Politics
evolvingthoughts | October 27, 2008
Well, anyone, really, not just Americans. My question arises from the somewhat breathless attitude taken towards Obama. While I think he is an admirable guy, and I have done so for a time now, I wonder what people expect him to be able to achieve? What is the minimum a good leader ought to be able to do? What is the maximum a good leader can do?
An often repeated refrain in Australian or European politics is that someone has run a "presidential campaign", meaning they have focused on personalities rather than policies, borrowing from American politics. This election campaign has been more…
clock | October 27, 2008GOODVOTE.ORG gives advice and collects media coverage of potential voter suppression:
GOODVOTE.ORG is a group of volunteers from the technology community and blogosphere who simply want the will of the voters to be reflected in the result of the 2008 election. Our only purpose is to make sure that when legitimate voters are challenged they know who to turn to for help.
gregladen | October 27, 2008
Barack Obama wants you to vote for Ashwin Madia. So do I.
I'm Greg Laden, and I approve this blog post.
hrynyshyn | October 27, 2008It's almost not worth the bother of taking another swipe at Sarah Palin's anti-intellectual bigotry this late in a game that's pretty much over. I mean, the coverage of her speech in Asheville, N.C., last night couldn't find anything newsworthy to mention beyond her decision to eschew the $150,000 wardrobe in favor of good ol' common-sense jeans. But Christopher Hitchens' way with words makes it all worthwhile.
The Hitch begins by lamenting Palin's empty-headed criticism of fruit fly genetics research: "...where does a lot of that earmark money end up? It goes to projects having little or…
pharyngula | October 27, 2008The Anchorage Daily News has just endorsed…Barack Obama for president. Say, wasn't there a favorite daughter of the fine state of Alaska on that ticket?
Bora has several videos of some fruit fly researchers defending their work. Of course, if you really want to get into the details, here's the progress report of the very same specific research project that Caribou Barbie dissed.
Walker A Jones
EUROPEAN BIOLOGICAL CONTROL RESEARCH
Director
CS90013 MONTFERRIER SUR LEZ
34988 ST. GELY DU FESC CEDEX
MONTPELLIER,
Research Project: DISCOVERY, BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY OF NATURAL ENEMIES OF INSECT PESTS…
oracknows | October 27, 2008Hot on the heals of my post earlier today about the flurry of misinformation-laden ads being aired in Michigan to try to prevent Proposition 2, the proposed amendment to the Michigan State Constitution that would allow embryonic stem cell research using embryos that would be discarded from fertility clinics, I've learned that my alma mater, the University of Michigan, where I did both my undergraduate and medical school training, has released a series of videos countering the dishonest propaganda of groups like MiCAUSE:
The truth about stem cell science
And there's more:
Where Do Embryonic…
oracknows | October 27, 2008Two years ago, there was a brouhaha in Missouri over a ballot proposal to allow state funding for embryonic stem cell research using discarded embryos from fertility clinics. The issue made national news, including some rather despicable rhetoric from Rush Limbaugh about Michael J. Fox, who made ads in support of the Missouri initiative, as well as deceptive ads against the proposal featuring Patricia Heaton and members of the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a big stink that drew national attention.
Fast forward to two years later and to my home state of Michigan, and history appears to be…
evolvingthoughts | October 26, 2008
Users, or Lusers as they are known, learn early not to piss off the sysadmin, who is God. Federal minister Stephen Conroy's ham-fisted attempt to gag critics of his stupid paternalistic and ultimately failure-ridden net filter scheme has managed to piss off the whole lot of them. This could be fun. Anyone got the popcorn? I have the beer...
This, by the way, puts Australia in the company of such civil liberties havens as China, North Korea, and Burma. Yay us.
gregladen | October 26, 2008When I was four, Billy, a neighborhood bully, did something bad to my best friend. I saw this as a serious affront, as did others. All the kids, and even the adults, were aghast. There was a veritable outcry, for he had stepped over a line over which no one should step. I do not recall what Billy did to my best friend. It must have been pretty bad, but I simply don't remember.
