Politics
j7uy5 | May 5, 2007Sometimes
newspapers raise more questions than they answer. In the case
of this WaPo editorial about Medicare, I find myself wishing that they
had done a little more research.
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050401871.html">Unsustainable
Medicare
Fixes
for the program's funding will be needed soon.
Saturday,
May 5, 2007; Page A16
THE
RELEASE last week of the annual report of the Medicare trustees
underscores an unavoidable fact that too many politicians have
nonetheless been avoiding for too long: Of all the entitlement
programs,…
clock | May 5, 2007Writing actual science posts takes a lot of time, research, thinking and energy. I assembled a large pile of papers I want to comment on and I actually started writing posts about a couple of them already, but Real Life interferes...and it is so much easier and quicker to post a short opinion-post or a linkfest.
Also, my mind has lately been mostly focused on Science Blogging, more Science Blogging, Open Science, Open Notebook Science, organizing the next Science Blogging Conference, Framing Science, Teaching Science and similar stuff I've been reading about a lot lately due to the…
oracknows | May 5, 2007If you ever wonder about the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in separating church and state in the Constitution and banning the imposition of a state religion, just look to this story from Malaysia for the sorts of things that can happen when a nation is governed according to religious law:
A Muslim woman forcibly separated from her Hindu husband by Malaysia's Islamic authorities after 21 years of happy marriage wept inconsolably yesterday after a judge endorsed her decision to hand custody of six of her seven children to her former spouse.
In an unprecedented move for Malaysia - where Islamic…
grrlscientist | May 5, 2007tags: Jon Stewart, Glory Goals, streaming video
Jon Stewart has a great idea for how to get Bush and the Republicans to agree on timetables for withdrawal from Iraq -- rename them "glory goals!" Who can disagree with "glory goals?!"
pharyngula | May 5, 2007Christopher Hitchens' appearance on the Daily Show was a disappointment—largely because Hitchens seemed to be half in the bag, and Stewart kept stepping all over his words trying to make them funny, and the short format was not to the favor of a fellow who tends to speak in complete sentences and paragraphs. So how about a half hour interview with an alert Hitchens, with an interviewer who's interested in hearing what he has to say, and gives him the opportunity to speak at more length? Here's Hitchens on the Charlie Rose show.
Much better, even if I disagreed strongly with Hitchens on much…
jrosenhouse | May 4, 2007In last night's Republican candidates debate, the topic of evolution was briefly mentioned. As I discussed here, McCain said plainly that he “believed in” evolution, but then quickly qualified his answer by adding that he also believed in God. Three other candidates (Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo) raised their hands when asked to affirm their lack of belief in evolution.
IHere are some responses I've found around the web. I'll present them without comment.
From Jonah Goldberg at National Review:
I know there are Intelligent Design fans among our readers, but I found the string of…
drorzel | May 4, 2007As mentioned previously, there was a talk on campus last night by a couple of activists, Michael Berg and Joan Mandle. Berg is an anti-war activist, best known as the father of Nick Berg who was infamously beheaded on video in Iraq. He's also a former Green Party candidate for Congress in Delaware. Mandle is the Executive Director of Democracy Matters, a student activist group dedicated to election reform.
Berg's story was mostly personal, and very interesting, but I don't have a great deal to say about it. Mandle's talk was more a straigthforward pitch for public financing of elections…
j7uy5 | May 4, 2007
Two US senators,
href="http://byrd.senate.gov/newsroom/news_may/byrd_clinton_call_for_ending_2002_iraq_resolution.html">Robert
Byrd and one other, are suggesting now that Congress try a
href="http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/?hpid=news-col-blogs">different
approach for ending the war in Iraq. That would
entail legislation that would end the authorization to the use of
military force. It would cause the original AUMF to "sunset"
in October of this year. A White House spokesperson,
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Perino" rel="tag">
Dana Perino,
href="…
jrosenhouse | May 3, 2007Moving on, we then had an interesting exchange with Governor Romney:
MR. MATTHEWS: Governor Romney, what do you say to Roman Catholic bishops who would deny communion to elected officials who support abortion rights?
MR. ROMNEY: I don't say anything to Roman Catholic bishops. They can do whatever the heck they want. (Laughter.) Roman Catholic bishops are in a private institution, a religion, and they can do whatever they want in a religion. America --
MR. MATTHEWS: Do you see that as interference in public life?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, I can't imagine a government telling a church who can have…
jrosenhouse | May 3, 2007The New York Times has posted a transcript of the big Republican candidates deabte. So, as promised, let's have a look at some other items of interest.
Here's Governor Huckabee trying desperately to avoid saying he believes global warming is a real problem:
MR. VANDEHEI: Governor Huckabee, this question comes from Curtis Waldman (sp) from Boca Raton, Florida. Thousands of reputable scientists have concluded with almost certainty that human activity is responsible for the warming of the Earth. Do you believe global warming exists?
