Politics
pharyngula | November 14, 2007Hang on here. The war in Iraq is costing about $200 million per day, or a billion in less than a week. Yet George W Bush has just vetoed a bill that would give NIH an additional $1 billion per year, raising the budget from $29 billion to $30 billion.
And what does he do? He accuses Congress of being on a "spending spree."
Here's hoping the guy chokes on the irony.
terrasig | November 14, 2007...is the title of a Newsweek article by Jonathan Alter posted online last night that draws more attention to the Medicare restriction on reimbursements for radioimmunotherapeutic (RIT) drugs used to treat lymphomas. Surgical oncologist, Orac, and I have spoken about this issue in the last few days.
Alter admits his bias a bit, as he was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma back in 2004 and received RIT. Moreover, Alter's Newsweek colleague (and SoCal singer-songwriter), Jaime Reno, attributes RIT to his long-term remission.
The article opens as follows:
What if they found a cure for a…
drorzel | November 14, 2007Dave Bacon watched "Judgement Day" last night, and has a question:
It's not like, you know, there aren't people who think quantum theory is wrong or that quantum theory is somehow related to the Vedic teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So why is it that quantum theory (which after all is "just a theory" wink, wink, nod, nod) doesn't illicit courtroom battles of such epic scope as the Dover trial?
The answer: Because quantum physics involves math, and Math Is Hard.
If you want to construct a cockamamie theory that can pretend to be an alternative to quantum mechanics, it needs to have…
drorzel | November 14, 2007So, in case you missed the splashy banner ads that have been running here for the last week, NOVA ran a show about the Dover, PA "Intelligent Design" trial last night. You can find all manner of commentary on ScienceBlogs, for example here, here, and here.
I'm not as, shall we say, personally invested in the issue as many of my fellow bloggers, but this did look interesting to me, so I watched it last night (with occasional flipping over to the Syracuse basketball game). It was... pretty good. I doubt it would change anybody's mind, in the unlikely event that any "Intelligent Design"…
razib | November 13, 2007I don't post much on politics because I really have little value to add. And with my diverse readership in regards to politics I can't really be throwing posts to the effect of "look at these idiotic conservatives/liberals!!!" and expect to get a bunch of "right on!" comments in response. But I do pay cursory attention to the political blogosphere via my RSS, and I was struck by simultaneous fissures emerging on the Left and Right blogosphere for Godwinesque reasons.
On the right, Little Green Footballs is trying to purge the anti-jihadist movement of fascists. Specifically the…
jrosenhouse | November 13, 2007Robert Redford's new movie Lions for Lambs is struggling at the box office. It's also been getting largely negative reviews. But since I saw Bill O'Reilly and other right-wing outlets bashing it for its supposed anti-American bias, I felt honor-bound to go see it.
I guess there's no accounting for taste. I loved this movie. I thought it was completely riveting throughout, despite having almost nothing in the way of action. The plot, such as it is, involves three loosely connected stories. In one, Republican senator Tom Cruise is trying to persuade skeptical journalist Meryl Streep that…
j7uy5 | November 13, 2007Remember, this guy ran for office claiming that he was going
to "
href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E3DC153FF931A2575BC0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all">restore
dignity" to the office. Now, 64% of persons
surveyed think "has abused his powers as president." 55%
think he has committed impeachable offenses, although they are split on
the issue of whether he should be removed from office.
For Dick
Cheney, the numbers are worse. 70% think he has
abused his powers. 63% of Democrats think he should be
impeached and convicted. 43% of all voters…
neurophilosophy | November 13, 2007
Regular readers will know that I rarely write about politics. But this post is an exception, as it is written in memory of my father, who died on this day 7 years ago. That's my father on the left, with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died almost exactly four years later.
Some 14 months after Arafat's death, in January 2006, the Palestinians elected as their leaders the Islamist group Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya, or the Islamic Resistance Movement).
The election was democratic, in the real sense of the word. Unfortunately, however, the Palestinians elected the…
tlambert | November 13, 2007It's always good value when Media Watch criticizes The Australian because journalists there react with foaming-at-the-mouth outrage. For example, when Media Watch nailed them for misrepresenting Rajenda Pachauri they reacted with 4672 words blasting Media Watch, including the entire editorial, stories from Caroline Overington and Matthew Warren and an opinion piece from David Salter.
So I looked forward with anticipation to Caroline Overington's response to this story on Media Watch:
Wentworth is held by Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
But it's tight, as a News Limited commissioned…
gregladen | November 13, 2007(Santa Barbara, Calif.) - A team of political scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of New Mexico, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Notre Dame has completed a groundbreaking survey that explores how race and gender is changing the political landscape of the United States. The scholars presented their findings today at a press conference at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
The Gender and Multicultural Leadership Project is, to date, the most comprehensive multiracial, multi-office national survey…
clock | November 13, 2007My friend, Greensboro blogger Jay Ovittore is running for Congress. He started the campaign blog and the website will be up soon. He is trying to unseat Howard Coble. The Press Conference will be on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 12:00pm - 12:30pm on the Governmental Plaza/Phill G. MacDonald Plaza in Greensboro, NC, so if you can, please come to support the start of his campaign.