But I do remember quite clearly what I did in retribution. I remember the plan I made, the steps I carried out, and I remember the look on Billy's face when I carried out the plan. And I remember the aftermath,…
clock | October 26, 2008Note to GOP - ACORN Was Defrauded and You Know It:
1. The GOP during the 70's, 80's and 90's employed a number of methods to register voters to insure the people they were registering were indeed Republican.
One method was to go through a neighborhood and register everyone who wasn't registered. Then they would throw out all the voter registration cards of those who had registered as "Democrats" - thereby building up Republican registration.
I am not saying that Democrats were saints. But Democrats did not have to employ this method. Democrats tended to go deep into poor and minority areas…
clock | October 26, 2008Obviously a careful anti-insurgent action, not likely an invasion of Syria.
People online think of it as a possible October Surprise. But I think that that at this point, no matter what the GOP tries to do will be only seen as a gimmick to help McCain. Any attempt at an October Surprise by them will be seen as such and will backfire. And I think they realize this.
Thus, I don't think this has anything to do with the election, but the military identified with 100% certainty a post, just inside the Syria-Iraq border, from where insurgents organized their attacks, targeted them precisely,…
clock | October 26, 2008The latest press release from ComScore - Huffington Post and Politico Lead Wave of Explosive Growth at Independent Political Blogs and News Sites this Election Season - has all sorts of interesting statistics about relative traffic, etc., of the top independent (i.e., unaffiliated with MSM) websites and blogs. One tidbit I found particularly interesting:
Looking at the demographic profiles for the top three sites, HuffingtonPost.com, Politico.com and DrudgeReport.com, one can conclude that visitors to these sites tend to be older, wealthier, and more likely to be male than the average U.S.…
clock | October 26, 2008As a follow-up to the yesterday's press release, Dr. Manzoor Bhat and Joseph Piven, M.D., researchers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who use the Drosophila model system to study neurexin and its implications in the development of autism, have now released the video response - well worth watching:
awild | October 26, 2008
A True Fruit Fly - Tephritidae
Fruit flies are a family, Tephritidae, containing about 5,000 species of often strikingly colored insects. As the name implies, these flies are frugivores. Many, such as the mediterranean fruit fly, are agricultural pests.
Drosophila melanogaster, the insect that has been so important in genetic research, is not a true fruit fly. Drosophila is a member of the Drosophilidae, the vinegar or pomace flies. They are mostly fungivores, and their association with fruit is indirect: they eat the fungus that lives in rotting fruit. Some pointy-headed…
pharyngula | October 26, 2008I think we can all already see the defense the right wing is throwing up to rationalize Sarah Palin's inane remarks about "fruit fly research in Paris, France": she wasn't disparaging all research into fruit flies, but only one specific earmark for studying agricultural pests.
Baloney.
The context of that comment was that she was claiming research had "little or nothing to do with the public good", and she brought up these seemingly trivial little animals and a place the right wing despises as dogwhistles to her hoople-headed fans. Claiming now that she was making an informed criticism of a…
sb admin | October 26, 2008In a little over a week, Michigan voters will be asked to vote on Proposal 2. The proposal is very simple. It is a constitutional amendment that makes Michigan a less hostile place for human embryonic stem cell (HESC) research. It forbids state or local government from passing laws that are more restrictive than federal law. Here's how it will appear on the ballot:
PROPOSAL 08-2
A PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO ADDRESS HUMAN
EMBRYO AND HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH IN MICHIGAN
The proposed constitutional amendment would:
⢠Expand use of human embryos for any research…
gregladen | October 25, 2008From Think Progress:
...tensions between the Palin and McCain camps are increasing in the waning days of the campaign. Palin reportedly "has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her," blaming "her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image." A McCain campaign source: "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone ... she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
Ah, Sarah babe, you…