GOV. HUCKABEE: The most important thing about global warming…
jrosenhouse | May 3, 2007There were a number of interesting tidbits in the Republican candidates debate tonight. There was the spectacle of Mitt Romney desperately trying to explain away his flip-flop on abortion. There was the stampede to declare embryonic stem-cell research immoral and unnecessary, culminating with Colorado representative Tom Tancredo's declaration that such research is “reprehensible.” But the one that really caught my ear was the brief discussion of evolution.
John McCain was asked directly, “Do you believe in evolution?”
The answer, after a brief pause, was a simple, if somewhat uncomfortable…
clock | May 3, 2007I don't watch TV almost at all, but I turned it on for a minute earlier today. I thought it was some kind of monthypythonesque satire, or perhaps that the 'American Funniest Videos' has really reached the bottom of the barrel since I last saw it several years ago...but then I noticed the title of the show was "The Republican Primary Debate"! Oh, that explains why there was no canned laughter all the time! There should have been.
It is really disheartening to see that these people are taken seriously, not laughed at by the pundits, and that their so-called Party is considered to be…
pharyngula | May 3, 2007I don't want to talk about it — I despise the whole field — but everyone is emailing me about it, and I was even talking to my mother on the phone tonight and she asked me about it (I said I wouldn't watch those weasels unless they were in a crotch-kicking contest). I'll let this thread open up for a free-for-all discussion of the cacophony.
All I've heard so far is that a) they avoided talking about Bush, preferring to measure themselves against Reagan (Reagan was almost as great an incompetent as the current resident, so they're obviously aiming low), and b) when they were asked about…
j7uy5 | May 3, 2007
Congress sent the President an appropriations bill that suggested a
timetable for the withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq. He vetoed it. When
President Bush vetoed the bill, he
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/02/AR2007050202410.html">signed
the veto with a pen handed to him by the father of a Marine
who'd been killed in battle.
Although I disagree with the veto, I do think it was a nice touch for
him to include a citizen in a ceremony that was meaningful to that
citizen.
It was only the second time Bush has vetoed anything, so these…
oracknows | May 3, 2007It figures.
What does a guy like Jim McGreevey, former Governor of New Jersey who resigned in disgrace nearly three years ago when it was revealed that he had cheated on his wife with a man and that he had tried to appoint his boy-toy to a government position for which he was utterly unqualified (Homeland Security Advisor) and for which he couldn't get the necessary security clearance because he is not a U.S. citizen, do next? Well, if it's New Jersey, he could teach ethics. But if that's unsatisfying, there's always one other thing he could do.
He could enter the seminary and become an…
grrlscientist | May 3, 2007tags: day of reason, religion, secular humanist, politics
In response to the federally-supported National Day of Prayer, which is an abuse of the constitution, a group of nontheists and traditional religious allies who value the separation of church and state, have declared today the National Day of Reason. This day is being observed on the first Thursday of May, which is the National Day of Prayer.
What is the purpose of the National Day of Reason? It exists to encourage the secular and religious organizations to effect positive change in their communities. The goal of this effort is to…
grrlscientist | May 2, 2007tags: MacDonald, USFWS, endangered species, politics
Some of you might not yet know this, but in the highly charged atmosphere that that existed at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Julie A. MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary who oversaw the USFWS endangered species program, finally has resigned. After an egregious and ongoing abuse of power, MacDonald was finally rebuked for altering scientific documents to reduce protections for endangered species and for providing internal documents to lobbyists.
MacDonald is a civil engineer with no formal training in natural sciences and who clearly…
hrynyshyn | May 2, 2007It's been a bad week for the US Interior Department, and it's only Tuesday. First a deputy assistant secretary resigned after her habit of passing endangered species information to private groups was exposed for all to see. Then more than three dozen scientists signed a letter condemning the Bush administration's interpretation of the Endangered Species Act. That would make it a good week for endangered species, though.
Julie MacDonald's resignation came a week before the beginning of a series of House committee hearings on political interference with biologists. Seems an inspector general's…
grrlscientist | May 2, 2007tags: tainted pet food, melamine, Food and Drug Administration, FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, politics
In view of the current problems with melamine-tainted pet foods, and the fact that these foods escaped detection by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for so long, a growing number of people are concerned about the safety of human foods as well. Obviously, based on this tainted pet food fiasco, the FDA is ill-equipped to test imported foods for safety and as a result, who is to say that these poisoned pet foods are not a "trial run" for something bigger, something that can cause wholesale…
pharyngula | May 2, 2007Uh-oh—Neddie is channeling Al Swearengen again. If anything is going to resurrect the restless spirit of a hard, profane thug, it's got to be the recent mess of an affair with Wolfowitz.