Politics
clock | November 20, 2006Mahablog has two excellent posts analyzing (and linking to other good analyses) of the changes the Left and Right blogosphere experienced over the last several years and explains why the Right blogs were more powerful in the beginning and why the Left is much more effective today:
Under the Radar
Old Dogs
grrlscientist | November 20, 2006
Fox News ratings went down by 17% in October, while most cable news networks saw tremendous increases in ratings. I guess people are finally growing tired of their ridiculous bias and gossip. Basically, there is no liberal media, there only is only intelligent media and ridiculous media. Oh, and hey, Rupert, how did the OJ interview help your ratings?
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tags: politics, mainstream media, FOX news, OJ, murder, george bush
clock | November 20, 2006As John said right after the last election:
Besides picking our candidates and races, I think the most valuable thing most of could do is to help shape the conventional wisdom. We blog, we write letters to the editor, we talk up our relatives, neighbors, and co-workers. We should try to take down the straight talking St. McCain and the weak-on-defense Democrats narratives. It's never too soon to start casting doubt on the Republicans we plan to target; broken promises are the most effective critique. And, of course it's never too soon to start talking up the candidates we support.(bolding…
grrlscientist | November 19, 2006
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Can someone explain to me why is the so-called "liberal" mainstream media even listening to Tom Delay? Especially because Delay is no paragon of morality since he was caught with his fat hand in the lobbyist scandal cookie jar recently. Besides all of Delay's shenanigans, isn't Pelosi (pictured) more liberal that Hillary Clinton? If so, how does this support Delay's testosterone-poisoned opinion?
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"Two years of Pelosi gives a good idea of what four years of Hillary will be like," said Tom DeLay, the Republican powerbroker who ran his party in the House before he was caught up in a…
grrlscientist | November 19, 2006If I had to choose between being a democrat or a rethuglican, well, I'd choose democrat, however, I am more of a rational humanist than I am anything else. But just for shits and giggles, I decided to take this quiz, now that the democrats are hanging on to control of the congress by their fingernails. Hopefully they will accomplish something of value rather than being dick-heads by completely shutting down congress as someone else did did a few years ago, just to prove their had bigger political penises than their adversaries.
You Are 80% Democrat
You have a good deal of donkey running…
grrlscientist | November 19, 2006Speaking of flip-flopping, it appears that the rethuglicans hold the World Record for flip-flopping. For example, Senator McCain -- I am still waiting for him to fulfill his promise to the American people by committing suicide -- has recently flip-flopped on his position regarding abortion rights. Now he is saying that the decision whether to make abortion legal should be returned to the states. Why does he say this? Because McCain is now, conveniently, a federalist. However, that doesn't stop individual states from outlawing abortion and from outlawing women from seeking abortions in states…
clock | November 19, 2006Of all the coverage of the Murtha-Hoyer duel and what it means for Pelosi, the only one that put into words the way I felt about the episode is Mary Beth. Of course the Kewl Kidz of the media got it upside down (but they have their own sinister motivations for it). I am not worried for her at all.
clock | November 17, 2006Glenn and Dave on eliminationist rhetoric and the complicity of the media in it. So, what to do with the media? Glenn describes, Sara prescribes.
clock | November 17, 2006Another one on psychology of political ideology (form April 08, 2005):
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Ezra Klein, Majikthise and Revere of Effect Measure are having another round of discussion of the Lakoff's scheme.
One of the problems in this discussion, I think, is the confusion between Conservatism Vs. Liberalism as Systems of Government on one hand, and Conservatism vs. Liberalism as Personality Traits on the other.
Going back in history and arguing for or against the two archetypes by invoking Nixon, Reagan, McCarthy, Stalin, Hitler, Clinton, Carter, whoever...misses the…
tsmith | November 17, 2006PZ and others have already blogged about this, but since it deals with public health in a big way, I thought I'd give it a mention here as well. Seems Bush has made yet another highly questionable appointment in the Department of Health and Human Services. Shocking, I know.
The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."
