Politics
catdynamics | April 6, 2009chair of TARP oversight calls for CEOs to be fired
Elizabeth Warren, chief watchdog of America's $700bn (£472bn) bank bailout plan, will this week call for the removal of top executives from Citigroup, AIG and other institutions that have received government funds..."
"The very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding changes in management is preposterous."
No shit.
It will be very telling how this will be handled when it comes out, and whether Obama uses it as lever to act radically, or a counterfoil to "play moderate" and demur.
h/t CR…
gregladen | April 6, 2009Apparently President Obama has to be bound. By Bachmann.
These people are insane.
Hat tip: DMB
ddobbs | April 5, 2009Heads-up dept:
I'll be discussing I discussed "The Post-Traumatic Stress Trap," my Scientific American story on PTSD, at noon, Monday, April 6, on NHPR's "Word of Mouth." You can listen to the 7-minute segment here, following a very brief intro to the program. Link to the station's website here.
gregladen | April 5, 2009It would be nice if George Bush went to jail.
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pharyngula | April 4, 2009Barack Obama's chief economic advisor, the guy we're all going to have to rely on to pull the economy out of the mess it is in, is Larry Summers. We cannot trust Larry Summers. He's in the pocket of the people responsible for our problems.
Among the firms that paid Summers large amounts in speaking fees include J.P. Morgan Chase. That bank offered the former Harvard president and Treasury Secretary $67,500 for a February 1, 2008 engagement. It has received $25 billion in government bailout funds.
Citigroup, which has received $50 billion in taxpayer help, paid Summers $45,000 for a speech…
drorzel | April 4, 2009Over at his new digs, Chris Mooney talks about efforts to re-launch the OTA:
I’m starting to detect some buzz on this very important front, which I wrote about in detail in 2005’s The Republican War on Science and elsewhere. Basically, the story is this: In 1995 the Gingrich Republicans, looking to slash budgets–and looking askance at science in general in many areas–got rid of their scientific advisory office, which had been in existence since 1972 and had become world renowned not only for accurate studies, but for far-ranging analyses that forecast future science and technology problems…
evolvingthoughts | April 3, 2009Oklahoma lawmakers are singling out the visit by Richard Dawkins to talk about evolution on campus at OU, but they're not censoring it, right? Just making academics fear for their funding, and perhaps jobs, but seeking all documentation about the visit. Just this visit, mind. Piers Hale, a historian of science at OU, is interviewed in the TV story (which means he gets about sixteen words to express a complex subject.
pharyngula | April 3, 2009That Iowa. The state south of us: rural farm country, relatively conservative (well, maybe more moderate than conservative), and yet their supreme court has surprisingly made a strong and progressive decision. The Iowa Supreme Court has struck down laws prohibiting gay marriage as unconstitutional.
Polk County District Judge Robert Hanson found that the law violated the Iowa Constitution's guarantee of equal protection, and hurt gay and lesbian couples "in numerous tangible and intangible" ways
"Civil marriage in Iowa is the only gateway to an extensive legal structure that protects a…
drorzel | April 3, 2009In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, we instituted a complicated emergency alert system, involving sirens, loudspeakers, text messages, and emails. The whole thing gets tested far more frequently than it really needs to-- every few weeks, we get a barrage of emails warning us that a test is coming up, then another barrage of emails and text messages on the day of the test.
The system has been used exactly once, and it was a fiasco. A year or so ago, we got a flurry of messages telling us that there had been a shooting a couple of blocks from campus. These directed everyone to a web…
clock | April 2, 2009
Look what came in the mail yesterday! The Art and Politics of Science by Harold Varmus and, since he is in some way my boss, with a very nice personal inscription inside the cover. I am excited and already started reading it.
