Politics
j7uy5 | October 15, 2007Today is Blog
Action Day, during which many persons have agreed to write a
blog post about environmental concerns. This is one of
thousands.
Consider Climate Change, and consider the Iraq War. Other
than both being among the biggest mistakes ever made by humans, it is
not obvious, immediately, that they have much in common.
However, there are common elements, and those common elements
help explain why the threat from both is persisting so long...
Both Climate Change, and the Iraq War, are going to be
enormously expensive. But for both, the bulk of the expenses
are going to be paid later…
tsmith | October 15, 2007Being a microbiologist can be a dangerous business. Some of us work out in the field, exposed to weather, animals, and pathogens of all different forms. Some do research in countries with unstable governments, collecting samples and tracking down infected individuals in the midst of strife, poverty, and warfare. Some remain in the lab, but share it with agents that can be handled only under high levels of containment, and may need special labs and permits just to do their research. We all realize our job contains some level of risk, and do what we can to minimize that.
However, as much…
evolvingthoughts | October 15, 2007
They are now toadies of the Exclusive Brethren, who fund campaign advertisements for the Liberal Party.
Add to this Cardinal George Pell's support, Catholic minister Tony Abbott's attempts to control who can use RU486 on an individual basis (i.e., never), Peter Costello's links with Hillsong, the Assemblies of God megachurch and organisation that founded Family First... it's starting to look very much like the Conservatives are becoming the Christian Right of the United States. What with the demonisation of Muslims, gays, and Africans and all...
Hey, guys, in case you haven't noticed,…
drorzel | October 15, 2007In the spirit of the newly clarified regulations governing the Academic Competitiveness Grant and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant Programs administered by the Department of Education, I am pleased to announce the Uncertain Principles Physics Scholarship Program. Under this program, I pledge to personally pay the full tuition for any student who is:
From a low-income family, or a historically disadvantaged group,
Enrolled as a full-time student at an accredited four-year college or university, and
Taking courses toward a degree in physics or related…
jrosenhouse | October 14, 2007Sunday's New York Times offers a poignant look at some of the victims of the Iraq War:
IT was a bitterly cold night in the Baghdad winter of 2005, somewhere in the predawn hours before the staccato of suicide bombs and mortars and gunfire that are the daily orchestration of the war. Alone in my office in The Times's compound beside the Tigris River, I was awaiting the telephoned "goodnight" from The Times foreign desk, eight time zones west, signaling that my work for the next day's paper was done.
That is when I heard it: the cry of an abandoned kitten, somewhere out in the darkness,…
clock | October 14, 2007
Jeffrey Feldman nails it:
Every journalist working in America should print out that passage in extra-large font and tape it next to the bathroom mirror. Better yet, they should put the passage on a chain and wear it around their necks.
Obligatory Reading of the Day!
evolvingthoughts | October 13, 2007
So, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions has admitted that Haneef, the Indian muslim doctor who was deported for being of "bad character" because he was related to someone who had peripheral involvement in the London and Glasgow bombings, was wrongly charged on the basis of bad evidence. Quelle suprise!
Earth Times reports that "Each day, throughout his 25-day incarceration, new leaks, fresh errors and denials had made the case slip into a shambles." The Sydney Morning Herald reports that
Dr Haneef's lawyer, Peter Russo, welcomed this confirmation of defence claims from the…
stoat | October 13, 2007Another little break from AIT, this time inspired by CIP to scrappleface.
