Politics
milhayser | November 10, 2009
After hours of deliberation late into Saturday night, the US House of Representatives passed the long-awaited health care reform bill. While many Americans are elated at the new bill's passing, others are questioning the controversial amendment added that prohibits insurance coverage for abortions. Ed Brayton from Dispatches from the Culture Wars examines the compromise many Democratic Representatives made with Catholic bishops local to their constituencies in adding this amendment. Later on, Ed also criticizes what he calls "unruly behavior" exhibited by some House Republicans to delay the…
drorzel | November 10, 2009I failed to write something on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall yesterday, partly because I think the other six million blog posts on the subject had it pretty well covered. Another factor, though, was the fact that I don't have the sort of crystal-clear recollection of where I was and what I was doing on that night. I can reconstruct where I must've been-- I was a college freshman, so I would've watched it in the tv room on the second floor of Fayerweather-- but I don't clearly recall the event itself. It's all mixed together with the endless discussions of What It All Meant…
revere | November 8, 2009It looks like there's going to be some kind of health care reform bill, but we're not celebrating. It's legislation that could have been important and meaningful and instead is a neutered industry-friendly cup of weak tea with a Draconian anti-choice amendment. That Obama would disappoint us is no surprise. We expected it and predicted it during the presidential campaign. And we said we'd complain. And we are. Expecting it, though, doesn't prevent us from being disappointed and angry he has turned out to be lousy on things that count. He's not George Bush, we'll give him that. But no…
oracknows | November 7, 2009...back when they believed that humors were responsible for your health. Oh, yes, I know it's now "politically or medically incorrect" now to practice medicine the way they did in the days of our Founding Fathers, but that's because the socialist libero-Nazis took that away from us. After all, remember who else didn't answer medical questions.
That's right. Hitler!
We must take back our country and the medicine of the Founding Fathers, lest our organs organize against us and the government be given the power to remove your appendix and eat it in front of you and your children!
Genius!
gregladen | November 6, 2009She wants to spill the blood of liberals. I think she should be locked up.
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jstemwedel | November 6, 2009At Terra Sigillata, Abel notes that the Director of Duke University's Catholic Center is butting in to researchers' attempts to recruit participants for their research. As it happens, that research involves human sexuality and attitudes toward sex toys.
Here's how Abel lays it out:
Father Joe Vetter, director of Duke University's Catholic Center, is protesting trial participant accrual for a study being conducted on campus directed by Dr Dan Ariely, the James B Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics in the Fuqua School of Business (story and video). ...
Ariely and his postdoctoral fellow, Dr…
emjohnson | November 6, 2009The website Atheism Exposed claims that religion is under attack and that an all out counterinsurgency campaign is needed to defend the godly:
Militant atheism should concern all believers. It is a form of fanaticism on a par with extreme religious movements. Like religious extremism it is characterized by intensity and arrogance. Like religious extremism it tears at, and ridicules opposite viewpoints. It is often aggressive, disrespectful, sarcastic, intolerant and, most of all, blasphemous. Its aim to kill faith and hope and to leave as many victims as possible with a psychological vacuum…
sa smith | November 6, 2009Though only a handful of ERV readers are from Oklahoma, I know all of you are familiar with the handiwork of Senator Randy Brogdon.
He was the fellow who recently tried to get Creationism taught in Oklahoma public schools (FAIL).
Dude is a fucking IDiot (and just plain old idiot) who hates science:
I am also disgusted with the yearlong one-sided celebration of Darwinism that OU is sponsoring on their campus.
Disgusted? Really? Not 'disappointed', or 'dismayed', or 'intrigued, so Im going to check it out', but disgusted? Fantastic.
So what happens when you combine:
1. Anti-science
2. New…
gregladen | November 5, 2009Dangerous radicals make war, then love. Well, they do a jig first.