And speaking o Varmus, he seems to be everywhere. See this article in TimesOnline:
A major investment in fighting tropical infections and chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes in poor countries would transform international perceptions of the US, according to Harold Varmus, who co-chairs the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
In an…
clock | April 2, 2009Chris Mooney knows what he's talking about: The Push for Restarting the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment:
I'm starting to detect some buzz on this very important front, which I wrote about in detail in 2005's The Republican War on Science and elsewhere. Basically, the story is this: In 1995 the Gingrich Republicans, looking to slash budgets-and looking askance at science in general in many areas-got rid of their scientific advisory office, which had been in existence since 1972 and had become world renowned not only for accurate studies, but for far-ranging analyses that forecast…
pharyngula | April 2, 2009A recent court decision went against the Bush administration, and also reveals some of the contemptible influence peddling that went on in that gathering of scoundrels. The subject was birth control, in particular Plan B and other forms of emergency contraception, and as many of you know, the Bushite regime dragged its feet with ridiculous deliberation in allowing the FDA to approve these forms of contraception, and effectively blocked them from public access. By hook and crook, by cheating and deception, and by lying to the people, as this court decision affirms. This is why we fight the…
tqa | April 2, 2009
Politico's Manu Raju wrote an interesting article on the Energizer Bunny Election in Minnesota yesterday. His analysis of the situation focused on the political bind that Minnesota's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty seems likely to find himself in within the next month or two: if and when the Minnesota Supreme Court rejects Norm Coleman's election contest, who does he decide to piss off:
Franken won big Tuesday when a three-judge panel allowed the review of no more than 400 absentee ballots in a race he currently leads by 225 votes. Coleman's camp says an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme…
gregladen | April 1, 2009... so we should be happy with the carbon god gave us. Which was less. So wait, what does this mean????
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This is what a political party looks like when it is on the verge of extinction.
gregladen | April 1, 2009Highlights:
Part I:
The first couple of minutes is Letterman making numerous jokes at O'Reilly's expense. Nicely done.
1min 30 sec. Rush Limbaugh as new face of the Republican Party. O'Reilly takes credit for Limbaugh's success.
3 min 50 sec. This is Letterman throwing out phrases he had apparently practiced earlier in the show ("Oh yea?" "Whatever!" and so on) much to the amusement of the audience.
4 min 50 sec: Letterman lays out the fact that O'Reilly lies. Regarding Sean Penn. Linbaugh, I mean O'Reilly starts to take it up a notch.
6 min 30 sec: O'Reilly claims to have had a…
oracknows | April 1, 2009Enough.
I don't know about you, but as a surgeon and a biomedical researcher, I'm fed up with animal rights terrorists who threaten biomedical research with their misinformation about animal research, their terroristic attacks on scientists who engage in such research, and listening to the despicable self-righteous idiot who is a disgrace to surgeons everywhere, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, spouting off about how assassinating researchers who use animals as part of their research would be justified.
And apparently I'm not alone. Scientists at UCLA, which, along with UC Santa Cruz, is at ground zero for…
gregladen | March 31, 2009The judicial panel that has been off somewhere deciding what to do about the Coleman election challenge has ordered 400 additional ballots opened and counted on April 7th.
If (and we do not know this for a fact) these are THE remaining ballots to count, them Coleman would have to get a statistically unlikely majority to overtake Franken's lead of 225 votes. I suppose this is possible. So I suppose we'll be sitting on the edges of our respective seats for the next week.
There does not seem to be any systematic meaningful bias in which candidate is likely to come out ahead in this group.…
gregladen | March 31, 2009
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Note the continued threats of violence by the Right Wing. We continue to await word from the court.
catdynamics | March 30, 2009I was at a local bank this week, depositing a check from a solvent institution but one known to have cash flow issues
it is a large west coast bank, relatively well known including for some recent financial games with the Feds.
This time, the nice lady at the counter asked me if I needed immediate access to the deposit?
Huh? Said I. Looking at the payeee - "I think the check will clear..."
Oh, it is not that, said she, it is just that some people need immediate access to their deposits, like same day, or tomorrow, and if you did we can expedite it.
Oh, that's nice, thought I, and said "no…
sa smith | March 30, 2009One of the most common comments I get from people:
I dont understand why youre going to school in Oklahoma. Srsly. Oklahoma? Why didnt you got to UCSF or Harvard or something? Oklahoma??
Well, there are lots of reasons why I like it here. This is one of those reasons:
In response, OU President David Boren said recently that colleges and universities should be a free marketplace of ideas, and it is inappropriate for legislators to attempt to restrict speech on campuses.
...
Richard Broughton, an OU zoology professor and president of Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, said the…