Politics
pharyngula | April 21, 2007Heh…I knew it wouldn't be at all difficult to get a feminist to back me up on my wild and crazy claim that feminists didn't mind getting rude. There's a nice photo of a long-skirted lady in a big hat teaching a British bobby the delicate ways of politesse, too. Maybe the critics can wait until we start roughing up the police before accusing us atheists of bad manners now.
clock | April 21, 2007A must-read by Peter Eichenberger:
How does it feel that North Carolina is becoming a center for profits amid the blatant and egregious blurring of law enforcement and corrections?
With the great sucking sound, that of the vacuuming of personal information of law-abiding Americans emanating from DeeCee, I would enjoin all of you out there to study more carefully what your legislators are turning this place into--just another arm of the entity, the U.S. government, which has gotten us into more huge messes than I have time or interest in recounting.
With regards to corporations like GEO and…
clock | April 21, 2007Never again: Brad Miller on Darfur by Bob Geary:
......I decided one other thing. I could no more imagine Liddy Dole performing in public the way Brad Miller did at Pullen than I could see her admitting that the Bush administration has been a disaster in every conceivable way. Dole doesn't see any mistakes, or at least she doesn't admit them. She's put her energies, since getting elected to the Senate, into Republican politics and nothing else, including fronting the National Republican Senatorial Committee. If she has ever gotten up in front of a small interfaith group and openly agonized…
oracknows | April 21, 2007I hadn't planned on writing again about the horrific massacre at Virginia Tech. After all, what more could I say that hasn't been said before in the blogospheric chatter that's erupted in the five days since the killings? Despicably, everyone's blaming their favorite cause. Fundamentalists are blaming atheism, secularism, and even Charles Darwin for the rampage. We have people making the ridiculous claim that more liberal concealed carry gun laws would have stopped the rampage before so many people died. Never mind that the price over the years for maybe--just maybe--stopping a rare homicidal…
pharyngula | April 21, 2007Darksyde has just announced a few details about the science panels that will be held at the YearlyKos Convention. One relevant piece of information is that I'm the guy in charge of the science caucus, and I have to organize something. If Darksyde had ever seen my office, organization is not a word that would have come to mind…
Anyway, there was a science caucus at last year's convention, too, and it was a bit the-opposite-of-organized. We got together in a big room and started talking, and the conversations all converged on one issue: what the heck are we going to do about this gigantic…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2007It appears that Wolfowitz is either on the outs or he is taking a page from the Gonzales book of management because he failed to show up at a high-profile meeting at the World Bank yesterday;
No explanation was offered for Mr Wolfowitz's absence from the conference in Washington, on the day when the bank's governing board was meeting to discuss the controversy over the president's ordering of promotions and pay rises for his partner, Shaha Riza.
The board, made up of 24 representatives of the bank's member countries, had cleared its agenda to deal with the breach of the bank's ethical rules…
evolvingthoughts | April 20, 2007
I sometimes wonder why anyone ever tried to make a living in Australia. Although it is the least wet continent (unless it is an island) on Earth apart from the Antarctic, where they don't grow a lot, Australians have always used water as if they were still living in Britain, or some other well watered place.
We grow rice and cotton, for gods' sakes, in some of the most arid land there is. We water lawns, and use massive amounts of water in industries and domestically. We now use five times as much water as we did back in the 1980s, in dishwashers, showers, swimming pools and toilets. So…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2007If Gonzo is the best attorney in the United States, I have no faith for the future of the profession.
Ridiculously, the Bush White House referred to the lying scumbag, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as "our No. 1 crime fighter" today, a day after Gonzales' often halting explanations for the firings of eight federal prosecutors brought additional demands for his resignation because he clearly was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"He has done a fantastic job in the Department of Justice," the brain-washed deputy press secretary Dana Perino told reporters traveling aboard Air Force…
clock | April 20, 2007A couple of days ago as I was walking my daughter home from school, I passed a group of people who I immediatelly guessed were associated in some way with the Edwards campaign because they looked so out of place in our little village: overdressed, tense and way too serious!
Then, I recognized one of the faces - from TV! It was Joe Trippi!
Well, he was certyainly not going to come all the way down to Chapel Hill just to have lunch with buddies and enjoy the weather, so I knew something was afoot at the Edwards campaign. But, although I live a spitting distance (OK, if you spit hard…
evolvingthoughts | April 20, 2007
Current media is reporting a relative of Cho, the VT murderer, as saying he was "autistic". I'd like to see a formal diagnosis, because the so-called "autism spectrum disorder" (ASD) scale is, in my view, a ragbag of etiologies based on an overall similarity of symptoms. But suppose he had something like high-function Asperger's...
