Policy and Politics
tfk | January 28, 2008Mr. Speaker! The Preznit of the Untied States of America.
Congresscritters, esteemed Cabinet members and other besuited Washingtonians, I stand before you to tell you that the state of the union is … tolerable. After all, there'll be an election in November, and then it'll all be someone else's problem. Heh heh heh. (Applause)
We're still torturing people who may or may not be terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, but my Attorney General assures me he can stall congressional questions about what, exactly, "torture" means until well after the election.
My unconstitutional and…
tfk | January 23, 2008Cato's Andrew Coulson actually applies that "logic" to a different government program, but it makes just as little sense. Yes, Americans tend to reject evolution, though not, as Coulson claims, 2 in 3; a survey by FASEB this month found that 6 in 10 support evolution. That doesn't mean we should give up on public education. It mean we should give public school teachers more support. A survey by the National Science Teachers Association found that
When asked if they feel pressured to include creationism, intelligent design, or other nonscientific alternatives to evolution in their science…
tfk | January 22, 2008Kevin Drum evaluates the Democratic frontrunners on their ability to move an agenda through Congress:
Congress is a different kettle of fish [than the public, which he allows Obama could probably swing to his side], and obviously a lot depends on just what kind of majority the new president has to work with. I think everyone's assumption here is that Obama's personal charm and readiness to listen would help him hive off at least a few moderate Republicans to pass his legislative agenda. Hillary, by contrast, is someone who knows how to throw elbows when she needs to, and she'd play a tougher…
tfk | January 22, 2008Tony Campolo, generally considered a member of the Christian Left, writes a staggeringly wrong essay on evolution. After rightly dismissing typical creationist complaints that evolutionary "theories contradict their literal biblical belief that creation occurred in six 24-hour days," Campolo jumps onto the Coral Ridge/Disco. Inst. bandwagon, claiming that the "real dangers of Darwinism," lie in "the ethical implications of Darwin's original writings."
After which we get the typical half-literate practice of judging Darwin's 500+ page opus based on a single phrase in the subtitle: "Favored…
tfk | January 21, 2008Glenn Greenwald has questions about an Obama brochure explaining that the Senator is a "Committed Christian":
Finally, just to underscore the point (again), I'm not arguing that Obama has done anything wrong here. As I said, I thought much of the criticism of Huckabee for making overt religious appeals was overblown because that's become the norm for our political culture. My point is simply that, with regard to this specific tactic of appealing to voters based on shared religious beliefs, Huckabee and Obama seem to be engaged in more or less the same exercise, and therefore, it's irrational…
tfk | January 15, 2008Governor Sebelius, the popular Democratic Governor of Kansas, has been chosen to respond to George Bush's final State of the Union address. Diane has a good review of some of her recent achievements. It's a tremendous testament to her and to the state of Kansas that she's being given this opportunity.
She came to office as Kansas struggled to overcome fiscal hardships caused by the first Bush recession, and managed to balance the budget, maintain and ultimately raise education spending and protect social services without raising taxes.
More recently, she made history by refusing…
tfk | January 12, 2008The Scientist tells about North Carolina's success promoting its biotech industry. Commercial success didn't come quickly. Obviously:
The state's educational institutions, from community colleges to research universities, also play a seminal role in North Carolina's success in biotechnology. For one thing, these institutions provide professional-level academic programs in biotechnology and related fields.
"Various state universities also train students specifically for careers in biotechnology. For example, NCSU offers an undergraduate minor in biotechnology, as well as a graduate…
tfk | January 10, 2008
Via Jake, we get a candidate selector for the US election. While the company behind it is Dutch, the questions seem fairly well-tuned, and the results seem to be right. The same company has apparently been pretty popular in the Netherlands. The only thing that will make the results wonky is that the candidates are tightly clustered, which presumably makes the results very sensitive to shades of meaning, and small changes in answers could, presumably, change your favored candidate.
tfk | January 10, 2008The expectations game is a fickle mistress. Two weeks ago, I doubt anyone would have been surprised at Hillary Clinton winning the New Hampshire primaries, and indeed the big surprise would have been that she and Obama essentially tied (both candidates got the same number of delegates).
Of course, two weeks ago we hadn't seen the Clinton campaign's apparent collapse in Iowa, nor the growing gap in post-Iowa polls. And so, in the course of less than a week, Hillary went from inevitable winner, to doomed candidate, to insurgent.
There's no doubt that the results were surprising, precisely…
tfk | January 8, 2008Well, Hillary came in two points ahead of Obama in New Hampshire, and 22 points ahead of John Edwards. Edwards insists that he's still in it for the remaining 48 states, but I have a hard time imagining how he will do any better in those states than he did in Iowa, where he camped out for the last 3 years. I wish him luck, though.
