Politics
jstemwedel | May 18, 2007Ann Althouse asks why schools should bother having kids read fiction:
And why does reading even need to be a separate subject from history in school? Give them history texts and teach reading from them. Science books too. Leave the storybooks for pleasure reading outside of school. They will be easier reading, and with well-developed reading skills, kids should feel pleasure curling up with a novel at home. But even if they don't, why should any kind of a premium be placed on an interest in reading novels? It's not tied to economic success in life and needn't be inculcated any more than an…
pharyngula | May 18, 2007Ralph Reed is a sleazy con artist who hides his predatory nature behind a mask of piety; Hannity is a slow-witted thug with a simple-minded view of the world that he takes straight from the religious. It was therefore rather delightful to see Christopher Hitchens plainly reject their ridiculous demand for a hypocritical expression of sorrow at the death of a rich old shaman.
I was particularly appalled at Hannity's list of Falwell's virtues that included founding Liberty University. If founding a compound where ignorance is encouraged to fester is one of his accomplishments, I will admit…
j7uy5 | May 17, 2007
With Wolfowitz out, Gonzalez on the way, can they even be seriious
aboutthis nomination?
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/18/washington/18safety.html?ex=1337140800&en=41c7eca6618bb131&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">Bush
Asked to Reconsider Safety Nominee
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: May 18, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 17 -- Senate Democrats urged President Bush on Thursday
to withdraw his nomination of a top lobbyist from the National
Association of Manufacturers to lead the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, saying the candidate was unqualified and the…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2007tags: hunger, poverty, food stamps
Apparently, our congresscritters are having difficulty feeding themselves on what the average person gets for food stamps. Basically, food stamp benefits provide 26 million Americans with roughly $1 per meal, or $3 for an entire day's worth of food. Food stamps is the major anti-hunger program in this country designed to help people get enough food to eat. To learn first-hand how difficult it is to live on food stamps, several legislators are participating in "the Food Stamp Challenge" where they attempt to feed themselves on just $3 per day for one week.
"…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2007tags: politics, Democrat, Republican, satisfaction, Gallup poll
How satisfied are you with the state of your country? That apparently depends upon whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. According to today's newly released Gallup poll, a sudden drop was reported in its regular "satisfaction" index. Only 25% of Americans claim they satisfied with the state of their country. This is down 8% in just one month, and is one of the lowest satisfaction indices ever measured.
"The current 25% satisfaction level is very low by historical standards," Gallup explained. "Since Gallup first asked this…
purepedantry | May 16, 2007Whoa. Check out the Senate Judiciary Committee testimony by Former Justice Department Deputy James Comey. Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales accosted John Ashcroft in his ICU bed to get him to change his mind the legality of the Administration's dosmestic surveillance program:
The room was dark. Mrs. Ashcroft was standing by the bed. Comey said that Ashcroft, in his sixth day in intensive care, was not in good shape. He was unfocused, disoriented.
"And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card," Comey said. "They came…
grrlscientist | May 16, 2007tags: superduperfriends, parody, humor, streaming video
This streaming political parody of the Challenge of the Superfriends is something I think you will enjoy watching [1:04].
evolvingthoughts | May 15, 2007
So, Oprah is sending The Secret back to Australia. It's starting to get TV coverage here. Oy. Look guys, when we export Woo to the US, we really don't want it returned, OK?
The Secret appears to be (backed by "leading philosophers? Yeah, right) basically the idea that if you really really want something, and visualise it, it will happen. Imagine what the universe would need to be like for that to happen...
First of all, it would need to care about human desires. The universe really, really doesn't care. The universe is entirely indifferent to us, our goals, preferences and desires. Most…
grrlscientist | May 15, 2007tags: Wolfowitz, World Bank, politics
It appears that Wolfowitz, who has been the fearless leader of the World Bank, has been abusing and threatening retaliations on senior World Bank staff if his orders for pay rises and promotions for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, were revealed. According to testimony by one key witness, Wolfowitz declares: "If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too." Wow, considering the amount of misbehavior on his part, it's easy to see that he is not a professional at all! How on earth did he even get a job, in the first place?
