Politics
clock | January 12, 2008If you missed it yesterday, you can now listen to the audio recording of the show here (the first 18 minutes or so were on this topic).
grrlscientist | January 11, 2008tags: double vision, humor, visual humor
Mike Huckabee, presidential candidate for the Religious Wingnut Party.
Image: AZRainman
After looking at this image, I feel sick now, in more ways than one, in fact.
There's more where this came from, too.
gregladen | January 11, 2008I will not be outdone by my fellow bloggers 3-quarks, Thoughts from Kansas, Pure Pedantry and A Blog Around the Clock. They are all putting up these "electoral compass things" where you ask a bunch of questions and get in return a graph showing where you are in relation to the US presidential candidates.
So, this is my result:
Wow, am I Liberal or What!
Try it yourself, here!
clock | January 11, 2008All the cool kids are doing it, so I did it, too, with no surprises:
It is fun, though you know I disagree that ideology can be mapped on a 2D coordinate system.
But you can sure play and see for yourself.
pharyngula | January 11, 2008My apologies for reopening old wounds, but if you want to know what Paul really thinks, just take a look at his newsletters.
jlynch | January 11, 2008I was on the TSA’s no-fly list up until six months back. Apparently "John Lynch" was a suspected terrorist - if so, he probably was in the Irish Republican Army in the 1980’s and thus receiving funding from a good number of patriotic Americans on the east coast during that time.
It meant I could not check-in online or for that matter using the computer terminals at the airport. Instead I had to get in line and wait while the attendant phoned some unknown entity who - often after ten minutes - decided that I was fit to fly the friendly skies. No doubt you all felt safer because of it.
There…
gregladen | January 11, 2008Here's a novel idea for creationists: Be honest!
As you know, the Institute for Creation Research is trying to get an online Masters Degree in "science education" approved in Texas. A faux committee comprised of nincompoops and creationists has approved the degree at the first stage, and it is now being considered by the Texas higher education commission. (Details here)
A recent report indicates that the Texas Commissioner of Higher Education has chimed in on the suggestion that this degree simply be called a "degree in creation studies." Interesting solution.
Apparently, one of the…
grrlscientist | January 11, 2008tags: ScienceDebate2008, Science Friday, Ira Flatow, National Public Radio, NPR, podcast
Remember how we have been lobbying for a presidential debate that specifically focuses on each candidate's planned policies regarding science and technology? And remember how things were picking up momentum fairly rapidly in the main stream media? Well, now National Public Radio's Science Friday with Ira Flatow is hosting a one hour call-in discussion regarding this very topic! [free podcast]. This show is being broadcast TODAY at 2pm EST, so be sure to call them in support of ScienceDebate2008! If you…
tqa | January 11, 2008
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of…
gregladen | January 11, 2008... will be featured on Science Friday with Ira Flatow, today (Friday), January 11th. Details are here.
Thanks Sheril for the info.
clock | January 11, 2008Today at 2pm EST, tune in to NPR Science Friday with Ira Flatow for the discussion of the Science Debate 2008.
gregladen | January 11, 2008I'm going to make a prediction. Just remember, you heard it here first....
First, let's lay out a few truths that need to be understood in order to embrace this bold prediction.
You may have noticed the latest news on the shenanigans the Iranians are playing with the US navy. They've been driving boats at US warships, throwing boxes (possible mines) into the water in front of the ships, etc. What you may not realize is that this sort of thing is actually happening all the time. Military and paramilitary (read "terrorists" in some cases) units at borders in hot zones are always spoofing…
pharyngula | January 11, 2008Jason Wiles delivers a lovely smackdown of Huckabee's position on evolution. First, he hits him hard on his record as governor of Arkansas.
During Huckabee's tenure as Governor, evolution education in Arkansas languished in an environment of general hostility and insufficiency. Two anti-evolution bills were introduced in the state's House of Representatives; textbooks in the Beebe, Arkansas public high school carried disclaimer stickers denigrating evolution; the state's science curriculum earned a grade of "D" overall and an abysmal "zero" for its treatment of evolution; a creationist "…
drorzel | January 11, 2008From Inside Higher Ed:
Data drawn from the National Collegiate Athletic Association's annual survey of graduation rates, analyzed by Inside Higher Ed, show that scholarship athletes make up at least 20 percent of the full-time black male undergraduates at 96 of the nearly 330 colleges that play sports in Division I, the NCAA's top competitive level. At 46 of those colleges, according to the data, which are from 2005-6, at least a third of the black male population play a sport. And at 31 one of them, football players alone make up at least a quarter of the black undergraduate men.
All told,…
jlynch | January 10, 2008Alexander Cockburn has finally walked off the cliff once and for all. As if is anthropogenic warming denialism wasn’t enough. Now - in last weeks Nation - he has described the lunatic Ron Paul as "my favorite" and "a candidate leftists can and should support". Any last shred of respect I had for Cockburn has finally left the building.
It’s worth (re)quoting George Monbiot:
I have followed Alexander Cockburn’s writing for many years and I have admired it. His has been an important and persuasive voice on many progressive issues. But I can no longer trust it. I realise that he is blinded by a…
grrlscientist | January 9, 2008tags: online quiz, American politics
It appears that I am a social liberal-progressive .. that makes more sense than simply branding me as a "liberal" since I have some rather sharp disagreements with liberals who aren't progressives ..
Where do you lie along this political spectrum?
hrynyshyn | January 9, 2008Did Clinton win the New Hampshire Democratic primary Tuesday because her name came before Obama's on the ballot? SciBlogger Matt "Framing Science" Nisbet has a couple of posts referring us to someone who seems convinced she did. I'm not so sure, but find the mainstream media's reluctance to at least entertain the notion at little curious.
According to social scientist, and presumably survey expert, Jon Krosnick of Stanford University, serious candidates whose names appear higher on ballot lists enjoy a significant advantage:
Our analysis of all recent primaries in New Hampshire showed that…
gregladen | January 9, 2008 Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin outlines her ambitious vision to found the first commodities market in Ethiopia. Her plan would create wealth, minimize risk for farmers and turn the world's largest recipient of food aid into a regional food basket. "There is no place in the world and no time in history that small farmers have had to bear the burden of risk that African farmers bear today," Gabre-Madhin says. "But I'm not here to lament or wring my hands. I'm here to tell you that change is in the air."
grrlscientist | January 9, 2008tags: politics, NH primary, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, 2008 Presidential primaries, news coverage
Past Primary campaign buttons from the collections of the NH Historical Society and the NH Political Library.
Image: WBUR, Boston's NPR affiliate.
I was hanging out in my local watering hole last night, watching the primary coverage for New Hampshire on television until the results were announced. While I was there, I overheard a particularly empassioned conversation between the bartender (a musician in his mid-forties) and a "regular" (a medical doctor in his mid-fifties) where they were…
oracknows | January 9, 2008In one on my rare forays into political blogging (albeit with an emphasis on "alternative" non-evidence-based and non-science-based medicine), I discussed Ron Paul's record of supporting quack-friendly legislation and in not accepting evolution. Because of my interest in Holocaust denial, it also interested me that Hutton Gibson, a notorious Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist, would endorse Paul for President. Whenever anyone criticizes Ron Paul for being associated with white nationalists (whom I like to refer to as "white power rangers" or, when I'm feeling really snarky, "mighty…