Politics
tqa | January 7, 2008
Today's Wall Street Journal has a page A1 article (and accompanying blog post) about John Edward's decision to invoke the Nataline Sarkisyan case in his campaign-trail discussions of health care. Sarkisyan, you may remember, was the 17-year-old California girl who died a few weeks ago, shortly after her family's insurance company turned down her doctors' request that they cover a liver transplant for her. The tone of the article is somewhat negative toward Edwards' decision, and not all of their criticism is entirely unfair.
Edwards, they claim, "has been bashing big health insurers in…
j7uy5 | January 7, 2008Several of the candidates have been found to have made egregious
misstatements in the
href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/05/nh.debates/?iref=mpstoryview">New
Hampshire debates. FactCheck.org, the organization
made famous by Dick Cheney when he
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12901-2004Oct6.html">erroneously
referred to it as Factcheck.com, has
href="http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/nh_debate_the_gop_field.html">an
analysis of the Republican candidates' statements.
There is a lot of material there. The one that really stands
out for me…
pharyngula | January 7, 2008I gripe about the NY Times now and then — the newspaper is an infuriating mix of the best and the worst of print journalism. I've had a couple of the people who work there stop by in the comments now and then, and I'd love to see one of them show up now and explain something to us all.
William Kristol??!? Jebus. The man has spent years demonstrating that he's a clueless ideologue who always gets it wrong.
So wy, NY Times, why?
And if you don't know Kristol's litany of failure, Tom Tomorrow reminds us.
evolvingthoughts | January 6, 2008
Let's see... what's happening in the world today?
Kenya is in turmoil and thousands are displaced and in danger of death by disease, starvation or tribal feuds.
Religious moneymaking scam Scientology is accused of threatening those who leave it with sex revelations (I'd believe anything of that cult - they have the track record).
Pakistan is in trouble, and it looks like the Americans will start active campaigns there.
So what is Australian TV News talking about? A bunch of overpaid crybabies are threatening to take their bats and balls and go home and not play with another overpaid…
j7uy5 | January 6, 2008
Keith Olbermann Special
Commentary on Bush Lies
Ron Paul was
href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01042008/watch2.html">interviewed
by Bill Moyers last Friday (1/4/2008).
Paul Responded to Moyers' observation that
the media have been complicit in keeping the War out of the public eye
as the campaign is heating up.
But, you know, isn't it amazing at the end of last
year they turned this into almost like another mission accomplished,
you know. It was our worst year, you know. If you go by years, it was
our worst year. We lost 900 men in Iraq, over 100 in Afghanistan.…
gregladen | January 6, 2008Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talks about our new wave of overprotected kids -- and spells out 5 (and really, he's got 6) dangerous things you should let your kids do. Allowing kids the freedom to explore, he says, will make them stronger and smarter and actually safer.
clock | January 6, 2008I watched the first couple of Dems debates, then skipped most of them - too busy with work and stuff - then tuned in last night for the ABC/Facebook double-feature. Brief thoughts:
The GOP debate was surreal. A bunch of Grumpy Old White Men spewing nonsense and nobody called them on it (the same conversation could easily have occurred at a neighborhood bar or at a strip-club and would not seem out of place). McCain and Thompson looked like the two old geezers sitting on the balcony on the Muppet Show set, and were just as coherent.
Romney was like a deer in the headlights, insulted that…
oracknows | January 6, 2008Here's part 1.
Here's part II. It's Bill Maher on David Letterman ranting about "toxins," how we are being "poisoned by America," and how your body is trying to produce a "river of mucus" to rid itself of the toxins, all standard tropes of "alternative" medicine and quackery. Sadly, David Letterman seems to buy right into the whole rant, more or less.
Maher's mindless parroting of the vague claims of quacks who think that "detoxification" is the cure for every ill, combined with his being an antivaccination wingnut and a germ theory denialist, are just three reasons why, whenever I see anyone…
gregladen | January 6, 2008What is the relationship between what happens in these two early primary races and what actually happens later on in the election cycle?
It turns out that this is a difficult question to answer. One very simple way of asking the question is this: Does the winner of a given contest also become the nominee? We could also ask if that person becomes president, but this would involve so many additional contingencies that it might be better left alone. So let's just stick with the link between winning either race and becoming the nominee, and also consider the predictive power of winning both…
j7uy5 | January 5, 2008There are only two interesting things about what happened in the Iowa
caucuses. One, the turnout for Democrats was much higher than
the turnout for Republicans. Voter turnout is everything in
US elections. It will continue to be the single most
important factor, until we adopt a civilized form of Democracy and make
voting mandatory. Two, a lot of young people got involved.
