in Montreal to prepare, and a dissertation to complete.
So let it be known that creationism still sucks, that I'm glad a bill forcing evolution disclaimers into Mississippi textbooks failed, that creationist bills in Iowa and New Mexico are lame and should go away (as should similar legislation in Alabama and Oklahoma), and that the Disco. Inst.'s attempt to co-opt the anniversary of Darwin's birth is pretty damn lame. More blogging anon.
tfk | February 2, 2009And if you're a Californian, so do you. Dave Neiwert catches this bit of wingnuttery:
Beck: OK, there's something driving me to the edge of insanity, makes blood shoot right out my eyes, and that is California.
California today, they voted against offshore drilling. Not on their land, or their shore, no. They also voted last week to raise emissions standards because it's too smoggy there and they care about the trees. Also, uh, in the stimulus, we found out today, it appears as though Hollywood can get a, um, bailout, from you and me, because nobody's going to see their movies. Hmmph! You'd…
tfk | February 2, 2009ScienceBlog reports: Ouch! Transplant surgeons remove healthy kidney through donor's vagina:
In what is believed to be a first-ever procedure, surgeons at Johns Hopkins have successfully removed a healthy donor kidney through a small incision in the back of the donor’s vagina.
This reminds me of a case report I recall from the late '90s:
Eight-Pound Man Removed From Woman's Vagina October 29, 1997
ALBUQUERQUE, NM—In a bizarre case that has baffled medical professionals across the country, surgeons at Albuquerque's Veteran's Memorial Hospital removed a living eight-pound man from the confines…
tfk | February 2, 2009Via Brad Delong, an epigraph I may have to use in my dissertation:
The time has come, [my] doctrines have been verified, the sufferings [of the people] have taken place; and, therefore, here is the book. The scoffings, the scornings, the abuse, the reviling, the horrible calumnies and the base persecutions which this book and other efforts of a similar kind brought upon me, and the briefest notice of each instance of which would fill fifty volumes more bulky than this, are now amply avenged by the joy that I feel at that which I know behold, and which can no longer be hidden from even the…
tfk | January 29, 2009Headline: BART eyes higher fares, reduced service.
This is very, very dumb. Higher fares will reduce ridership at exactly the time BART is weaning people off of their addiction to driving. That's bad policy, and it's bad for BART revenue.
While shifting from trains every 15 minutes to a 20 minute gap on weeknights and Sundays isn't awful, it also raises the barrier to easy mass transit, reducing the chance that people will leave their cars at home. And getting people to give up their cars is good public policy. It keeps the air clean, reducing asthma and other respiratory illnesses. It…