More after the jump...
Eric Keroack, medical director for A…
pharyngula | November 17, 2006As happened in so many places in this last election, a local Democrat won a solid victory over a Republican in the District 50 election. His opponent sent a "concession" letter—see if you can spot what's peculiar and a bit offensive about it.
Congratulations on winning the District 50 senate race. Your phone is "busy"...no doubt with good wishes!
I've enjoyed much of this race, especially the people I've met...even you! I see your deficits--not all of them, and your potential--but not all of it. Only your Creator knows the real potential He's put in you. Get to know Him and know yourself...…
grrlscientist | November 17, 2006The vote count is in: Steny Hoyer defeated Jack Murtha 149 to 86 for the majority leader post in the House.
In my opinion, Hoyer was the better choice anyway because he is widely regarded as a champion for Federal employees, and is well known as a leader on education issues and is a respected voice on human and civil rights -- and his pro-environment voting record is impeccable compared to Murtha's.
There's no way to spin this: this was a big loss for incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The vote wasn't close. Her ally was rejected. This reflects poorly on her. And it will be remembered by…
pharyngula | November 17, 2006Yesterday afternoon, I'd had to run an errand to our library, and as I was walking out, I saw a real treat on the new arrivals shelf: Tufte's
Beautiful Evidence(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). I had to sit down and read through parts of it (short review: thought-provoking ideas, but I don't think it's one of his better efforts. It's still enjoyable to read.) Then what do I learn but that Neddie Jingo got to meet him and showed him a ghastly example of PowerDreck used to sell the Iraq war.
You'll have to read the whole thing to find out how Tufte responded.
pharyngula | November 16, 2006Clearly, Bush is not going to drift quietly into oblivion. Majikthise and Feministing report that his administration is appointing a certifiable kook to run the federal program that oversees family planning and reproductive health. His qualifications seem to be that he's fanatical about abstinence, to the point of making stuff up.
At the Annual Abstinence Leadership Conference in Kansas, Keroack defended abstinence (in an aptly titled talk, "If I Only Had a Brain") by claiming that sex causes people to go through oxytocin withdrawal which in turn prevents people from bonding in relationships…
jstemwedel | November 16, 2006Apparently John Murtha lost his bid to be the new Majority Leader in the House of Representatives to Rep. Steny Hoyer. In the run up to this decision, Murtha was reported as saying the House ethics reforms being proposed by Nancy Pelosi were "total crap".
As you can imagine, that got my attention.
Below the fold, a bit of the transcript of Murtha's interview with Chris Matthews where Murtha tries to put his comment in context.
MATTHEWS: But that's not what you said. Didn't you say it was total crap, what she was proposing?
MURTHA: What I said was, it's total crap, the idea we have to deal…
oracknows | November 16, 2006Although I'm clearly not as vociferous about this as other ScienceBloggers, I do remain concerned about the rise of fundamentalist religion, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or whatever. Whenever dogmatic, literal, fundamentalist interpretation of whatever holy scriptures someone believes in takes hold, the brain shuts off, and no other interpretation other than the narrow interpretation of the fundamentalist is viewed as acceptable. Another pernicious effect is that, if scripture seems to conflict with science, science loses, and religion-inspired non-science like creationism takes…
j7uy5 | November 16, 2006The Blogosphere has had a bit of a twitter over the issue of the
impeachment of President Bush. The most assertive progressive
href="http://alterx.blogspot.com/2006/11/nancy-its-your-duty-to-impeach-bush.html">
are upset that the issue is "
href="http://www.democrats.com/Why-Conyers-Changed-Tune-On-Impeachment">off
the table," in the words of Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers.
Conservatives are
href="http://slagblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/yes-mama-sheehan-back-in-saddle.html">skeptical,
imagining that the Democratic leadership is just as vicious as the
Republicans leadership. …
clock | November 15, 2006For instance, you can work as a campaign manager and use your knowledge and insight to help a complete unknown win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (and yes, I watched that Dean press conference in which he could not even remember her name).