Progressives have known for decades that the key to any
meaningful reform is to get young people to vote.
I think the Internet has something to do with the improved
participation by young people. Let's hope that…
clock | January 5, 2008When I put up a bunch of good election-related links about Iowa caucuses and the impending New Hampshire primaries last night, I have no idea how I missed this fantastic post by Lambert that everyone is apparently talking about. Right on. Much more elaborate and detailed and well-documented than this (a year ago), and more up-to-date than this (right after the 2004 election), but essentially the same argument and it is correct.
Obamamania reminds me of Deanomania from four years ago - what is important to the young-uns is the excitement of being a part of the revolution, not the…
gregladen | January 5, 2008In one of the most beloved talks from TED2007, novelist Isabel Allende talks about writing, women, passion, feminism. She tells the stories of powerful women she has known, some larger-than-life (listen for a beauty tip from Sophia Loren), and some simply living with grace, dignity and ingenuity in a world that, in too many ways, still treats women unjustly.
clock | January 4, 2008Just to add some more to yesterday's numbers and links on the Iowa caucuses, which just shows that if you get all your news from the MSM, especially the TV, you are not just woefully uninformed, but criminally misinformed. Take your time this weekend to read up on these:
Sara Robinson: 2008: A Year In Limbo
2008, Part II: Hold On Tight To Your Dream
2008, Part III: Where There Is No Vision, the People Perish
2008, Part IV: On Denial, Collapse, and the Laws of Physics
Kevin Drum: CAJOLERY....
Glenn Greenwald: Worthless chatter
Media hostility toward anti-establishment candidates
Hillary and…
razib | January 4, 2008I note that Slate is congratulating a reader who guessed the top 3 finishers for both Repubs and Dems. Well, I got everything right except flipping Biden and Richardson (heard some guy on the radio say he was going for Biden, so I did it for the hell of it!). OK, this is a bit easier I think...but here I go....
Republicans:
McCain
Romney
Huckabee
Paul
Giuliani
Thompson
Hunter
Keyes
Democrats:
Obama
Clinton
Edwards
Richardson
Kucinich
Gravell
Most of these are "gimmes" now and I've followed "conventional wisdom" (e.g., Obama up, Clinton down), with the main exception being that I think Paul…
pharyngula | January 4, 2008I always considered the US a secular nation, but if certain factions in our government have their way, they will make us a Christian nation by fiat and by falsehood. It's a sordid story of the religious right trying to pass a resolution that uses phony history to prop up right-wing claims of religious lunacy.
We could be a Christian nation. Another word for that is a Christian theocracy.
gregladen | January 4, 2008In the wake of his Iowa victory, Mike Huckabee is doing the news and talk show circuit. Here are his comments this AM on evolution.
ABC's "Good Morning America" grilled Huckabee about his evangelical ties, making Creationism the issue.
ABC's Robin Roberts mentioned a new book from the National Academy of Sciences that says Creationism has no place in the classroom -- given the overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution.
"Do you agree with that -- that Creationism should be kept out of our classrooms," Roberts asked.
"In ten-and-a-half years as a governor, I never touched it," Huckabee…
pontiff | January 4, 2008What with the U.S. presidential election dominating the news, could you ask for anything more this Friday than more politics blogging? Pain below the fold.
Gordon Watts asks a good question about the zeroing out of funding for the ITER. Treaties? We ain't got no treaties. We don't need no treaties! I don't have to show you any stinkin' treaties!!"
With Huckabee (What is Huck? Huck be a creationist and opponent of the separation of church and state) winning Iowa, I'm sure you'll be hearing for commentary about the "FairTax" (WAR IS PEACE!) If I'm taxed 30 cents on a dollar is that a 30…
gregladen | January 4, 2008Every year around this time, Pat Robertson has a meeting with god, at which god tells Pat stuff about what is going to happen in the future. After several years of this, we now know for certain that god has no idea of, or no control over, what the future brings.
This is because Pat, who is certainly not lying to us about speaking with god because he himself is a christian and thus of presumed high moral standing, usually conveys information that turns out to be untrue. The nuclear terror attack of 2007 did not materialize. The major hit on major US cities by terrorists did not occur (…