Politics
evolvingthoughts | April 2, 2007
Revere at Effect Measure has an update and discussion of the Elsevier arms trade issue that is worth reading for its measuredness (natch!).
clock | April 1, 2007What? All the media report that Hillary Clinton raised a record amount and is clearly in the lead? Oh, who ever said that journalists know how to calculate? You know, math is hard. But let me explain. Point by point.
This, the first quarter, is absolutely the most important because it is the ONLY one that gets reported by the media. All the money that comes in later is important for the functioning of the campaign, but if the 1st quarter brings in a lot of media attention that emboldens more donors to give more money - it is a feed-forward system. Those who underperform in the 1st…
grrlscientist | April 1, 2007According to a panel of UN scientists, postponed bird migrations and early flower blooms are not the only effects that will occur as the result of global climate change. Within the next 50 years, poverty will increase, combined with a lack of drinking water, an increased rate of glacial melting and an increasing number of vanishing species unless action is taken to tackle global warming.
The warning will be part of the latest report, to be released on Friday, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of more than 2,000 international scientists assessing global warming.
The…
grrlscientist | April 1, 2007Bush is an invade-aholic .. this streaming video shows a dramatic reenactment of the Bush intervention that recently took place in the White House.
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tags: Bush intervention, politics, humor, streaming video
oracknows | April 1, 2007Palm Sunday seems an opportune time to mention how religious sensitivity all too often seeks to muzzle artistic expression and freedom of speech in the U.S. You may have heard of Cosimo Cavallaro's 200 lb. milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus on the cross called My Sweet Lord that was getting religious nutcase Bill Donohue so up in arms last week, leading to some threatening-sounding language while calling for a boycott of the hotel that houses the gallery where the sculpture was to be displayed during Holy Week:
As I've said many times before, Lent is the season for non-believers to sow seeds…
jlynch | March 31, 2007Well, we know where McCain's priorities lie:
An Arizona Republic analysis of voting records found that McCain has missed 42 votes this session. That's 33 percent of the 126 roll-call votes that had been held before lawmakers left town Friday for a weeklong Easter recess.
Only Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., has missed more votes than McCain, a contender for the GOP nomination. Johnson, who is recovering from a brain hemorrhage last winter, has been absent for the entire session of Congress.
Leading candidates for the Democratic nomination have posted far better voting records. New York Democrat…
clock | March 31, 2007The best way to make it easy for the low-brow followers to kill the enemy is to dehumanize it. That is what right-wing talking-heads have been doing for a while. Of course, if someone actually gets killed, they did not do it - they were just telling "jokes" on radio or TV.
oracknows | March 31, 2007Why is it that the concepts of freedom of religion and freedom of speech seem so hard for some people to understand? Witness a truly idiotic attempt to prevent someone from appearing on TV simply because he is a Scientologist:
March 31, 2007 -- - A German official is demanding that John Travolta be uninvited from a guest appearance on a popular German television show tonight because he's a Scientologist, but show officials insist he will appear as scheduled.
Guenther Oettinger, the state governor of Baden-Wuerttemberg, wants Travolta off "Wanna Bet?" a popular show in Germany seen by an…
j7uy5 | March 31, 2007A
while back, I posted about a nutty thing Eric Keroack said:
id="a026724"
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2006/11/premarital_sex_is_really_moder.php">PRE-MARITAL
SEX is really MODERN GERM WARFARE...
I was not the only one criticizing him; a total of
href="http://scienceblogs.com/sample/fastsearch?order=date&IncludeBlogs=49%2C83%2C3%2C11%2C8%2C55%2C64%2C10%2C87%2C60%2C22%2C80%2C15%2C78%2C52%2C4%2C48%2C45%2C63%2C14%2C25%2C53%2C69%2C50%2C42%2C89%2C5%2C47%2C90%2C71%2C9%2C62%2C16%2C38%2C67%2C43%2C73%2C81%2C44%2C79%2C23%2C7%2C41%2C46%2C17%2C61%2C82%2C54%2C74%2C85%2C70%…
clock | March 30, 2007On her blog, of course:
For my money, John Edwards is the best candidate out there. Clinton has Iraqi and American blood on her hands; Obama has yet to lay out clear economic alternatives; and, although they might once have been Republican moderates, McCain and Giuliani are shamelessly snuggling up to the Christianist Right. I like Edwards because he's taken up the banner of the little guy and gal in America's grossly one-sided class war. He's laid out a plan for universal health insurance; he wants to repeal Bush's tax cuts for the rich; he shows up at workers' picket lines.