My son has this, and so do I. Both of us spent our school years being bullied and rejected by our peers, although he had it a lot worse than I did until fairly recently. And both of us tend, when the pressure is too great, to strike out to get away. I always hit…
jlynch | April 19, 2007Roll call is reporting that the FBI has raided a business tied to Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) as part of an ongoing investigation into the lawmaker. Knowledgeable readers may remember that there are suspicions that Paul Charlton, the former U.S. Attorney in Arizona, was deep-sixed by Alberto Gonzalez in part because of his probe into Renzi's activities.
Details of the raid on Patriot Insurance Agency in Sonoita, Ariz., were not immediately available. Renzi's most recent financial disclosure form lists the business as an asset belonging to his wife, Roberta, and valued at $1 million to $5…
oracknows | April 19, 2007Remember Jim McGreevey, the former Governor of New Jersey, who resigned nearly three years ago in disgrace because of an adulterous homosexual affair, as well as his having tried to give his boy toy, Golan Cipel, a high-ranking state job for which he was utterly unqualified, namely Homeland Security Advisor?
What do you think would be the perfect job for him now? In New Jersey, it would be teaching a course at Kean University on ethics, of course:
James E. McGreevey, who resigned the governorship under a cloud of scandal, has a new job teaching law, ethics and leadership at one of New Jersey'…
grrlscientist | April 19, 2007Some friends were saying they were going to engage in a drinking game where they would have one drink every time Alberto Gonzales said "I don't remember"or "I don't recall" or something to that effect during today's congressional heaaring. I have no idea if they have actually done this because I haven't heard from any of them today. Of course, they could all be in the hospital for alcohol poisoning right now since Gonzo said some permutation of "I don't remember" 71 times today.
I've never met anyone with such a faulty memory as Gonzo apparently has -- and this, after one month of "…
oracknows | April 19, 2007Richard Dawkins will be interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor on Monday, April 23.
Talk about walking into the lion's den! I'm not sure this is such a good idea on Richard Dawkins' part. The problem, of course, is that Bill O'Reilly blusters and yells and doesn't let guests that he doesn't like talk. I have to wonder if Dawkins knows what he's in for. Even though he's almost certainly capable of handling a bully when both are on equal terms, O'Reilly controls the microphone and the show; he won't tolerate being slapped down the way he deserves. Being on The Colbert Report (…
grrlscientist | April 19, 2007I am not sure how many of you are listening to the Gonzales hearings, but you can pick them up, live and streaming, from WNYC-AM. Basically, as summarized in the below cited transcript, Gonzales is in trouble, and will either have to admit he is lying under oath or that he is an absentee/incompetent leader .. either situation is sufficient for removal from office -- unless of course, you are a Bush supporter.
Seriously, why wouldn't the Congress judge Gonzales by the same standards that he applied to the eight US Attorneys whom he fired? Gonzo says he "made mistakes", but seriously, there…
drorzel | April 19, 2007The other night, while ranting to Kate between my posted rants about Virginia Tech (have I mentioned that she's way too good to me?), I mentioned in passing that the gun control debate is one of the two great brain-sucking quagmire arguments of American politics, where even a passing mention ends up with all the particpants being trapped in an endless and pointless argument that accomplishes nothing.
"What's the other one?" she asked.
"Abortion."
And today, I see that Scalzi's proving me right. Thanks, John.
pharyngula | April 18, 2007Let's support the troops! I always thought those stupid yellow ribbon magnets that people stuck on their cars were insulting in their triviality, but I did not know how low we could sink in the insipidity of token nods to those who are making sacrifices in the services. Mike Dunford received some helpful email from the military:
Effective immediately, the word "Families" will be capitalized in all Army correspondence. Please ensure wide dissemination of this change. Thanks for your continued efforts to do all you can to provide steadfast support to our Army Families.
There's an "F" word on…
grrlscientist | April 18, 2007Curiouser and curiouser: I ran across a disturbing news story today about the Virginia Tech gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, that boldly states;
Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search. [story]
Um, excuse me? Since…
grrlscientist | April 18, 2007
This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow [Bigger and more readable].
.
tags: Modern World cartoon, politics, humor
drorzel | April 18, 2007Orac is struggling to understand the problem with "framing," and thinks he has the answer:
I've concluded that a lot of issues underlying this kerfuffle may be the difference between the "pure" scientists and science teachers (like PZ and Larry Moran, for example), who are not dependent upon selling their science for the continued livelihood of their careers, and scientists like me, who are, not to mention nonscientist journalists and communications faculty (like Mooney and Nisbet), for whom communication is their career.
That's a thought, but I think the answer is much simpler: PZ and Larry…