Politics
pharyngula | February 4, 2008I would be the first to admit that the readership of Pharyngula is not a representative slice of America. We've self-selected for cynics and skeptics and atheists and science-minded people, and that's all right … that's the way I like it.
The viewership of something like ABC News, on the other hand, is something different. There you are getting a wider segment of the citizenry, including a lot of people who would faint and have heart palpitations if they were exposed to what Pharynguloids consider routine. You've got to appreciate it when John Allen Paulos uses his ABCNews soapbox to…
pharyngula | February 4, 2008I'm going to the DFL caucus tomorrow night, and after seeing this video I'm thinking I ought to throw my vote to Mike Huckabee.
Maybe I can convince a few others to join me if I dress sexy enough.
clock | February 4, 2008Over the weekend (a civilized day of the week to hold elections - Saturday) Boris Tadic won (actually retained) the Presidency of Serbia. Sure, there were some better candidates, but this is a much better outcome than what could have happened - the various local versions of Huckabee and Paul, fortunately, lost.
denialism | February 4, 2008
Having been busy and a bit out of the loop for the past month, I think it's time I stop and point out what a great job Chris Mooney and other have done in generating a real movement behind making this happen. In particular note the supportive essay from the Editor-in-Chief of Science and the addition of the AAAS to the list of supporters that we've seen in the last week.
This is a gratifying turn of events because it shows me a few things. For one, I think it shows blogs like the Scienceblogs can make a huge difference in the real world. Second it shows that enough people care about…
gregladen | February 3, 2008I am utterly undecided. Feel free to make a suggestion.
To me, it is simply not the case that in most regards one candidate has better positions than the other. The main difference I see is in that Clinton has articulated her positions in more detail than Obama. Obama seems to be running more of a hope and charisma campaign.
I liked Bill Clinton, and I never had negative feelings towards Hillary Clinton, as many people seem to. I hear Hillary Clinton supporters expressing the thought that she would be a good president and the best possible campaigner against any of the Republicans,…
gregladen | February 3, 2008Mel Gibson broke off relations with recently departed actor Heath Ledger after he spurned Gibson's advice not to accept the role of a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain."
...
"Ledger asked Gibson whether he should take the role of Ennis Del Mar in 'Brokeback,'"...
"Gibson strongly counseled against it. The role apparently ran counter to Gibson's morality. And he felt that it would ruin Heath's career.
[source: newsmax.com]
evolvingthoughts | February 3, 2008
Martin Rundkvist, a Swede, has chastised the American body politick for being Right Wing and Even More Right Wing; that is, for lacking a Left in European terms. The American Body Politick, in the person of Chad Orzel, has hit back. Instead of saying that America lacks a Left, says he, say that Europe lacks a Right.
Except it doesn't. Europe has some of the more Rightish neo-fascists one can hope to find anywhere. So Chad's rebuttal seems to be a bit misguided. American politics simply is right wing, by which I mean it is conservative or extra-conservative, in the traditions of western…
gregladen | February 3, 2008Ralph Nader has formed a presidential exploratory committee and said he will launch another presidential run if he believes he can raise enough money to appear on most state ballots in the fall. ...
...now with John Edwards also out of the race, Nader said he feels his candidacy is more urgent than ever.
"When Kucinich threw in the towel, now you have Edwards gone -- who's going to carry the torch of democratic populism against the relentless domination of our government" by "powerful corporations," he told ABC.
"You can't just brush these issues to the side because the candidates are…
gregladen | February 3, 2008Or at least, Caucus! (but caucus for Al, Really) It is sort of like going to the gym, but slower...Here's how it works:
Al's Site is Here.
The Caucus Finder is HERE.
drorzel | February 3, 2008Over at Aardvarcheology, Martin complains about US politics. This is bog standard European oh-you-benighted-Americans stuff, with a convenient one-sentence summary:
From a European perspective, US politics are an ongoing battle between the extreme Right and the middle Right.
