Politics
pharyngula | July 30, 2006
You must read Doonesbury today. We ought to be laughing ourselves silly every time those Republicans dredge up a flag burning amendment to distract everyone from their other ridiculous, failed policies.
terrasig | July 30, 2006I very rarely post directly on issues of politics outside of science policy, biomedical research funding, or political interference in the scientific process.
However, the came in last night from frequent Terra Sig commenter and all-around kool lady, Anjou:
This is great...
THIS IS A MUST WATCH...
Here is a powerful and amazing statement on Al Jazeera
television. It is the most powerfully articulate statement on the
senseless bloody conflict in the middle east I have heard. The woman
speaking (there are English subtitles) is Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American
psychologist from Los Angeles…
jlynch | July 30, 2006I was going to post earlier on a New York Times article that discusses the harrassment that a Jewish family has recieved for asking that prayers at school events be made more generic and less Christian, but PZ beat me to it. I will highlight this part however:
A homemaker active in her children's schools, Mrs. Dobrich said she had asked the board to develop policies that would leave no one feeling excluded because of faith. People booed and rattled signs that read "Jesus Saves," she recalled. Her son had written a short statement, but he felt so intimidated that his sister read it for him. In…
clock | July 29, 2006Disowning Conservative Politics Is Costly for Pastor:
Sermons like Mr. Boyd's are hardly typical in today's evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.
Interesting, even for the usually conservatively-slanted results on AOL online polls:
What do you think of Rev. Boyd's views on…
j7uy5 | July 29, 2006This is another upsetting bit of news about our government.
The
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/29/AR2006072900592_pf.html">Washington
Post is reporting laboratory being built in Ft.
Detrick, Maryland. Known as the National Biodefense Analysis
and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), the new facility will conduct
title="Wikipedia link"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_warfare" rel="tag">biological
warfare research "within what many arms-control experts say
is a legal gray zone,
skirting the edges of an international treaty outlawing the…
j7uy5 | July 29, 2006I'm sure everyone has read about this by now, but every once in a while
I just speak up to add to the resonance in the echo chamber.
If this is confirmed, it would be a flagrant illegal act by a
government agency:
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/middleeast/30reconstruct.html?ex=1311912000&en=7e5f4de85760ef19&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">Audit
Finds U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: July 30, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in
charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an…
grrlscientist | July 29, 2006
This poll is not scientific, but it's still quite interesting, especially when one realizes that, according to any poll results from the past 18 months, Bush's approval rating are astonishingly low, particularly for a second-term war-time prez.
[Added 1945 in response to blog SiBling, James]
Since blog SiBling, James, is being cranky, I will also cite some information from the linked MSNBC explanation as to why this poll is not scientific.
First, the linked document points out that;
While a poll of 100 people will be more accurate than a poll of 10, studies have shown that accuracy…
clock | July 28, 2006
This post from September 09, 2004, was my first education about Rapturists:
Read these articles carefully (some are long, but please persist) and freeze. You'll get goosebumps...at least.
Apocalypse Bush!
Why Care for the Planet When the End Times are Almost Here? Vote Bush and Hop On the Salvation Train!
The Covert Kingdom
Thy Will be Done, On Earth as It is in Texas
"Thank you Gawd for giving us strawng leaders like President Bush during this crieeesis. Praise you Lord and guide him in this battle with Satan's Muslim armies."
The Church of Bush
What liberal infidels will never understand…
drorzel | July 28, 2006I don't usually post YouTube links and that sort of thing, because I figure everybody else in the world has watched them before I get there, but this clip of the Colbert Report is too good not to link. He gets right in the metaphorical face of a couple of morning shows that have done pieces about how he makes politiicans look silly, and absolutely blows them out of the water.