Under fire for…
pharyngula | May 15, 2007For only $399, you can send your kids away to spend a few days this summer with Ollie North, professional traitor, frolicking about on a military base and pretending to be brave warriors with absolutely no risk. It's the perfect activity for young Republican chickenhawks-in-training. It's an organization called the "Freedom Alliance Military Leadership Academy", and it claims to be training the next generation of American leaders.
That's really all we need: a generation of leaders who think of war as a fun summer outing.
It's clear, though, that the real intent of this exercise is to let…
j7uy5 | May 15, 2007What
is the correct follow-up for an impeachmint?
There
is only one possible answer...
evolvingthoughts | May 14, 2007
John Locke, in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) argued that the rule of law and the imposition of religion ought to be two different things, and only the former ought to be a civil matter. All religions were to be tolerated. Having done a good thing in the context of the religious wars of Europe, Locke then did a bad thing which continues to echo today. He wrote:
Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in…
oracknows | May 14, 2007Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it.
I say this in light of a commenter, who decided to show up in one of my old posts to claim "positive results" from dichloroacetate (DCA), the small molecule experimental cancer drug that has shown promising activity in rat models of cancer but has not yet been subjected to testing in human trials, and invite me to check out new testimonials. Because DCA is a small molecule that is inexpensive to produce and can't itself be patented (although a patent for its use in treating cancer, a weaker form of patent, is possible), pharmaceutical…
grrlscientist | May 14, 2007tags: politics, streaming video
For those of you who missed this the first time around, I thought I'd share this with you now. It made me laugh!
j7uy5 | May 13, 2007The
LA Times reports on the Senate passage of a bill that should enhance
the oversight of drug safety by the FDA. Numerous posts here
on ScienceBlogs, and elsewhere, have commented on the problems with
safety oversight. The existence of these problems has been no
secret since the Vioxx problem came to light a few years ago.
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href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fda10may10,1,7947418,full.story?coll=la-…
pharyngula | May 13, 2007As I mentioned earlier, I had to beg off on moderating the YearlyKos science caucus this year. I am pleased to say, though, that my replacement is Tara Smith.
Now watch. People are going to flock to YearlyKos and tell the organizers they were so impressed with Dr Smith and they sure are glad that Myers twit wasn't there, and I'll never get invited to the meeting again.
stoat | May 12, 2007From the title, you can tell I'm not very keen on him. I'm writing this not because my thoughts are terribly valuable on him, but because its a convenient place for me to write this where I'll remember it. Because on previous things - like, say, the invasion of Kosovo - I've tended to forget, after, what my thoughts were, before, under pressure of events.
At the moment, Blairs reputation is dominated by the disaster of Iraq. Since this is a real disaster for which he shares a lot of the blame, this is fair (I know it was mostly US troops but our (his) support seems to have been very important…
voltagegate | May 12, 2007I was pointed to an interesting video experiment this morning called Ecolanguage, which attempts to describe complex systems - societal, economical and ecological - through the use of simple animations and symbols. It's a neat idea, up to date, and well researched, but I suppose that the specific parameters of each system could be debated. See for yourself. I think there's a definite need for alternative descriptive methodologies, and this fits neatly into that "niche."
Thus far, the producer of these video shorts has about a dozen posted at YouTube; two of the best are posted below.
Nature…
evolvingthoughts | May 12, 2007
In what is for this furriner a somewhat perplexing column, Kathleen Parker, who is supposedly one of the Washington Post stable of writers, argues that the question asked of Republican nominees for presidency - Do you believe in evolution? - was unfair.
I fail to see why. Sure, nobody expects the president to select the next generation of successful breeders for any generation, but this is a good surrogate test of whether or not the candidate thinks science is to be trusted, or whether they think, as this administration odes, that they can choose the reality in which they operate with…
tsmith | May 12, 2007....or, where I impersonate PZ.
As PZ noted last month, he was tapped to moderate the science caucus at YearlyKos, featuring fellow Sciencebloggers Chris Mooney and Ed Brayton, along with Cosmic Variance's Sean Carroll. However, PZ had to go and get himself some other plans, and I was fortunate enough to be chosen to step in. It's still early, so I'm brainstorming and have read the comments at Pharyngula and DailyKos regarding what everyone would like to get out of the science sessions at YearlyKos, but in case you didn't see either of those threads the first time around, or if you did…