Politics
clock | July 22, 2006Today's Raleigh News and Observer has a nice article about Elizabeth Edwards (the smartest of the 2004 Democratic candidate quartet), her battle with cancer and her new book (including a couple of short excerpts):
Edwards emerges from cancer with grace:
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic vice presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John Edwards, says in a new book that she survived a harrowing battle with advanced breast cancer last year that left her too depleted for public appearances.
Largely out of the public eye since her husband's loss to the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004,…
clock | July 22, 2006Apparently, it's not over until it's over. The removal of the cohabitation law I wrote about yesterday may apply only to a few people in NC, not the whole state: Cohabitation law ruling doesn't apply statewide:
Legal experts said Friday that a Superior Court judge declaring a law that makes it a crime for unmarried couples to live together unconstitutional doesn't apply statewide.
Judge Ben Alford's ruling affects only those involved in the litigation: the Pender County Sheriff's Office, Pender County Sheriff Carson Smith, Ben David, the district attorney in Pender and New Hanover counties,…
oracknows | July 22, 2006I tell you, I take a night off from blogging, not even glancing at the blog or my e-mail, instead falling into a deep slumber at 10 PM after The Dog Whisperer on TV, thanks to a somewhat stressful week and a large meal plus a beer, and what happens?
Abraham' Cherrix's uncle comments on the old blog and the legal decision regarding whether Abraham has to undergo chemotherapy is issued, three days later than originally anticipated, that's what! In this case, the judge decided that Abraham must report on Tuesday to undergo conventional therapy. Fortunately, I realize (most of the time, anyway)…
stcynic | July 22, 2006I find this really funny. Ralph Reed is blaming John McCain for his loss in the primaries in the race to be Lt. Governor of Georgia, according to National Review:
Here's the view of what happened from the Reed camp: Once the Abramoff stuff exploded, it was going to be a very tough road for Reed. Glen Bolger did a poll for the campaign in January showing that it was possible for Reed to win, but his negatives were very high and he would have to squeak by. Reed had a choice to make, and decided to stay in the race and try to make it happen. In the end, soft Republicans appear to have broken…
j7uy5 | July 22, 2006I haven't done much frank political blogging since moving to
ScienceBlogs. But this is just too provocative to pass up.
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1826479,00.html">
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1826479,00.html">Afghanistan
close to anarchy, warns general
· Nato commander's view in stark
contrast to ministers'
· Forces short of equipment and
'running out of time'
Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday July 22, 2006
The Guardian
The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan yesterday
described the situation in…
clock | July 22, 2006The Authoritarian Streak in the Conservative Movement:
The despotic personality types we see in the Bush White House have their origins in the amoral politics practiced by the low-lifes of the Nixon administration.
That is an excerpt from John Dean's new book (which is on my amazon wishlist....cough, cough...).
jlynch | July 21, 2006
"[M]ost scientists unfortunately, those that certainly are advocating for this [embryonic stem cell research], and many others feel very little moral compulsion. It's a utilitarian, materialistic view of doing whatever they can do to pursue their desired goals."
Most scientists apparently feel very little moral compulsion says the junior senator from Pennsylvania. This coming from a Republican ... albeit one with wonderful dress-sense and a 36% approval rating which is lowest in the Senate.
clock | July 21, 2006Survey questions themselves may affect behavior:
Simply asking college students who are inclined to take drugs about their illegal-drug use in a survey may increase the behavior, according to a study that's making researchers understandably nervous.
"We ask people questions, and that does change behavior," study co-author Gavan Fitzsimons, a marketing professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, said Thursday. The provocative effect, he added, can be "much greater than most of us would like to believe."
Read the rest, it is quite interesting. My first thought - can frequent…
clock | July 21, 2006Judge rules against cohabitation law:
"Those of you shacking up, have no fear: A judge has thrown out a 201-year-old North Carolina law making it illegal for unmarried couples to live together."
--------------snip---------------
"I am absolutely thrilled with the court's decision," Hobbs, 41, said in a statement. "I just didn't think it was any of my employer's business whether I was married or not, as long as I was good at my job, and I am happy that no one else will ever have to be subjected to this law. I couldn't believe that I was being given this ultimatum to choose between my…
clock | July 21, 2006
I wrote this on September 21, 2004, as a reaction to the misunderstanding of Lakoff's term "Nurturant Parent". Slightly edited (eliminated bad links and such).
