Politics
oracknows | July 25, 2007Yesterday, when I wrote about a death in Arizona caused by a homeopath doing liposuction, what amazed me the most was that homeopaths are licensed in Arizona. Although I alluded to it only briefly in yesterday's post, I was truly astounded at what homeopaths are allowed to do in Arizona. It piqued my curiosity--and horror. Consequently, I decided to delve a bit more deeply into the website of the Arizona Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners.
There are more horrors in there than I thought. Those of you who live in Arizona should be afraid--very afraid!--about what these quacks are permitted…
jstemwedel | July 24, 2007In the July 16 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (secure behind a paywall), the article "FBI Reaches Out to Campuses" [1] caught my attention. The gist of it is that academic scientists are increasingly the targets of foreign espionage, where the stakes have less to do with national security than potentially huge economic losses. The FBI would like to help academic scientists avoid being dupes and giving scientists in other countries an unfair advantage.
From the article:
[FBI chief of counterintelligence strategy Thomas J.] Mahlik notes that classified research usually starts off…
jrosenhouse | July 24, 2007Here is one of the questions from last night's bizarre CNN/You Tube debate with the Democratic candidates:
QUESTION: Hi, I'm Zenne Abraham in Oakland, California. The cathedral behind me is the perfect backdrop for this question. This quarter reads “United States of America.” And when I turn it over, you find that it reads “liberty, in God we trust.” What do those words mean to you? Thank you.
And here's how Senator Biden responded:
COOPER: Senator Biden.
BIDEN: Religion informs my values.
BIDEN: My reason dictates outcomes. My religion taught me about abuse of power. That's why I moved to…
jstemwedel | July 24, 2007Almost a year ago, I learned about the case of the Tripoli six, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian physician in Libya sentenced to death for infecting hundreds of children with HIV despite the fact that the best scientific evidence indicated that the children were infected due to negligence in the hospital well before these health care workers even arrived in Libya.
I asked you to write letters on behalf of the Tripoli six, in the hopes that they might get another trial in which the scientific evidence mattered to the verdict. Good people that you are, I know that lots of you did write…
clock | July 24, 2007Tripoli Six are free, at home in Bulgaria! Revere has the whole scoop. This is, in no small way, the result of tenacious efforts by Declan Butler of Nature and the hundreds (thousands) of bloggers who kept the story alive and urged the readers to contact the relevant people. A good day indeed!
tsmith | July 24, 2007
After 8 1/2 years of imprisonment, torture in jail, and a death sentence hanging over their heads, the Tripoli Six (collected links) are back home, and have been granted pardons from the Bulgarian president.
Revere, again, has the details; more at the BBC and New York Times. Many kudos go out to both Revere and Nature reporter Declan Butler for spreading this story out through the blogosphere, and sighs of relief out to the workers themselves and their families and loved ones.
Image from http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/24/world/24cnd-libya2.large…
grrlscientist | July 24, 2007tags: Chickenhawk, streaming video
Roy Zimmerman sings a song that he wrote that emphasizes the carelessness with which our so-called leaders are willing to kill off our country's troops. [3:21]
sb admin | July 24, 2007You may have heard about the amendment proposed to a Higher Education act by Harry Reid that would make colleges responsible for enforcing RIAA and MPAA policy. The text of the amendment is absolutely every bit as scary as the Inside Higher Ed article makes it sound. And, as one commenter (highlighted by Slashdot, even) notes, we shouldn't expect much sanity from the Democrats on this, because the government of the USA today is driven by the largest campaign donors, and of course the companies behind the music and movie industries are huge campaign donors to both parties. Indeed, the "…
j7uy5 | July 23, 2007
The latest American Research Group poll shows the lowest approval
rating ever for President Bush, a 2-point decline in the past month.
I
can't help but think
the statement about having the Justice Department ignore
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072300579.html">contempt
citations has alienated even more voters.
