Politics
jrosenhouse | December 8, 2008Here's the latest:
More than 500 people from throughout Western Washington turned out Sunday at the Capitol steps to protest a sign a group of atheists erected as part of the holiday display inside the building.
The protest -- organized late last week by a Federal Way man who said he was offended by the sign installed by Wisconsin's Freedom From Religion Foundation -- drew Christian pastors, at least one state legislator and a handful of counter-protesters.
The rally was accompanied by a wide array of religious expression, including some religious banners, one or two anti-religious banners…
clock | December 8, 2008If you agree with this petition, sign it:
Dear President-Elect Obama,
We congratulate you on your historic victory and welcome the change that your election promises to usher in for our nation. As leaders in the sustainable agriculture and rural advocacy community we supported you in record numbers during the caucus, primary and general election because of the family farm-friendly policies that you advocated during your campaign.
As our nation's future president, we hope that you will take our concerns under advisement when nominating our next Secretary of Agriculture because of the crucial…
oracknows | December 8, 2008The thought of Jack Black as Jesus just cracks me up:
See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die
You know, more and more I'm starting to be of the mind that perhaps marriage should not be defined by the government. After all, to the government, marriage is nothing more than a contract. Consequently, I wonder whether the government should simply issue civil contracts to any couples wanting to be married, be they straight or gay, without distinction of sexual orientation and let people for whom a religious imprimatur on their union matters go to their churches to be officially "married."
denialism | December 8, 2008I was reading two articles on disparate subjects and found them oddly linked in my mind. The first former terrorist Bill Ayers' explanation of why he didn't respond when Obama was smeared by association and the second P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker writing for the WaPo about the escalation in recent years of animal rights terrorism.
What struck me about both these articles is the interesting divide between how terrorists justify their behaviors and diminish their objectives of striking fear into their opponents, and the reality of what the subjects of such acts perceive. Conn and…
gregladen | December 8, 2008The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.
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evolvingthoughts | December 7, 2008So it looks like Australia won't be the sole idiot child of the Internet. FCC chair Kevin Martin wants... you guessed... an "opt out" smut filter at the ISP. In your face American First Amendment!
All you smug Mericans, wipe of that goofy smile, now, OK?
jrosenhouse | December 7, 2008As a companion piece to my post a few days ago regarding Christiane Amanpour's remarks about blogging, have a look at Andrew Sullivan's latest column for The Times Online. Lot's of interesting statistics:
Between March and September the 500 biggest newspapers in America reported an average circulation decline of 4.6%. In six months. That's close to a 10% decline per year. No newspapers showed any but fractional gains. It is therefore a near-certainty that many towns and cities in America will no longer have a newspaper after the down-turn. And that may apply not just to small names but to…
evolvingthoughts | December 7, 2008Siris has an interesting piece on the nature of the liberal arts. I loves me some 13th century, I does.
Bora objects to Obama's choices being characterised as "elites" and therefore bad. On the other hand, the term "groupthink" was coined to characterise the elite advisors of the first American Camelot. And an open letter to Obama here on the failures of the Healthcare Information Technology proposals in the US. IT won't solve problems that aren't informational in nature.
PM of Notes from the Floating World discusses the constitutionality and sense of the proroguing of the Canadian Parliament…
clock | December 7, 2008This kind of he-said-she-said False Equivalence journalism is infuriating and is the prime reason why nobody trusts the corporate media any more which is why the newspapers are dying:
Academic Elites Fill Obama's Roster:
.....All told, of Obama's top 35 appointments so far, 22 have degrees from an Ivy League school, MIT, Stanford, the University of Chicago or one of the top British universities. For the other slots, the president-elect made do with graduates of Georgetown and the Universities of Michigan, Virginia and North Carolina.
While Obama's picks have been lauded for their ethnic and…
jstemwedel | December 7, 2008In spring of 2007, after nearly two years without a contract, the faculty of the 23 campuses of the California State University system (of which my university is a part) voted to ratify a contract. Among other things, that contract included raises to help our salaries catch up to the cost of living in California. (Notice the word "help" in that sentence; the promised raises, while making things better, don't quite get the whole job done.)
