Politics
gregladen | May 15, 2009Important note: This 'gaff' (=offensive remark) was made in a private meeting but 'got out' via Twitter, and eventually nailed down by a blogger.
Welcome to the 21st century.
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jrosenhouse | May 14, 2009You remember the story, don't you? On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart did a segment showing how thoroughly inept CNBC had been in the build up to the big recession. The segment was very funny and painfully true, which led to it getting a lot of play. One small piece of the segment dealt with Jim Cramer, who bombastically assured his viewers that Bear Sterns was fine just days before it collapsed completely.
Cramer then decided that this was all about him and started trash-talking Stewart in various media outlets. Initially he also tried to deny some of his earlier statements, but Stewart…
pharyngula | May 14, 2009I've been waiting for this for a long time. James Dobson gives up.
I want to tell you up front that we're not going to ask you to do anything, to make a phone call or to write a letter or anything.
There is nothing you can do at this time about what is taking place because there is simply no limit to what the left can do at this time. Anything they want, they get and so we can't stop them.
We tried with [Health and Human Services Secretary] Kathleen Sebelius and sent thousands of phone calls and emails to the Senate and they didn't pay any attention to it because they don't have to. And…
razib | May 14, 2009I heard on the radio several times in the past few weeks commentators refer to minority opposition to gay marriage, specifically the fact that New York and California have large numbers of blacks and Latinos who are voters. I was curious if Latinos really are notably more opposed to gay marriage than non-Hispanic whites. So I looked in the GSS. I limited the data to the years 2006 and 2008 for the variable MARHOMO, which asks:
Do you agree or disagree? j. Homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another.
The sample sizes for the groups are as follows:
Non-Hispanic whites = 2,292…
catdynamics | May 13, 2009Obama's commencement address at Arizona State University
"Now, before I begin, I'd like to clear the air about that little controversy everyone was talking about a few weeks back. I have to tell you, I really thought it was much ado about nothing, although I think we all learned an important lesson. I learned to never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA bracket. And your university President and Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.
In all seriousness, I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven't yet achieved enough in my life. I…
evolvingthoughts | May 13, 2009In keeping with the last post on humanities, I thought I'd ruminate with no effort or knowledge to back it up on what the term "secular" means.
If the fundamentalists are to be believed, it is a synonym of "humanist" and also "Satanist", "infidel" and "homosexual". But somewhat more seriously, I have seen it used in journals to mean those who are not religious, those who aim to the elimination of religion, and those who seek to exclude religion from the affairs of the political institutions. None of these are exactly right, as far as I can tell.
In Australia it seems to be a term used largely…
drorzel | May 13, 2009I'm currently the president of the local chapter of Sigma Xi (an honor society, not a fraternity, thankyouverymuch), and as such have been collecting RSVP's and dues for this year's new inductees. As part of this process, I've been struck by how many students don't have checks-- I've had a couple of students give me cash, one cashier's check from a local bank, a couple of checks drawn on parental accounts, and one check from the roommate of a nominee.
The first couple, I wrote off as individual eccentricities, but after a few more, and a little thought, I realized that this pattern is…
gregladen | May 12, 2009I always liked Jesse. I didn't agree with about half of his policies, but I did not have the automated lefty knee jerk reaction against him that almost everyone I know had. Hey, he did after all, beat Norm Coleman in that governor's race!
Of course, he also beat my candidate, Humphrey. But in so doing Ventura demonstrated what happens when we Democratic Farm Laborers in Minnesota get together to put up a candidate for governor: We screw it up. Humphrey was not the candidate for that election. So we got Ventura. Hatch was not the candidate for the last election. So we got Pawlenty.
I…
ddobbs | May 12, 2009Ezra Klein thinks the stars -- and the forces -- are so far lining up much more promisingly than in 1994:
The opponents of health reform are, at this juncture, entirely isolated. Industry is adopting an attitude of relentless positivity. Republicans are grudgingly attempting to appear cooperative. The only straight opposition is coming, as Maddow and Howard Dean say, from Rick Scott, a disgraced former hospital executive whose company was convicted of defrauding the federal government in the largest ever case of its kind.
You can say, of course, that the traditional opponents of reform will…
pharyngula | May 11, 2009The Republicans, apparently feeling that there are no other pressing matters of concern in the governance of our country, are pushing to designate 2010 as the Year of the Bible.