I met him on a…
grrlscientist | March 30, 2007The White House is livid with Nancy Pelosi because she will visit Syria next week -- presumably to fraternize with terrorists. Snert. Nevermind that the 911 terrorists were mostly Saudis, that for decades the Bush family has been on kissing terms with the Saudi Royal Family and other Saudi elites, and that the bin Laden family funded W's first venture into oil -- which means that the Bushies truly are fraternizing with known terrorists. I am pleased to see someone finally acting like an adult by actually speaking to some of the countries concerned about the state of things in the Middle East…
voltagegate | March 30, 2007Another gem of North American history is being threatened by drilling (the links are inserted):
Cimarex Energy Company, a natural gas company out of Denver, Colorado, has proposed two natural gas pads with 4 wells on the southern boundary of Chaco Canyon NHP on state of New Mexico Trust land. The two locations would be within visual distance of the Visitor Center of Chaco Canyon NHP and could significantly impact archeological-astronomical features at Chaco Canyon, that are a primary reason for Chaco Canyon's designation as a World Heritage Site.
Afarensis has the full details of what you can…
grrlscientist | March 29, 2007Kyle Sampson tells the senate that Gonzo lied regarding the dismissals of the eight US prosecutors.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrongly stated he was not involved in discussions about the firings of federal prosecutors, his former chief of staff told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.
"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate," testified Kyle Sampson, who quit this month as Gonzales' top aide. "I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign." [story…
pharyngula | March 29, 2007Well, I've been wrong all this time. It's always been my opinion that if someone says they're a Christian, they're a Christian — I'm not going to nit-pick fine theological distinctions with someone, and if they want to claim the soiled and tattered title of Christianity, they're welcome to it. An important figure in American religion and politics, James Dobson, has shown me to be wrong. He has his own special definition of "Christian".
"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't…
grrlscientist | March 28, 2007Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, says in remarks prepared for delivery to Congress tomorrow that eight federal prosecutors were fired last year because they did not sufficiently support President Bush's priorities.
"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial," Sampson said. "A U.S. attorney who is unsuccessful from a political perspective ... is unsuccessful."
Separately, the Justice Department admitted Wednesday it gave senators inaccurate information about the firings and…
j7uy5 | March 28, 2007
A few years ago, the more progressive elements in the Blogosphere were
pressing for impeachment of the President. They were upset
that the traditional media were not going along.
Prior to the 2004 election, when you could not turn your head without
seeing another poll result, major news and polling organizations
refused to even ask about the impeament question, saying it was not
part of the national political debate. In other words, nobody
even took seriously the possibility that the President could be
impeached.
Eventually, a group called
href="http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/…
oracknows | March 28, 2007It's been a bad few days.
A mere four days after Elizabeth Edwards announced that her breast cancer had recurred in her rib, with an update the other day saying that the apparently was also another lesion in in her hip, I learn from a commenter and multiple other sources that White House Press Secretary Tony Snow has suffered a recurrence of his colon cancer. Apparently, it has spread to the liver:
CBS/AP) Presidential spokesman Tony Snow's cancer has returned and spread to his liver and elsewhere in his body, shaken White House colleagues announced Tuesday. They said he told them he planned…
grrlscientist | March 27, 2007The governing board of the Smithsonian Institution announced that it accepted the resignation of its top official, Lawrence M. Small, after an internal audit showed that the museum had paid for his routine use of lavish perks like chauffeured cars, private jets, top-rated hotels and catered meals.
The appropriately named Mr. Small, 66, is a former executive at Citibank and the mortgage financier Fannie Mae. He had headed the 161-year-old Smithsonian since January 2000. He submitted his resignation as secretary over the weekend, and the governing board unanimously accepted it, effective…
clock | March 27, 2007Long time ago, I mentioned here something about the Belgrade Zoo. The power of Google brought a Belgrader, Sonja, to my blog, who alerted me to the dire conditions in which the Zoo is right now and the existence of her website (made by her and her students) called Zoo SOS whose goal is to force the City government of Belgrade to move the Zoo from its present location to a better place outside town (not having to deal with the Animal Rights terrorists there, they must have placed a link to PETA by mistake - they do not know the distinction between Animal Rights and Animal Welfare. Update:…
pharyngula | March 26, 2007You may recall my earlier complaint about the corruption and waste and profligacy of the head of the Smithsonian, Lawrence Small. A non-scientist, he spent the last few years padding his own nest by drawing on the resources of the Smithsonian, and was basically a typical Republican appointee.
The good news: Small has resigned, hopefully in disgrace. The bad news: he wasn't frog-marched out of his office and thrown in jail. Still, let's hope that many more Friends of Republicans are thrown out on their asses soon.