Politics
clock | July 28, 2008The Health Blogosphere: What It Means for Policy Debates and Journalism:
The Kaiser Family Foundation is sponsoring a discussion about the growing influence of blogs on health news and policy debates. Only in the past few years has the blogosphere become mainstream. In the health policy arena, we now see policymakers, journalists, researchers and interest groups utilizing this new media tool to deliver information to their audiences. The briefing will highlight how the traditional health policy world has embraced blogging and will feature a keynote address by U.S. Department of Health and…
pharyngula | July 28, 2008The Kaiser network is hosting a live webcast to discuss the influence of the blogosphere on health policy — the panel is tilted towards right wing bushites who prioritize money over health, so a more progressive contribution from the audience would be desirable. It's going to be on tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1pm Eastern.
Oh, and if you worry about the future of health care, get a load of this: nurses in California can get continuing education credit by attending a Catholic conference full of woo. This is not reassuring. I don't think a lecture on sex ed by a nun reciting papal dogma should count…
drorzel | July 27, 2008A question raised in comments to yesterday's rant about humanities types looking down on people who don't know the basics of their fields, while casually dismissing math and science:
[I]t occurs to me that it would be useful if someone could determine, honestly, whether the humanities professors feel the same sense of condescension among science and engineering professors.
This is obviously not a question I can answer, but I agree that it would be good to know. So, how about it?
clock | July 26, 2008There has been a lot of chatter on the interwebs (for years, but again now) about the differences between the ways the political Left and Right use the Internet and blogs:
GOP losing the new-media war:
.......The right is engaged in the business of opining while the left features sites that offer a more reportorial model.
At first glance, these divergent approaches might not seem consequential. But as the 2008 campaign progresses, it's becoming increasingly clear that the absence of any websites on the right devoted to reporting -- as opposed to just commenting on the news -- is proving…
gregladen | July 26, 2008 Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) commandos Nigeria is where Western graduate students in political science who study corruption go to do their fieldwork. There appears to be an ensconced elite and externally connected ruling body and a down trodden underclass organized into various resistance groups. The discovery of abundant petroleum reserves in the Niger Delta and vicinity meant that the elite ruling group and external forces (including but not limited to Big Oil) have conspired to extract this resource at maximum profit largely setting aside the possibility of…
drorzel | July 26, 2008I know nothing about art or music.
OK, that's not entirely true-- I know a little bit here and there. I just have no systematic knowledge of art or music (by which I mean fine art and classical music). I don't know Beethoven from Bach, Renaissance from Romantics. I'm not even sure those are both art terms.
Despite the sterling reputation of the department, I never took an Art History class when I was at Williams, nor did I take any music classes. They weren't specifically required, and I was a physics major-- my schedule was full of math and science classes, and between that and the boozing,…
pharyngula | July 26, 2008What happens when you put two of the dumbest right-wing pundits together on the air? Madness.
On the July 23 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, guest Ben Stein, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's plan to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at Denver's Invesco Field, stated that he did not "like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people" because "[t]hat is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America." Stein continued: "Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor…
gregladen | July 25, 2008According to the Star Tribune:
But the Star Tribune is wrong, and they know they are wrong (according to sources close in). So, is their front page editor on crack or something? Let's test this hypothesis.
(UPDATE: See: Senate race polling breakdown)
Available recent polling data suggest that Barack Obama is leading John McCain in the Great State of Minnesota by double digits. Here is a picture of the data from Polster.com:
The little dots are data points and the lines are regressed off of these points.
The most recent Rasmussen poll shows Coleman and Franken in a dead heat at 44/43…
razib | July 25, 2008Because of the increased prices in gasoline and the perception of scarcity in terms of power, there has been a lot of talk about nuclear. There have been many comments of late from the Right that the Left is opposed to the utilization of nuclear power, and often gleeful the observation that many European countries such as France and Sweden are highly reliant on this technology. But is it true that liberals are more averse to nuclear than conservatives? I checked the GSS for the following questions:
- Nuclear power dangerous to the environment?
- Likelihood of nuclear meltdown in 5 years…
terrasig | July 25, 2008Yes, I know that my science blogging has been light as of late but I couldn't resist putting up this article I found in today's local fishwrapper.
