Politics
oracknows | September 11, 2009Once again we come to another September 11. It's hard to believe that it's been eight years since that horrible day. On this day, traditionally, I do two things. First, I post the following video.
This video was shot by Bob and Bri, who in 2001 lived in a high rise a mere 500 yards from the North Tower. On this eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I think it's important to post this again. It is the most prolonged and continuous video of the attack that I have seen, and, as such, It is difficult to watch.
That's why it's so important to watch.
Second, I either repost or post a…
oracknows | September 10, 2009...Hitler is most displeased with President Obama and what he did earlier this week:
gregladen | September 10, 2009This is really, really funny:
Well, actually, it's not even a little funny...
... Well, actually, the punchline is the funniest thing I've see yet this year. I can hardly type I'm laughing so hard.
Hat Tip Science Lover
stoat | September 10, 2009Tim Lambert normally does the Iraq war, for example this. But I was struck by a recent Economist (you know, those left-wing pinkos) article bemoaning Iraq's descent into a police state. Which is a shame, because in the nearly-unmitigated disaster that is our adventure in Iraq, the restoration of democracy and the end of torture and the police state were supposed to be among the few successes.
To be fair the article is called "Could a police state return?" and doesn't say it is inevitable. They quote a diplomat who gives it 2-3 years. In the meantime, press freedom is disappearing (just like…
razib | September 10, 2009Disgraced California lawmaker denies affairs:
A pro-family values California lawmaker who resigned after being caught on tape boasting about his sexual conquests denied Thursday that he had extramarital affairs, saying "my offense was engaging in inappropriate storytelling.
Shaggy-It wasn't me
pontiff | September 10, 2009I have been riveted by yesterday's re-argument of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission before the United States Supreme Court. I mean who hasn't? At stake, as they say in media newspeak, is the entire state of campaign finance law (the astute reader will note the choice of words in this sentence and smile.) The Quantum Pontiff is not a lawyer, but he is the son of a lawyer, and greatly admires the ability of supreme court justices to herd the truth in directions more palatable to their preexisting exquisite judicial tastes (why is everyone staring at Justice Scalia?) So I would…
ddobbs | September 10, 2009This debate has become a test of whom we will trust. Are we going to trust the Republicans, with their predictions of dark disasters that will result from going along with a President they do not believe should be allowed even to speak to our schoolchildren?
Atul Gawande, on Obama's speech, via the New Yorker
grrlscientist | September 10, 2009
Who: Toni Van Pelt, director of the Center for Inquiry's Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C.
What: free public presentation, "Lobbying for Science and Reason on Capitol Hill"
Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map] 273 Bowery site (that's at Bowery/Houston, just next door to an excellent Whole Foods branch [map])
When: 730pm, Thursday, 10 September
Toni Van Pelt is the director of the Center for Inquiry's Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C. She will talk about her work as a lobbyist, promoting and advancing science and secularism. In her…
drorzel | September 10, 2009A couple of things that I'm not excited to blog about, but sort of feel like I ought to say something about:
1) The Washington Monthly article about StraighterLine, an online program that lets you take college courses for $99/mo. The article is all breathless excitement about the revolutionary transformative power of technology, but it leaves me cold.
The stories of working people putting themselves through accelerated degree programs through self-study are inspiring, and all, but there's nothing really new here. There has never really been any question about whether hard-working and…
j7uy5 | September 9, 2009I understand as well as anyone, that the health care finance reform
process has been dispiriting so far. Congressman Joe Wilson of
South Carolina has
href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6165489/Barack-Obama-health-care-speech-Republican-calls-president-a-liar.html">brought
the process to a new low. So low, in fact, that his
href="http://www.joewilson.house.gov/">website is down for
maintenance (at the moment, anyway), and the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addison_G._Wilson">WIkipedia page
about him has been locked, due to vandalism.
When the…
gregladen | September 9, 2009Did you need proof that the Right Wing is stocked with nefarious morons? And I'm not sure which word to emphasize, nefarious or moron. Both, I guess.