This gets up my nose a bit, because as I commented over there, it would be perfectly equivalent to say "From a US perspective, European politics are an ongoing battle between the extreme Left and the middle Left." It wouldn't let Europeans feel all smug, though, so you don't see it as often.
I don't disagree with the…
pharyngula | February 3, 2008Every once in a while, someone from Sweden notices American politics. The state of the nation may make us residents weep, but at least we can be entertained by the startled expressions of horror from the foreigners.
aardvarchaeology | February 2, 2008This is the first time that I'm aware of the US primary elections. I've never been very interested in the news, having at best a hazy idea even of Swedish politics. Blogging is entirely responsible for my heightened awareness of US political matters over the past two to three years. I've taken to reading US blogs and hanging out in web forums dominated by Americans. And what I've learned scares me.
US politics often look absurd from a European perspective, since the entire bipartisan system maps onto the conservative half of European politics. A case in point is that the US "Left" is called "…
evolvingthoughts | February 1, 2008
Readers will know that I got very angry about the Haneef Affair, in which a muslim Indian doctor was accused of being a terrorist and deported by the improper abuse of power by the minister for immigration of the previous government [here, here, here, here, here and here].
Now his lawyer has been cleared for "leaking" the Australian Federal Police transcript of interview, which basically showed that Haneef was innocent and the AFP had nothing. And of course the head of the AFP is upset. He wanted the AFP to remain under the rose, free from public scrutiny.
I'll say it again. Whenever a…
hrynyshyn | February 1, 2008Sting was right. History will teach us nothing. Seemingly oblivious to the disaster that was the Bush administration's efforts to limit media access to government scientists, Canada's governing politicians are following in their American neighbor's footsteps.
According to Margaret Munro of the National Post,
Environment Canada has "muzzled" its scientists, ordering them to refer all media queries to Ottawa where communications officers will help them respond with "approved lines."
The new policy, which went into force in recent weeks and sent a chill through the department research divisions…
gregladen | February 1, 2008Below the fold is the press release (somewhat shortened). The numbers fell out at about 70-30.
In a resounding vote today, MoveOn.org Political Action's members nationwide voted to endorse Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for President. The group, with 3.2 million members nationwide and over 1.7 million members in Super Tuesday states, will immediately begin to mobilize on behalf of Senator Obama. The vote favored Senator Obama to Senator Clinton by 70.4% to 29.6%.
Senator Obama accepted the endorsement stating:
"In just a few years, the members of MoveOn have once again…
jlynch | February 1, 2008Just a quick note to say how happy I am that Arizona State University and our president, Michael Crow, has endorsed the ScienceDebate2008 initiative. That is all.
gregladen | February 1, 2008Science ruins being a human, according to the Pope.
Speaking of cells, the Pope said:
When human beings in the weakest and most defenseless state of their existence are selected, abandoned, killed or used as pure 'biological material,' how can one deny that they are being treated not as 'someone' but as 'something,"
The pope belies that undifferentiated cells are people. Each one of them, I suppose, is a person. But he does not believe that a differentiated cell that is converted by scientists into an undifferentiated cell is a person. Nor, apparently, does he think of it as a monstrosity…
oracknows | January 31, 2008I used to be somewhat of a supporter of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). I really did. This was back when I was more naïve and idealistic. Indeed, when I first read Wally Sampson's article Why NCCAM should be defunded, I thought it a bit too strident and even rather close-minded. At the time, I thought that the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff was to apply the scientific method to the various "CAM" modalities and let the chips fall where they may.
Unfortunately, two developments have made me sour on NCCAM and develop an opinion more like Dr…
pharyngula | January 30, 2008Hank Fox tallies the words used in Bush's state of the union speech…which I missed. Which I won't bother to listen to. The only word I want to hear him say is "Goodbye," but apparently his speech was all about "Terra'."