Politics
oracknows | May 21, 2008Here's how not to allow personalized stamps to be produced:
BERLIN -- German neo-Nazis used a personalized stamp service offered by Deutsche Post to create a 55-cent stamp carrying a portrait of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, the company said Wednesday.
The latest newsletter of the far-right National Democratic Party gloated about being able to slip the stamp past Deutsche Post's quality control personnel.
"The Hess stamp is out there," wrote Hannes Natter in the May edition of Deutsche Stimme, or German Voice.
Deutsche Post spokesman Dirk Klasen confirmed that someone managed to slip an order…
pharyngula | May 21, 2008Minneapolis is hosting the Republican National Convention this summer, and that means we're seeing an uptick in sleaze (you might want to avoid public restrooms when these guys are in town). The most bizarre part of it all is that the FBI is looking for villains in all the wrong places.
What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant--someone to show up at "vegan potlucks" throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal…
grrlscientist | May 21, 2008tags: GOP, republicans, politics, antidepressants, humor, Comedy Central, streaming video
This streaming video by Comedy Central shows you the real reason there are so many antidepressants advertized on TV these days: Republicans: Doughy. White. Happy. [2:38].
drorzel | May 21, 2008Fred Clark of Slacktivist points to the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and specifically their Banners Across America project:
NRCAT is making June the month for Banners Across America! We are asking congregations of all sizes, from every state, and all faiths, to join in a public witness against torture by displaying a banner outside their place of worship during Torture Awareness Month (June 2008).
Our goal is to have banners displayed by NRCAT member congregations in all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico.
(Update: Note that the map is deceptive-- they have a list of 200-ish…
razib | May 20, 2008Noam Scheiber points to working paper, SOCIAL DESIRABILITY BIAS IN ESTIMATED SUPPORT FOR A BLACK PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, which attempts to figure out the Bradley Effect by guaging avowed vs. implied support. Mark Blumenthal of Myster Pollster has an interview where one of the authors explains the methodology and touches upon some confusing issues....
To a great extent I think this is the sort of thing which should give us caution about overreading from social science; you might not be smoking out the dynamics which you think you are smoking out. I've put the results from the most relevant…
drorzel | May 20, 2008Matt Nisbet has a post up talking about McCain's environment ad, and linking to a Media Curves study tracking people's reactions to the spot.
What's interesting from the results, is that in the beginning of the ad, Democrats respond positively to the opening pandora's box frame focusing on hurricanes, all three partisan groups decline in reaction to the discussion of two gridlocked polar extremes on the issue, and then Republicans spike favorably to the frame focus on national security and moral duty respectively.
Actually, I thought that the most interesting part of the ad was that all…
oracknows | May 19, 2008I've written a lot about the legal thuggery perpetrated against autism blogger Kathleen Seidel by an unethical lawyer named Clifford Shoemaker, who issued a subpoena against her based on dubious conspiratorial thinking about her supposedly being a shill for big pharma. Shoemaker, in case you didn't know, is a lawyer who represents litigants suing vaccine manufacturers for "vaccine injury." In this case, he represented Reverend Lisa Sykes and her husband as they sued Bayer for alleged vaccine injury, and Kathleen Seidel had done a long post about Shoemaker's activities shortly before he issued…
pharyngula | May 19, 2008While I think a non-sectarian comparative religion course would be a fine idea for our public schools, I don't trust these bozos at all. Tennessee legislators want to stuff a bible studies class into the curriculum.
"Our government school teachers cannot constitutionally preach the Bible, but they can teach the Bible," Herron said.
"I want students to study the greatest and most popular book in history. I want young people to understand how the Bible has enormously impacted literature, art, music, culture, history and politics. A Bible course will help students understand our culture and our…
gregladen | May 19, 2008I was fifteen or so years old. That was back in the old days, before everyone who was 15 was world-wise and even world weary. I was a bit world wise for my age, though, as I was living on my own and was fully supporting myself with a couple of paying jobs.
Waling home from work one day, a pretty young woman approached me, as though she was asking for directions. She was foreign and her English was poor, but I eventually came to understand that she wanted me to come over to her house later that evening for dinner. She promised a nice dinner, and she promised more. She was using words like…
terrasig | May 19, 2008One last political post for a little while at least.
We posted almost two weeks ago a note of thanks to the NC Democratic senate candidate, Jim Neal. The progressive candidate and friend of the blogging community (and blogger himself) lost to Kay Hagan, who will now face Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) in the November election.
I missed Jim's response to us in a long thread at BlueNC:
it's never too late for you and science/medicine bloggers to make an impact. Get to know Senator Hagan and other candidates. Inform them about what you are doing and your POV.
You have a voice. Use it. Expect,…
sa smith | May 18, 2008I make fun of OK on my blog regularly. Sometimes it feels like Im living on goddamn Mars, surrounded by Martians (aka 'Baptists') speaking gobbledy gook and creepy red dirt and forever-gusting wind that will drive you insane...
It doesnt help when dipshits like Sally Kern proudly drag Oklahomans through the dirt with their hate speech and full fledged idiocy (yes, Sally Kern, previously a history teacher, proclaiming 'traditional' marriage has been the foundation of the US for thousands of years. Jesus fuck.) and just being lying dirtbags:
Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said she had…
drorzel | May 18, 2008Continuing the morning's theme of "crushingly depressing stories from the New York Times," there's also a downer article about cities where there are more deaths than births:
What demographers call a natural decrease has been occurring for years in tiny rural towns and in some retirement meccas in the South. But the phenomenon is relatively new in metropolitan areas in the Northeast, the Rust Belt of the Middle West and Appalachia.
Hospitals are closing obstetrics wards and converting them to acute care. Local governments and other social service providers are adjusting to the emergence of…
gregladen | May 16, 2008I only gave half the story in my recent post about how you are a big fat baby.
Here's the rest of the story...
jlynch | May 16, 2008And this guy is the current front-runner for McCain's running mate?
Republican Mike Huckabee responded to an offstage noise during his speech to the National Rifle Association by suggesting it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him.
Hearing a loud noise and interrupting his speech, Huckabee said: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he -- he dove for the floor." [source]
What makes this all the more jaw-droppingly stupid is when you consider what happened to another Democratic…
gregladen | May 16, 2008Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, talks about why -- though we want to know more about the world than ever -- the US media is actually showing less. Eye-opening stats and graphs.
gregladen | May 16, 2008Have you noticed? Did you hear the other shoe drop? (very very quietly, yes, but I'm sure I heard it...)
The present news cycle appears to not refer to Hillary Clinton. At all.....
oracknows | May 16, 2008This is too hilarious for words. It's priceless.
It's Chris Matthews applying a little history smackdown--I mean lesson--to an ignorant right wing talk radio host named Kevin James, who was overjoyed at President Bush's use of the Neville Chamberlain gambit the other day and wanted to take the opportunity to throw the same gambit around too about the Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular. Bad idea:
My only complaint is that Matthews didn't deliver what would have been the perfect coup de grâce. That would have been to ask (1) what did Neville Chamberlain do in March 1939…