I may surprise you a little bit. I endorse this resolution…with a few caveats. I say the Democrats should vote this bill up as long as there is a little quid pro quo: the Republicans reciprocate by going along with the next couple of Supreme Court nominations Obama makes. Fair enough, I think.
Then, since 2010 is the Year of the Bible, we get to say that all subsequent years are Not the Year of the Bible, and be done…
sb admin | May 11, 2009So I'm trying to simplify things in real life as I think I am suffering from information overload (among other things).
First task was to clean up my Facebook friends. From here on, it's family, colleagues and (usually graduate) students. Folks I know only in virtual space are likely to have gotten bumped. Sorry if you were one of those - truly, no offense was intended. I'm willing to follow folks on Twitter though, so feel free to join that way. Just follow me and I'll reciprocate. There's also Friendfeed.
Second task will be to prioritize regarding blogging. That will involve some thinking…
pharyngula | May 11, 2009Charles Pierce has expanded an essay into a full blown book on Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), soon available in fine bookstores everywhere, and I recommend it highly. You might be wondering what Idiot America is, and he explains it well.
The rise of Idiot America, though, is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of the intellectual elites that Richard Hofstader teased out of the national DNA, although both of these things are part of it. The rise of Idiot America today reflects — for profit…
oracknows | May 10, 2009Regular readers here know that I really hate to see stories like the one I'm about to discuss, specifically that of 13-year-old Daniel Hauser, a boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma who is refusing chemotherapy based on religion and his preference for "alternative" therapy, whose parents are also supporting his decision.
Since I'm a bit behind on this story, its having percolated through the blogosphere for the last three or four days, let me start with a bit of context. If there is one theme that I've emphasized time and time again here, it's science- and evidence-based medicine. That means…
catdynamics | May 10, 2009As the Hubble servicing mission is going up, hopefully, we contemplate what on Earth is going on with NASA.
Like, why the cuts?
Well, I have no inside info on this, have not talked to anyone back east, so I'm guessing:
first, NASA is just not that much of a priority - too small, and the science stimulus is fairly well covered with NSF and DoE, not to mention NIH and NOAA;
secondly, the Obama transition team did not get what it needed from top levels of NASA, and this did not help expedite things;
thirdly, Obama did well initially getting senior appointees confirmed, but then hit a rash of…
sb admin | May 10, 2009Turns out that yesterday I posted my 2000th post here at Scienceblogs without even noticing it. Heh!
sb admin | May 10, 2009Back in December 2006 I referred to Francis Beckwith as an ID supporter. This resulted in he informing me that he "has never been much of fan [of] design arguments, ever [and that his] interest in the debate focuses on the jurisprudential questions involving the First Amendment and what could be permissibly taught in public schools under that amendment." At that time I retracted and removed any reference to Beckwith as a supporter. More recently, Beckwith has objected to others referring to him as a creationist and an ID supporter. Tim Sandefur has replied, and now Barbara Forrest has offered…
oracknows | May 9, 2009...because they blog under the shadow of the United Kingdom's insane libel laws.
Witness this travesty of a ruling on the libel case against Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association, as related by Jack of Kent.
I first learned about the UK's exceedingly plaintiff-friendly libel laws when, shortly after I became interested in Holocaust denial, I followed the libel case against Holocaust historian Professor Deborah Lipstadt brought by Holocaust denier David Irving for, well, quite properly calling him a Holocaust denier in one of her books. What makes British libel laws so plaintiff-…
j7uy5 | May 9, 2009Patti Smith reads the Declaration of Independence, in a rousing
performance. She follows it with an indictment of George W.
Bush. She speaks in English, but with German subtitles.
In a way, I'm hesitant to dignify Bush by mentioning him on my
site. But the performance is worth watching.
Lest we forget.
This is from pattismith.net,
which apparently does not have direct links to individual tems.
You have to scroll down to find this item.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
From Steven Sebring:
In honor of the upcoming election we invite you to check out this
indictment clip from the film…
illconsidered | May 8, 2009It seems that the HTTTACS was referred to by a parlimentary member in the Scottish Parliment, so it is now part of the official record!
The link there was to the version on Grist.org, which last I checked is a bit out of date, but no matter...
(Apropos of nothing, I just got a kick out of that... : )