Policy and Politics
tfk | December 10, 2008Steven Chu of Lawrence Berkeley Labs is reported to be President-elect Obama's nominee for Secretary of Energy.
While much will be made of his Nobel Prize and his aggressive advocacy for science-based solutions to the climate crisis, his nomination is important for another reason.
Chu is Steve 75 on NCSE's Project Steve. Project Steve is a humorous mockery of creationist lists of scientific supporters. The 987 signers of the Project Steve statement are all PhD scientists who support evolution, and all are named Steve (or Stephen, Stephanie, Istvan, etc.) Since Steves represent roughly 1…
tfk | December 8, 2008The Philadelphia Inquirer profiles EPA head Stephen Johnson:
Johnson majored in biology. At Taylor [University, one of the oldest evangelical universities in the country], that includes discussion of creationism.
Taylor biology professor Timothy Burkholder, who was Johnson's adviser, said, "We would adhere to the view that God is the creator of all things and in charge of our lives, and I think Steve recognizes that and did from the beginning."
Asked about this, Johnson declined to express his views on the evolution-creation question.
"It's not a clean-cut division," the career EPA…
tfk | December 5, 2008Thanks to Kansas Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-Wichita), ATF data on guns used in crimes were not available to policymakers or law enforcement. That provision was repealed, and a report by an association of mayors finds that:
States with lax gun laws had higher rates of handgun killings, fatal shootings of police officers, and sales of weapons that were used in crimes in other states ... 10 states, including Virginia, supplied 57 percent of the guns that were recovered in crimes in other states in 2007. ...
The study, which will be released this month, found:
· The 10 states with the highest…
tfk | December 5, 2008The Kansas Republican Party is in disarray outraged:
President-Elect Barack Obama has suggested that one solution for his problems with the Guantanamo Bay security facility could be solved by moving some of the most dangerous men in the world to a medium-security facility in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Kansas Republican Party Chairman Kris Kobach [yes, that Kris Kobach] had this to say:
"Governor Sebelius will bend over backward to protect Kansans from global warming. Yet when a significant and immediate threat to Kansans' safety emerges--like bringing enemy combatants and terrorists to Kansas--she…
tfk | December 4, 2008Bob Reich is rarely wrong, and here he makes a very important point:
Teachers are being laid off and new hiring frozen, after-school programs cut, so called "noncritical" subjects like history eliminated, schools closed, and tuitions hiked at state colleges and universities.
It's absurd. We're bailing out every major bank to get financial capital flowing again. But we're squeezing the main sources of our nation's human capital. Yet America's future competitiveness and the standard of living of our people depend largely our peoples' skills, and our capacities to communicate and solve…
tfk | December 3, 2008Last week, I posited that any company "too big to fail" was too big to exist, and ought to either be broken up under anti-trust regulations, or should be nationalized if it needed to have such power over the marketplace.
Roman Werpachowski replied in the comments, saying that my underlying logic was "far-fetched," and that the solution was not nationalizing or breaking up these firms, but the creation of a more rational marketplace in credit default swaps and other exotic instruments, so that counterparty risk would be clearer.
I'm not an economist, and I freely admit that my sense that a…
tfk | December 3, 2008In discussions of the subprime mortgage crisis and the CDS crisis which grew out of it, a lot is made of the failure of federal regulators, and a bit is made of the failure of securities rating firms (who blew it by giving disastrously risky products very safe ratings). The latter failure is often excused on the basis that there wasn't enough background data to accurately model the risks of these new products, though it is rightly noted that the firms had a financial interest in turning a blind eye to any data which would have led them to produce less rosy estimates of risk. Similar…
tfk | December 3, 2008CNN shutters its science/environment/technology unit:
[Longtime CNN anchor/reporter Miles] O'Brien's departure comes as the network dismantles its science, space, environment and technology unit in Atlanta. That includes O'Brien as well as six producers. O'Brien has been CNN's chief technology and environment correspondent since being replaced as anchor of American Morning in April 2007.
Before, during and after anchoring, O'Brien worked the NASA beat for CNN. He covered John Glenn's return to space in 1998. In 1999 he led CNN's coverage of the failed Mars Orbiter and Polar Lander missions…
tfk | December 3, 2008Hotline reports:
Sources close to Rep. Dennis Moore (KS-03) say he will not run for re-election in '10.
I'll be digging into this and report more. If true, it becomes a question of who will replace him, and of what he'll do next. Hotline has him running for Senate, though odds seem to favor Kathleen Sebelius for the Senate seat Sam Brownback will be abandoning. I'm not convinced that a cabinet post would prevent her from running in 2010.
I'd rather see him run for Governor. Lieutenant Governor Mark Parkinson seems nice enough, but he hasn't been a Democrat for that long, and while Dennis…
tfk | November 26, 2008Slacktivist talks about politics in Delaware, concluding:
the state's governor-elect … ma[de] a shrewd, surprising and encouraging announcement of his own regarding his upcoming inaugural celebration: "Markell: Give time for your neighbors."
