Politics
razib | November 26, 2006Interesting article which surveys the confusion in Europe right now as countries whose electoral systems are based on proportional representation are seeing a tendency by the populace to vote for parties of the far Right and far Left. This has resulted in unwieldly and unstable coalitions drawn from the ever shrinking center. Many Americans (and some Brits) have long complained of "winner take all" districts which results in ideologically impure parties who offer milquetoast alternatives. The flip side though of course is that small popular vote majorities tend to yield very sizable…
clock | November 26, 2006Laurie David, one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, wrote a piece for today's Washington Post describing her efforts to make 50,000 DVD copies of that movie available to America's science teachers through NSTA. They said no. And, more weirdly, they explained why.
Read the rest here. Horrifying. Go here to tell them what you think.
pharyngula | November 26, 2006The first sentence of a conservative blog post:
The November 15 edition of "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central offered more proof of comedian Stephen Colbert's ineffective charade at pretending to be a conservative.
It's been on the air for 13 months, and now with shock and dismay they suddenly realize it is not actually a conservative television show? I think I see now how they can argue that we're winning the war in Iraq.
They're stupid.
(via the PowerLiberal)
grrlscientist | November 25, 2006
Good spelling skills are more important than you realize.
Orphaned image. Please contact me for proper attribution.
.
tags: politics, Bush, Iraq war, humor
pharyngula | November 25, 2006This tasering stuff is getting a little out of hand:
ABC News report that Oakland police tasered a man having an epileptic seizure because he became agitated when restrained. They subsequently prosecuted him for assault and disorderly conduct. You couldn't make it up if you tried.
Oh, I don't know. I can make up some pretty good ideas if I try. I mean, we had someone tasered for overstaying his welcome at a library, and now someone tasered for having an epileptic fit. What's next?
Look at Michael J. Fox. The man was out of control, head weaving and wandering, hands moving around, and he was…
grrlscientist | November 25, 2006
In an outrageous and arrogant move, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has banished the use of the word "hunger" from its documents that describe, umm, you know, hungry people. Instead, the USDA prefers to camoflage reality with a new government double-speak phrase, "very low food security".
Just a week before most of America sits down for that excessive meal we call the Thanksgiving feast (second- and third-day snacking while watching football is optional) came a new definition for the millions among us who are more likely to turn up at a food pantry than at a well-set dining table.…
jlynch | November 24, 2006
As of today, November 25th, US involvement in Iraq has lasted longer than US involvement in World War II - 1348 days. The "War on Terror" has been longer. And what do we have to show for it?
jlynch | November 24, 2006PZ drew our attention to the Southern Poverty Law Center's roundup of hate groups nationwide. As a public service announcement, I note that Arizona has fifteen hate groups which seems like a bloody high number to me: five Neo-Nazi groups, one Christian Identity group, two Black Separatist groups, two racist skinhead groups, one KKK group, and four "others". My own city, Tempe, is home to a unit of the National Vanguard,
an organization of racially-conscious Whites who seek to maintain the cultural and biological qualities of our race, and ensure that they exist forever to be handed down to…
pharyngula | November 24, 2006Brock at Stupid Evil Bastard finds a fascinating map of US hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center. If you're wondering what nastiness can be found in your neighborhood, it's a handy reference. Minnesota has more Neo-Nazis and Christian Identity groups than I like to see, but you'll have to look at the maps of California and Texas to see more scary stuff than this.
This is a slightly weird map—the Christian Identity group that looks like it is close to Morris is actually in Burnsville, south of Minneapolis, and should be way over to the east, near the cluster of swastikas. More…
clock | November 24, 2006On poverty, personal, national and global, and why it makes sense not to have a bank account when you are poor (October 04, 2005). Espcially in light of recent news about the way big banks rip off people by depositing big checks first - placing accounts into the red - then depositing multiple small checks which otherwise would have cleared but now incur fees which, added over many customers, add up to billions in profit for the banks. This practice kills me every month. I pay the biggest things (rent) by MoneyOrder so I am not afraid of that bouncing, but I'd like to minimize the number of…
clock | November 23, 2006I am still sleepy from all that tryptophan in turkey meat and the Evolution wine, so I don't think I have the energy to write a big post now - I'll leave much of my thoughts on the matter for a post-weekend post reviewing Dawkins' The God Delusion.
