Politics
clock | December 22, 2007...any more reasons to vote these guys out of office for many years to come? (via).
j7uy5 | December 22, 2007Someone, with a lot more patience that I, has compiled a
href="http://www.netrootsmass.net/Hugh/Bush_list.html?">list
of Bush administration scandals. The truly amazing
thing? Some people voted for this crook twice.
oracknows | December 22, 2007Quoth global warming "skeptic" (translation: "crank") Senator Inhofe:
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) got the crowd cheering early in the day. "I have been called -- my kids are all aware of this -- dumb, crazy man, science abuser, Holocaust denier, villain of the month, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthal, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun," he announced. "And I can just tell you that I wear some of those titles proudly."
Inhofe repeated his view that man-made global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," and he quarreled with a Bush administration proposal to list…
gregladen | December 21, 2007Please go check this out and come back and tell me what you think.....
Top Evangelical Scientist Joins Science Debate 2008 Push
I honestly hope it is a good thing...
gregladen | December 21, 2007One of these pols is not like the other. One of these pols is not the same.
voltagegate | December 21, 2007
I had to visit an elementary school for a story the other day and had to wait a bit for my interview, so I started walking around the halls, looking at what the kids had been up to in class.
There were the requisite scaled models of Native American abodes, teepees and wigwams, complete with little plastic figures and livestock. Behind that, hanging on a giant corkboard, were self portraits of the children, all smiles and scribbly shirts.
In a smaller corner of the corkboard there was a cluster of little watercolor paintings surrounding a hand written construction paper sign that read "Mrs.…
evolvingthoughts | December 21, 2007
Well the mills of God and the justice system grind exceeding fine, but they sometimes come up with the right conclusion. Haneef has been given back his visa, as was obviously going to happen from the beginning. Ex-minister Kevin Andrews did a bad thing, knowingly, I warrant, and has been shown to be the racist slag he is. I'm glad Haneef has been exonerated - the whole thing has been a farce from the beginning. It was a case of government believing its own lies and propaganda. I hope that Haneef gets compensation for this absurdity.
evolvingthoughts | December 20, 2007
The previous Australian government, in its ongoing quest to out-mediocre the rest of the world, had instituted a "research Quality Framework", liberally taken from a failed exercise in Britain. Now, the new government has declared it dead. It will not be missed.
grrlscientist | December 20, 2007
This worthless jackass claims to be my president.
George Bush; a hypocrite? Well, I am shocked, simply shocked, I tell you.
Well, okay, all sarcasm aside, I am very surprised to hear that the politically conservative George Bush, who demands mindless and unquestioning loyalty from his minions, has shown his true colors by betraying all those people who supported him throughout his entire political career: political conservatives. Today, Bush denied California state's bid to regulate greenhouse gas emissions produced by all new automobiles that are sold there -- a move that flies in the…
pharyngula | December 20, 2007This would be an ordinary photo if it were a young girl and her father or grandfather.
But no… they're a 'couple'.
He's forty, she's eleven. And they are a couple - the Afghan man Mohammed F.* and the child Ghulam H.*. "We needed the money", Ghulam's parents said. Faiz claims he is going to send her to school. But the women of Damarda village in Afghanistan's Ghor province know better: "Our men don't want educated women." They predict that Ghulam will be married within a few weeks after her engagement in 2006, so as to bear children for Faiz.
I guess pedophiles in Afghanistan have no shame…
oracknows | December 20, 2007Maybe it's unfair to proclaim this a "well, duh!" study, but its conclusions do seem rather obvious. On the other hand, it's information that we need in a cold, hard scientific form, and I'm glad that the investigators did it:
(AP) -- Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as those with private coverage, according to the first national study of its kind and one that sheds light on troubling health care obstacles.
People without health insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests, the study also found, confirming earlier research.…
illconsidered | December 20, 2007"After eleven days of negotiations, governments have come up with a compromise deal that could ... even lead to emission increases. ... The highly compromised political deal ... is largely attributable to the position of the United States which was heavily influenced by fossil fuel and automobile industry interests. The failure to reach agreement led to the talks spilling over into an all night session ..."
This is a quote from a George Monbiot article for the Guardian. Is he talking about Bali?
No, this was a Friends of the Earth Press release from 1997.
These are extracts from a press…
pontiff | December 19, 2007Here's a list of people who voted for the spending omnibus which totally shafted science and who also voted for the America COMPETEs act. Is your representative on there? Send a letter?
Update: Science article on the budget and science.
gregladen | December 19, 2007Popular Mechanics (one of those magazines that genteel people refuse to admit they read, but that is actually a blast) has published a thing called "Geek the Vote." According to an email from PM, this is:
...an online guide to all the candidates' stances on issues related to science and technology including energy policy and climate change, gun control, science education and infrastructure investment. The full chart, which can be navigated by candidate or issue, is [provided]
The site is here.
This is apparently in response to (maybe not, but there is evidence to suggest this) the Science…
pharyngula | December 19, 2007I did not bite the head off that chicken.
Popular Mechanics has sorted through the various presidential candidates web sites for information on their stance on various science-relevant issues (and on gun control…how that ended up in their matrix is a mystery, and I presume there is just some gun fanatic on their staff). They have produced a
table listing various science issues for each candidate with check marks indicating whether they have declared anything on the subject. You can't get their positions from the table — a check just means there is more information available — and you have to…
clock | December 19, 2007To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to:
- correct my factual errors
- call me on my BS
- tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask
- if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so.
Here is the sixth one, so…
j7uy5 | December 19, 2007There is a movement afoot to develop a framework for a
href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/12/lets_get_the_presidential_cand.php">Presidential
candidate debate on science. Bora has been
proposing
href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/12/science_debate_2008_my_questio.php">questions
that would have the candidates explain..
In what way, if any, would you change the current
federal framework of implementing science-related policy?
One issue here is this: would it be best to ask broad questions,
detailed questions, or a mix of the two?
Or would it be better to…