I'm inclined to agree with the general consensus that Hillary won a lot of support from the asinine obsession various folks (including Edwards, alas) had with her tears the other day. But like publius, I don't think that sexism is ultimately behind Hillary's…
tfk | January 8, 2008Chris Comer, fired last November for having the temerity to think that the Texas Education Agency's Director of Science Curriculum might be allowed to tell people about a talk about why intelligent design isn't science, is going through a rough patch. Her politically motivated ouster has made it hard for her to find new employment in Texas (at least within her chosen career path), and she's asking for a little help from the pro-science community while she puts together her finances.
If you wish to contribute, you can send a donation of whatever amount to Chris's PayPal account. Go to PayPal.…
tfk | January 8, 2008Shorter Dave Neiwert: Liberal Fascism would be an oxymoron, if it weren't just moronic.
David Neiwert is reviewing Jonah Goldberg's Bizarro History, a book which has been appropriately and adequately mocked by Sadly, No! already. I was particularly struck by this passage:
Liberal Fascism is like a number of other recent attempts at historical revisionism by popular right-wing pundits -- including, notably, Michelle Malkin's attempt to justify the Japanese-American internment in her book In Defense of Internment, and Ann Coulter's attempt to rehabilitate McCarthy's reputation in her book…
tfk | January 3, 2008Kevin Drum sums it up:
I have to say that Barack Obama's victory was mighty impressive. Not only did he win by a pretty solid margin, 38% vs. 30% for both Clinton and Edwards, but he won in virtually every subcategory. He won among both men and women; he won among Democrats, independents, and Republicans; he won among every income group; and he won among people most concerned with economy, the war, and healthcare.
Even more impressive, the Democratic primary attracted many more voters, indicating that Democrats (and Obama in particular) drew in more people, and especially independent voters…
tfk | January 2, 2008If I were living in Iowa, I'd be caucusing for Barack Obama. It'll be a month before my primary, and by then it may all be academic, so I may as well talk about it now.
I'll start out by saying that I wouldn't feel bad about caucusing for John Edwards, and I won't have any problem campaigning hard on behalf of whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee. I think every one of them is competent to lead, has good ideas that will improve the nation, and would do vastly better than any Republican in the field could imagine doing. That's why it's taken me this long to settle down behind a…
tfk | December 26, 2007Mere days after the skinned and beheaded remains of a Siberian tiger were found in a Chinese zoo, a Siberian tiger in the San Francisco zoo jumped the moat around its exhibit area and attacked three visitors, killing one. Police shot and killed the tiger, so we can only speculate about any link between those incidents.
The same tiger had attacked a keeper just over a year ago, chewing the flesh of keeper Lori Komejan's arm during a public feeding demonstration. The zoo's other Siberian tiger and its three Sumatran tigers are not suspected of assisting in yesterday's escape. Out of respect…
tfk | December 21, 2007Way back in April of 2004, I wrote the following note to Sam Brownback:
I'm writing to you because you sit on the subcommittee which oversees the Treasury. I just saw an AP report that, since 1990, the Treasury has only opened 93 enforcement actions on terrorism financing, resulting in $9,425 in fines. In contrast, the Treasury has opened 10,683 actions over the Cuba embargo, yielding over $8 million since 1994. Had the Treasury taken the threat from Osama bin Laden as seriously as it took Fidel Castro, would we face as deadly an enemy today?
This is not a partisan issue, it cuts across…
tfk | December 19, 2007In an arrogant and counterproductive move, the E.P.A. denied California's request for a permission to regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emission:
The Bush administration said Wednesday night that it would deny California's bid to set stricter vehicle emissions standards than federal law required as part of the state's efforts to fight climate change. Stephen L. Johnson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said he planned to deny the state's application for a waiver from federal law that the state had sought more than two years ago. "The Bush administration is moving…
tfk | December 19, 2007The New York Times reports: Congress Votes to Spare Millions From Alternative Tax:
By 352 to 64, the House voted to shield about 21 million Americans from being hit by the alternative minimum tax.
No, they didn't. But it takes until the 8th paragraph to find that out:
House Democrats angrily approved the bill after giving in to demands by Congressional Republicans and President Bush that the tax cut not be offset by raising other taxes. Democrats started out the year by pledging to pay for the $50 billion cost of the A.M.T. fix with cuts in spending or increases in taxes elsewhere. The…
tfk | December 17, 2007Ten U.S. Senators stood up against a pointless expansion of secret wiretapping. Fourteen missed the vote, including several candidates for the Presidency:
The heroes:
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Wyden (D-OR)
Hopefully a respect for the basic rule of law will result in retroactive immunity being dropped from the bill. There's no reason that telecoms who broke the law should be excused from their violation of the rights of innocent American citizens. It'll take more than 10 votes to make that…
tfk | December 14, 2007Though observers had thought Kansas AG Paul Morrison was digging in to fight for his reputation, he announced his resignation today, effective January 31. Kathleen Sebelius will name his successor.
Chris Biggs, who lost to Phill Kline in 2002, is among those mentioned as being on the short list of candidates to replace Morrison.
The resignation is not altogether surprising, but it is disappointing. As Diane observes, this is the right thing to do for Kansas, and it's the right thing to have done for the good of the Democratic party. Furthermore, there's no doubt that Morrison deserved…