Politics
evolvingthoughts | December 20, 2006George Bush wants a bigger military.
Cynical as I am about the claims of the "military-industrial complex" of a generation ago, it really does look like the underlying motivation for the past decade or so has been to increase the size of the military in the US.
I was shocked at how militarised the United States society was, in my recent visits. It's a sign of an imperial power. While I agree that in a time of competing military powers, a large force might be needed, in times when the only justification is a war on abstractions that was started by the US, it just looks like organisational…
evolvingthoughts | December 19, 2006As PZ McMyers notes, the Libyan court has condemned to death five nurses and a doctor for infecting children with AIDS deliberately as part of an experiment, despite the clear scientific evidence that the real cause was pre-existing strains of AIDS and the lack of proper funding and material, with hypodermics being reused without even sterilisation.
Obviously playing to the domestic audience, the judges are simply following the religious paranoia and extremism of Khaddafi and his government. Expecting them to act rationally was at best an outside bet.
tsmith | December 19, 2006 Libya to execute HIV medics
(Previous posts on the topic)
A court convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor Tuesday of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV and sentenced them to death, despite scientific evidence the youngsters had the virus before the medical workers came to Libya.
The United States and Europe reacted with outrage to the verdict, which prolongs a case that has hurt Libya's ties to the West. The six co-defendants have already served seven years in jail.
The sentence brought cheers in Libya, where there is widespread public anger over the infections.…
clock | December 19, 2006Is Internet going to change the way politicians campaign and the way they are perceived? Check this video, the first in a series of "webisodes" filmed behind the scenes with John Edwards:
Doesn't that completely change your perceptions?
Update: Sorry, forgot the links. You can find this video on YouTube, DU and OAC blog.
jlynch | December 19, 2006Horrible news out of Libya - the Tripoli/Benghazi Six were today sentenced to death despite scientific evidence of their innocence. Orac, Bora, PZ, Abel, and Revere all join in denouncing this miscarriage of justice. You can read more at on their blogs.
oracknows | December 19, 2006I wish I could say that this was unexpected, but, given the politics and backwardness of Libya, it wasn't. The Tripoli Six (a. k. a. the Benghazi Six) have been found guilty by a kangaroo court in Libya:
A Libyan court has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for knowingly infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
The medics have been in detention since 1999, during which time 52 of the 426 infected children have died of AIDS.
The nurses and doctor were sentenced to death in 2004, but the Supreme Court quashed the ruling after protests over the fairness of…
clock | December 19, 2006The five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor were found guilty earlier today, against all the scientific evidence of their innocence. I second PZ's sentiment about this.
pharyngula | December 19, 2006Despite the fact that the scientific evidence supports their innocence, the kangaroo court in Libya has found the six medical workers guilty of intentionally infecting children with AIDS. The mob, at least, is happy.
"For the second time, justice has spoken out with a ruling against those criminals and the punishment they deserve, because they violated their obligations and sold their consciences to the devil," Abdullah Maghrebi, the father of one infected child, told the BBC.
I can sympathize with a father with a sick child, but in this case, may he continue to live in his devil-haunted…
clock | December 18, 2006Well, not me, but people who know what I know. Heinrich aka Sir Oolius explains how the US military uses the knowledge of circadian rhythms and sleep in applications to torture. Just place the prisoners in a state of perpetual jet-lag and no temporal cues, then interrogate them at the time where their circadian rhythm of cognitive performance is at its lowest.
grrlscientist | December 18, 2006Speaking of legal mood-altering drug use, here's a new drug for you to use.
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tags: demoglad, streaming video, politics, humor, satire
clock | December 17, 2006John Edwards, Untucked:
But maybe something is really changing inside the son of a millworker. This week he will launch a series of short documentaries on his Web site, OneAmericaCommittee.com, offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of life on the campaign trail. The Webisodes, previewed exclusively by NEWSWEEK, show Edwards struggling with how to show more authenticity on the campaign trail. "I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll," he says in one episode. "But ... we're so conditioned to say what's safe ... and it's hard to shed…
jstemwedel | December 16, 2006Only a few days out from the 19 December verdict in the Tripoli 6 case, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that the Bush administration honestly couldn't be bothered that Libya shows every sign of being ready to execute foreign healthcare workers who the scientific evidence indicates did not commit the crime with which they have been charged. Otherwise, you'd figure that the State Department spokesman, once questioned about the case, would bother to do his homework and figure out at least the bare facts of the situation. He did not.
So the lives of healthcare workers who went to Libya…
jlynch | December 16, 2006Via Steve Reuland:
Of the 383 pieces of legislation that were signed into law during the two-year 109th Congress, more than one-quarter dealt with naming or renaming federal buildings and structures -- primarily post offices -- after various Americans.
jlynch | December 16, 2006The AP is reporting a further clampdown by the Bush administration on governmental science - in this case, within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists:
The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be "alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature.''
The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also must be told -- prior to any submission for publication -- "of findings or data that may be especially…
clock | December 16, 2006Rumors are that he will make the official announcement around Christmas. Brilliant! His main issue is poverty and he'll anounce from the city that became the symbol of poverty in America (not that it does not exist everywhere - but it is a symbol) and remind everyone about the post-Katrina plight of the poor, the GOP inability and unwillingness to do anything right about the disaster, and the Republican racist rhetoric about the "welfare queens" and "God smiting New Orleans because of homosexuality".
clock | December 16, 2006Why is Joe Klein surprised? Is this news something against the narrative he and his buddies were trying to build over the past year or so? Whither The Inevitable Hillary?
The Des Moines Register is reporting these numbers in a poll of Iowa Democrats conducted in October by Harstad Research for a group called Environmental Defense:
* John Edwards 36%
* Hillary Clinton 16%
* Barack Obama 13%
* Tom Vilsack 11%
Among county Democratic Party leaders, the numbers are even more startling:
* Edwards 40%
* Vilsack 15%
* Obama 11%
* Clinton 8%
See this comment by…
clock | December 16, 2006Bayh Says He Will Not Run for President in '08:
Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who just two weeks ago took the first steps toward a White House bid in 2008, announced on Saturday that he was quitting the race. He said he had concluded his hopes of winning were too remote to make it worth continuing the battle.
clock | December 15, 2006More than a year ago (September 26, 2005), and what has changed?
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The other day I saw (on a blog, from an e-mail? Don't remember now...) this article about a porn website on which our soldiers in Iraq exchange gory photos of mutilated Iraqi bodies for a free subscription to porn. War Pornography was published on a news website I was not familiar with, so I posted the link in the comments to a couple of good liberal blogs, asking for the verification of the story.
The next day, Nation published a shorter story on the same topic: The Porn of War, which…
clock | December 14, 2006Zack Exley: The Revolution misses you
Aldon Hynes: A different focus
NYTimes: 2008 Like It's Today: Edwards on Top in Iowa
Kansas City Star: Edwards gets most of the answers when quizzed on world leaders
Huffington Post: John Edwards Gets It
The Nation blog: John Edwards Is Strongest Dem Contender
The Swamp (Chicago Tribune blog): Edwards entering before New Year