Apologies for the caps, its directly lifted and I didn't want to change it (read: couldn't be bothered to type it all out again). Or perhaps he really did spend the entire speech shouting; its possible, the things he said deserve to be shouted. This is Sanchez, on the evil stupid Iraq war (though the beeb said he was an inglorious part of Abu-Ghraib). There is plenty more quotable in there - "THERE HAS BEEN A GLARING, UNFORTUNATE, DISPLAY OF INCOMPETENT STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP" would do, though he knocks party-partisanship…
j7uy5 | October 13, 2007Romney thinks he has a winning strategy, but he's wrong.
href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071013/UPDATE/710130417/1020/NATION">Presidential
hopeful Romney vows to help pull Michigan out of economic slump
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Saturday, October 13, 2007
GRAND RAPIDS -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt
Romney promised on Saturday to help raise his native state out of its
economic crisis and defended himself against accusations from John
McCain that he failed in the past to support Republican policies and
candidates.…
j7uy5 | October 13, 2007US Secretary of State
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice">Condoleezza
Rice has some choice words for
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin" rel="tag">Vladimir
Vladimirovich Putin.
href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3726309">Rice
Worried by Putin's Broad Powers
Rice Criticizes Putin's Concentration of Power, Says It
Interferes With Move to Democracy
By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW Oct 13, 2007 (AP)
The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has amassed so
much
central authority that the power-grab may…
jrosenhouse | October 12, 2007Paul Krugman does his usual fine job of exposing the utter lack of conscience on the American political right:
Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they're on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).
You might be tempted to say that bloggers make…
tqa | October 12, 2007
(He didn't do it on purpose, of course.)
According to Bill-O, the world would be a scary, scary, scary place if Edwards is elected president:
Remember, no coerced interrogation, civilian lawyers in courts for captured overseas terrorists, no branding the Iranian guards terrorists, and no phone surveillance without a specific warrant.
That sounds suspiciously like the vision of a world where the President of the United States actually preserves, protects, and defends the Constitution of the United States. And we all know that's the last thing that we can afford, right?
(Hat tips:…
tqa | October 12, 2007
As you are undoubtedly aware, this year's Nobel Peace Prize is being split between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore, in recognition of "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."
Like almost everybody else here at Scienceblogs, I think this is absolutely fantastic. Gore has worked his butt off over the last few years. He's been tireless in his efforts to focus attention on climate change, and he's made a real difference. The…
evolvingthoughts | October 12, 2007
The International Herald Tribune worries that Gore's receiving the Peace Prize is going to denigrate the award because it "strays from traditional Nobel definitions of peace work". Huh. As Tom Lehrer said, when Henry Kissinger can win the Peace Prize, the time for political satire is long past. If anything, this improves the standing of the prize.
What could be more concerning to the peace of the world than dealing with climate change? Gore's raising awareness and bringing climate change out of the Rethuglican spin cycle will do more to promote peace than any number of activists on…
pharyngula | October 12, 2007Al Gore and the IPCC have won the 2007 Nobel Peace prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".
Now run for president, Al — we need someone with the respect of the international community to repair all that our current chief nitwit has broken.
j7uy5 | October 12, 2007He alleges
that the war in Iraq was botched for a reason: it will be easier for us
to steal their oil if they do not have a functioning government.
Some excerpts:
Indeed, the US may be
‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be,
which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’.
The value of Iraqi oil, largely light
crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion
at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected
total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.
The draft law that the US has written for
the Iraqi congress would cede…
pharyngula | October 11, 2007We've got a question going around: it's been a good year for Europe in the Nobel Prizes, so what does it mean for American science? Are we slipping? Is there a European bias?
I'm going to go way out here on a limb and say the obvious: it means nothing at all. Winning a Nobel does have a political element to it, of course, but the people who win these things usually have a track record of decades of work, and the Nobel is just the most prominent tip of the iceberg of the scientific enterprise. It's hard to judge trends in the foundations of research from the year-to-year vagaries of what's…
tlambert | October 11, 2007A news.com.au story asserts
"Australians would re-elect Prime Minister John Howard in a landslide if votes were cast purely on policy - not personality or party loyalty - according to the first results from a "blind voting" tool developed by NEWS.com.au."
Almost 35,200 of the 72,300 participants who have completed the Vote-a-matic were matched with the Coalition, compared with 28,700 participants who were identified as a fit with Kevin Rudd's Labor Party.
A further 6700 participants have been matched with the Democrats, while around 1700 went to the Greens and 175 to Family First.
The trends…