The negotiations for this contract were frustratingly unproductive until my faculty union organized a rolling strike that was planned as a set of two-…
oracknows | December 7, 2008As usual, he nails it, at least a significant part of it:
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The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
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Barack Obama InterviewJohn McCain Interview
Sarah Palin VideoFunny Election Video
Again, I remain ambivalent about the whole bailout thing, mainly because I hate rewarding incompetence. On the other hand, the economic devastation that would result gives me pause, the reassurances of some commenters that it wouldn't be such a huge deal having utterly failed to convince me. However, there is one thing that irritates the hell out of me, regardless of…
evolvingthoughts | December 6, 2008At my other blog here.
Also see Ars Technica:
Here's an idea: if the Australian government actually finds child porn, nuclear bomb making manuals, and the like on the Internet, why not do their best to find the perpetrators and put them behind bars? That way we get to keep our free speech and have less crime and terrorism, rather than less of the former without actually reducing the latter. Then again, imposing restrictions on what local taxpayers can do is a lot easier than tracking down and rounding up international criminals and terrorists, and the filtering plan is moving forward despite…
gregladen | December 6, 2008I have a little more information and some exact numbers for you.
First, some of the numbers.
The number of votes per candidate not counting Minneapolis 3-1, which has a packet of missing votes currently being searched for:
Franken: 1,210,285
Coleman: 1,210,995
The number of votes per candidate including Minneapolis 31's results from the machine count:
Franken: 1,211,375
Coleman: 1,211,590
Regardless of anything you've heard or read, this second set of numbers is exactly how this recount started ... with Franken behind by 215 votes.
Then we have the number of votes per candidate after the…
drorzel | December 6, 2008As always, if you want penetrating analysis of the news, you need to go to a comedian. Jon Stewart explains why Congress is willing to bail out Wall Street, but not Detroit:
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The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Autoerotic Explanation
Barack Obama InterviewJohn McCain Interview
Sarah Palin VideoFunny Election Video
It's kind of sad that this is one of the best arguments I've heard for giving the car companies the money they want.
(As an aside, Comedy Central's embed code for their video player is just about the ugliest thing ever. It's four times the size of the…
gregladen | December 5, 2008All but one precinct has been counted (and I understand that will be done momentarily). However, there is a box (or bag or envelope) of ballots missing in Minneapolis. The Secretary of State has indicated that the recount deadline is extended to allow these missing 130 or so votes to be found and included. (Coleman's lawyer is objecting to this, naturally.) In a television interview earlier today, Richie also indicated that the state will be looking at a number of absentee ballots as well.
The current difference between Coleman and Franken is probably about 192 votes, with Coleman ahead…
drorzel | December 5, 2008A few days ago, I complained again about the relative lack of science books in the New York Times "Notable Books of 2008" list. Yesterday, one of the big stories was CNN axing its entire science unit, such as it was, which drew comments from lots of blogs (and more whose links I can't be bothered to track down).
I'm probably the only one who thinks this, but in my opinion, these two are related. I'm not saying one caused the other, but that they're both symptoms of the same thing: the broad lack of respect for science among educated people. (Which I've ranted about before.)
One of the…
jrosenhouse | December 4, 2008CNN foreign affairs correspondent Christiane Amanpour offers a few thoughts on the merits, or lack thereof, of blogging:
Sometimes it is incredibly useful, for instance, in closed societies such as Burma. Some of the images, some of the stories that have come out have been by the Internet and by citizen journalists. And that has been indispensable in terms of knowing what is going on when journalists like myself and others cannot get visas to get in there and cannot operate. ... In that regard I think the bloggers or the citizen journalists are very brave and very useful.
I think that in the…
evolvingthoughts | December 4, 2008
This is just embarrassing. Here's a representative of Parliament in the ALP, which I have noted before is increasingly pandering to religious interests:
LABOR MP James Bidgood, the first-time MP under investigation for selling pictures of a protester attempting to set fire to himself outside Parliament House, has declared the global financial crisis an act of God.
Mr Bidgood, who was carpeted by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over his actions yesterday and apologised to Parliament, makes the new claims in a DVD, The Australian reports.
In a speech to a function held in Parliament he argues that…
oracknows | December 4, 2008It may well be; Roger Ebert has finally gotten around to reviewing Expelled! Short version: He didn't like it.
Long version: He really, really didn't like it.
I knew there was a reason I liked Roger Ebert.