Politics
j7uy5 | May 12, 2007
rel="tag">
Jack
Lessenberry
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> is fairly well known in
Ann Arbor, being an historian, journalist, and senior political analyst
(or something like that, I can't remember his exact title) for
href="http://www.michiganradio.org/">WUOM.
A year ago, he wrote:
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">
href="http://jackshow.blogs.com/jack/2006/01/essay_thinking_.html">Essay:
Thinking About Impeachment - 1/18/06
If you had to place a bet on anything, one of the safest wagers I can
think of is that President George W. Bush will NOT be…
revere | May 11, 2007Too hilarious. Mitt Romney, one of the most successful fundraisers of the Republican dopefuls who still can't get any traction even among the right wing Republican base, may be one of the more gullible. No, I guess the three scientific midgets who publicly declared they don't believe in evolution (Brownback, Tancredo, Huckabee) have to take that prize. But he's at least a runner-up. We honor him because he actually believes the French have instituted a seven year marriage renewal option:
"It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking," Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000…
grrlscientist | May 11, 2007tags: war profiteering, KBR, politics, streaming video
Ninety-nine dollars to wash a bag of laundry?? That's what it costs a soldier to get his laundry done for him -- because he is not allowed to do it for himself. This war is just one huge mess .. when will this country ever leave Iraq? After KBR and Halliburton have bankrupted the USA?
Progressive film director Robert Greenwald was scheduled to testify at a hearing on Thursday, 10 May about war profiteering. He requested to show a few minutes from one of his films, Iraq for Sale, but Republicans refused him. This is what Congress will not…
pharyngula | May 10, 2007Neddie finds something rather disturbing: a border guard leaving a comment in a blog, flaunting his knowledge of the comings and goings of the blogger at a border crossing. It's vaguely threatening, in a "I know where you live" kind of way. The assertion that "you do not have a right to privacy" is even more creepy—I think someone on the border patrol is a little too full of himself.
I've driven up to Canada a couple of times now, and the remarkable contrast has been how pleasant and casual the guards at the entry into Canada have been, and how surly, snide, and officious the guards coming…
pharyngula | May 10, 2007Some conservative named Patrick Hynes is unhappy that the Republican candidates were asked their opinion of evolution. His argument is two-pronged: it is reasonable to disagree with scientific opinions on the matter, and it is unreasonable to ask the politicians of his party what their opinion of a scientific issue might be.
And here's another tip for you, Skip: As I pointed out in In Defense of the Religious Right in a chapter titled "I Scream, You Scream, but We are The Mainstream," everyday Americans are firmly on the side of evolution skeptics:
Seventy-eight percent of all Americans…
jrosenhouse | May 9, 2007You really have to have a look at this column, from David Limbaugh, posted at Town Hall. It is simply not to be believed.
The title: Leftist Thought Control. I'd respond to Limbuagh's arguments but for the fact that he doesn't provide any. Instead he simply makes assertion after assertion about how the left does not brook dissent about evolution, homosexual rights or global warming. The assertions are tripped out with anecdotes so vague they are impossible to respond to. Familiar stuff.
What makes the column remarkable, however, are its internal contradictions and complete disregard for…
drorzel | May 9, 2007Two more quick observations from last night's Wesley Clark event. Or, rather, one from the event, and one from dinner beforehand. Both strike me as fairly general principles about political discourse:
1) Your current political opinions are interesting in inverse proportion to the number of times you use the word "fascist" or variants thereof. Likewise "communist" and variants thereof.
2) A colleague observed at dinner that a really remarkable number of problems are, at their base, due to people failing to understand irony or metaphor. Or, in his more colorful phrasing, "People who can't…
drorzel | May 9, 2007As previously mentioned, Wesley Clark spoke on campus last night. The speech was pretty much what you'd expect from a once and future (?) Presidential aspirant with his background: he mostly talked about military matters, stressing that George Bush bad, Americ good, puppies and apple pie, yay! OK, not so much the puppies and apple pie, but, you get the idea.
A student had warned me earlier in the day that some students were planning to protest Clark's appearance, but I apparently got there too late to catch them (I came in only a couple of minutes before the talk started). I did read one of…
jstemwedel | May 8, 2007Since many of you were kind enough to suggest questions to ask of Margaret Spellings at SJSU's Founders Day "The Future of Higher Education" panel last Friday, I thought I should report back on that session.
First, the bad (but utterly predictable) news: while Margaret Spellings gave the keynote address, she didn't stick around for the panel discussion afterwards -- so she wasn't there for the question and answer period. However, the panel of experts certainly had something to say about the Spellings Commission report on higher education.
