Politics
j7uy5 | June 22, 2009It was the second-most-blogged article on the NYT when I got up this
morning; now, it is the first-most-blogged. It is the article
that reports on a survey that shows 72% support for a government-run
health insurance program. The program would be similar to
Medicare, but would be available to persons under 65 and not on Social
Security Disability.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/policy/21poll.html">In
Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health
By KEVIN SACK and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Published: June 20, 2009
Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the…
jrosenhouse | June 21, 2009Meghan McCain appeared on Bill Maher's show the other night. One of the other guests was Democratic strategist Paul Begala. The following exchange took place:
McCAIN: The Obama administration really has to stop completely blaming everything on its predecessor, completely. And I'm really sick of hearing, oh, we were handed this we were handed this. I know. Everyone knows. But we need to move on.
MAHER: Do you think that's what Obama is doing?
McCAIN: I do, to a degree.
BEGALA: Not to enough of a degree, Im sorry. Not nearly to enough of a degree. Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter…
grrlscientist | June 21, 2009I was surprised to learn that the fringe animal rights activist group, the Humane Society of the United States, has formed the Humane Society University which was recently granted a license to grant bachelor's degrees in three areas; animal studies, animal policy and advocacy, or humane leadership. They also are licensed to grant certificates for graduate study in those same areas. Required courses are offered online or at their Washington DC site starting autumn term in 2009.
All students, who must have attained junior status elsewhere, are required to take two courses: Animal Protection…
grrlscientist | June 21, 2009tags: universe, god, religion, creationism, humor, funny, satire, Edward Current, streaming video
In this video, we learn that God created the entire universe for the enjoyment of us humans on Earth. To believe otherwise is arrogant and deluded! [4:08]
jstemwedel | June 20, 2009I thought I'd share a snapshot of my morning with you. For some reason, the internet seems like a good place for it.
The paper promised to be about the evaluation of evidence in understanding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. What follows are the notes I took during the approximately 25 minute conference presentation, edited to clean up typos. I'm not naming names; Google will provide if you really need to know.
The speaker is going to apply the principles of abductive reasoning to see what can be concluded about the assassination of JFK.
Evidence -- all the available, relevant…
grrlscientist | June 19, 2009tags: The Constitution of the United States of America, DNA Evidence, criminal trials, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr, Supreme Court, William G. Osborne, justice, ethics
Some days, I am ashamed to be an American. These past two days, I've been astonished and outraged -- and ashamed -- by yesterday's 5-4 Supreme Court decision that prisoners have no constitutional right to DNA testing that might prove their innocence. This decision was inspired by Alaska prison inmate William G. Osborne's petition to be allowed to undergo DNA testing -- at his own expense -- to establish whether he is…
pharyngula | June 19, 2009The simple summary:
As the video says, the country is shutting down the flow of information, clamping down on the internet — that alone would tell me that something nasty has been going down in the government there. Information should flow freely, and I've run across one set of instructions for setting up a proxy server under Windows, and one for Linux. I run neither…does anyone have similar instructions for BSD or Mac OS X Unix?
Otherwise, feel free to talk about the new source of chaos in the Middle East.
pharyngula | June 18, 2009Netroots Nation, the big lefty political/blogging meeting, is organizing sessions for their conference in August. Unfortunately, they seem have given up on the idea of a secular nation, because this one session on A New Progressive Vision for Church and State has a bizarre description.
The old liberal vision of a total separation of religion from politics has been discredited. Despite growing secularization, a secular progressive majority is still impossible, and a new two-part approach is needed--one that first admits that there is no political wall of separation. Voters must be allowed,…
ddobbs | June 18, 2009
A key component of health-care reform -- and saving our ass from going bankrupt and sick from spending too much on lousy treatments -- is establishing comparative effectiveness measures, otherwise known as "actually knowing WTF works and what doesn't."
This idea terrifies companies who don't want such objective measures. It also generates a lot of fear, partly via confusing or intentionally frightening arguments. Yet making sure we don't pay for stuff that doesn't work is key to reform -- a point made in this Times op-ed from libertarian economist Tyler Cohen, keeper of the blog Marginal…
drorzel | June 18, 2009Kevin Drum commented on a charter school study a couple of days ago, which made me go look through the report (available from this ultra-minimalist page-- seriously, you can't even be bothered to cut and paste some of your introductory boilerplate into an HTML file to give people an idea of what's behind those PDF links?).
