Politics
razib | January 20, 2008Yesterday I pointed out that in the South Carolina Republican primaries this year where Huckabee did well Romney did badly, and vice versa, on a county by county basis. The tendency also seemed in line with the proportion of evangelicals within a county. I did the same analysis with Michigan....
Correlation between candidate proportion and evangelical proportion by county
Huck
McCain
Romney
Evanglical proportion
0.12
-0.20
0.05
Correlation between candidate proportions by county
McCain
Huck
Romney
McCain
-
0.05
-0.58
Huck
-
-
-0.01
Romney
-
-
-
As you see the…
razib | January 19, 2008Not that interested in politics myself, but I was curious about the South Carolina primary. You can see the exit polls here; seems like Mike Huckabee won evangelicals while McCain won non-conservatives. Nothing too surprising. As someone who has generally been of the opinion that evangelical prejudice against Mormomism will prevent Mitt Romney from getting the nomination, I was curious how evangelicalism tracked the primary results by county. I took these data and ran some correlations with the primary results by candidate. What I did was simply calculate the proportion of evangelicals…
gregladen | January 18, 2008This grab-you-by-the-throat speech by Ghanaian economist George Ayittey unleashes an almost breathtaking torrent of controlled anger toward corrupt leaders and the complacency that allows them to thrive. These "Hippos" (lazy, slow, ornery) have ruined postcolonial Africa, he says. Why, then, does he remain optimistic? Because of the young, agile "Cheetah Generation," a "new breed of Africans" taking their futures into their own hands.
jlynch | January 18, 2008Huckabee was asked whether it is his goal to "bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible?" He didn’t clearly answer that question, of course, but instead said:
Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.…
tqa | January 18, 2008
It's been a couple of days since I posted on the New Hampshire recount. At the time, I fully expected that I wouldn't do another post on the topic, but a couple of things that have happened since then changed my mind. First, Scibling Chris Chatham included me in a list of people who he thinks should get off their "soapboxes", stop "hurting America", and focus on the statistical anomaly he's identified. Second, and far more importantly, preliminary recount results are in from a number of precincts.
First, let's look at this "Diebold Effect" thing again. When I took my first look at the…
evolvingthoughts | January 17, 2008
Colin Purrington has a nice set of publicly available images for use in pro-science talks. Go check 'em out.
gregladen | January 17, 2008In the talk that opened TEDGlobal 2007 ("Africa: The Next Chapter"), South African investment banker Euvin Naidoo sets the scene, framing the conversation that would unfold over the four-day event. "What's the worst thing you've heard about Africa?" he asks. After fielding call-outs of "famine," "war," "corruption," he urges the audience to move past these preconceptions -- and offers a compelling picture of a continent on the cusp of enormous change.
oracknows | January 17, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
gregladen | January 17, 2008Science Debate 2008 people may be intereted in this effort by SlashDot:
This is your usual Slashdot reader-generated interview, except we're only going to pick five questions, not 10, and we're going to send the same five questions to all the major-party presidential candidates and publish each one's answers (in our Politics section) as soon as we get them. Please try to come up with questions the candidates have not been asked in the many interviews and debates to which they've already been subjected, all of which have been notably light on Slashdot-popular topics such as software patents,…
oracknows | January 17, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
drorzel | January 17, 2008The Washington Post has an article this morning headlined Navy Wins Exemption From Bush to Continue Sonar Exercises in Calif.:
The White House has exempted the Navy from two major environmental laws in an effort to free the service from a federal court's decision limiting the Navy's use of sonar in training exercises.
Environmentalists who had sued successfully to limit the Navy's use of loud, mid-frequency sonar -- which can be harmful to whales and other marine mammals -- said yesterday that the exemptions were unprecedented and could lead to a larger legal battle over the extent to which…
oracknows | January 17, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
gregladen | January 16, 2008Jacqueline Novogratz is pioneering new ways of tackling poverty. In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories, is "patient capital": support for "bottom of the pyramid" businesses which the commercial market alone couldn't provide. The result: sustainable jobs, goods, services -- and dignity -- for the world's poorest.
gregladen | January 16, 2008Fleeing Ron Paul:
I'm out of the Ron Paul campaign ...He does not believe in Evolution! If there was ever a time we need science to solve our problems of energy resources and climate control it is 2009! ... He was my last chance at returning to the GOP.
Yet another story of a rino fleeing the herd once they get the full story! Sandra's Blog
Romney Tied to Global Warming Denier Group
Aides and staffers of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney are listed among the principals of a new Astroturf group set up last fall to deny the science of global warming.
The new group advertises…
pharyngula | January 16, 2008Somebody has to explain the logic of certain Republican values to me. Introducing something called the "Middle Class Job Protection Act" (which is actually, of course, nothing but a massive corporate tax cut), our own Little Miss Chipper Crazypants, Michele Bachmann, thinks this is good news:
I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We're the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.
Once upon a time, we had this thing called the 40 hour work week — the idea was that it was…
clock | January 16, 2008I always try to watch debates by erasing all of my prior information, just like a "virgin" voter, seeing the candidates for the first time. And with such a mindset, I have to say I was proud to be a Democrat last night! There were three formidable people up on the stage, obviously intelligent, thoughtful, capable and passionate.
It was easy to like Hillary while she was talking, and Barack when he was talking, and John when he was talking. They also seemed completely equal - there was no sense of the media-driven "two-person" race on that stage last night - it was unquestionably a three-…
gregladen | January 15, 2008The Latest Political News from key sources such as PZ Myers and Jon Stewart.
Huckabee is a raving lunatic
He wants to change the constitution to match better with the Bible. This guy is dangerous. Jump into the fray here at Pharyngula.
The South Carolina Debate
Hat tip: Evolving in Kansas
Deep Thoughts by Newt Gingerich
I'll give you one simple test. Tomorrow morning, will more people try to sneak into the U.S., or sneak out of the U.S.? What strikes me, if millions of people are trying to sneak into the U.S., we don't exactly have an image problem overseas.
Go see the Newt himself…
pharyngula | January 15, 2008Here's his latest suggestion: that we we amend the Constitution to be more biblical.
"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."
Whoa.
We have a candidate who openly wants to make the US a religious state, and he's the frontrunner on…