Politics
clock | January 21, 2007A good article in Business Week.
Oh, btw, while I was conferencing, I heard that Clinton and Richardson announced. Anyone surprised?
pharyngula | January 21, 2007Karen Klinzing, a creationist-friendly Republican who lost her run for the Minnesota legislature, has been rewarded by our Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, with a nice cushy job…as Assistant Commissioner of Education.
There's nothing quite so charming as the sight of a conservative hack getting handed a sinecure, and one from which she can work mischief.
(via Lloyletta)
pharyngula | January 21, 2007Man, it's so annoying when the little sites take a poke at me, hoping to trigger a strong reaction so that I'll send lots of traffic their way. It's pathetic, and you know I can't resist. This particular site is trying to yank my chain by complaining about my lack of support for Barack Obama, and along the way they confirm my point.
What's interesting to me about all this is that when you get down to it, Obama presents conservatives with a category error. Democrats are liberal, and therefore cannot be religious, q.e.d. It simply fries their circuits that Obama won't stick in the pigeonhole…
jrosenhouse | January 20, 2007Via Andrew Sullivan's blog I came across this account of a recent talk given by former FEMA director Michael Brown:
Political storm clouds gathered again over the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina as former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown said party politics influenced decisions on whether to take federal control of Louisiana and other areas affected by the hurricane.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the partisanship Brown described was “disgusting,” while a White House spokeswoman said Brown was making “false statements.”
Brown told a group of…
j7uy5 | January 20, 2007Under-the-Radar Politics
I sure hope this doesn't sound too alarmist, gevalt,
over-the-top, whatever, but I noticed a post on Integrity of
Science that woke me up a little bit - before my coffee was
finished brewing.
(The coffee, by the way, is Trader Joe's Tarrazu; it's made in
a co-op in Costa Rica. It's worth a try, if you can find it.)
The post is this one:
New
Oversight Policy Bad for Science-based DecisionmakingPosted
on: January 19, 2007 2:44 PM, by Ian HartPresident Bush
signed a whole heap of bad yesterday. Amendments to a Clinton-era
executive order will substantially increase…
clock | January 19, 2007I wrote this on January 28, 2006. Was I wrong then? Is that wrong now? Have things changed in the meantime?
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Chris Bowers on MyDD recently had a post asking why the Progressive blogosphere does not like Hillary Clinton. Here's a little bit from Chris:
Now I can explain what this all has to do with Hillary Clinton. As obvious as I thought my last point was, it is probably even more obvious by now that Hillary Clinton is, um, not exactly the most popular Democrat within the blogosphere and the netroots. I can offer loads of anecdotal…
pharyngula | January 18, 2007Broad generalizations about people of certain political views are always good for an entertaining wrangle…so here's a provocative article on The Ideological Animal:
Liberals are messier than conservatives. Their rooms have more clutter, more color. Conservatives' rooms are better organized, more brightly lit, and more conventional. Liberals have more books and their books are on a greater variety of topics.
Compared to liberals, conservatives are less tolerant of ambiguity, a trait researchers say is exemplified when George Bush says things like, "Look, my job isn't to try to nuance. My job…
clock | January 18, 2007Criticize Congress go to jail?
"In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but isn't, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.
"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most…
grrlscientist | January 18, 2007
What can you get for $1.2 trillion? Universal health care for uninsured Americans? Hey, as an uninsured American, I'd sure like that! How about universal preschool for all American children? Enough money to fulfill post 9-11 security recommendations? Or how about more money for cancer research? Or immunizations for the world's children that would protect them from childhood diseases? Or better yet, why not fund all of these things? The fact is that we could pay for all these things and still have money left over!
But, no, our country has instead opted to invest all that money -- and more…
goodmath | January 17, 2007 A reader sent me a link to this, thinking that it would be of interest to me, and he was absolutely right. I actually needed to let it sit overnight before writing anything because it made me so angry.
I've come to realize that probably one reason I struggled with algebra,
geometry et.al., was that it seemed to me that these were basically
reactionary academic disciplines, useful for designing weaponry or
potentially repressive computer technology, but not with any obvious
humanistic or social positive uses.
If I'm wrong about this, I'd appreciate it if people could show me how this…
tsmith | January 17, 2007Via Jonah comes this (depressing, as he notes) NY Times article on what else we could've bought with $1.2 trillion:
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign -- a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children's lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn't use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-…
jlynch | January 16, 2007Bush apparently is disappointed that Saddam Hussein's execution "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing." How it was any less vengeful than the 152 executions he signed off on while governor of Texas is a mystery to me.
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007When I mentioned to a bartender friend of mine that Barack Obama was considering a run for the presidency, he replied, "Who's Barack Obama? He'll never win with a name like that!"
Well, as of today, Obama is investigating whether he could make a respectable run at the presidency.
In a video announcement posted on his website, he said Americans wanted to move beyond partisan politics to find common-sense solutions to problems.
"Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions," he said.
"We have to…
pharyngula | January 16, 2007So Obama is running for president. I'm not a fan (too pious and too unaccomplished), but what hurt most about the article is this:
Mr. Obama, 45, was elected to the Senate two years ago. He becomes the fifth Democrat to enter the race, joining Senators Joseph R. Biden of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut as well as former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Tom Vilsack, who stepped down this month as governor of Iowa.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is expected to join the Democratic field soon and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said he would make his decision…
clock | January 16, 2007 *N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences
/Downtown Raleigh/
**Thursday, January 18
"Flock of Dodos" screening with filmmaker, Randy Olson
7:00 p.m. Museum Auditorium
Free
*Filmmaker and Evolutionary Ecologist , Dr. Randy Olson, presents his
new film */Flock of Dodos/*: /*The Evolution / Intelligent Design Circus.*/
"Flock of Dodos" is the first feature-length documentary to present both
sides of the Intelligent Design / Evolution clash and tries to make
sense of the issue by visiting Olson's home state of Kansas. The film
digs below the surface of the debate by examining the language being
used by…
hrynyshyn | January 16, 2007Today's must read, from the Washington Post: The U.S. government is cutting back on environmental science.
The government's ability to understand and predict hurricanes, drought and climate changes of all kinds is in danger because of deep cuts facing many Earth satellite programs and major delays in launching some of its most important new instruments, a panel of experts has concluded.
The two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, determined that NASA's earth science budget has declined 30 percent since 2000. It stands to fall further as funding shifts to plans…
clock | January 15, 2007
More information here and the entire speech (in three long clips) here.
Also, Brian Russell: Edwards and Permanent Military bases in Iraq
oracknows | January 15, 2007Regular readers of this blog know that I have a particular dislike for Holocaust denial and that, indeed, I've tried to do my small part to counter the lies spread by Holocaust deniers, beginning on Usenet eight years ago. Regular readers will also know my opinion regarding laws in certain European countries such as Germany and Austria banning Holocaust denial upon pain of prison and other penalties. Although I can understand why such laws may have been necessary in the early postwar period, when the resurgence of Nazi-ism was a real danger, now, nearly 62 years after the end of the war, I…
jlynch | January 12, 2007Apparently a YEC named "Frosty" trumps the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences every time.
"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD." (…