Gov.-elect Jack Markell proposed an alternative to the traditional inaugural ball. No expensive gown or tux rentals necessary. But get ready to roll up those sleeves -- and the sooner, the better.
Standing in the volunteers' room at the Food Bank of Delaware, Markell and Lt. Gov.-elect Matt Denn launched a fresh effort to help Delaware residents give…
tfk | November 25, 2008This story is too good not to re-run (image h/t The Advocate). Sept. 11 loss leads mother to fight for gay rights:
Seven years on, she still wakes up with a shock in the night, startled to remember that her only son is dead.
Inside the bungalow in the mountains above Los Gatos where Alice Hoagland lives, the house with the "No on Proposition 8" sign and the American flag outside, glass bowls from "Good Morning America" and USA Rugby memorialize one of the heroes of 9/11 — Hoagland's son, Mark Bingham. There are DVDs of "United 93," the movie about the hijacked flight that Bingham helped…
tfk | November 25, 2008Armen Sedrakian makes a good point in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle: Don't let companies grow 'too big to fail':
Whatever happened to breaking up large corporations so they don't dominate the market? Instead of the Treasury Department bailing out corporations, why doesn't the antitrust division of the federal government break up corporations? At the very least, the bailouts should come with breakups rather than mergers to prevent these "too big to fail" problems in the future.
I can't see an argument against this. That isn't to say that an argument doesn't exist, but it strikes me…
tfk | November 24, 2008Via Edge of the West, we are reminded that today is the anniversary of Lee Harvey Oswald's last dance, memorialized in this famous photograph:
At least, that's what I learned in school. Kathy tells it differently, but she doesn't explain why people claim Oswald and Ruby were acting in concert. This photograph does.
H/T PBS, and George Mahlberg, creator of Oswald/Ruby as a Rock Band, 1996. Adapted from original photograph by Bob Jackson, 1963.
tfk | November 20, 2008The House Energy and Commerce Committee is one of the most powerful committees in the House of Representatives. It's especially important as we look at climate change legislation and fuel economy (both of which current chairman, John Dingell, has delayed and watered down). Newly selected Chairman Henry Waxman will be much more aggressive in pursuing good legislation on those fronts, but that's not the only reason to be excited about his ascendancy.
Waxman made his name as an investigator, running the House Government Oversight Committee like a machine. His investigations dug into the worst…
tfk | November 19, 2008Paging Dr. Orac! Your crown has, apparently, been usurped.
The photograph above was taken at San Francisco's Green Festival, an over-all excellent event. I learned a lot about the state of green technology, from solar panels to composting, and more importantly I learned a lot about the state of the market for such technologies.
I also learned that a lot of woo gets wrapped up under the heading of "green," and that's a shame. There weren't any anti-vaccine booths, but large sections of the conference center were devoted to homeopathy, herbal remedies, cupping, and related silliness. Among…
tfk | November 19, 2008I want to add a point to my response to the Disco. Inst.'s claim that TFN's survey of Texas biology teachers is a "push-poll" and "jackbooted thuggery."
That language is unbecoming and unprofessional, but we have all come to expect that from the Discovery Institute.
It is also hypocritical.
I know they read TfK, so they know why it is inaccurate and inappropriate to call the TFN survey "a push-poll," but here they go again, writing that "TFN is parading a push-poll survey of scientists they did recently." It still isn't a push poll. And the Disco. crew should know better than to throw…
tfk | November 19, 2008I haven't blogged about the fight for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee because I thought it was a done deal. Rep. Dingell has been running that committee for an eternity, and he has a lot of power and support. He is also, unfortunately, in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Auto. His intransigence is partly responsible for our nation's lagging fuel economy standards, and for our slow progress on other policies that could have forced Detroit to take the initiative on hybrid cars and other alternative technologies. The Big Three clearly thought that those actions were…
tfk | November 18, 2008The Disco. Inst. is in a tizzy. No, it's more than a tizzy, it's all-out Disco. Inferno! Spokesman Rob Crowther writes: Liberal Darwin Activists Spin Push-Poll in Attempt to Water Down Science Standards:
The liberal Darwin lobby group Texas Freedom Network has just published a push-poll of scientists titled, "Survey of Texas Faculty: Overwhelming Opposition to Watering Down Evolution in School Science Curriculum."…
What is stunning is the TFN's jackbooted thuggery of threatening parents!
I can hear you all typing your comments now: "Surely not!," you'll tell me. The Texas Freedom Network…
tfk | November 18, 2008Rumors hold that Eric Holder is under consideration for Obama's Attorney General. He would be the first black AG, and is exceptionally well-qualified for the job.
Hillary Clinton is rumored to be a top candidate for Secretary of State. This will be a grave disappointment to Sadly, No!, who boldly predicted that Louis Farrakhan would get that post, aided by Mumia Abu-Jamal as Secretary of Defense/Secretary of Kill Whitey. I suppose there's still time for him to follow through on the original plan.
I will say that Clinton is an odd choice for Secretary of State. It isn't clear how it really…