Politics
j7uy5 | November 5, 2006It turns out the military
href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_WAR_GAMES?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">ran
war games in 1999, trying to anticipate what might happen if
we invaded Iraq. First of all, they anticipated that 400,000
troops would be needed. Then, they concluded that even with
that many troops, serious problems could be anticipated.
Problems like what we are seeing now.
Why would the Clinton administration undertake such an exercise?
I wonder if
href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm">this
letter from PNAC to…
grrlscientist | November 4, 2006I am truly amazed by this administration. Here's the latest practical joke that curious george and his squadron of flying monkeys are perpetrating on the American public;
First: Torture someone until you are satisfied that he or she has coughed up the desired information.
Second: Tell the torturee that torture is a state secret so they can't tell anybody about it, not even his or her attorney.
Third: Tell the judge presiding over your war crimes trial that you were obeying the law.
So you ask; What am I talking about?
The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism…
pharyngula | November 4, 2006This is an excellent suggestion that ran in the Sydney Morning Herald. I agree…let's not, OK?
grrlscientist | November 4, 2006The results of a recent poll show that the British think that Bush is the second most dangerous man in the world, just behind bin Laden. But I think the Brits are wrong; Bush is more dangerous than bin Laden because bin Laden is sitting in a dank cave somewhere in the Middle East, surrounded by a ragtag handful of poorly educated misfits and losers, whereas Bush is an incompetent bible-thumping elitist with anger management issues who is currently sitting on top of the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the entire world, surrounded by a ragtag group of professional crooks, pedophiles and…
oracknows | November 4, 2006Fellow ScienceBlogger and author of The Republican War on Science Chris Mooney was interviewed for one of my favorite podcasts, Point of Inquiry, the official podcast for The Center for Inquiry, this week. It's well worth checking out. I don't agree with everything in Mooney's book (which I finally finished reading about a month ago), but there's enough there that is hard to refute to make it nonetheless a rather disturbing piece of work
In fact, while I'm on the topic, I will also mention that Point of Inquiry is a consistently excellent podcast. I highly recommend adding it to your podcast…
j7uy5 | November 4, 2006Perhaps this gets tiresome for ScienceBlogs readers, but here is yet
another example of the
href="http://www.waronscience.com/home.php" rel="tag">Republican
War on Science, this time in regard to
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Change"> Climate
Change.
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103269.html">
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103269.html">IGs
Probe Allegations On Global Warming Data
Scientists Say Findings Were Suppressed
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post…
j7uy5 | November 4, 2006In 2004, the Bush Administration
href="http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/bush-admin-may-be-responsible-for.html">blew
a Pakistani intelligence operation by revealing sensitive
intelligence information. In 2005, there was the Libby-Plame
Leak. Earlier in 2006, the Bush Administration
href="http://corpus-callosum.blogspot.com/2006/04/leaker-in-chief-reduxoffered-without.html">blew
Operation Tiramisu, putting Israeli intelligence operatives
at risk.
By then, the phrase "
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/04/07/BL2006040700544.html"
rel="tag">…
razib | November 3, 2006This week's Ask a ScienceBlogger:
What's the most important local political race to you this year (as a citizen, as a scientist)?...
I want to Harlold Ford Jr. to win in Tennessee to show that there's no harm in a man of color having a taste for white women. This is personal, I want my life choices to be validated!
(and hey, if a pink-faced high yellow brother like Harold is raising eyebrows what does that say about Mr. Cinnamon adding a little flavor to whole milk?)
jrosenhouse | November 3, 2006Speaking of grotesque misrepresentations of people's words, a few thoughts about the Kerry flap.
Here is what Kerry said to students at Pasadena City College:
You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
The right-wingers were all over this, of course. Here's the elitist Kerry calling our troops stupid and uneducated. It is ridiculous that Kerry, a veteran himself, would actually think such a thing. But even if by some fluke he did think it, he would not…
clock | November 3, 2006Politically active and charged music, the "protest music" is live and well. Check out Will Kimbrough and his latest CD called Americanitis. He sang a couple of tunes live in teh studio of local NPR station and I really liked them.
oracknows | November 3, 2006I feel for you, ScienceBlogs compatriot Afarensis. I really do.
Sure, your Cardinals beat my Tigers in the World Series last week. Sure, the Tigers made a lot of embarrassing errors and showed every sign of letting their youth and inexperience lead them to choking under the pressure. Sure at times the Tigers looked like a Little League team, throwing balls away hither and yon to let unearned runs score, looking nothing like the lean, mean baseball machine that had earlier dispatched the mighty Yankees with such aplomb after losing the first game. Sure the Cardinals managed to win it all after…
clock | November 3, 2006This week's questions in the Ask a ScienceBlogger series:
What's the most important local political race to you this year (as a citizen, as a scientist)?
There are two places here in which representatives of a reality-based community can replace mysoginist, homophobic cavedwellers:
NC - 8: Larry Kissel (D) vs. Robin Hayes (R)
NC -11: Heath Shuler (D) vs. Charles Taylor (R)
But it is really the sum of all local races that is important this year, and it appears that many voters understand that the Tuesday election is really a national election, much more than local. What is neccessary is to…
pharyngula | November 3, 2006Ted Haggard is one of those people I genuinely despise. He's a major leader of a conservative evangelical organization, and as you can see in the clip below, he's a genuinely creepy, hypocritical, arrogant little man.
He's changed now, though. Here's another clip of Haggard, being evasive and humble and making excuses for himself…and now we learn that he has stepped down from his ministry over accusations that he had a gay affair. I suspect, from his demeanor and responses, that he did have that affair, and that he's now political deadweight, destined to be discarded for at least a good…
razib | November 2, 2006Yes. Ted Haggard might be gay. So what? Robert Wright his gay too, he's obviously falling in love with Henry Farrell. And there are other gay people out there....
razib | November 2, 2006This Moral Politics quiz said I was a progressive liberal. I wasn't happy with that result, so I retook the Politopia test which tagged me as a a "centrist." I wanted to look for a test which would label me as a libertarian, but I'm tired, so another time....
razib | November 2, 2006I predict that the Democrats will be pick up 22 seats in the House and 5 seats in the Senate. These are uneducated guesses, but, if I'm close I'll pretend that I had reasons to make these guesses after the election and generate a bunch of after the fact justifications for my random guess based on convential wisdom. This post will be far enough down the page that newbies won't notice my bullshit.