Politics
jrosenhouse | December 14, 2006There was a remarkable exchange on the MSNBC show Hardball yesterday, between host Chris Matthews, and commentators Roger Simon and Chris Cillizza:
MATTHEWS: Yes, well, isn't it funny, Roger--and I love the way you cover politics. You get the richness of it. You have fish fry dinners with Jesse Jackson in the middle of the night and write about it. Here we are with a president--who most people who are honest about it would say came to the office pretty much unprepared to deal with the third world.
He listened to a bunch of jughead neoconservatives who talked him into a war that doesn't…
grrlscientist | December 14, 2006 Apparently, facts are getting in the way of BushCo. But does everything need to be cleared by the faith-based intitiatives office?
The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The…
tsmith | December 14, 2006Today's New England Journal of Medicine has an article (free access) with more information on the Tripoli Six, who are still awaiting their December 19th verdict.
pharyngula | December 13, 2006How can they have a respectable show trial if the defendant keeps defending himself so well? This is a classic and irrefutable response.
grrlscientist | December 13, 2006From what I've seen on TV, I like Obama, but I am a cautious sort and worry that there is something wrong with the senator from Illinois -- something that will become obvious after election time has passed. It wouldn't be the first time.
He mentions Martin Luther King without reminding you of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.
Like Colin Powell, the senator from Illinois makes you forget he is any colour.
He is also clever enough not to sound condescending or to tie himself into the kind of mental pretzels that strangled John Kerry.
His inexperience in the Senate may turn out to be an asset…
drorzel | December 13, 2006The Democrats have decided to punt on the budget, which the outgoing Republican Congress left unfinished in a childish fit of pique. Instead of completing the usual budget process, the incoming Congress plans to pass a "continuing resolution," to fund 2007 operations of Federal agencies at the same level as 2006.
See, people, this is what happens when you put the grown-ups back in charge-- the first thing they do is cancel Christmas.
Inside Higher Ed gives a run-down of the implications for academia, which I know is what you were all dying to hear about. The bottom line isn't particularly…
clock | December 13, 2006If you missed the Hardball last night, you can watch it here.
Here is Raleigh News & Observer:
'Hardball' not so hard for Edwards:
Likely Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards passed the world leader pop quiz Tuesday night.
He correctly identified the leaders of Canada, Mexico, Iraq, Germany, South Africa and Italy when quizzed by Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball" program.
In fact, Edwards seemed to have little trouble fielding questions, ranging from the war in Iraq to his relative lack of foreign policy experience to his political ties to organized labor, before a live…
grrlscientist | December 12, 2006
Now they've bastardized my favorite christmas movie! But I'd pay the price of admission to see GW in the bunny pajamas!
grrlscientist | December 12, 2006
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Despite his overly-loud supporters, if there was ever one thing that George W. Bush excells at, it is failure. In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, a 54% majority recognized that Bush is a below-average or poor president, more than double the negative rating given any of his five most recent predecessors.
Just 19% expect him to be seen as outstanding or above-average, placing him last among the six. Bush, re-elected in 2004, now trails three presidents who were rejected by voters when they sought second or full terms, including his father, George H.W. Bush.
"The…
clock | December 12, 2006When the Rockridge Insitute was first founded, there were forums on the site for a few months, which were then shut down. Today, the Institute starts a new blog/forum Rockridge Nation, "a community of progressives working to frame the issues and restore our values to the heart of public life. This blog will draw attention to some of the interesting questions, stories, and analysis that members of Rockridge Nation contribute."
clock | December 12, 2006...to tune in to Hardball (MSNBC) in one hour from now (5EST), though it will get repeated late at night again.
grrlscientist | December 12, 2006US Congressman, Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat, claimed that al-Qaeda was a predominantly Shia organisation. But the opposite is true -- al-Qaeda are Sunni extremists.
Because Mr Reyes is a long-time member of the House Intelligence Committee and will become its new chairman in January, you'd expect he would know this. Like, hello!
The Committee is regularly briefed on intelligence matters and is responsible for the budgets, organisation and overall direction of US spy agencies.
Hence you would expect Mr Reyes to be pretty well informed.
But when an interviewer tested him on basic…
tsmith | December 12, 2006 I've written previously about how it's a bad idea to import exotic pets, after "exotic" African species of small animals were imported into the United States and housed alongside prairie dogs that were also to be sold as pets. The African animals brought along with them their own diseases, including monkeypox, which then spread to the prairie dogs and onto humans, causing at least 80 cases of monkeypox in the U.S.
Think this is a rare event, unlikely to re-occur? Think again. The Baltimore Sun has a story on how "exotic" pets like these African rodents enter the U.S. by the millions…
clock | December 12, 2006Of Religion and Morality (December 02, 2005)
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From I Am An Atheist, via Pratie Place, come these "commandments":
As an atheist you have a number of rights and responsibilities. These include (but are not limited to):
1. Have no gods.
2. Don't worship stuff.
3. Be polite.
4. Take a day off once in a while.
5. Be nice to folks.
6. Don't kill people.
7. Don't fool around on your significant other.
8. Don't steal stuff.
9. Don't lie about stuff.
10. Don't be greedy.
Remember, theists will condemn you for living by this code because you are doing…
jrosenhouse | December 11, 2006From The New York Times:
Holocaust deniers and skeptics from around the world gathered at a government-sponsored conference here today to discuss their theories about whether six million Jews were indeed killed by the Nazis during World War II and whether gas chambers existed.
In a speech opening the two-day conference, Rasoul Mousavi, head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies, which organized the event, said it was an opportunity for scholars to discuss the subject “away from Western taboos and the restriction imposed on them in Europe.”
The…
drorzel | December 11, 2006Over at Bora's House of Round-the-Clock Blogging, we find the sensational headline Beaten by Biologists, Creationists Turn Their Sights On Physics. On seeing that, I headed over to the editorial in The American Prospect that it points to, expecting to be scandalized. When I got there, I found this:
U.S. creationists have changed tactics. Though none have explicitly abandoned ID in public, the focus of their scientific cover arguments has shifted from organic change to the creation of the universe. They have picked up on the controversial claim that human life could only have evolved because…
pharyngula | December 10, 2006Our country, with the approval and encouragement of George W. Bush, has been carrying out a program of religious indoctrination and the unconstitutional endorsement of evangelical Christianity. Federal money has been funneled into "faith-based" programs that make religious dogmatists prosper, and have no other actual, real-world value. The clearest examples are the prisons, where con artists like Chuck Colson have been engaged in a kind of ministry that is actually religious extortion and bribery.
The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks. More books and computers…
clock | December 10, 2006At the Age 91.
SANTIAGO, Chile -- Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Chile's democratically elected Marxist president in a bloody coup and ruled this Andean nation for 17 years, died Sunday, dashing hopes of victims of his regime's abuses that he would be brought to justice. He was 91.