Discussions of Lakoff's theory are going on in several places in the blogosphere, including on DailyKos and many other places...just Google it and you'll be floored. Spend some times reading the comments - there is some good thinking there.
There is something happening in these discussions that really bothers me. There is a number of people, including some who claim to have read "Moral Politics", who object to the use of family-based…
jlynch | July 20, 2006Yesterday, I mentioned the UCS survey of FDA scientists. Today, the results have been released to the public.
Some findings:
Almost one in five (18 percent) responded, "I have been asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or my conclusions in an FDA scientific document."
More than three in five (61 percent) respondents know of cases where "Department of Health and Human Services or FDA political appointees have inappropriately injected themselves into FDA determinations or actions."
Three in five (60 percent) also knew of cases "where…
hrynyshyn | July 20, 2006The fact that yesterday's veto was Bush's first, after more than five years in office, does't interest me all that much. Thomas Jefferson's veto record is a big fat zero and I see nothing wrong with that. What I found bothersome was Bush's justification. He said embryonic stem cell research crosses "a moral boundary." To that I say: which boundary would that be, exactly?
I mean, at which point in the human reproductive cycle does one acquire moral worth? This is the fundamental flaw in the anti-abortion and anti-ESC research argument. Life is a continuum. Even if you believe that life worthy…
grrlscientist | July 20, 2006
Image source.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists revealed that they were pressured to exclude or alter research findings. Further, they said they fear retaliation for voicing safety concerns and they think that public health and safety will suffer without leadership from the FDA and Congress.
(Press release below the fold)
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today released survey results that demonstrate pervasive and dangerous political influence of science at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Of the 997 FDA scientists who responded to the survey, nearly one fifth…
pharyngula | July 20, 2006Even reading Peggy Noonan through an Attaturk filter is dangerous. I read this little scrap and felt neurons popping throughout my cortex.
During the past week's heat wave--it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday--I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world's greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from every angle, study meteorological patterns and temperature histories, and come to a believable conclusion on these questions: Is global warming real or not?
Jebus. Now not only do scientists have to…
grrlscientist | July 20, 2006This streaming video contains lots of interesting comments about the internet and how it functions according to our some of our most enlightened congresscritters. With giant intellects such as these serving the public, it's a wonder that anyone ever decides to run for public office, huh?
(below the fold).
Even though these congresscritters clearly are morons, don't underestimate how dangerous they are. They are trying to restrict our freedom to access information on the internet; they wish to allow service providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast to decide which web sites you can…
clock | July 20, 2006
I wrote this first in February 2005, then republished in December 2005. After War Churchill got fired last month, I think that this post is still relevant.
I was asked the other day what I thought about the Ward Churchill affair. Frankly, I had not followed it at all (but you can) . Apparently, Wingers want to kill him, or at least get him fired, while Progressives are divided: some distance themselves from "an obscure nobody that Right-wing pulled out to push their agenda", while others assert that he is telling the truths that are unpalatable to those whose emotional health depends on…
clock | July 20, 2006Of public opinion, exit polls and fraud (or the lack thereof) (Part 3)
Maybe that is the main point that gets missed: reality is messy. Science in general, and certainly "social science," proceeds incrementally and cautiously on the basis of radically incomplete information. Some folks have argued that the exit pollsters bear the "burden of proof" of demonstrating that non-response bias explains the exit poll results. But they rarely attempt to offer a coherent fraud hypothesis that does any better. It strikes me as an Intelligent Design argument applied to an election rather than…
jlynch | July 19, 2006The House voted 235-193 to override Bush's veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, 51 votes short of the required number. Here, for the record, is how Arizona's representatives voted on this issue:
Senate:
For: McCain (R)
Against: Kyl (R)
House:
For: Flake (R), Grijalva (D), Kolbe (R), Pastor (D),
Against: Franks (R), Hayworth (R), Renzi (R), Shadegg (R)
No surprises - Kyl, Hayworth, Renzi and Shadegg are in tight races for their seats come November and Franks ran on an anti-abortion platform last time around.