But I have to chime in briefly by sending you to the relevant links and copying some of the comments I wrote on those comment threads. Brace yourself for a lot of reading as there are several posts and many comments on each of the posts. Sorry, the links are not neccessarly in order, but you'll get the gist of the argument anyway.
Ed Brayton…
jlynch | November 23, 2006Under Bush, the US has taken upon itself to bring democracy to other countries. However, as the Economist Intelligence Unit's index of democracy [pdf] shows, the US ranks fairly badly as a democracy itself, coming in 17th worldwide. Evaluated based on electoral process & pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties, the top fifteen are:
Sweden
Iceland
Netherlands
Norway
Denmark
Finland
Luxembourg
Australia
Canada
Switzerland
Ireland
New Zealand
Germany
Austria
Malta
The other major partner in the "war on terror", the UK, is…
clock | November 22, 2006Al Gore's big issue is the environment. He says he is not running for President. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that the environment is Gore's passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for it. His passion is what drives so many people to push him to run for office again.
John Edwards' big issue is poverty. He is likely to run for President again. Maybe he will win, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that eradication of poverty is Edwards' passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for…
jlynch | November 22, 2006David H. Price writes:
In San Jose, on Saturday evening, November 18, 2006, the rank and file members of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) attending the Association's business meeting approved resolutions condemning the occupation of Iraq and the use of torture. ...
The first resolution condemns the American occupation of Iraq; calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops, the payment of reparations, and it asks that all individuals committing war crimes against Iraqis be prosecuted. This statement passed with little debate or dissent.
The second resolution condemns not only the…
jlynch | November 22, 2006The U.N. is reporting that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October and the AP notes that this toll, the highest monthly so far, "is sure to be eclipsed when November's dead are counted." October also saw the death of 106 US soldiers, two from the UK and two others. 767 US soldiers were wounded.
clock | November 21, 2006Two years ago, there was quite a brouhaha in the media when Serbian minister for education decided to kick Darwin out of schools. The whole affair lasted only a few days - the public outrage was swift and loud and the minister was forced to resign immediately. I blogged about it profusely back then and below the fold are those old posts:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I Take This Personally (September 09, 2004)
Serbia takes a bold step back into the Middle Ages
Serbia strikes blow against evolution Creationism put on equal footing with Darwinism
Serbia vs…
j7uy5 | November 21, 2006HT to Murph
at Common Monkeyflower for reminding me about this.
Youtube has a video montage, set to the tune of "Let's
Impeach The President" by
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Young">Neil Young.
There's another video that just has a static picture, and the music, in
case you want to hear the song with less distraction. The
audio quality is a bit better, too.
I know, I recently put up a post with a rationalization of the
restraint on this issue that the Democratic Party is exhibiting, and I
think it is the correct strategy. At the same time, an
occasional display of…
razib | November 20, 2006This NPR story about the anti-immigrant backlash in Denmark is pretty interesting. How you feel about it, well, that would depend on your perspective. I see no alternative to Danish "tough love" myself. A brown-skinned immigrant I am you say? Well yes, true that. But, aside from the non-trivial point that my loyalty lay with the traditions of the West (and that includes some irrational ones I suppose), I am of the opinion that assimilationism needs to be kick-started and I reject strongly Western cultural flaccidity that has been spawned by multiculturalism. Yes, racism is bad, I've…
razib | November 20, 2006Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, will be on Talk of the Nation today (Nov. 21st).
purepedantry | November 20, 2006Not cool, Egypt:
Police in Cairo have detained a blogger whose posts have been critical of the Egyptian government.
Rami Siyam, who blogs under the name of Ayyoub, was detained along with three friends after leaving the house of a fellow blogger late at night.
No reasons have been given for Mr Siyam's detention. The other friends were released after being questioned.
Human rights groups have accused Egypt of eroding freedom of speech by arresting several bloggers recently.
BBC Arab Affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says blogging in Egypt is closely associated with political activism in a…