About a year ago today was the Republican National Convention, and at that time (and prior, during, and after) numerous arrests were made under Patriot-Act spawn laws of people who did little more than attempt vigorous protest, plan vigorous protest, or in some cases, randomly blunder into town at the wrong moment.
Most charges were dropped (but not all ... we hopefully await that event in about a month) and law suits that have great promise…
grrlscientist | September 9, 2009
Who: Toni Van Pelt, director of the Center for Inquiry's Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C.
What: free public presentation, "Lobbying for Science and Reason on Capitol Hill"
Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map]
When: 730pm, Thursday, 10 September
Toni Van Pelt is the director of the Center for Inquiry's Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C. She will talk about her work as a lobbyist, promoting and advancing science and secularism. In her work, she asks our congresscritters to base law and policy on empirical evidence and the scientific…
grrlscientist | September 9, 2009tags: Obama, health care, AFL-CIO, Labor Day, politics, streaming video
This is a clip of President Barack Obama speaking at the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day Picnic. In this clip he is addressing the cynics and naysayers regarding healthcare reform.
If I am not mistaken, being poor, unemployed or homeless are felonies in the eyes of the GOP, so those Americans who dare commit such horrible crimes deserve nothing less than death.
grrlscientist | September 8, 2009tags: Obama, education, school, public school, politics, streaming video
Nearly 24 hours ago, President Obama delivered a national address to students across the country to encourage them to work hard on their education. This speech, which ignited controversy among this nation's political conservatives and racists, was delivered to a group of students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA.
pharyngula | September 8, 2009Focus on the Family has just come out with their list of the "five media Leftists who distort Americans' views of the Bush and Obama presidencies". Ooooh. Guess who is on the list?
Paul Krugman, Nobel prize-winner, is #1. #2 is the editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham; #3 is Ezra Klein. #4 is my favorite, Janeane Garofalo; I ♥ Janeane, and any list with her on it must be a collection of winners.
#5? ME! I even got the longest write-up of the bunch…they had to work hard to catalog all of my crimes. Maybe there's hope I can climb higher next year.
The runners-up — you know, all the people I beat out…
drorzel | September 8, 2009Like every other blogger with a political opinion, I read Paul Krugman's essay on economics last week, and tagged it for Saturday's Links Dump. And while I appreciate Eric Weinstein calling me out as part of the "high end blogosphere," I'm not sure I have much to say about it that is useful. But, since he asked...
Twitter's interface makes it almost impossible to go back and figure out what the hell was going on even a few days ago, but going through Eric's feed, the crux of the matter seems to be that he takes issue with Krugman's claim that "the economics profession went astray because…
catdynamics | September 8, 2009Augustine Panel delivered its report and recommendations to Obama today.
This is important, it will set the menu of options for Obama to choose NASA's future, and a decision needs to be made, and soon.
Almost none of the options are good.
The basic problem is that NASA "Exploration" - the human spaceflight component, does not have enough funding in the projected budget to do what needs to be done - it can't run ISS, and the Space Shuttle while developing new launchers and hardware for new Exploration goals.
This is underfunding that goes back to Nixon, but has been most acute in the last 3-4…
ddobbs | September 8, 2009
Matt Taibbi tells us what he really thinks.
Let's start with the obvious: America has not only the worst but the dumbest health care system in the developed world :
via Rolling Stone, and well worth a read.
catdynamics | September 8, 2009To understand the furore over The President's speech to school children, it is probably sufficient to ignore the facts of the matter and precedent of previous addresses by Presidents of various hues, and just note that a lot of peoples' fears are based on "What would I do given that access?".
Hence the paranoia.
If my kid's teacher opted out of letting the class watch the speech, as the local School District permitted, I will be rather irate.
pharyngula | September 8, 2009Good trick, Al!
Next challenge: I want to see him draw a map of the world.