UPDATE:
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072301143.html?tid=informbox">Poll
Finds Democrats Favored On War
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/…
jrosenhouse | July 23, 2007One of the sillier myths to have widespread acceptance in our culture is that the mainstream media, especially The New York Times, has a liberal bias. Anyone who actually reads the Times knows better. After all, these are the folks who kept the worthless Whitewater story alive during the Clinton administration, who published every phony anti-Gore story the Republicans fed them in the 2000 campaign, and who shamelessly parroted the Bush Administration's completely fallacious talking points in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Completely unchastened by this recent history, the Times has now taken…
oracknows | July 23, 2007After the invasion of the smoking cranks last week into the comments of the three posts I somehow ended up doing on the topic of secondhand smoke (SHS), the health dangers it poses, and some of the deceptive quote mining used in the service of trying to discredit studies demonstrating a moderate but real risk from SHS , I was ready to move on to other topics. I'll give these guys credit for one thing; they're almost as persistent as the antivaccinationists. Despite my flooding this blog with fluff unrelated to smoking and the hazards it causes (or even, for that matter, medicine or surgery),…
j7uy5 | July 22, 2007This
is from the transcript of a discussion with
href="http://snowe.senate.gov/public/" rel="tag">Olympia
Snowe on
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/22/ftn/main3086832.shtml"
rel="tag">Face the Nation, earlier today:
SCHIEFFER:
Already we’re beginning to hear
American senior officers in Iraq say, `Well, we may not be able to tell
by September if all this is working.’ Will the Senate buy
that?
Sen. SNOWE: I don’t believe so, and, in particular, because
what is pivotal and central to the success of Iraq is the political
accomplishment by the Iraqi government. And…
jlynch | July 22, 2007Over at Obsidian Wings, Hilzoy has a thoughtful post on the lessons we should learn from the Iraq debacle, including #4:
When the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy, it’s worth entertaining the possibility that they might be right. We should not defer to their judgment mindlessly, but we should have what Jefferson called "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
Well worth checking out.
j7uy5 | July 22, 2007
This morning's Washington Post has a headline:
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/21/AR2007072101359.html?hpid=topnews">
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Envoy Urges Visas For
Iraqis Aiding U.S.
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
Targets of Violence Are Seeking Refuge
The idea is that Iraqis who aid the US cause need something to motivate
them. I have an idea. How about giving visas to US
troops so they can come to the USA? Now.
drorzel | July 22, 2007There's been some discussion recently in places I can't link to about the Purpose of Blogging, and whether it's really appropriate to be using the medium to exchange silly pictures of cats. Ethan Zuckerman made an important point about the utility of banality (that link 404's at the moment, but I assume Ethan will eventually fix it. Hint, hint. The post is still on the front page, though):
So while Flickr should be used for displaying pictures of cute cats, it’s also proved an effective tool for avoiding keyword filtering. Activists in China are using Flickr to disseminate images that…
pharyngula | July 20, 2007
This is excellent, but I have a request that I hope Roy grants someday — my personal favorite is "America" from his "Faulty Intelligence" CD. Trust me, it's awesome.
Aww, heck, they're all good. I also want to see him on The Daily Show, and playing on the White House lawn outside GW Bush's window.
oracknows | July 20, 2007Here's a rather interesting wrinkle in the regulation of chiropractors. This time, it's New Jersey:
A recent state court decision has hundreds of chiropractors across the state bent out of shape because it sharply limits what they can legally do.
And while the decision is being appealed to the state Supreme Court and state legislators have proposed amending state law to return the field to where it was, changes are not expected for months.
In the meantime, the decision "definitely wiped out a source of income, because we were able to bill for the extremity adjustment before and now we can't…
clock | July 20, 2007HOUSE BACKS TAXPAYER-FUNDED RESEARCH ACCESS
Final Appropriations Bill Mandates Free Access to NIH Research Findings
Washington, D.C. - July 20, 2007 - In what advocates hailed as a major advance for scientific communication, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved a measure directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide free public online access to agency-funded research findings within 12 months of their publication in a peer-reviewed journal. With broad bipartisan support, the House passed the provision as part of the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education…
j7uy5 | July 20, 2007Science
fiction has often centered on the theme of "what if?"
Many of the finest works have explored alternative futures,
based upon just one or a few changes in contemporary society.
Indeed, science does have a powerful influence on culture, so
some of these alternative futures are quite plausible.
Now, perhaps it is not really science fiction, but
a leading publication asks the question, "What if
href="http://www.whitehouse.org/administration/dick.asp"
rel="tag">Dick Cheney became President?"
(Courtesy of
href="http://www.superdickery.com/dick/5.html">Superdickery.com)