Source: UMNSDS
emjohnson | November 5, 2009
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
On this day, in 1604, Guy Fawkes was arrested in his attempt to overthrow the English monarchy by blowing up the House of Lords and assassinate King James I (who would have been present at the time). Since his arrest Fawkes' crime has been condemned as terrorism motivated by fanatical Catholic outrage against the Protestant regime of James I. However, is the religious angle enough to explain his actions and those of his conspirators? What was at…
jstemwedel | November 4, 2009At Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer notes a disturbing double standard:
[T]here's a huge double standard in the media, and in society in general, when it comes to drug abuse treatment. I spent two years as a AAAS Fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and it was both depressing and inspiring: I was deeply impressed with the dedication of the staff, and horrified by the immensity of the problem of addiction in this country. That's why it upsets me that while research to help smokers quit is generally portrayed as necessary and important, increasingly, I'm seeing politicians complain that…
gregladen | November 4, 2009Michael Steele is downplaying the significance of the Loss of the 23rd in NY. But Lawrence O'Donnell has set him straight:
Michael, you made the 23rd the most important congressional district in the country. The Democrats didn't do it. You did it. You lost it. You led your party to a disastrous loss that it has never experienced in that district before. Congratulations, nice work.
Above story was reported in HuffPo. Here's the film:
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pharyngula | November 4, 2009It looks like justice was defeated in Maine, but we got a glimmer of success in Washington (Hooray for my home state!). I think everyone who is unhappy with Maine voters should go tromp on this Canadian poll just to get it out of your system.
Do you support same-sex marriage?
Absolutely, yes
21%
Sure, why not?
19%
Not really
11%
Absolutely, no
35%
I don't care either way
14%
What counts next, of course, is for activists in Maine to get back to work. Same for everyone in every state…like Minnesota.
pharyngula | November 4, 2009At first glance, I thought this story was good news: Oklahoma is going to build a Christian prison! About time, I thought, I can think of a few Christians who deserve a few years for faith-abuse. But no…it's a prison to be administered by Christians to give Christian criminals special privileges. Not quite as appropriate, but more in line with what we've gotten used to from our dominant faith tradition.
We're getting more of the same from Congress, too. Religion is being given permission to intrude on science once again, with the sanctimonious Orrin Hatch (abetted by a pair of Democrats,…
gregladen | November 4, 2009This is mostly about Doug Hoffman, Glen Beck and the Teabaggers. She gets to Bachmann at 4:25.
Rachel, I pledge my sacred honor to you! I do! I do! I'm talkin' about you, Rachel!
gregladen | November 4, 2009People deride Americans for being politically sloppy thinkers, and for having short memories. This derision may be well deserved, but the flakiness of American citizens in relation to politics is perhaps easily explained.
We are trained by the press to be airheads.
President Barack Obama donned some of the strongest coat tails of any president in modern history, and despite the manufactured dissent that has been rather well executed by the Incredible Shrinking Party of No, his approval ratings stand at higher than usual for any president one year after election. Despite the expenditure of…
emjohnson | November 3, 2009By now everyone has heard of the high school English honors teacher, Dan DeLong, who was suspended for offering students the Seed magazine article "The Gay Animal Kingdom" by Jonah Lehrer as an optional extra credit assignment.
According to the Alton, IL based Telegraph newspaper, DeLong has now been reinstated at Southwestern High School after several hundred students and parents attended a six-hour long disciplinary hearing:
At Monday night's meeting, more than 200 people lined the stairs, sidewalk and office space at the district's small unit office at 884 Piasa Road in the Macoupin…
ejohnson | November 3, 2009
Last week, Dan Delong, an English teacher at Southwestern High School in Piasa, Illinois was suspended for allowing students to read an article on homosexuality in the animal kingdom. The article in question, "The Gay Animal Kingdom," was written by ScienceBlogger Jonah Lehrer of The Frontal Cortex, and published by Seed magazine in 2006. Mr. Delong faced a school board hearing on Monday and stood to lose his job over the incident. Jonah, along with many other ScienceBloggers, rallied support for Mr. Delong, as well as science education and literacy everywhere. Mike Dunford of the…
jstemwedel | November 3, 2009In which I repeat what I said two years ago, because it seems even more relevant now (when state budgets have throttled school budgets and the current U.S. President has identified education as a national priority):
We're feeling warm and fuzzy about the good work DonorsChoose does, and how it can broaden people's notion of the community of children they care about (not just in our town, but all over the country) ...
... but, there's this persistent voice in my head saying, "Really, as a society, we ought to be funding all the schools adequately, if not lavishly. In a civilized country,…