Jay's run was first scooped by the Greensboro News & Record back on November 6th.
oracknows | November 12, 2007Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata has the full story.
In brief, Medicare has slashed reimbursement for two radioimmunotherapy drugs Bexxar (131I-tositumomab) and Zevalin (90Y-ibritumomab) to below acquisition cost. This is not some experimental therapy that's being denied, but rather a therapy with a established clinical efficacy. Naturally, this is likely to lead to most centers abandoning these drugs. Even worse, because private insurers base their reimbursement on the Medicare reimbursement rates, usually paying some percentage above them, this decision will almost certainly lead insurance…
illconsidered | November 12, 2007Last Friday, I noticed a breaking story, potentially a huge media scandal, involving Democratic front-runner Hilary Clinton. What was it? Voter supression? Campaign finance fraud? Some ancient skeleton rattling free from her closet?
Not so much....
A waitress in an Iowa diner mentioned that she had not received any tip from when the Clinton campaign had her serve them lunch. Of course that turned out to not be the case, they had left a tip for all the staff with the restaurant manager and the waitress had not known that at the time.
So...phony and irrelevant event distracts the media...…
gregladen | November 11, 2007It would be nice. Hey, a few years ago one of our local affiliates was bought by Fox. So one day you have Robin and Jeff doing a pretty darn good job of delivering the news, and the next day you have the same people ... Robin and Jeff ... screaming sensationalist crap into the news camera. Same stories, same actors, different tone. And, of course, Fox fed a different flavor of national feed into that local system for good measure.
(Well, OK, they weren't exactly screaming, but you get the point. Oh, and I do remember how uncomfortable they looked with their new edgy and sometimes over…
terrasig | November 11, 2007The travesty has come true, according to Karl Schwartz and Betsy de Parry of Patients Against Lymphoma.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has gone ahead with their plans to slash by half reimbursements to hospitals for two radioimmunotherapy drugs. For many hospital, reimbursement rates will be lower than their acquisition costs. We discussed this possibility back in August but had thought that CMS administrators would acknowledge the outcry from the lymphoma survivor/advocacy community, not to mention very strong statements from ASCO (American Society of Clinical…
oracknows | November 11, 2007Friday morning while doing some work in my office, I was treated to a discussion by the two hosts of a morning radio talk show. The talk was apparently prompted by a rather odd website, ihateyoungpeople.com, which asks:
We want you to create a video of yourself explaining what you hate the most about young people. It's your chance to rant and rave and vent about the younger generation.
The most passionate and creative entries will be a part of a national cable television pilot... and all "appropriate" submissions will be posted on the I Hate Young People video sharing site
So fire up your…
j7uy5 | November 10, 2007A Nobel-winning economist has some comments about our
current fiscal situation:
href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712?currentPage=1">The
Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
The next president will have to deal with yet another
crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate,
Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.
by
rel="tag">Joseph E. Stiglitz December 2007
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the
Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the
Iraq war, the shame…
j7uy5 | November 9, 2007
rel="tag">Fife Symington III, former governor of
Arizona, is planning a press conference to discuss UFOs. He
plans to discuss the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights">Phoenix
Lights incident. Symington is a former Air Force
pilot, which he feels lends him some credibility.
href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/09/simington.ufocommentary/index.html">Symington:
I saw a UFO in the Arizona sky
By Fife Symington
Special to CNN
11/9/2007
(CNN) -- In 1997, during my second term as governor of Arizona, I saw
something that defied logic and challenged my…
grrlscientist | November 8, 2007tags: citizen reporting, politics, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, US Presidential bid, WNYC, Brian Lehrer Show, Ethan Hova, Huffington Post
This morning, I was listening to WNYC, the local NPR affiliate and my favorite radio station in the world. On the Brian Lehrer Show, he was interviewing Ethan Hova, a reporter at the liberal online newspaper, the Huffington Post. Hova is organizing a "citizen reporter" story where a group of us get together and determine the value to Hillary Clinton of having a former President of the United States as a spouse.
To do this research project, Hova has…
drorzel | November 8, 2007There's been a bunch of talk in the blogosphere about the Democrats taking over the Virginia Senate. I've only really glanced at these, because I don't live in Virginia, but I got email today pointing out that I have a personal connection to one of the "Key Races." In District 34, J. C. "Chap" Petersen defeated the Republican incumbent, Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, 55-45 in what the Washington Post calls a "bitter and costly battle."
Chap was the president of the rugby club at Williams my freshman year, and the guy who stuck me with my nickname, back in the day. Go figure. He's run for office…