It was striking, as CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed…
oracknows | May 8, 2007In rapid succession after the last pontificating and bloviating article claiming that there will never be a cure for cancer because it would be too financially disastrous to the medical economy, I've been made aware of another pontificating and bloviating article decrying the state of cancer research today, entitled Curing Cancer: Running on Vapor, Remedy: More Brainpower, Less Hype, by George L. Gabor Miklos, Ph.D. and Phillip J. Baird, M.D., Ph.D. On first glance, it looks like a bold proposal for a necessary change of direction in our cancer research effort. Sadly, it doesn't deliver on…
voltagegate | May 8, 2007Heather* has been working on a few politically charged editorial comics for the Union of Concerned Scientist's second annual Science Idol contest:
We're looking for your creative take on the issue of political interference in science. Submit one-panel or multi-panel print cartoons that address the misuse of science on a specific issue or in general. But before you put pen to paper, please check out the contest guidelines to make sure you're on the right track.
Grand prize is $500 bucks, cartoon featured on the cover of the calendar featuring all 12 finalists and a lunch in DC with Tom Toles.…
grrlscientist | May 7, 2007tags: employment, politics
Correct me if I am wrong, but has Wolfowitz been in trouble for only a month or so? How many of you have had a job that you could quit due to political reasons, rather than rent reasons? And does that make those people more ethical than the rest of us? I certainly never have had a job in my life I could leave on a moment's notice (and for political reasons) and I suspect that most of you haven't, either;
Kevin Kellems said an ongoing scandal surrounding his boss made it difficult for him to remain effective in his role at the Washington-based institution.
Oh, cry…
grrlscientist | May 7, 2007tags: middle east, Onion, humor, satire
I have been reading The Onion on and off for most of my life. It's stories such as this one, about the Middle East conflict, that keep me coming back for more.
With the Iraq war in its fifth year, the war in Afghanistan in its sixth, and conflict between Israel and the rest of the region continuing unabated for more than half a century, intelligence sources are warning that a new wave of violence in the Middle East may soon blah blah blah, etc. etc., you know the rest.
"Tensions in the region are extremely high," said U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan…
jrosenhouse | May 7, 2007Last Thursday the American Enterprise Institute sponsored a debate on the subject of Darwinism and Conservatism. A video of the debate is available online, but I haven't had a chance to view it yet. In the meantime, I'll have to make do with this article from The New York Times.
Over the years evolution has been used in the service of a great many political viewpoints. In Darwin's time, what we might call the “pro-Darwinian right” argued for Social Darwinism. You can still find strains of this thinking in the political right today. Nowadays, however, the pro-Darwinian-right, as…
drorzel | May 7, 2007Former general and presidential candidate Wesley Clark is going to be speaking on campus tomorrow night. I don't expect there to be a lot of question time at this, but I'm fairly good at getting a chance to ask questions at these things, so if anyone has a suggestion of a really good question to ask him, leave it in the comments, and I'll see what I can do.
pharyngula | May 7, 2007She beat Brownback. She trounced Tancredo. She even clobbered Coburn. America's Holiest Congressperson is Minnesota's own Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Bachmann, an Evangelical Lutheran, and self-professed "fool for Christ," ran for Congress because God—and her husband—wanted her to. The representative publicly credited her campaign to her submission to her husband, who was channeling God's wishes for her.
Prior to this higher calling, Bachmann earned a law degree from Coburn, an affiliate of Oral Roberts University, and helped found a charter school where she reportedly worked to prevent the…
clock | May 6, 2007Three out of ten Republican presidential candidates raised hands in the recent debate indicating they do not believe in evolution. Jason has an excellent round-up of responses (Arianna Huffington rocks!) with some good comments by readers as well. How can you help combat scientific ignorance? If your blog is NOT a science blog, try to do what Mike suggests and link to five science-related posts every week.
There is plenty of stuff here at scienceblogs.com, but you can also use this page when you are looking for science posts, especially the science-related carnivals listed at the very…
revere | May 6, 2007To my friends in France:
This is without doubt a dark and bitter day for you.
Les hommes avaient perdu le goût
De vivre, et se foutaient de tout
Leurs mères, leurs frangins, leurs nanas
Pour eux c'était qu'du cinéma
Le ciel redevenait sauvage,
Le béton bouffait l'paysage... alors
The US elections in 2004 were similar and I remember the despair. Sarkozy is another Bush.
Les loups
Les loups ont envahi Paris
Soit par Issy, soit par Ivry
Les loups ont envahi Paris
Cessez de rire, charmante Elvire
Les loups ont envahi Paris.
But the dark clouds of 2004 have given way to patches of blue sky…
oracknows | May 6, 2007You know our tort system is messed up when stuff like this can happen:
(AP) The Chungs, immigrants from South Korea, realized their American dream when they opened their dry-cleaning business seven years ago in the nation's capital. For the past two years, however, they've been dealing with the nightmare of litigation: a $65 million lawsuit over a pair of missing pants.
Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are so disheartened that they're considering moving back to Seoul, said their attorney, Chris Manning, who spoke on their behalf.
"They're out a lot of money, but more…