What's sad is that he could probably do something similar with Meet the Press, with about the same results. The clip of the one representative struggling to name all Ten Commandments is absolutely priceless, and the fact…
clock | July 27, 2006Orcinus: Conserving orcas, and humans too
Shakespeare's Sister: Off-Limits Humor
Echidne Of The Snakes: Divorce -- Preparing For Travels in Wingnuttia
grrlscientist | July 27, 2006Throughout the years, I have read quite a bit about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but because I do not claim to be an expert on the situation, I rarely comment about it. Despite this, I have long been convinced that there is a much better way to deal with that tragic situation than what is being done right now, a way to deal with it that will take into account the best interests of both sides. Recently, I found a streaming video that addresses this situation that you might also find to be quite thought-provoking.
Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land is a truly interesting streaming…
grrlscientist | July 27, 2006Can you recognize the voices in this video?
Horsefly: George W. Bush
Horse: Tony Blair? some British dude
Spider: typical misinformed American AKA; Britney Spears
Hog at trough: Richard Clarke
Bloodhound: Donald Rumsfeld
Fox by garbage cans: Colin Powell
Dog: Ayman Al-Zawahiri
Pigeon: Condoleezza Rice
.
tags: Wallace & Gromit, politics, humor, streaming video
pharyngula | July 27, 2006I keep waiting for the padded ambulance to roll up and men in white coats to leap out, shoot these bozos with a trank gun, wrap them up in a straight jacket, and go howling off to the nearest sanitarium, but no…instead, they get invitations to appear on cable news and babble about the apocalypse. And it's not just the airhead news media…
…Rosenberg is just one of several conservative media figures who have identified and expounded upon the purported signs of the Apocalypse to be found in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. During his appearance on Live From…, Rosenberg claimed that he had been…
hrynyshyn | July 27, 2006It's like every rationalist's worst media nightmare. Pat Robertson interviews Sen. Jim Inhofe on the 700 Club. I know I shouldn't be surprised by what transpired. After all, Inhofe is the guy who keeps calling global warming the greatest hoax of all time. But I have to admit I wasn't prepared for the depths of his mendacity.
Consider this exchange:
ROBERTSON: Tell me, what do the environmentalists believe? Do they worship the God of the Bible or something else?
INHOFE: Well, let's talk about the environmentalists. I call the far-Left environmental extremists the ones like the NRDC (National…
oracknows | July 27, 2006I hadn't intended to mention this case again for a while, but an article in Stats.org brought up a point that, although I had somewhat alluded to it, I hadn't really explicitly addressed. It has nothing to do with the judicial decision, the Cherrixes' successful appeal for a new trial and the stay ordered by the higher court, or any the legal issues involved with the case.
It has to do with the atrocious reporting of this case by the mainstream media. In other words, it has to do with how the case has been framed, which has been essentially a near total success for the Cherrixes and those who…
pharyngula | July 26, 2006Smilin' Norm has a reputation as a bit of a horndog, and now we learn where he got it from. Honestly, I really didn't need to know.
(via Minnesota Politics)
stcynic | July 26, 2006This blogger says something that can't be said often enough:
One thing that would really improve political discourse, and maybe even lead to some better results, would be for all of us to stop oversimplifying issues. Our culture has fallen into a bad habit of trying to turn nearly every subject into a simple duality, with two opposite positions and no gray areas, no third or fourth or fifth possibilities, no troubling ambiguities. It makes life easier in the short run. We don't have to think, all we have to do is try to yell louder than the obviously evil or crazy people on the other side.…
pharyngula | July 26, 2006He only has a few radio and television programs, his own university, tens of millions of dollars to throw at his political causes, and a few million voters in his pocket, so Jerry Falwell* is just a marginal nut, right? We can just ignore him when he says things like this:
It is apparent, in light of the rebirth of the State of Israel, that the present day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ.
Those rapture freaks who are cheering on the bloodshed in the Middle East certainly don't…
jrosenhouse | July 25, 2006Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made the following statement on the floor of the Senate last Tuesday. He was speaking in support of federal funding for stem cell research:
Substantively, there is no doubt this is the right thing to do. But I put it in a broader context. There is a group of people of deep faith. I respect that faith. I've been in enough inner city black churches, working class Catholic parishes, rural Methodist houses of worship and small Jewish synagogues to understand that faith is a gift. The trouble with this group, which I call the theocrats, is they want their faith to…