The summary message is kind of bleak. From Drum's post, quoting the LA Times:
The study of charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia found that, nationally, only 17% of charter schools do better academically than their traditional counterparts, and more than…
gregladen | June 18, 2009According to various sources which can not be named but that are being reported by the Capitol Report, the Minnesota Supreme Court is likely to make a decision today, Thursday, June 18th. If the decision is anything other than to support (uphold) the decision of the three judge panel which previously ruled in Franken's favor, several legal experts in the state and across the country are going to drop dead on the spot of shock and chagrin.
It is not know if Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty is going to be ordered by the court to produce an election certificate, but it is generally thought…
jrosenhouse | June 17, 2009It doesn't happen often, but there are times when MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews really comes through. Here he is commenting on the difference between Obama's handling of the aftermath of the Iranian elections and the reaction of his Republican critics:
MATTHEWS: What strikes me, David and Bob, is the difference between the president, who is being very calm and not jumping up and down, and those on the right who are hitting the idiot button right now. And the idiot button is the one often pushed by Sarah Palin, but this week by John McCain and others.
They're all jumping at-Mitt Romney.…
grrlscientist | June 17, 2009tags: NYC Life, NYPL, public services, public education, public libraries
I just wanted to thank all of you, dear readers, who have joined with me to write letters to Mayor Bloomberg and other elected officials in NYC, asking them to see the light: a bad economy is absolutely no reason to cut funding for our public libraries, the crown jewel of New York City. I just learned this evening that Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn have promised they will preserve essential core resources for fiscal year 2010, including precious funds for libraries (fiscal year 2010…
tqa | June 17, 2009
âIt is not right to mold marriage to fit the desires of a few, against the wishes of so many, and to ignore the important role of marriage.â
Senator John Ensign (R-NV)
13 July, 2004
ddobbs | June 15, 2009
Photo: Tyler Hicks, via Scientific American
What if you could predict which troops are most likely to get PTSD from combat exposure -- and takes steps to either bolster them mentally or keep them out of combat situations? A new study suggests we could make a start on that right now -- and cut combat PTSD rates in half by simply keeping the least mentally and physically fit soldiers away from combat zones.
The study was part of the Millenium Study, huge, prospective study in which US Department of Defense researchers have been tracking the physical and mental health of nearly 100,000 service…
drorzel | June 15, 2009The main speaker at yesterday's Commencement was Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Chairman (the guy before Alan Greenspan) and current chair of President Obama's economic advisory council. As you would expect from somebody of his background, the bulk of the speech was about the current economic crisis. The full speech is online, but the relevant-to-ScienceBlogs bit is this:
The past couple of decades have been seen as a triumph of finance - new and more complex financial instruments, a huge growth of financial institutions, enormous compensation for traders, speculators, and finance…
sciencepunk | June 14, 2009
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has issued a press release in response to the special report published by the IUSS last week:
Responding to the IUSS Committee's fourth special report of session 2008-9, "The future of science scrutiny following the merger of DIUS and BERR", Lord Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation said:"The creation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills places science at the heart of the Government's strategy to help the economy come through the recession stronger, more competitive and more sustainable. Our ability to maintain and…
clock | June 14, 2009Follow me on Twitter and you'll see this stream (to see more than one-sided conversation, search me there as well and check if there are comments on FriendFeed):
RT @ljthornton Students: Roughly 2 hours of tweets from "student living in Tehran," 22: http://bit.ly/wVpJl
#CNNFail: Twitterverse slams network's Iran absence. http://tr.im/osmp (via @jayrosen_nyu)
@HowardKurtz Hours and hours of ....talking to the camera revealing no useful information?
@HowardKurtz perhaps CNN and its audience have very different ideas of what is reporting, what is useful information, what is coverage.
@…
gregladen | June 14, 2009Republicans in congress bought and paid for by Big Pharma and the other nefarious elements of the health care industry are going to kill any attempts at reform.
Unless....
The same kind of organization at the grass roots level that put Obama in office is marshaled to force congress to do the right thing. This won't be easy.
Stand with Obama: Support a Public Health Insurance Option
On Wednesday, President Obama reaffirmed his support for a public health insurance option--the key piece of health care reform that will provide coverage for all Americans and help bring costs down.
But as the…
grrlscientist | June 13, 2009tags: politics, congress, CongressCritters, Rep. Gordon McCullough, humor, parody, social commentary, streaming video
This hilarious video is a parody of itself, to be honest. This previous week in congress, Rep. Gordon McCullough presented the highlight of the week by ranting at his esteemed colleagues about how one of them was so rude and inconsiderate to the American people as to leave a half-eaten fish sandwich rotting on the floor of the House. All I can say is this is hardly surprising to me, since our elected officials (who are all in the pockets of one or another corporate interest)…