Two of the most polarizing names in American politics and US collegiate athletics, respectively, come together as Rudy Giuliani's son sues Duke University for being booted from their NCAA men's golf team.
DURHAM - Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and a rising senior at Duke University, is the latest in a wave of Blue Devil students to take grievances from the playing fields or classrooms to the courthouse.
Giuliani, no…
oracknows | July 23, 2008Enough with Radovan Karadzic, already!
I know schadenfreude can be a fun thing. I've even indulged in it myself from time to time. I also know that Radovan Karadzic was a very, very bad man who engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Balkans wars of the early and mid-1990s. My interest in the Holocaust and Holocaust denial makes it hard not to see the parallels between Karadzic and what Hitler wanted to do.
So, wonder all the people who have forwarded me links to stories revealing that Karadzic had been practicing alternative medicine while he was on the lam all these years, why have…
pharyngula | July 22, 2008One of our regular commenters here, BrokenSoldier, has a story to tell — an all-too-common tale of our government's neglect of the men and women sent out to fight, and returning damaged to a bureaucracy that isn't willing to do the right thing and support them. If anyone out there is willing to help get this story out, here's an opportunity — it's practically written out for you. This is a broken soldier's story:
This is a request for help. Disabled veterans are being treated as if they are a burden on the government's checkbook, and the government is getting away with it, mainly because the…
revere | July 22, 2008This is the first, and I hope the last, time I come anywhere near defending Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, but I want to make a more general point so I'll swallow hard and do it. This is about his supposed gaffe wherein he seems to think Iraq and Pakistan share a border:
D[iane] S[awyer]: Do you agree the situation in Afghanistan is precarious and urgent?
J[ohn] M[cCain]: Well, I think it's very serious. I mean, it's a serious situation.
DS: Not precarious and urgent?
JM: Oh I- I don't- know wha- exactly whether- we can run through the vocabulary, but it's a very-
it's a ((v…
drorzel | July 22, 2008Via Will Wilkinson, James Pethokoukis at US News considers the state of the economy, and draws the same conclusions I did, for exactly the opposite reasons:
My theory is that the amazing resilience of the American economy through this slowdown--as well as the lack of a bad recession in a generation--is indirect proof that the 25-year economic expansion that started in 1982 made us far richer as a nation than the economic numbers suggest. I have continually offered that the inflation numbers used by the government have for years overstated how much prices have risen. Plus, the wage numbers put…
gregladen | July 22, 2008McCain to American Citizens: If you oppose me, you will be ticketed, removed, charged, and treated like a common criminal. If you simply shut up and listen, you can stay.
[hat tip: Dogon Village]
But wait, there's more:
Hat tip Umlud
gregladen | July 21, 2008By now you've surely heard about this, the shooting with a rubber bullet of a Palestinian in custody apparently without provocation. Here's the video:
And from the BBC:
Israel's defence minister has condemned an incident caught on film in which a soldier seems to shoot a rubber bullet at a bound and blindfolded Palestinian.
Ehud Barak said the case was "grave and wrong" and that the military would exact the full extent of the law.
Footage released by human rights group B'Tselem on Sunday shows the detainee being held by one soldier as another fires at his legs at close range.
The…
pharyngula | July 21, 2008John McCain is very concerned about the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.
Hint:
It's a very w i d e border.
oracknows | July 21, 2008Well, I won't back down
No, I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down
Gonna stand my ground
Won't be turned around
And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down
Gonna stand my ground
And I won't back down
From I Won't Back Down by Tom Petty, 1989
On Friday, I wrote a rather long post about the whole issue of "framing" science and the issue of anti-vaccine activism. In essence, I tweaked Matt Nisbett and Chris Mooney to give those of us in the trenches fighting the antiscientific belief that drives antivaccinationism some tools, some "frames," to use to…
drorzel | July 20, 2008Kevin Drum is pondering the economy:
A few days ago, in passing, I remarked that I was impressed (surprised?) by the ability of our economy to absorb so much catastrophe in such a short time without things being even worse than they are. What accounts for this?
He goes on to quote part of a proposed answer ("foreign capital," basically), which Brad DeLong has in more detail. Other versions of the same basic question have popped up a few other places, as well.
My personal guess at an answer is pretty much in line with my recent reading: the good times were never all that good for the…